Porta Viminale

It seems that the four original gates can be dated to the time of the enlargement of the city by King Servius Tullius, which added to the territory of the city, in addition to the hills already inserted between the initial seven hills, the Quirinal (Collis Quirinali), the Viminal, the Esquiline, and the Caelian (then called Querquetulanus, meaning covered with oak woods).

[1] The first defensive bulwark that connected the hills is obviously of the same period, the agger built along the whole stretch of about 1,300 metres (4,300 ft) from Porta Collina to Esquiline, to try to defend the most vulnerable part of the city.

[1] According to scholars, a further clue to the antiquity of these gates is also provided by their name, which derives directly from the name of the hill to which they gave access, rather than being the adjective of some monument, such as a temple or altar, located there, which could only be after the incorporation of the area into the urban perimeter.

The Porta Viminale opened approximately in the center of the long stretch of walls still existing in Piazza dei Cinquecento (the most impressive find still visible), on the right side of those leaving Termini Station.

The destruction carried out in the imperial era for the construction of the Baths of Diocletian, then by Pope Sixtus V for the urban renewal of the area, and finally for the construction of the station after 1856, have erased good part of the traces, not only of the walls but also of the gates (perhaps there was also a Porta Collatina near Via del Castro Pretorio, or in the railway station area), and of the original roads around the adjacent perimeter.