PORTA FLAMINIA
a gate in the Aurelian wall through which the
VIA
FLAMINIA (q.v.) issued from the city (DMH; Procop.
BG i. 14. 14;
23. 2). In the Middle Ages it was also known as Porta S. Valentini, Porta
S. Mariae de Popolo, and Porta Flumentana,
1 and after the fifteenth
century by its present name Porta del Popolo (T x. 202-206). It is generally thought that Sixtus IV destroyed the old gate and built that which
is now standing, replacing the semi-circular towers of Honorius by square
bastions. These bastions, however, were faced with blocks of marble,
which had upon them circular bosses similar to those on the bastions
of the
PORTA APPIA (q.v.). Several of them bore inscriptions (
CIL
vi. 13552, 28067, 30464, 31455, 31689, 31714, 31771) and most, if not all,
were taken from tombs; see
SEPULCRUM P. AELII GUTTAE CALPURNIANI,
SEP. GALLONIORUM,
SEP. L. NONII ASPRENATIS. It seems therefore very
doubtful whether the inscriptions would not have been copied by the
antiquaries of the period, had they come to light in the time of Sixtus IV;
and it is probably better to suppose the bastions to belong to the time
of Honorius, while the semi-circular brick towers which were discovered
in 1877 within them may then be attributed to the original gate of
Aurelian (
BC 1877, 186-213 pass.;
1880, 169-182;
1881, 174-188; cf.
Jord. i. I. 353; Reber 516;
LS i. 80;
iii. 234, 235; Town Planning
Review xi.
(1924), 76-79; Discovery vi.
(1925), 294; cf. supra, 403).