SERVIAN WALLS

	(OR REPUBLICAN WALLS)

The rather poor remains of the walls dating back to the 4th century BC are not enough for setting up a real tour. Most of them now appear as fragments, scattered in different districts of Rome, and most of them are indeed very small.
The picture shows in brown the perimeter of the original set of walls, with the few standing parts in red, and the gates in blue.
Nevertheless, these bits still represent an important relic of the city's first real boundary, and it is also interesting to notice how different this wall was compared to the one built by Aurelian several centuries later.

Therefore, here is a list of the city spots where the fragments can be seen today; the progressive numbers match the ones in the picture.

At the bottom of each entry is a list of the most important sites located in the surroundings of the walls.

1. via Antonio Salandra
At the end of this street, a few metres before joining via Piemonte, there is a 20-metre long surviving stretch of wall. By the end of the 19th century, this remain was enough unlucky to find itself on the site of a modern crossing, and had to be cut into three parts to let the traffic through. The segment on the western side of the street, closed by an iron gate, provides an excellent cross section of the structure, which enables us to see how these large blocks were assembled together in a very simple way.

The segment on the opposite side, now covered by a porch, is the longest of the three, while the last part, on the northern side of via Carducci, ends in the wall of a building.
Just a few metres further from this spot, the brownish Aurelian's walls can be seen in the distance, closing via Piemonte at its very end.

NEARBY MAJOR FEATURES
basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli
remains of Diocletian's Baths

2. piazza dei Cinquecento

The longest surviving stretch of these walls is the one on the left side of Rome's central train station, Stazione Termini. It stands in a long garden, now protected by an iron fencing.
Another fragment belonging to the structure can be seen in the shopping alley below the station: in roman times, the original ground level was much lower than the present one.
This part of the wall represented the north-eastern part of the boundary, where an agger, i.e. earth and stones piled along the inner side of the wall, and a mound by its outer side, acted as further protections.
Not far from here stood the northernmost gate, Porta Collina: two important roads leading to the north-east, via Salaria and via Nomentana, started from this spot (further details about these roads can be found in the section about Aurelian's Walls, northern side, page 2 and page 3.
Underground traces of the same wall are also visible by the subway station Repubblica, not far from Termini, along one of the exit corridors, but nothing is left above ground.

NEARBY MAJOR FEATURES
basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli
remains of Diocletian's Baths

3. piazza Manfredo Fanti

In the middle of this square, in the garden in front of the Roman Aquarium (a large white building with a dome) are a few blocks belonging to the republican wall. Along its external side traces of a brick house are left, easily told by their reddish colour. When the city expanded beyond the early boundary, houses were frequently built with one side against the old wall, so that the latter would have made the new building more steady. This also happened during the late empire (4th-5th centuries) with Aurelian's wall, see part II page 2).

NEARBY MAJOR FEATURES
basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore

4. via di San Vito

This short and narrow road, which runs from via Merulana to via Carlo Alberto, is crossed by an arch of white travertine, named after Gallienus (emperor from AD 253 to 268), whose name, together with his wife Salonina's own, appears in the dedication above the archway.

TO THE VERY CLEMENT LORD GALLIENUS WHOSE UNSWERVING VIRTUE
IS ONLY SURPASSED BY HIS MERCY, AND TO THE VERY WHOLY SALONINA...
(the last words are missing)

This site corresponds to the ancient Porta Esquilina; the arch replaced the remains of the older gate, probably after the latter had become unused due to the making of the new wall by Aurelianus (271-275).
Here ran an important road, via Labicana, leading to Labici, and further south (see map of ROME'S ANCIENT SURROUNDINGS).

This is also popularly known as the arch of St.Vitus, from the name of the church that now supports this structure. On the right side of the church, along via Carlo Alberto, another small fragment of the Servian wall is easily identifiable, where its large blocks now bulge from a building, supported by bricks.

NEARBY MAJOR FEATURES
basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore
Nero's Golden House

5. largo Giacomo Leopardi

A scarce trace of the wall can be found by the so-called Auditorium of Mecenas, the underground remains of a nymphaeum that belonged to the villa of the famous diplomat, who lived in the 1st century BC, now protected by a brick structure that covers the site. Originally, the wall ran across this spot, but when the villa was built the defensive structure had likely already fallen into disuse. Some of its surviving blocks now bulge from one side of the nymphaeum's modern cover.

NEARBY MAJOR FEATURES
basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore
Nero's Golden House

6. via di San Paolo della Croce

The beauty and the magical atmosphere of this site remained almost unchanged through the centuries. The narrow street beyond the archway leads to the ancient church of St.Paul and St.John, whose buttresses form a picturesque series of arches.

On a charming spot on the top of the Coelian hill stands a small ancient archway, whose inscription bears the names of two consuls, Dolabella and Silanus (AD 10): this is the site of one of the gates of the republican walls, Porta Caelimontana. Following the expansion of Rome's urban territory, the gate lost its original purpose, and was altered by the consuls into a simple archway.
When around the late 1st century AD a branch of a city aqueduct, named Arcus Caelimontani was built to provide the Coelian Hill with water (see Aqueducts, part III page 1), the tall duct crossed this spot, resting over the steady archway, where its remains are still seen today.

NEARBY MAJOR FEATURES
the Colosseum
the Palatine hill

7. piazza di Porta Capena

At the southern end of the area where the Circus Maximus stood is a wide avenue, viale delle Terme di Caracalla, leading to Rome's most famous ancient Baths. At the beginning of the avenue, a stout square ruin lies in the grass on the eastern side of the road, opposite the site of the Axum obelisk: it is believed to be the remains of Porta Capena, the gate from which via Appia, also called regina viarum (queen of the roads) originally started. In fact, the present wide avenue corresponds to the first stretch of the ancient road; via Appia, though, now maintains its old name only beyond Porta San Sebastiano (see Aurelian's Walls, part III, page 2), that stands about 1.2 km - ¾ mile further south.

Since the ruin is not made of the usual large tufus blocks, but mainly of bricks, this may have been a fragment of a house, or another structure, built against the old wall once the latter had turned obsolete, rather than a part of the gate itself.

NEARBY MAJOR FEATURES
the Palatine hill
the Colosseum
Caracalla's Baths

8. piazzale Albania - via di Sant'Anselmo

Piazzale Albania is a long square that lies in the valley between the Greater Aventine and the Small Aventine. Via di Sant'Anselmo climbs to the top of the former hill. A relatively long stretch of Servian wall, protected by a tall iron railing, stands on the spot where the aforesaid street meets the square, while a similar part of the wall is still standing on one side of the same street, only a few metres further uphill.

NEARBY MAJOR FEATURES
church of S.Sabina

9. Capitoline Museums

A few blocks of the wall can be seen in the Capitoline Museums, in the underground passage that connects Palazzo dei Conservatori and Palazzo Nuovo, i.e. the two buildings on the opposite sides of the square. The fragment hangs below the ceiling, at the bottom of the of the staircase leading to Palazzo Nuovo.

NEARBY MAJOR FEATURES
the Capitolium hill
the Fora