LACUS IUTURNAE
the spring of Juturna in the south corner of the forum,
at the foot of the Palatine, where Castor and Pollux were seen to water
their horses after the battle of Lake Regillus in 496 B.C. (Ov.
Fasti i. 706;
Dionys. vi. 13 ; LA 225, 226; Neue
Jahrb. 1902, 370-388). Because of
this appearance the temple of
CASTOR AND POLLUX (q.v.) was built on the
west side of the spring. The same divinities were also said to have
appeared on the same spot after the victory of Pydna in 168 B.C. (
Flor.
i. 28. 15 ; Val.
Max. i. 8. I). The spring, in the shape of a puteal, with
Castor and Pollux, is represented on coins of the gens Postumia, of about
90 B.C. (
Babelon ii. 379, Nos. 5-6; BM.
Rep. ii. 310, 718-723). The water
nymph Juturna belonged properly to the river Numicius, but was brought
to Rome, and became the tutelary deity of those '
qui artificium aqua
exercent' (Serv.
Aen. xii. 139), and her name was derived from '
iuvare
quia laborantes iuvare consuevit' (ib.; Varro,
LL v. 71; Neue Jahrb.
cit. 383; cf.
IUTURNA TEMPLUM), or from Diuturna (the eternal) (Cic.
Pro Cluent. 101; Carcopino, Virgile et les Origines d'Ostie, 115, 480).
The water from her spring was regarded as especially wholesome (Frontin. de aq. 4).
This part of the forum was buried deep in rubbish (
LS ii. 202) until
1900, when the 'precinct' of Juturna was entirely excavated (
NS 1900,
291-295;
1901, 41-144;
BC 1900, 67-74, 285-295;
1903, 166-198;
CR
1901, 139;
Mitt. 1902, 67-74;
1905, 81-82; Atti 530-539; HC 164-170;
Thed. 120-121, 279-280; P1. 214-220; ZA 96; DR 236-243; RE
Suppl. iv. 476-9). The ruins belong principally to the imperial period,
but there are some of earlier date. The lacus itself is a basin 2.12 metres
deep, the bottom of which measures 5.13 by 5.04 metres. In the middle
of this basin is a quadrilateral base 1.78 metres high and about 3 long
by 2 wide, which probably supported marble statues of the Dioscuri
with their horses, remains of which, broken into many fragments, were
found (they are probably South Italian works of the fifth century B.C.).
The basin is paved with marble slabs, beneath which is a considerable
extent of tufa pavement with a different orientation (that of the precinct
of Vesta) belonging to the earlier structure, and lying at about o1.90
metres above sea-level (
JRS 1922, 5, 21). The lower walls of opus
reticulatum rise to the same height on three sides as the base just mentioned, which appears to have been the level of the precinct in republican
times. On this wall is a ledge about 1.50 metres wide, and round this a
later wall of opus incertum, 1.23 metres high, with travertine curbing
and indications of a metal balustrade. At the top the basin measures
about 10 metres square. The whole inner surface of the basin was lined
with marble, and at the north-east and north-west corner of its pavement
are the two springs by which it has always been fed. The east side of
the basin was entirely changed by being built over in the fourth century,
in order, apparently, to provide quarters for the
STATIO AQUARUM (q.v.).
An altar with representations of the Dioscuri and Helen (as Selene)
with Jupiter at one end and Leda on the other, which was found in the
basin, is probably Hadrianic (SScR 233). About 4 metres south of the
lacus is an altar on which are sculptured a male and female figure (no
doubt Juturna taking leave of Turnus) in the style of the time of
Severus; a well with marble curb or puteal, on which is an inscription
that records a restoration and dedication by M. Barbatius Pollio,
probably the partisan of M. Antonius
1 (
Mitt. 1902, 70;
Klio 1902,
233-234); and an aedicula, consisting of a cella and pronaos, with two
marble columns. A statue of the goddess undoubtedly stood in the
apse of the aedicula, and a fragment of the epistyle was found near
by, inscribed IVTVRNAI S (Klio, loc. cit.). The aedicula of Juturna
abuts against a room with an apse of good Hadrianic brickwork, which
lies in the axis of the Nova Via. In Christian times it became an
oratory of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (
Mitt. 1902, 82;
1905, 85, 86;
HC 160-161). Cf. HFP 39, and add. to
MINERVA, TEMPLUM.
Just east of the lacus, between it and the wall of the atrium Vestae,
a ramp ascended from the forum to the Nova via, and the intervening
space was occupied by several chambers of later construction, one of
which was built out over part of the lacus itself. In these rooms were
found fragments of inscriptions relating to the curatores aquarum and
the statio aquarum, or headquarters of the water department of Rome
(
NS 1900, 293;
1901, 129-131;
BC 1900, 72;
Mitt. 1902, 72-73;
Klio
1902, 235; Thed. 311-312). One of these inscriptions, on the pedestal
of a statue dedicated to Constantine on Ist March, 328, records the
restoration of the statio at that time by the curator aquarum, Fl. Maesius
Egnatius Lollianus. It is therefore probable that the statio occupied
these rooms as offices in the fourth century, but how much earlier is not
known. A statue of Aesculapius, another of Apollo (fifth century B.C.）
and other sculptural remains, found in this precinct, lend some support
to a theory that in the second and third centuries there was some sort
of a sanatorium of Aesculapius established here (Neue Jahrb. cit., 384-
388); and in the early Middle Ages the springs were still used, as is
shown by the large number of jugs of the eighth century which have
been found.
