Three Circuits, Three Thousand Years
Rome’s defensive circuits are among the most eloquent records of the city’s expansion and transformation. Three distinct wall systems — each reflecting a different moment in Roman history, a different political logic, and a different relationship between the city and its world — survive in varying degrees across the modern city. Together they chart Rome’s arc from a modest hilltop settlement to the capital of a Mediterranean empire and, finally, to a city once again in need of protection.
The Pomerium: The Sacred Boundary
Before walls came the pomerium — Rome’s ritual boundary, and in many ways its most fundamental urban concept. According to Roman tradition, Romulus himself established this sacred line by yoking oxen to a plow and cutting a furrow around the Palatine Hill, the original core of his city. The pomerium was not a wall but a legally and religiously constituted boundary separating the civic interior — the space of law, politics, and domestic life — from the exterior space of military command and foreign territory. No burial, cultivation, or construction was permitted within its strip.
The primary ancient account of this boundary is preserved in Tacitus (Annals 12.23–24), who describes Romulus tracing the furrow from the Forum Boarium past the Great Altar of Hercules, around the base of the Palatine, and back to the Roman Forum. The right to extend the pomerium was reserved for rulers who had enlarged the territory of Rome — a tradition that, Tacitus notes, had been exercised after Romulus only by Sulla and Augustus before Claudius claimed it in 49 CE following his conquest of Britain. Claudian cippi — inscribed travertine boundary stones — have been found across Rome, including a rare example unearthed in 2021 during restoration work near the Mausoleum of Augustus, providing direct physical evidence of the boundary’s extension. The pomerium and the city walls were conceptually related but not identical: the sacred boundary traced a course shaped by ritual precedent, while the physical walls responded to military and demographic realities.
The Servian Wall
Rome’s first monumental defensive circuit is known as the Servian Wall (Murus Servii Tullii), named in literary tradition for Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome, whose reign is conventionally dated to approximately 575–535 BCE. The attribution, however, is largely a product of later legend. Archaeological analysis of the wall’s construction materials tells a more complex and revealing story.
The earliest sections of the circuit were built from cappellaccio tuff, a coarse volcanic stone quarried locally from the Alban Hills. The majority of the preserved wall, however — including the impressive sections visible today near Termini station and on the Aventine Hill — is constructed from Grotta Oscura tuff, a superior yellow-gray volcanic stone whose quarries lay in the territory of Veii, the Etruscan city north of Rome that was not conquered until 396 BCE. The main Grotta Oscura circuit therefore postdates the regal period by nearly two centuries, with the Grotta Oscura sections likely completed in response to the Gallic sack of Rome in 390 BCE, when the vulnerabilities of the older fortifications became catastrophically apparent.
The Servian Wall enclosed approximately 1,000 acres — a substantial circuit encompassing the seven hills — and was built to impressive specifications: roughly four meters thick and ten meters high, running for approximately eleven kilometers. The Campus Martius, the great plain between the hills and the Tiber, was deliberately excluded: a seasonal flood plain prone to inundation every few years, it was unsuitable for permanent settlement and useful in the dry season as military training ground and public assembly space. As Rome’s confidence grew and the city expanded well beyond the circuit’s boundaries, the wall fell gradually into disuse, so thoroughly absorbed by the urban fabric that by the Augustan period it had been largely forgotten.
Gates of the Servian Walls:
- Porta Caelimontana
- Porta Capena
- Porta Collina
- Porta Esquilina
The Aurelian Wall
The construction of Rome’s third and final ancient circuit — the Aurelian Wall (Muri Aureliani) — was itself a statement of imperial crisis. Built between 271 and 275 CE under Emperor Aurelian and completed by his successor Probus, the wall was a direct response to the instability of the third-century empire: Germanic groups had invaded northern Italy, a breakaway Gallic Empire had formed in the west, and a breakaway Palmyrene Kingdom in the east. For the first time since the Republic, Rome itself required active defense.
The scale of the project was extraordinary. The completed circuit stretched approximately nineteen kilometers, enclosing roughly 3,000 acres — three times the area of the Servian Wall — and incorporating all fourteen of the Augustan administrative regions of the city, including the Campus Martius, Trastevere across the Tiber, and the Janiculum ridge. Construction was accomplished in part by incorporating existing structures: the Pyramid of Cestius, the Praetorian Camp, sections of aqueduct arcades, and even apartment buildings (insulae) were absorbed into the circuit, their walls filled in and adapted to serve a defensive function. This pragmatism accelerated construction considerably.
The original wall was built of brick-faced concrete, approximately 3.5 meters thick and eight meters high, with a square tower every 100 Roman feet (approximately 30 meters). A later 8th/ 9th century catalogue – the Einsiedeln Itinerary, a medieval pilgrim guide – records 383 towers, more than 7,000 battlements, 116 latrines, and nearly 2,000 external windows across the full circuit. The height was subsequently doubled — first by Maxentius in the early 4th century, and further reinforced under Honorius in the early 5th — making the Aurelian Wall progressively more formidable as imperial military capacity declined. Gates were named for the roads they served: the Porta Appia for the Via Appia, the Porta Salaria for the Via Salaria, and so forth. In the Christian era many were renamed for their religious associations: the Porta Appia became the Porta San Sebastiano, oriented toward the catacombs and church of Saint Sebastian; the Porta Ostiensis became the Porta San Paolo, on the route to Saint Paul’s Outside the Walls.
The wall’s effectiveness was ultimately social as much as military. When Rome was sacked in 410 CE by Alaric — the first time in eight centuries — it was not because the walls were breached but because a gate was opened from within. The circuit remained in functional use, in various states of repair and restoration maintained by medieval popes and Renaissance architects, until the unification of Italy in the 19th century. It remains the largest surviving ancient monument in Rome.
Gates of the Aurelian Walls:
- Porta Adreatina
- Porta Appia
- Porta Asinaria
- Porta Aurelia
- Porta Flaminia
- Porta Latina
- Porta Nomentana
- Porta Ostiensis
- Porta Carmentalis
- Porta Portuensis
- Porta Praenestina (Porta Maggiore)
- Porta Tiburtinia
Bibliography
Primary Sources
- Tacitus. Annals 12.23–24. Trans. A.J. Woodman. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. — Primary source for the pomerium, its foundation by Romulus, and its extension under Claudius.
- Livy. Ab Urbe Condita. Trans. B.O. Foster et al. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919–. — On the Gallic sack of Rome (390 BCE) and the Servian Wall’s construction.
- Procopius. Gothic Wars (De Bello Gothico). Trans. H.B. Dewing. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919. — On Belisarius’s defensive operations along the Aurelian Wall in the 530s CE.
Secondary Sources
- Platner, Samuel Ball, and Thomas Ashby. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. London: Oxford University Press, 1929. Available via LacusCurtius/Perseus Digital Library. — Still the standard topographical reference for both wall circuits; entries on the Servian and Aurelian walls remain essential.
- Dey, Hendrik W. The Aurelian Wall and the Refashioning of Imperial Rome, AD 271–855. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. — The definitive modern monograph on the Aurelian Wall, its construction, later modifications, and symbolic function through late antiquity and the medieval period.
- Todd, Malcolm. “The Walls of Rome.” In Roman Urban Defences in the West, ed. J. Maloney and B. Hobley. London: Council for British Archaeology, 1983. — On the construction and strategic logic of Roman city walls including the Servian circuit.
- Koortbojian, Michael. Crossing the Pomerium: The Boundaries of Political, Religious, and Military Institutions from Caesar to Constantine. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020. — Recent scholarly study of the pomerium‘s legal, religious, and political significance.
- Cornell, T.J. The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC). London: Routledge, 1995. — On the regal period, the foundation traditions, and the archaeological evidence for early Rome including the Servian circuit.
- Cifani, Gabriele. “The Servian Wall and Other Early Roman Walls.” In A Companion to the Archaeology of the Roman Republic, ed. Jane DeRose Evans. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. — On the Servian Wall’s construction phases, the cappellaccio and Grotta Oscura tuff distinction, and the archaeological evidence for the regal and early Republican circuits.
- Richardson, Lawrence Jr. A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. — Updated successor to Platner-Ashby; useful for both wall circuits and the pomerium.
- Coarelli, Filippo. Rome and Environs: An Archaeological Guide. Trans. James J. Clauss and Daniel P. Harmon. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. — Essential field guide with detailed entries on all three wall circuits and their visible remains.
MURUS SERVII TULLII, * the wall ascribed by tradition (Liv. i. 44; Dionys. iv. 13) to the sixth of the kings of Rome (ascriptions to Ancus Martius, such as vir. ill. v. I, Flor. i. I. 14 need not be taken into account; see Jord. i. I. 201), perhaps in completion of work already begun by Tarquinius Priscus (Strabo v. 3. 7, p. 234; Liv. I. 36; Dionys. iii. 67).
There is considerable discord in the tradition as to which hills were added to the city by which kings (see POMERIUM) ; but the statement that Servius Tullius added the Esquiline and the Viminal (Strabo cit.; cf. Dionys. iv. 13) is consistent with the facts (Jord. ii. 206-208, cf. figs. I, 3).
It is probable that the original settlements on the Palatine, Capitol, Quirinal, etc., had no stone walls, but relied on natural features or sometimes on earthworks, e.g. MURUS TERREUS CARINARUM (q.v.).
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One-third of the whole circuit and all the gates are said to have been destroyed when the city was stormed by Totila, but this is an exaggeration (Procop. BG iii. 22, 24); it was restored by Belisarius.3 Of the Popes, Hadrian I and Leo IV (the latter adding the Civitas Leonina) were especially active in repairing the walls (LPD i. 518, n. 48; ii. 137, 138); the Roman senate repaired them in 1157 (v. PORTA METROVIA), and much was done by the Renaissance popes, as their arms show. The greater part of the circuit remains, except along the river from near the porta Flaminia to the pons Aurelius on the left bank, and from the porta Aurelia to the porta Portuensis on the right bank. The former disappeared in the Middle Ages (ASRSP 1879, 79-121; 137-171), and the latter under Urban VIII, who brought the new porta Portese about 500 metres nearer the city (for the towers on the river-bank, see Roma iii. (1925), 317), and connected it and the porta Aurelia (S. Pancrazio) by a new line of fortifications with the Leonine city, which had been re-fortified by Paul III and Pius IV.
Otherwise, the line of the walls has remained unaltered since the time of Aurelian, except for the construction of a great bastion by Antonio da Sangallo the younger for Paul III (see PORTA ARDEATINA), in pursuance of a scheme which was not continued; and comparatively few openings for traffic have been made, despite the growth of the modern city. The line selected was the octroi boundary of the time of Commodus, which was marked by cippi (CIL vi. 1016a-c, 8594, 31227; BC 1892, 93 sqq.; LR 71, 72; Mitt. 1897, 150-156; cf. infra, fig. 2). Existing buildings were incorporated in this, and subsequently in the wall, for about one-sixth of the total length (such as the supporting walls of the horti Aciliorum and horti Sallustiani, the castra Praetoria, the arches of the various aqueducts, from porta Tiburtina to porta Maior, and the Amphitheatrum Castrense). For the haste with which the work was done, see BC 1892, 104-106; LR 70-71.
Though the various restorations of which evidence may be seen in the walls themselves have not yet been brought into relation with the scanty historical evidence we possess, it is clear that originally the wall was not more than 25 feet high, and that it has since been heightened and the arcades added (see Richmond in Discovery vi. (1925), 293-295, and in BC 1927, 41-67).
The walls as they now stand form one of the finest products of the science of Roman fortification. They are built of concrete faced with brick, are about 12 feet thick, and of varying height, the ground level inside being generally considerably above that outside. 13 feet from the ground inside they are traversed by a sentinel’s passage passing through both curtain and towers, the latter occurring every 100 feet; they are quadrangular, project about 10 feet from the curtain, and rise about 20 feet above the wall (Ill. 33). The gates have double or single archways, according to their importance, with flanking towers, and only some of them have vantage courts. The material used for the walls was largely older brick (BC 1892, 91-93; PAS i. 1-86).
See Nibby and Gell, Mura di Roma (Rome 1820) ; Jord. i. I. 340-392; BC 1892, 87-111; Richter 66-72; LR 68-87; RE v. 1375. A valuable description of the walls made by Nicolas Audebert in 1576 (Brit. Mus. MS. Lansdowne 720) is published in Rev. Arch. 3. vi. (1885, ii.), 27-41); vii. (1886, i.), 124-138; 224-242; 336-340; viii. (1886, ii.), 3-39; 319-335; ix. (1887, i.), 54-58. See also the articles on the individual gates.
1 See also Ioh. Malal. Chron. xii. p. 299, Dindorf. ἤρξατο τὰ τείχη ῾Ρώμηςκτίζειν γενναῖα. ἦν γὰρ τῷ χρόνῳ φθάρεντα. αὐτὸς δὲ ἐφέστηκε τῷἔργῳ, καὶ ἠνάγκαζε τὸσυνέργεια ῾Ρώμης ὑπουργεῖν τῷ κτίσματι(repeated in Chron. Pasch. i. 229; cf. also Chron. Min. ii. 148).
2 The meaning of the phrase egestis immensis ruderibus is not very clear, and the level of these and other gates does not seem to have been raised as much as was hitherto believed (BC 1917, 193-217).
3 Chron. Min. ii. 108 (547 A.D.). He also had restored the walls before the siege by Vitiges (Procop. BG i. 14).
MURI AURELIANI, * the walls begun by Aurelian after the war against the Marcomanni and before that against Zenobia in 272 (Hist. Aug. Aurel. 21, 39; Aur. Victor. Caes. 35; Chron. 148; Eutrop. ix. 15; Oros. vii. 23; Hier. a. Abr. 2290) and finished by Probus (Zosim. i. 49).1
A restoration by Arcadius and Honorius in 403 is attested by the inscriptions on the portae Portuensis, Praenestina, and Tiburtina (CIL vi. 1188-90 2 ) and by Claudian (de sexto cons. Hon. 529); and the description of the walls (DMH) appended to the Einsiedeln Itinerary is generally attributed to this period (Jord. ii. 155-178, 578-580; DAP 2. ix. 424). Repairs by Theodoric are attested by brick stamps (CIL xv. 1665 b, 27; cf. PAS i. 52-55), as well as by Cassiodorus (Var. ii. 34; Chron. Min. ii. 160 (500 A.D.); cf. ib. i. 324. 67; ii. 283. 14, if ‘ moenia ‘ refers only to the city walls.
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There are remains of a wall in smallish blocks of grey tufa (cappellaccio) at various points on the line of the later enceinte, which are usually (despite the denial of Carter in Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc. xlviii. (1909), 136) assigned to the original wall of Servius Tullius of the sixth century B.C. (Jord. i. I. 252-253).
The blocks employed are from 0.20 to 0.30 metre high, 0.55 to 0.66 wide and 0.75 to 0.90 long. The most important sections of this wall are to be seen:
(a) at the head of the Via delle Finanze, where the Villa Spithoever once stood. This fine section of it (Ill. 36), some 35 metres long, was discovered in 1907, but a modern street has been run through the middle of it; while other pieces were discovered to the south-west in the garden of the Ministry of Agriculture (LF 10 ; see Ann. d. Inst. 1871, 57 ; Jord. i.I.212, n. 23 , m, n; NS 1885, 249; 1907,438, 504-50; 1909, 221-223; BC 1909, 119-121; 343-348; YW 1910, 16-17). Other similar remains appear to have been found near S. Susanna and S. Maria della Vittoria in the seventeenth century (Bartoli, Mem. 98, ap. Fea, Misc. i. 250; Jord. i. I. 212 ), and some of it was still visible in 1867 (Jord. k), though not mentioned in other lists (BC 1888, 15-17).
(b) in the Piazza dei Cinquecento, opposite the station (BC 1876, 122).1
(c) at the south-west angle of the Palatine (TF 93, fig. 3 ; Delbriick, Tempel des Apollo im Marsfelde, pl. iii., reproduced by Stuart Jones, Companion, p. 32, fig. 7, and ASA 3, 4, is better).
(d) on the north side of the Capitol, under the retaining wall in front of the German Embassy above the Vicolo della Rupe Tarpea (Ann. d. Inst. 1871, 49-51; BC 1872, 139) ; omitted by Jord. i. I. 207, regarding it as a part of the substructions of the area of the temple of Jupiter (supra, 48, 96; Jord. i. 2. 74; BC 1875, 182, 183; Ann. d. Inst. 1876, 149; cf. Ficoroni, Vestigia, i. 42; Piranesi, Antichita, i. pl. 44.2). The two probably coincided at this point.
(e) in the garden of the Palazzo Colonna at the west end of the Quirinal (Ann. d. Inst. 1852, 324; Jord. d, i. I. 211, n. 18).
Of these fragments of wall, (a) and (e) undoubtedly belonged to the outer line, while (b) was the retaining wall at the back of the agger, which, no doubt, existed from the first. Of (d) we can say nothing certain, and (c) may belong either to the Palatine or to the Servian enceinte.
To ascribe them to the wall of the city of the Four Regions is impossible, as (a) and (b) would both then be excluded; and it is very doubtful if this city ever had a wall of its own.
Frank maintains (TF 117, 18) that the battering back of the courses, the use of anathyrosis and the presence of walls of Grotta Oscura tufa of the fourth century B.C. in conjunction with these fragments, are sufficient to make it probable that they should also be assigned to the same period.
It seems, however, more likely that the cappellaccio wall should, as far as our knowledge goes at present, be attributed to the sixth century B.C.2
The line of wall (text fig. 3) began at the Tiber, crossed the low ground to the south-west corner of the Capitol, ran north-east along the edge of the cliffs of this hill and the Quirinal, until it almost reached the head of the valley between the Quirinal and the Pincian (Collis Hortorum). Then it ran southwards across the tableland of the Esquiline, crossed the valley between the mons Oppius and the Caelian, followed the cliffs on the south-east and south of this hill, then probably followed the south-west side of the Palatine, and thence ran south of the forum Boarium to the Tiber again.
It is possible that we should attribute to the enceinte of this period an arch with a span of 12 Roman feet (3.30 metres), found in 1885 forty metres south of S. Maria in Cosmedin and constructed of voussoirs of cappellaccio (NS 1886, 274; cf. AJA 1918, 175-176). Its left (south- east) side joined a wall of the same material, which ran into the hill. A paved road passed through it, which was taken to be the CLIVUS PUBLICIUS (q.v.), but it had been blocked up by a wall in opus reticulatum. Borsari (BC 1888, 21) maintained that it was the PORTA TRIGEMINA (q.v.), but it is most improbable that the road passing through it would have been blocked up at so early a period as the second century A.D. Nor, as Hulsen points out (Mitt. 1889, 260), does its position suit what we know of the line of the Servian wall. Frank (AJA cit.) attributed it to the wall of the ‘City of the four regions’, omitting the Aventine; but later, apparently forgetting the information he had obtained from Lanciani (who stated that, as far as he could remember, the material was cappellaccio), he assumed that the material was Fidenae tufa, which is full of scoriae, and that it belonged to the Palatine wall of the fourth century B.C. (TF 95, 96).
It is probable that a consequence of the Etruscan victory over the Romans at the beginning of the Republic was the dismantling of the fortifications of the city. A treaty such as that concluded with Porsena, in which the Romans were forbidden to carry weapons of iron (Plin. NH xxxiv. 139; Mommsen, Rom. Hist. i. 414), would doubtless have included this: and the success of the Gallic invasion can hardly be understood Prof. Hulsen has kindly communicated this view to me, and I fully agree with it. unless Rome was an open town.3
As the result of the Gallic invasion, the whole enceinte was enormously reinforced and strengthened, the original line, however, being for the most part, if not entirely, retained.
To the construction of this wall the following passages have generally been referred:
Liv. vi. 32. I: ut tribute novum fenus contraheretur in murum a censoribuslocatum saxo quadrato faciundum (377 B.C.).
vii. 20. 9: Legionibus Romam reductis relicum anni muris turribusquereficiendis consumptum （353 B.C.).
It is natural that so great a work as this should have taken a considerable number of years to build.
To this reconstruction belongs all the masonry of larger blocks. Frank remarks that, though the majority of the blocks measure 58-61 cm. high, there is a good deal of irregularity even on the outer face, where he has noted measures as low as 51 cm. and as high as 64, while on the inside, where the agger conceals the blocks, the measurements vary from 40 to 68 cm. The material, however, is entirely Grotta Oscura tufa ; and this seems an even clearer test than that of measurement. The quarry marks too (Ann. d. Inst. 1876, 72; Richter, Antike Steinmetzzeichen) cannot be referred to an earlier period than the fourth century B.C., and, as the stone came from the Grotta Oscura quarries, in the territory of Veii, soon after the fall of that town, it is suggested that they may be Etruscan rather than Roman (AJP 1924, 68-69). In this enceinte the Aventine was for the first time probably included; and a fine piece of wall belonging to it may be seen in the depression between the greater and the lesser Aventine in the Via di Porta S. Paolo. As this meant an increased weakness from the defensive point of view, it was quite natural that the builders of the original wall should have left it and the valley of the circus Maximus out of their scheme (Ann. d. Inst. 1855, 87-92; Klio 191, 93; AJA 1918, 78; TF 119, 20,where,asitstands,itisattributed to 90-80 B.C., but the presence of blocks from the fourth century wall is maintained). The continuation has been cleared to the north-west of it on the greater Aventine (Gnomon, iii. 191, 192) and is almost entirely of Grotta Oscura tufa.
From the porta Collina to the porta Esquilina, where the Servian wall, instead of following the edge of the hill, was obliged to cross the tableland at the base of the Quirinal, Viminal and Esquiline, it was strengthened by a great mound, described by Dionysius (ix. 68; cf. iv. 54) as seven stadia in length and 50 feet thick, with a ditch in front of it 30 Roman feet deep and 100 wide (Cic. de Rep. ii. I I; Varro ap. Censorin. 17. 8; Strab. v. 3. 7, p. 234; Plin. NH iii. 67; xxxvi. 104). The porta Viminalis was the only gate which passed through this part of the fortifications, which were further strengthened by towers. With a part of the outer wall of the agger near by, it is still preserved in the railway station. Another piece may be seen in the Piazza Manfredo Fanti (LF 23).
Other parts of the enceinte were fortified in the same way; but this was the agger par excellence, and long after its function had ceased it is spoken of by ancient authors as a prominent feature (Hor. Sat. i. 8. 13: aggere in aprico spatiari; see PUTICULI; Juv. 8. 43: ventoso sub aggere), and it was indeed the highest point in Rome. It was thus used to denote a quarter of the city (pomarius de agger(e) a proseucha, CIL vi. 9821); and (in contrast with the campus Viminalis sub aggere of the Notitia, which lay between the porta Viminalis and the castra Praetoria; Mitt. 1891, 113) we get a district known as super aggerem (Hist. Aug. Elag. 30: cum alter maneret in Capitolio, alter in Palatio, alter super aggerem, alter in Caelio, alter trans Tiberim), and it survived as a local name in the form Superage as late as 1051 (in loco quivocatur Superage non longe a Sancta Maria Maiore), from which the church took the name of Superagius (ASRSP 1889, 199-213; De Rossi, Piante 13), and even in 1527 (Fulvius, antiq. 1. ii. f. 21 ter, G.i.).
Many other portions of the wall are preserved, but are too insignificant to deserve separate mention, with the exception of an arch on the slope of the Quirinal, in the modern Palazzo Antonelli,4 which is only 1.05 metres in span, and therefore not a city gate (TF 120, who attributes it to 87 B.C.). For the remains on the Capitol, see ARX.
We cannot admit either that the Palatine was still a separate community when the wall of blocks 2 feet high was built on its north-west side or that this wall was part of a larger enceinte; and we must therefore suppose that it continued to be separately fortified as late as the fourth century B.C. as an additional internal citadel or fort (CR 1902, 336; YW 1907, 22).
For the remains of the wall of the fourth century B.C., see Ann. d. Inst. 1871, 40-85; Jord. i. I. 201-295; BC 1876, 24-38, 121-134, 165-210; 1888, 12-22; 1912, 67-8 ; NS 1884, 223 ; 1910, 495-513 (Boni, whose views as to relative dates, expressed at the end of the article, do not seem to be acceptable); Mon. L. xv. 746-753; Klio 1911, 83-123; TF 111-124; RE i. A. i. 1026.
1 Another piece was found in 1926 with possible remains of a postern, almost opposite the entrance to the offices of the Museo Nazionale Romano (Museo delle Terme) in Via Gaeta (YW 1927, 103).
2 To attribute it to the fifth or the earlier part of the fourth, and the agger itself to the sixth, supposing that neither the inner nor the outer walls were integral parts of the original agger (PI. 45, 115, 116), is simply to leave the agger in the air, as either of its ends could easily have been turned. Of course it might be a tenable hypothesis, admitting that’ all weak points of the circuit were fortified in this way’ (LR 62; cf. NS 1884. 223; BC 1892, 284) that there was at first no wall connected with any of the aggeres and that for the rest of the line the cliffs of the various hills were considered to afford sufficient defence, but it seems to be highly improbable.
3 Prof. Hulsen has kindly communicated this view to me, and I fully agree with it.
4 The statement in Gnomon, i. 300, that a piece of the Servian wall had been found in the Via Mazzarino rests on a misconception of the position of this arch and of the line taken by the wall, and is, further, incorrect, as the blocks were not in situ.
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