Identification: Vicus Sabuci The horizontal street that traverses the bottom of these two fragments is also visible in frs. 10Aab , 10abcde, and 10n. It has been identified as the vicus Sabuci, a street that makes its way northeast from the Baths of Trajan to the Esquiline Gate (Rodriguez-Almeida 1970-71, pp. 124-27). The name of the street is attested in an inscription that was found in the 18th c. in the Via Merulana near S. Martino ai Monti and which was dedicated to Vulcan by the magistri vici Sabuci (CIL 6.801). Assuming the inscription was found at or near its original location, this street is the only possible candidate, as the names of all the other major streets in the neighborhood are known. Just beyond the upper left corner of fr. 10Aab, the vicus Sabuci joined the clivus Suburanus, the major thoroughfare of the Subura (see below), at the Esquiline Gate in the Republican city walls (Rodriguez-Almeida 1970-71, pp. 125-27). This fragment group shows the street at its beginning in front of the Baths of Trajan (see below).

Identification: Porticus Liviae The section of a large, porticoed structure at the bottom of these fragments is the S end of the porticus Liviae - clearly identified by an inscription in fr. 10opqr, which shows the main part of the building. The N end is partially visible in fr. 11a. Built by Augustus in the name of his wife Livia on the site of a luxurious domus which he had inherited from Vedius Pollio (Ovid, Fasti 6.637-648; Suetonius, Augustus 29.4; Cassius Dio 54.23.1-6, 55.8.2), the building was formally dedicated in January, 7 BCE, by Tiberius and his mother Livia (LTUR IV, p. 127). Explicitly dedicated to marital harmony, it was by all accounts magnificent, with a garden and a collection of paintings. The Marble Plan provides irreplaceable information about the exact location and design of this now-lost building. It was situated at the edge of the Oppian Hill, with its northern, main entrance facing the clivus Suburanus (see fr. 11a), and its rear backing onto the vicus Sabuci (as seen in this fragment). The building consisted of an enormous rectangle of about 120 x 70 m., with a large internal open space surrounded on all four sides by a double colonnade. The single vine stock that covered all of the walkways of the porticus Liviae, according to Pliny, HN 14.11 (Richardson 1992, p. 314), perhaps spread along these colonnades. Behind the double colonnades, exedrae of various shapes and sizes punctuated the back walls of the building. All exedrae were fronted by columns, giving the effect of a triple colonnade. The central exedra along the W wall (see fr. 10opqr) was set farther north than its counterpart on the opposite wall; it was also deeper and wider, perhaps because it had a different role. The square, crenellated features in each corner of the open courtyard, just inside the double colonnades, are perhaps fountains (LTUR IV, p. 127) or small structures with statue niches in each face. The rectangular feature at the center of the courtyard has been interpreted as a monumental fountain on a podium (PM 1960, p. 69; Richardson 1992, p. 314) or an altar or small temple to Concordia, the goddess to whom the complex was dedicated (see references in LTUR IV, p. 128). The main access to the building was from the clivus Suburanus (the modern Via in Selci) through a monumental entrance with a central staircase in two flights. In addition to the entry through the exedra in this fragment, small openings are also seen in the S end of the large exedra in the E wall (fr. 10opqr), in the large niche in the W wall, and just north of the semicircular niche in fr. 11a. The stairs in the N and the W walls suggest that a platform had to be constructed as a level foundation for the building on the sloping hill side. A few remains of the floor of the central courtyard have been excavated, as have even deeper remnants of a floor from Pollio's residence, which was razed to the ground to make way for the public porticus (LTUR IV, p. 128). The building seems to have been in use until the 4th and perhaps even the 5th c. In the 6th c., it became a graveyard - an interesting testimony to the decline of this formerly so busy area of Rome (LTUR IV, pp. 128-129).

Identification: Thermae Traiani The monumental building partially visible in the right side of these fragments has been identified as the Baths of Trajan (PM 1960, pp. 69-70). Other parts of the Baths are depicted in frs. 10i (missing), 10opqr, 10s, 10wxy, 10z, 12, 13q, 13r, 13s (see AG 1980, pl. 8), and fr. 565 (see Rodríguez-Almeida 1994b). This enormous bath complex was built between 104 and 109 CE by the architect Apollodorus of Damascus (Cassius Dio 69.4.1) on a great platform at the top of the Oppian Hill in Regio III (LTUR V, p. 67). Standing and excavated remains, combined with drawings of the Baths made in the Renaissance and the fragments of the FUR, tell us of their internal design (see LTUR V, figs. 42-43 for Piranesi's drawing of the remains and for a reconstruction that includes the actual remains). Like all the imperial thermae of Rome from at least the Baths of Titus onward (fr. 110), these were designed as a central bathing block within a large open space (ca. 300 x 216 m.) surrounded by a precinct wall that included additional rooms and architectural features. The bathing block proper was placed against the center of the NE precinct wall to give maximum sun exposure to the hot rooms, which were situated in a row along the SW side of the building (partly visible on fr. 10xwy)(LTUR V, p. 68). The bathing rooms were symmetrically duplicated on either side of a central axis, the line of which is faintly visible in the guideline on this and on fr. 10xwy. This central axis began at the monumental entrance in the NE wall in this fragment and led directly into the natatio, depicted as a large, colonnaded square at the bottom right of this fragment (more of it is visible in the missing fr. 10i). From there, this axis extended through a great central cruciform hall, not visible on the surviving fragments of the Plan, and finally into the tepidarium and the caldarium, seen on fr. 10xwy. Visitors could move off this central axis into suites of small rooms near the entrance, perhaps dressing rooms (see fr. 10i). Two elaborately built rotundae with curving walls that were interrupted at each corner by triple niches, probably filled with statuary (frs. 10i and 10z), may have been frigidaria. There were rectangular palaestrae as well, not visible on the surviving Plan fragments, and numerous smaller rooms throughout. Along the SW side of the bathing block, on either side of the caldarium, is a row of sunrooms, placed to take maximum advantage of the sun. The visitor might also turn left or right from the monumental entrance along a colonnaded passageway which led to a suite of rooms within the NE precinct wall (as seen in this fragment and 10i) and ultimately to the great hemicycles at the far ends (frs. 10i, 10r, 10s, and 12). These hemicycles are thought to have been monumental display fountains; they looked out onto the large open area that enclosed the bathing block on three sides. In these gardens were meeting rooms and libraries, the latter perhaps in the semicircular exedrae near the S and W corners of the outer wall, one of which survives to this day with two storeys of niches (LTUR V, p. 68). At the far end of this open area, at the center of the SW wall of the precinct, a vast hemicycle opened outward (frs. 13q and 13r). Seats around its curve suggest that this was a space for performances or athletic contests (Richardson 1992, p. 397). Staircases along the SW precinct wall and other minor entrances gave access to the Baths from multiple directions.

The Baths of Trajan were built on a massive platform supported by a series of vaulted tunnels; they covered much of the filled-in Esquiline wing of Nero's Golden House (domus Aurea), damaged in a fire in 104 CE and no longer in use. Some later sources refer to the emperor Domitian as the builder, but this is contradicted by the Trajanic brickstamps found in the complex, the building's unified design, and the epigraphic and textual evidence of the Baths' dedication in 109 CE (LTUR V, p. 67). The immense water supply needed was provided in part if not entirely by the aqua Traiana and distributed to the Baths from the huge nearby cistern divided into nine long chambers and known as the Sette Sale (LTUR V, pp. 68-69; this is not depicted on the surviving fragments of the Plan). The Baths remained in use into the 4th and 5th c. CE; they may have been experiencing gradual abandonment even before their decisive ending in 537 CE when the aqueducts were cut by Vitigis' Ostrogothic army. In the 16th c. and later, the surviving remains on the Oppian were referred to indiscriminately as the Baths of Trajan and the Baths of Titus until R. Lanciani (BullCom 1895, pp. 110-115) disentangled this conflation (LTUR V, p. 67). Only one fragment of the Plan, fr. 110, has been associated thus far with the adjacent Baths of Titus.

Identification: Subura This fragment represents a section of the residential and commercial district called the Subura. Archaeological and epigraphical evidence, in conjunction with the names of Medieval churches and quotes from Martial, locate the approximate boundaries of the Subura neighborhood. It began near the Argiletum and the Roman forum, and from there stretched, at least in imperial times, northward up the valley between the Quirinal and Viminal Hills and eastward between the Oppian and Cispian Hills, where it probably reached as far as the Esquiline Gate (LTUR IV, p. 379). An inscription (CIL 6.9526) indicates that in the imperial period the area was divided into two sections: the Subura maior and the Subura minor. The greater Subura has been identified with the largely commercial area near the Forum Romanum, between the Viminal and the Oppian Hills, and the lesser Subura with the upper section between the Cispian and Oppian Hills where the major thoroughfare of the Subura, the clivus Suburanus, ascended towards the Esquiline Gate (LTUR IV, p. 380). Roman poets like Martial and Juvenal described the Subura as a sordid commercial area, riddled with violence, brothels, and collapsing buildings. In reality, it was probably not different from any other neighborhood in Rome where commercial activity intermingled with the religious and political life in the great public monuments and smaller local shrines and scholae, and where the large domus of the rich stood next to the decrepit apartment buildings that housed the poor. An abundance of evidence demonstrates that even in imperial times the Subura housed senators (probably on the upper slopes) as well as sandal makers, blacksmiths, and cloth sellers (LTUR IV, pp. 382-383). The apartment buildings and shops that crowd a large part of this fragment attest to this image of the Subura neighborhood.

Significance These joined fragments are significant on a variety of levels. First of all, they let us assess the accuracy of the Renaissance drawings of FUR fragments: The missing fr. 10i is largely accurate, yet the drawing of it shows no doorway on the outside of the monumental entrance in the Baths of Trajan. Secondly, these fragments draw a vivid picture of the urban fabric that surrounded enormous public complexes like the Baths of Trajan and the Porticus of Livia. The crowded apartment structures east of the Baths testify to the density of lower-class residences that flanked the luxurious baths (and hint at the large number of residences that must have been removed to accomodate first the Esquiline wing of the Domus Aurea and then the bath complex). Along with the other fragments that depict the Baths of Trajan, this fragment is key to our knowledge of the architecture of this monument of which little remains; in addition, it gives us insight into the work of their architect, Apollodorus of Damascus (Cassius Dio 69.4.1) who also designed Trajan's Forum. Comparison to other imperial thermae on the Marble Plan (Baths of Agrippa in fr. 38 and Baths of Titus in fr. 110) shows great consistency in the rendering of the architecture of such buildings: Rooms are symmetrically arranged around the center axis; great hemicycles add variety to the otherwise rectilinear design, and the walls of the central bathing building proper are rendered with thick, recessed lines on the FUR. Such symmetrical and rectilinear architecture forms a stark contrast to the small, irregular neighborhood baths, the balnea, hidden in crowded insulae. The difference, of course, lies with the organic growth of small baths within already existing neighborhoods, as opposed to architecture designed for a blank space where preexisting buildings had been removed to give the imperial architects free reigns to design these gargantuan structures. However, does the strange jog in the outer line of Baths just above the monumental entrance in this fragment reflect an attempt by the architect of the Baths to accomodate an earlier building? I.e. is this an example of a constraint being placed on the emperors' ability to confiscate land and destroy pre-existing buildings, similar to what happened to Augustus when planning his forum (odd angle of NE corner)? The Bath of Trajan fragments are also invaluable in clarifying the role complexes such as these played in the social life of Rome. Women as well as men used these Baths (LTUR V, p. 67 with reference), and the complex included not only the great central bathing block, but also gardens, probably libraries, a large semicircular area with seating that would have provided room to watch sports or performances, clubrooms and informal meeting rooms.

The significance of these fragments in relation to the Porticus of Livia is equally great. With frs. 10opqr and 11a, they provide our only knowledge of the location and layout of this building of which nothing remains. In addition, they construct a real image of what textual sources tell us about Augustan moralizing politics: The siting of this public building on top of the private property of Vedius Pollio, infamous for his luxurious lifestyle, was thus almost certainly part of Augustus' battle again luxury. And the placement of this porticus, dedicated to marital bliss and virtue by his own wife and (adopted) son, in a neighborhood known for sexual debauchery was surely part of Augustus' promotion of marriage and family.

Text by Tina Najbjerg and Jennifer Trimble