VIA SALARIA
a road leading due north and then north-east, passing
through the porta Collina of the Servian wall (immediately outside which
it left the via Nomentana on the right) and the porta Salaria of the
Aurelian wall. It was a very ancient road, by which the Sabines came
to fetch salt from the salt marshes at the mouth of the Tiber (Festus
326; Paul. ex Fest. 327; Cic. de nat. deor. iii. 5. II;
Strabo v. 3. I, p. 228,
who calls it
οὐ πολλή; Plin.
NH xxxi. 89; Not. app.; Eins. 12. 4, and
see
SALINAE), which may have thus originated even before the foundation
of Rome (see
VICUS IUGARIUS). There was a legend that a treaty with
the Sabines was made by Tullus Hostilius (Hor. Epist. ii. I. 24;
Dionys.
iii. 33). It was also the route to Antemnae and Fidenae (
Liv. vii. 9. 6),
and later on acquired importance as the thoroughfare to Reate and,
through the Apennines, to Amiternum and Ausculum (Ascoli Piceno,
not far from the Adriatic coast). We have inscriptions of five of its
curatores (
CIL vi. 1507, 1509;
viii. 7033;
1 xiv. 2405; Rev. Arch.
1890, ii. 139;
BC 1891, 121-124; and also the eighteenth milestone of
Nerva (
NS 1910, 366;
Mitt. 1912, 223). Brickfields were situated on it
(
CIL xv. 478-532, 683), no doubt beyond the bridge over the Anio.
The via Salaria vetus (first mentioned in the Depos. Mart. of 335-336
ap. Chron. p. 71 (M), and then in other lists of catacombs) undoubtedly
diverged to the left from the main via Salaria, and was cut by the Aurelian
wall between the second and third towers west of the gate. A very large
number of tombs have been found along the first part of its course (111. 56).
It can be traced as far as the foot of the Monti Parioli, but no further;
and though it has been supposed, it is more than doubtful whether it
crossed the Tiber (
JRS 1921, 130 ; Riv. Arch. Cris. i.
(1924), 19-41). It is
not impossible that the name came from the fact that in 335-336 people
still remembered its having been closed by the construction of the
Aurelian wall. That the original road ran this way is unlikely. See
Jord. i. I. 430; T iii. 1-133; HJ 437;
PBS iii. 7 sqq.;
Mitt. 1908,
275-329, 376;
1909, 121-169, 208-255;
1912, 221-229, 248; RE i.
A.
1845, 2078;
SR i. 353.
