Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus

See Temple of Jupiter for other temples dedicated to this god.
Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus

Model of the ancient Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus
General information
Town or city Ancient Rome

The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, also known as the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus (Latin: Aedes Iovis Optimi Maximi Capitolini, Italian: Tempio di Giove Ottimo Massimo, English: "Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest on the Capitoline") was the most important temple in Ancient Rome, located on the Capitoline Hill. It was surrounded by the Area Capitolina, a precinct where certain assemblies met, and numerous shrines, altars, statues, and victory trophies were displayed.

History

First building

19th century illustration depicting the temple above the Tiber River during the Roman Republic.

Much of what is known of the first Temple of Jupiter is from later Roman tradition. Lucius Tarquinius Priscus vowed this temple while battling with the Sabines and, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, began the terracing necessary to support the foundations of the temple.[1] Modern coring on the Capitoline has confirmed the extensive work needed just to create a level building site.[2] According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Livy, the foundations and most of the superstructure of the temple were completed by Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last King of Rome.[3]

Livy also records that before the temple's construction shrines to other gods occupied the site. When the augurs carried out the rites seeking permission to remove them, only Terminus and Juventas were believed to have refused. Their shrines were therefore incorporated into the new structure. Because he was the god of boundaries, Terminus's refusal to be moved was interpreted as a favorable omen for the future of the Roman state. A second portent was the appearance of the head of a man to workmen digging the foundations of the temple. This was said by the augurs (including augurs brought especially from Etruria) to mean that Rome was to be the head of a great empire.[4]

Traditionally the Temple was dedicated on September 13, the founding year of the Roman Republic, 509 BCE.[5] It was sacred to the Capitoline Triad consisting of Jupiter and his companion deities, Juno and Minerva.

The man to perform the dedication of the temple was chosen by lot. The duty fell to Marcus Horatius Pulvillus, one of the consuls in that year.[6]

Livy records that in 495 BCE the Latins, as a mark of gratitude to the Romans for the release of 6,000 Latin prisoners, delivered a crown of gold to the temple.[7]

The original temple measured almost 60 m × 60 m (200 ft × 200 ft) and was considered the most important religious temple of the whole state of Rome. Each deity of the Triad had a separate cella, with Juno Regina on the left, Minerva on the right, and Jupiter Optimus Maximus in the middle. The first temple was decorated with many terra cotta sculptures. The most famous of these was of Jupiter driving a quadriga, a chariot drawn by four horses, which was on top of the roof as an acroterion. This sculpture, as well as the cult statue of Jupiter in the main cella, was said to have been the work of Etruscan artisan Vulca of Veii.[8] An image of Summanus, a thunder god, was among the pedimental statues.[9]

The plan and exact dimensions of the temple have been heavily debated.[10] Five different plans of the temple have been published following recent excavations on the Capitoline Hill that revealed portions of the archaic foundations.[11] According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the same plan and foundations were used for later rebuildings of the temple.[12]

The first temple burned in 83 BCE, during the civil wars under the dictatorship of Sulla. Also lost in this fire were the Sibylline Books, which were said to have been written by classical sibyls, and stored in the temple (to be guarded and consulted by the quindecimviri (council of fifteen) on matters of state only on emergencies).

Second building

Plan of the temple.

Sulla hoped to live until the temple was rebuilt, but Quintus Lutatius Catulus (Capitolinus) had the honor of dedicating the new structure in 69 BCE.[13] The new temple was built to the same plan on the same foundations, but with more expensive materials for the superstructure. Literary sources indicate that the temple was not entirely completed until the late 60s BCE.[14] Brutus and the other assassins locked themselves inside it after murdering Caesar. The new temple of Quintus Lutatius Catulus was renovated and repaired by Augustus.

The second building burnt down during the course of fighting on the hill on December 19, 69 CE, when an army loyal to Vespasian battled to enter the city in the Year of the Four Emperors.[15] Domitian narrowly escaped with his life.

Third building

The new emperor, Vespasian, rapidly rebuilt the temple on the same foundations but with a lavish superstructure. The third temple of Jupiter was dedicated in 75CE.[16] The third temple burned during the reign of Titus in the great fire of 80CE.

Fourth building

Relief sculpture of Marcus Aurelius sacrificing at the fourth temple.

Domitian immediately began rebuilding the temple, again on the same foundations, but with the most lavish superstructure yet. According to ancient sources, Domitian used at least twelve thousands talents of gold for the gilding of the bronze roof tiles alone.[17] Elaborate sculpture adorned the pediment. A Renaissance drawing of a damaged relief in the Louvre Museum shows a four-horse chariot (quadriga) beside a two-horse chariot (biga) to the right of the latter at the highest point of the pediment, the two statues serving as the central acroterion, and statues of the god Mars and goddess Venus surmounting the corners of the cornice, serving as acroteria.

In the centre of the pediment the god Jupiter was flanked by Juno and Minerva, seated on thrones. Below was an eagle with wings spread out. A biga driven by the sun god and a biga driven by the moon were depicted either side of the three gods.

Decline and abandonment

The temple completed by Domitian is thought to have lasted more or less intact for over three hundred years, until all pagan temples were closed by emperor Theodosius I in 392. During the fifth century the temple was damaged by Stilicho (who according to Zosimus removed the gold that adorned the doors) and Gaiseric (Procopius states that the Vandals plundered the temple during the sack of Rome in 455, stripping away the roof shingles made of gold and bronze). In 571, Narses removed many of the statues and ornaments. The ruins were still well preserved in 1447 when the 15th-century humanist Poggio Bracciolini visited Rome. The remaining ruins were destroyed in the 16th century, when Giovanni Pietro Caffarelli built a palace (Palazzo Caffarelli) on the site reusing material from the temple.

Remains today

Back wall of the temple's foundations in 2005.
Temple's front corner foundations in via del Tempio di Giove

Today, portions of the temple foundations can be seen behind the Palazzo dei Conservatori, in an exhibition area built in the Caffarelli Garden, and within the Musei Capitolini.[18] A part of front corner is also visible in via del Tempio di Giove.

The second Medici lion was sculpted in the late 16th century by Flaminio Vacca from a capital from the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.[19]

Area Capitolina

The Area Capitolina was the precinct on the southern part of the Capitoline that surrounded the Temple of Jupiter, enclosing it with irregular retaining walls following the hillside contours.[20] The precinct was enlarged in 388 BCE,[21] to about 3,000m2.[22] The Clivus Capitolinus ended at the main entrance in the center of the southeast side, and the Porta Pandana seems to have been a secondary entrance; these gates were closed at night. The sacred geese of Juno, said to have sounded the alarm during the Gallic siege of Rome, were kept in the Area,[23] which was guarded during the Imperial period by dogs kept by a temple attendant. Domitian hid in the dog handler's living quarters when the forces of Vitellius overtook the Capitoline.[24]

Underground chambers called favissae held damaged building materials, old votive offerings, and dedicated objects that were not suitable for display. It was religiously prohibited to disturb these. The precinct held numerous shrines, altars, statues, and victory trophies.[25] Some plebeian and tribal assemblies met there.[26] In late antiquity, it was a market for luxury goods, and continued as such into the medieval period: in a letter from 468, Sidonius describes a shopper negotiating over the price of gems, silk, and fine fabrics.[27]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 3.69
  2. ↑ Ammermann 2000, pp. 82–3
  3. ↑ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 4.61; Livy History 1.55-56.1
  4. ↑ Livy Ab urbe condita 1.55
  5. ↑ Ab urbe condita, 2.8
  6. ↑ Tacitus, quoted in Aicher 2004, p. 51
  7. ↑ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 2.22
  8. ↑ Pliny the Elder, Encyclopedia 35.157
  9. ↑ Cicero, On Divination 1.16
  10. ↑ Ridley 2005
  11. ↑ Mura Sommella 2000, pp. 25 fig. 26;Stamper 2005, pp. 28 fig. 16;Albertoni and Damiani 2008, pp. 11 fig. 2c;Cifani 2008, pp. 104 fig. 85;Mura Sommella 2009, pp. 367–8 figs. 17–19.
  12. ↑ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 4.61.4
  13. ↑ Pliny NH 7.138; Tacitus Hist. 3.72.3.
  14. ↑ Flower 2008, p. 85
  15. ↑ Tacitus Hist. 3.71-72
  16. ↑ Darwall-Smith 1996, pp. 41–47
  17. ↑ Darwall-Smith 1996, pp. 105–110
  18. ↑ Claridge 1998, pp. 237–238; Albertoni & Damiani 2008
  19. ↑ Giovanna Giusti Galardi: The Statues of the Loggia Della Signoria in Florence: Masterpieces Restored, Florence 2002. ISBN 8809026209
  20. ↑ Livy 25.3.14; Velleius Paterculus 2.3.2; Aulus Gellius 2.102; Lawrence Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 31.
  21. ↑ Livy 6.4.12; Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary, p. 31.
  22. ↑ Adam Ziolkowski, "Civic Rituals and Political Spaces in Republican and Imperial Rome," in The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 398.
  23. ↑ Cicero, Rosc. Am. 56; Gellius 6.1.6; Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary, p. 31.
  24. ↑ Tacitus, Histories 3.75; Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary, p. 31.
  25. ↑ Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary, p. 32.
  26. ↑ Ziolkowski, "Civic Rituals and Political Spaces," p. 398.
  27. ↑ Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistulae 1.7.8; Claire Holleran, Shopping in Ancient Rome: The Retail Trade in the Late Republic and the Principate (Oxford University Press, 2012), 251.

References

External links

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Coordinates: 41°53′32″N 12°28′54″E / 41.89222°N 12.48167°E / 41.89222; 12.48167

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