It appears that the figures given by Dionysius (iv. 61) for the area are slightly too large. The true measurements were 188 × 204 Roman ft.[1] The temple is represented on many coins, both republican and imperial; these show that the central cella was that of Jupiter, that of Minerva on his right and of Juno on his left. The door was covered with gold reliefs, which were stolen by Stilicho (c. 400; Zosim. v. 38), and the gilt bronze tiles (cf. Plin. xxxiii. 57) on the roof were partly stripped off by Geiseric in 455 (Procop. Bell. Vand. i. 5), and the rest by Pope Honorius I. in 630 (Marliani, Topogr. ii. 1).[2] Till 1348, when the steps up to Ara Coeli were built, there was no access to the Capitol from the back; hence the three ascents to it mentioned by Livy (iii. 7, v. 26-28) and Tacitus (Hist. iii. 71-72) were all from the inside of the Servian circuit. Even on this inner side it was defended by a wall, the gates in which are called “Capitolii fores” by Tacitus. Part of the outer wall at the top of the tufa rock, which is cut into a smooth cliff, is visible from the modern Vicolo della Rupe Tarpeia; this cliff is traditionally called the Tarpeian rock, but that must have been on the other side towards the Forum, from whence it was visible, as is clearly stated by Dionysius (vii. 35, viii. 78).[3] Another piece of the ancient wall has been exposed, about half-way up the slope from the Forum to the Arx. It is built of soft yellow tufa blocks, five courses of which still remain in the existing fragment. The large temple of Juno Moneta (“the Adviser”) on the Arx, built by Camillus in 384 B.C., was used as the mint; hence moneta = “money” (Liv. vi, 20).
A large number of other temples and smaller shrines stood on the Capitoline hill, a word used broadly to include both the Capitolium and the Arx.[4] Among these were the temple of Honos and Virtus, built by Marius, and the temple of Fides, founded by Numa, and rebuilt during the First Punic war. Both these were large enough to hold meetings of the senate. The temples of Mars Ultor (Mon. Anc. 4, 5) an Jupiter Tonans (Suet. Aug. 29; Mon. Anc. 4, 3) were built by Augustus. Other shrines existed to Venus Victrix Ops, Jupiter Custos, and Concord—the last under the Arx (Liv. xxii. 33)—and many others, as well as a triumphal arch in honour of Nero, and a crowd of statues and other works of art (see Plin. H.N. xxxiii. 9, xxxiv. 38, 39, 40, 43, 44, 79, xxxv. 69, 100, 108, 157), so that the whole hill must have been a mass of architectural and artistic magnificence.
The so-called Tabularium[5] occupies the central part of the side towards the Forum; it is set on the tufa rock, which is cut away Tabularium. to receive its lower storey. It derives its name from an inscription which remained in situ until the 15th century (C. I. L. vi. 1314); whilst all public departments had their tabularia, this was a central Record Office, where copies of laws, treaties, &c., were preserved. It was built by Catulus, who was also the dedicator of the great temple of Jupiter (Tac. Hist. iii. 72; Dio Cass. xliii. 14), consul in 78 B.C. Its outer walls are of sperone, its inner ones of tufa; the Doric arcade has capitals, imposts and entablature of travertine. Above the arcade was a gallery or porticus, faced with a Corinthian colonnade, of which a few architectural members have been found. The columns appear to have belonged to the 1st century A.D. A road paved with basalt passes through the building along this arcade, entered at one end from the Clivus Capitolinus, and at the other probably from the Gradus Monetae, a flight of steps leading from the temple of Concord and the Forum up to the temple of Juno Moneta on the Arx. The entrance from the Clivus Capitolinus is by a wide flat arch of peperino beautifully jointed; the other end wall has been mostly destroyed. The back of this building overlooked the Asylum or depression between the two peaks. From this higher level a long steep staircase of sixty-seven steps descends towards the Forum; the doorway at the foot of these stairs has a flat arch with a circular relieving arch over it; it was blocked up by the temple of Vespasian. Great damage was done to this building by the additions of Boniface VIII. and Nicholas V., as well as by its being used as a salt store, by which the walls were much corroded.[6]
The Imperial Fora.
The Forum Julium (see fig. 11, Plan), with its central temple of Venus Genetrix, was begun, about 54 B.C., by Julius (who dedicated Forum Julium. it in an unfinished state in 46 B.C.) and completed by Augustus.[7] Being built on a crowded site it was somewhat cramped, and the ground cost nearly a hundred million sesterces.[8] Part of its circuit wall, with remains of five arches, exists in the Via delle Marmorelle; and behind is a row of small vaulted rooms, probably shops or offices. The arches are slightly cambered, with travertine springers and keys; the rest, with the circular relieving arch over, is of tufa; it was once lined with slabs of marble, the holes for which exist. Foundations of the circuit wall exist under the houses towards S. Adriano, but the whole plan has not been made out. In the centre of the Forum stood the temple of Venus Genetrix whose remains were seen and described by Palladio (Arch. iv. 31). This temple was vowed by Caesar at the battle of Pharsalus.[9]
The forum of Augustus (see fig. 11) adjoined that of Julius on its north-east side; it contained the temple of Mars Ultor, built to Forum of Augustus. commemorate the vengeance taken on Caesar's murderers at Philippi, 42 B.C. (Ov. Fast. v. 575 seq.).[10] It was surrounded with a massive wall of peperino, over 100 ft. high, with travertine string-courses and cornice; a large piece of this wall still exists, and is one of the most imposing relics of ancient Rome. Against it are remains of the temple of Mars, three columns of which, with their entablature and marble ceiling of the peristyle, are still standing; it is Corinthian in style, very richly decorated, and built of fine Luna marble. The cella is of peperino, lined with marble; and the lower part of the lofty circuit wall seems also to have been lined with marble on the inside of the forum. The large archway by the temple (Arco dei Pantani) is of travertine. Palladio (Arch. iv.) and other writers of the 16th century give plans of the temple and circuit wall, showing much more than now exists. The temple, which was octastyle, with nine columns and a pilaster on the sides, occupied the centre, and on each side the circuit wall formed two large semicircular apses, decorated with tiers of niches for statues.[11]
The Forum Pacis, built by Vespasian, was farther to the south-east; the only existing piece, a massive and lofty wall of mixed Forum Pacis. tufa and peperino, with a travertine archway, is opposite the end of the basilica of Constantine. The arch opened into the so-called Templum, Sacrae Urbis, a rectangular building entered by a portico on its west side, whose north wall was decorated with a marble plan of the city of Rome (see below, p. 608). The original plan was probably burnt with the whole group of buildings in this forum in 191, in the reign of Commodus (Dio Cass. lxxii. 24); but a new plan was made, and the building restored in concrete and brick by Severus. The north end wall, with the clamps for fixing the marble plan, still exists, as does also the other (restored) end wall with its arched windows towards the forum; one hundred and sixty-seven fragments of this plan were found c. 1563 at the foot of the wall to which they were fixed, and are now preserved, in the Capitoline Museum; drawings of seventy-four pieces now lost are preserved in the Vatican[12] (Cod. Vat. 3439). The whole. of these fragments were published by Jordan, Forma Urbis Romae (Berlin, 1874). Other 'fragments have since been brought to light, and the whole series was rearranged in the Palazzo dei Conservatori in 1903. The circular building at the end facing on the Sacra Via is an addition built by Maxentius in honour of his deified son Romulus; like the other buildings of Maxentius, it was rededicated and inscribed with the name of his conqueror
- ↑ See Bull. Comm. Arch. iii. (1875), p. 165; Mon. Inst. v. pl. xxxvi., x. pl. xxxa; Jordan, Topographie der Stadt Rom, i. 2, 69; Notizie degli Scavi, 1896, p. 161, 1897, p. 30; Richter, “Der kapitolinische Jupitertempel und der italische Fuss,” in Hermes (1887), p. 17.
- ↑ The pediment is shown on a relief now lost, but extant in the 16th century and reproduced in drawings of that date. It has been recently proved to have decorated the Forum of Trajan (Wace in Papers of the B.S.R. iv. p. 240, pl. xx.). The front of the temple is shown on one of the reliefs of Marcus Aurelius now in the Palazzo dei Conservatori (Papers of the B.S.R. iii. pl. xxvi.).
- ↑ See Rodocanachi, The Roman Capital, p. 50. A graceful account of the legend of Tarpeia is given by Propertius, Eleg. iv. 4.
- ↑ A structure of great sanctity, dating from prehistoric Etruscan times, was the Auguraculum, an elevated platform upon the Arx, from which the signs in the heavens were observed by the augurs (see Festus, ed. Müller, p. 18).
- ↑ On the Tabularium see Delbrück, Hellenistische Bauten in Latium, i. (1907), pp. 23-45.
- ↑ The Porta Pandana (“ever-open gate”) gave access from the Area Capitolina, upon which the temple of Jupiter stood, to the Tarpeian rock.
- ↑ See Mon. Anc. (quoted above); Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxv. 156, xxxvi. 103.
- ↑ Cic. Ep. ad Att. iv. 16; Suet. Caes. 26; Plin. H.N. xxxvi. 103.
- ↑ See Dio Cass. xliii. 22; Appian, Bell. Civ. ii. 102; Vitr. iii. 3; Plut. Caes. 60.
- ↑ The Ancyran inscription records—IN . PRIVATO . SOLO . [EMP]TO . MARTIS . ULTORIS . TEMPLVM . FORVMQVE . AVGVSTVM . EX . [MANI]BIIS . FECI. See Suet. Aug. 29, 56; Dio Cass. lvi. 27; Plin. H.N. xxxvi. 102, xxxv. 94, xxxiv. 48, vii. 183, where many fine Greek works of art are mentioned as being in the forum of Augustus.
- ↑ Those of Roman leaders and generals, from Aeneas and Romulus to Augustus. See Borsari, Foro d'Augusto, &c. (1884).
- ↑ An interesting description of this discovery is given by Vacca, writing in 1594 (see Schreiber in Berichte der sächs. Gesellsch. der Wissenschaften, 1881). The scale is roughly 1 to 250.
