QUIRINALIS COLLIS
the most northerly of the traditional seven hills
of Rome, which stretched from the northern extension of the Esquiline
plateau in a south-westerly direction. It is a narrow irregular tongue,
separated from the Viminal on the south by the depression now traversed
by the Via Nazionale, and sloping off more gradually on the north and
north-west to the campus Martius and the valley occupied during the
late republic by the
HORTI SALLUSTIANI (q.v.). The length of this
tongue from the porta Collina in the Servian wall to the collis Latiaris
(see below) is a little more than two kilometres. While there was a fairly
deep depression between the Capitol and the Quirinal, as is shown by the
pavement of the street found beneath the column of Trajan, yet the
complete division between the two was made by the great excavations
for the forum of Trajan. The highest point of the hill seems to have
been within the area now covered by the Royal Gardens, for which
considerable levelling off was done in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries (Hulsen, Rom. Antikengarten 85 sqq.). In general, excavations
indicate that marked changes of this sort were made both in antiquity
(see
FORUM TRAIANI) and in more recent times, which have modified
both the height and contour of the hill. The height of the Royal
Gardens is now 50 metres above sea-level, and that of the Treasury
buildings 60 (A. Verri, II Colle Quirinale, Bull. Soc. Geol. Ital. 1908;
S. Agata dei Goti (by Hulsen and others)
Rome 1924, 3 sqq.).
On the north and west slope of the hill were at least four approaches
through cuts or depressions, three of which were marked by gates in the
Servian wall,
PORTA SANQUALIS,
P. SALUTARIS, and
P. QUIRINALIS
(qq.v.), corresponding to the modern Vie Nazionale, Dataria, and
Quattro Fontane. The fourth led up to the top of the hill near the
new tunnel under the Royal Gardens (
BC 1926, 145-175).
Like the Viminal, the Quirinal was a collis, not a mons (for apparent
exceptions-
Flor. i. 7. 16;
Eutrop. i. 7-see
CP 1907, 463-464), and the
description of the Argei (Varro,
LL v. 51) preserves the names of the
parts into which it was originally divided-collis Latiaris, the southern
end; collis Mucialis, north of the Latiaris from the Via di Magnanapoli
to the monte Cavallo; collis Salutaris, from Monte Cavallo to the church
of S. Andrea; and collis Quirinalis, from this point east. The derivation
of the first two names is unknown (HJ 399-400), and they, together
with Salutaris (cf.
SALUS), evidently passed out of use at an early date.
Quirinalis then became the proper designation of the whole hill. This
name was derived by Roman antiquarians from the inhabitants of the
Sabine town Cures, who settled on this hill and were afterwards incorporated in Rome (Varro,
LL v. 51; Fest. 10, 254;
Jord. i. 2. 179-180),
or from the god Quirinus, who was identified with Romulus (Ov.
Fast.
ii. 511; for the literature of the disputed etymology of Quirinalis, see
WR 153; Walde, Lat. etym. W6rterb. s.v.).
1 Whatever the true derivation, there is no doubt that, during the historical period, the hill was
regarded as having been named from the god
QUIRINUS, whose temple
(q.v.) stood near the porta Quirinalis. Festus states (io, 234) that
this hill was first called Agonus, but this is probably only an invention
of the antiquarians.
The Quirinal is not enumerated among the hills of the Septimontium,
and did not become a part of Rome until the organisation of the Four
Regions, when, with the Viminal, it formed the third, Collina. There
are traces of primitive settlements on this hill, and the tradition that
they belonged to Sabines is probably founded on fact (for a discussion
of these primitive settlements,
2 see Pinza, Mon.
L. xv. 776-781, pl. xxvi.;
RE i. A. 1016-1008, and for the early cemeteries, see HJ 397, 398;
Pinza, Mon. cit. 248-264). The Servian wall ran along the north-west
edge of the Quirinal from the collis Latiaris to the porta Collina, where
the agger began, and ran almost due south (see
MURUS SERVII TULLII).
In the Augustan division of the city the Quirinal fell into
Region VI,
which was afterwards called Alta Semita, from the main street that ran
along the ridge of the hill, and corresponded nearly to the Vie del Quirinale
and Venti Settembre. There were many temples on the Quirinal, and
it became one of the principal residence districts for the wealthy (cf.
DoMus), while a very large portion of its entire area was occupied still
later by the baths of Diocletian (for the complete topography and monuments of the Quirinal, see
RhM 1894, 379-423; HJ 394-443; P1. 484-506;
RE i. A. 1016-1017).