DOLIOLA
a place, probably within the limits of the forum Boarium,
ad cloacam maximam (Varro,
LL v. 157), where earthen pots, doliola,
were buried. It was unlawful to pollute this spot (Varro, loc. cit.; Fest.
69), and the jars were said to contain either the bones of corpses or
quaedam religiosa of Numa (Varro, l.c.), or the sacred utensils of the
Vestals (
Liv. v. 40. 8) or other priests (Fest. l.c.; Placid. 32, Deuerl.),
which they buried when the Gauls sacked the city. In 1901 there were
found, at the south-west corner of the arch of Ianus Quadrifrons and also
at a distance of 22 metres from it, remains of small chambers arranged
on both sides of narrow corridors, which formed subterranean galleries
with vaulted roofs. These chambers were of small size, 1.95 by 1.80
metres in width and depth, with doors 1.80 high. Each chamber contained a seat across one side.
1 The floor of the chambers farthest from
the arch is 3.25 metres below the ancient pavement of the forum Boarium,
and 4.50 metres below the present level of the Via del Velabro. The
construction of the galleries is that of the last century of the republic,
and they seem to be adapted for an underground prison suggesting the
locus saxo consaeptus (
Liv. xxii. 57), in which two Gauls and two
Greeks were buried alive in 215 B.C. We have several other records of
similar human sacrifices in foro Boario, though Gatti, in spite of Pliny's
etiam nostra aetas vidit (
NH xxviii. 12), doubts if they actually occurred
except in effigy. This may also have been the Doliola itself, for the
ossa cadaverum said to be preserved here suggest human sacrifices.
Von Duhn (Italische
Graberkunde i. 416) considers that the probabilities are in favour of a site nearer the temple of Vesta (inasmuch as
Livy tells us that the Vestals hid what they could not carry with them
in doliolis, sacello proximo aedibus flaminis Quirinalis, and fled with
the rest across the Pons Sublicius to the Janiculum), and that the discoveries of 1901 are of too late a period to have anything to do with
the matter. There is little doubt that the whole legend arose from actual
discoveries of prehistoric tombs along the line of the cloaca Maxima
(cf.
BUSTA GALLICA,
EQUUS DOMITIANI;
NS 1911, 190).
See
Jord. i. 2. 486; Bull. d.
Inst. 1879, 76, 77;
NS 1901, 354, 422, 481;
BC 1901, 141-144, 283; Gatti in DAP 2. viii. 253-270 (cf. Reid in
JRS
1912, 34-35, who proposes to read civitas for aetas in Plin. loc. cit.);
RE v. 1283; i. A. 577 (where it is suggested that, as in the case of the
lacus Curtius, we really have to do with a mundus).
