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divI . f . avgvsT . ex . sc
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[43] “Descrizione del luogo denominato anticamente Speranza Vecchia, del monumento delle Acque Claudia ed Aniene Nuova, e del Sepolcro di Marco Virgilio Eurisace, dell’ architetto cav. Luigi Canina.” 8vo., Roma, 1839, with six Plates; extracted from the Annali dell’ Instituto Archeologico.
[44] There are two other temples known to have been dedicated to Spes, and the one near the Porta Carmentalis is thus entered in the Notitia and Curiosum Urbis: “Fortunæ et Spei Templa Nova.” We know that there had been a great fire here, and that these temples were rebuilt, and therefore the Nova has reference only to the new structure. Besides, to be analogous, it should have been “Spes Nova,” or “Templum Spei Novæ.” According to Dionysius, another Temple of Spes was a mile or eight stadia from the City. (Dion. Hal., ix. 24.) “Having in the first battle, which was fought at the distance of eight stadia from the City, near the temple of Hope, overcome the enemy and beaten them out of the field, and after that fought them again near the gate called Collina,” &c. The Porta Maggiore, in the outer wall of enceinte, is just a mile from the Porta Esquilina, in the inner wall of the City, and the Arch of Gallienus. On the other hand, the line of the specus, with the foss-way by the side of it, must have been important ground for a battle. The modern theory that the whole of the eastern side of Rome was called after Spes, has no ancient authority. Another instance is on all accounts very puzzling. It is a passage in Lampridius, in the life of Heliogabalus: “Ipse secessit ad hortos Spei Veteris, quasi contra novum juvenem.” (Lampridius, Antoninus Heliogabalus, 13.) It would almost appear that there were some gardens called by the name of Spes, unless indeed in transcribing some such error should have been made as in the case of the transcriber of Frontinus, and “Spei” written for “Specus,” by a scribe to whom the former word was familiar but the latter not, who had mistaken Spc̄ for Spē. It is a strong passage in favour of the temple theory; but still there is strong evidence on the other side. This garden was that of the Sessorium, one side of which was enclosed by the arcade carrying the specus of the Claudian aqueduct.
[45] The seven places where the abbreviation of spem or specum occurs in Frontinus are given in another page, with tracings of these passages from the best manuscript.
[46] Polenus and Buecheler have demonstrated that the Codex Cassinensis is the earliest and best. It was discovered at Monte Cassino by Poggio in the fourteenth century. The Codex Vaticanus is a copy of the above; but the Codex Urbinas, though of later date, is not a copy from that manuscript. Probably both are copies from an earlier one, not now extant. Some of the various readings in the Codex Urbinas are better than those of the Codex Cassinensis. See the edition of Frontinus by Polenus, Prolegomena, p. 20. Patavii, 1722, 4to.
[47] Other excavations, made in 1871 in the large vineyard near the Porta Maggiore, near the building called Minerva Medica, shewed the aqueducts very distinctly passing through the higher ground and going along the line of the wall towards the Porta di S. Lorenzo.
[48] Frontinus, c. 87.
[49] Piranesi, Le Antichità Romane, vol. i. pl. x.
[50] I am indebted to the kindness of the abbot of the monastery at Monte Cassino, for the tracings of these passages here reproduced by the process of photo-engraving.
[51] The manuscript called Codex Urbinas reads, jungitur ei ad anionem veterem. In the present instance, the true reading is evidently specum. Frontinus is describing the Aqua Appia, the oldest of the aqueducts, and the junction of the Augusta with the old specus. This could have nothing to do with the Anio Vetus.