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Why the Notitia overlooks the second Porta Aurea is explained by the point of view from which that work was written. Its author was concerned with the original city. A gate in the Wall of Theodosius was only the vestibule of the corresponding Constantinian entrance.

The existence of a Porta Aurea in the Wall of Constantine being thus established, the identification of that gate with the Palaia Porta offers little difficulty. The Constantinian Porta Aurea, like the Ancient Gate, stood on the Seventh Hill, since the portion of the Via Triumphalis leading from the Exokionion to the Forum of Arcadius was on that eminence.[110] Like the Ancient Gate, the Porta Aurea was, moreover, distinguished by fine architectural features, as its very epithet implies, and, as the Notitia declares, when it states that the city wall bounding the Twelfth Region, on the Seventh Hill, was remarkable for its monumental character—“Quam (regionem) mœnium sublimior decorat ornatus.”[111] Gates so similar in their position and appearance can scarcely have been different entrances.

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