VIA LABICANA
VIA LABICANA (
ἡ Λαβικανὴ ὁδός) was one of the highroads that issued from the Porta Esquilina at Rome.
It was evidently originally nothing more than a road that led to the ancient city of Labicum (16 miles from Rome), but was subsequently continued in the same direction, and, after sweeping round the E. foot of the Alban hills, it joined the Via Latina at the station Ad Pictas, in the plain between them and the Volscian mountains. (
Strab. v. p.237.)
This route was in many respects more convenient than the proper Via Latina, as it avoided the ascent and descent of the Alban hills: and hence it appears to have become, in the later ages of the Empire, the more frequented road of the two; so that the Antonine Itinerary gives the Via Labicana as the regular highroad from Rome to Beneventum, and afterwards gives the Via Latina as falling into it. (
Itin. Ant. pp. 304, 306.)
But this is decidedly opposed to the testimony of Strabo (
l.c.), and the usage of the Augustan age, which is generally followed by modern writers. Hence the Via Labicana will be here given only as far as the point where it joins the Latina.
The stations set down in the Antonine Itinerary are merely--
| From Rome to |
Ad Quintanas |
xv. |
M. P. |
| |
Ad Pictas |
x. |
|
The Tabula subdivides the latter stage into two; viz., Ad Statuas, iii. M. P., and thence to Ad Pictas, vii.; thus confirming the distance in the Itinerary.
The station Ad Quintanas was undoubtedly situated at the foot of the hill on which stands the village of
La Colonna, occupying the site of the ancient
LABICUM The line of the ancient road from Rome thither followed nearly the same course, though with fewer windings, as the modern road to
Palestrina and
Valmontone. It is described in the article
LABICUM [
E.H.B]
