REGIONES QUATTUORDECIM
* the fourteen regions, or wards, into which
Augustus divided the city when he reformed the municipal administration
in 7 B.C. (Suet. Aug. 30; Cass. Dio Iv. 8). Thereafter Rome was often
designated as urbs regionum xiv or urbs sacra regionum xiv (text fig. 4).
These regions were divided into vici, and a new set of magistrates,
magistri vicorum, drawn from the common citizens, was instituted,
originally four from each vicus, but afterwards forty-eight from each
region regardless of the number of vici, and two curatores. These
magistrates had to do mainly with the religious ceremonies of the regions,
while the regular municipal administration was still in the hands of
higher officials. (For the administrative organisation of the regions, see
Marquardt,
Staatsverwaltung iii. 203-207; Mommsen,
Staatsrecht ii. 1035-
1037;
iii. 119-122;
BC 1906, 198-208;
CIL vi. 975.) The regions were
fourteen in number, twice as many as the traditional hills of Rome, and
were known originally only by number (cf. Tac.
Ann. xv. 40; Plin.
NH iii.
66-67; Hist. Aug. Heliog. 20; Frontinus 79; Suet. Dom. I; CIL vi. pass.),
but the names found in the Regionary Catalogue became current at
various later periods, doubtless as a result of popular usage
1 (cf.
REGIO-PALATII,
REGIO CAMPI MARTII, Suet. Caes. 39, Aug. 5, Nero 12, de gramm.
2; and
TEMPLUM PACIS for
Region IV, which could not have been used
at all until after that building was erected by Vespasian.) This division
into fourteen regions continued in force until the seventh century when
an ecclesiastical division into seven regions was introduced and opened
the way for the entirely different organisation of the Middle Ages.
From the Regionary Catalogue it is possible to determine with some
precision, in most cases, the limits of these regions in the fourth century,
but it is a different matter to do this for the Augustan division, inasmuch
as it is certain that the outer boundaries at least had been extended
at some points during the intervening three hundred years, and our
additional information concerning earlier conditions is extremely scanty.
What little there is must be derived from (1) the evidence of terminal
cippi that have been found as to successive extensions of the
POMERIUM
(q.v.) under Claudius, Vespasian and Hadrian; (2) Pliny's description
(
NH iii. 66-67) of the area of the city in his day-a passage full of difficulty
and uncertainty; (3) the customs boundary of the city, marked by cippi,
of which five have been found, dating from the time of Commodus (
CIL
vi. 1016 a, b, c, 8594, 31227)
2 ; (4) the list of vici on the so-called Capitoline
Base, inscribed in 136 A.D. (
CIL vi. 975;
Jord. ii. 585-598). The line
of the Servian wall was not always a boundary between adjacent regions,
for while
III,
IV,
VIII,
XI appear to have always been limited by that
line on the inside, and the same was true of
V,
VII,
IX on the outside,
I,
II,
VI,
XII,
XIII embraced ground on both sides. Nor did the wall
of Aurelian and the Augustan or later outer boundaries everywhere
coincide.
The following short description of the regions is based on the latest
and most generally accepted view of their boundaries, as drawn by
Hulsen (KH ii.).
I, Porta Capena, so called from the gate in the Servian wall, an
irregularly shaped district, beginning at the east corner of the Palatine,
bounded on the west by that hill, and running south to some distance
beyond the porta Capcna between two lines not more than 150 metres
apart on the average. Beyond the Aventine it widened considerably
and extended to the bank of the Almo, some distance beyond the Aurelian
wall. It is possible that Regions
I,
II,
III,
IV and
X all met at one point
near the Meta Sudans.
II, Caelimontium, including most of the Caelian, and bounded by
Region I, the Aurelian wall, and the straight street that ran from the
Colosseum to the porta Caelimontana and the porta Asinaria.
III, Isis et Serapis, so called because of the temples to these two
Egyptian deities erected within its area. It included the Colosseum
valley and the Oppius, and was bounded by
Region II, the Servian wall,
the clivus Suburanus from the porta Esquilina west, and the prolongation
of its line westward to a point north of the Colosseum, where it turned
south to the Meta Sudans. This line from the porta Esquilina was the
southern limit of
Region IV.
IV, Templum Pacis (see above), including the Sacra via from its
beginning to the atrium Vestae, the Subura, and the Cispius. Its boundaries were that just described, the Servian wall, the vicus Patricius
from the porta Viminalis to a point near the Subura, where it seems to
have curved to the north, then passed between the forum of Nerva and
that of Vespasian, and embraced the northern part of the forum.
V, Esquiliae, the eastern district of the city, lying outside the Servian
wall and north of the via Asinaria. In the time of Augustus the campus
Viminalis, and probably all the district between the via Tiburtina and
the via Salaria, lay outside the city (Plin. loc. cit.), and none of it was
included in
Region V until after the time of Vespasian. The boundary
was about 300-400 metres beyond the Aurelian wall on the south (
Mitt.
1896, 122-130), but in the fourth century coincided with it from a point
south of the via Labicana to the south side of the castra Praetoria.
VI, Alta Semita, so called from a street that followed the ridge of the
Quirinal, like the present Via Venti Settembre. Bounded on the south and
south-west by
Region IV it originally included the Quirinal from the
imperial fora to the Servian wall between the porta Viminalis and the
porta Collina, and extended far enough west to take in the horti Sallustiani,
and north beyond the line of the Aurelian wall. In the fourth century,
after the castra Praetoria had been made a part of the city, the boundary
of this region coincided with the Aurelian wall from the porta Salaria
south round the castra. From a point a little west of the porta Pinciana,
the boundary ran almost due south to the forum of Trajan.
VII, Via Lata, so called from the name given to the southern end of
the via Flaminia, between which and the western boundary of
VI this
region lay.
VIII, Forum Romanum vel Magnum, an irregular region, including
the forum, though not the whole of the Sacra via, the imperial fora, the
Capitol, and the district south of it, extending to a line drawn north
of the forum Boarium through the Velabrum and to the east end of the
atrium Vestae.
IX, Circus Flaminius, including all the territory between the Servian
wall, the via Flaminia and the Tiber.
X, Palatium, the Palatine, within the lines described by Tacitus
(
Ann. xii. 24) as those of the first
POMERIUM (q.v.).
XI, Circus Maximus, a very irregular region, containing the circus
Maximus, and bounded by the Tiber, and Regions
IX,
VIII,
X,
XII and
XIII.
XII, Piscina Publica, so called from a district within its limits that had
formerly contained a public reservoir or swimming bath. This region
included the eastern part of the Aventine, and was bounded by the via
Appia and Region I, the Aurelian wall, and the vicus portae Raudusculanae and the vicus Piscinae Publicae.
XIII, Aventinus, the Aventine and the district south of it, between
the boundaries of
XII and
XI, the Aurelian wall, and the Tiber.
XIV, Trans Tiberim (Trastevere), all the city on the right bank of
the Tiber, together with the insula Tiberina. The limits of this region
cannot be determined, but it included much more than the territory
within the Aurelian wall. It extended south as far as the temple of
FORS
FORTUNA (q.v.) and north far enough to include the Vatican district.
(For a full discussion of the fourteen regions, and necessarily of the
Regionary Catalogues, see Pr. Reg., Jena, 1846; Jord. i. I. 296-339;
ii. 1-236; De Rossi, Piante icnografiche 25-63 ; Homo, Aurdlien 231-234;
BC 1890, 115-137;
1892, 93-101;
RhM 1894, 416-423;
Mitt. 1892,
269-270;
1897, 148-160; Arch.
Zeit. 1856, 147; RE i. A. 482-485.)