Identification: A section of the Campus Martius From an early stage it was known that fr. 40a and the missing fr. 40b joined with the larger group 40cdefgh, but only during the printing of PM 1960 did its authors realize that fr. 40i also join (see PM 1960, fig. on p. 131). The authors of PM 1960 also recognized that the architecture depicted in the large group consisting of this fragment and of frs. 40cdefgh and 40b belonged to a flat section of Rome (PM 1960, p. 132). Later, E. Rodríguez-Almeida located the entire group to the upper right corner of slab III-12, based on primarily on his identification of the central, vertical street in fr. 40cdefgh as the vicus Stab[u]larius (or vicus Bublarius [PM 1960, pp. 313-132; AG 1980, pp. 149-150]) and his positioning of other fragments in the slabs just above this one (slabs IV-6 and IV-7), one of which contained, he suggested, the beginning of the inscription VICUS STABLARIUS (Rodríguez-Almeida 1970-71, pp. 113-115, fig. 114). This location identified the architecture in the entire group as a section of the flat area of the Campus Martius, right between the Theater of Pompey and the Tiber (see Rodríguez-Almeida 1983a, fig. 3, for an image of this fragment group superimposed on the modern topography of Rome).

Identification: Tabernae and a possible schola As in fr. 40cdefgh, the architecture of these two fragments consists mainly of single rooms, probably tabernae or shops. Rows of tabernae like those depicted here are one of the most common features on the Marble Plan. Most often, the shops consisted of a single room with a wide opening towards the street that could be screened off a night, while the owners perhaps resided with their families on a wooden platform in the back of the shop. In the larger tabernae, the back of the room might be closed off with a screen to create a separate living space for the family (Reynolds 1996, p. 161).
The large room at bottom may be the meeting hall, schola, for one of Rome's many collegia of artisans, craftsmen, or priesthoods. A collegium of any sort would have required a large room for meetings and communal dining, perhaps a sacellum or altar for the worship of the patron god, and the ability to restrict access to members only. The hall in this fragment seems to fulfill these requirements: The right exedra at top may have been the sacellum, the large room provided ample space for meetings, and access to the hall seems to be restricted to the narrow opening in the room next to the sacellum (not included in the Renaissance drawing but clearly visible in the digital photo of these fragments).

Significance Rodríguez-Almeida's identification and location of the large fragment group to which these fragments belong is a great gain for our knowledge of non-monumental Rome. The group provides excellent evidence for the type of mixed residential and commercial architecture that probably was common in most of Rome's neighborhoods and for the organization and movement through this little known section of the Campus Martius.

Text by Tina Najbjerg