SEP. ROMULI (1)
the legendary sepulchre of Romulus in the comitium
(Fest. 177:
niger lapis in Comitio locum funestum significat, ut ali,
Romuli morti destinatum, sed non usu ob1[venisse ut ibi sepeliretur, sed
Fau]stulum nutri[cium eius, ut ali dicunt Hos]tilium avum Tu[lli Hostili
Romanorum regis]). The schol. on Hor.
Epod. xvi. 13, 14, state variously
that Romulus was buried in or pro rostris or post rostra; and in the
former version two lions are mentioned as having stood by the tomb.
Dion.
Hal. i. 87 says that, according to one story, the lion (he mentions
only one) which lay by the rostra stood over the body of Faustulus;
while in iii. I he says that the father of Tullus Hostilius was buried here,
with a stele to celebrate his virtues.
The discovery in 1899 opposite the front of the curia Iulia, and orientated with it, of a pavement of black marble slabs-they are marmor
Taenarium-about 4 metres long by 3 wide, lying on the same level as
the Caesarian pavement of the comitium, was naturally brought into
connection with the niger lapis; and investigations were undertaken
beneath it. A group of very ancient monuments was found, the chronological sequence of which is as follows: (I) an archaic inscribed four-sided
cippus, the upper part of which has been broken off. It stands in a
shallow hollow, cut for it in the surface of a pavement, but has been
slightly displaced. It has given rise to much discussion; and the state
of our knowledge with regard to the content of the text is summarised
by Lommatzsch in CIL i². I. 'It seems,' he says, 'that it is a law
or laws as to certain rites to be performed by the king or perhaps by those
in attendance on the king in the comitium. To attempt to define it
further would be useless, as we do not even know how much of the
cippus is lost.' As to the date, he fixes it about 500 B.C., as being slightly
later than the fibula of Praeneste (ib. 3). Cf. also
AJP 1907, 249-272,
373-400. The freshness of the surface may be explained by the fact that
it was covered with stucco.
(2) a conical column of tufa dating from the fifth century.
(3) the so-called sacellum-consisting of (a) a rectangular foundation
of one course of tufa blocks, on which rest two bases, each 2.66 metres
long and I.31 broad; these support pedestals of tufa with curved profiles,
probably to be reconstructed similarly to the altar of VERMINUS (q.v.).
These pedestals might very well have supported the statues of recumbent
lions. Between them is a block of stone, on which the original niger lapis
may have stood. (b) another small platform of tufa blocks directly
behind, with no trace of any superstructure. For the orientation of
the sacellum, see
ROSTRA. It dates probably from the latter half of the
fourth century B.C.
Between this group of monuments and the black marble pavement
there lay (a) a stratum of river sand and gravel 0.55 metre thick, (b) a
layer, 0.40 metre thick, of earth and ashes, in which various objects of
pottery, terra cotta and bronze were found (including even fragments
of the black marble pavement), dating, not (as was at first announced),
from the sixth century B.C., but from the sixth to the first century B.C.,
and mixed together in the utmost confusion. A full report upon them
has not yet been published; but if there really was no stratification,
they cannot have formed a stips votiva.
The original idea, that the destruction of these monuments dates
from the fire of the Gauls, is therefore untenable; and it is doubtful
whether the black marble pavement was laid by Sulla (so Van Deman
in
JRS 1922, 24), by Caesar
2 (in which case it is doubtful whether niger
lapis would be a correct term for it, and the absence of any mention
in the literature of the empire of so striking a monument is as strange
as the fact that it does not correspond at all, in extent or orientation,
with the monuments beneath), or by Maxentius, who is known to have
revived the cult of Romulus, and indeed set up close by a base with the
inscription ' Marti invicto patri et aeternae urbis suae conditoribus.' The
rough edging of white marble blocks (and, perhaps, the diminution of the
size of the black marble pavement) would date from an even later period.
See NS 899, 151-169;
1900, 143-146;
CR 1899, 232-233; 1900,236;
1900, 85-87;
1904, 140;
1905, 77;
Mitt. 1902, 22-31;
1905, 29-46;
HC 103-109; Studniczka,
OJ 1903, 129-155;
1904, 239, 244; Petersen,
Comitium, Rostra, Grab des Romulus
(Rome 1904); Pinza, Comizio
Romano nell' Eta repubblicana, Rome 1905; Richter,
BRT iv. 5-13;
P1. 241-250; RE i. A. 1099-1102;
Suppl. iv. 490, 491;
JRS 1922, 7,
23-25; TF 61-66; DR 215-229; ZA 72; HFP 2-5.