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The Round Temple in the Forum Boarium*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

D. E. Strong  and
J. B. Ward-Perkins
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Extract

The name and date of the little round temple in the Forum Boarium at Rome (popularly known as the ‘Temple of Vesta’) are long-standing problems of Roman topography. Its identification is still quite uncertain. On the chronology, however, general opinion seems to have hardened and, for reasons which are discussed below, most scholars appear now to believe that the building is Augustan, rejecting the attractive theory of Altmann and Delbrueck that it was erected some time in the later second century B.C. The present article is not concerned at all with the problem of identification, nor does it attempt the full and detailed study of the design and construction without which a definitive solution of the problem of dating is clearly impossible. Its purpose is twofold: to draw attention to some significant features of the architectural design and decoration, and to illustrate and discuss some surviving fragments which can be shown to belong to the lost entablture, but which seem hitherto to have escaped attention.

The foundations of the temple were first exposed by Valadier in the early nineteenth century, in the course of restoration work undertaken to free the building of later accretions and to consolidate the ancient remains.

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Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , November 1960 , pp. 7 - 31
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Copyright © British School at Rome 1960

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References

1 The most convenient summaries of the problem may be found in Platner-Ashby, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, s.v. Portunium, and in Lugli, G., Roma Antica, il centra monumentale, Rome, 1946, pp. 579–582Google Scholar.

2 Altmann, W., Die italischen Rundbauten, Berlin, 1906, pp. 22–30Google Scholar; Delbrueck, R., Hellenistische Bauten in Latium, ii, Strassburg, 1912, pp. 43 and 58Google Scholar. For a recent expression on this view, see Plommer, H., Ancient and Classical Architecture (Simpson's History of Architectural Development, vol. i) London, 1956, p. 264Google Scholar; Robertson, D. S., Handbook of Greek and Roman Architecture, 2nd ed., Cambridge, 1945, p. 211Google Scholar, who nevertheless inclines to the view that nothing visible is earlier than Augustus.

3 It seems to have been generally thought (e.g. Robertson, loc. cit.) that the entablature was completely lost.

4 Valadier, G., Raccolta della più insigni fabbriche di Roma antica, vol. iiiGoogle Scholar, ‘Tempio detto di Vesta in G. Roma,’ Rome, 1813. For the appearance of the building before Valadier, see Restaurations des pensionnaires, etc., Paris, 1879Google Scholar, Le Temple de Vesta, pl. II.

5 Deangelis, G., Ufficio tecnico per la conservazione dei monumenti di Roma e provincia: Relazione dei lavori eseguiti dall'ufficio nel quadriennio 1899–1902, Rome, 1903, pp. 106–107Google Scholar, cf. Lanciani, R., Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome, London, 1897, p. 518Google Scholar, fig. 201. It should be noted that some details of the published section are demonstrably inaccurate; e.g. the relation of the steps to the stylobate.

6 Roman Buildings of the Republic (Papers and Monographs of the American Academy in Rome, iii, 1924), p. 136.

7 Röm. Mitt., vii, 1892, pp. 108–109Google Scholar.

8 Caraffa, G., Il tempio di Vesta nel Foro Boario, Rome, 1948, p. 7, fig. 2Google Scholar.

9 Röm. Mitt., loc. cit.

10 Lugli, G., La tecnica edilizia romana, Rome, 1957, pp. 256–257Google Scholar; cf. id. Roma Antica: il centro monumentale, Rome, 1946, p. 579 (‘facendo presupporre una fase anteriore’).

11 Blake, M. E., Ancient Roman Construction in Italy from the Prehistoric Period to Augustus, Washington, 1947, pp. 132, 175Google Scholar.

12 Altmann, op. cit., p. 27. All that can now be seen are a longitudinal iron cramp, set in lead, between two of the external socle blocks just to the left of the door; and about half way round the right-hand inner face, what appears to be the head of a similar cramp, set at right-angles to the wall. As is frequent in this sort of masonry, the internal jointing is very rough.

13 Without close inspection it is impossible to say whether the replacements (see below, pp. 22–23) are of Italian marble as they may well be.

14 In the present state of the inner face it is not at all easy to distinguish the travertine from the marble blocks, and it may be that there is some admixture of marble even in the travertine courses, particularly on the side facing the door. The broad distinction is, however, quite clear.

15 So, quite rightly, Lugli, G., La Tecnica Edilizia Romana, Rome, 1957, p. 207Google Scholar. His use of the term ‘external anathyrosis’ (anathyrosis esterna) is, however, confusing and to be avoided.

15a See also Appendix, p. 31.

16 So, most recently, H. Plommer, op. cit. (n.2), p. 264.

17 Vetter, Max, Der Sockel, Strassburg, 1910, pp. 3–9Google Scholar.

18 W. B. Dinsmoor, The Architecture of Ancient Greece, 3rd ed., 1950, p. 55. For the date, see A. W. Lawrence, Greek Architecture, 1957, p. 115 and n. 1 (p. 302).

19 Åkerström, Å. in The Swedish Cyprus Expedition, iii, 1937, pp. 111–290Google Scholar.

20 F. E. Brown in Excavations at Dura Europos, Ninth Season 1935–1936, Part I: the Agora and Bazaar, pp. 3–37, especially pp. 3–27.

21 E.g. Room 93, Åkerström, op. cit., figs. 61, 62.

22 Altertümer von Pergamon, iii, 1, pl. V; cf. pl. VII.

23 Investigations at Assos, 1902–1921, passim.

24 Wiegand, Th. and Schrader, H., Priene, Berlin, 1904, fig. 200Google Scholar.

25 H. Knackfuss, Das Rathaus von Milet, pl. II; temp. Antiochus Epiphanes (ibid., pp. 95–9).

26 Priene, p. 201 (not shown in the illustration, but the text is quite explicit; c. 150 B.C.

27 ibid., p. 95.

28 Magnesia-am-Maeander, pp. 145–6; Knackfuss, op. cit., p. 63 ff., fig. 65.

29 Investigations at Assos, p. 55.

30 H. C. Butler, Sardis, ii, 1, pp. 29–33.

31 Magnesia-am-Maeander, pp. 72–83, fig. 66; or, as early as the end of the fourth century, on the Hieron at Samothrace (v. Appendix).

32 Mars Ultor: see below. Ankara: Krencker, D. and Schede, M., Der Temple in Ankara, Berlin, 1936, pls. 19, 23Google Scholar; Aezani: Le Bas, Ph., Voyage en Grèce et en Asie Mineure, Paris, 1888Google Scholar: Architecture, pls. 23–26.

33 Vitr. II, 8, 10; Pliny, , HN, xxxvi. 47Google Scholar.

34 E.g. Magnesia, the Artemision, in masonry; Delos, House of the Trident, (Mon. Piot, xiv, 1907, p. 104Google Scholar, fig. 39).

35 Magnesia-am-Maeander, p. 138, fig. 150.

36 Ephebeion, see Priene, p. 268, fig. 273; House XXIII, room A, ibid., pp. 314–316, fig. 356.

37 Wirth, F., Ath. Mitt. lvi, 1931, 33–58Google Scholar.

38 Mon. Piot, xiv, 1908, figs. 29–30Google Scholar. This would seem to be confirmed by the evidence from Olynthus, destroyed in 348 B.C. (Olynthus, xii, p. 139 and n. 96).

39 ibid., fig. 39.

40 AJA, lxiv, 1960, p. 132Google Scholar, the House of Ganymede (c. 250–211 B.C).

41 E.g. at Assos, where the excavators note the specific evidence for exterior stuccowork on the North Stoa (Investigations at Assos, p. 34). The situation is repeated in later antiquity, e.g. on the Baths of Caracalla and on the facade of the Diocletianic Curia, both of which have preserved traces of a facing of masonry-style stuccowork.

42 North wall of the Acropolis, c. 465 (Wrede, W., Attische Mauern, Athens, 1933, pl. 32Google Scholar; Scranton, R. L., Greek Walls, Harvard Univ. Press, 1941, pp. 129, 179Google Scholar, no. D6.1); Propylaea, foundations of the Pinakotheke, late fifth century (Scranton, p. 179, no. D6.2); Eleusis, Periclean peribolos (Wrede, pls. 37–39; Scranton, p. 129, no. D6. 11; Noack, F., Eleusis, Berlin, 1927Google Scholar, pls. 40, d, 41, a, 42, a, c. In the first-named only the lower edge is drafted; in the other two, all except the upper edge.

43 E.g. Theatre of Dionysus, Asklepieion, Kerameikos (Sacred Gate and Dipylon), Peiraeus (Wrede, pls. 52, 55, 50, 54 and 69, respectively; Scranton, p. 179, nos. D6. 4, 5, 6, 13).

44 Bulard, M., Mon. Piot, xiv, 1908, pp. 163–179Google Scholar. In the Pompeian Style I the socle has moved up the wall and rests upon a plain dado. In Style II the socle resumes its strictly architectural role.

45 E.g. in the Artemision at Magnesia, where the excavators found a certain number of drafted blocks that were 23 cm. high, instead of the usual 43–58 cm. (Magnesia-am-Maeander, p. 74); and now in the Hieron at Samothrace (see Appendix, pp. 31–32).

46 This feature appears to have escaped notice; it can be seen on the south flank of the cella just behind the porch.

47 E.g. the caryatids and much of the detail of the mouldings of the flanking porticoes.

48 JRS, xxxviii, 1948, pp. 66–67Google Scholar, fig. 10.

49 Forma Italiae: Anxur-Terracina, iii, fig. 22 (Tiberian; Lugli, op. cit. pl. LVI, 2).

50 So Lugli, op. cit., p. 213.

51 Stoa of Attalos: Wrede, op. cit. (n. 42), pl. 61.

52 Later examples, such as the Arch of Hadrian and the façade of the Hadrianic Library, clearly belong to the koine of Roman Imperial usage.

52a The Hieron at Samothrace offers a close parallel to the masonry as early as the end of the fourth century B.C.; see Appendix, pp. 31–32.

53 Pliny, , HN, xvii, 6Google Scholar (L. Licinius Crassus, before 91 B.C.); xxvi, 49 (M. Lepidus, 78 B.C.). The literary evidence for the early use of marble is conveniently summarised by Blake, Miss, Ancient Roman Construction in Italy, Washington, 1947, p. 51Google Scholar.

54 For the Porticus Metelli, Boyd, M. J., PBSR, xxi, 1953, pp. 150–159Google Scholar; he is surely right in referring the word aedem in the passage in Velleius to the porticus itself rather than to either of the two temples that stood within it.

55 Pliny, , HN, xxxvi, 45Google Scholar (Sulla's expropriation for the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus of columns destined for the Olympieion at Athens); ibid., 49, 50 (marmor Luculleum, so called after L. Lucullus, c. 74 B.C.).

56 Among the best-known Republican examples are those of Temple B in the Largo Argentina; cf., outside Italy, the Otympieion at Athens. This feature will be discussed shortly in greater detail by the present authors in connection with the temple of Castor in the Forum Romanum.

57 Cf. the two Republican temples at Tivoli, Delbrueck, op. cit. (n. 2), pl. IX.

58 Plinthless bases: e.g. Palestrina (Fasolo and Gullini, pls. XVIII and XXI). Early uses of the plinth: the Rectangular Temple (‘Fortuna Virilis’) in the Forum Boarium, c. 40 B.C. (Röm. Mitt. xxi, 1906, pl. X)Google Scholar; the temple of Saturn, early 20's B.C.

59 E.g. Largo Argentina, Temple B; the two Republican temples at Tivoli; Palestrina; etc.

60 Altmann, op. cit. (n. 2), p. 27, fig. 8, taken from Stuart, J. and Revett, N., Antiquities of Athens, vol. I, London, 1762, chap. V, pl. VIIIGoogle Scholar.

61 Well illustrated in Schober, A., Der Fries des Hekateions von Lagina, Vienna, 1933, figs. 10 and 11Google Scholar; and a good detail in Möbius, H., Die Ornamente der griechischen Grabstelen, Berlin, 1929, pl. 33bGoogle Scholar.

62 Delbrueck, op. cit. (n. 2), p. 43.

63 A.M., xxxix, 1914, p. 26Google Scholar.

64 Weigand, E., ‘Die Stellung Dalmatiens in der römischen Reichskunst,’ in Strena Buliciana, Zagreb, 1924, p. 82Google Scholar.

65 ‘Untersuchungen zum korinthischen Kapitell 1,’ J.D.A.I., xxxvi, 1921, pp. 66–71Google Scholar, fig. 6, and Beilage iii, nos. 3 and 4.

66 H. D'Espouy, Fragments antiques executés par les Prix de Rome d'Architecture, pl. 60 (drawing of a type a capital).

67 The identification of the two types of capital in fig. 2 is based on examination with binoculars from below; a closer examination may well show that capital no. 8 is neither pure Type a nor Type b, but a mixture of both.

68 Op. cit. (n. 8), p. 11.

69 The leaf rising from a cauliculus in the centre of each face is, in fact, found only on the Round Temple capitals (see p. 23 and note 77).

70 For the Temple of Apollo capitals, see Bull. Com., lxviii, 1940, p. 22Google Scholar, fig. 13; for Ultor, Mars, Capitolium, iv, 1930, p. 157Google Scholar; for Castor, , R.M. 61, 1954, pl. 84, 2Google Scholar.

71 For these earlier capitals belonging to the period 40–20 B.C., see Kähler, H., Die römischen Kapitelle des Rheingebietes, Berlin, 1939, Beilage 2Google Scholar.

72 I do not know a single example of unfluted cauliculi, as on some of the Type b capitals, in the Augustan period or earlier.

73 Bull. Com., lxxvi, 1956–1958, p. 45 ffGoogle Scholar. Marchetti-Longhi dates this temple to the late second or very early first century B.C.

74 E.g. the capitals of the Bouleuterion at Miletus (Knackfuss, H., Das Rathaus von Milet (Milet, vol. I, 2), pls. XI, XIIGoogle Scholar) and those of the Hekateion at Lagina (A. Schober, op. cit. (n. 61), p. 19, figs. 8 and 9).

75 For other examples see Kähler, op. cit.), p. 6.

76 Marchetti-Longhi (art. cit, p. 59) thinks of a Greek prototype for the design of the capitals.

77 A capital from the Laodice building at Miletus has a cauliculus but no leaf above the central acanthus (Anatolia, ii, 1957, pl. XIVGoogle Scholar, a, illustrating a number of Hellenistic capitals in Asia Minor).

78 E.g. capitals at Palestrina (Fasolo, F. and Gullini, G., Il Santuario della Fortuna Primigenia a Palestrina, Rome, 1953, figs. 260–3Google Scholar).

79 One unusual detail of the Round Temple capitals, the pointed angles of the abacus, which is found on the Olympieion capitals, also occurs on a capital now in the National Museum at Athens, which, if it comes from the Odeion of Agrippa, dates from between 20 and 10 B.C. (Hesperia, xix, 1950, pp. 31–141)Google Scholar; in other respects it has nothing in common with the Round Temple capitals.

80 Robertson, op. cit. (n. 2), p. 339.

81 L. Fagerlind, ‘The transformations of the Corinthian capital in Rome,’ in Corolla Archeologica, 1932, pp. 118–132; assigned to the period 25–15 B.C.

82 Op. cit. (n. 4), pl. V. Contrast the fanciful restoration of J. Coussin, A. (1802) in Restaurations par les Pensionnaires, etc., Paris, 1879Google Scholar.

83 Magi, F. in Rend. Pont. Acc. Arch., xvi, 1940, p. 122, fig. 3Google Scholar.

84 E.g. Canina, L., Gli Edifizi di Roma Antica, ii, Rome, 1848, pl. LXIV, 3Google Scholar.

85 Stevens, G. P. and others, The Erechtheum, Harvard, 1927, pl. XXVIGoogle Scholar (Porch of the Maidens).

86 Defrasse, A. and Lechat, H., Epidaure, Paris, 1895, pp. 95–128Google Scholar.

87 D'Espouy, op. cit. (n. 66), pl. 9; Toebelmann, F., Römische Gebälke, Heidelberg, 1923, pl. 4Google Scholar.

88 Toebelmann, op. cit., pl. 3. This entablature belongs to the restoration carried out after the fire of 14 B.C.

89 Delbrueck, op. cit. (n. 2), ii, pl. XII; D'Espouy, op. cit., pl. 52; cf. the rosette carved in one of the coffer panels of a late Republican tomb at Pompeii (Not. Scav., 1943, p. 306, fig. 22 (right)).

90 Unpublished; I owe my knowledge of it to Enrico Paribeni. Another comparable piece is a late Republican limestone coffer in the Museum at Aquileia.

91 For the same kind of ‘horror vacui,’ cf. the large rosettes of Etruscan funerary urns, with smaller rosettes dotted in the spaces (e.g., G. Giglioli, Q., L'Arte Etrusca, CCCCVIII, 2Google Scholar).

92 The alternation of plain and serrated leaves is the commonest form of calyx or rosette in the Hellenistic period as, for example, on the undersides of ‘Megarian Bowls’ (see Courby, F., Les vases grecs à reliefs, Paris, 1922, pp. 367 ffGoogle Scholar.

93 It is instructive to contrast the rosettes of the coffering on the templeof Saturn (Toebelmann, p. 7) and the Mausoleum of Augustus (Arch. Anz., 1941, cc. 505–6, fig. 68), both dating from the early 20's B.C.

94 Weickert, C., Das lesbische Kymation, Leipzig, 1913Google Scholar.

95 E.g. ibid. pl. X, d.

96 See note 103.

97 Weickert, op. cit., pl. V, f, g, h.

98 Magnesia-am-Maeander, p. 74, fig. 64.

99 Monuments Piot, xiv, 1908, pl. VIIGoogle Scholar, d, g, i, k.

100 Schober, op. cit. (n. 61), pl. XVIII.

101 A very similar cymation appears on the S. Gate of the Agora at Ephesus, which is Augustan, (Forschungen in Ephesus, iii, p. 73Google Scholar, fig. 126); but the accompanying ovolo is very different from the Round Temple examples.

102 The details of the bases, columns and capitals, on the other hand, seem to be related to the Italic-Hellenistic tradition (see above, pp. 19–20).

103 The version adopted in the Forum of Augustus is based on the fifth-century Attic form, as used on the Erechtheum and on the Asklepieion and Tholos at Epidaurus (Shoe, L. T., Profiles of Greek Mouldings, Cambridge (Mass.), 1936Google Scholar, pls. D, 11, E, 5 and 6). For earlier Augustan, forms, Bull. Com., lxviii, 1940, pl. IVGoogle Scholar.

104 In this context, it is instructive to compare a small cornice in the Museo Profano Lateranense which is early Augustan. The design of the sima is pure Hellenistic Greek (cf. Schede, M., Antikes Traufleisten-Ornament, Strassburg, 1909Google Scholar, pl. IX, 52 and 54), but the detail of the ovolo and cyma reversa is Rorrtan.

105 Some are developed from purely Italic forms, e.g. the type C cyma reversa (see PBSR, xxi, 1953, p. 12l, fig. 1Google Scholar) out of the so-called Hieron leaf (Shoe, L. T., Profiles of Western Greek Mouldings Rome, 1952, p. 20, figs. 5–7Google Scholar).

106 Schober, op. cit., p. 23, fig. 12.

107 Magnesia-am-Maeander, p. 74, fig. 64.

108 Fasolo und Gullini, op. cit. (n.78), p. 297, fig. 413.

109 The capital is unpublished; it was until 1956 in the Tabularium. For the general design, though not exact parallels, cf. the capital from Priene in the British Museum (Antiquities of Ionia, ivGoogle Scholar, pls. XXI and XVIII), two capitals from Magnesia in Istanbul (Mendel, G., Catalogue des Sculptures Grecques, Romaines et Byzantines, I, Constantinople, 1912, nos. 194–5Google Scholar) and another from Didyma (Wiegand, T., Didyma, i, 1941, no. F 713aGoogle Scholar, pls. 128–9). For the leaf carving, cf. a stele in Sparta, which Möbius (op. cit. (n. 61), p. 18, pl. 70, b) dates to the second century B.C.

110 Klumbach, H., Tarentiner Grabkunst, Reutlingen, 1937, p. 50Google Scholar (no. 300), pl. 34.

111 This is not a natural form, though it derives some detail from a number of campanulate flowers of the genus ipomoea; the spadix is a feature of the araceae.

112 The general type of lily flower first appears in late classical times (Möbius, op. cit., pl. 9, d) and is common in various forms both in the east and in Italy (e.g. Andrén, A., Architectural Terracottas from Etrusco-Italic Temples, Lund, 1940, pl. 42, no. 139Google Scholar, from Civita Castellana; and Arch. Anz., 1956, c. 250, fig. 38 (Tarentine).

113 Unpublished; Sala III, nos. 499 and 501.

114 The detail is discussed in PBSR, xxi, 1953, p. 135Google Scholar.

115 This feature survives on early Imperial cornices, e.g. Regia (Toebelmann, pl. I); the latest example known to me is the cornice of the larger order in the Basilica Aemilia (ibid., pl. III).

116 The reworking on capitals nos 12–14, noted by Caraffa, provides some confirmation of this hypothesis.

117 Vitr. iii, 2, 5; see Castagnoli, F., Röm. Mitt. lxii, 1955, pp. 139–143Google Scholar. It is doubtful whether the rebuilding of this temple was included in the work commissioned by Metellus in 146 B.C. (Boyd, M. J., PBSR, xxi, 1953, pp. 152–159Google Scholar); but it must have followed soon afterwards, since the same Hermodorus was also responsible for the temple of Mars in circo Flaminio, built in 138 B.C. for D. Junius Brutus Callaicus (Nepos, ap. Priscian, viii, 17).

118 E.g. in the ‘House of Many Colours’ (Olynthus, xii, p. 193, pl. 167) and the ‘House of Asclepius’ (ibid. p. 139, pl. 114). See particularly p. 139, n. 96, correcting an earlier statement (Olynthus, vii p. 299) that ‘relief’ (as opposed to ‘incised line’) type stucco did not occur at Olynthus. It was, however, evidently something of a novelty at Olynthus in the mid-fourth century B.C.