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 p196  Domus Valeriorum

Articles on pp196‑197 of

Samuel Ball Platner (as completed and revised by Thomas Ashby):
A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome,
London: Oxford University Press, 1929.

Domus Valeriorum: (1) on the Caelian, on the site occupied now by the Ospedale dell' Addolorata, where many remains of pavements, frescoes, and works of art have been found (LS III.69; BC 1890, 288 ff.; 1902 145‑163; NS 1902, 268, 356, 463, 509; 1903, 59, 92), and eleven inscriptions (CIL VI.1684‑1694; PT 292) relating to the family in the fourth century. This house was offered for sale in 404 A.D., but found no buyer on account of its magnificence, while six years later, after the sack of Rome by Alaric, it was sold for almost nothing (vit. S. Melaniae iun. in Anal. Boll. 8 (1889), 31 ff. c14). It seems to have been transformed into a hospital — Xenodochium Valeriorum or a Valeriis (Greg. Magn. reg. IX.82; LP XCVI.15 (Stephanus III); xcviii.81 (Leo III); LPD I.482, n26, 456, n4; II.46, n108; Kehr, I.43‑44, 156; BC 1902, 150; Arm. 122‑124; HJ 240; LR 347; Grisar, Geschichte Roms I.48‑50).

A little north of this site, in the villa Casali, were found other ruins and an inscribed basis of L. Valerius Poplicola Maximus, consul in 232 or 253 A.D. (CIL VI.1532; cf. 1531; Pros. III.376.121).

(2) on the Palatine, said to have been presented by the state to M. Valerius Volusus Maximus, dictator in 494 B.C. (Val. Ant. ap. Asc. in Pison. 52; JRS 1914, 208).

(3) in summa Velia, the house in which P. Valerius Publicola, consul in 509 B.C., lived until he was forced to tear it down because it seemed too much like a stronghold, and to build again infra Veliam (Liv. II.7; Cic. de rep. II.53; Plut. Popl. 10; Dionys. V.19; Val. Max. IV.1.1). This site was afterwards occupied by the temple of Vica Pota (Liv. loc. cit.). According to a variant tradition, a house sub Veliis (Asc. in Pison. 52, ubi aedes Victoriae = Vicae Potae), or in Velia (Cic. de Har. resp. 16), was given to Valerius as a special honour (cf. Plin. NH XXXVI.112, where there is no indication of site), or on the Palatine (Dionys. V.39). The body of P. Valerius is also said to have been buried in a sepulchre given by the state ὑπ’ Οὐελίας  p197 (Dionys. V.48; cf. Cic. de legg. II.58; Plut. Popl. 23; Quaest. Rom. 79), and fragments of elogia of two members of the family, M. Valerius Messala Niger, consul in 69 B.C., and M. Valerius Messala Corvinus, consul in 31 B.C., have been found behind the basilica of Constantine, where they had probably been carried from their original position CIL I2 pp190, 201; VI.31618; EE III. 1‑4).

It is probable that the variants under (2) and (3) refer to one house, on the western slope of the Velia, where the sepulchre was also located.

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