Review of “El Monte Testaccioy la llanura subaventina, Topografia extra portam Trigeminam”, by Antonio Aguilera,

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Publicado em: Pedro Paulo A Funari, Review of “El Monte Testaccioy la llanura subaventina, Topografia extra portam Trigeminam”, by Antonio Aguilera, Mirabilia, 3, ISSN 1676-5818, 2003.

Antonio Aguilera. El Monte Testaccio y la llanura subaventina. Topografía extra portam Trigeminam. Rome, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2002. 258 pp., ISBN 84-00-08039-4. Pedro Paulo A Funari (Departamento de História, IFCH/UNICAMP)

Antonio Aguilera, a research associate at Barcelona Unversity, Spain, and at the Spanish School of Art and Archaeology at Rome has been studying the Monte Testaccio for several years. Monte Testaccio, at Rome, has been studied since the nineteenth century and the early and pioneering activities of Heinrich Dressel, resulting in the publication of thousands of amphora inscriptions published by Dressel in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum XV,2. Monte Testaccio is an artificial hillock of amphora shards in the dockside quarter of Rome, used as a dump probably from Augustus until Valerian and Gallienus. The last unequivocal inscription dates record the years A.D. 254 and 255. Most amphorae are Dressel 20, from the province of Baetica in southern Spain. They were made along the banks of the river Guadalquivir (ancient Baetis) between Seville (Hispalis) and Córdoba (Corduba), and along the lower reaches of its navigable

2 tributaires, most notably the Genil (Singilis). Production was confined to the immediate vicinity of these waterways. The average capacity of the Dressel 20 amphorae is from 66 to 76 liters and the standard fabric is rough, hard and buff, at later periods the color is usually red under a white slip. Dressel 20 is stamped more often than most other forms and painted inscriptions are also common and follow a rigid order: weight of the vessel, weight of olive oil, both measured in Roman pounds, a name in the genitive and a cursive control conveying several data. This book studies for the first time Monte Testaccio in the urban context, paying special attention to the settlement in the area used in Roman times to the supply of the city of Rome with a panoply of consumption items. Aguilera uses literary sources, archaeological evidence, historical documents from Medieval and Modern periods and epigraphic evidence, being one of the few scholars well acquainted with amphora cursive inscriptions. The results are impressive.

Aguilera starts the book with the access to Rome from the coast, 35 km to the west of the city, stressing the importance of the Second Punic War and its aftermath to the development of the harbor at Ostia and the ensuing river bank path to Rome. The Tiber was rectified in several parts, particularly at Rome itself, and curators riparum et aluei Tiberis were put in charge of the maintenance of the banks probably as early as Augustus or Tiberius. Aguilera then turns to the empurium area. The old and quite small urban portus Tiberinus was some time after the Second Punic War substituted by a new area to the Southwest, probably in close relation to the creation of a Roman colony at Puteoli in 194 BC. An area of 70 ha. was used to store items to the supply of the city, with the building of the Porticus Aemilia and the Emporium, but also cloacae and a

3 forum (Liv. 40,51,1-8), and a customs office (saeptum). Aguilera studies the earlier literature on the Porticus Aemilia and proposes that it had a total are of 320,000 Roman square feet (i.e. 27,988 square meters). Other buildings are also discussed in detail, like the Porticus inter lignarios, Porticus Fabaria, Forum Pistorum, Scala Mediana (quoted in an inscription, CIL VI 9683). In less than twenty years, from 193 to 174, the city gains several supply buildings extra portam Trigeminam.

Aguilera considers probable that the Horrea Galbana were built around 144 BC, 565 Roman feet long and 494 Roman feet large (166m x 146m). The Horrea Seiana are considered a supply building linked to the increase in supply of olive oil in the first century BC and to the action of M. Seius, in the seventies and to the spread of olive oil Brindisi amphorae. Other buildings are the Horrea Lolliana, Petroniana, Aniciana. Aguilera then tries to spot all the uici, and interprets the uicus Mundiciei as an area used by those who cleanse (mundicies) the city. The core of the book lies at the detailed study of Monte Testaccio, with a most comprehensive collection and analysis of pictures from post Medieval times. Aguilera suggests that the earliest reference to the hill built with shards is to be found in the Vulgata (Judges 1, 35, habitauitque in monte Hares quod interpretatur testaceo), the first time the word is used to refer to a hill. In modern times, the author pays special attention to the building of the grotte around the Testaccio in the late seventeenth century. Modern archaeological surveys and excavations are also studied, from the early 1870s and Heinrich Dressel’s pioneering field work. RodríguezAlmeida’s work from the late 1960s are followed by present day Spanish seasons led by Blázquez and Remesal from 1989.

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Recent excavations confirm that the Testaccio was a dump used exclusively to gather the shards of olive oil amphorae. The olive oil was brought to the city under the control of the annona to be distributed at regulated prices to the urban plebs. The earliest amphorae were brought probably in the late 70s BC, to bring olive oil from the Brindisi hinterland. The Testaccio dump was in use for hundreds of years, always growing under the control of the authorities, as the excavations reveal how the hill was built with shards in a planned way. The Testaccio nowadays has a volume of 555,000 square meters, 742,500,000 kilograms, originally from 24,750,000 amphorae, being 35 meters high in relation to present day street level. Aguilera then discusses the controversial issue of the abandonment of the Testaccio as an official dump. The latest dated inscriptions are no later than AD 259 and Aguilera challenges Rodríguez-Almeida’s interpretation that after the abandonment of the Testaccio proper a smaller dump was created, the so-called Piccolo Testaccio. Aguilera interprets the Piccolo Testaccio as the same as the Cavone, created by the late seventeenth century finding of the monument to the gens Rusticelia. Aguilera considers that the real coup de grace to the Testaccio was the building of the Wall by Aurelian, as the old warehouses, Horrea Lolliana and Seiana, were no longer usable, as the Wall had no posterulae (back ways or entrances). However, as I argue elsewhere, if the warehouses were still in use, the Wall would include the whole area inside its fence or, at least, it would have proper the necessary back ways.

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