The Gates
Strabo, in a well known passage,57 speaks of Tibur and Præneste as two of the most famous and best fortified of the towns of Latium, and tells why Præneste is the more impregnable, but we have no mention of its gates in literature, except incidentally in Plutarch,58 who says that when Marius was flying before Sulla’s forces and had reached Præneste, he found the gates closed, and had to be drawn up the wall by a rope. The most ancient reference we have to a definite gate is to the Porta Triumphalis, in the inscription just mentioned, and this is the only gate of Præneste mentioned by name in classic times.
In 1353 A.D. we have two gates mentioned. The Roman tribune Cola di Rienzo (Niccola di Lorenzo) brought his forces out to attack Stefaniello Colonna in Præneste. It was not until Rienzo moved his camp across from the west to the east side of the plain below the town that he saw how the citizens were obtaining supplies. The two gates S. Cesareo and S. Francesco59 were both being utilized to bring in supplies from the mountains back of the city, and the stock was driven to and from pasture through these gates. These gates were both ancient, as will be shown below. Again in 1448 when Stefano Colonna rebuilt some walls after the awful destruction of the city by Cardinal Vitelleschi, he opened three gates, S. Cesareo, del Murozzo, and del Truglio.60 In 164261 two more gates were opened by Prince Taddeo Barberini, the Porta del Sole, and the Porta delle Monache, the former at the southeast corner of the town, the latter in the east wall at the point where the new wall round the monastery della Madonna degl’Angeli struck the old city wall, just above the present street where it turns from the Via di Porta del Sole into the Corso Pierluigi. This Porta del Sole62 was the principal gate of the town at this time, or perhaps the one most easily defended, for in 1656, during the plague in Rome, all the other gates were walled up, and this one alone left open.63
The present gates of the city are: one, at the southeast corner, the Porta del Sole; two, near the southwest corner, where the wall turns up toward S. Martino, a gate now closed;64 three, Porta S. Martino, at the southwest corner of the town; on the west side of the city, none at all; four, Porta S. Francesco at the northwest corner of the city proper; five, a gate in the arx wall, now closed,65 beside the mediæval gate, which is just at the head of the depression shown in plate III, the lowest point in the wall of the citadel; on the east, Porta S. Cesareo, some distance above the town, six; seven, Porta dei Cappuccini, which is on the same terrace as Porta S. Francesco; eight, Portella, the eastern outlet of the Via della Portella; nine, a postern just below the Portella, and not now in use;66 ten, Porta delle Monache or Santa Maria, in front of the church of that name. The most ancient of these, and the ones which were in the earliest circle of the cyclopean wall, are five in number: Porta S. Francesco,67 the gate into the arx, Porta S. Cesareo,68 Porta dei Cappuccini, and the postern at the corner where the early cyclopean cross wall struck the main wall.
The second wall of the city, which was rather an enlargement of the first, was cyclopean on the east as far as the present Porta del Sole, and either scarped cliff or opus quadratum round to Porta S. Martino, and up to Porta S. Francesco.69 At the east end of the modern Corso, there was a gate, made of opus quadratum,70 as is shown not only by the fact that this is the main street of the city, and on the terrace level of the basilica, but also because the mediæval wall round the monastery of the Madonna degl’Angeli, the grounds of the present church of Santa Maria, did not run straight to the cyclopean wall, but turned down to join it near the gate which it helps to prove. Next, there was a gate, but in all probability only a postern, near the Porta del Sole where the cyclopean wall stops, where now there is a narrow street which runs up to the piazza Garibaldi. On the south there was the gate which at some time was given the name Porta Triumphalis. It was at the place where now there is no wall at all.71 At the southwest we find the next gate, the one which is now closed.72 The last one of the ancient gates in this second circle of the city wall was one just inside the modern Porta S. Martino, which opened west at the end of the Corso. All the rest of the gates are mediæval.
A few words about the roads leading to the several gates of Præneste will help further to settle the antiquity of these gates.73 The oldest road was certainly the trade route which came up the north side of the Liris valley below the hill on which Præneste was situated, and which followed about the line of the Via Prænestina as shown by Ashby in his map.74 Two branch roads from this main track ran up to the town, one at the west, the other at the east, both in the same line as the modern roads. These roads were bound for the city gates as a matter of course and the land slopes least sharply where these roads were and still are. Another important road was outside the city wall, from one gate to the other, and took the slope on the south side of the city where the Via degli Arconi now runs.75
As far as excavations have proved up to this time, the oldest road out of Præneste is that which is now the Via della Marcigliana, along which were found the very early tombs. It is to be noted that these tombs begin beyond the church of S. Rocco, which is a long distance below the town. This distance however makes it certain that between S. Rocco and the city, excavation will bring to light other and yet older tombs along the road which leads up toward “l’antica porta S. Martino chiusa,” and also in all probability rows of graves will be found along the present road to Cave. But the tombs give us the direction at least of the old road.76
There is yet another old road which was lately discovered. It is about three hundred yards below the city and near the road that cuts through from Porta del Sole to the church of Madonna dell’Aquila.77 This road is made of polygonal stones of the limestone of the mountain, and hence is older than any of the lava roads. It runs nearly parallel with the Via degli Arconi, and takes a direction which would strike the Via Prænestina where it crosses the Via Prænestina Nuova which runs past Zagarolo. That is, the most ancient piece of road we have leads up to the southeast corner of the town, but the oldest tombs point to a road the direction of which was toward the southwest corner. However, all the roads lead toward the southeast corner, where the old grade began that went up above the arches, mentioned above, to a middle gate of the city.
The gate S. Francesco also is proved to be ancient because of the old road that led from it. This road is identified by a deposit of ex voto terracottas which were found at the edge of the road in a hole hollowed out in the rocks.78
The two roads which were traveled the most were the ones that led toward Rome. This is shown by the tombs on both sides of them,79 and by the discovery of a deposit of a great quantity of ex voto terracottas in the angle between the two.80