Navalia
In: Archeologia Classica: 57, 2007
Permalink: http://digital.casalini.it/2634428
The building in opus incertum still partially preserved along the left bank of the Tiber, below
the Aventine Hill, is commonly identified as the Porticus Aemilia after Gatti placement of some
fragments of the Forma Urbis in the 1930s. On the Marble Plan the three last letters of the
building name, ]LIA, which suggested the identification with the Republican portico built by the
Aemilii at the beginning of the 2nd century B.C., have been recently proposed to be CORNE]LIA,
implying Horrea Cornelia. However the E of CORNELIA does not appear before LIA and the
preliminary inscription reads as ]alia, confirming the new integration as NAVA]LIA. Indeed the
building in opus incertum was neither a porticus nor a horreumn, but a series
of fifty
shipsheds.
Its
plan is identical with the neosoikoi excavated in Greece and elsewhere in the Mediterranean. Its
barrel vaults staggered in four sections had already suggested that the floor sloped towards the
Tiber, until a row of Imperial blocks was built between the building itself and the river. The project
might be credited to Hermodorus of Salamis, but the structure was apparently made by Roman
craftmanships in the second half of the
2nd
century B.C. The Marble Plan would show its Severan
phase, when the entrances were modified as well as the windows on the rear wall: the original
function was lost, but the name was still preserved.