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| Clivus Publicius | |
|---|---|
| Name | Clivus Publicius |
| Location | Rome |
| Region | Regio XII |
| Type | Ancient Roman street |
| Built | Republican era |
| Material | Travertine, tufa, basalt |
| Epoch | Roman Republic, Roman Empire |
| Condition | Fragmentary remains |
Clivus Publicius
Clivus Publicius was a street in Ancient Rome that ascended the Aventine Hill from the area of the Forum Boarium toward the summit near the Temple of Diana and the Porta Trigemina. The road figures in sources concerning Roman topography and appears in accounts of urban development during the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. Its route and fabric are attested in ancient literature, medieval documents, and modern archaeology.
The name derives from the gens Publicia, a Roman family whose members included officeholders such as the Publius Publicius and whose nomenclature is attested in inscriptions and Fasti Capitolini. Classical commentators connected the name to the Publician estate and to the adjective publicus as used in sources like Varro and Livy. Later medieval cataloguers rendered variants in the Regionary Catalogues and the Forma Urbis Romae fragmentary plates.
The Clivus Publicius ran from the low-lying precincts near the Tiber and the Forum Boarium up the western slope of the Aventine, intersecting with roads such as the Via Ostiensis and leading toward the area of the Temple of Ceres and the Aventine Baths. Topographical references in Cicero, Pliny the Elder, and the Notitia Urbis Romae place it adjacent to monuments including the Porticus Minucia Frumentaria and the Servian Wall embankment. Medieval maps show continuity with lanes later named in documents of the Patrimony of Saint Peter and the Commune of Rome.
Established in the Republican period, the Clivus Publicius saw incremental paving and monumentalization during the era of Sulla, Julius Caesar, and Augustus, reflecting broader urban reforms such as those recorded for the Aventine precincts. It served processional, commercial, and residential functions, providing access to temples like the Temple of Diana and civic installations such as the Horrea and the Curia Hostilia's neighborhood holdings. In the Imperial period, the street accommodated changes tied to the policies of emperors like Trajan and Hadrian who invested in urban infrastructure, while later Late Antique texts note its decline amid events including the Gothic War (535–554) and the sack of Alaric's sack.
Paving remnants attributed to the Clivus Publicius exhibit typical Republican and Imperial techniques: polygonal tufa foundations overlain by basaltic blocks, with travertine kerbing comparable to that at the Via Sacra and the Clivus Capitolinus. Drainage elements mirror solutions found at sites such as the Cloaca Maxima and the Porticus Aemilia. Adjacent retaining walls use opus incertum and later opus mixtum paralleling masonry at the Temple of Hercules Victor and private domus on the Aventine. Decorative features included funerary altars, votive reliefs, and inscriptions like those catalogued in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum.
As a conduit to sanctuaries and popular quarters, the Clivus Publicius linked plebeian neighborhoods associated with families recorded in the Plebeian Tribunes and the Conflict of the Orders to commercial hubs by the Tiber. It appears in anecdotes involving figures such as Cicero and Marcus Fulvius Nobilior who frequented Aventine sites, and it framed electoral and religious processions comparable to routes used in the Ludi Romani and triumphal movements. Control of space along the Clivus intersected with property disputes litigated before jurists like Gaius and cited in legal texts echoing provisions from the Twelve Tables.
Excavations on the Aventine and in the Forum Boarium have revealed paving, curbstones, and ceramic assemblages attributed to the Clivus Publicius in campaigns led by antiquarians such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi and systematic teams from institutions like the Istituto di Archeologia, British School at Rome, and the École Française de Rome. Finds include amphorae stamps, lead pipes bearing names of officials like Cloacina-associated waterworks, and inscriptional fragments deposited in collections of the Museo Nazionale Romano and the Capitoline Museums. Stratigraphic analysis and numismatic evidence permit relative dating to Republican strata with renovations under Imperial phases documented by bricks stamped for legions and imperial workshops.
The Clivus Publicius features in medieval chronicles and Renaissance topographers such as Flavio Biondo and Giovanni Battista Nolli, and it influenced artistic representations of Rome in works by Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Federico Zuccari. Modern scholarship in Roman topography and urban studies cites it in discussions by Rodney Castleden, L. Richardson Jr., and editors of ORBIS reconstructions. Its traces inform heritage management by the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma and feature in guided itineraries produced by institutions like the Comune di Roma and the European Cultural Heritage.
Category:Ancient Roman roads and streets