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Campus Martius

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Campus Martius
Campus Martius Quadrant of Map of Ancient Rome

Campus Martius Quadrant of Map of Ancient Rome, from Maps and Illustrations from Samuel Ball Platner's The Topography and Monuments of Ancient Rome (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1904)

PD Courtesy Ancient Rome: Images and Pictures
The Campus Martius -- or simply the "Campus" -- was a field consecrated to Mars. It was an area of importance for ancient Rome. There were other Campi, but this was the big one. It had once been a pasture land, with its own lake or swamp Lacus or Palus Caprae, fed by the Petronia stream. It was located beyond the Pomerium throughout the Republic, and continued, in some sense, to be outside this boundary until the building of the wall of Aurelian.

Geographic Concept of the Campus Martius

The term "Campus Martius" may refer to the plain between the Capitoline, the Tiber River, the Quirinal and Pincian Hills. This general area was modified over time, eventually with public buildings encroaching on it and moving it northwards, so that when Augustus redistricted the city of Rome, Region IX, north of the Aqua Virgo contained most of the Campus Martius, but the section east of Via Lata, the modern Corso, was excluded; placed, instead, in Region VII. Under the Antonine emperors, the Campus Martius was pushed even further north. Today the area is north of the Via Recta.

It covered an area of about 250 hectares (600 acres).

The Via Flaminia, from 220 B.C., forms a north-south axis of the Campus Martius. The distance from the Capitoline to the Porta Flaminia (the via's gateway) was a little over 2 kilometers. East to west, from the Quirinal to the Tiber River, it was a little less. It was about 3-8 meters higher than the Tiber, except when flooded. The Campus also contained swamps, lakes, and streams. The largest swamp, the Palus Capreae became the baths of Agrippa. There were also hotsprings and woods.

Next Page: Significance of the Campus Martius

References

  • "Campus Martius" Samuel Ball Platner (as completed and revised by Thomas Ashby): A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, London: Oxford University Press, 1929.

  • "Chapter 15 - Rome and its development under Augustus and his successors," by Nicholas Purcell; pp. 782-811; The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 10: The Augustan Empire, 43 BC-AD 69, Second edition, edited by Alan K. Bowman, Edward Champlin, Andrew Lintott; 1996.

  • "Chapter 1 - International relations," by Harry Sidebottom; pp. 1-29; The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare Volume 2: Rome from the Late Republic to the Late Empire, edited by Philip Sabin, Hans van Wees, Michael Whitby; 2007.

  • "Chapter 8 - The conquest of Italy," by T.J. Cornell; pp. 351-419; The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 7: The Rise of Rome to 220 B.C., edited by F. W. Walbank, A. E. Astin, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie, Assisted by A. Drummond; 1990.

  • "Chapter 3 - The origins of Rome by A. Momigliano; pp. 52-112; The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 7: The Rise of Rome to 220 B.C., edited by F. W. Walbank, A. E. Astin, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie, Assisted by A. Drummond; 1990.

  • Chapter 13 - The Transformation of Italy, 300-133 B.C. The Evidence of Archaeology," by Jean-Paul Morel; pp. 477-516; The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 8: Rome and the Mediterranean to 133 B.C., edited by A. E. Astin, F. W. Walbank, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie; Second edition; 1989.

  • "The Circus Flaminius," by T. P. Wiseman; Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. 42, (1974), pp. 3-26.

  • "The City of Rome: From Republic to Empire," by John R. Patterson; The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 82, (1992), pp. 186-215.

  • Human Landscapes in Classical Antiquity: Environment and Culture, edited by John Salmon, Graham Shipley; Routledge: 2002.

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