preserved. It may date from the 2nd century B.C. The neighbouring Ionic temple, popularly called of Fortuna Virilis, is of special interest from its early date, probably the end of the 3rd century B.C. The complete absence of marble and the very sparing use of travertine, combined with the simple purity of its design, indicate an early date.[1] It has a prostyle tetra style portico of travertine, and a short cella of tufa with engaged columns; the bases of these and of the angle columns are of travertine. The frieze has reliefs of ox skulls and garlands. The whole was originally stuccoed and painted so that the different stones used would not show. Fig. 12 gives the plan, showing the hard travertine used at the points of greatest pressure, while the main walls with the half columns are of the weaker and softer tufa. The dedication of this temple is doubtful; but it is probably either that of Fortuna or of Mater Matuta, both of which were destroyed by fire in 213 B.C. and restored in the following year. The church of S. Maria in Cosmedin contains some remains of a temple (Plan, No. 4) which has been identified with that of Hercules built by Pompey ad Circum Maximum (Vitr. iii. 2, 5; Plin. H.N. xxxiv. 57). The temple stands close to the carceres of the Circus Maximus, in the Forum Boarium. The columns built up in the church did not, however, belong to a temple, but to a porticus. Within the walls of S. Niccoló in Carcere in the Forum Holitorium (Plan, No. 18) are preserved remains of three small hexastyle peripteral temples, two Ionic and one Tuscan, set close side by side.[2] A fragment of the marble plan includes part of this group. The Tuscan temple is built of travertine, the others of tufa and peperino, with travertine at the points of greatest pressure. They are probably those of Janus ad Theatrum Marcelli, dedicated by C. Duilius in the First Punic War (Tac. Ann. ii. 49); of Spes, built by A. Atilius Calatinus, of about the same date (Tac. Ann. ii. 49); and of Juno Sospita, dedicated by C. Cornelius Cethegus in 197 B.C. (Liv. xxxiv. 53). Near the Forum Holitorium are extensive remains of the large group of buildings included in the Porticus Octaviae (Plan, No. 16), two of which, dedicated to Juno Regina and Jupiter Stator, with part of the enclosing porticus and the adjoining temple of Hercules Musarum, are shown on a fragment Porticus Octaviae. of the marble plan. The Porticus Octaviae, a large rectangular space enclosed by a double line of columns, was built in honour of Octavia by her brother Augustus on the site of the Porticus Metelli, founded in 146 B.C. This must not be confounded with the neighbouring Porticus Octavia founded by Cn. Octavius, the conqueror of Perseus (Liv. xlv. 6, 42), in 168 B.C., and rebuilt under the same name by Augustus, as is recorded in the Ancyran inscription. The whole group was one of the most magnificent in Rome, and contained a large number of works of art by Pheidias and other Greek sculptors. The existing portico, which was the main entrance into the porticus, is a restoration of the time of Severus in 203. The church of S. Angelo in Pescheria and the houses behind it conceal extensive remains of the porticus and its temples (see Ann. Inst., 1861, p. 241, 1868, p. 108; and Contigliozzi, I. Portici di Ottavia, 1861).[3]
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Fig. 12.—So-called Temple of Fortuna Virilis. The black shows tufa; the shading travertine. |
Remains of a large peripteral Corinthian temple are built into the side of the Borsa (formerly the Custom House). Eleven Temple of Neptune. marble columns and their rich entablature are still in situ, with the corresponding part of the cella wall of peperino; in 1878 a piece of the end wall of the cella was discovered, and, under the houses near, part of a large peribolus wall, also of peperino, forming an enclosure with columns all round the temple nearly 330 ft. square (see Bull. Comm. Arch. Rom. vi. pl. iv., 1878). This temple has commonly been identified with that of Neptune (Dio Cass. lxvi. 24), built by Agrippa, and surrounded by the Porticus Argonautarum (Dio Cass. liii. 27; Mart. iii. 20, 11); but it clearly dates, at least in its present form, from the 2nd century A.D., and is not improbably the temple of Hadrian, mentioned in the Notitia as being near this spot.
The temple of Venus and Rome on the Velia (see fig. 8) was the Temple of Venus and Rome. largest in Rome; it was pseudo-dipteral, with ten Corinthian columns of Greek marble at the ends, and probably twenty at the sides; it had an outer colonnade round the peribolus of about 180 columns of polished granite. Of these only a few fragments now exist; for several centuries the whole area of this building was used as a quarry, while the residue of the marble was burnt into lime on the spot in kilns built of broken fragments of the porphyry columns. A considerable part of the two cellae with their apses, set back to back, still exists; in each apse was a colossal seated figure of the deity, and along the side walls of the cellae were rows of porphyry columns and statues in niches. The vault is deeply coffered with stucco enrichments once painted and gilt. The roof was covered with tiles of gilt bronze, which were taken by Pope Honorius I. (625-38) to cover the basilica of St Peter's. These were stolen by the Saracens during their sack of the Leonine city in 846. The emperor Hadrian himself designed this magnificent temple, which was partially completed in 135; the design was criticized severely by the architect Apollodorus (Dio Cass. lxix. 4; Vita Hadr. 19). The temple was probably finished by Antoninus Pius; it was partly burned in the reign of Maxentius, who began its restoration, which was carried on by Constantine. The existing remains of the two cellae are mainly of Hadrian's time, but contain patches of the later restorations. Between the south angle of this temple and the arch of Constantine stand the remains of a fountain, usually known as the Meta Sudans. This was a tall conical structure in a large circular basin, all lined with marble. From its brick facing it appears to be a work of the Flavian period.
That part of the Caelian hill which is near the Colosseum is covered with very extensive remains—a great peribolus of brick-faced Buildings of the Caelian, Esquiline and Quirinal. concrete, apparently of Flavian date, and part of a massive travertine arcade in two storeys, similar to that of the Colosseum; most of the latter has been removed for the sake of the stone, but a portion still exists under the monastery and campanile of SS. Giovanni e Paolo. There can be no reasonable doubt that these substructures carried the temple of Claudius, built by Vespasian (Suet. Vesp. 9).
The so-called temple of Minerva Medica (“Nympheum” on Plan) on the eastern slope of the Esquiline (so named from a statue found in it), a curiously planned building, with central decagonal domed hall, probably belonged to the palace of Gallienus (263-68). Somewhat similar ruins beside the neighbouring basilica of S. Croce formed part of the Sessorium, a palace on the Esquiline. The remains on the Quirinal, in the Colonna gardens, of massive marble entablatures richly sculptured were formerly thought to belong to Aurelian's great temple of the Sun, but it now appears certain that they belong to the very extensive thermae of Constantine, part of the site of which is now occupied by the Quirinal palace and neighbouring buildings.[4]
The excavations of recent years have brought to light, and in many cases destroyed, a large number of domestic buildings; Private houses. these discoveries are recorded in the Notizie degli Scavi and the Bull. Comm. Arch. Rom. The extensive cutting away of the Tiber bank for the new embankment exposed some very ornate houses near the Villa Farnesina, richly decorated with marble, fine wall-paintings, and stucco reliefs, equal in beauty to any works of the kind that have ever been found. These are now exhibited in the Museo delle Terme, but the houses themselves have been destroyed. The laying out of the new Quirinal and Esquiline quarters has also exposed many fine buildings. Some remains on the Esquiline have been supposed (without much probability) to belong to the villa of Maecenas. A very remarkable vaulted room, decorated with paintings of plants and landscapes, has been shown to be a greenhouse;[5] at one end is an apse with a series of step-like stages for flowers. This one room has been preserved, though the rest of the villa has been destroyed; it is on the road leading from S. Maria Maggiore to the Lateran. The walls are a very fine speimen of tufa opus reticulatum, unmixed with brick, evidently of the early imperial period. Among the numerous buildings discovered in the Horti Sallustiani near the Quirinal was a very fine house of the 1st century A.D., in concrete faced with brick and opus reticulatum. It had a central circular domed hall, with many rooms and staircases round it, rising four storeys high. This house was set in the valley against a cliff of the Quirinal, so that the third floor is level with the upper part of the hill. It is nearly on the line of the Servian wall, which stood here at a higher level on the edge of the cliff. This park was laid out by the historian Sallust, and remained in the possession of his family until the reign of Tiberius, when it became imperial property; it was used as a residence by Nero (Tac. Ann. xiii. 47) and other emperors till the 4th century.[6] In 1884, near the Porta S. Lorenzo, a long line of houses was discovered during the making of a new road. Some of these were of opus reticulatum of the 1st century B.C.; others had the finest kind of
- ↑ Fiechter (Röm. Mitth., 1906, pp. 220 ff.) has endeavoured to show that the temple in its present form dates from the 1st century B.C.
- ↑ For drawings of them, see the list given by Huelsen in Jordan, Topographie, i. 3, 511, note 11.
- ↑ The remains of the Porticus Octaviae have been more completely exposed by the demolition of the Ghetto.
- ↑ See Palladio (Terme dei Romani, London, 1732), who gives the plan of this enormous building, now wholly hidden or destroyed.
- ↑ Bull. Inst. (1875), 89-96; see also Bull. Comm. Arch. (1874), 137 ff., pls. xi.-xviii.
- ↑ During excavations made here in 1876, lead pipes were found inscribed with the name of the estate, the imperial owner (Severus Alexander), and the plumber who made them—ORTORVM SALLVSTIANOR . IMP . SEVER . ALEXANDRI . AVG . NAEVIVS . MANES . FECIT. (C.I.L. xv. 7249).
