Porta Carmentalis

The Porta Carmentalis was an ancient city gate of the Servian Wall in Rome. They originally came from the 5th century BC, but like the entire city wall in the 4th century BC was renewed.

The porta Carmentalis lay between the forum and the forum Boarium Holitorium, roughly where the Via della Consolazione and the Via Teatro Marcello cross today. They found itself in the valley between the Palatine and kapitolinischem hill, a place that still Vico Jugario is called today.

The door system had apparently two passages, of which the leading right out of town porta scellerata was called. To cross He was considered a bad omen, a superstition, which fell on a legendary story in the first war against Veii in 476 BC. At that time, all three hundred male members of the gens Fabia, after they were relegated from the Quirinale and had passed the foot of the Capitol, have come through the right passage of the gate. When they had then the pons exceeded Sublicius to face the enemies, they were surprised and massacred in an ambush by the river Cremera. This story did awaken after centuries emotions and the popular belief created the connection between the right passage of the porta Carmentalis and the massacre, although the events, regardless of their veracity, a century before the establishment of the city walls and, consequently, the associated gate lay.

Even in the time of Augustus was the porta Carmentalis as an ancient monument and had no real function more, neither passage nor as a military stronghold. The name of the gate goes back to one of the oldest myths and shrines of Rome, the shrine of Carmenta that should have been in the vicinity of the gate.

Entirely unclear is the function of this gate, which was located in the immediate vicinity of the porta flumentana and how it offered the access to the Capitol from the Forum Boarium and pons Sublicius.