Porticus: Forum Holitorium

Late-Republican “gateway” portico at the S end of the *Forum Holitorium, just outside the *Servian Wall (s.v. *Muri: Forum Bovarium-Tiberis, point 5) where it covered the street issuing from a 4th-c. B.C. gate (advocated by some as a double gate, and identified as the combined *Porta Carmentalis–*Porta Triumphalis). With parallel arcades, 5 m distant from each other, and exterior semi-columns on both sides, the portico is only partially preserved, without its ends, and consists of two sections which differ slightly in construction and date. The portion closer to the gate, extant to its entablature, is constructed of peperino on travertine footings; its orientation respects that of the other, pre-existing section — a more monumental construction entirely in travertine, though now reduced to mere remnants (De Angelis d’Ossat; cf. Virgili, plan after p. 150). Their successive phases or renewals notwithstanding, both sections can be attributed to the 1st c. B.C. based on materials and style (Claridge; late-Republican period: Coarelli 1997b, for the peperino portion). In its entirety, the portico formed a monumental entranceway to the city — paralleled perhaps only by the *Porticus Aemilia (Campus Martius) outside the *Porta Fontinalis. Further, the portico articulated the connection between the *Circus Flaminius and the *Forum Bovarium, both major stations on the triumphal route. Interpretating the portico in the context of the triumphal way, Coarelli (1988, 239-40, 394-97, 454 fig. 112; id., LTUR IV; cf. *Via Triumphalis) has presented an elaborate chain of arguments, which starts with the agreed-upon location of the Porta Triumphalis in roughly this area and with the long-standing speculation of a metropolitan “prototype” for a porticus triumphi attested at villas outside Rome and measured in fractions of miles (Platner–Ashby 429; cf. Richardson). Coarelli then combines the remains of the gateway portico described above with the L-shaped peperino portico (of similar dimensions and construction) surrounding the precinct of the Temple of *Bellona, located some 150 m to the NW, and then further connects it with the *Porticus Octaviae on one end and, on the other, moving within the Servian Wall, he extends it alongside the Temples of *Fortuna and Mater Matua. This sequence of four porticoes (for a map: Coarelli 1997a, 364 fig. 74, together with 1988, 454 fig. 112) is then equated with the one Obsequens reports to have been damaged by lightning in 156 B.C. (16: in circo Flaminio porticus inter aedem Iunonis Reginae et Fortunae tacta); it connected the temples of Iuno Regina (within the Porticus Octaviae) and Fortuna and may, as Coarelli suggests, be identical with the ‘arcuated way at the Campus’ mentioned by Livy (22.36.8: via fornicata quae ad campum erat; 216 B.C.). Moreover, Coarelli postulates that this portico-complex served as part of a porticoed *Via Tecta (1) extending to the W tip of the *Campus Martius and thus easily reaching a full mile in length (LTUR IV). Such a grand sequence of porticoes can, for Coarelli, only be identified with the metropolitan porticus triumphi, and logic dictates that its intersection with the Servian Wall must then define the Porta Triumphalis. Recently, Coarelli expanded on his already-expansive thesis; this porticus triumphi is now seen in light of its rôle as a vital link within a larger “triumphal way”, that stretched to the transtiberine *Via Triumphalis from Veii, and the Porta Triumphalis (1997a, 121-35; id., LTUR V). Coarelli’s far-reaching line of argumentation rests, however, on a variety of unconfirmed assumptions: first and foremost, the location of the Porta Triumphalis; second, the debatable existence of a porticus triumphi in Rome; third, a porticoed Via Tecta that may or may not have run the way Coarelli advocates (s.v. *Via Tecta [1] for details). While the preserved gateway portico clearly served as an architectural highlight in the area where the Porta Triumphalis is thought to have been situated, newly discovered evidence may again modify the picture; a grand, 10-12 m wide street, perhaps from the late 1st- or early 2nd-c. A.D., paralleled the gateway portico to its W and has now also been postulated as the “Via Triumphalis” (Le Pera and Sasso d’Elia); if correct, this would shift the street, along with the Porta Triumphalis, slightly westward. At this point, definitive conclusions are not possible. Our map simply outlines the known remains of the gateway portico.