Sacra Via: Twenty Years After (JJP Supplements)

The work presents the state of the debate on the cause of the pre-Neronian Sacra Via twenty years after “Coarelli’s Revolution”, and especially the debate of the last decade, when the argument started to grow dramatically due to the resurgence of archaeological investigations in Rome’s historical centre. Topographical reconstructions, old and new, confronted with the new archaeological evidence, are discussed in 3 sections: (1) the traditional Sacra Via up to its crossing with the ‘Palatine Street’; (2) the location of the key temple of Iuppiter Stator and Carandini’s recent positioning of the original complex of the Porta Mugonia and the precinct of Iuppiter Stator in the valley between the Palatine and the Velia; (3) the controversy over the cause of the Sacra Via east of the Arch of Titus. There follows a discussion of the Sacra Via as a topographical zone, i.e. the topographical range of the indication in Sacra Via and its relation to other designations. Last comes an endnote in which the pillar of Carandini’s reconstruction of the topography of the valley between the Palatine and the Velia – the identification of the discontinuity the excavators of the ‘Palatine wall’ claim to have discovered in Sector 9 with the Porta Mugonia – is critically examined.