VICUS TUSCUS
VORTUMNUS (q.v.) stood in this street '
quod is deus Etruriae princeps'
(Varro, loc. cit.). From its situation it must have been a very busy
thoroughfare, and there were shops of various kinds in it
1 (
Mart. xi. 27. I I:
de Tusco Serica vico;
CIL vi. 9976, 33923, vestiarius;
xiv. 2433, purpurarius; cf. Fest. 340: magistro de vico Tusco).
The dealers in incense and perfume (turarii) seem to have become
the most important of all, for the later commentators use vicus Turarius
for vicus Tuscus (Porphyr. ad Hor.
Epist. i. 20. I; ii. I. 269; Comm.
Cruq. ad Hor.
Epist. i. 20. I; Ps. Ascon. ad Cic. in Verr. ii. I. 154; Or.
p. 200;
Jord. i. 2. 469; Thedenat 174).
This street seems to have borne an unsavoury reputation (Plaut. Curc.
482:
in Tusco vico ibi sunt homines qui ipsi sese venditant; Hor.
Sat.
ii. 3. 228:
Tusci turba impia vici). In 1899 the removal of the late
classical or mediaeval pavement of this street between the basilica Iulia
and the temple of Castor exposed to view for a while about 15 metres
of a pavement of small cubes of brick, which antedated the rebuilding of the temple by Tiberius and probably belonged to its earlier
precinct; but this has been covered up again (
BC 1899, 253;
CR 1899,
466;
JRS 1922, 16-17). See Jord. i. I. 273-274, 295; 2. 469;
Gilb.
ii. 101-118;
iii. 416; Th6denat 174, 213; DR 509, 510.
