Identification: Clivus Victoriae The street and the inscription continues in fr. 5Abcd, thus identifying the street in this fragment as the clivus Victoriae on the NW slope of the Caelian Hill, not the clivus Victoriae on the Palatine (PM 1960, p. 110, with reservations). E. Rodríguez-Almeida has proposed that this inscription joined with the one at the bottom of fr. 5Abcd to form a single phrase: [CLI]VUS VICTORIAE/SEVERI ET A[N]/TONINI AU[G]G/NN. Perhaps referring to Septimius Severus' Parthian victory in 198 CE, the street was in this way distinguished from the clivus Victoriae on the Palatine (AG 1980, p. 68). The Caelian clivus Victoriae ran from the S edge of the Temple of the Deified Claudius (visible in fr. 4b) to what looks like a huge piazza in front of the Septizodium (PM 1960, pp. 109-111; AG 1980, pp. 65-67; LTUR I p. 287). The identification and location of this fragment and the joining fr. 5Abcd and f in slab IX-5 seem confirmed by a) they are of same thickness as the securely placed frs. 5 in the left end of the same slab; b) the direction of the marble veining in this group is similar to those in the left side; c) the clamp hole at top of this fragment matches a clamp hole in the aula wall exactly; d) the street that runs obliquely from top left to bottom right in frs. 5Ab and 5Af coincides more or less with the known clivus Scauri; e) the angle of the intersection between this oblique street and the horizontal one that traverses the center of fr. 5Abde coincides with the intersection between the clivus Scauri and an ancient street shown among other places in Colini 1944, pl. 11; and f) the oblique street would be parallel to the Aqua Claudia than ran from the Caelian Hill to the Palatine (PM 1960, pp. 110-111). In addition, Rodríguez-Almeida has pointed out that the increase in thickness from bottom to top in frs. 5Af, 5Abcd, and 5Aa is similar to the increase seen in the fragments in the left side of the slab (AG 1980, p. 67, fig. 18). Comparison with frs. 5Abcd shows that tabernae lined the N side of the street from the center of this fragment to the open piazza in front of the Septizodium. Behind these shops were three consecutive porticus buildings of trapezoidal shape, seemingly with no access to the street, surrounded by outward-facing shops. They have in the past been identified as ware houses, but it has recently been suggested that since the shops do not open onto the internal courtyards, they are probably not horrea but grandiose market buildings (Insalaco 2003, p. 109).

Significance In combination with frs. 5Abcd and 5Af, this fragment provides the vertical dimensions of the entire slab IX-5. The clamp hole in its top edge proves its precise placement in this slab. It has recently been proposed that certain inconsistensies between the architecture depicted in this fragment and the actual remains on the ground are caused by the same 21-degree skewing that characterizes the Templum Divi Claudi on the same slab (Insalaco 2003, p. 108). Together, these fragments also document some of the important thoroughfares in this monumental section of Rome.

Text by Tina Najbjerg