a few remains[1] of the earliest temple, built of blocks of grey-green
tufa. Two fragments of mosaic, with simple lozenge pattern in
white marble and basalt, still exist in the cella of this temple. The
level of the mosaic, which probably belongs to the rebuilding of
Tiberius, lies considerably below that of the later floor, which seems
to date from Hadrian's reign. It has all the characteristics of early
mosaic—very small tesserae fitted with great accuracy, like the
early mosaic in the Regia. The temple of Castor was often used
as a meeting-place for the senate, and its lofty podium formed a
tribunal for orations.[2] The Fons or Lacus Juturnae (see Ov.
Fast. i. 705, and Dionys. vi. 13), at which the Dioscuri were fabled
to have watered their horses, was beside their temple; the precinct
was discovered in 1900-1. The Lacus itself, a basin 16¾ ft. square
and 6½ ft. deep, is immediately opposite the three standing columns
of the temple; in the centre is a base of opus reticulatum, which
supported statues of the Dioscuri; an altar with reliefs, together
with other sculptures, has been found close by, and a few yards
off is a small chapel or aedicula, intended for a statue of Juturna,
and in front of it a well-curb (puteal) of white marble, set up by the
aedile M. Barbarius Pollio in the reign of Augustus.
Close to the temple of Castor, at the angle of the Forum, stood the arch of Augustus, set up in 20 B.C. to commemorate the recovery Arch of Augustus. of the standards taken from Crassus by the Parthians. Its foundations were discovered in 1888; it had three bays, and rested on the pavement of a street which before the time of Augustus formed the E. boundary of the Forum.
On the other side of the Sacra Via stand the remains of the temple of Divus Julius, erected by Augustus. Though little beyond its Temple of Divus Julius. concrete core is left, its plan can be fairly well made out from the voids in the concrete, which show the position of the tufa foundations under the walls and columns (as in the temple of Castor). The temple itself, a hexastyle prostyle building, with close intercolumniation (Vitr. iii. 2), stood on a lofty podium with a curved recess in the front between two flights of stairs (see Plate VIII.). The wall which now fills up the recess is a late addition. In 1898 the base of a large altar was discovered in the niche, doubtless that mentioned by Appian (Bell. Civ. ii. 148). The podium, which projects in front of the temple itself, was adorned with beaks from the ships taken at Actium (Dio Cass. li. 19), and hence it was called the Rostra Julia, to distinguish it from the other rostra described above. Both were used for the funeral orations in honour of Augustus (Suet. Aug. 100; see also Dio Cass. liv. 35). Besides the concrete core and the curved tufa wall of the recess, little now exists except a small bit of the mosaic of the cella floor and some fragments of the cornice and pediment, of fine Greek marble. This temple is represented on coins of Augustus and Hadrian.
The temple of Vesta, founded according to tradition by Numa,[3] stands at the southern angle of the Forum on the ancient line of Temple of Vesta. the Sacra Via (Ov. Trist. iii. 1, 28). No shrine in Rome was equal in sanctity to this little circular building, which contained the sacred fire and the relics on which the welfare and even the existence of Rome depended. The original building was destroyed in 390 B.C. by the Gauls; it was burnt again in 241 B.C., again in the great fire of Nero's reign, and then in the reign of Commodus; after this it was rebuilt by Severus, to whose age belong the fragments of columns, cornice and other architectural features now lying around the ruined podium. With the aid of coins[4] and a relief preserved in the Uffizi at Florence[5] it is possible to make a sufficiently accurate restoration of the temple.[6] It consisted of a circular cella, surrounded by eighteen columns, with screens between them; the circular podium, about 10 ft. high, still exists, mainly of concrete with some foundations of tufa blocks, which may belong to the original structure. Recent excavations have disclosed a pit (favissa) in the middle of the podium, where the ashes of the sacred fire were temporarily stored. In the time of Pliny (H.N. xxxiv. 7) the tholus or dome over the cella—symbolizing the canopy of heaven (Ov. Fast. vi. 276)—was covered with Syracusan bronze. Its position near the temple of Castor is mentioned by Martial (i. 7I-73).[7]
The Regia, or office of the pontifex maximus, was on the Sacra Via, close by the temple of Vesta. It also was traditionally Regia. founded by Numa, and used as his dwelling-house; it was destroyed in 390 B.C. by the Gauls, and was again burnt in 210 B.C. (Liv. xxvi. 27), when the temple of Vesta narrowly escaped. Ovid (Trist. iii. 1, 28) describes this end of the Forum thus:—
| “Haec est a sacris lquae via nomen habet, |
| Hic locus est Vestae, qui Pallada servat et ignem, |
| Hic fuit antiqui Regia parva Numae." |
It was again damaged by fire in 148 B.C. and 36 B.C., after which it was rebuilt in marble by Cn. Domitius Calvinus, and its outer walls inscribed with the lists of consuls and triumphs (fasti consulares et triumphales) of which many fragments have been recovered. Recent excavations have brought to light the tufa foundations of the republican building, including a round substructure, which may have supported the sacrarium Martis, in which were preserved the ancilia or sacred shields and spears (Gell. iv. 6), and an underground cistern, which has been brought into connexion with the shrine of Ops Consiva (Varro, L.L. vi. 21). The official residence of the pontifex maximus was not the Regia, but the domus publica; when Augustus succeeded to the office, he conveyed a part of his residence on the Palatine to the state in order to satisfy the claims of tradition, and presented the domus publica to the vestals.
The excavations of 1883-84 laid bare remains of this very interesting building, and showed that it was a large house extending close up to the Atrium Vestae; its orientation corresponded with that of the Regia. The existing remains are of several dates—first, walls of soft tufa, part possibly of the earliest building; second, walls of hard tufa, of rather later date; and lastly, concrete walls faced with brick, decorated with painted stucco, and columns of travertine, also stuccoed and painted,[8] with a large quantity of fine mosaic of that early sort which has very small tesserae put together with great accuracy. These valuable remains were preserved in spite of the erection of later buildings over them, because the levels of the later floors were higher than those of the Regia, and thus covered and protected the mosaics and lower parts of the walls and columns.
The Atrium Vestae, or house of the vestals, like the temple, was many times burnt and rebuilt; the existing building, which was Atrium Vestae. excavated in 1883-84 and more completely in 1901, seems to have been built after the great fire of A.D. 64, and to have been restored or enlarged several times—by the Flavian emperors, who added the colonnade; Hadrian, who built the tablinum and other rooms at the end; the Antonines, and Septimius Severus, who restored the whole after the fire of A.D. 192.[9] It consists of a large atrium or quadrangle with columns of cipollino. At one end is the tablinum, with three small rooms on each side of it—probably for the six vestals. A bathroom, bakehouse, servants' offices, and some rooms lined with rich marbles extend along the south-west side. This extensive building is set against the side of the Palatine, which is cut away to admit the lower storey. Thus the level of the first upper floor is nearly the same as that of the Nova Via, on which it faces, about 23 ft. above the ground floor. The upper floor is in part well preserved; it contains a large suite of bath and other rooms, which were probably the sleeping apartments of the vestals. All the better rooms and the baths are lined with polished marbles, many of great beauty and rarity; the floors are mostly mosaic of tessellated work. The paving of the tablinum was a beautiful specimen of inlay in orphyry and marble. In many places alterations and clumsy patchings of the 4th and 5th centuries are apparent. A number of statues of the chief vestal, or virgo vestalis maxima, with inscribed pedestals, were found in the atrium, mostly of the 3rd century, though a few are earlier; these are of especial interest as illustrating the sacerdotal dress of the vestals.[10] Nothing but the Nova Via separates the Atrium Vestae from the imperial palace (see Plin. Ep. vii. 19; Aul. Gell., i. 12), which extends over the site of the Lucus Vestae—“qui a Palatii radice in Novam Viam devexus est” (Cic. De Div. i. 45). A curious octagonal structure in the middle of the atrium looks very much like a border for flower-beds; and it is possible that this miniature garden was made by the vestals when the Lucus Vestae ceased to exist. By the main entrance from the Forum stood a small aedicula—a large pedestal, at the angles of which were columns supporting an entablature.[11] It no doubt contained a statue of Vesta, there being none within the temple. It is of the time of Hadrian. Gratian confiscated the house and endowments of the vestals in A.D. 382, but the atrium continued to be partly inhabited for many centuries later by imperial or papal officials.[12] In September 1884 a road was
- ↑ On these see Delbrück, Das Capitolium von Signia (1903), p. 22; Der Apollotempel auf dem Marsfelde (1903), p. 14; van Buren in Class. Rev. xx. pp. 77 ff.
- ↑ The front of the podium was decorated with ships' beaks. One of the mad acts of Caligula was to make the temple of Castor into the vestibule of his palace by breaking a door through the back of the cella (Suet. Cal. 22).
- ↑ Another legend attributes its founding to Romulus.
- ↑ On the coins see Dressel, Zeitschr. für Numismatik (1899), 20 ff.
- ↑ Lanciani, L'Atrio di Vesta (1884), pl. xix.
- ↑ See Huelsen, The Roman Forum, p. 190, fig. 108.
- ↑ See Jordan, Vesta und die Laren (Berlin, 1865); and Auer in the Denkschriften der Wiener Akademie (1888), ii. 209 ff.
- ↑ The columns were crimson, the travertine rain-water gutter bright blue, and the inner walls had simple designs in panels, of leaf ornament and wreaths.
- ↑ A full account of the Atrium Vestae and its successive restorations is given in Miss E. B. Van Deman's Atrium Vestae (1909).
- ↑ The most important of these have been removed to the Museo delle Terme.
- ↑ The front is inscribed SENATVS . POPVLVSQVE . ROMANVS . PECVNIA . PVBLICA . FACIENDAM . CVRAVIT.
- ↑ In the excavations of December 1883 a pot was found in the north corner containing 830 silver pennies of English kings of the 9th and 10th centuries—Alfred the Great, Edward I., Aethelstan, Eadmund I., and others. A list of these is given by De Rossi in Lanciani's work, L'Atrio di Vesta (Rome, 1884). None are later than 946, and a bronze fibula inlaid with silver with the name of Pope Marinus II. (942-46) makes it seem probable that this hoard was concealed during his pontificate.
