by the new city wall thus embraced, in addition to the former Palatine and Quirinal cities, the two city-strongholds of the Capitol and the Aventine;[1] the Palatine, as the oldest city proper, was enclosed by the other heights along which the wall was carried, as if encircled with a wreath, and the two castles occupied the middle.
Their work, however, was not complete so long as the ground, protected by so laborious exertions from outward foes, was not also reclaimed from the dominion of the water, which permanently occupied the valley between the Palatine and the Capitol, so that there was a regular ferry there, and which converted the valleys between the Capitol and the Velia and between the Palatine and the Aventine into marshes. The subterranean drains still existing at the present day, composed of magnificent square blocks, which
- ↑ The Servian Rome, however, never looked upon itself as the "City of the Seven Hills;" on the contrary, that name in the best ages of Rome denoted exclusively the narrower old Rome of the Palatine (p. 52). It was not until the times of her decline, when the festival of the Septimontium, which was zealously retained and celebrated with great zest even under the empire, began to be erroneously regarded as a festival for the city generally, that ignorant writers sought for and accordingly found the Seven Mounts in the Rome of their own age. The germ of such a misunderstanding may be already discerned in the Greek riddles of Cicero, ad Att. vi. 5, 2, and in Plutarch, Q. Rom. 69; but the earliest authority that actually enumerates Seven Mounts (montes) of Rome is the description of the city of the age of Constantine the Great. It names as such the Palatine, Aventine, Cælian, Esquiline, Tarpeian, Vatican, Janiculum—where the Quirinal and Viminal are, evidently as colles, omitted, and in their stead two "montes" are introduced from the right bank of the Tiber. Other still later and quite confused lists are given by Servius (ad Æn. vi. 783). and Lydus (de Mens. p. 118, Bekker). The enumeration of the Seven Hills as commonly made in modern times, viz., Palatine, Aventine, Cælian, Esquiline, Viminal, Quirinal, Capitoline, is unknown in any ancient author.
Cicero, l. c.; Preller, Myth. p. 597) also with their magistri (Henzen, 6010), the guild of the valley of the Circus, where the temple of Mercury stood; (3) the pagani Aventinenses also with magistri (Henzen, 6010). It is certainly not accidental that these three guilds, the only ones of the sort that occur in Rome, belong to the Capitol and the Aventine, the very two hills excluded from the four local tribes, but enclosed by the Servian wall; and connected with this is the further fact that the expression montani paganive is employed as a designation of the whole inhabitants in connection with the city (Comp. besides the well-known passage Cic. de Domo. xxviii. 74, especially the law as to the supplies of water to the city in Festus, v. sifus, p. 340; [mon]tani paganive si[fis aquam dividunto]). The montani, properly the inhabitants of the three regions of the Palatine town (p. 56), appear to be put here a potiori for the whole population of the four regions of the city proper. The pagani are, undoubtedly, the guilds of the Capitol and Aventine not included in the tribes.
