Porta Carmentalis

Double gate in the Servian Wall (s.v. *Muri) named for a nearby shrine of Carmenta (Servius, ad Aen. 8.337) at the foot of the *Capitoline where the *Vicus Iugarius departed the city (Livy 27.37.11-14, 35.21.6; Pisani Sartorio 241). Its ominous right gate, dexter ianus, was connected with the disaster of the Fabii (when leaving the city dextro iano: Livy 2.49.8; Ov., Fast. 2.201-4); this portal was also called the porta Scelerata, the ‘Accursed Gate’, and special restrictions guided entrance or egress through it (in]trare egredive: Festus 450). The Porta Carmentalis is identified with the remains of a city gate dating to the 4th c. B.C. found just NW of the *Fortuna et Mater Matuta temples (s.v. *Muri: Forum Bovarium-Tiberis, point 5; suggested by Ioppolo in Coarelli 1988, 395 fig. 96; cf. Colini 10-11, 18; and also by Virgili 1978, 5-6; ead. 1974-75, plan after 150); unfortunately, this hypothesis rests on a problematic interpretation of the archaeological evidence, which ascribes two passages to the gate. Current thought holds that the gate unearthed on the site had only one portal (Coarelli 1988, 394 with insistence; Ruggiero 25 fig. 4). Nevertheless, Coarelli and Ruggiero both accept the identification, noting that the gate was “certainly” within the area bounded by the S angle of the Capitoline, the temples of Fortuna et Mater Matuta, and the three temples at the *Forum Holitorium (Coarelli, 1997, 52, 240; more assertively, id., LTUR III, 325; without discussion, Ruggiero fig. 4). Richardson cautiously concludes that the exact location of the gate is “elusive”. Given the unstable basis for the association of the Porta Carmentalis with the extant remains, our map assigns an index number to the broader area, not to the exact location where the 4th-c. gate was found. Our cautious approach cannot follow Coarelli’s speculative conflation of the Porta Carmentalis’ right gate (when leaving) with the ‘right’ and correct one to enter the city (1988, 399; id., LTUR 324); together with his interpretation of the late-Republican portico just outside the preserved gate (*Porticus: Forum Holitorium) as part of an extended porticus triumphi, this leads Coarelli to understand the gate remains as those of the *Porta Triumphalis. Yet, regrettably, such layering of hypotheses lacks the particular, and necessary, supporting evidence of a double gate.