PORTICUS VIPSANIA
begun by Polla, the sister of Agrippa, and finished
by Augustus (Cass.
Dio lv. 8. 3-4). It extended along the east side of
the via Lata, occupying the western part of the
CAMPUS AGRIPPAE (q.v.).
It was near the aqua Virgo (
Mart. iv. 18. 1-2:
qua vicina pluit Vipsania
porta columnis I et madet assiduo lubricus imbre lapis), and therefore
it has hitherto been supposed that it extended nearly as far south as that
aqueduct, but recent excavations (
NS 1915, 35, etc.;
1917, 9-20;
BC 1914,
209;
1915, 218;
1917, 220) seem to indicate that a colonnade on the
south side of the Via del Tritone was the southern end of the porticus.
Farther south no traces of such a building have been found. Hulsen
indeed identifies it with the PORTICUS EUROPAE (q.v.).
In this porticus was a map of the world, prepared by order of Agrippa
(Plin.
NH iii. 17); there were laurels in its garden (
Mart. i. 108. I); and
detachments of the Illyrian army camped in it in 69 A.D. (Plut. Galba 25;
Tac.
Hist. i. 31). In the fourth century its name had been corrupted into
porticus Gypsiani (Not. Reg. VII).
In construction it resembled the
SAEPTA (q.v.) on the outer side of
the via Lata, a little farther south, but it underwent changes in later
times, as part of the remains date from the Flavian period, and in the
second century the intercolumnar spaces were closed with brick-faced
walls, thus making rows of separate chambers. At various points in the
area parts of semi-circular arches with travertine pillars and pilasters
with Doric capitals have been found, and a travertine pavement and
cipollino columns with Corinthian capitals (
BC 1887, 146-148;
1892,
275-279;
1895, 46-48; HJ 458-459;
Gilb. iii. 246).
