TARENTUM
a section of the most westerly part of the campus Martius-
in extremo Martio campo (Fest. 329;
Zos. ii. 3)-where it is enclosed
by the great bend of the Tiber. Its precise limits are not known, but it
surrounded the
DITIS PATRIS ET PROSERPINAE ARA (q.v.), which was
discovered in 1888 between the Chiesa Nuova and the Piazza Sforza-
Cesarini, and presumably it extended to the river (Val.
Max. ii. 4. 5;
Fest. 350, 351; Ov.
Fast. i. 500 ; Censorin. 17. 18; Liv. Epit. 49).
Hot springs and other traces of volcanic action led to the belief that here
was an entrance to the lower world, and to the establishment of the cult
of Dis pater and Proserpina. The legend of the discovery of the altar
of Dis twenty feet below the surface of the ground by a Sabine Valerius
is given by Valerius Maximus (loc. cit.; Fest. 329). The Tarentum is
usually mentioned in connection with the ludi saeculares, when sacrifices
were offered to Dis (see references cited, and Statius
Silv. i. 4. 18;
iv. 1. 38;
Mart. i. 69. 2;
iv. 1. 8;
x. 63. 3; Auson. Idyll. 16. 34;
CIL vi. 32328,
15, acta lud. saec. Sev.). The usual and correct form is Tarentum, but
Terentum occurs now and then with false etymologies (Fest. 350:
Terentum locus in campo Martio dicitur quod eo loco ara Ditis patris terra
occultaretur; 351: Terentum in campo Martio lo(cum Verrius ait ab
eo> dicendum fuisse quod terra ibi per ludos) secularis Ditis patris (aram
occulens tera)tur ab equis quadrigari(s) 1; Serv. Aen. viii. 65: Terentum
[Tarentum, CODD.] dicitur eo quod ripas terat). No explanation of the
word Tarentum has yet been found (cf. Zielinski, Quaest. comicae,
Petropoli 1887, 94). The district was also called
πυροφόρον πεδίον （
Zos. ii. 3; cf. Val.
Max. ii. 4. 5:
solo magis fumante quam ullas ignes
Habente; see also HJ 477; Becker, Top. 628-629; Jord. i. I. 181). It
has recently been maintained that the Tarentum must be sought much
closer to the river, and that it must be a subterranean shrine, resembling
the so-called mundus on the Palatine (
Mel. 1925, 135-146). But it would
be difficult to point to any site in the Campus Martius where these two
conditions would be fulfilled; there is no rock in which such a shrine
could have been excavated, and it would have been liable to frequent
inundations.
