ESQUILIAE
* (A) the earlier general name for the
MONS OPPIUS and
MONS
CISPIUS (q.v.), the two projections from the high ground on the east of
the city afterwards known as the mons Esquilinus. Esquiliae is in form
a place-name and was so treated grammatically (Cic. de nat. deor. iii. 63;
de legg. ii. 28; cf. Madvig, Kl. Schrift. 299). It is derived from ex-colo
(Walde, Etym. Worterb. s.v. ; cf. inquilinus, and for fanciful etymologies,
Varro,
LL v. 49; Ov.
Fast. iii. 245), and meant ' an outside settlement,'
that is, the settlement on the Oppius and Cispius when that district was
still beyond the limits of the Palatine city. Von Duhn's explanation
(Italische
Graberkunde i. 468 sqq.) of Esquiliae as ' Nicht-Wohngebiet,'
i.e. necropolis, is tempting. He points out that it was devoted to this
use as early as the time of the Kings, though (p. 434) he also notes that
very few cremation tombs have actually been found--so far as we can
gather from the insufficient reports that are the only sources of our
information. In point of time its use is of course later than that of the
necropolis of the forum, belonging as it does to the period after the
enlargement of the Septimontium into the city of the four regions.
Regio Esquilina was the second in the City of the Four Regions (Varro,
LL v. 49-50), and comprised the Oppius, Cispius, Subura and Argiletum.
Its eastern limit must have been the ancient necropolis which began
near the present S. Martino ai Monti (KH i.). After the Servian wall
was built, the eastern limit of the region probably coincided with the
wall, and the adjacent district beyond was organised as the
PAGUS
MONTANUS (q.v.). At the end of the republic the
PUTICULI (q.v.) were
ultra Esquilias (Varro,
LL v. 25). This region was well wooded at first,
as is shown by the several luci (Fagutalis, Mefitis, Esquilinus, Lucinae)
within its limits.
Esquiliae was the term in general use in the earlier period, at least in
literature. Mons Esquilinus is found only once in Cicero (de rep. ii. ii)
and for the first time, and is not used at all by Livy, Tacitus, Pliny,
Suetonius or Martial, but it was adopted by Greek writers, and became
common after the first century (
RE vi. 683).
(B) the name of the fifth region of Augustus' city, which was entirely
outside the line of the Servian wall, and therefore contained no part of the
original Esquiliae. Of the republican Esquiliae, the Oppius fell in the
third and the Cispius in the
fourth region. It is not possible to determine
the limits of this region in the Augustan period with certainty at all
points, but in the fourth century its western boundary coincided with
the Servian agger and wall from the porta Viminalis to a point just south
of the temple of Isis, and from there appears to have run straight to the
porta Asinaria. Thence it followed the Aurelian wall to the castra
Praetoria, except between the amphitheatrum Castrense and the aqua
Claudia, where it curved out some 200 metres. Its northern boundary
was the street between the porta Viminalis and the gate in the Aurelian
wall south of the castra Praetoria. Of this area, most of that part
north of the via Tiburtina vetus was probably not included in
Region V
until the time of Vespasian (
Mitt. 1897, 150-151). A large section of the
region was occupied by parks, horti (q.v.), and there were numerous
distributing stations of the seven aqueducts that entered the city at the
porta Praenestina (Jord. i. I. 183-185 ; HJ 254-273, 342 ;
RE vi. 680-3;
Gilb. i. 161-197; P1. 444-474;
DE ii. 2158-2167). For this reason the
Esquiliae are called aquosae (
Prop. iv. 8. I, 58).
