History
The name is written Ad Rubras in the Tabula, while Martial calls the place simply Rubrae; and this form is found also in the Jerusalem Itinerary. (Martial, iv. 64. 15; Itin. Hier. p. 612.) But the proper form of it seems to have been Saxa Rubra, which is used both by Livy and Cicero. The former mentions it during the wars between Rome and Veii, in connection with the operations on the Cremera (Liv. ii. 49); and Cicero notices it as a place in the immediate vicinity of Rome, where Marcus Antonius halted before entering the city. (Cic. Phil. ii. 3. 1) It was there also that Antonius, the general of Vespasian, arrived on his march upon Rome, when he learnt the successes of the Vitellians and the death of Sabinus. (Tac. Hist. iii. 79.) At a much later period also (312) it was the point to which Maxentius advanced to meet Constantine previous to the battle at the Milvian bridge. (Vict. Caes. 40. ยง 23.) We learn from Martial (l. c.), that a village had grown up on the spot, as would naturally be the case with a station so immediately in the neighborhood of the city.
On a hill on the right of the Via Flaminia, a little beyond Prima Porta, are considerable ruins, which are believed to be those of the villa of Livia, known by the name of Ad Gallinas, which was situated 9 miles from Rome, on the Via Flaminia. (Plin. xv. 30. s. 40; Suet. Galb. 1.)
Read more about this topic: Saxa Rubra
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (18961940)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under mens reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (18961970)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)