fortify the limits of their settlement with a wall. To these settlements they gave the name oppida while to the lowland districts outside was given the name pagi, whence the inhabitants were called respectively oppidani and pagani. Now the point of interest for us here is that the oppidani were also referred to as montani, which leads us to the conclusion that the seven montes in Labeo's account have to do with oppida built on the hilltops of territory that later formed part of the first Roman urbs. And this conclusion seems to be strengthened by the references in literature to montani Velienses, montani Cermalenses, etc. That is to say, the name, montani, applied to inhabitants of oppida, the primitive Italic villages, persists down into late republican times, but only in connection with the survival of the "feriae non populi sed montanorum modo." 13 A case in point is the inscription,14 found "alle Sette Sale," which refers to Mag(istri) et flamin(es) montan(orum) montis Opp(i),'il primo ed unico monumento scritto che ricordi il monte Oppio.' 15 The montani montis Oppi, at first the settlers of one of seven separate communities (oppida) that united to celebrate the Septimontium, later, when their settlement was merged in territory of the first Roman city (i.e. urbs), did not break up this sacral union but continued to perform their religious offices around their local centers (sacra pro montibus).16

The matter of first importance for us to note here is that these montes of the Septimontium, Oppius, Cispius, Cermalus, Velia, etc., have mainly to do with individual settlements before ever Rome began. In a word, the passage in Festus has historical rather than topographical interest for us. Oppius and Cispius, for example, are not component parts of the Esquiline, but rather points or districts included within the limits of the hill later known as the Esquiline. In fact the terms Oppius and Cispius have a very limited topographical

13 Varro, L.L. vi, 24.

14 C. I. L. VI, 32455.

15 G. Gatti, Bull. Com. xv, 157.

16 Varro, l. c.

17

application, after the pomerium is drawn around the first Roman urbs. To be sure, the religious formulae quoted by Varro 18 do mention Oppius mons and Cespius mons, but this can be easily explained, since it is but natural that, when the Greek rite 19 of the Argei priests was introduced, places with ancient religious associations such as the Oppius, Cispius, Cermalus, Fagutal, and Velia should be used in their religious formulae to give them an archaic touch. Just before quoting the passage, Varro 18 says: Pars (Oppius pars) Cespius mons suo antiquo nomine etiam nunc in sacris appellatur, showing clearly that these words, Oppius and Cespius, were practically obsolete in his own day. Varro, too, it must be remembered, as Professor Platner 20 shows in a study of the Seven Hills of Rome, was apparently ignorant of the "original content of the Septimontium as given by Labeo," and his reference to the montes of the Septimontium will constitute no exception to the thesis I am trying to establish, viz., that the montes of Labeo's statement have practically no place in the topographical history of the Roman Republic. That these names have survived at all is due entirely to the survival of the festival of the Septimontium with which they had been associated.

To the Roman of Cicero's day the Seven Hills referred unquestionably to those of the Servian city, and it was difficult even for the antiquarian Varro to conceive of the Septimontium as differing materially from the political organization of his own day. The first septimontium, however, belongs to an earlier chapter of Rome's history.

It may be well, by way of digression, to consider here the fact that in the list 21 of Septimontial hills eight names are given instead of seven. Many devices 22 have been suggested to reduce the montes to the required number, but none seem 17 These terms, of course, must have disappeared from use quite gradually. 18 L.L. v, 50.

19 Wissowa in Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Argei.

20 Class. Phil. 1 (1906), 79.

21 Festus, 340, 348; Paulus, 341.

22 Mueller deletes Caelio; Niebuhr strikes out Subura.

to be wholly acceptable, and Lindsay in his edition of 1913 prints the text as transmitted without offering any solution of the problem. Perhaps the least objectionable theory is that of Wissowa,23 who, noting that Caelio changes its position in the lists of Festus and Paulus, suggests that it was inserted a's an explanation of Subura; but since Caelio follows Subura in none of the lists, it would be hazardous to give too much weight to the conjecture. The order of words in all three of these lists suggests to me that Antistius Labeo-the passages in Festus and that in Paulus all go back to him as their source -inserts Fagutali(a) as an explanation of Velia. In the Augustan age, it seems, as I shall endeavor to show below, the phrase in Velia was used exclusively in connection with the Aedes deum Penatium, the site of which was at the foot of a slope close to the Forum, 24 in all probability in the vicinity of the church of SS. Cosma e Damiano. This connotation that the word would have for the people of this age would need a correction of some kind, because, as we have shown above, the Velia that participated in the Septimontium was an oppidum, a fortified settlement on the hilltop, and it must have included within its limits the ridge at S. Francesca Romana together with some of the territory stretching forth from this point over toward the Esquiline. This, in fact, is a force that the epithet Fagutali could easily convey, for the Fagutal we know was the name given to a sacellum 25 which, while it cannot be assigned to any definite position, certainly is to be located somewhere between S. Pietro in Vincoli and San Francesca Romana.

It is interesting to note in this connection that the device of considering Veliae Fagutali together was suggested a good many years ago, but later rejected, because topographers falsely argued that the Velia and Fagutal were separated by too great a distance.

23 Op. cit. (n. 19).

24 Dion. H. 1, 68; Van Deman, l. c.

25 Paulus, 87.

Moreover, outside of the passage under consideration, there is absolutely no reason to believe that the word Fagutal ever had anything to do with a hill. Paulus (87) in defining Fagutal says merely, Sacellum Iovis, in quo fuit fagus arbor, quae Iovis sacra habebatur. Varro (L.L. v, 152) derives Fagutal “a fago, unde etiam Iovis Fagutalis, quod ibi sacellum.” There are several other occurrences of the word, but in every instance it is the epithet of a grove (lucus fageus) 26 or the sacellum of Jupiter in that lucus—no confirming example of mons Fagutalis, no reference to montani Fagutales.

That there was, on the contrary, a Mons Velia, at least during the time of the Septimontial league, there can be no doubt, and when spoken of in this connection it means one of the seven communities that took part in the religious festival. But it does not always have this force when it occurs in the classical authors. Two other classes of references can be clearly distinguished-those that have to do with the stories about the Valerian gens, and those that refer to the temple of the Penates. In the former it is a ridge, moderately high and steep; 27 in the latter, a conventional phrase that was regularly added to Aedes Penatium whenever this temple was referred to. Augustus, for example, writes in the Monumentum Ancyranum (4, 7): Aedem deum Penatium in Velia, where in Velia does not furnish necessary topographical information, but preserves with characteristic conservatism the form in which the name regularly appeared in official or sacred records. The word Velia, then, is used in three different senses. It is (1) the name of an oppidum, (2) the name of a ridge, and (3) part of a quasi-formal phrase that came in time to be almost entirely devoid of any topographical content. This does not mean, however, that there is no common denominator, but it does mean that if we would define the term Velia and trace the history of its use, we must be fully cognizant of the varying shades of meaning that our source material contains.

26 Pliny, H. N. xvi, 37.

27 Dion. H. v, 19; Plut. Publ. 10; Livy, 11, 7.

If the three uses just noted are to be accepted, it is clear that, in the first place, some reasonable explanation should be presented for this variation in meaning. If Velia in Festus means (as we are sure it does) an independent community (oppidum), how can it come to mean in Livy's or Plutarch's or Cicero's account of the Valerian myth merely a hill, or slope, in the ordinary sense of the term?

The explanation is to be found in the origin of the story about Publicola, who was said to have built a house on the top of the Velia and later to have brought it down to the foot of the slope. Honorary monuments 28 of the Valerii found behind the basilica of Maxentius apparently confirm the statement made in classical authors that a place for a sepulcher was granted to Valerius near the Forum sub Velia.29 The existence of this sepulcher near the foot of a slope, together with some evidence that the top of this slope had been or seemed to have been at some previous time a fortified or impregnable spot overlooking the Forum, would have afforded all the necessary facts for the later members of the Valerian gens to evolve this aetiological tale about their ancestors. Mons Velia, the fortified oppidum of the Septimontium, later, when it was merged in the Roman urbs, must have retained some evidence of its independent existence. If, however, (and this seems more likely), the story of Publicola came into being several hundred years after the events of which it tells, the basis for the arx expugnabile of Livy's account (II, 7) could well be some imposing building in the Carinae, which we shall endeavor to show below in confirmation of Miss Van Deman's conjecture 30 was located on the top of the slope with which the name Velia has been associated.

But why is this slope, this ridge overlooking the Forum, called the Velia? When Livy (II, 7) and Dionysius (v, 19) say that Valerius Publicola built a house on the Velia, they 28 Lanciani, Bull. Com. IV, 48 ff.; Henzen, Eph. Epigr. III, 1.

29 Dion. H. v, 48; Cic. Leg. 11, 58; Plut. Quaest. Rom. 79; Jordan 1, 2, pp. 416 ff.

30 Op. cit. 390 (n. 3).