AD SAXA RUBRA
(Prima Porta) Italy.
A
station on the Via Flaminia on the right bank of the
Tiber 14.4 km from Rome. Here the Via Tiberina detaches itself from the Flaminia, and another road led off
along the Cremera to Veii. The cliffs of red tufa, coming
close to the river at this point, give the road passage strategic importance and this was the scene of Constantine's
victory over the army of Maxentius in A.D. 312 (Aur.
Vict.
Caes. 40.23), shown in the frieze of the Arch of
Constantine in Rome. Nearby, the villa of Livia called
Ad Gallinas, famous for its breed of white chickens and
for its laurel grove (Plin.
HN 15.136), was discovered
and explored as early as 1596. In 1867 was found the
heroic cuirass statue of Augustus now in the Vatican
(Braccio Nuovo). The villa occupied the height dominating the view down the Tiber valley to Rome, and its
lands seem eventually to have extended even across the
Tiber to Fidenae (
NSc [1909] 434). Except for works of
terracing, all that can be seen today are three vaulted
subterranean rooms with reticulate and quasi-reticulate
facing, from the largest of which (11.7 x 5.9 m) a fine
decoration showing an illusionary garden was removed
and is now in the Museo delle Terme. The vault above
was covered with stucco reliefs of which only poor
remains survive.
The name Prima Porta comes from an arch, thought
to be of the time of Honorius, one of the brick-faced
piers of which is built into the corner of the modern
church.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
G. Tomassetti,
La campagna romana 3
(1913) 253-59; G. Lugli,
BullComm 51 (1923) 26-46;
T. Ashby,
The Roman Campagna in Classical Times
(1927) 248; M. M. Gabriel,
Livia's Garden Room at
Prima Porta (1955)
I; H. Ingholt, “The Prima Porta Statue of Augustus,”
Archaeology 22 (1969) 176-87, 304-18.
L. RICHARDSON, JR.
