ARX
the northern part of the Capitoline hill, separated from the southern
part, the
CAPITOLIUM proper (q.v.), by a depression (v.
ASYLUM) which
was the citadel of Rome after the city had expanded sufficiently to
include the Quirinal and Viminal hills-that stage of the growth
commonly known as the City of the Four Regions (P1. 41-44). The
height of this part of the hill was about 49 metres above sea-level,
and its area about one hectare. This arx, also called arx Capitolina
1
(
Liv. vi. 20. 9;
xxviii. 39. 15; Val.
Max. viii. 14. 1; Tac.
Hist. iii. 71),
preserved its military importance down to the first century A.D. (see
Aberystwyth
Studies v. (1923) 33-41, for proof that Sabinus
2 held the
arx, and not the temple of Jupiter), though it had no permanent garrison.
In the early days sentinels were posted here while the comitia were
being held in the campus Martius, to watch for the signal displayed on
the Janiculum of an approaching enemy (Cass.
Dio xxxvii. 28). Another
signal-
vexillum russi coloris-was raised on the arx, to which reference
is frequently made (
Liv. iv. 18. 6;
xxxix. 15. II ; Fest. 103;
Macrob.
i. 16. 15; Serv.
Aen. viii. 1), and the trumpet blown (
Varro vi. 92).
Titus Tatius is said to have lived on the arx (
Solin. i. 21), and also
M. Manlius Capitolinus, whose house was destroyed in 384 B.C., when
the senate decreed that henceforth no patrician should dwell on the
arx or Capitolium (
Liv. v. 47. 8;
vi. 20. 13). On the site of this house,
Camillus erected the temple of
IUNO MONETA (q.v.) in 344 B.C. One
other temple certainly stood on the arx, that of Concord dedicated in
217 B.C., and possibly two others, of
VEIOVIS and
HONOS ET VIRTUS
(qq.v.). There is no record of any other public buildings on the arx,
but on its north-east corner was the
AUGURACULUM (q.v.), a grassy open
space where the augurs took their observations.
The original topography of the arx is quite uncertain; for the construction of the church and cloisters of S. Maria in Aracoeli in the ninth
century changed completely all previous conditions (cf. Rodocanachi,
Le Capitole 237-242). When the foundations were laid for the great
national monument of Victor Emmanuel, which now covers most of the
arx north of the Aracoeli and the slope of the hill below, some traces of
the scarped cliff and the tufa walls of the primitive fortification of the
hill were found
3 (
NS 1887, 113;
BC 1887, 175, 275;
Mitt. 1889, 254),
and fragments of three sections of the later so-called Servian wall which
passed around the north corner of the hill. Two of these sections were
on the north-east, and one on the north-west side of the hill, just below
its top (
NS 1889, 160, 361 1890, 215 ;
1892, 200;
BC 1887, 220;
1892,
145-146;
Mitt. 1889, 254-255;
1891, 104;
1893, 287). That private
houses
4 extended some distance up the sides of the arx from the low
ground below, as they did on the slopes of the Capitolium and to the
limits of the Asylum (Tac.
Hist. iii. 71), is shown by the discovery of the
ruins of walls and pavements near S. Rita and along the line of the Via
Giulio Romano (
NS 1888, 497;
1889, 68, 160;
1892, 42, 43, 313, 343-344,
406-407;
BC 1888, 331;
1889, 206;
Mitt. 1889, 255;
1891, 104. For
the arx in general see also
Jord. i. 1. 282-284; 2. 102-115;
RE i. 1493-
1494; Rodocanachi, Le Capitole,
Paris 1905, 18-20).
