Campus Agrippae

A sizeable plot of land on the E edge of the *Campus Martius flood plain, so named because it was part of the extensive landholdings acquired by Agrippa during the Civil Wars. While the term ‘Campus Agrippae’ is not attested before A.D. 38 (Scheid and Broise), there is no reason to assume that the name was a post-Augustan coinage (contra, Coarelli 1997). During the Augustan period, it was converted into a large public park where grammarians would later enjoy strolling (Gell. 14.5.1). In addition to its scenic walkways (δρόμοι), it is known to have contained the *Porticus Vipsania, though this was still unfinished when Augustus dedicated the complex as a whole in 7 B.C. (Dio Cass. 55.8.3-4). The extent of the Campus Agrippae can be reconstructed with reasonable confidence. It lay to the E of the *Via Flaminia, as is made clear by the 4th-c. Regionary Catalogues, which assign it to Regio VII: Via Lata. It extended at least as far N as Aurelian’s templum Solis, which stood ‘in campo Agrippae’ (Chron. 148) and can be identified with the remains of a double portico between Piazza S. Silvestro and Via del Corso (Calzini Gysens). The piers of the *Aqua Virgo, which Martial seems to collocate with Vipsania’s portico (4.18.1-2), may have formed the park’s E and S boundaries. In any case, the Campus Agrippae could not have extended further E than the base of the *Collis Hortulorum and the *Quirinal nor further S than the site of the barracks of the first cohort of the vigiles (s.v. *Cohortes Vigilum: Stationes). Altogether, the public gardens of Agrippa’s campus were probably quite similar to the landscaped groves of the *Mausoleum of Augustus, which lay just across the Via Flaminia.