NAUMACHIA VATICANA
the modern name for a structure, thought to have
been a naumachia, lying just north-west of the castle of S. Angelo, the
ruins of which were excavated in 1743 and of which traces have been
found later (DAP I. x.
(1842), 431-470;
NS 1899, 436;
BC 1911, 204-205).
For a full discussion of the identification of this building, its history, and
bibliography, see Hulsen in DAP 2. viii. 353-388; HJ 660-661 (cf.
BC 1914, 394-5 for objections). He believes that this was the work of
Trajan, to whose period the brick-facing belongs (
AJA 1912, 417), perhaps
a rebuilding of that of Domitian in the same or another place, and that
it had been abandoned by the sixth century (Procop. BG ii. I). It would
then have been one of the two naumachiae of Not.; and from it came the
name regio naumachiae, which was in use as early as the sixth century
(see also Durm, Baukunst 699-700; DAP 2. xv. 370-371; DuP 34;
HCh 416). It is generally known as circus Hadriani, but wrongly.
The Hermes of the Belvedere was found in it, if the information given by
Ligorio is correct (
JRS 1919, 181).
