ID AND LOCATION
| Stanford #
| 8m |
| AG1980 #
| 8m |
| PM1960 #
| 457 |
| Slab #
| VIII-5 |
| Adjoins
| 8n |
CONDITION
| Located
| true |
| Incised
| true |
| Surviving
| true |
| Subfragments
| 1 |
| Plaster Parts
| 0 |
| Back Surface
| smooth |
| Slab Edges
| 1 |
| Clamp Holes
| 0 |
| Tassello
| no |
TECHNICAL INFO
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| ANALYSIS
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| Description The fragment was part of a slab edge. A single row of tabernae, facing left, crosses the fragment from top center to the bottom left corner. In the open space behind the shops lies a partially visible building. One of its external walls - the one that faces the back of the shops - is arched. Two internal arches face each other and create an hourglass-shaped room between them that extends into two elongated rooms. A larger hall is situated behind the external arch. A single dot by the lower left corner of the building may represent a column.
Identification In 1968, L. Cozza joined this fragment to frs. 8l, 8n, and 8o, and suggested that the building with the external and internal arches, partially visible here, represented a small bath complex, a balneum (Cozza 1968, p. 22, fig. 14). A decade later, E. Rodríguez-Almeida was able to position the entire group in the top left corner of slab VIII-5 because the thickness, smooth back, and thick, blue veining line in fr. 8l matched other, securely positioned fragments in that slab (frs. 8a, 8b, and 8c) (Rodríguez-Almeida 1970-71, p. 127-129). The join located the proposed bath complex in the valley between the Caelian and the Palatine Hill, and at equidistance between the Septizodium and the Flavian Amphitheater (the Colosseum). It is tempting to suggest that the proposed baths were fed by the Neronian branch of the Aqua Claudia that passed nearby, a section of which is visible in fr. 8i (see AG 1980, pl. 6); judging from its architecture, however, the small, irregular bath building probably predates the aqueduct. The row of tabernae in the left side of the fragment probably faced a street; the available space in front suggests that the street was fairly wide. It probably ran from the NW corner of the platform of the Temple to the Deified Claudius to the bottom of the Caelian Hill, where it possibly met the ancient equivalent of Via di S. Gregorio.
Significance If the positioning of this fragment is correct, it provides an interesting glimpse of the urban landscape between the Caelian and the Palatine, with a small bathing structure surrounded on all sides by imposing, imperial monuments such as the Septizodium, the Temple to the Deified Claudius, and the Colosseum.
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| HISTORY OF FRAGMENT |
| The history of this fragment is confused: according to PM 1960, p. 142, if follows Iter E'' which indicates that the piece was discovered in 1562 together with the majority of the fragments behind the Church of Saints Cosma and Damiano. In the 17th cent., it was then built into a Farnese construction between the Via Giulia and the Tiber, the "Giardino Segreto", where it was rediscovered during demolitions in the Via Giulia in 1888 or 1899. On page 30 of PM 1980, however, fr. 457 is listed as having been one of three small fragments that were discovered in the aula of the Templum Pacis in 1931 or 1938. AG 1980, p. 23, repeats the latter. Today, the fragment is stored with other known FUR fragments in the Museo della Civiltà Romana in EUR under the auspices of the Sovraintendenza ai Beni Culturali del Comune di Roma.
Text by Tina Najbjerg
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| KEYWORDS
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| bath?, balneum?, shops, tabernae, open space, column? |
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