PORTA RATUMENNA
a gate said to have been named after an Etruscan
charioteer, whose horses, after having won a race at Veii, were frightened,
ran to Rome, threw their driver out and killed him at this gate, and
finally stopped on the Capitolium in front of a terra cotta statue of
Jupiter (Fest. 274, 275; Plin.
NH viii. 61 ;
Solin. xlv. 15; Plut.
Poplic. 13). It has been explained by some as a gate in the Servian
wall between the Capitoline and the Quirinal,
1 by others as an entrance
into the Capitoline enclosure, but its site is entirely a matter of conjecture
(Jord. i. I. 209-210, 271;
RhM 1904, 412-413; Richter 44;
Gilb. ii. 280),
and it was probably not a city gate at all.