Angiportus
Angiportus or ANGIPORTUM, a narrow lane between two rows of houses, sometimes ending in a cul de sac (id quidem angiportum non est pervium, Ter. Ad. 4.2, 39), sometimes not (id. Eun. 5.2, 6, 7). Thus a MS. glossary quoted by Ellis on Catull. 58, 4, says: Angiportus viae angustae inter minores vicos quac exitun ad muros aut nullum aut angustum habent. The ancients derived the word ab angendo et. portu, the original meaning of portus being no doubt an entrance
of any sort (Varr. L. L. 5.145, cf. 6.41; Fest. p. 17, ed. Müller; Ulpian, in Dig. 50, tit. 16, s. 59). The number of such places seems to have been considerable in ancient Rome: and they were apt to be disreputable (Catull. 58, 4; Hor. Od. 1.25, 10). The form angiportum is archaic (Ter. Catull. Il. cc.; Plaut. Pseud. 4.2, 6, 15; 4.7, 136; Auct. ad Herenn. 4.51.64).
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.