BUSTA GALLICA
a place '
media in urbe' (
Liv. xxii. 14),
where, according
to Varro (
LL v. 157), the bones of the Gauls were burned
after the city
had been retaken by Camillus. According to another
version of the story
(
Liv. v. 48) the Gauls themselves burned here the bodies
of their own
number who died during the siege. There is no indication
of its location
(cf.
BC 1914, 108-109), and the name of the mediaeval
district of Portogallo
should not be brought into connection with it (HCh 317).
One might
conjecture that the name and the tradition had arisen from
the discovery
of some prehistoric cemetery (cf.
DOLIOLA, EQUUS
DOMITIANI). It is
mentioned in an inscription of the Sullan period as being at
the foot of a
flight of steps, the
Scalae [? Ca]niniae: In scalis ... ninieis
ab cleivo
infimo busteis Gallicis versus ad summum cleivom (
BC
1899, 53;
NS 1900, 301;
Klio 1902, 259, No. 38; CIL i 2. 809).
