REGIONES QUATTUOR
the four regions-Suburana, Esquilina, Collina,
Palatina-into which the city, within the pomerium, was divided during
the republic (Varro,
LL v. 45). Tradition ascribed to Servius Tullius
(
Liv. i. 43;
Dionys. iv. 14; de vir. ill. 7; Fest. 368) the division of the
inhabitants of Rome into four tribus, which, while purely a political division so far as our knowledge goes, are usually supposed to have been based
on the earlier local division described by Varro. This city of the Four
Regions (text fig. 5) was a stage of development intermediate between
the Palatine settlement (or the Septimontium) and what is ordinarily
called the Servian city, a stage that was the result of the union of the
Palatine and Esquiline settlements, that is shown by archaeological
evidence to have taken place about the middle of the seventh century B.C.
(Mon.
L. xv. 764). The division into four regions remained in force
until the reorganisation of Augustus.
All the area within the
POMERIUM (q.v.) was included in the regions
except, apparently, the Capitoline, perhaps because this hill was always
regarded as the citadel and religious centre of the city, and not as a
local division. Our knowledge of the area of the regions is derived principally from Varro's description (
LL v. 46-54) of the location of the sacraria
of the
ARGEI (q.v.), a description based quite certainly on documents
which represented the topographical conditions of the third century B.C.
His incomplete and somewhat obscure account distributes twenty-seven
sacraria among the four regions, eleven of which can be located with
reasonable certainty, and thirteen are conjectural, while three are wholly
unknown. The outer boundary of the regions was the pomerium, which
coincided with the Servian wall down to the time of Sulla, except that
the Aventine was excluded.
Region I, Suburana, comprised the Sucusa,
Ceroliensis and Caelius, according to the generally accepted view, although
this is a matter of sharp dispute (see literature cited below) ; II, Esquilina,
the Oppius and Cispius; III, Collina, the Quirinal and the Viminal;
IV, Palatina, the Palatium, Velia and Cermalus. It is not possible to
draw the inner boundaries of these regions with exactness, nor is it certain
that all four met at a common point, near the Velia, as is sometimes
maintained.
The discussion of the four regions involves that of the Argei, and the
literature of the subject includes both topics to a greater or less degree.
Cf. especially,
Jord. ii. 237-290, 599-604;
Gilb. ii. 329-375 ; Diels, Sybil.
Blatter 43-44;
DS iv. 817; Richter 9-10, 198-208;
RE ii. 689-700;
i. A. 1021-1024; Mommsen,
Staatsrecht iii. 122-126; Marquardt,
Staatsverwaltung iii. 190-194;
Rosch. i. 496-500; KH i;
Phil. 1889,
168-169;
RhM 1894, 414-416;
BC 1905, 198-208; M61. 1908, 272-274;
Mon.
L. xv. 775-795; Wissowa, Satura Viadrina, 1-19=Ges. Abh.
230-252; Beloch, R6m. Gesch. 208.
