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Aurelian Wall

Aurelian Wall
Place Built	Around Rome
Construction date	272 to 282
Ordered by	Aurelian
Building Type	Fortified
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The Aurelian Wall is an ancient fortified wall protecting the city of Rome.

The military reorganization of the Danube is only part of the defensive measures of Aurelian (270-275). The incursion of barbarians into Italy in North Gallienus (260-268), Claude le Gothique (268-270) and even at the beginning of the reign of Aurelian had feared an attack in Rome. The Servian wall built by royalty or the beginning of the Republic had become unable to defend the capital, which stretched far beyond its perimeter. Aurlien therefore took the decision to build a new fortified wall around the capital.

The brick wall and extended over 19 km in some places reached 10 feet high. He leaned over the course of the Tiber and the hills to the east of the Tiber. An outpost on Mount Janiculum protected the neighborhood of Trastevere (Transtiberim in Latin ), and key bridges over the Tiber. However Mount Vatican remained unprotected. The route leaned a number of existing monuments, such as the barracks of the Praetorian Guard , a small amphitheater, tombs whose Cestius pyramid , the arches of the aqueducts on the Esquiline , the substructures of terraced gardens on the Pincio.

The work began about 272 and lasted eleven years until the reign of Probus (276-282). The wall consisted of a plinth block ( opus caementicium ), about 8 meters high, topped by vaulted rooms leaning against a wall outside a meter thick. A parapet crowning the building. The rooms were used as fencing and stores, and decreased the volume to build. Every twenty yards (30 m) a quadrangular tower protruded.

The fortified wall was not designed to resist in case of a long siege, which the barbarians were not able to do, but only to preserve Rome from a sudden attack until a relief army.

This protection did not prevent several bags of Rome during the ^fifth century , and was put to contribution in the clashes between the Ostrogoths and General Belisarius during the reconquest of Constantinople in Italy by ^the sixth century. However, it effectively protected against raids brash Rome's top Middle Ages.

Much of the Aurelian Wall still exists today. It is the administrative boundary of the " I Municipio ", called" Centro Storico ", in which 20 of the 22" rioni (historic districts) are located.

The gates of the Aurelian Wall

The various gates of Rome in the Aurelian Wall.

La Porta Asinaria.

La Porta Tiburtina.

The Aurelian Wall is drilled from 17 to 18 gates built in three distinct styles depending on their importance and then building. The most important consisted of two twin arches, flanked by two cylindrical towers and were paved with travertine. The doors were of secondary importance that consist of a single arch flanked by two cylindrical towers and paved with opus latericium. Finally the doors were made minor one arch flanked by square towers of Commons. The Porta Maggiore , with its aqueduct, however, escapes this rule.

Over the centuries, a few doors changed their names or were displaced as the Porta Pia , which was rebuilt between 1561 and 1565 by Michelangelo was a hundred yards away on the orders of Pope Pius IV.

List of gates starting from the most northerly and turning clockwise: