VICUS IUGARIUS
a street that led from the forum, between the basilica
Iulia and the temple of Castor, to the porta Carmentalis (
Liv. xxiv. 27. 115;
xxvii. 37. 14;
xxxv. 21. 6; Fest. 290; Not. Reg. VII; Hemerol. Vail.
ad iv Kal. Aug.). Its name is said to have been derived from an altar
of Iuno Iuga (Fest. 104:
dictus Romae quia ibi fuerat ara Iunonis Iugae
quam putabant matrimonia iungere; HFP 13). It is far less likely
that the name was given to this street because the makers of
yokes (iuga) had their shops here, or because it connected the forum
and the district of the forum Holitorium (Jord. i. I. 515; 2. 468;
Thedenat 175, 225;
Gilb. i. 257-263;
iii. 416, 417). The present pavement is not ancient (
NS 1883, 14), but preserves the line of the street
after the building of the basilica Iulia. Before the Augustan period it was
a little further towards the south-east (
CR 1902, 94;
JRS 1922, 17).
A purpurarius (or dealer in purple stuffs) 'de vico iugario' is known to us
from a sepulchral inscription (
NS 1922, 144). See also DR 510-512.
The road later known as the vicus Iugarius was the road by which the
roads from the north, north-east and east--(I) the road which preceded
the via Flaminia and the clivus Argentarius; (2) the via Salaria, the
vicus Longus, the clivus Insteius and the Argiletum; (3) the via Tiburtina
and Labicana,
1 the Subura and the Argiletum -- all reached the crossing over the Tiber just below the island. It must have kept close to the
southern edge of the Capitol, to avoid the marshy ground between this
hill and the Palatine. It was thus, there is little doubt, a part of the
original trade route which led to the river, perhaps before there was any
settlement on the site of Rome at all. And there is also a strong pro-
bability that it was the salt marshes on the right bank of the Tiber (see
VIA SALARIA) that were in use in these early days; otherwise, the roads
from the north and north-east, at any rate, would have made for the
west side of the Capitol (porta Carmentalis or Flumentana) and not
for its east side.
Just as the line of the vicus Iugarius belonged originally to the trade
route from the north, north-east and east to the west and north-west,
so that of the road through the valley of the circus Maximus (see
FORUM
BOARIUM) belonged to the route from the west and north-west to the south and south-east, forming the approach from the Tiber crossing to the
via Castrimoeniensis and the road to Conca, which approached respectively
the central district of the Alban Hills and their south-western slopes,
the latter going on to join the ancient road at the foot of the Volscian
mountains, which led to Terracina or Anxur long before the via Latina,
and via Appia (both of them artificial military roads, taking a perfectly
straight line) were even contemplated, and formed the other route to
Capua, Naples, and Magna Graecia. See
PBS i. 215 sqq.; iv. I sqq.
v. 213 sqq.
