VIMINALIS COLLIS
* the smallest of the traditional seven hills of Rome,
extending south-west from the Esquiline plateau. It is separated from
the Cispius on the south-east by the valley traversed by the
VICUS
PATRICIUS (q.v.), and from the Quirinal on the north-west by the low
ground now marked by the line of the Via Nazionale. Like the Quirinal
it is a tongue of land about 700 metres long, with a present area of
approximately 24 ha. and a height of 50-57 metres. Originally its
height was somewhat greater (
BC 1891, 317). This hill derived its
name from the osiers (vimina) that grew there (Varro,
LL v. 5 ; Fest.
376;
Iuv. iii. 71; cf.
IUPPITER VIMINALIS), and it was regularly called
collis, not mons, and those who lived there collini, not montani (for
an apparent exception, see
Eutrop. i. 7 (6);
CP 1907, 463-464). It
became part of the City of the Four Regions (cf.
QUATTUOR REGIONES),
making with the Quirinal the third, Regio Collina. When the Servian
wall was built, the Viminal seems to have been regarded as reaching
across the plateau as far as the line of the wall and the
PORTA VIMINALIS
(q.v.). Later this district was included in the
sixth region of Augustus.
The Viminal was always the least important of the hills of the city, and
contained few monuments, and traffic for the most part passed on either
side of it. (For topography and monuments in detail, see HJ 372-393;
Pl. 484-506).
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