In the third wall of Rome we learn from different authorities that
there were in all eighteen gates, commencing from the northern point
at the river bank,--Flumentana, Carmentalis or Scelerata, Catularia
(afterwards Ratumena), Fontinalis, Sangualis, Salularis or Salutaris,
Collina or Agonalis or Quirinalis, Viminalis, Esquilina, Mæcia or
Metia, Querquetulana, Cœlimontana, Firentina, Capena, Lavernalis,
Randuscula, Nævia, Trigeminia. The sites of most of these have been
identified. These names are culled from various authors, no one author
having given us a list of them.
Pliny gives us an account of the number of the gates in his
time--thirty-seven in all--which has puzzled a great many writers;
but, studying them on the spot, the description of Pliny is very plain
and easily to be understood. He says (iii. 9):--
"When the Vespasians were emperors and censors, in the year from its
building 827, the circumference of the Mœnia 'boundary' reckoned
thirteen miles and two fifths. Surrounding as it does the seven hills,
the city is divided into fourteen districts, with two hundred and
sixty-five cross-roads, under the guardianship of the Lares. The space
is such that if a line is drawn from the mile column placed at the
head of the Forum to each of the gates, which are at present
thirty-seven in number, so that by that way enumerating only once
twelve gates, and to omit the seven old ones, which no longer exist,
the result will be a straight line of twenty miles and seven hundred
and sixty-five paces. But if we draw a straight line from the same
mile column to the very last of the houses, including therein the
Prætorian encampment, and follow throughout the line of all the
streets, the result will then be something more than seventy miles."