The Colline Gate (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

''Porta Collina'') was a landmark in

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–50 ...

, supposed to have been built by Servius Tullius, semi-legendary

king of Rome The king of Rome ( la, rex Romae) was the ruler of the Roman Kingdom. According to legend, the first king of Rome was Romulus, who founded the city in 753 BC upon the Palatine Hill. Seven legendary kings are said to have ruled Rome until 509 ...

578–535 BC. The gate stood at the north end of the Servian Wall, and past it were two important streets, the Via Salaria and Via Nomentana. Within this area the

Alta Semita The Alta Semita ("High Path") was a street in ancient Rome that gave its name to one of the 14 regions of Augustan Rome. The Alta Semita brought traffic into Rome from the salt route ''(Via Salaria)'' that had existed since prehistoric times. The g ...

linked the Quirinal with the Porta Carmentalis. Several temples were located near the gate, including temples of

Venus Erycina Venus (), , is a Roman goddess, whose functions encompass love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. In Roman mythology, she was the ancestor of the Roman people through her son, Aeneas, who survived the fall of Troy and fled ...

and

Fortuna Fortuna ( la, Fortūna, equivalent to the Greek goddess Tyche) is the goddess of fortune and the personification of luck in Roman religion who, largely thanks to the Late Antique author Boethius, remained popular through the Middle Ages until ...

. To a person facing the gate in the 3rd century AD, the Gardens of Sallust would have been on the left, with the Baths of Diocletian on the right.

Plutarch Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ...

says that, when a Vestal was punished for violating her vow of chastity, the subterranean chamber for her live burial was near the Colline Gate. The gate was the site of a decisive battle during the Roman civil wars of the 80s BC between the forces of Cinna and

Sulla Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (; 138–78 BC), commonly known as Sulla, was a Roman general and statesman. He won the first large-scale civil war in Roman history and became the first man of the Republic to seize power through force. Sulla ha ...

.Michael Lovano, ''The Age of Cinna: Crucible of Late Republican Rome'' (Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002), p. 129ff.
online.
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References

{{Reflist Ancient Roman buildings and structures in Rome Gates in the Servian Wall