Identification The qualities of slab IV-6 are determined by several securely positioned fragments, for example those that depict the Republican temples in the Largo Argentina. These qualities (the thickness and color of the marble, the ductus of the engraving, the surface deterioration, the veining direction, and sawing irregularities on the back [zigrinatura]) allowed E. Rodríguez-Almeida to place fragment group 37ghi in the lower right corner of slab IV-6 (Rodríguez-Almeida 1978-80a, pp. 95-96, fig. 3). The near join with and similar architecture of these fragments to fr. 37f (depicting a section of the vicus Stabularius) which Rodríguez-Almeida had earlier located near the lower right corner of slab IV-6, solidified his location of fr. 37ghi. In 1983, Rodríguez-Almeida further cemented their location when he discovered that the clamp hole in fr. 37i fit a corresponding clamp hole on the wall of the aula. At the same time, he located fr. 602 in the lower left corner of the next slab over, slab IV-7; the architecture of this new fragment matched and joined exactly that of these fragments (Rodríguez-Almeida 1983a, pp. 87-90, fig. 1). This location identified the architecture depicted in frs. 39ghi as a section of the campus Martius, between the vicus Stabularius and the Tiber river (see AG 1980, fig. 41). The vertical street in these fragments was identified as the vicus Aesculati, an ancient street that followed the bend of the river, as seen in fr. 37g, and the parallel lines along its middle as a double colonnade (Rodríguez-Almeida 1978-80, p. 101; 1983a, p. 90, fig. 1). A different thesis was presented in 1977 by F. Coarelli, who suggested that the double lines represent the Euripus that drained the stagnum Agrippae (Coarelli 1977, pp. 834-837). Coarelli interpreted the dots along the lines as trees and the rectangle between them as a statue base. Rodríguez-Almeida's positioning of this fragment in slab IV-6 has since rendered Coarelli's identification impossible, but the notion that the double lines depict a canal, not a double colonnade, is supported by C. Bruun, who, however, identifies the dots along the lines as border stones and the large rectangle as a stepping stone for crossing the channel (C. Bruun, The water supply of Ancient Rome [Helsinki 1991] pp. 121-123). Bruun's thesis is convincing except on one point: he mistakes the dots that accompany the double lines as outlined squares (probably using Rodríguez-Almeida's incorrect representation of these in AG 1980, fig. 39, or Rodríguez-Almeida 1983a, p. 89), a feature that is highly unusual on the Plan (a rare example is 39f). The double lines down the Via Aesculati are accompanied by dots and they probably represent colonnades (see for example the colonnade that follows the edge of the Tiber in the adjoining fr. 37Am). Rodríguez-Almeida and Coarelli/Bruun's theses need not be mutually exclusive, however; the double lines here may depict an open water channel flanked on either side by colonnades and thus represent one of the many euripi that existed in the campus Martius (Pliny, NH 36.123 [reference from Bruun, p. 121]). The small, rectangular feature within the double set of lines has also been identified as a neighborhood shrine (Sartorio 1988, p. 32).

Significance The architecture and marble characteristics of these fragments allowed Rodríguez-Almeida to locate them in slab IV-6, thus greatly enhancing our knowledge of this non-monumental area of the campus Martius.

Text by Tina Najbjerg