Piscina Publica

A sizeable public pool and, presumably, water reservoir in Regio XII, without identified remains; the pool was a significant landmark in SE Rome. In 215 B.C. tribunals were held there so that the praetors might be close to the *Porta Capena, where news of the Punic War would first reach the city and where the Senate was meeting during wartime (Livy 23.32.4: ad piscinam Publicam). By A.D. 136, the pool had given its name to a neighborhood, the VICVS PISCINAE PVBL[I]CAE, listed in Regio XII on the Capitoline base (CIL VI 975=ILS 6073); just a few decades later, Festus (late 2nd c. A.D.) describes the Piscina Publica as a place, originally, for people to swim and exercise but in his day used only as a toponym (232: piscinae Publicae hodieque nomen manet, ipsa non extat). The point at which the pool went out of use is unknown, and so, consequently, is its form in the Augustan period. In the 4th-c. A.D. Regionary Catalogues, Piscina Publica appears as the name of the entire Regio XII, so a site somewhere within that area is certain, as is its continued topographic significance. The location of the Piscina Publica has only recently been specified with some accuracy. Once placed in the lowlands of the *Via Appia valley later occupied by the Baths of Caracalla (Platner–Ashby; cf. Scagnetti), both Richardson and Coarelli now argue for a location inside the *Servian Wall, somewhere between the Porta Capena, the *Circus Maximus, and the *Aventine, based upon the necessities of 215 B.C. (Livy loc. cit.). Such a location appears plausible, though Richardson’s additional connection of the vicus Piscinae Publicae with a nearby, unidentified street (cf. *Aventinus: Street) remains inconclusive. Decisive confirmation of a site inside the Republican city wall is given by Ammianus Marcellinus’ description of the route by which Constantius II had a giant Egyptian obelisk transported to the Circus Maximus in the late 350s A.D. — arriving S of the city, the obelisk was carried through the porta Ostiensis, along the central depression of the Aventine (s.v. Aventinus: Street), past the site of the Piscina Publica and finally into the Circus Maximus where it was erected in emulation of Augustus’ (17.4.14; cf. *Obeliscus: Circus Maximus). This route clearly excludes the Via Appia valley as a possible site for the Piscina (Coarelli). Thus, the location of the Piscina Publica can confidently be narrowed down to a discrete area inside the Servian Wall, where we place an index number; its form under Augustus, however, remains unknown.