AGRIPPA’S

BUILDING ACTIVITIES
IN ROME
AGRIPPA’S BUILDING ACTIVITIES
IN ROME

BY

FREDERICK W . SHIPLEY
PROFESSOR. OF LATIN

W A S H IN G T O N U N IV E R S IT Y

W IP F & S T O C K • E u g e n e , O r e g o n
W ipf and Stock Publishers
199 W 8th Ave, Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401

Agrippa's Building Activities in Rome

By Shipley, Frederick W.
ISBN 13: 978-1-60608-244-7
Publication date 11/21/2008
Previously published by Washington University, 1933
 PR EFAC E
T he present paper is the second of a series of articles deal­
ing with the rebuilding of Rome in the period from the death
of Caesar to the death o f Augustus. The first was published
in the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, Vol. IX,
1931. In addition to a chronological summary for the entire
period, based upon inscriptions and ancient authors, it con­
tained a chapter on the building operations of the Triumphales,
exclusive of Augustus, pp. 9-44. This second paper deals with
the building operations of Agrippa, who, though more deserv­
ing of a triumph than any of the Triumphales whose buildings
are recorded in the previous chapter, persistently declined that
honor. W ith the single exception of Augustus himself, A grip­
pa is more entitled to the credit of changing the Rome of the
Republic into the imperial city than is any Roman o f the pe­
riod. In Regions I X and VII, the plain which lay between the
hills (the Pincian, the Esquiline, and the Capitoline) and the
Tiber, his building operations were even more significant than
those of Augustus himself.
Much of the area covered by the structures of Agrippa was
swept by the fire of Titus, and the more important buildings
underwent wholesale reconstruction, notably by Hadrian.
The scanty, and sometimes conflicting, evidence of the ancient
authors can therefore be supplemented only by equally scant
archaeological evidence dating from the time of Agrippa him­
self. Future excavations, especially in the Campus Martius,
may add much to our knowledge of Agrippa’s actual work. In
the meantime I have done what I could pro parte mea, with the
evidence thus fa r available, to recover what can be gleaned
from our present sources of information in regard to the build­
ing activities of this self-effacing man, who not only played an
important part in the building of the Empire itself, but also in
the building o f the new Rome of the time of Augustus.
I am indebted to Dr. Axel Boethius of the Swedish Arch-
3
4 PREFACE

aeological Institute in Rome, who on his recent visit to the

United States patiently listened to the reading of this study,
for many valuable criticisms. He is not responsible for any
of its errors. I also desire to make grateful acknowledgment
to my former teacher in the field of Roman topography, Dr.
Christian Huelsen, whose various articles, particularly those
dealing with the Campus Martius, have laid the foundation for
much of the material contained in this study. Though no
longer active in this particular field, his work as pioneer must
always be reckoned with.
I am also indebted to Professor Huelsen fo r the kind permis­
sion to reprint the plans which appear in Pigs. 1 and 2 and to
Dr. Armin von Gerkan for a similar courtesy in allowing me to
reproduce his ground plan of the Pantheon in Pig. 3. The
map given in Pig. 4 is necessarily a sketch, indicating merely
the location of A grippa’s structures, since in most cases we
lack the details necessary for a complete ground plan of the
buildings as they stood in A grippa’ s day. With regard to the
Diribitorium, the Basilica Neptuni and the Sepulcrum
Agrippae, we are not even sure of their exact location.
All citations from ancient authors as well as from inscrip­
tions are given in the footnotes. Where the passage is im­
portant the text is given in full. The text o f certain passages
has been given in the Appendix, either because of their length,
or because of the frequency of reference. F or reasons of
economy in type-setting, as well as consideration for the ap­
pearance of the page, passages from the Greek have been given
in translation (Loeb Library) in the body of the text, but where
the passage is important, or frequently referred to, the Greek
text has been printed in the Appendix.
Where modern authorities are cited but once the full biblio­
graphical reference is given in the footnotes. Where a work
is cited frequently I have resorted to abbreviated titles, a key
to which immediately follows the table of contents.
Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. FREDERICK W . S h i p l e y .
August 14, 1933.
 T A B L E OF CONTENTS
P reface .................................................................................... 3

K ey to A bbreviated T i t l e s .............................................................7

I n t r o d u c t i o n ...................................................................................... 9

G roup I, G eneral P ublicW orks . . . . . . . 19

A grippa’s Public W orks as Aedile— the Sewers—the Aqueducts—
Aqua Julia— Additions to the Tepula— Repairs on the Marcia, the
Anio Yetus, and the A ppia— the Aqua Virgo.

Group II, A grippa’ s B uildings in the Campus M artius in

R egion I X ........................................................................ 37
Saepta— Diribitorium— Porticus Argonautarum and Basilica Nep­
tuni— the Baths— Horti, Stagnum, and Euripus—Pantheon— Sepul­
crum Agrippae— Pons Agrippae-—Uncertain Structures.

G roup III, P ublic W orks in R egion V II . . . . . 73

Campus Agrippae— Porticus Yipsania—Agrippa’s Map o£ the
Empire.

Group IV , M iscellaneous W orks in R egions V I II and X I 81

Horrea Agrippiana— Hydra o f the Lacus Servilius— Decorations of
the Circus.

A ppendix . . ........................................................................89

I ndex . . .. ............................................................................. 95

M aps and P l a n s .......................................................... . .

Plans o f Baths p. 51— the Baths and Pantheon p. 52— Ground Plan
o f Pantheon p. 63— Sketch Map o f Agrippa’s Building Activities in
Regions I S , V II, V III, XI, p. 69.

5
 K E Y TO A B B R E V IA T E D TITLES USED IN BIBLIO­
G RAPH ICA L REFERENCES
Full titles o f books and articles, cited but once or rarely, are given in tbe
footnotes.1 Abbreviated titles used for works frequenly cited, and particularly
fo r standard works and scientific periodicals are given in full below.

A equ e — R. Lanciani, I commentarii di Frontino intorno le aeque e gli acque-

dotti. Rome, Salviucci, 1880.
Anderson, Spiers, Ashby = The Architecture o f Ancient Rom e. London, 1927.
Athenaeum = Athenaeum , Studii Periodici di Letteratura e Storia dell’ A nti-
chitck. Regia Universita, Pavia.
BM C = British Museum Catalogue o f Coins o f the Roman Em pire, Vol. I.
London, 1924.
Bull. Com. = Bulletino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma.
Rome, 1872— .
Bull. Inst. = Bulletino dell’ Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica. Rome,
1829-1885.
C IL — Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Berlin, 1863— .
Class. Mon. = G. Lugli, The Classical Monuments o f Rome and Its Vicinity,
translated by G. Bagnani. Rome, 1928.
Curiosum = Curiosum Urbis Romae Regionum X I V eum Breviariis suis. This
is one form o f the so-called Regionary Catalogue (the Notitia being the
other). A p p . following Curiosum refers to its Appendix.
Dar. Saglio = Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquites. Paris, 1887-
1919.
E ph. E pig. = E phem eris Epigraphica. Berlin, 1872—.
Eranos — Eranos, A cta Philologica Suecana. Goteburg, 1903— .
F U R = Form a Urbis Rom ae Regionum X I V . Ed. Jordan. Berlin, 1874.
Gnomon = Gnomon, K ritische Zeitschrift fu r die Gesamte Klassische A lter-
tumswissenschaft. Berlin, 1924—.
Jour. Rom. Stud. = Journal o f Roman Studies. London, 1911— .
K lio — E lio , B eitrage zur alten Geschichte. Leipzig, 1907— .
Lugli = See under Glass» M on.
Mem. A m . A cad. — M em oirs o f the American Academ y in Rom e (Vol. I X ).
Rome, 1917— .

1 Absence of reference in the bibliographical notes to the excellent dissertation

o f Meyer Reinhold entitled Marcus Agrippa, a Biography, is due to the fact that
this recent study appeared after the present article was already in page proof.
7
8 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OE AGSIPPA

M itt. = Mittheilungen des D eutschen A rchdologischen Instituts, Rom ische

Abtheilung. Rome, 1886— .
M on. Antich. — Monumenti A ntiehi pubblieati p e r cu m della R . Accadem ia
dei Lincei. M ian, 1890— .
M on. Germ. Hist. = Monumenta Germaniae H istorica A uctorum A ntiquis­
simorum, Vol. IX . Berlin, 1892.
N otitia = See under Curiosum.
N ot. Scan. = N otizie degli Scavi di Antichitd communicate alia R . Accadem ia
dei Lincei. Rome, 1876— .
Paully-Wissowa == Realencyclopddie des K lassischen A ltertum s. Stuttgart,
1894— .
Platner-Ashby = A Topographical D ictionary o f A n cien t R om e, by Samuel
Ball Platner, completed and revised by Thomas Ashby. London, 1929.
R. and E. = R. Lanciani, The Ruins and E xcavations o f A ncien t Rom e. Lon­
don and New York, 1898.
Rom . Build. Rep. = Tenney Frank, Rom an Buildings o f the R epublic (P a ­
pers o f the American Academ y in Rom e, No. iii). Rome, 1924.
Rosch. = Roseher, Lexicon der griechischen und romischen M ythologie. Leip­
zig, 1884— .
T op. = Topographie der Stadt Rom in A ltertum . V ol. I, Parts 1, 2 and Vol.
II are by H. Jordan, Berlin, 1871-1875. Vol. I, Part 3 (referred to in
notes as Is) is by Ch. Hiilsen, Berlin, 1906.
T op. D iet. = See Platner-Ashby.
Near’s W o r k = The Year’s W ork in Classical Studies. London, 1908— .
 INTRODUCTION
Ik the first of a series of chapters on the building operations
in Rome from the death of Caesar to the death of Augustus, I
dealt with the commemorative buildings erected by the numer­
ous generals who celebrated triumphs during this period.1
Some o f these generals played relatively unimportant roles,
and in the case of several of them history has left us in ig­
norance as to the victories for which the triumphs were award­
ed. The triumphs in certain cases seem to have been in the
nature of political rewards granted by Octavian and Antony as
they jockeyed for position in the struggle for the hegemony of
the Roman world.
The one outstanding general of the period from 44 to 12 B. C.
was Agrippa, who towers like a colossus above these smaller
figures. He possessed the military genius, at least in the field,
which Octavian himself lacked. Had it not been for Agrippa,
it is very doubtf ul whether the prestige of the young Caesar
would have survived the disasters in the campaign with Sextus
Pompey, and the subsequent history of the Roman Empire
might have been quite different.
The catalogue of his military services is a long and distin­
guished one: his part in the Perusian War in 41/40 B. C .; his
operations against Sextus Pompey and his defeat of part of
Antony’s forces at Sipontum in 40; his campaigns against the
rebellious Gauls which ended victoriously in 37, involving the
crossing of the Rhine and the subjugation of Aquitania ; his
building of a fleet in 37 in the naval base which he constructed
in the Lucrine Lake, and his two victories at Mylae and Nau-
loehus in 36 which put an end to Pom pey’s power in Sicily; his
campaign against the Dalmatians in 34; his naval victories in
the campaign which ended at Actium in 31; his subjugation of
the Cantabrians in 19; the quelling of the revolt of the tribes of
1 Memoirs o f the American Academy in Some, IX , 9-44.
10 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGRIPPA

the Cimmerian Bosphorus in 14; and his suppression in 13

B. C., shortly before his death, o f the revolt of the Pannonians.
Any one of the services here recounted was as significant as
any of the military exploits of the triumphales recorded in the
previous article; many of them were much more significant
than those of some of the triumphales in the list who, as D io2
says, celebrated triumphs “ merely for arresting robbers, or
fo r restoring harmony to cities torn by factional strife.”
But Agrippa consistently refused to accept a triumph, al­
though we have record of three which were voted him by the
Senate at the request o f Augustus. The first o f these occa­
sions was in 37 B. C., the year o f his first consulship, when
Octavian recalled Agrippa from Gaul to aid. in the war with
Sextus Pompey in which he himself had fared so badly in the
preceding year. According to Dio,3 “ He had sent for this
man, who had been fighting against the insurgent Gauls at the
time when he had been the second of the Romans to cross the
Rhine for war, and after honoring him by the bestowal of a
triumph he bade him finish the work on the fleet and train the
men. Agrippa who was consul with Lucius Gallus did not cele­
brate his triumph, considering it disgraceful fo r him to make a
display when Caesar had fared so poorly, but set to work with
enthusiasm to fit out the fleet.” The second occasion was in
19 B. C. when Agrippa put down an uprising of the Cantabrians
in Spain, and forced them to live in the plains.4 Agrippa de­
clined the triumph offered him, although in this very year
Cornelius Balbius, another of the generals o f Augustus, cele­
brated a triumph ex Africa, and built a theatre to commem­
orate it,.B In 14 B. C. a triumph was voted him fo r the third
3Dio LTV, 12.
s Dio X L V III, 49, 3. (Loeb. Lib. translations have been used in all translations
from the Greek.)
* Dio LIV , 11, who goes on to say “ yet he sent no communication concerning them
to the Senate, and did not aeeept a triumph, although one was voted him at the
behest of Augustus, but showed moderation in these matters as was his wont. ’ ’
'S ee Mem. Am. Acad, in Rome, IX , p. 37 sq. It was in connection with the de­
clining of this triumph that Dio (L IV , 12) makes the remarks which I have cited
above (n. 2).
 INTRODUCTION 11

time for quelling a revolt of the tribes of the Cimmerian

Bosphorus. Agrippa did not even take the trouble to notify
the Senate of what he had. accomplished and again declined
the celebration o f a triumph..6
This is not the place to discuss in detail A gripp a’s motives
in thus declining the triumphs offered him. Dio has stated, in
regard to the first, that he did not wish to embarrass Octavian
by celebrating a triumph when the latter was suffering from a
series of reverses. The other two occasions were not compa­
rable in importance with A grippa’s two great naval achieve­
ments in Sicily and at Actium for which Octavian as Command-
er-in-Chief celebrated respectively an ovation and a triumph,
although he awarded to his victorious admiral certain excep­
tional honors.7 A g rip p a ’s refusal of triumphs for himself
may have been due to a fixed, policy of strengthening the hand
of his superior by giving him all the credit. But one suspects,
along with it, a touch of a certain kind of pride, not exactly “ the
pride which apes humility, ’ ’ but still a pride which led him to let
his own achievements speak for themselves, and by declining
the honors which fell to the lot of lesser men, he placed his own
military services in a class apart. The man who chose to step
back into the aedileship after having held the consulship was
something of a paradox, who either weighed honors lightly, or
sincerely felt that the highest honor was the consciousness of a
task well done.
But while Agrippa steadfastly declined triumphs, he outdid
•Dio LIV , 25. Dio adds, as his own opinion, that beeause Agrippa declined to
celebrate a triumph no one else of his peers was permitted to do so any longer, but
they enjoyed merely the distinction of triumphal honors.
’ There is an interesting statement in Dio LI, 21, in regard to Octavian’s triple
triumph: “ As for the triumph, Caesar celebrated on the first day his victories over
the Pannonians and Dalmatians, the Iapydes and their neighbors, and some Germans
and Gauls. Por Gaius Carrinas had subdued the Morini and others who had re­
volted with them, and had repulsed the Suebi, who had crossed the Rhine to wage
war. Not only did Carrinas, therefore, celebrate the triumph . . . but Caesar
also celebrated it, since the credit of the victory properly belonged to his position as
supreme commander.” Carrinas actually celebrated his triumph on July 14, 28
B. C. I f Octavian conceded a triumph to an obscure general like Carrinas, it is
more than likely that he offered Agrippa a triumph for the Aetian campaign, though
of this we have no record.
 12 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OP AGRIPPA

all the triumphales of the period, excepting Augustus himself,

in the erection of public buildings. The erection of a public
building from the spoils of war to commemorate a triumph was
one of the prerogatives of a triumphalis. Agrippa built many
buildings, one at least, the Basilica Neptuni, to commemorate
his naval victories. As he came of an obscure, and probably
not a wealthy family,8 the millions which he spent upon build­
ings and public works presumably came from the manubiae, as
in the case of the triumphales. W e may assume that Augustus
compensated him for his modesty in declining the actual tri­
umph by seeing to it that the manubiae for his building opera­
tions were ample. The man who chose to build sewers which
few people could see, and aqueducts which were likewise most­
ly underground, was likely to be favored in the matter of funds
for these modest and unostentatious undertakings, as he was
also favored later when, after the battle of Actium, he was en­
gaged upon the monumental structures of the Campus Martius.
A t this period Augustus was exerting pressure upon the tri­
umphales to build roads,9 and we know that Messalla, Calvisius
and indeed Augustus himself were engaged in this work during
the years 28 and 27 B. C.10 But an exception was made in the
ease of Agrippa, who had already performed in a notable man­
ner his share in such utilitarian undertakings, and he was al­
lowed, or rather encouraged, to proceed with the complex of
buildings enumerated in Croup II, without jealousy, as D io11
says, on the part of Augustus.
The building activities of Agrippa may be discussed most
conveniently under four groups. The first of these embraces
his utilitarian activities pertaining for the most part to his
aedileship in 33 B. C.; the second and third are arranged
topographically, the former dealing with his constructions in
aAbout the year 40 B. C. he married his first wife, Pomponia, the daughter of At-
tieus, who, by reason o f her father ’a wealth, may have brought him a considerable
dowry.
” Dio L III, 22, 2 ; 23, 2; Suet. Aug. 30.
10Mem. Am. Acad, in Home, IX , 33-36.
11L i n , 23,2.
 INTRODUCTION 13 '

Region IX , and the latter dealing with those in Region V I I ; the

fourth, is a miscellaneous group, comprising his known activi­
ties in Regions V III and X I.
These four groups are as follow s:
(1) The works o f his aedileship, and particularly the sewers
and aqueducts, though the latter continued to be his special
province until his death in 12 B. C-, when Augustus himself
took over his work.
(2) His building activities in that part of the Campus
Martius between the Via Flaminia and the river, which became
Region IX of Augustus, including the Saepta, the Diribitorium,
the Basilica Neptuni and Porticus Argonautarum, the Pan­
theon, the Laconicum Sudatorium, the Therma,e, the Stagnum
Agrippae, the Horti, the Euripus and the Pons Agrippae.
(3) His building activities in the Campus M’artius east of
the V ia Flaminia, in what became Region VII. of Augustus,
namely, the Campus Agrippae and the Porticus Vipsania (con­
taining A grippa’s famous map) built by his sister after his
death, and according to his plans.
(4) The Horrea Agrippiana, and the Hydra fountain figure
in Region V III, and the dolphins and ova on the spina of the
Circus in Region X I.
But before discussing these groups it will be convenient to
give in tabular form the chronological data (sometimes con­
flicting) furnished by the ancient sources.

C hronological D ata F rom A ncient S ources Concerning

the B uilding Operations op A grippa

40 B. C. According to Dio X L Y III, 32, 3, Agrippa ( who was praetor in this

year) brought the Aqua Julia to Rome. Frontinus, de Aquis, I, 9,
places this event in Agrippa’s aedileship, 33 B. G.
34 B. C. Dio X L IX , 42, 2, places the repair o f the Aqua Marcia in this year.
Frontinus, de Aquis, I, 9, puts it in 33 B. C., the year o f Agrippa’s
aedileship.
33 B. C. Agrippa becomes aedile, four years after his consulship, and is credit­
ed with the following public works:
14 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGBIPPA

1. Without charge to the public treasury he repaired all the public

buildings, all the streets, and cleaned out the sewers, passing through
them by boat into the Tiber (Dio X L IX , 4 3 ,1 ; Plin., N. H., X X X .Y I,
15, 104).
2. He built the Aqua Julia and added to the Tepula (Frontinus,
de Aquis, I, 9). According to Dio X L V III, 32, 3, the building o f the
Julia is placed in 40 B. C.
Plin., iV. B ., X X X V I, 121, erroneously ascribes the building o f the
Aqua Virgo to this year. Dio and Frontinus agree in placing it in
19 B. C., giving the consuls.
3. According to Frontinus, de Aquis, I, 9, he repaired the following
aqueducts: Appia, Anio Vetus, and Marcia. (Dio placed the repair
o f the Marcia in 34 B. C.)
4. He adorned the city with ornamental fountains (Plin., N. H .,
X X X V I, 121). The hydra with which Festus (290) says Agrippa
adorned the Lacus Servilius was probably one o f these.
5. He placed on the spina o f the circus -dolphins and egg-shaped
markers to indicate the laps in the races (Dio X L IX , 43, 2).
26 B. C. He dedicated the Saepta Julia, in the Campus Martius. This had
been begun by Julius Caesar and his work had been continued by
Lepidus. Agrippa had adorned it with marble tablets and paintings
( Cic. A i t , IV , 16,14; Dio L III, 3 2 ,1 ).
25 B. C. Agrippa in this year completes the following units o f his extensive
building program in the Campus Martius:
1. The Porticus Argonautarum (4 crrod roD UocraSavos) in commemo­
ration o f his naval victories (Dio L III, 2 7 ,1 ; Schol. Iuven., V I, 154).
2. The Laconicum Sudatorium ( tA wuparripiov rd AaxwiWx) Dio L III,
27,1.
3. Dio LIII, 27, 2, dates the completion o f the Pantheon in this
year. The inscription, CIL, V I, 896, has COS-TERTIUM, which
may mean any time after Jan. 1, 27 B. C. (See pp. 56, 57.)
19 B. C. Agrippa brings the Aqua Virgo into the city at his own expense, and
dedicates it June 9 (Frontinus, de Aquis, I, 10; Dio L IV , 11, 7 ).
Pliny, N. H., X X X V I, 121, erroneously dates this event in 33 B. C.,
the aedileship o f Agrippa.
With the construction o f the Aqua Virgo we should probably as­
sociate also the Thermae Agrippae, the Stagnum, the Euripus, the
Horti Agrippae, and possibly a temple o f Bonus Eventus.
12 B. C. Agrippa died late in March leaving to the Roman people his Gardens
and Baths, with provision fo r maintenance (Dio L IV , 28; 29, 4).
The following buildings concerning which we have no datable evi­
dence had1 , been presumably completed: the Pons Agrippae, the
Horrea Agrippiana, and A grippa’s tomb in the Campus Martius
(though he was not buried there, but in the Mausoleum o f Augustus).
 INTRODUCTION 15

Dio LV, 8, 3, 5, states that the Diribitorium was not completed until
7 B. C., five years after Agrippa’s death, and that the Porticus Vip-
sania (which contained Agrippa’s map) was still unfinished in that
year. W e have no datable information concerning the Campus
Agrippae upon which the Porticus Vipsania stood.
 GROUP I

A G R IP P A ’S PU B LIC W ORKS AS A E D ILE — THE

SE W E R S ANI) AQUEDUCTS
 Ge o o p I
A G R IP P A ’S PU BLIC W O RK S AS A E D ILE — THE
SE W ERS AND AQUEDUCTS
W e are not informed what the reasons were which induced
Agrippa to assume the aedileship in the year 33 B. C. He had
already held the praetorship in 40, and the consulship in 37.
His willingness to assume an office lower down in the cursus
honorumvtas the subject of comment by the ancient authorities,
but they give no inkling of the purpose which lay behind this
unusual step. But Agrippa was no ordinary man, as is shown
by his consistent refusal to accept the triumphs awarded him.
W e can only venture guesses at his motives. W e may assume
at once that his purpose was constructive and not actuated by
personal ambition. While numerous triumphales, partisans
of Antony as well as o f Octavian, were erecting the buildings
recorded in the previous paper1 in commemoration of their
triumphs, it is more than likely that the public buildings, the
streets, and the sanitary system had been neglected during the
civil wars, had fallen sadly info disrepair, and now called for
a constructive reorganization. By the victory over Sextus
Pompey in 36 B. C., to which Agrippa, had contributed so large­
ly, the government of Octavian had recovered its prestige in
Italy, but with the inevitable struggle with Antony in the o f­
fing, it was desirable to demonstrate to Italy, and particularly
to Rome itself, that the government was interested in problems
of reconstruction. Here was a chance for a great object-lesson
as to the possibilities of Octavian’s government, if, in the midst
of the Dalmatian W ar, Octavian’s greatest general could de­
vote himself to works of peace, and in a democratic way, by as­
suming a minor office, although already a consular. It must
have had its effect on the swing of public opinion in Octavian’s
favor, as against Antony, which took place towards the end of
1Meni. Am. Acad, in Borne, IX , 11-32.
19
20 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGBIPPA

this very year. In fact it was in the early weeks of the follow­
ing year that Antony was proclaimed a public enemy, and war
declared.
The fullest account of A gripp a’s aedileship is that given by
Dio,2 who states in connection with the year 33 B. C., that
“ Agrippa agreed to be made aedile, and without taking any­
thing from the public treasury he repaired all the public build­
ings and all the streets, cleaned out the sewers, and sailed
through them underground into the Tiber.” He then goes on
to mention the setting up in the Circus o f dolphins3 and ova, to
indicate the laps which had been completed; his distributions of
olive oil and salt; the free baths which he furnished throughout
the year to women,, as well as to m en; his hiring of barbers to
shave the citizens free of charge on the holiday celebrations
which he gave, including a celebration of the Ludus Troiae in
which even the children of senators took p a rt; his raining on
the heads of the people in the theatre tickets which were good
for money, or clothes, or other things; and his allowing the
crowds to scramble for all sorts o f favors which were placed in
their midst. He finally comes to the sterner side of the regime
as aedile, the driving out of the city of the astrologers and
charlatans. It was no wonder that H orace4 wrote at this time
“ scilicet ut plausus quos fert Agrippa feras tu.” Strangely
enough Dio in his account of A grip p a’s aedileship5 fails to
mention the aqueducts which most impressed P lin y6 and
Frontinus,7 unless they are meant to be included under
rd oiKo8ofj.rinaTO', r a kolvol. Pliny8 in discussing the subject of the
aqueducts and numerous fountains9 compares the aedileship
o f Agrippa with, the praetorship of Q. Marcius Rex (144 B. C.),
’ X L IX , 43. The Greek text is cited in Appendix, p. 89.
‘ Discussed on p. 84 under Group IV.
* Serm., I I , 3, 185.
“ He does mention the aqueducts, but in connection with the years 40 B. C. (the
Julia), 34 (the Marcia), and 19 (the V irg o).
" N. B ., X X X V I, 121. Text given in Appendix, p. 91.
1 See under Aqueducts, pp. 24 ft.
' Loo. tit.
9 See also Strabo V, 3, 8, quoted in Appendix, p. 90.
 GENERAL PUBLIC WORKS 21 '

attributing to the former, as will be shown later,10 more than

actually belonged to the year of his aedileship. He then sup­
plements the information given by Dio in regard to the games
and free baths by citing from A grippa’s own account of his
aedileship the fact that ludi were given on fifty-nine days, “ et
gratuita praebita balinea CLXX. ’ ’
From Dio, Pliny, Frontinus, and Strabo we have an exten­
sive list of repairs on public buildings (unless Dio means pub­
lic works in general by oiKobopppara «ow'd), streets, sewers, aq­
ueducts, and the construction of public fountains, and in addi­
tion a lavish expenditure for games, free baths, free distribu­
tions, etc., calculated, to put the plebs in a good humor. Dio
states that the funds fo r this purpose did not come from, the
public treasury. From what source then did the money come?
Probably, de manubiis. For, while Agrippa had declined a
triumph for his victories in Gaul in 38/37 B. C., he was un­
doubtedly entitled to manubiae, like any other triumphalis, and
we know that he acquired extensive estates in Sicily,11 no doubt
in connection with his naval victories in 36 B. C. As the hold­
er of a minor public office he accomplished all that he might
have achieved had he celebrated the triumphs which he had
earned, and in a less ostentatious and more democratic way,
financing his expenditures i?a the same manner as he would have
done had he celebrated the triumphs.

T he S ewers
' As we have seen,12 Dio states that Agrippa cleaned out
the sewers (jo b s virovopovs e&Kadiipe) in his aedileship, and navi­
gated them by boat into the Tiber. Pliny, in his account of the
marvels of Rome, devotes a page13 to the sewers, commenting
10 See p. 26.
n Hor., Epistles I, 12, 1.
” P. 20.
13Plin., N. 3 . , X X X V I, 104-108. We cite here 104, the portion which pertains
to Agrippa: sed tum senes aggeris va3tum spatium, substructiones Capitolii mir­
abantur, praeterea cloacas, opus omnium dietu maximum, subfossis montibus atque,
ut paullo ante retulimus, urbe pensili subterque navigata M. Agrippae [Agrippa]
in aedilitate post consulatum. The whole passage is given in Appendix, p. 91.
22 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGEIPPA

upon the fact that, although they carried off the normal and
flood water of seven different streams, were subject to hack-
pressure from Tiber floods, were obliged to withstand the
weight o f the massive structures erected over them and the fall­
ing ruins of these same buildings as the result o f fires, as well
as the shock of earthquakes, they had endured for the 700 years
which had elapsed since they were originally built by Tar­
quinius Priscus. While he states that they were “ subternav-
igata M. Agrippae14 in aedilitate post consulatum,” he does
not mention any construction, or reconstruction, by Agrippa,
which would have been alien to his purpose. He may have
done so in a passage, now lost, to which he refers in the words
‘ ‘ ut paullo ante retulimus, ’ ' in connection with the passage just
quoted about going by boat through the sewers. Strabo was
greatly impressed by the sanitary works of the Romans, in
which respect they surpassed his own countrymen, and along
with the aqueducts he mentions the sewers “ that could wash
out the filth of the city into the Tiber, which, vaulted with close-
fitting stones, have in some places left room fo r wagons loaded
with hay to pass through them. ’ ,15 Whether he connects A grip­
pa with the construction of sewers cannot be determined from
the context since the clause av irkuarrjv £-mp{keiav liroajaaTOMdp/cos
’Aypimas may refer only to the aqueducts and fountains, or
may include the sewers which immediately precede them in the
context. W'e are therefore left in doubt as to the extent of
A grippa’s work on the sewer system, whether it consisted
merely of a “ cleaning out,” and inspection by boat, as I)io
says, or included partial repairs and new construction. W e
may assume that, in connection with his extensive building
operations in tide Campus Martius, new sewers would be needed
there, but his developments in that quarter (Groups II and
III) seem to belong to the period after Actium. A large sewer,
equal in size to the Cloaca Maxima, which was explored by
11 The manuscripts vary between Agrippae and Agrippa.
” V, 3, 8. The whole passage is quoted in Appendix on p. 90.
 GENERAL PUBLIC WORKS 23

Narducci in 1880 from the Piazza Matiei to the point where it

entered the Tiber near the modern Ponte Garibaldi, could,
from the evidence o f building materials, belong to the period of
Agrippa.16
Did Agrippa make any extensive reconstructions on the
Cloaca Maxima itself ? The opinion is expressed by Platner-
A shby17 that much o f its course from the Basilica Aemilia to
the Tiber is assignable to the restorations of Agrippa, but with
the reservation that the whole problem needs further investiga­
tion in the light o f modern criteria. But i f any extensive re­
construction was made by Agrippa it is difficult to understand
why two almost contemporary authors, writing in the Au­
gustan Age, should have failed to make any reference to it.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus,18 speaking of the beginning of the
Cloaca by Tarquinius Priscus, mentions, on the authority of
C. Aquilius, a rebuilding by certain censors (unnamed) at the
enormous cost of one thousand talents. When on the subject
of enormous cost of rebuilding he could hardly have ignored
the work o f Agrippa had it been as extensive as has been sug­
gested by Platner-Ashby and Lugli. It is generally agreed
that Book I of L iv y ’s history was written before 25 B. C.,19 not
more than eight years after the aedileship of Agrippa. Had
he been aware of the rebuilding by Agrippa of any major por­
tion o f the great sewer the language which he uses in his com­
parison between the past and the present in Chapter 56 is a
little difficult to understand. He is there speaking of two pub-
18Bull. Inst., 1881, p. 209; Laneiani, B. and E., p. 30. Its floor, paved with selce
like a Roman road, in 9.53 metres below the modern city. Its side walls are of mas­
sive blocks of Lapis Gabinus (Sperone), with arched roof o f five blocks only. The
use of this stone began about 144 B. G. and it was still employed as late as the build­
ing o f the walls o f the Augustan Forum. (See Frank:, Bom. Build. Bep., p. 24.)
11 Top. Biot., p. 127. In this opinion Lugli, Class. Monuments, p. 353, seems to
concur. Platner-Ashby, however, assigns the three concentric arches at its mouth
to 100 B. C. or slightly before, in agreement with Frank, Bom. Build. Bep., p.
142, n. 9.
“ Antiquitat., I l l , 67. He later refers in IV, 67, to the completion of the work by
Tarquinius Superbus, and the construction of tunnels and arches by means of forced
labor.
” In Book I, chap. 19, he mentions the closing of Janus in 29 B. 0., but not that
of 25 B. C.
24 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGRIPPA

lie works: (1) foros in circo faciendos, and (2) cloacamque

maximam, receptaculum omnium purgamentorum urbis, sub
terram agendam. He closes the sentence with these w ords:
quibus duobus operibus vix nova haec magnificentia quicquam
adaequari potuit.
In the absence of any definite statement from ancient author­
ities that Agrippa made any extensive restorations, the solu­
tion of this question must await further investigation, and
careful weighing of the evidence furnished by building ma­
terials and construction.

T he A q u e d u c t s 20

A grippa’s services in connection with the water-supply of

Borne are the subject of comments by Strabo, Dio, and especial­
ly Frontinus, curator aquarum under Nerva, who in his book
de Aquis furnishes us with most of our detailed information.
From these authors we learn that his activities marked an
epoch in the history of the aqueducts, not only for new con­
struction and repairs, but also in the administration of the
water-supply.
There were already in operation four aqueducts: the Appia,
built in 312 B. 0 .; the Anio Vetus, begun in 272; the Marcia
built in 144; and the Tepula in 125. F or a period of nearly a
century there had been no addition to the water-supply in spite
of the growth of the city. Agrippa built two new aqueducts,
the Julia and the Virgo, adding about one-third21 to the exist­
ing supply, made modifications in the Tepula which improved
the quality of the water, particularly as to temperature, and
10 Two books based on the joint studies o f Dr. Van Deman and Professor Ashby,
as yet unpublished, .should be of material aid in determining the extent of the work
done by Agrippa on the Roman Aqueducts. Dr. Van Deman’s manuscript, based
upon a study of the building materials, is now in the hands o f the Carnegie Institu­
tion for publication. Professor Ashby’s was to have been published by the Oxford
Press. What effect his untimely death, which all students o f Roman antiquity will
mourn, may have upon the ultimate publication of his book is as yet unknown to the
writer. The two works on account of the thoroughness o f the investigations should
be the last word on the subject of the Aqueducts for some time to come.
“ See table in Laneiani, R. and B., p. 58, also sketch map Hid., Fig. 19.
 GENERAL PUBLIC WORKS 25

repaired the Appia, Anio Vetus, and the Marcia.22 Suetonius

tells that on one occasion the people complained to Augustus
about the scarcity and high price of wine, and that Augustus
parried the complaint with the reply that his son-in-law
A grippa had made adequate provision against thirst by
bringing to the city several aqueducts.23 Besides his work on
the channels, A grippa constructed 130 distributing reservoirs
(castella), 700 fountain basins (lacus), 500 fountains with jets
(salientes), and on these works he placed 300 statues of marble
and bronze, and ornamented them with 400 columns of marble.24
Whether A gripp a’s work on the aqueducts began in 40
B. C.,‘ as D io 25 states, or in his aedileship in 33, as we infer
from P lin y28 and Frontinus,27 he made them his special prov­
ince throughout his life amd continued to Ibe, as Frontinus28
says, a kind of perpetuus curator operum suorum, a self-ap­
pointed administrator operating apparently at his own ex­
pense until his death in 12 B. C., when Augustus took over his
work, using therefor certain legacies left him fo r the purpose
by Agrippa. Agrippa maintained a regular corps of slaves
(familia) for the care and upkeep of the aqueduct system, in­
cluding the reservoirs and fountains.28 At his death he left
this familia by will to Augustus,30 who converted it into a
familia publica, which was maintained intact until the time of
Frontinus (circ. 96 A. D .), when the force consisted of two
hundred and forty men. Frontinus speaks of various details
o f his administration, Ms commentarii,31 his determination of
22For a discussion o f the chronology of these changes, see p. 26, and for'the de­
tails see under the various aqueduets below.
22Aug., 42. See also Dio L IV , 11, 7.
21 Plin., N. S ., X X X V I, 121 (given in full in Appendix, p. 91). Pliny ia prob­
ably mistaken in attributing all these to Agrippa’s aedileship. He is certainly in
error in dating the Virgo in that year. The catalogue probably came from the
Commentarii o f Agrippa, referred to in n. 31, which no doubt passed into the
archives o f the curatores aquarum, and the summary probably included all of Agrip­
p a ’ a work on the aqueducts. Frontinus, de Aquis, I, 9, also mentions the salientes:
et singulari cura compluribus salientibus instruxit urbem. See also Strabo V, 3, 8,
eited in Appendix, p. 90. 'a Ibid., II, 93.
23 X L V III, 32, 3. » Ibid., II, 98.
28N. S ., X X X V I, 121. » Ibid., II, 116.
21De Aquis, I, 9. n Ibid., II, 99.
26 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGRIPPA

the proportion of water which should go to public buildings,

public fountains, and private individuals, and the adoption of
the new modulus, or basis of measurement, the quinaria?2
A grippa’s practice in his self -imposed and personally
financed administration of the aqueduct system no doubt be­
came the basis for the regulations laid down fo r the conduct
of the curatores aquarum in a series of decrees of the Senate
passed in the year 11 B. C.,33 when after A gripp a’s death
Augustus formally created the office o f curator aquarum with
Messalla Corvinus as the first incumbent. One o f these con­
tains the specific provision that the curatores aquarum should
see to it that the number o f public fountains (publicorum
salientium) which Agrippa had constructed should not be in­
creased or diminished.34
In the chronological table on page 13 it will be noted that
there is some discrepancy, particularly in regard to the dating
of the building of the Julia, the Virgo, and the repairs on the
Marcia. In regard to the Virgo, inasmuch as D io35 and
Frontinus36 are in agreement in dating this aqueduct in 19
B. C., and give the consuls, we may assume that their dating
is correct, and that Pliny37 is wrong in including the V irgo
among the works of Agrippa’s aedileship in 33 B. C. In re­
gard to the Julia there is more doubt. Pliny does not mention
it find Frontinus and Dio are here in disagreement. Fron­
tinus38 states that Agrippa, serving as aedile after his consul-
** Frontin., de Aquis, I, 25; II, 99. He states, however, that there is a difference
o f opinion as to whether this should be ascribed to Agrippa, or. to Vitruvius and the
plumbers. “ Ibid,, II, 99; II, 128.
MIbid., II, 104. Frontinus expresses the opinion that until the building o f the
Claudia and Anio Novus the available supply would not admit additional diversion
for fountains.
“ LIV , 11, 7: " A t his own expense he (A grippa) brought into the city the wafer
supply known as the Aqua Virgo, and named it the Augusta.” He had already
mentioned the consuls.
MDe Aquis, I, 10: Idem eum iam tertium consul fuisset C. Sentio, Q. Lucretio
consulibus, post annum teirtium decimum quam Iuliam deduxerat, virginem quoque
in agro Lucullano collectam Roman perduxit.
" N. E ., X X X V I, 121: Agrippa vero in aedilitate adiecta Virgine aqua, ceterisque
conrivatis atque emendatis. He then goes on to mention the reservoirs, fountains,
etc., referred to on p. 25 and in Appendix, p. 91.
K B e Aquis, I, 10. For the other details see pp. 28-29.
 GENERAL PUBLIC WORKS 27

ship, when Augustus was consul for the second time with L.
Volcatius as his colleague39 (= 33 B. 0 .), brought this aque­
duct to Rome and called it the Julia. Dio places this event in
the consulship of Cn. Calvinus and Asinius Pollio ( =40 B. C.).
A fter mentioning the fact that L. Cornelius Balbus had been
made consul suffectus at the very end of the year he goes on to
say: “ It was at this same time that the Aqua Julia, as it was
called, was brought to Rome. ’ ,4° Are we to give greater cre­
dence to Frontinus, an expert on aqueducts, who as curator
aquarum had studied their history, or to Dio, a historian who
was not primarily interested in aqueducts, but who was gather­
ing his information year by year from some such annalistic
historian as Livy ? There is this much to he said in D io’s favor
that Agrippa was actually praetor in the year 40 B. C., and we
know from Frontinus himself41 and also from Pliny,42 that
Q. Marcius Rex in his praetorship in 144 B. C. was commis­
sioned by the Senate to build the aqueduct which was named
after him. There is therefore precedent for the building of
an aqueduct by a praetor. The other three aqueducts which
antedated the Julia, namely, the Appia, Anio Vetus and Tepula,
were built by censors.43 It is possible that Frontinus fell into
P lin y’s error in regard to the Virgo of assigning too much of
A gripp a’s work to his aedileship. There is also a slight dif­
ference of a year between Dio and Frontinus in the dating of
the restoration of the Marcia. Dio not only mentions it among
the events of 34 B. C.,44 but specifically places it in the year be­
fore A gripp a’s aedileship by introducing the account of that
year and the enumeration of A grippa’s acts as aedile with the
words: “ the next year Agrippa agreed to be made aedile.” 45
Frontinus includes the restoration of the Marcia along with
the Appia and Anio Vetus in Agrippa’s aedileship in 33 B. C.4?
30 Frontin., de Aquis, I, 9, has anno post urbem conditam DCCXIX.
« Dio X L V III, 32, 3. 43Frontin., de Aquis, I, 5 ; I, 6; I, 8.
“ Be Aquis, I, 7. « X L IX , 49, 2.
“ N. E ., X X X V I, 121. “ X L IX , 43, 1.
" D e Aquis, I, 9: Eodem anno (i. e., the year o f Agrippa’a aedileship) ductus
Appiae, Anienis, Marciae paene dilapsos restituit, et singulari cura compluribus
salientibus aquis instruxit urbem.
 28 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGEIPPA

Here again it is a question as to whether more credence should

be given to the historian, or to the expert on the aqueducts.
There is no question about the repairs on the Appia and Anio
Yetus. Dio does not mention them specifically, though he may
have had them in mind in the general repairs on the oiKodouviio-Ta
Koiva .47 Frontinus48 places them definitely in 33 B. C., and
Pliny49 also includes them in the acts o f A gripp a’s aedileship.
I am. inclined to think that after all the historian is more like­
ly to he right, and that we may place the building of the Julia in
40 B. C. when Agrippa was praetor, with 33 B. C. as a possible
second choice, the repairs on the Marcia in 34 B. 0., the repairs
on the Appia and the Anio Vetus in 33 B. C., the year of A grip­
pa ’s aedileship, and the construction o f the Virgo in 19 B. C.,
concerning which there is no difference o f opinion except in the
case of Pliny.

I ndividual A queducts B uilt ok R epaired by A gkippa

The Julia, and Additions to the T epula

The date of these operations (40 B. C. Dio, 33 B. C. Fron­
tinus) has been discussed in the preceding paragraphs.
The Tepula had been built in 125 B. C. by the censors Cn.
Servilius Caepio and L. Cassius Longinus.60 Its springs,
which Frontinus makes a point o f calling venae rather than
fontes,51 and are now called Sorgenti dell’ Acqua Preziosa,
were at the foot of the Alban Hills (Valle Marciana) two miles
to the right of the tenth milestone of the Via Latina.62 A t that
time it apparently reached this city by its own channel, of which,
however, no traces have been found. As the flow was scant,
and the water itself, as the name indicates, was tepid— its tem­
perature is now 17° centigrade63— A grippa undertook to great-
" X L IX , 43, 1.
“ See n. 46.
" N. B ., X X X V I, 121: Agrippa vero in aedilitate adieeta Virgine aqua ceterisque
conrivatis atque emendatis, etc.
MFrontin., de Aquis, I, 8. a Ibid., I , 8.
MIbid., II, 68. MLaneiani, B. and E., p. 51.
 GENERAL PUBLIC WORKS 29

ly increase the flow of water and reduce its temperature by tap­

ping a new supply, much colder and purer— the temperature is
now 10° centigrade54— higher up the same valley at a place
called II Fontanile degli Squarciarelli di Grottaferrata, about
half a mile above the Abbey. Frontinus55 says that these new
springs were two miles to the right of the twelfth milestone of
the V ia Latina, but, according to Ashby,56 this distance is too
far. This new supply, called the Aqua Julia, had a flow of
1206 quinariae, or 50,043 cubic metres in 24 hours, as compared
with the original 400 quinariae of the Tepula. The Julia was
admitted into the channel of the Tepula, about the tenth mile­
stone of the Via Latina, and the waters of the two aqueducts
were allowed to mix until they reached a common settling basin
(piscina) between the seventh and sixth milestones.57 Here
the water, thus mixed, was divided into two conduits propor­
tioned to the volume of the original springs, and both conduits
were carried to the city on the arches of the Marcia, the Tepula
immediately above the conduit of the Marcia and the Julia
above the Tepula,58 for a distance of 6,472 paces, where their
remains fo r considerable stretches may still be seen. The
three aqueducts reached Rome at the Porta Maggiore, the
arches following the line of the later Aurelian wall as far as the
Via Tiburtina which they crossed on a monumental archway
(the existing archway was built by Augustus in 5 B. C.) and
then traversed the Vimimal Hill underground, emerging at the
terminal castellum of the Marcia near the Colline gate.59
Frontinus60 states that ad Spem Veterem (near the modern
Porta Maggiore) a part of the Julia had previously been di­
verted to serve the Caelian. Another branch of the Julia, not
mentioned by Frontinus, but indicated upon Lanciani’s Forma
Urbis Romae, PI. 24, was apparently diverted near the Porta
MIbid., p. 52. 11Frontin., de Aquis, I, 9; I, 69.
“ De Aquis, I, 9. “ Ibid., I, IS.
54Top. Diet., p. 24.
“ See Lanciani, Forma Urbis Romae, Sheets 17, 18, 24, and 32; Frontin., de
Aquis, I, 19.
30 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGRIPPA

Tiburtina and supplied the Nymphaeum, popularly called “ I

Trofei di Mario,.” at the junction of the V ia Tiburtina Vetus
with the Via Labicana.
Frontinus gives the following additional information in re­
gard to the Julia and the Tepula, some of it perhaps applicable
only to his own time. He gives the total length o f the Julia as
15,426^2 paces.81 The length of the Tepula is not given, but it
was reckoned as an independent aqueduct only from the point
where the conduit emerged from the piscina of the Julia be­
tween the sixth and seventh milestones o f the Via Latina.82 He
further states that the Julia served regions II, III, V, VI, V III,
X , X II,63 and the Tepula regions IV, V, VI, V II,64 and that the
head of the Julia wi thin the city was third65 in height after the
Anio Novus and the Claudia, and that o f the Tepula fourth.66
In his day the Tepula took 92 quinariae from the Marcia87 and
190 from the Julia,68 and its total volume was 445 quinariae.69
The Julia received70 162 quinariae from the Claudia, and
gave71190 to the Tepula.72
A number of cippi of the Julia have come to light at different
times, all belonging to later restorations by Augustus, No. 302
near the springs, 281 just below the Abbey of Grottaferrata,
and 157, 156, 154, 153 near the seventh milestone of the Via
Latina, before the channel emerges on the arches of the Marcia.
All o f these belong to a restoration which took place between
11-4 B. C.73 Another cippus dating from 14 A. D. has been
found above the Abbey.74
01 De Aquis, I, 19. " Ibid., II, 67.
MIbid., II, 68. « Ibid., II, 68.
“ Ibid., II, 83. 69Ibid., I I , 68.
« Ibid., II, 82. ™Ibid., I I, 69.
“ Ibid., I, 18. n Ibid., II, 68.
MIbid., 1 , 18.
” For other information concerning the Tepula not already mentioned in the notes
see Frontinus, de Aquis, I, 4; II, 125; Lanciani, I Commentarii di Frontino; Notit.
Appendix; Polem. Siilv., 545-546; concerning the Julia: Frontinus I, 4; H , 76; II,
125; Notit. Appendix; Polem. Silv., loc. (At.
ra CIL, V I, 31562—X IV , 4278; Not. Scav., 1887, pp. 73, 82, 558, 559; 1914, p. 68;
1925, p. 51; Bull. Com., 1886, p. 313; 1887, p. 131. See also Platner-Ashby, p. 24.
11Not. Scan, 1893, p. 240; CIL, VI, 31563 c ; Eph. Epig., IX , 970.
 GENERAL PUBLIO WOBKS 31

The Marcia Repaired

Dio, as has been seen,75 placed this restoration in 34 B. C .;
Frontinus groups it with the repairs on the Appia and Anio,
and the construction o f the Julia, in A grippa’s aedileship
(33 B. C.). The restoration is merely mentioned by Pliny,76
and by Frontinus.77 Dio gives more details (X L IX , 42):
“ And Agrippa restored from his own purse the water-supply
named the Aqua Marcia, which was deficient because of the dis­
repair of the conduits, and piped it to many parts of the city. ’ ’
He takes this opportunity to contrast the modesty and modera­
tion of Agrippa and of Aemilius Lepidus, who had just rebuilt
the Basilica Aemilia, with the attitude of the triumph-seekers
who, using the influence of Antony and of Caesar, bargained to
have triumphs voted them, exacting therefor large amounts
from foreign states.
This old aqueduct, constructed in 144-140 B. C. by Q. Marcius
Bex, was restored again between 11 and 4 B. C. when Augustus
took over the management of the aqueducts after Agrippa’s
death. It is to this latter restoration that; the inscription on
the monumental arch which carried the aqueduct over the Via
Tiburtina belongs (5 B. C .),78 as well as numerous cippi found
along its course.79

Repairs on the Anio Vetus cmd the Appia

W e have no details in regard to Agrippa’s work on these
aqueducts except the statement of Frontinus that during the
year o f A g rip p a ’s aedileship, 33 B. C., he restored the channels
of the Appia and the Anio, paene dilapsos.80

Aqua Virgo
W e have already seen that Dio and Frontinus are in accord
in dating this aqueduct in 19 B. C., and that P liny’s date of 33
75Pp. 27, 28. 78C1L, V I, 1244.
™N. S., X X X I , 41. 7* See Platner-Ashby, Top. Diet., p. 25.
77De Aquis, I, 9. 80De Aquis, I, 9. See n. 46.
32 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGRIPPA

B. C. is erroneous.81 Frontinus gives the fifth day before the

Ides of June (June 9) as the day upon which the water reached
the city.82
This aqueduct, built by Agrippa at his own expense,83 is
closely connected with his other building activities in the
Campus Martius,84 and supplied the water for the Thermae,
the Stagnum, and the Euripus as well as for most of the nu­
merous fountains mentioned by Pliny.88 Because of its asso­
ciation with these haunts of pleasure-loving Romans it is fre­
quently mentioned by the poets86 from Ovid to Martial, and
received an acclaim never accorded to A gripp a’s other aque­
duct, the Julia. Their praises are due partly to the park-like
surroundings of the Horti Agrippae and the Campus Agrippae
with their many statues and fountains, and partly to the qual­
ity of the water for bathing purposes, both in the warm baths
of the Thermae, and in the open air bathing facilities offered
by the Stagnum and the Euripus. The water of the V irgo was
soft compared with the lime-charged water brought down from
the Sabine Hills by the Marcia,87 the Anio Vetus, and the Anio
Novus, although in its drinking qualities it ranked third among
all the aqueducts.
Frontinus tells us that the springs of the V irgo were located
in agro Lucullano, at the eighth milestone from the city on the
Via Collatina.88 He ascribes the name V irgo to the fact that
the springs were pointed out to the soldiers in their search for
water by a maiden, and states that the incident is recorded on a
painting in a little chapel located at the source. As the springs
were in a swampy region the waters were first collected in a
83 See pp. 26, 28. ■ 83Dio L IV , 11, 7.
82De Aquis, 1 , 10. “ See Groups I I and III.
85 See p. 25.
88 Ovid, Fasti, I, 464; Ex Ponto, I, 8, 38; Statius, Silv., I, 5, 26; Mart., V I, 20, 9;
42, 18; V II, 32, 11; X I, 47, 6 ; X IV , 163. See also Sen., Epist., 83, 5.
87Plin., N. R., X X X I, 42; quantum Virgo tactu praestat, tantum praestat
Mareia haustu.
88B e Aquis, I, 10. Pliny, N, R., X X X I, 42, says: ab octavi lapidis deverticulo
duo millia passuum Praenestina via. There is really no discrepancy since the Via
Collatina was two miles to the left. Pliny is wrong, however, in associating with
the Virgo the Herculaneus rivus.
 GENERAL PUBLIC WORKS 33

basin lined with opus signinum, a part o f which still exists near
the railway station o f Salone. Frontinus89 also states that the
volume of water was increased by the addition of several other
springs, and that the length of the aqueduct was 14,105 paces
(20,697 metres), of which 12,865 paces were underground, and
1,240 above ground, 540 being carried upon substructions, and
700 paces (from the Via Capo le Case) on arches. The course
of the aqueduct was toward the Porta Praenestina, but about
one kilometre from this gate it swerved northward and en­
tered the city under the Villa Medici (Horti Lucullani)90 on the
Pincian Hill. From, this point it ran south along the edge of
the hill, turning southwest near the Via Capo le Case, where
the arches began; it then turned south along the eastern edge
of the Campus Agrippae (see Fig. 4) and then westward across
the Via Flaminia (at the site of the later arch of Claudius) and
along the northern end of the Saepta., where its arches ended,91
near the northwest corner of the church o f S. Ignazio.
Frontinus furnishes the additional information92 that the
total volume was 2504 quinariae9:3 (103,916 cubic metres in 24
hours), of which 200 quinariae were distributed outside the
city, and 2304 within the city itself through regions VII, IX,
and X IV ,94 to 18 castella. Of the 1417 quinariae devoted to
public uses, 26 went to two munera,95 61 to twenty-five lacus,
83 De Aquis, I, 10.
00 Ibid., I, 22: Arcus Virginis initium habent sub hortis Lucullanis, finiuntur in
Campo Martio secundum frontem saeptorum.
°1Ibid., loc. cit.
03Ibid., H , 84. Some o f this information may be applicable only to his own
time.
03Erontinus, de Aquis, II, 70, states that this is a corrected measurement made
at the seeond milestone, where the flow is more rapid than at the source. He states
that the Commentarii give it as 770 quinariae less.
“ Region V II was the 'eastern portion of the Campus Martius between the Via
Flaminia and the Pincian Hill, and contained the Campus Agrippae and the Porticus
V'ipsania described in Group III, pp. 73-77. Region I X was the western portion o f
the Campus Martius, containing the major public works of Agrippa described in
Group I I , pp. 37-69. Region X IV was across the Tiber and we may perhaps asso­
ciate the building of the Pons Agrippae (see p. 66), with the necessity of carrying
the conduit across the river.
83Frontinus does not furnish a clue to the sense in which he is here using the
word (de Aquis, II, 84).
34 BUILDING A C TIV ITIE S OF AG R IPP A

and 1,330 to public buildings and public works, of which the

Euripus alone received 460.
The level of the V irgo98 was the lowest of all the aqueducts
except the Appia and the Alsietina, and like them it had no
settling tank in Frontinus ’ day,87 though one was added later
helow the Pincian. For the remains within the city see
Lanciani, Forma Urbis Romae.9S
Cippi of Tiberius (36-37 A. D.) and Claudius (44-45 A. D.)
have been found in the Villa Medici, two bearing the number I,
and a third the number U H ." In 46 A. D. Claudius restored the
arch over a side street from the Via Lata, which had been dam­
aged by Caligula’s unfinished construction of an amphitheatre
near the Saepta,100 and in 51-52 A. D. the same emperor, to cele­
brate his victories in Britain, erected a triumphal arch, which
also carried the Aqua Virgo across the V ia Lata, opposite the
northern end of the Saepta.101 There is also a record of a res­
toration by Constantine.102
The Virgo still supplies the city with water, having been re­
stored by Nicholas V in 1453, by Sixtus IV , and thoroughly re­
built by Pius V in 1570. Its present terminus is the famous
Trevi fountain. Now, as in the days o f Agrippa,103 it still fur­
nishes water for many fountains, the most numerous being
those built by Gregory X III.
MFrontin., de Aquis, I, 18.
” IUd., I, 22.
88Sheets 1 ,2, 9, 15,16. See also Bull. Com., 1881, pp. 61-67; 1883, pp. 6-7, 51-52;
Mitt., 1889, p. 269. Laneiani, Aeque, pp. 120-130; Plainer-Ashby, Top. Diet., p. 28;
Jordan, Top., I, 1, pp. 471-472.
MCIL, VI, 1253-1254.
100 CIL, VI, 1252: Ti. Claudius . . . areus ductus aquae Virginis disturbatos
per C. Caesarem a fundamentis novos fecit ac restituit. Suet., Calig., 27. The arch
and inscription may he seen in the courtyard o f Via Nazareno, No. i4.
M C I L , y 1,920-923 = 31203-4; Suet., Claud., 17; Dio I X , 19 ff; 22.
lMCIL, VI, 31564, found on the site of the Exposition building on the Via
Nazionale, obviously not in its original position.
,MFor Agrippa’s f ountains see pp. 25, 83.
 GROUPn

A G R IP P A ’S BUILDINGS IN THE CAMPUS MARTIUS

IN REGION IX
 Gkottp II
A G R IP P A ’S BUILDINGS IN TH E CAMPUS M ARTIUS
IN REGION IX
The Saepta
T hefirst o f A g rip p a ’s building activities in this part of the
Campus Martius seems to have been the completion of one of
Julius Caesar’s many projects. Cicero writes to Atticus1 in
54 B. C. of one of Caesar’s grandiose plans to make of the
Saepta, the traditional meeting place for the Comitia Tributa,
a marble structure with a roof, and to surround it with a marble
portico a mile in extent. Caesar did not live to carry out this
plan, if indeed he had actually begun it, and it was carried on
by Lepidus, who had twice been Caesar’s master of horse dur­
ing the dictatorship, probably after the second triumph of
Lepidus, which was celebrated on December 31, 43 B. C., and
probably from the manubiae connected with that triumph.2 We
may assume that Lepidus had not put the finishing touches on
this colossal structure before his final break with Octavian in
36 B. C., after which he became a virtual prisoner at Circeii,
since we read in Dio,3 in connection with the events o f the year
26 B. C .: “ A fter this he (Augustus) became consul for the
eighth time, together with Statilius Taurus, and Agrippa dedi­
cated the structure called the Saepta; for, instead of undertak­
ing to repair a road, Agrippa had adorned with stone tablets
and with paintings this edifice in the Campus Martius, with
porticoes all around it, for the meeting of the Comitia Tributa,
and he named it the Saepta Julia in honor of Augustus.” As
Lepidus did not dedicate it, while he still performed his func­
tions as triumvir up till 36 B. C., we may assume that it had not
been completed structurally at the time of the break between
1 Att., TV, 16,14.
1X have discussed this question in Mem. Am. Acad, in Home, IX , pp. 17-18.
* L III, 23.
37
38 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OE AGRIPPA

him and Octavian, and that Agrippa did considerably more

than merely decorate and dedicate the building.
The Saepta, also called the Ovile4 from its resemblance to a
sheepfold, was in the time of the Republic an enclosed area,
inaugurated as a templum,5 of roughly 1000 feet to a side, ex­
tending westward from the Via Flaminia and divided by bar­
riers into aisles and sections to facilitate voting by curiae,
tribus, or centuriae.9 I f Cicero’s m ile7 is not a humorous
exaggeration, and is to be taken seriously, it must have
been Caesar’s plan to erect his portico about all four sides.
In that case Lepidus and Agrippa limited their structure to the
side along the Via Flaminia from the foot of the Capitoline
Hill to the Aqua Virgo, which Agrippa built later, leaving the
area to the west as far as the Pantheon and the Baths an open
space, as heretofore. The name Saepta continued in use for
the whole area, as well as for the great hall and portico.8
The portico is partly represented on the Marble Plan,9 and
from this and the remains which have been discovered to the
west of the Via Flaminia,10 it is possible to get an idea o f its
ground plan. The portico was an elongated rectangle extend­
ing along the Via Flaminia on its west side from the Aqua
Virgo,11 the present Via del Caravita, to the Via di S. Marco,12
a distance of more than 400 metres (1,400-1,500 Roman feet).
It was supported by eight rows of isolated piers, both simple
4 This word ovile was still occasionally used after the construction o f the Saepta
Julia (Liv. X X V I, 22; Lucan II, 197; Ausonius, Grot, act., I l l , 13) though Saepta
was the usual word, applied somewhat confusingly sometimes to the portico, some­
times to the area. The portico is once referred to as Porticus Saeptorum (Plin.,
N. PL., X V I, 201), and once in the third century as Saepta Agrippiana ( T it.
Alexand., 26).
‘ Cic., Pro Bab., 11.
“ Platner-Ashby, Top. Viet., p. 373. " See n. 4.
’ A lit, IV, 16, 14. » Jordan, FDR, 35-36.
30Huelsen-Jordan, Top., I*, p. 460; Bull. Com., 1893, pp. 125-128; Not. Scav., 1911,
p. 36. Platner-Ashby, Top. Diet., p. 461.
33 See p. 33, n. 94, also Pig. 4.
33Laneiani, Ruins and Excavations, p. 472, thought it ended at a cross street found
.in 1875 under the side door of the Church of S. Marco, but the evidence o f the an­
tiquity of the street is not conclusive, and besides masonry probably belonging to
the porticus has been found under the Palazzetto di Venezia (Platner-Ashby, p.
461).
 THE CAMPUS MAETIUS, REGION IX 39

and compound, of rusticated travertine, upon which rest the

springs o f the cross-vaulting,13 as may be seen f rom a drawing
by Piranesi.14 Four inner piers of the fourth and fifth rows
under the Palazzo Doria were measured by Huelsen who found
that they were 1.70 metres square, 4 metres apart in the north-
south direction, and 6.20 metres on the east-west line. The
width of the portico from east to west was 60 metres ( = 200
Roman feet). Remains of brick pilasters of the time of
Hadrian under the Banco di Roma point to a restoration by
that emperor.
W as this structure, which conforms to the Marble Plan o f
the beginning of the third century, the work of Lepidus and
A g rip p a ! W e know that it was damaged in the fire of Titus in
80 B. C., and probably restored by Domitian, since it was one
o f the haunts of Martial.15 It was restored, as we have seen,
under Hadrian.16 The travertine pilasters are at any rate
more characteristic of the Augustan Age than o f the later pe­
riods. W ith the diminishing importance of its original func­
tion, the holding o f elections, some changes in its inner arrange­
ment may well have been made.
It was used fo r other purposes even in the time of Augustus.
The Senate met here on May 23 in connection with the Ludi
Saeculares of 17 B. C. ;1T part of the games with which Au­
gustus celebrated the fifth anniversary of the death of Agrippa
were held in the Saepta (7 B. C.),18 as were also some of the
games (gladiatorial combats) in celebration of the dedication
of the Forum Augusti (2 B. C .).19 In it, in 9 A. D., Augustus
received Tiberius on his victorious return from his Illyrian
Campaign, and Tiberius addressed the people from a platform
erected in it.20 Caligula gave munera gladiatoria in the
78Rivoira, Roman Architecture, pp. 93-95.
7* Campo Marsio, PI. X X V ; Antichita di Roma, IV , p. 47.
15 See n. 28.
18 This restoration, mentioned in Tit. Sadr., 19, is confirmed by brick-stamps.
17 Act. Lud. Saec., CIL, V I, 32323, line 50.
78 Dio LV, 8, 5.
10Dio LV, 10, 17; Snet., Aug., 43. “ Suet., Tib., 17; Dio LV I, 1.
40 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGEIPPA

Saepta,21 also Claudius,22 and Nero gave gymnastic contests

there.23 These various performances, as well as the naval ex­
hibition of Caligula,24 for which he excavated an artificial lake,
were said by Suetonius to have been held in Saeptis, and must
have been given in the open area to the west of the portico, re­
ferred to by Statius25 as patula Saepta, while the arcades of
the portico, and its roof,-must have been used fo r the seating of
the spectators.
Seneca speaks of the crowds which in his day frequented it ;26
Pliny speaks of two works o f art which it contained, both by
unknown artists, one a group of Olympus and Pan, the other of
Chiron and Achilles ;27 Martial28 speaks o f it as a favorite
lounging-place and a bazaar where all sorts o f wares were sold :
citrus furniture, works o f ivory, bronzes, murrhine vases, sil­
ver cups, gems, pearls, and even slaves.
In the later empire it is mentioned in the third century as
Saepta Agrippiana,29 and the name Saepta occurs on the
bronze collar of a slave belonging to post-Constantinian
times.30 Strangely enough, there is no reference to it in the
Notitia and Curiosum or in the literature of the Middle Ages.
The Diribitorium
Functionally, if not actually, connected with the Saepta is an­
other structure ascribed to Agrippa— the Diribitorium—which
also had to do originally with the elections, and was apparently
the place where the 900 election judges in the time o f Augustus
kept the voting urns and counted the votes.31
Dio gives us an account of it among the events of the year
7 B. C. :32 “ The Campus Agrippae and the Diribitorium were
21 Suet., Calig., 13. « Dio L IX , 10, 5.
22 Suet., Claud., 21. 25 Siiv., IV , 5, 2.
23 Suet., Nero, 12. 28 Be Ira, II , 81.
27N. H., X X X V I, 29. Martial also mentions the second o f these groups (I I , 14, 6).
28II, 14, 5; 57, 2; IX , 5 9 ,1 ; X, 80, 4.
28 Vit. Alexand., 26.
30 CIL, X V , 7195: tene me quia fugio et revoca me in saeptis.
“ Plin., N. B ., X X X III, 31.
" Dio LV, 8, 3-4 (for Greek text see Appendix, p. 90).
 THE CAMPUS MARTIUS, REGION IX 41

made public property by Augustus himself. The Diribitorium

was the largest building under a single roof ever constructed;
indeed, now that the whole covering has been destroyed,33 the
edifice is wide open to the sky (axwhs), since it could not be put
together again. Agrippa had left it in process of construc­
tion, and it was completed at this time. ’ ’ Pliny speaks of this
marvelous roof,34 and o f one of the beams left over from its
construction which lay in the long portico of the Saepta, ob­
viously as a museum exhibit. This beam was of larch, 100 feet
long and a foot and a half thick.35
I f this building, of such proportions that it was used as an
indoor theatre by Caligula when the sun was excessively hot,36
was a separate structure, where could it have stood, and why
was it allowed to remain roofless for the century and a third
which intervened between the fire of Titus and the time when
Dio wrote his history, in a location which was rapidly becom­
ing more and more valuable with the extension of the city over
the Campus M artius; also, why have no traces of it been found
in the vicinity of the Saepta with which it was functionally con­
nected? Huelsen37 answers this question by assuming that it
was constructed on top of the Saepta Julia, whose pillars seem­
ed to him too sturdy for the support of a mere portico, but
rather to have been built to carry a superstructure. That its
elevation was high we may assume from a statement of Sue­
tonius that Claudius, during a stubborn, fire in the quarter
known as the Aemiliana, remained in the Diribitorium for two
nights, presumably watching the efforts to control it.38
Huelsen’s theory has in its favor only two considerations:
33In the fire which occurred in. 80 A. D. (I>io L X V I, 24).
" N. II., X X X V I, 102: non et teetum Birihitori ab Agrippa facti (inter magna
opera dicamus) !
35 Plin., N. H., X V I, 201: fuit memoria nostra et in portieibus Saeptorum trabes
e larice a M. Agrippa relicta, aeque miraculi causa, quae Biribitorio superfuerat
xx pedibus brevior (than the beam of 120 feet which he had described in the previous
sentence) sesquipedali crassitudine.
“ Bio L IX , 7.
’"Hull. Com., 1898, p. 137. See also Jordan-Huelsen, Top., I 3, p. 562; Platner-
Ashby, Top. Diet., p. 151.
38 Clwud., 18. (See Appendix, p. 92.)
42 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGBIPPA

(1) the fact that functionally the Diribitorium was connected

with the counting o f the votes in the elections which were held
in the Saepta; and (2) the huge timber which lay in the long
portico of the Saepta, which may, after all, have been placed
there simply as an exhibit. There are four rather strong argu­
ments against it: (1) Dio, in LV, 8, 3-4 (see n. 32) seems to
be speaking of the Diribitorium as a separate building, with­
out any mention of the Saepta; (2) the natural query as to why
it was not completed until twenty years after the dedication of
the Saepta, if it was an integral part o f that structure; (3) Dio,
in his records of the buildings of the Campus Martius, which
were destroyed by the fire of Titus, again not only mentions it
as a separate building, but does not list it with the Saepta,
where one would expect to find it, but between the Pantheon
and the Theatre of Balbus,89 a position which Huelsen has had
to explain away on the assumption that the unusual word
Diribitorion had been omitted by a scribe and had been rein­
troduced in the wrong place ;40 (4) its proximity to the district
known as the Aemiliana. In regard to this last, Huelsen him­
self admits that if C1L, X V , 7150, was correctly copied (it exists
only in a Sixteenth Century copy) this quarter was on the Tiber
north of the Theatre o f Balbus near the Palazzo Farnese.41
Claudius could have had a better and also a closer view of a fire
raging in this district from the Capitol than from the upper
story of the Saepta.
The evidence would seem to point to a location somewhere
within a triangle whose three points would be the Pantheon,
the Theatre of Balbus, and the Aemiliana, which, as we have
seen, was located somewhere near the modern Palazzo Farnese.
Are there any ruins in this area, of sufficient magnitude to
have served as the foundations for the Diribitorium, which
have not been positively identified as belonging to other known
89L X V I, 24, cited in Appendix, p. 90. 18Bull. Com., 1893, p. 138, n. 2.
41 Top., I s, 490. That it was outside the city limits is shown by Varro, De B. B.,
H I, 2, 6 : Nihilo magia ideo est villa, quam eorum aedificia qui habitant extra
portam Flumentanam aut in Aemilianis.
 THE CAMPUS MARTIUS, REGION IX 43

structures? A glance at Laneiani’s Forma Urbis Romae,

PI. 21, suggests one such possibility, namely, the structure now
represented by the two travertine pilasters with engaged
columns which stand in the Via dei Calderari 23, identified ten­
tatively by Laneiani as belonging to the Crypta Balbi and by
Huelsen as belonging to the Porticus Minucia. I f Laneiani’s
ground plan is correct, this structure was of a size commen­
surate with the huge roof mentioned by Dio and by Pliny.
Lundstrom,42 in fact, in his recent work has sought to iden­
tify this structure with the Diribitorium. Its dimensions,
148.5 by 45.5 metres, could well correspond with the great hall
for the nine hundred diribitores, requiring roof beams one hun­
dred feet long, and this identification at first sight seems at­
tractive. But Boethius in his exhaustive review of Lund­
strom ’s work in Athenaeum, 1932,43 points out (pp. 117-121)
that, while the pilasters may be Augustan, the opus concretum
and the brick work seem to belong to the time o f Domitian, and
that the structure in Domitian’s time took the f orm of a portico
of two stories (as is shown in a drawing of Sangallo the eld­
e r )44 which would not have been hard to roof, while Dio states
that the Diribitorium stood open to the sky in his day because
o f the difficulty of replacing its enormous roof. Consequently,
unless the second period of construction was later than Dio,
this building cannot have been the Diribitorium. I f Boethius
is right,45 this attractive possibility suggested by Lundstrom
will have to be abandoned, and the location of the Diribitorium
relegated to the area west of a line drawn from the Pantheon to
the Theatre of Balbus, much of which is still a terra incognita
from the archaeological and the topographical point of view.
“ Lundstrom, TJndersolcningar i Boms topografi ( SvensTct ArTciv for humanistika
avhandligar I I ) Goteburg, 1929.
43See also Boethius sind Nettelbladt, Eranos, 1931, pp. 83-97, where the structure
is identified as Crypta Balbi, and Ashby’ s review o f Lundstrom’s article, Gnomon,
1932, p. 485, which is in general accord with the views o f Boethius.
44 Cod. Barierin., fol. 1, reproduced in Laneiani, li. and E., p. 495, fig. 194.
“ Boethius, loc. oit., however, quotes Van Deman as eixpreasing the verbal opinion,
based upon construction and materials, that the second period may have been later
than the time of Domitian.
4 4. BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGRIPPA

Porticus Argonaut arum and Basilica Neptuni

Dio, in narrating the events o f the year 25 B. C., mentions
three buildings which Agrippa completed in that year in his
program of beautifying the city at his own expense. First in
the list46 is the building which Dio calls ttjv aroav rod TioaeiSuvos,
erected by Agrippa in honor of his na,val victories, and adorned
with a painting representing the Argonauts.47 Although
Agrippa consistently refused to celebrate a triumph,48 reserv­
ing this honor for Augustus alone, it was only fitting that he, as
the actual victor both in the campaign against Sextus Pompey
in 36 B. C., and again in the campaign of 31 B. C., should have
accorded to him the privilege, assumed by all the triumphales
mentioned in our previous paper,49 o f erecting a building to
commemorate his naval victories. A scene or a series of
scenes from the voyage of the Argonauts would be more in
keeping with the modesty of his character than actual scenes
from his own victories, as indirectly suggesting rather than
frankly proclaiming his own services. Dio does not inform us
whether the victories referred to are those of the Actian cam­
paign exclusively, o:r whether the naval victories of 36 B. C.
were also included in the commemoration.
This structure of Agrippa presents certain problems both in
regard to its location, and whether the Porticus Argonautarum
and the Basilica Neptuni, mentioned in the regionary cata­
logues of Region IX , are one and the same building or two sep­
arate ones. Two elements enter into D io ’s account o f Agrip-
p a ’s building: (1) its connection with Neptune, and (2) with
the painting of the Argonauts. As Dio was writing at the be­
ginning of the third century, though no doubt using older an­
nalistic sources, it will be well to follow through the references
in the literature in chronological order. Three passages in
“ The other two are the Laconicum Sudatorium and the Pantheon.
17Dio L III, 27. The Greek text is given in the Appendix, p. 89.
“ See p. 10.
a Mem. Am. Acad, in Rome, IX , 1931, pp. 9-44.
 TEE CAMPUS MARTIUS, REGION IX 45

Martial50 refer to the structure, though not specifically by

name, as a favorite haunt and lounging-place in his day. In
the first of these “ An spatia carpit lentus Argonautarum” it is
clear that he is referring to a promenade of some length, named
from the Argonauts and presumably the Porticus Argonauta­
rum and, in the second, the mention of Aesonides (i. e., Jason)
in the same context as the Saepta with its painting of Philly-
rides (i. e., Chiron) indicates close proximity to that structure.
Juvenal in the sixth Satire (VI, 153-154) mentions “ Mercator
Iason” in a passage which would be obscure enough were it not
illuminated, by a scholion, to which we shall refer later,51 which
states that the reference is to a painting in porticu Agrippiana
at Rome. In his .account of the buildings damaged by the fire
of Titus,52 Dio again mentions rb Uoaeidbwiov. It is preceded in
the list by the Saepta, and immediately followed by the Baths
of Agrippa and the Pantheon. This serves to indicate its loca­
tion. The life of Hadrian, in the Historia Augusta, states that
that emperor restored the Pantheon, the Saepta, and the Basil­
ica Neptuni.53 The grouping is about the same as in the pass­
age in Dio.
From these passages we have the following names: i) <rroa rod
ILoaeidwvos and rb ILocretbumop of Dio, Basilica Neptuni, Porticus
Agrippiana, and in the passage in Martial a porticus which
went by the name of the Argonauts. Thus far we might as­
sume that all these references referred to one building. When
we come to the Notitia and the Curiosum5i we find that both
have in Region IX Porticus Argonautarum but that the Curi­
osum has in addition Basilica Neptuni, while the Notitia, which
omits the Basilica Neptuni, has included a building called the
Hadrianeum omitted in the Curiosum. In the Appendix, each
o f these regionaries lists under the head of basilicas a Basilica
“"Mart., II, 14, 6; III, 20, 11; X I, 1, 2.
“ P. 46.
53LXVT, 24, 2. For the Greek text see Appendix, p. 90.
53 Vit. Sadr., 19, cited in Appendix, p. 92.
MCited in Appendix:, p. 93.
46 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGBIPPA

of Neptune (“ Neptum” in the Notitia, “ Neptunia” in the

Curiosum).B5 We thus have raised the problem of two build­
ings, the Porticus Argonautarum, and a Basilica Neptuni.
Perhaps the most important passage in connection with this
problem is the scholion on Juvenal VI, 153-154:
Mense quidem brumae, quo iam mercator Iason
Clausus, et annatis obstat casa candida nautis

which explains the passage as follow s:56 that at the time of

the Saturnalia the vendors of little images, which were used
for presents, had been accustomed, in' Juvenal’s time, to set up
their casas de linteo in the Porticus Agrippiana at Rome, on
which was painted the story o f the Argonauts, and that at such
times these canvas booths obstructed the view of the painting.
On the basis of this passage Huelsen,5T following the studies
of Lucas,58 concludes that the Aoaeid&viov, or Basilica Neptuni,
was not identical with the Porticus Argonautarum, but that
they were closely connected, ;and that the scholion on the pas­
sage in Juvenal can best be explained on the assumption that
the paintings of the Argonauts were on an outer wall o f the
Basilica Neptuni, which adjoined, one side of the portico. The
booths of the vendors in the portico, at the time of the Satur­
nalia, thus temporarily shut off the view of the paintings of
Jason and the Argonauts on the outer wall of the basilica.
He believes that Lucas has successfully shown that the later
Hadrianeum, of which eleven columns are still standing in
the Piazza di Pietra, where they flank the north side o f the
" Curiosum: Basilicae x. Iulia. Ulpia. Pauli. Bestilia. Neptunia. Matidies.
Mareianes. Vascolaria. Floscolaria. Constantiniana.
N otitia: Basilicae x. Iulia. Ulpiia. Pauli. Vestidia. Neptuni. Matidie3.
Martianes. Baseellaria. Floscellaria. Constantiniana.
M‘ ‘ Casa candida ’ ’ illud significat, quod Romae in porticu thermarum Traiauarum
tempore Saturnalium sigillaria sunt. Tunc mercatores casas de linteo faciunt,
quibus picturam obstruunt. Ideo autem dicit ‘ ‘ mercator Iason, ’ ’ quoniam antea
in porticu Agrippiana Roma sigillaria proponebantur, in qua porticu historia
Argonautarum depicta est, ut casae eum fierent, picturae obstabant.
11Jahreshefte des Oesterreichischen Arch. Inirtituts, 1912, p, 132 £f.
“ Zur Geschichte der Neptunsbasilica in Bom (Berlin, 1904).
 THE CAMPUS MARTIUS, REGION I X 47

building o f the Bourse, was built within the area surrounded

by the Porticus Argonautarum. If the Porticus Argonautarum
is to be identified with the portico surrounding the Hadrianeum,
it enclosed a rectangular area 108 metres long from east to
west, and 98 metres wide.59 Remains of it have been found
on the north and west sides, and its whole circuit may there­
fore be plotted. Its southeast corner came very close to the
northwest com er of the Saepta, and this location fits in very
well with one of the passages in Martial, already referred to.60
I f Huelsen is correct in his conclusion that one of the outer
walls of the basilica bordered one of the sides of the portico,
the question remains as to which side the basilica adjoined.
Huelsen concludes that it could have been located only on the
west side, partly because of the order of the buildings listed in
the Notitia and Curiosum,61 and partly because there alone
could room be found fo r a large building, although no certain
remains o f such a building have been found there.62 I f the
basilica was 100 feet broad, its west side would have extended
as far as the apse of S. Maria in Aquiro.
The words Neptuni and HoaeiSuviov might suggest the pres­
ence in the neighborhood of a temple or shrine of Neptune, but
of this there is no other evidence. The name, like that of the
porticus, may have been derived from some statue or painting
incidental to the commemoration of A grippa’s naval victories.

The Baths (t6 iraparripiov rb ka.Kicvi.nbv and the Thermae)

What appears to have been the first unit of a larger bathing
establishment is mentioned by Dio among the events of 25 B. C.
He speaks of three buildings completed by Agrippa in that
year, the Stoa of Poseidon, rb -vparrjpiav to kaKuvizbv, and the
“ Lanciani, Buins and Excavations, p. 487.
60II, 14, 6. See p. 45.
“ Huelsen, op. cit., (see n. 57) p. 134,
“ Huelsen, op. cit., p. 135, speaks of some remains found in 1779 when an exten­
sion of the Palazzo Serlupi was being made in the direction of the Vicolo delle Paste,
bnt they seem to belong to very late times i f not to a Christian Church.
48 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGRIPPA

Pantheon.63 In the case of the second he goes on to explain

that Agrippa “ gave the name Laconian to the gymnasium be­
cause the Lacedaemonians had a greater reputation at that
time than any one else for stripping and exercising after
anointing themselves with oil.” He would have performed a
greater service had he explained wparripiov, but we may gather
from Vitruvius84 that it meant a sudatorium, or sweating room,
with or without a water basin. The structure must have been
of considerable proportions to be mentioned along with the
Basilica Neptuni and the Pantheon, but until the completion
of the Aqua Virgo in 19 B. C. it could not have served as the ful­
ly equipped j3a\aveiov which Agrippa left in his will to the
Boman people in 12 B. C., along with his gardens,65 with pro­
vision for their future upkeep. W e may therefore assume that
the original plan must have had considerable additions made
to it about 19 B. C. when A grippa completed the Aqua Virgo.
Some irregularities in the later ground plan serve to corrobo­
rate this assumption.00 The bathing establishment, thus en­
larged, which Agrippa left to the Boman people in his will, is
henceforth usually referred to as Thermae Agrippae,87 even
after later restorations, or simply thermae. Pliny mentions
works o f art with which Agrippa decorated i t : small paintings
in the hottest portion of the bath,68 painted tiles in the curved
vaults (camaras) of the hot rooms,6®and the Apoxyomenus of
Lysippus70 which Agrippa placed in front of the baths. This
MDio L III, 27,1, Greek text given in Appendix, p. 89.
'* V, 10: Laconicum sudationesque sunt conjungendae tepidario; eaequc quam
latae fuerint, tantam altitudinem, habeant ad imam curuaturam hemisphaerii. Cf.
also V, 11, 2.
“ Dio LIV, 29, 4, text given in Appendix, p. 89. For the Gardens see p. 53.
MSee Fig. 1.
" B u t lavacrum Agrippae in Vit. 'Eadr., 19, and balnea . . . quae Agrippa
dedit in Sidon. Apoll., Carm., 23, 496.
“ N. E ., X X X V , 26: (Agrippa) in thermarum quoque calidissimo parte mar­
moribus incluserat parvas tabellas, paullo ante, cura reficerentur, sublatas.
N. E ., X X X V I, 189: Agrippa certe in thermis, quas Romae fecit, figlinum
opus encausto pinxit in calidis, reliqua albario adornavit, non dubie vitreas facturus
camaras, si prius inventum id fuisset.
™N. E ., X X X IV , 62: inter quae distrigentem. se, quem M. Agrippa ante thermas
suas dicavit, mire gratum Tiberio principi. Non quivit temperare se in eo . . .
transtulitque in cubiculo alio signo substituto . . .
 THE CAMPUS MARTIUS, REGION IX 49

statue was such a favorite with the people that when Tiberius
removed it to his own chamber and substituted another they
raised such a clamor in the theatre that the emperor was in­
duced to replace it. Strabo71 mentions the fallen lion of
Lysippus which A grippa brought from Lampsacus and placed
in his Gardens between the Stagnum and the Euripus. This
artificial lake, and the ornamental canal, to be described later,72
supplied with water from the Aqua Virgo, were really a part
of the bathing facilities of the Thermae, and took the place of
the usual frigidarium and the piscina, for open air swimming,
so commonly provided in the arrangements of the later
Thermae.73
The Thermae were burned in the great, fire of Titus74 (80
A. D.) along with most of A grippa’s buildings in Region IX.
They must have been at once restored by Titus or Domitian,
since Martial in Book I I I 75 (87-88 B. C. ) indicates that they
were much frequented. Hadrian, who rebuilt the Pantheon,
also restored the Thermae.76 Huelsen believes that he also
connected them with the Pantheon by a series of halls, remains
o f which still exist adjoining the Pantheon on the south.77
Eivoira finds evidence that the great circular hall of the Baths,
known as the A rco della Ciambella, with the earliest known
example o f meridian ribs in its dome, belonged to a reconstruc­
tion not earlier than the time of Alexander Severus.78 A res-
” X III, 1, 9, p. 590, given in Appendix, p. 90.
” See p. 53.
,a Huelsen, Thermen des Agrippa, p. 33.
” Dio L X V I, 24, given in Appendix, p. 90.
” 20, 15; 36, 6.
” Vit. Hadr., 19: Romae instauravit Pautheum, saepta . . . lavacrum Agrip­
pae. See also CIL, V I, 9727 = 33815a.
77 Huelsen, (loc. cit.) thinks that this portion (cut through by the Via della
Palombella) with its beautiful marble decorations may have served as an assembly
room and social hall. Lanciani wrongly calls it Laconicum, as there are no traces
o f heating arrangements. That there was any connection between the baths and
the large hall adjoining the Pantheon has recently been called in question by von
Gerkan, see p. 53, n. 90. The long corridor-like hall with an apse at eaeh end, which
appears in Huelsen ’a plan (fig. 2), should therefore be regarded as problematical.
™Roman Architecture (O xf., 1925), pp. 126-7; 175-6. The hall is now only
partially preserved. The existing portion may be seen in the Via dell’ Arco della
Ciambella.
50 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OP AGEIPPA

toration by Constantins and Constans in 354-5 A. D. is recorded

on an inscription found near S. Maria di Monterone not far
from the west side of the baths, and probably refers to them.79
The baths are mentioned in the Notitia in Region IX , by Si­
donius Apollinaris,80 and in the sixth century by Gregory the
Great.81 In the Middle Ages the whole district was known as
the Calcararium,82 showing that the marbles of the Thermae
had become a prey to the lime-burner, though considerable sec­
tions of the brick: and concrete parts of the structure were still
standing in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and were
sketched by numerous artists and architects.
By a careful comparison of a fragm ent88 o f the Marble Plan
of Severus, inscribed with the words [Th]ermae [A griplpae,
and the plans and drawings84 o f these sixteenth century archi­
tects, with the existing ruins and the meager results o f excava­
tions, Huelsen85 has succeeded in working out a satisfactory
ground plan86 for the central and southern portion o f the
Baths included in the fragment of the Marble Plan. His plan
for this portion is reproduced in Figure l,and his more extended
plan for the whole area including the Pantheon in Figure 2.
The letters refer to Figure 1. The huge circular hall (unnum­
bered), the famous Arco della Ciambella, 25 metres in diam­
eter, was probably not one of the bathing rooms, but a social
centre of the baths. Huelsen identifies A as a caldarium, B.
and G as tepidaria, C as the Laconicum referred to by Dio, D
n CIL, V I, 1165: Turmas vetustate labefactas. An earlier restoration by Corn-
modus is possible in mew o f the faet that in the Anon. Einsied. the baths are men­
tioned as Thermae Commodianae: 1, 4; 2, 4; 4, 8 ; 8, 6. He may have read an in­
scription recording a restoration by that emperor.
80Carm., 23, 496.
81Greg. Magn., Beg., V I, 42; IX , 137: monasterium iuxta thermas Agrippianas.
81Jordan, Top., I I, p. 439, and Appendix, p. rv ii; Lanciani, Storia degli Sca-vi, I,
24 f . ; Huelsen, Thermen des Agrippa, p. 10 sq.
88Found in the Forum in 1900 in front o f the Basilica Julia. For the literature
see Not. Scav., 1900, 633-4; Bull. Com. 1901, 3-19; Lanciani, Storia degli Scavi, II ,
209; Mitt., 1905, p. 75; Huelsen, Thermen des Agrippa, p. i6 if.
“ Particularly a drawing of Baldassare Peruzzi (Uffizi 456), another by Palladio
in the Devonshire Collection (port, ix, fol. 14), and a roughly sketched plan of the
Ciambella by Salvestro Peruzzi (Uffizi 642).
85 Thermen des Agrippa (Eome, 1910), p. 12 ff.
80 Op. cit., Pis. I l l and IV.
 THE CAMPUS MARTIUS, REGION IX 51

F is . 1
H u e ls e n ’s p la n o f th e B a t h s o f A g r ip p a f r o m D ie T h e r m e n dea A g r ip p a , P L I I I
52 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OE AGRIPPA

1:5000

F ig . 2
T h e P a n th e o n a n d th e B a t ha o f A g r ip p a
( F r o m H u else n , D ie T h e r m e n d e s A g r i p p a , P I. I V )
 THE CAMPUS MARTIUS, REGION IX 53

and E possibly as frigidaria, served by the corridor F. H, J,

and L seem to correspond to the sphaeristeria in the small
baths in H adrian’s villa. The plan bears a striking resem­
blance to the larger thermae at Treves.87
It will be noted in Figure 2 that the west front of the baths
parallels, at a distance of about 50 metres, a line drawn through
the centre of the Pantheon and of the Arco della Ciambella, al­
though the axes o f the two do not quite coincide. Whether the
baths were developed symmetrically on the east side of this
line, across the Via dei Cestari, cannot be determined. Huelsen
believes that the plan of the central portion of the baths was es­
sentially that of A grippa and was followed by the various
restorers.88 The halls adjoining the Pantheon, however, be­
long to the restoration o f that structure by Hadrian.89 It will
be noted that Huelsen’s plan (Fig. 2) connects the baths -with
these halls and the Pantheon by a long corridor with an apse at
each end. The existence of this corridor has recently been
called in question by von Gerkan,80 who points out that on
Lanciani’s large map (PI. 21), there is indicated in the Via
Sta. Chiara, slightly to the west of the supposed connecting
hall, a canal or gutter which must have lined a street running
eastward to the Tetrapylon, which formed the monumental en­
trance to the Serapeum, and that this street must have sepa­
rated the Thermae from the Pantheon group.81
The Horti, the Stagnum, and the Euripus
Besides the facilities for warm baths furnished by the
Laconicum and the Thermae, Agrippa also provided ample
opportunity fo r open air bathing and swimming by creating an
artificial lake, the Stagnum,82 and an ornamental canal, the
81Anderson, Spiers, Ashby, The Architecture o f Ancient Home (London, 1927), p.
100, n. 1. !! Op. cit., p. 43, n. 14.
mSee Platner-Ashby, Top. Viet., p. 519, for the extensive literature on the subject.
MGnomon, 1929, p. 277.
“ See under Pantheon, p. 61.
81Ovid, Ex Ponto, I, 8, 38: Gramine nunc Campi pulehros spectantis in hortos
stagnaque et Euripi, Virgineusque liquor. Strabo X III, 1, 19 (see Appendix
p. 9 0 ) ; Tac., Ann., X V , 37, cited in n. 96.
54 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGEIPPA

Euripus,93 for which, the water was supplied by the Aqua

V irgo,94 completed in 19 B. C. The Stagnum appears to have
occupied the space between the Via di Monterone and the Via
dei Sediari.95 It has usually been supposed that this is the
Stagnum Agrippae referred to by Tacitus, Ann., X V , 37, in
which case it was large enough to enable Tigellinus, the favor­
ite o f Nero, to build a pleasure barge upon it on which he served
banquets to his guests. The barge was towed about on its
waters by other boats while the grove and the buildings which
fringed the lake echoed with the sounds of their revelry.96 I f
this is so, we should have to assume a lake of considerable pro­
portions. It is possible, however, as has been suggested to me
by Dr. Boethius, that Tacitus was there referring to Lake Aver­
nus and the artificial harbor where Agrippa assembled his fleet
fo r the campaign o f 36 B. C. against Sextus Pompey. The
Euripus, which seems to have supplied the Stagnum with water
and also to have served as its outlet to the Tiber, received one-
sixth of the total flow of the Aqua Virgo, and this quantity of
water, amounting to 19,090 cubic metres per day,97 insured a
constant change of water in the canal itself and in the Stagnum.
Seneca98 speaks of his habit, as a younger man, of beginning
the new year with a plunge ha the icy waters of the Euripus,
and we also have a number o f references in other writers to
swimming either in the lake, or in the canal.99 The Euripus
83 Ovid, loc. cit.; Sen., Bpist., 83, 5, see n. 98; Frontin., de Aquis, II, 84; Strabo
X I I I , 1, 19 (p. 590), see n. 92.
« Frontin., loc. cit. See previous note. *•Huelsen, Top., I s, p. 580.
" Tae., Ann., X V, 37: igitur in Stagno Agrippae fabricatus est ratem, eui super­
positum convivium navium aliarum tractu moveretur . . . crepidinibus Stagni
lupanaria adstabant inlustribus feminis completa . . . iam gestus motusque
obsceni; et postquam tenebrae incedebant, quantum iuxta nemoris et circumieeta
tecta consonare cantu et luminibus elarescere. 0TSee p. 33, n. 95.
MBpist., 83, 5: ille tantus psychrolutes, qui Kalendis Januariis Euripum saluta­
bam, qui anno novo quemadmodum legere, scribere, dicere aliquid, sic auspicabar in
Virginem desilire, etc.
" No certain traces o f the Euripus o f Agrippa have been found. In 1930, how­
ever, in running trenches for the foundations for a new building o f the Society
Romana dei Beni Immobili in the angle between the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, ill
Lungotevere degli Altoviti, and the Via Paola, the excavators came on the remains
o f a Euripus, at a point where it was crossed by an ornamental footbridge of Luna
marble. This bridge, 3.20 m. wide, was approached by means of three steps at each
end. Romanelli in his report in Not. Scan., 1931, pp. 313-317, assigns this bridge
 THE CAMPUS MARTIUS, REGION IX 55

and the Stagnum were surrounded by a park,100 the Horti

Agrippae, which extended westward towards the river,101 and
probably also some little distance eastward from the Thermae.
The park must have contained a goodly number o f the 300
statues with which P lin y102 says Agrippa adorned this quarter
o f the city. W e know of at least one, the fallen lion o f Lysip­
pus mentioned by Strabo,103 who says that Agrippa brought it
from Lampsacus and set it up in the grove (aXcrei) between the
Stagnum and the Euripus. There must have been
many others. The Laconicum, the Thermae, the lake, the
canal, and the gardens constituted an ensemble which became a
favorite haunt fo r the pleasure-loving classes. They are fre­
quently mentioned by the poets,104 and particularly by Martial,
who lived at a time when the Baths o f Nero and o f Titus had al­
ready been built.
The Pantheon
Dio, in narrating the events of B. C. 25, after mentioning the
completion o f the Basilica of Neptune and the Laconicum
to the early empire. The canal itself is not so easily datable, although naturally
it is either contemporaneous -with or antedates the bridge. The canal was 3.35 m.
wide and 1.73 m. deep, and the bottom of its channel had a semicircular section.
The remains o f what was apparently the same eanal were found by Arieti in the
V ia del Pavone (Bull. Com., 1886, p. 282) and later by Laneiani near the Piazza
Sforza Cesarini (Mon. Lincei, I, Col. 542 ff., PI. I I I ). The three traces of the
canal are in line, and the general direction parallels the northeast side of the pres­
ent Corso Vittorio Emanuele. The section found by Laneiani, (see It. and E., Pig.
174) fringes the A ra Ditis, and its orientation clearly bears some relation to that
monument. This section is probably contemporaneous with a rebuilding o f the
Ara, either for the Secular Games of 17 B. C. or of 88 A. D. Now the Aqua Virgo,
with whieh the Euripus was connected, was built in 19 B. C.. and, in the celebration
o f 17 B. C., A g rippa’s role was second only to that of Augustus.
It may be that Agrippa built a braneh of the Euripus past the Tarentum and an­
other in the direction of the Pons Agrippae. This newly discovered Euripus, in
spite of its width o f over ten feet and a depth o f six feet can hardly have been
the portion of A grippa’s Euripus in which Seneca took his annual New T ear’s
plunge. I f the recently discovered eanal is to be connected with Agrippa, at all, it
must have been a branch outlet to the Tiber with possibly, as has been stated, an­
other running in the direction of the Pons Agrippae. The Euripus itself, referred
to by Ovid and Seneca in connection with the Stagnum and Horti, must have been
a larger eanal than this.
100Dio LIV , 29, see Appendix, p. 89; Ovid, Ex Ponto, I, 8, 37-38; CIL, V I, 29781;
Not. Scav., 1885, p. 343.
’“ Huelsen, Top., I s, p. 580. 103X III, 1, 19 (p. 590), cited in Appendix, p. 90.
Ira See p. 25, n. 24. 101For the references see p. 32, n. 86.
56 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGBIPPA

Sudatorium goes on to say: “ Also lie completed the building

called the Pantheon. It has this name perhaps because it re­
ceived among the images which decorated it the statues of many
gods, including Mars and Venus; but my opinion is that, be­
cause of its vaulted r o o f105 it resembles the heavens. Agrippa,
for his part, wished to place a statue o f Augustus there also,
and to bestow upon him the honor of having the structure
named after him ; but when the emperor would not accept either
honor, he placed in the temple itself a statue o f the former
Caesar and in the ante-room statues o f Augustus and himself.
This was done not out of any rivalry or ambition on A grippa’s
part to make himself equal to Augustus, but from his hearty
loyalty to him and his constant zeal for the country’s good;
hence Augustus, so far from censuring him fo r it, honored him
the more.” 106 This passage and the inscription107 on the
frieze of the pronaos: M •Agrippa ■L •f •cos ■tert,ium ■fecit,
seemed to justify the belief, which was generally held up to
1892, that, among the structures of Agrippa erected on the Cam­
pus Martius, the Pantheon presented, fewest problems, and at
least in its general lines was essentially the structure erected
by Agrippa.108 Since 1892 and the discoveries of Chedanne, to
be described la,ter, the Pantheon has been the subject of more
controversies than all the other works of A grippa put together.
Let us first discuss the historical records in regard to A gripp a’s
building down to the time of its destruction in the fire o f Titus
in 80 A. I).109
From the inscription110 it lias generally been assumed that
1OTDio was writing after the reconstruction by Hadrian. This opinion is clearly
personal and may be based upon the temple as Dio saw it at the end o f the second
century. For the question as to whether A grippa’s original temple had a vaulted
roof, see discussion on p. 60 and in n. 143.
10,1Dio L IU , 27, 2-4. The Greek text is given in the Appendix, p. 89.
GIL, V I, 896.
10aLaneiani, B. and E., p. 477, sums up the consensus o f opinion held at that time:
(1 ) that the present Pantheon inscribed with the name o f Agrippa was substantially
his work; (2) that the portico was a later addition to, or alteration of, the original
plan; (3 ) that some details of the structure, especially the inner decoration; were
the work of Hadrian and of Severus and Caracalla; (4 ) that the Pantheon had never
been used as a Caldarium (o f the baths).
100Dio L X V I, 24, 2, cited in Appendix, p. 90.
u" See n. 107. The bronze letters are modern, but set in the ancient sockets.
 THE CAMPUS MAETIUS, REGION 13: 57
the Pantheon was completed in 27 B.. C., the date of A grippa’s
third consulship. But Dio,111 who must have seen the inscrip­
tion, states that it was completed in the ninth consulship of
Augustus with M. Silanus as his colleague, that is to say in 25
B. C. Efforts have been made to harmonize these discordant
statements by the assumption that the material completion
took place in 27 B. C. and the formal dedication in 25 B. C.112
But this reasoning is quite unnecessary. According to usual
epigraphic custom the name of Agrippa would appear on in­
scriptions with the title consul tertium from 27 B. C. until his
death.113 The words consul tertium simply furnish the date
after which. As Dio gives the consuls, Augustus consul for
the ninth time, with M. Silanus as his colleague, and was no
doubt using some such annalistic record as that o f Livy, we
may assume that his date for the completion of the Pantheon
is correct.
Four other items in D io ’s account deserve special comment.
(1) It will he noted that the completion of the Pantheon took
place in the same year as the completion of the first unit of the
baths. W as there any integral connection between the two'
structures? This is discussed in n. 27. (2) Dio offers two
explanations for the name Pantheon: (a) because it received
among the statues which decorated it the statues of many gods,
including Mars and V enus; (b) his own opinion that because of
its vaulted roof it resembled the heavens. The second may be
dismissed, since it is clear that Dio was assuming that Agrip­
p a ’s structure had the same architectural features as those of
Hadrian’s reconstruction with which he was familiar. (3)
Mars and Venus were included among the “ many gods,” and a
statue of Julius Caesar was placed in the temple itself. Agrip­
pa would have placed Augustus there also, had not the latter
m L III, 27, 1, given in Appendis:, p. 89. “ Lanciani, li. and JE., p. 474.
113 One need only cite the commemorative coins struck in the year o f his death by
Cossus and Lentulus, which have C O S'TEE '; or those struek in the reign of Tiberius
which have COS • I I I • (BMC, Coins o f the Roman Umpire, PI. 4, no. 12, PI. 26,
no. 7), or Frontinus, de Aquis, I, 10, who dates the building of the Aqua Virgo as
follows: idem cum jam tertium consul fuisset, C. Sentio, Q. Lucretio consulibus
( = 19 B. C. ) . . . . Virginem quoque . . . . Romam perduxit.
58 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGRIPPA

protested. Whether Pantheon meant “ many gods,” 114 or “ all

the gods,” 115 or “ very h oly,” 116 it was A grippa’s obvious in­
tention to feature the gens Iulia and its divine ancestors. (4)
Dio mentions that the statues of Augustus and Agrippa were
placed in the pronaos. The two niches at each side of the en­
trance to the present Pantheon seem to have perpetuated this
general arrangement after H adrian’s reconstruction, and Dio
is probably describing what he saw in his own day.
The other references to A grip p a’s Pantheon down to its
destruction in the fire of Titus are surprisingly slight, when
one considers that Virgil was writing his Aeneid and Horace
the first three books of the Odes at the time of its dedication.
P lin y117 and Macrobius118 mention the fact that the earrings
o f the statue of Venus were made of the two halves of a pearl
which had belonged to Cleopatra. Pliny119 states that some of
the artistic decorations of the Pantheon were made by Diogenes
o f Athens, especially the Caryatids120 in columnis templi, and
the statues on the gable, which on account of the height at which
they were placed were not so fam ous; also that the capitals of
the columns were of Syracusan bronze.121 Dio,122 in connec­
tion with the events of B. C. 22, states that many objects in that
year were struck by lightning, especially the statues in the
Pantheon, so that the spear even fell from the hands of Augus­
tus. Suetonius123 mentions an omen occurring in 14 A. D.,
which Augustus interpreted as portending his approaching
end. While he was perform ing the lustration in the Campus
Rosch. I l l , 1555 .; Dar. Saglio IV , 315.
us Mommsen suggested the seven planetary divinities to correspond to the seven
niches of the present Pantheon. But where could Julius Caesar have stood?
m Huelsen-Jordan, Top., I 3, p. 583.
“ N. It., IX , 121. III, 17, 17.
110N. 3 ., X X X V I, 38: Agrippae Pantheum decoravit Diogenes Atheniensis; in
columnis templi eius Caryatides probantur inter pauca operum, sicut in fastigio
posita signa, sed propter altitudinem loci minus celebrata.
“ ° There is no place for these in the plan o f Hadrian’s reconstruction.
111N. 3 . , X X X IV , 13: Syracusana (aenea) sunt in Pantheo capita columnarum
a M. Agrippa posita. us LIV, 1, 1.
133 Aug., 97: Cum lustrum in Campo Martio magna populi frequentia conderet,
aquila eum saepius circumvolavit transgreasaque in vicinam aedem super nomen
Agrippae ad primam litteram sedit.
 THE CAMPUS MARTIUS, REGION I X 59

Martius, in connection with the census of that year, an eagle

circled about him: several times and then flew to a neighboring
temple and perched over the first letter of A grippa’s name.
This temple with the name of Agrippa upon it was in all prob­
ability124 the Pantheon, whose connection with the divinities
o f the gens Iulia we have already seen. In the Acta Arvalia125
for the year 59 A. D. there is a statement that the brethren met
in Pantheo, on January 12.
H istory records that A grippa’s Pantheon was destroyed in
the fire o f Titus along with the Serapeum and Iseum, the
Saepta, the Basilica Neptuni, the Diribitorium, the theatre
of Balbus, the stage building of Pom pey’s theatre, the Porticus
Octaviae with its library, and the temple o f Jupiter Capitolinus
with its surrounding temples.126 It was restored by Domi­
tiam127 It was struck by lightning again under Trajan in 110
A. D. and burned.128 It is clear, therefore, that neither the
original structure, nor Domitian :ls restoration, were fireproof,
and that from this point o f view the construction must have
been radically different from that of the existing Pantheon.
Hadrian restored it, along with several other buildings of
Agrippa in this region : the Saepta, the Basilica Neptuni, and
the Baths.129 He also occasionally held court there.130 That
this restoration is represented by the existing Pantheon we
shall see later, and it is probable that the mention made in
Julius Capitolinus131 o f a restoration by Antoninus Pius refers
to the completion of Hadrian’s work. The last restoration in
antiquity of which we have knowledge is that of Severus and
Especially since Lundstrom lias made it clear (op. cit.) that the letters GBI on
the fragment of the Marble Plan (see Huelsen’s map, fig. 2) have nothing to do with
Agrippa, but that the name o f the building to which they belonged was Porticus
Meleapri. (See p. 66.)
“ “ OIL, V I, 2041.
12t Dio L X V I, 24, 1-2, cited in Appendis, p. 90.
127 Hieron., an. Abr. 2105, mentions it last in a long list of constructions by that
emperor. Cf. also Chron. Min., p. 146.
128 Orosius V II, 12: Pantheon Romae fulmine concrematum; c f. Hieron., an. Abr.
2127.
m Vit. Sadr., 19, cited in Appendix, p. 92. 131 Vit. Antonin. Pii, c. 8.
130Dio L X IX , 7, 1.
60 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGRIPPA

Caracalla, 202 A. D. The smaller inscription132 on the archi­

trave, below the Agrippa inscription, states, after the long list
of titles of the two emperors: Pantheum vetustate corruptum
cum omni cultu restituerunt. The last mention of the Pan­
theon in ancient literature is in Cod. Theod., X IV , 3, 10: lecta
in Pantheo Non. Nov. (368 or 370 A. D .).
What traces o f A grippa’s Pantheon, either in the way of
actual remains or of the original plan are to be found in the
present Pantheon1? We have seen that A gripp a’s Pantheon,
destroyed in the fire of Titus, cannot have been fire proof, and
must have had a roof of wood. Had the roofed rotunda, 144
feet in diameter and of equal height, been a feature of the orig­
inal building, Pliny and Dio would hardly have singled out
A gripp a’s Diribitorium for special mention on account of the
size o f its roof, and had its general dimensions been o f the mag­
nitude of the present Pantheon, it is hard to see how such an
architectural marvel could have escaped the mention of con­
temporary Augustan writers. W e have already seen that
there is no place in the present plan fo r the Caryatids of the
Athenian sculptor Diogenes. The original Pantheon may have
been a structure of quite a different character from the present.
The startling discovery was made in 1892 by the French ar­
chitect Chedanne183 that the present rotunda was erected un­
der Hadrian about the years 120-124 A. D., notwithstanding the
evidence of the Agrippa inscription on the pronaos. Brick-
stamps found in the dome, and later in the other parts of the
rotunda, established this fact beyond a doubt. Chedanne’s
discoveries led to investigations by Beltram i134 and Armanini
in 1892-93, which have been followed more recently by the
studies of Colini and Gismondi,135 of Cozzo138 about the same
time,' and finally the as yet unpublished studies which have been
made by the architect Terenzio and his colleagues during the
CIL, VI, 896.
133 His results were not published.
11 Pantheon (Milan, 1898).
133Bull. Corn., 1927, p. 67 ff. 130Ingegneria Romana (Rome, 1928).
 THE CAMPUS MARTIUS, REGION IX 61

recent thorough repairs on the structure.137 Space will not

permit more than a summary of their findings.138 They are
not always in agreement, so that the riddle of the sphinx of the
Campus Martius is still in part unsolved.
Without going into the details of these differences of opinion,
the main results as summarized by von Glerkan,139 and in the
new edition of Anderson and Spiers, The Architecture of An­
cient Rome, revised by Thomas Ashby in 1927,110 are as follow s:
The present domed rotunda, the octostyle portico, the rec­
tangular projection141 connecting the two, and also the rec­
tangular hall to the south, formerly called the Laconicum, were
the work of H adrian’s time. The so-called Grottoni, which
connected the latter with the rotunda, also show stamps of
Hadrian’s time and must have been built as a reinforcement of
the rotunda wall, on the south side, shortly after its erection.
The restoration under Severus, already referred to, probably
had to do with repairs which became necessary as the result of
cracks which had developed, and may also have included the
renewal of some o f the interior decorative features.142 If these
views are correct, and they represent the consensus of opinion,
no part o f the present Pantheon can be ascribed to Agrippa,143
and the inscription may be explained in the light of Hadrian’s
well-known policy, as stated by Aelius Spartianus, of not plac-
137 There is a sketchy report by Carlo Montani in Capitolium, Sept., 1932.
An excellent review is given by von Gerkan in Gnomon, 1929, p. 273 ff.
“ Op. cit. >“ Pp. 78-82.
*“ Colini and Gismondi, op. cit., seem to have proven that the portico and the
rectangular projection called by the Italian architects the “ avaneorpo,” were
built contemporaneously. Cozzo, op. cit., agrees with this conclusion, but considered
both to be later than the wall, of the rotunda.
ia Cozzo, op. cit., ascribed to Severus the transfer o f the portico with the Agrippa
inscription to the north side o f the Pantheon in the belief that it originally adjoined
the large hall to the south, which in his opinion formed, as it were, an atrium to the
Pantheon; he also believed that the portico originally dated from the time of
Augustus. This theory was not confirmed in the recent repfiirs o f the crack in the
south axis, since the investigation revealed no entrance to the rotunda on that side.
143 Cozzo apparently still held to the theory that the rotunda goes back to Agrippa,
although the dome was o f later construction, and that the superposition o f the dome
upon the rotunda caused the cracks to appear which made necessary the building of
the structure known as the Grottoni to the south and also the rectangular projection
on the north to support the rotunda wall, as :it were, between the jaws of a vise,
against the thrust o f the dome.
62 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGRIPPA

ing his own name on a building which he either built or restored,

except in the case of the temple of Trajan.144
Where then shall we look for the traces of A g rip p a ’s Pan­
theon? In the excavations conducted under the present Pan­
theon, by Beltrami and Armanini, and later by Colini and
Grismondi, there were found under the portico, at a depth of
about 2.50 m., the walls of the podium of an oblong rectangular
building, presumably a temple, with its pronaos projecting to
the south from the long side o f the rectangle, as in the case of
the temple of Concord. The walls of the foundations were of
travertine blocks, with rusticated facings. These foundations
are usually identified as belonging to the Pantheon of Agrip­
pa.145 The dimensions of the building proper were 43.76 by
19.82 metres. On its north foundation wall (see Figure 3)
rest the eight columns of the present portico, which has a width
of 34 m. The earlier wall therefore extended 4.88 m. in each
direction beyond the present row of columns. This gave
rise to the theory of Chedanne, now disproved, that originally
the portico was longer, and had ten columns instead of eight.148
The width of the southward-facing pronaos o f the older temple
was 21.6 metres,147 roughly half o f the length o f the long side
of the rectangle from which it projected. This arrangement
which, as we have seen, recalls that of the temple of Concord,
also suggests the possibility that the pediment o f the pronaos
may have been supported by the Caryatids o f Diogenes, men­
tioned by Pliny as a feature of A grip p a’s temple, and that
Agrippa, or his architect, may have been influenced by this
feature o f the Erectheum.
Some eight feet below the floor of the rotunda itself were
found traces of the concrete bed o f a marble pavement, which
underlay the greater part of the area, now covered by the ro-
144 Vit. Hadr., 19.
145At the southwest corner were found traces! of an outer rdarble incrustation
which yon Gerhan (op. ait.) would ascribe to the restoration by Domitian.
146The studies of Colini, op. cit., have shown that the slope o f the present gable
was original.
141Traces of its foundation were found under the stair-well o f the present
Pantheon to the west of the entrance.
THE CAMPUS MARTIUS, REGION IX
64 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OE AGRIPPA

tunda. Von Gerkan believes that this pavement, on account

of objects found under it, belongs to the time of the restoration
by Domitian, but that the area may perhaps go back to the time
of Agrippa. The finding of this pavement raises two ques­
tions: (1) did it belongs to a building; (2) or was it the pave­
ment of an open pia-zza? The levels show that this pavement
sloped from the center outward, which would indicate an at­
tempt at drainage, and would therefore favor the latter view,
but it is also possible that the sloping o f the pavement may
have been due to the pressure caused by the building of the
rotunda with its massive walls, which tended to make the cir­
cumference of the circle sink more than the center. The prob­
lem still remains unsolved as to whether the area to which this
pavement belongs was circular in shape and whether Hadrian
in rebuilding the Pantheon after the fire, which occurred in the
reign of Trajan, was reproducing in his domed rotunda a fea­
ture which dated, in its ground plan at least, from A grippa’s
day. It may have been that this circular area, whether roofed
or not, was surrounded by a wall, not necessarily a high one,148
in which there were niches for the statues o f the gods referred
to by Dio Cassius.149 In this case the older temple already
referred to was entered from the area, and the Agrippa inscrip­
tion must originally have been on the south fagade of the temple
instead of on the north, as at present.150 It will be recalled
that Suetonius,151 in narrating the omens which preceded the
death o f Augustus, stated that when Augustus was reviewing
the people in the Campus Martius an eagle flew about his head
and settled on a neighboring temple over the letter A of A grip­
p a ’s name, which to Augustus signified his own approaching
It has been surmised that a low wall o f reticulate work 60 cm. thick, which can
still be seen at the level o f Hadrian’s rotunda, flanking the exterior of the rotunda
wall and concentric with it may have been such an enclosure wall (see Platner-Ashby,
Top. Diet., p. 385, n. 2, and Lanciani, E. and E., p. 481), but it is more likely that this
particular wall is o f Hadrianie date and formed part of the foundation-system of
the drum. (See von Gerkan, op. cit., p. 276.)
LIII, 27.
Lundstrom, op. cit., so believes, also Boethius in his review in Gnomon, 1931.
151See n. 123.
 THE CAMPUS MARTIUS, REGION IX 65

end. I f this temple, as now seems probable,132 was the Pan­

theon, then, in order fo r an inscription on the south fagade
to be visible from the Campus Martins, the walls of the en­
closure o f the circular area cannot have been of any great
height.
We are concerned in this article primarily with the building
operations of Agrippa. The Pantheon, as rebuilt by Hadrian,
though now despoiled of its gilded roof, the gilded rosettes of
the coffers of the ceiling o f the dome, the marble decorations of
the attic story removed in 1747, and the bronze trusses (450,-
251 pounds in weight) supporting; the roof of the portico which
Urban V III caused to be melted up to cast cannon for Castel
S. Angelo, is still one of the architectural marvels of the world,
the starting point of the studies of all the great fifteenth and
sixteenth century architects. Its construction, apparently so
simple, is most complex, even to the professional architect. It
forms a subject by itself, which can best be studied in some re­
cent work amply illustrated by plans, sections, and details of
construction, such as R ivoira’s Roman Architecture, 1925, or
Anderson, Spiers, Ashby, The Architecture of Ancient Rome,
1927.
Sepulcrum Agrippae
Somewhere in the Campus Martius, and probably in Region
IX , was located the tomb which Agrippa had intended for him­
self, but which remained so far as he was concerned a mere
cenotaph, since we are informed by D io153 that Augustus
buried A grippa in his own mausoleum, although Agrippa had
taken one for himself in the Campus Martius. Huelsen154 be­
lieved that this tomb of Agrippa was the vicina aedes on which
the eagle perched over the first letter of the name of Agrippa
on the occasion of the omen already mentioned on p. 64, which
to Augustus portended his own approaching end. He further
“ See below under Sepulcrum Agrippae.
188LIV, 28, 5.
154 Top., Is, p. 572, also Taf, X (facing p. 568).
66 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGRIPPA

thought that fragments 103 and 72 of the Marble Plan, which,

as put together by him, yield the letters
M . . . . GRI
. . . VLI . , .
represented two tombs (1) sepulchru]m or monumentu]m
[A ]gri[p p ae] and (2) monumentum I]u li [orum]. These
tombs, he thought, lay between the Thermae Agrippae and the
Villa Publica because of the letters PU B LIC on another frag­
ment (97) of the Marble Plan. On his map (see Figure 2) he
has inserted the main fragment a little to the southwest of the
Serapeum. But this explanation has been set at naught by
the masterful solving o f the puzzle by Lundstrom155 who has
fitted in still another fragment (frag. 95), preserved only in a
drawing, and has shown that the two monuments were POR-
T IC [U S ] M [E L E A ]G R I and A E [D E S I] V L I [ORUM].
We must therefore look elsewhere in the Campus Martius for
A grippa’s tomb.
The Pons Agrippae
To the numerous building activities of Agrippa in the
Campus Martins we may add a Pons Agrippae which crossed
the Tiber a short distance above the later Pons Aurelius, the
present Ponte Sisto. W e owe our knowledge of the existence
o f this Pons Agrippae entirely to a cippus150 set up by the
curatores riparum in the reign o f Claudius which states that
they had regulated the Tiber bank and placed such cippi “ a
Trigario ad Pontem Agrippae.” B orsari157 identified this
bridge with four piers discovered in the bed of the river, 102
metres above the axis of the Ponte Sisto, on the east bank, and
132 m. above it on the west bank. The location of the tomb
of Platorinus, which belongs to the Augustan Age, shows that
at that period a street ran from the western bridge-head
,M See n. 42.
IMCIL, VI, 31545. This cippus was found in 1877, behind the Church o f S.
Biagio della Pagnotta, near the Strada Giulia.
111Not. Scav., 1887, p. 323. See Bull. Com., 1888, pp. 92-98, Pis. IV and V ; also
Lanciani, R. and E., pp. 21-22.
 THE CAMPUS MARTIUS, REGION IX 67

towards the Janiculum. The bridge, if it had not already been

damaged by floods, was apparently torn down when Caracalla
built the Pons Aurelius, and perhaps its materials were used
in the construction of the later bridge. A change of angle of
20° between the axis of the Pons Agrippae and the Pons
Aurelius indicates that the course of the river had also been
changed.
A clue as to the occasion and the probable date of the build­
ing of the bridge, which seems to have escaped the notice of the
topographers, is furnished by a statement of Frontinus in re­
gard to the Aqua Virgo, which Agrippa built in 19 B. C. He
says that that axqueduct served Regions V II, IX , and X IV .158
Now the Fourteenth Region is aeross the river from Region
Nine, and, i f the aqueduct as built by Agrippa originally served
the Trastevere quarter, its conduit must have been carried over
the Tiber on a bridge, and as the inscription testifies to the fact
that A grippa built a bridge, we may assume that this bridge
carried his aqueduct, and that the two were probably contem­
poraneous. W e have seen in the previous paragraph that a
street ran from the western bridge-head to the Janiculum in
Augustan times, and presumably the bridge canned a road as
well as the conduit o f the Virgo, as in the case of the Pont du
Grard near Nimes. As the level of the Virgo was the lowest of
all the aqueducts, except the Appia and the Alsietina,159 the
conduit cannot have been much higher than the parapet of the
bridge itself. The water of the Alsietina which Augustus built
to serve his naumachia in Region X IV , in 2 B. C., was according
to Frontinus not suitable for drinking. The construction of the
Aqua Traiana in 109 A. D., not long after Frontinus wrote his
work on the aqueducts, must have made the supply from the
V irgo superfluous from that time on, so that when Caracalla
built the Pons Aurelius, the present Ponte Sisto, a short dis­
tance below the site of the now dismantled Pons Agrippae,
there was no need for it to carry the conduit of the Virgo.
Be Aquis, II, 84. See also p. 33, n. 94. Frontin., de Aquis, I, 18.
68 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGRIPPA

Three other structures in Region I X have been assigned to

Agrippa by individual topographers, either erroneously or
without sufficient evidence.
Lanciani on p. 443 of Ruins and Excavations of Ancient
Rome erroneously lists the Villa Publica among A grippa’s
buildings, although on p. 472 of the same work he states that it
was rebuilt by P. Fonteius Capito.
Lanciani also lists among the works o f Agrippa the Porticus
Eventus Boni.160 This porticus and the temple from, which
it got its name are mentioned only once in literature. Ammi­
anus Marcellinus161 states that Claudius, Prefect o f the city in
374 A. D., restored many ancient structures and reared a huge
portico adjoining the baths of Agrippa, which portico was
named Eventus Boni after a temple of that divinity near by.
Five large capitals of white marble, 1.70 metres high, which
were found between the present church of S. Maria in Monte-
rone and the Theatro Valle, may belong to the porticus and
thus mark its position.162 Sarti163 would identify the temple
itself with some ancient peperino walls on the site o f S. Maria
in Monterone.104 Plainer-Ashby suggests that the temple may
have been one o f the buildings of Agrippa.165 But there is no
real evidence to connect either the portico or the temple with
Agrippa except their proximity to his Thermae. As for the
portico, it would appear from the context in Ammianus that
this was a new structure and not a restoration.
150Ituins and Excavations, pp. 443, 445.
361X X IX , 6, 17: instauravit vetera plurima, inter quae porticum excitavit in­
gentem lavacro Agrippae contiguam, Eventus Boni cognominatam, ea quod huius
numinis prope visitur templum.
183Platner-Ashby, Top. Diet., p. 420.
383Arch. d. Soc. Bom. di Storia Patria, IX , 476.
381See map in fig. 2 ; also Huelsen, Top., P, p. 581; Thermen des Agrippa, pp.
33-34.
388 Top. Diet., p. 89.
69
 GROUP III

TH E CAM PUS A G R IP P A E AND THE PORTICUS

V IP S A N IA IN REGION VH
 G roup III
TH E CAM PUS A G R IP P A E AND THE PORTICUS
V IP S A N IA IN REGION VII
A s early as 19 B. C. Agrippa had constructed the Aqua Virgo
across Region V II. This ran along the edge of the Pincian
Hill, turned southwest near the Via Capo le Case, where it
emerged and began to run on arches for the remaining 700 paces
of its course. Just before crossing the modern Via del Tritone
it turned southwest by south to the modern Piazzi. di Trevi,
and thence a little south of west to the Via Flaminia, which it
crossed, and ended a short distance beyond the northern end
o f the Saepta. In the area bounded on the east and south by
the arches of the aqueduct and on the west by the Via Flaminia
the topographers locate the Campus Agrippae, and along the
Via Flaminia the Porticus Vipsania which housed the famous
map o f Agrippa. W e have references to both, but none which
assign a definite date for either of them within the life of
Agrippa. W e have definite information that the Portions
Vipsania was not finished until more than five years after his
death. Both present certain problems. Was the aqueduct
the eastern limit o f the Campus, or did the Campus extend be­
yond it? W hat were its northern limits? How far north did
the Porticus Vipsania extend? Do the references in Martial,
in which he uses the adjective Vipsanius, refer to the Portico
or to the Campus, or were the two regarded as a single group,
covered in Martial \s mind by a single name ? Do his frequent
references to Europa refer to a painting in the Porticus, or to a
statuary group in the gardens of the Campus? These prob­
lems will be discussed under the separate heads.
Campus Agrippae
Dio states,1 among the events of the year 7 B. C., that
’Aypiirireiov was made public property by Augustus,
r d TTtdiov t &

1XjV, 8, 3-4. The Greek text is quoted in full in Appendix, p. 90. It will be
there noted that in the first sentence he says rrjs crroas and in the last sentence
73
74 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGRIPPA

but that the portico located upon it (i. e. the Porticus Yipsania)
was not included. Gellius mentions the Campus Agrippae as
the scene of the conversation which took place in N. A. X IV , 5,2
It is listed in the Curiosum and the Notitia3 under Regio VII,
Via Lata, along with the Porticus Gypsiani or Gyptiani, which
is no doubt a corruption o f Vipsanii or Vipsania. W e have no
other mention of it by name in. ancient sources except for a
statement that Aurelian castra in campo Agrippae dedicavit.4
It was evidently laid out as a park, and the reference in Gellius
already quoted shows that it was a favorite promenade. While
we have no reference to it by name it is not improbable that
numerous passages in Martial have to do with the park rather
than with the Porticus Vipsania with which they have been
ordinarily associated. The Vipsaniae laurus5 on which his
lodgings looked, certainly suggest a park rather than a portico,
and the adjective may mean nothing more than Agrippianae,
or Agrippae.6 Poets are given to suggestive rather than lit­
eral terms. Four7 of the epigrams, in which he is referring to
favorite haunts, contain the name of Europa, under various
guises. Huelsen assumed that this was a painting in the Por­
ticus Vipsania, and was used by Martial to designate that
Portico. But the expressions Europes tepida buxeta,8 and An
delicatae sole rursus Europae, inter tepentes post meridiem
buxos9 clearly refer to a park or gardens, and, if they are to be
$ kv 7-tp iredly aroa, showing that the Porticus stood on the Campus, but was not in­
cluded at this time in the gift to the people, either because it was not finished or be­
cause it was built by Agrippa’s sister and did not come under the property which
Augustus had inherited from Agrippa.
1 Defessus ego quondam diutina commentatione laxandi levandique animi gratia
in Agrippae Campo deambulabam. Atque ibi duos forte grammaticos conspicatus,
etc.
3 See Appendix, p. 92. 8 Chronogr. an. 354 in Mon. Germ. Hist., IX , p. 148.
“ I, 108, 3.
8 It may be that the Vipsanis Columnis of Mart., IV , 18, 1-2 (Qua vicina pluit
Vipsanis porta columnis / Et madet assiduo lubricus imbre lapis) refer to Agrippa’s
nomen rather than to that of his sister, in view o f the fact that the excavations in the
Piazza Colonna make it necessary to move the supposed location o f the Porticus
Vipsania north to 7 metres south o f the Via del Tritone, a considerable distance
from the aqueduct. See p. 76, n. 23.
8 Mart., II, 14; lines 3 and 15; III, 20, 12; V II, 32, 11-12; X I, 1, 10.
8II, 14, 15. 8I II, 20, 12-13.
 PUBLIO WORKS IN REGION VII 75

connected with Agrippa at all, must refer to the Campus. In

this case the Europa must have been a sculptured group10
standing in the park, rather than a painting.
As has been already stated the limits o f the Campus Agrip­
pae to the north are uncertain, and there is also a question as to
whether it extended eastward beyond the arches o f the Aqua
Virgo up the valley between the Quirinal and the Pincian Hills.
Becker,11 and after him Huelsen,12 thought that the Campus
Agrippae was rd aXXo «51 ov of the famous description of Borne
in Strabo.13 But the identification does not seem possible.
The mention of three theatres, an amphitheatre, costly temples
in close succession, as well as the colonnades all round about it,
makes it much more likely that Strabo is there describing the
region of the Circus Flaminius. Arm ini14 identifies that part
o f the Campus Martius which lay east of the V ia Flaminia, in
which the Campus Agrippae was later laid out, as the Campus
Minor of Catullus.15
Porticus Vipsania
The chief source of our information in regard to this portico
is the passage of Dio already cited,16 in which he states that in
7 B. C. Augustus made the Campus Agrippae, with the excep­
tion of the Porticus, public property, and then goes on to say in
the same connection that “ the portico in the Campus (sc.
Agrippae) which was being built by Polla, A g rip p a’s sister,
who also adorned the race-courses, was not yet finished.”
Pliny,17 in connection with the world-map of Agrippa, which
“ A. Reinach, Neapolis, II, 1915, pp. 231-253, attempts to show that this was a
group by Pythagoras brought from Tarentum.
11P. 597.
12Jordan-Huelsen, I s, p. 458.
,s V, 3, 8, cited in Appendix, p. 90.
“ Eranos, 1923, pp. 53-54.
15 53, 3. Te in Campo quaesivinus Minore
Te in Circo, te in omnibus libellis.
16LV, 8, 3-4. See Appendix, p. 90.
17N. B., I l l , 17: Agrippa quidem in tanta viri diligentia praeterque in hoc opere
(the map) cura, cum orbi terrarum spectandum propositurus esset, errasse quis eum
eredat et cum eo divum Augustum 1 Is namque complexam eum porticum ex desti­
natione et commentariis M. Agrippae a sorore eius incohatam peregit.
76 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGBIPPA

was set up in this portico, states that the portico was begun by
A grippa’s sister in accordance with the purpose and the will
o f Agrippa, and was completed by Augustus. The name of
the portico, corrupted in the manuscripts to Vipsanda, or in-
spanda, is found in another passage 18 of the same author. It
is mentioned by Tacitus19 and Plutarch20 in connection with
the events of 69 A. D., as the place where detachments of the
Illyrian Army were quartered. It is also listed along with the
Campus Agrippae in the Notitia, Reg. V II,21 where the name
had been corrupted to Porticus Gypsiam. From a passage in
Martial,22 it was formerly supposed that it extended along the
Via Flaminia nearly as far south as the Aqua Virgo, but the
excavations of 1914-16, opposite the Piazza Colonna, seem to
show that the remains of a colonnade, extending only 7 metres
south of the Via del Tritone, was the southern limit of the
portico.23 Its northern limit has not yet been determined, al­
though remains conforming to the same plan were found in ex­
cavating for the Palazzo Bocconi.24 The width of the colon­
nade, as disclosed by the excavation of the southern end in
1914-16, exceeded 43 m., of which 33 m. comprising the eastern
end were excavated,, disclosing seven bases fo r pilasters aver­
aging 3 m. apart. The Vipscmis Columnis o f Martial, as al­
ready suggested,26 may refer to some smaller monument in the
Campus Agrippae, near the Aqua Virgo, but associated in the
poet’s 26 mind with Agrippa himself, and not with his sister.
Mention has already27 been made of the fact that Becker and
Huelsen thought that numerous references to Europa in Mar­
tial had to do with a painting in the Porticus Vipsania. As
two of them clearly describe a park, and are hardly applicable
to a portico, the references must apply to the Campus Agrippae
“ Plin., N. H., V I, 139. 30 Galba, 25.
13Hist., I, 31. 33 See Appendix, p. 92.
“ Cited on p. 74, n. 6.
33Bull. Com., 19l4, p. 209; 1915, p. 218; and particularly 1917, p. 220; Not. Sccuo.,
1915, p. 35; 1917, pp. 9-20.
34Cantarelli, Bull. Com., 1917, p. 220; Not. Scav., 1917, p. 16.
“ P. 74, n. 6. “ See p.' 74, n. 6. 37 See p. 74.
 PUBLIC WORKS IN REGION Y II 77
and not to the portico, if indeed Europa is to be associated with
this region at all.
This portico, with its still more important map,28 the plans
fo r which were carried on by A grippa’s sister and completed
by Augustus, formed a fitting monument to the self-effacing
adjutant of the emperor, who both in works of war and of peace
ranks second only to Augustus himself as a builder of the
empire.
It was his original project to display to the Romans, and
visitors to Rome, on a huge scale and in a special building, the
known world of which the Roman Empire formed so large a
part. His own official duties, first as general, and subsequent­
ly as co-regent with Augustus, had taken him from one end of
the empire to the other, from Sinope in the east to the Cantabri
in the west, and north into Gaul, where he was the second
Roman general to cross the Rhine with an army, and to Pan­
nonia, whence he returned to die. The map and the portico
built to house it became in a sense a fitting symbol of his life.
Agrippa was par excellence a practical man, and the map
probably served practical rather than scientific ends. Its
measuring rods were no doubt the milestones of the Roman
roads rather than latitude and longitude. "We have no infor­
mation as to whether the map was cut in the marble of a wall,
or in the pavement o f the portico. W e can only exercise con­
jecture as to what the xoiKiiSiiara were, which are mentioned by
Strabo29 who evidently saw it about 7 B. C., and whether the dis­
tances which Pliny so often quotes from Agrippa were cut in
the stone as appendices to the map itself, or were taken from a
book o f commentarii prepared by Agrippa to supplement the
map.30
28 For the map and ita relation to the portico, see p. 7S, and for the references to
it in Pliny, N. H., see notes 17 and 18.
20II, 5, i7. See Appendix, p. 90.
30For the map, see especially Detlefsen, Vrsprung, Ein-richtung und Bedewtwng
der Erdcarte Agrippas (Berlin, 1906). For the extensive literature on the sub­
ject see Schanz, Gesch. Roem. Litt., M-ullers Eandbnch, V III, ii, pt. 1 (1911), p.
459. In Klio, 1931, pp. 38-58, 386-466, the Commentarii have received exhaustive
treatment from Alfred Klotz.
 GROUP IV

TH E H O R R E A A G R IP P IA N A (Reg. V I I I ) ; THE H YD RA
OF TH E LACUS SER VILIU S (Reg. V I I I ) ; DECORA­
TIONS OF THE CIRCUS (Reg. X I)
 G roup IV

TH E H O R R E A A G R IP P IA N A (Reg. V I I I ) ; TH E HYDRA
OF TH E LACU S SER VILIU S (Reg. V I I I ) ; DECORA­
TIONS OF TH E CIRCUS (Reg. X I)
Horrea Agrippiana
A series o f warehouses situated at the foot of the Palatine
Hill along its northwestern edge, between the Clivus Victoriae
and the Vicus Tuscus, which were partially excavated by Boni
in 1904 and again in 1912, were presumably1 the work of
Agrippa, and along with the sewers and aqueducts bear wit­
ness to his penchant for erecting structures of a semipublic and
utilitarian nature. Bartoli believes that they were connected
with the administration of the Annona.2
The name Horrea Agrippiana appears on three inscriptions,3
one of which was found in the excavations, and possibly on a
fourth.4 It also occurs in the Curiosum? under Region VIII.
1 There is no specific evidence, as in the case of his more pretentious buildings,
connecting them with the name of Agrippa. But in the light of the inscriptions
cited in n. 3, and the analysis o f Bartoli, (see n. 2 ), there is really little doubt that
these warehouses were either built by Agrippa or named in his honor.
’ Mon. Antich., 27, 1921, p. 398. He bases his conclusion upon the fact that the
inscription upon the marble base found in the excavations (see n. 3 ), records the
fact that the three dedicators call themselves immunes. This immunitas was the
privilege of negotiatores qui annonam u riis adiuvant (Dig., L, 6, 3 ). Schneider-
Graziosi, Bull. Com., 1914, 25-33 takes the Bame view.
3 C1L, V I, 9972; 10026, apparently of the first century, are sepulchral inscrip­
tions of persons who are called vestiarii de 'horreis Agrippianis. The third of these
inscriptions, found in the excavations on the base o f a statue to the GeniuB of the
Horrea Agrippiana (Cf. Bartoli, op. cit., p. 379), reads as follows: (Pro) salut •
Genium • horreor / (A ) grippianorum • negotiantib / L • Arrius • Hermes / C •
Varius •Polyearpus / 6 ■Paeonius • Chrysanthus / immunes s • p • d • d. On the
side of the same base appear the words: posit ■ dedie ■ V • Idus • Iun / Cn • Cos-
sutio • Eustropho / L • Manlio • Philadelpho, and to the right of these two names:
Cur • ann • III.
4 CIL, X IV , 3958, a sepulchral inscription found at Nomentum, o f a certain
vestiarius de horreis Agrippinianis. The fact that, as in the case o f the first two in­
scriptions cited in the previous note, it refers to a vestiarius might suggest that
Agrippinianis may simply be a slip of the stone-cutter. But it is also possible that
Horrea, of which we know nothing, may have been erected by one of the two
Agrippinas.
6In the Notitia we find Morrea Germaniciana et Agrippiana. Bartoli, loc. cit., p.
382 (see n. 2 ), has shown, by citing 82 examples in the Curiosum and the Notitia,
81
82 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGBIPPA

It is represented, though not by name, on the fragments of the

Marble Plan of Septimius Severus6 as having three units built
around three courtyards, and lying between the Clivus V ic­
toriae and the Vicus Tuscus, which are named in the plan.
These courtyards are trapezoidal in shape to conform to the
gradual converging of these two streets. The largest and
most northerly of these units, lying between the church of
S. Teodoro and the so-called Temple of Augustus, has been
excavated and identified both by the plan, and by the inscrip­
tion bearing the name.7
The trapezoidal court of the excavated portion was original­
ly an open area, paved with slabs of travertine. This open
area was surrounded by a portico of two or more stories, be­
hind which were rectangular chambers, whose walls were built,
at least on the first story, of tufa (opus quadratumJ.8 The
space between the pilasters of the portico was half the width of
each cella. The back wall on the north side was originally of
opus quadratum, but was reconstructed in brickwork by Domi-
tian when he erected or rebuilt the so-called Temple of Augus­
tus. The court at a later date was filled with constructions of
various periods.9 Brick pillars were first built to support
awnings’. The chapel which contained the statue of the Genius
Horreorum Agrippianorum was erected in the second century
or third, as is shown by the style of its mosaic floor. Still later,
that there was a tendency to group different structures o f the same type un­
der one heading, and that the Notitia was probably grouping two different
Horrea located in Beg. V III, and points to the fact that the inscriptions show
simply Horrea Agrippiana. Huelsen, Forum 'Romanum, p. 169, gives the double
name: Germaniciana et Agrippiana. In the Forum und Palatin, p. 51, and also in
the English edition he calls the building simply Horrea Germaniciana. In both he
seems to have made a strange slip. Beferring to the inscription on the marble base
found in the court he says: “ In einer dieser Hoefe . . . ist eine Marmorbasis
gefunden, welehe den Narnen des Gebaudes Horrea Germaniciana nennt: er weisst
auf ihre Grundung durch Germanieus in der Zeit des Augustus Oder Tiberius.” The
inscription, which we have given in n. 3, says distinctly Genium horreor (A )
grippianorum.
‘ Fragments 37 and 86. Lanciani, Bull. Com., 1885, pp. 157-160, was the first to
identify the structure there represented with the Horrea Agrippiana.
* Cited in n. 3.'
8For a ground plan see Mon. Antich., 27, 1921, pp. 274-402, also Pis. I and II.
0Plainer-Ashby, p. 260.
 REGIONS V III AND X I 83

after the fourth century, as is shown by an inscribed stone

which was used as building material, the courtyard was com­
pletely occupied by medieval structures, which were, however,
arranged with reference to the pilasters of the portico. This
fact led B artoli10 to believe that it continued to be used by the
Byzantine and Gothic governments and even by the Church,
after the building o f S. Teodoro in the centre o f the three
courtyards, for the administration of the Annona.11
The Hydra of the Lacus Servilius
Strabo,12 in his famous description of contemporary Borne,
mentions the copious fountains (xpowovs a<t>6avovs) with which,
he adds, Agrippa especially concerned himself though he also
adorned the city with many other structures. Pliny13 states
that within the single year of his aedileship (33 B. C.) Agrippa
constructed 700 lacus, 500 salientes, and 300 castella (i. e., of
the aqueducts), and on these works he placed 300 statues of
marble or bronze, and 400 marble columns. Of these numerous
fountains we have specific mention of only one.14 W e are in­
debted to Festus (290) for the statement1®that Agrippa adorn­
ed the Lacus Servilius, at the head of the Vicus Jugarius and
near the Basilica Julia, by placing upon it the figure of a hydra,
presumably because the hydra, with its multiplicity of heads,
lent itself readily to a fountain of many jets. The Lacus
Servilius was already in existence in the time of Sulla, as we
10 Op. cit., pp. 398-402.
u Eor works dealing with the Horrea Agrippiana other than those mentioned in
the notes see: Huelsen-Carter, The Forwm and Palatine, p. 192; Bull. Com., 1911,
158-172; Mitt., 1905, 84; 1925, 213-214; Year’s Work, 1915, 1-2; Paully-Wissowa,
V III, 2461.
11V, 3 , 8. See Appendix, p. 90.
13N. 11., X X X V I, 121. See Appendix, p. 91. He may be wrong in ineluding
all these structures within the compass o f a single year. In the same passage he
is eertainly wrong in placing the Aqua Virgo in the aedileship of Agrippa. See
discussion on p. 26.
14Unless Martial, IV, 18, 1, Qua vidua pluit Vipsanis porta columnis, is refer­
ring to an ornamental fountain and not to the Porticus Vipsania, as is usually
thought. See p. 74, n. 6.
15Servilius lacus appellabatur ab eo qui eum faeiendum curaverat in principio
vici Iugari, continens basilicae Juliae; in quo loco fuit effigies hydrae posita a M.
Agrippa.
84 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGRIPPA

know from references to it in Cicero16 and Seneca17 referring

to the proscriptions. Remains of this republican Lacus Serv­
ilius are thought,18 though without certainty, to have been
found under the imperial pavement of the Vicus Jugarius.
These remains are of brown Anio stone, and measure 5 by 11
metres.19 If this identification is correct, and, as stated in
Platner-Ashby,20 it was destroyed at the time o f the restora­
tion21 of the temple of Saturn by Plancus ( circ. 42 B. C.), it
must have been moved at that time, or by Agrippa, to a near-by
site.
The Dolphins and Ova on the Spina of the Circus
W e have seen that D io22 in recording the acts of Agrippa
during his aedileship in 33 B. C. states that he set up in the
circus dolphins and egg-shaped devices to mark the laps of the
races. This item seems inconsequential among his more im­
portant works. Dio probably excerpted it from a more exten­
sive account of what Agrippa had done in connection with the
games of the circus. Agrippa appears to have been interested
in racing. At the Ludi Saeculares in 17 B. C. it was he who
conducted the races of quadrigae.23 b[ames of his freedmen24
occur in a list of jockeys on an inscription of the familia quad­
rigaria of T. Ateius Capito, indicating that at some time in his
life Agrippa probably o w e d a racing stable. W e have a state­
ment of Dio,25 that his sister also decorated the race courses.
Pro. Rose. Amerin., 32, 89: Multos caesos non ad Trasumenum sed ad Servilium
lacum.
u T)e Provid., 3, 7: videant largum in foro sanguinem et supra Servilianum lacum
(id enim proscriptionis Sullanae spoliarium eat) senatorum capita.
18Van Deman, Jour. Rom. Stud., 1922, pp. 25-26.
“ Frank, Rom. Build. Rep., pp. 75-76.
20P. 314.
21 The concrete of the foundation rests partly upon it. Van Deman, loc. cit.
MX L IX , 43, 2: “ And seeing that in the circus men made mistakes about the num­
ber o f laps completed he set up dolphins and egg-shaped objects (ipoeiSij crjpuovpy-qiiaTa),
so that by their aid the number of times the course had been circled might be clearly
shown.” The Greek text is given in Appendix, p. 89.
73Act. Lud. Saec., line 65: M. Agrippa quadrigas misit.
24 OIL, VI, 10046. The names are M. Vipsanius Migio, M. Vipsanius Calamus,
M. Vipsanius Dareus, M. Vipsanius Faustus.
" LV, 8, 4. See Appendix, p. 90.
 REGIONS VIII AND X I 85

The dolphins no doubt suggested to the spectators Agrippa’s

naval victories over Sextus Pompey at Mylae and Naulochus.
As to the ova, we have the statement of L ivy26 that they were
first set up in 174 B. C.
28X L II, 27.
A P PE N D IX
 AP PE N D IX
This appendis contains the text of the more lengthy passages
from Greek and Latin authors, and also those which are cited
more than once.
1. G r e e k S ources

D io C a s s iu s
X L IX , 43 (Agrippa’s Eedileship)
Ta> 8’ vorkpip isret ayopavbpos 8 ’Ayp unras Ikojv kykvtro, Kal iravra pkv ra
oiKoSopijpaTa r a Koiva iraoas 8k ras dSovs, pqSkv kx roC SqpooLov Aafiuv, iireoKivaot,
tovs re inrovopovs kitK&Oqpt, Kal ks rov Tifteptv Si’ ovtuv vire-irAtvat. xav Tip
hnroSpbpcp atpaAAoptvovs tovs kvdponrovs irtpl rov tS>v SiaUAoiv apidpov SpSiv
tovs re StAtpTvas Kal to. ipoeibrj Sqpioupyqpara KaTtorqoaTO, <5rxos 5c’ avTuv
ai irtp'ioboi Tthv mpiSpopoiv avaStiKvvoiVTai.

LIII, 27 (The Basilica of Neptune, the Laconicum Sudatorium,

and the Pantheon)
AvyovaTos pkv raura re kv rots rroXepots hrpa^t, Kal t6 tov ’lavov rtpkviopa
avotxBkv 8l’ avrovs txAtiotv, ’Aypimras 8k tv tovtio to &<ttv rots t’otots TtXtaiv
kir&Kbopqot. tovto pkv yap rrpv aroav rqv tov UoatiSoivcs 6ivop.aap.kvqv Kal
t^ipxoSbpqatv eirl rats vavxpanais teat rjj t u v ’ApyovavrSiv ypatpfj kireAaptrpvve,
tovto 8k to TvpiaTqpiov to AaKiovixbv KaTtoKtvaae. A okivvikov yap t & yvpvaaiov,

kmibryirtp oi AaKtSatpbvioi. yvpvovadai Tt kv Tip Tort xpbvip Kal Xtira aoxtiv

paXtora tSoKOw, trrtKaXto't. to re Havdtiov oivopaoptvov e|ereXetre' rrpoaa-
yoptvtrai St ovtoi raxa pkv otl iroAAwv Btoiv eixbvas kv rots kyb.Ap.aot, rat re tov
"Apetus Kal t w ttjs ’A^poStrr/s, f:Xaj3et>, cos 8t iy6i vopifa, 8rt BoAotiSks ov Tip
ovpavQ irpoakoiKtv. rjfiovAqdq ptv ovv 8 ’A'/punras teat t 6v Abyovarov kvravda
ISpvaat, rqv Tt tov tpyov kidxAqaiv aurcS Sovvat pq 8tljapbvov Sk avrov pqStTtpov
etceT pkv tov irporepov Kaiaapos, tv Sk rat ?rpov&cp tov re Avyovcrov teat eaurou
avSptavTas 'torqot.

LIV, 29, 4 (The Gardens and Baths)

Kal rore yovv xqirovs rk a tjnat Kal rd fiaAavtiov to krrwvvpov aiirov xarkAurtv.
wore TTpotKa avrohs AouoBai, x “ i°<a rtva es roDro r<3 AbyoioTtp Sous, ttat os
oil p b vov raur’ k S q p toitva tv, aXXii teat tcaf?’ ta rot' S p a x p a s Tip Sqpip cits teat
iKe'lVOV KtAtVaaVTOS Sitvtipt.
89
90 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGRIPPA

LV, 8, 3 (The Campus Agrippae, the Porticus Vipsania, the

Diribitorium)
To re irtbiov rb ’Ay piirirtiov, irApv rps oroas, Kal tS Siptfkrbipiov avros b
AliyovoTOs iSppoaltvcre. tovto ptv yap (rjv St oikos ptyurros tSiv tcwiroTt piav
bpotppv axovTUV vvv yap 617 irderrjs rijs OTtyps avrov KadaLptOtlmjs, otl ovk
pSvvpdp avdis avoTpvai, axa-vps tonv) 6 re ’AypL-mras oUoSopovptvov KariAnrt,
Kal Tore ovvtTtAkadp. 1) Si tv rqi irtSiu crroa, fjv p IlcoXXa p aStA<f>p avrov 17 Kal
rods Spopovs oiaKooppcraoa iiroiti, ovSeirw i^tipyacro.
LXVI, 24 (The Saepta, the Basilica Neptuni, the Baths, the
Pantheon, the Diribitorium)
IIOp St Sp Irtpov triytLov rq) eijps eret 7roXXd ravu rijs ’Pwpps, to0 Tirou irpos
rb iraBppa to tv rrj Kapiravlg. ytvopevov kuSppijcravTOs, tTrtvelparo' Kal yap rd
Sepcuretoj' Kal to ’lireiov to. re okirra Kal to UocrtiS&viov rb re j3a\avtiov rd tov
’Aypimrov Kal to UavBtiov to re AipiftiTiopiov Kal to tov BdX/3ou Btarpov Kal
ttiv tov Hopirpiov TKpvpv, Kal r a ’OKraovleia oU ppara perd tSiv /3t/3Xicot', tov re
vtiov tov Aids roD KtiTLTooAlov pera. tLov ovvvaoiv avrov KartKavatv.

Strabo
II, 5, 17, C 120 (Agrippa’s Map)
Sib yap tCiv tolovtuv pireipoi re Kal idvp xal irbAtiov Btartis tv<j>vtis ivtvopBpoav
Kal rdXXa TroudApara, ooaiv ptorbs to n v b x^poypaipiKos iriva£.

V, 3, 8, C 235-236 (The Sewers, the Aqueducts, Agrippa’s other

buildings, the Campus Agrippae)
ol S’ virbvopoi ovvvbpcp Aidu> KaraKaptpBevTts oSovs djudifcus x°PT0V iropevras
ivias biroAtAo'nraoT. toctovtov 5 ’ tori rb tltray&yipov vSo:p 81b. tSiv vSpayaiytioiv
&OTt ttorapovs Sia rps irdXecos Kal tuv virovoptov ptiv, airaoav St oUlav oxtSov
St^apevas Kal oUboovas Kal Kpovvovs Ixtiv b<f>8bvovs, &v irAtioTpv hriptAtiav
iiroiptraTO MapKos ’Ayp'nriras, iroAAois Kal dXXots bvaBppaai Koappoas ri]V
koAiv. (Then follows a description of Rome, particularly of the Campus
•
Martius.) -wApaiov S’ tori tov TtSiov rovrov Kal dXXo -rrtoLov Kal tJToal kvkAu
irapirApBtis xal aAop Kal B'tarpa rpia Kal &p<pidtarpov Kal vaol iroAvTtAtis Kal
avvixeis bAApAoi;, cos iraptpyov av 5o£aitv anotpaivtiv ri/v aAApv ivbAiv.

XIII, 1, 19, C 590 (Stagnum Agrippae, the Euripus, the Lion of

Lysippus)
kvrtvBtv (i.e. from Lampsacus) 51 ptrpvtyKtv ’Aypiinras tov ireirraMcdra
Atovra, Avcrimrov tpyoV bv'tBpKt SI tv r<3 dXcm rc3 peraiju rijs Alpvps Kal tov
evpivov.
 APPENDIX 91

2. L atin S ources
P l i n y , Nat. H ist.

X X X V I, 102 (The Diribitorium)

Nec ut circum maximum a Caesare dictatore exstructum long­
itudine stadiorum trium, latitudine unius, sed cum aedificiis
iugerum quaternum, ad sedem CCL inter magna opera dicamus,
non inter magnifica basilicam Pauli columnis e Phrygibus
mirabilem forumque divi Augusti et templum Pacis Vespasiani
Imp. Aug. pulcherrima operum quae umquam vidit orbis, non et
tectum diribitori ab Agrippa facti, cum theatrum ante texerit
Romae Valerius Ostiensis architectus ludis Libonis?
X X X V I, 104-108 (The Sewers)
Sed tum senes aggeris vastum spatium, substructiones Capi­
tolii mirabantur, praeterea cloacas, opus omnium dictu maxi­
mum subfossis montibus atque, ut paullo ante retulimus, urbe
pensili subterque navigata M. Agrippae in aedilitate post con-
105 sulatum. Permeant corrivati septem amnes ursuque prae-
cipiti torrentium modo rapere atque auferre omnia coacti, in­
super imbrium mole concitati vada ac latera quatiunt, aliquando
Tiberis retro infusus recipitur, pugnantque diversi aquarum
106 impetuus intus, et tamen obnixa firmitas resistit. Trahuntur
moles superne tantae non succumbentibus eavis operis, pulsant
ruinae sponte praecipites aut inpactae incendiis, quatitur solum
terrae motibus, durant tamen a Tarquinio Prisco annis DCC
prope inexpugnabiles, non omittendo memorabili exemplo vel
magis, quoniam celeberrimis rerum conditoribus omissum est.
107 Cum id opus Tarquinius Priscus plebis manibus faceret, es-
setque labor incertum maior asu longior, passim conscita nece
Quiritibus taedium fugientibus, novom et inexcogitatum ante
posteaque remedium invenit ille rex ut omnium ita defunctorum
corpora figeret cruci spectanda simul civibus et feris volucribus-
108 que laceranda. Quamobrem pudor Romani nominis proprius,
qui saepe res perditas servavit in proeliis, tunc quoque subvenit,
sed illo tempore in post vitam erubescens, eum puderet vivos
tamquam puditurum esset extinctos. Amplitudinem cavis eam
fecisse proditur ut vehem faeni large onustam transmitteret.
X X X V I, 121 (The Aqueducts)
Q. Marcius Rex iussus a senatu aquarum Appiae, Anienis,
Tepulae ductus reficere novam a nomine suo appellatam cuniculis
92 BUILDING ACTIVITIES OF AGRIPPA

per montes actis intra praeturae suae tempus adduxit, Agrippa

vero in aedilitate adieeta Virgine aqua eeterisque conrivatis
atque emendatis lacus DCC fecit, praeterea salientes D, castella
C X X X , complura et cultu magnifica, operibus iis signa CCC
aerea aut marmorea inposuit, columnas e marmore CCCC, eaque
omnia annuo spatio. Adicit ipse aedilitatis suae eonmemora-
tione et ludos diebus undesexaginta factos ef gratuita praebita
balinea CLXX, quae nunc Romae ad infinitum auxere numerum.

S u e t o n iu s , V it. Claud. 18 (The Diribitorium)

Urbis annonaeque curam sollicitissime semper egit. Cum
Aemiliana, pertinacius arderent, in diribitorio duabus noctibus
mansit ac deficiente militum ac familiarum turba auxilio plebem
per magistratus ex omnibus vicis conuoeavit ac positis ante se
cum pecunia fiscis ad subveniendum hortatus est, repraesentans
pro opera dignam cuique mercedem.

A e l iu s S p a r t ia n u s , Vit. Hadriani, 19, 9-10 (Hadrian’s Restorations)

Cum opera ubique infinita fecisset, numquam ipse nisi in
Traiani patris templo nomen suum scripsit. Romae instauravit
Pantheum, saepta, basilicam Neptuni, sacras aedes plurimas,
forum Augusti, lavacrum Agrippae, eaque omnia propriis auc­
torum nominibus consecravit.

Curiosum and.N otitia (Reg. VII and IX )

Curiosum Notitia
Regio VII. V ia Is,ta, Continet Regio V II. V ia lata. Continet
lacum Ganymedis. Cohortem I vig­ lacum Ganymedis. Cohortem primam
ilum. Arcum novum. Nymfeum lobis. vigilum. Arcum novum. Nymfeum
Aedicula capraria. Campum. Agrippae. Iovis. Aediculam caprariam. Campum
Templum Solis et castra. Porticum Agrippes. Templum Solis et castra.
Gypsiani et Constantini. Equos Ti­ Porticum Gyptiani et Constantini.
ridatis regis Armeniorum. Forum suar­ Templa duo nova Spei et Fortunae.
ium. Mansuetas. Lapidem pertusum. Equum Tiridatis regis Armeniorum.
Vici xv. Aedes xv. Vicomagistri XLvm. Forum suarium. Hortos Largianos.
Curatores II. Insulae Tudcccv. Domus Mansuetas. Lapidem pertusum. V ici
cxx. Horrea xxv. Balnea LXXV. Lacos xv. Aediculae xv. Vicomagistri xlviii.
lxxvi . Pistrina xvi. Continet 'pedes Curatores ii . Insulae iHdcccv. Domos
xiil cco. cxx. Horrea xxv. Balinea lxxv . Laci
lxxvi . Pistrina xv. Continet pedes quin­
decim m ilia septingentos.
 APPENDIX 93

Curiosum Notitia
Regio V i m Circus Phimi nilis. Regio VXtU. Circus Plaminius.
Continet stabula ira factionum vi. Continet stabula, numero mi, faction­
Porticum Philippi. Minuciam veterem um vili. Aedem Herculis. Porticum
et frumentariam. Cryptam Balbi. Philippi. Minucias duas, veterem et
Theatra ni. In primis Balbi, qui frumentariam. Cryptam Balbi. The­
capet loca x I.d x . Pompei capet loca atra tria, in primis Balbi, qui capit loca
xv Ii .d l x x x . M arcelli capet loca octo milia l x x x v iii , Marcelli capit
xx. Odium capet loca x dc . Stad­ loca XVIDLXXX, . Pompei capit loca
ium c a p e t l o c a xxX. l x x x v iii . x x iid l x x x . Odium cap it loca
Campum Martium. Trigarium. Cicon­ x id x . Stadium capit loca
ias nixas. Pantheum. Basilicam Nep­ xxxiiiDCCCLXXXvni. Campum M a r ­
tuni. Matidies. Marcianes. Tem­ tium. Trigarium. C i c o n i a s n ixas.
plum Antonini et columnam coclidem Pantheum. Basilicam Matidies. Mar-
altam pedes clxxv S. gradus intus tianes. Templum D ivi Antonini et
habet coni, fenestras lvi . Thermas columnam coclidem altam pedes
Alexandrinas et Agrippianas. Porti­ clxxv semis, gradus intus habet
cum Argonautarum et Meleagri. Iseum cciii , fenestras l v i . Had r i a ui um.
et Serapeum. Minervam Calcidicam. Thermas Alexandrianas et Agrippi­
Divorum. Insulam Felicles. Vici anas. Porticum Argonautarum et Me­
xxxv. Aedes xxxv. V i c o m a g i s t r i leagri. Iseum et Serapeum. Divorum.
xxvill. Curatores n. Insulae Hdcclxxvii . Insulam Felicles. Vici xxxv. Aedi­
Domus cxl . Horrea xxv. Balnea l x h i . culae xxxv. Vicomagistri xlviii . Cura­
Lacos oxx. Pistrina xx. Continet pedes tores i i . Insulae Hdcclxxvii . Domos
XXXIID. CXL. Horrea xxv. Balinea l x iii .
Lacos l x h i . Pristina xx. Continet
pedes triginta duo milia quingentos.
 IN D EX
A d Spem Veterem, 29. Ara Ditis, 55.
Aemiliana, 41, 42. Arch o f Augustus at Porta Tiburtina,
Aemilius Lepidus, 81. 55.
Ager Lucullanus, 32. Arches of Claudius, 34.
Agrippa (for buildings and public works Arco della Ciambella, 49, 50.
see table o f contents, and under sep­ Astrologers driven, out, 20.
arate headings) : Augustus, 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 19, 31, 37,
praetorship, 13, 19, 27, 28. 39, 58.
consulships, 10, 11, 19, 26, 57. statue in Pantheon, 57, 58, 59, 89.
aedileship, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19-31, 83,
89, 92. Balnea gratuita, 21, 92.
military services, 9, 10. Basilica Aemilia, 23, 31, 91.
victories, 9, 19, 44, 85. Basilica Julia, 83.
refusal of triumphs, 10, 11, 21, 44. Basilica Neptuni, 4, 12, 13, 14, 44-47,
character, and service to the Augus­ 48, 55, 59, 89, 90, 92, 93.
tan regime, 9-12. Baths (see Thermae).
perpetuus curator operum suorum, Bonus Eventus, temple of, 14, 68.
25. Calcararium, 50.
estates of, 21. Caldarium, 50, 56.
death, 14, 25. Campus Agrippae, 13, 15, 32, 40, 73-77,
legacies, 25, 48. 90, 92.
games in honor o f 5th anniversary Campus Martius, 3, 4, 13, 14, 32, 33, 37-
of death, 39. 69, 93.
commentarii of Agrippa: Campus Minor, 75.
1) on water supply, 25, 33. Carrinas, C., 11.
2) on map o f Empire, 75, 77. Caryatids o f Diogenes, in Pantheon, 58,
statue o f in Pantheon, 56, 58, 89. 60, 62.
Annona, 81, 83. Castella of aqueducts, 25, 33, 83, 92.
Antony, 9, 19, 31. Centuriae, 37.
Apoxyomenus of Lysippus, 48. Chiron and Achilles, art group in
Aqueducts (general), 12, 13, 20, 21, 22, Saepta, 40.
24-34, 90, 91. Chronological data for Agrippa’ s pub­
Commentarii of Agrippa concern­ lic works, 13-15.
ing A., 25, 33. Cippi:
Familia for upkeep o f A., 25. o f Aqua Julia, 30.
Individual Aqueducts: of Aqua Virgo, 34.
Anio Vetus, 14, 24, 25, 27, 28, 31, Circus, 13, 14, 20, 34-85.
32. Cleopatra’s pearl, 58.
Appia, 14, 24, 25, 27, 28, 31, 34. Cloacae (see sewers).
Augusta, 25. Comitia Tributa, 37.
Julia, 13, 14, 26, 27, 28-30. Cornelius Balbus, 10,
Marcia, 13, 14, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, Crypta Balbi, 43, 93.
29, 31, 32. Curiae, 37.
Tepula, 14, 24, 27, 28-30. Curatores Aquarum, 24, 26, 27.
Virgo, 14, 24, 25, 26, 31-34, 38,
48, 49, 53, 54, 55, 57, 67, 73, 75, Diogenes, Caryatids of, and other sculp­
76, 83, 92. tures in Pantheon, 58, 60, 62.
95
96 INDEX

Diribitorium, 4, 13, 15, 40-43, 59, 60, 90, Mars, statue in Pantheon, 56, 57, 58, 89.
91, 92. Munera, 33.
Dolphins on Spina of Circus, 13, 14, 19,
20, 84-85. Nymphaeum, 30.
Domitian, restorations of, 62, 82.
Octavian (see under Augustus).
Euripus, 13, 14, 32, 34, 49, 53-55, 90. Olympus and Pan, art group in Saepta,
Europa, 73, 76. 40.
Ova, on Spina o f Circus, 13, 14, 20, 84-
Fire in Aemilianis, 41, 42, 92. 85.
Fire of Titus, 41, 42, 45, 49, 56, 58, 59, Ovile, 37.
60, 90.
Frigidarium, 49, 52. Painting of Argonauts, 44, 45, 46.
Fountains of Agrippa, 13, 14, 20, 22, 25, Paintings in Saepta, 14, 37.
26, 32, 83. Pantheon, 4, 13, 14, 42, 44, 45, 48, 49,
52, 53, 55-65, 89, 90, 92.
Gardens (see Horti). Piscina, 29, 30, 34, 49.
Plumbers, 26.
Hadrian, reconstructions o f Agrippa’s Polla, sister of Agrippa, 13, 75, 76, 84.
buildings, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 65, 92. Pompey, Sextus, 9, 19, 85.
Hadrianeum, 45, 47, 93. Pomponia, daughter o f Atticus, Agrip­
Herculaneus Rivus, 32. p a ’s first wife, 12.
Horrea Agrippiana, 13, 14, 81-83. Pons Agrippae, 13, 14, 33, 55, 66-67.
Horti Agrippae, 13, 14, 32, 48, 49, 53- Porticus Argonautarum, 13, 14, 44-47,
55, 89. 89, 93.
Hydra, fountain figure, 13, 14, 83-84. Porticus Eventus Boni, 68.
Porticus Meleagri, 66, 93.
Julius Caesar, 14, 37, 38, 56. Porticus Minucia, 43, 93.
statue in Pantheon, 56, 57, 89. Porticus Octaviae, 59, 90.
Porticus Vipsania, 13, 15, 33, 73-77, 90,
Laconicum Sudatorium, 13, 14, 44, 47- 92.
53, 55, 61, 89. Public buildings repaired, 14, 19, 20, 21,
Lacus, 25, 33, 83, 92, 93. 90.
Lacus Servilius, 14, 83-84.
Larch beam for roof of Diribitorium Quinaria, 25, 29, 30, 33.
preserved in Saepta, 41, 42.
Lepidus (the triumvir), 14, 37, 39. Regions of Augustus:
Lion of Lysippus, 49, 55, 90. II, III, IV , V, V I, 30.
Ludi, of Agrippa, 21, 92. V II, 3, 13, 30, 33, 67, 73-77, 92.
Ludi Saeeuiares, 39, 55, 84. V III, 13, 30, 81-84.
Ludus Troiae, 20. IX , 3, 13, 33, 37, 67, 93.
Lysippus, 48, 49, 55, 90. X , 30.
X I, 13, 84-85.
Manubiae, 12, 21, 37. X II, 30.
Map of Roman Empire in Porticus Vip- X IV , 33, 67.
sania, 13, 15, 73, 77, 90.
Agrippa’s Commentarii concerning, Saepta Julia, 13, 14, 34, 37-40, 41, 42,
75, 77. 59, 90, 92.
Marble Plan, 38, 50, 66, 82. Salientes, 25, 83, 92.
Marble tablets in Saepta, 14, 37. Saturnalia, 46.
 INDEX 97

Septimius Severus, restoration of Pan­ Tetrapylon, 53.

theon, 59. Theatre of Balbus, 10, 42, 43, 59, 93.
Sepulcrum Agrippae, 4, 14, 65-66. Theatre of Pompey, 59, 90.
Serapeum, 53, 59, 93. Thermae o f Agrippa, 13, 14, 32, 45, 47-
Sewers (general), 12, 13, 14, 19, 21-24, 53, 55, 57, 59, 66, 68, 89, 90, 92, 93.
90, 91. Tomb of Piatorinus, 66.
Cloaca in Campus Martius, 22-23. Trevi. Fountain, 34.
Cloaca Maxima, 23-24. Tribus, 37.
Sphaeristeria, 52. Trigarium, 66, 93.
Stagnum, 13, 14, 32, 49, 53-55, 90. Triumphales, 9, 10, II, 12, 19, 21.
Statues (see under Diogenes, Lysippus, Trofoi di Mario, 29.
Agrippa, Augustus, Julius Caesar,
Venus, statue in Pantheon, 56, 57, 58,
Mars, Tenus).
89.
as fountain ornaments, 25, 83-84. Vicus Jugarius, 83.
in Pantheon, 56, 57, 58, 89. Villa Publica, 66, 68.
Streets repaired, 14, 20, 21. Vipsaniae Columnae, 74, 76, 83.
Tarentum, the, 55. Works of Art connected with A grippa's
Temple o f Bonus Eventus, 14, 68. structures, 13, 14, 25, 37, 44, 45, 46,
Temple of Concord, 62. 48, 49, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 73, 76,
Temple of Saturn, 84. 83, 84, 89, 90.