Samuel Ball Platner, Thomas Ashby, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome

CAMPUS ESQUILINUS

the name in use during the last period of the republic and early empire for that part of the Esquiline plateau that lay outside the porta Esquilina (Cic. Phil. ix. 17; Suet. Claud. 25; Strabo v. 237). What its exact limits were, either then or earlier, is not known, but it is said to have been situated north of the via Labicana (Strabo, loc. cit.), and it probably included part of the present Piazza Vittorio Emanuele and the district immediately north of it. It formed a part of what had been the early Esquiline necropolis (Hor. Sat. i. 8. 8; cf. HJ 265-27 ; DE ii. 2163-2167), a place of burial for prominent Romans (Cic. loc. cit.) as well as for the poor (Hor. loc. cit.), but it had been reclaimed at the beginning of the Augustan period and was used as a park (Hor. loc. cit. 14-16). It is referred to as Agri novi by Prop. iv. 8. 2; cf. Hor. cit.: vetatque novis considere in hortis. Executions also took place here (Suet. loc. cit.).