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![]() Campus MartiusThis was the level ground between the slopes of the Capitoline, Quirinal, and Pincian hills and the Tiber River. It covered about 600 acres and was for a long time publicly owned. During the Republic, the area was used for training soldiers and for foot and horse races. The Villa Publica was located here: it was the place where foreign ambassadors were received and where returning generals waited to learn if they were to be awarded the honor of a triumph. The triumph started nearby and, as a result, many temples recording triumphs were built in the Campus. Somewhere near the Villa Publica was an Altar of Mars. During the Empire, the area took on a new role: it came to house large entertainment complexes as well as monuments honoring emperors and other members of the imperial families ruling Rome. ![]() Campus MartiusFrom Samuel Ball Platner, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, rev. Thomas Ashby. Oxford: 1929, p. 91-94. The level ground between the slopes of the Capitoline, the Quirinal, and the Pincian hills, and the Tiber. This term varied somewhat in its signification; for, while originally and in its widest sense it embraced all this district, other names for small sections seem to have come into use later. Thus as early as the fifth century B.C. the south portion of the plain was probably known as Prata Flaminia (q.v., Liv. III. 54, 63), and campus Martius was the ordinary designation of what lay beyond. After Augustus had divided the city into fourteen regions, the name campus Martius was restricted to that portion of Region IX (circus Flaminius) which lay west of the via Lata, the modern Corso; and here again there seems to have been a further distinction, for a cippus (CIL VI.874) found near the Pantheon indicates that the campus Martius of the time of Augustus was divided into two parts — the district between the cippus and the circus Flaminius, which had been more or less built over, and the open meadow to the north, the campus proper; cf. ib. 31189; BC 1883, 11-12. The campus Martius covered an area of about 250 hectares (600 acres), extending a little more than two kilometres north and south from the Capitoline to the porta Flaminia, and a little less than two kilometres east and west in its widest part, between the Quirinal and the river. It was low, from 10 to 15 metres above the level of the sea in antiquity (13 to 20 now), and from 3 to 8 above that of the Tiber, and of course subject to frequent inundations. It contained several swamps or ponds, as well as streams, the largest of which, the Petronia Amnis (q.v.), which formed the limit of the city auspices (AR 1909, 67-70) came from a spring on the Quirinal, called the Cati fons, and flowed into the largest swamp, the palus Caprae or Capreae, where were afterwards the pool and baths of Agrippa. In the north-west part of the campus, near the great bend in the river, there were hot springs, probably sulphurous, and other traces of volcanic action. Some small part at least was wooded, for we know of two groves, Aesculetum and Lucus Petelinus (qq.v.). |
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