Compitum Acili

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The Compitum Acili was a small Laren shrine in Augustan times in Rome , which stood north of the later built Temple of Venus and the Roma .

The Romans built a small sanctuary called a compitum at important crossroads or endpoints of important roads, which mostly formed the border of a district, a vicus . In it the lares (Lares compitales) were venerated as protective deities of the so distinguished place.

One such sanctuary was discovered in 1932. According to the accompanying inscription, it was the Compitum des vicus Compiti Acili, which has also been handed down in literary terms . Was provided with a new aedicule . The small marble building reflected the efforts of its donors to transfer forms of the large, state representational art to the smaller monuments in the city quarters.

excavation

When in 1932 the required area between the Imperial Forums and the Colosseum was archaeologically examined for the construction of Via dell'Impero, now Via dei Fori Imperiali , the remains of such a compitum were discovered north of the Temple of Venus and Roma . The small sanctuary consisted of a small two-pillar aedicule surrounded by altars. Antonio Maria Colini published a preliminary report in 1933 without giving any measurements, drawings or photographs. It was not until 30 years later that he presented a documentation that nonetheless left many questions unanswered, still managed without dimensions and remained unsatisfactory with the published plans of the excavation architect Guglielmo Gatti because of the small scale. Only new analyzes of the excavation documentation by Monique Dondin-Payre and Gianluca Schingo in the 1980s and 1990s improved general knowledge of the excavation results.

Aedicula

The aedicule rose on a podium about 1.40 meters high, clad in white marble , was 2.38 meters wide and 2.80 meters deep. One could enter the podium via four steps of a staircase in front. The little cella was only 1.56 meters deep. A fragment of a column and remains of the entablature were found from the aedicula itself , so that the main features of the small building can be reconstructed.

Like the podium cladding, the aedicule was made of white marble. The entablature consisted of a two-fascia architrave , the upper, slightly protruding band of which is set off by means of a rod of pearl . The architrave is crowned by a simple lesbian kymation . It is followed by the smooth frieze made from the same workpiece . The cornice , worked as an independent workpiece, consists of a small tooth cut and consoles that support the protruding geison . The Geison forehead is decorated with a simple anthemion .

The entablature on the left side of the aedicula bore an inscription stating the time and donor of the building. The main part of the inscription is distributed in two lines over the frieze zone, on the architrave the names of the donors are grouped in such a way that each name is also distributed over the two architave fascias. Three names of the donors have been preserved, a fourth at the beginning of the inscription has been lost. The inscription reads:

[Imp (eratore) Cae] sare Augusti (!) Pontif (ice) max {s} (imo) trib (unicia) potest (ate) XVIII
[imp (eratore) XIV L (ucio) Cor] nelio Sulla co (n) s (ulibu) s mag (istri) secun (di) vici compiti Acili
[3] Licinius M (arciae) Sextiliae l (ibertus) Diogenes / L (ucius) Aelius L (uci) l (ibertus) Hilarus / M (arcus) Tillius M (arci) l (ibertus) silo

"When the Emperor Caesar Augustus, Pontifex Maximus , for the 18th time holder of the tribunician power ,
for the 14th time Imperator , and Lucius Cornelius Sulla consuls were (dedicated this shrine), the second head of the Vicus compiti Acili
Licinius Diogenes, freedman of Marcia Sextilia / Lucius Aelius Hilarus, freedman of Lucius / Marcus Tillius Silo, freedman of Marcus "

The joint consulate of Augustus and Lucius Cornelius Sulla fell in the year 5 BC. In that year the second committee of the heads of the vicus Compiti Acili founded the aedicula. Augustus had in the year 7 BC Around the year 12 BC. The reorganization of the city of Rome, which he had begun in the 14th century , was completed. He distributed the 265 vici of the city to these regions . Depending four vici magistri , supported by four ministri , stood a vicus ago, the magistri from the prior freedmen who ministri however, slaves were the public sector. The task of the magistri was, among other things, the responsibility for the compita , the lara chapels and altars of their vicus . As a result of the Augustan reform, portraits of the Genius Augusti were added to the small shrines of the sanctuaries in addition to the larars . The freedmen were particularly attached to him, and Augustus himself donated portraits of himself, which were put up in the vici . In this way, Augustus and the ruling house became part of the time-honored cults that go back to peasant traditions, and the state cult became part of the local cult.

The small building with its execution in marble and the inclusion of creative means of the decor, as they are known from the representative buildings of the city, in particular Augustus himself, reflects the efforts to transfer the design patterns developed under Augustus into the city district and part of that of Augustus created new cityscape. The renewal of the central temple of the Laren at the highest point of the Via Sacra by Augustus himself, of which he prides himself in his report of deeds , is particularly exemplary .

altar

To mark the tenth anniversary of the regional reform , the Magistri des vicus Compiti Acili donated an altar, of which remains were also found during the 1932 excavations. This marble altar, which was decorated with an oak wreath on the front and a laurel wreath on the sides, bore an inscription:

mag (istri) vici comp (iti) / Acili anni X [//] M (arcus) An [t] onius L (ucius) Venuleiu [s] / [3] rionis Felix Turanni l (ibertus) Bucci [o]

It was therefore founded by the magistri in the tenth year after the reform, i.e. in 3/4 AD, and commemorates this event and the reorganization of the vici .

Vicus

Under Nero , the area that had been in existence since the year 219 BC. Under the name compitum Acili was completely redesigned. Originally named after the gens Acilia who owns the land here , according to Cassius Hemina in compito Acili, the Peloponnese surgeon Archagathos, the first Greek doctor in Rome , settled in a taberna made available by the public . It is therefore assumed that the Glabriones branch of the family was connected to the vicus , because a mint master of the family - Manius Acilius (Glabrio), IIIvir (monetalis) around the middle of the 1st century BC. BC - stamped a woman's head with a laurel wreath and the legend Salutis as well as a female figure with a snake and the legend Valetu (dinis) on his denarii . The propagation of Salus and Valetudo, the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess of health Hygieia , should be understood as an expression of the family branch's longstanding close relationship with the art of healing, Greek culture and the medical profession, the roots of which can be traced back to Archagathos and his settlement in the vicus der Acilii Glabriones let.

After the fire of Rome in 64, Nero had his Domus Aurea partially built in the area of ​​the vicus Compiti Acili . The quarter, whose sanctuary was an important landmark in Augustan times and is mentioned in the Arvalakten as the location for the Tigillum Sororium , was built over again and again afterwards. It remains unclear when this also affected the small sanctuary. On the one hand, the nearby Tigillum Sororium was still standing in the 4th century, which is listed in the Notitia and Curiosum of the regional catalog of the city of Rome as belonging to the Regio IV templum Pacis . On the other hand, the Temple of Tellus is likely to be located directly to the west of the compitum Acili , which, according to recent studies, took place in several construction phases and with increasing changes in location and orientation from the 3rd century BC Until the 4th century AD. Overall, the topographical implications that were touched on by the excavations in 1932 have not yet been evaluated and clarified.

literature

  • Fabio Giorgio Cavallero: Edicola compitalia degli Acili. In: Andrea Carandini (ed.): La Roma di Augusto in 100 monumenti. De Agostini, Novara 2014, pp. 240-242.
  • Antonio Maria Colini : Scoperte tra il Foro della Pace e l'anfiteatro. In: Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma. Volume 62, 1933, pp. 79-87.
  • Antonio Maria Colini: Compitum Acili. In: Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma. Volume 78, 1961-62, pp. 147-157.
  • Monique Dondin-Payre: Topographie et propagande gentilice: Le Compitum Acilium et l'origine des Acilii Glabriones. In: L'Urbs. Espace urbain et histoire. Ier siècle av. JC - IIIe siècle ap. JC Actes du colloque international, Rome, 8.-12. May 1985 (= Collection de l'Ecole française de Rome. Volume 98). École française de Rome, Rome 1987, pp. 87-109 ( online ).
  • Henner von Hesberg : The Compitum Acili. In: Mathias Hofter (ed.): Emperor Augustus and the lost republic. An exhibition in the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, June 7th - August 14th, 1988. von Zabern, Mainz 1988, pp. 398–400.
  • John Bert Lott: Regions and Neighborhoods. In: Paul Erdkamp: The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York 2013, pp. 169–188 here: pp. 184–187.
  • Giuseppina Pisani Sartorio: Compitum Acilium. In: Eva Margareta Steinby (Ed.): Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae . Volume 1. Quasar, Rome 1993, p. 314 f.
  • Anna Maria Tamassia: Iscrizioni del Compitum Acili. In: Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma. Volume 78, 1961-62, pp. 158-163.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Antonio Maria Colini: scoperte tra il Foro della Pace e l'anfiteatro. In: Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma. Volume 62, 1933, pp. 79-87.
  2. ^ Antonio Maria Colini: Compitum Acili. In: Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma. Volume 78, 1961-62, pp. 147-157.
  3. ↑ Monique Dondin-Payre: Topographie et propagande gentilice: Le Compitum Acilium et l'origine des Acilii Glabriones. In: L'Urbs. Espace urbain et histoire. Ier siècle av. JC - IIIe siècle ap. JC Actes du colloque international, Rome, 8 - 12 May 1985 (= Collection de l'Ecole française de Rome. Volume 98). École française de Rome, Rome 1987, pp. 87-109
  4. ↑ Gianluca Schingo: Indice topografico delle strutture anteriore all'incendio del 64 dC rinvenute nella valle del Colosseo e nelle sue adiacenze. In: Clementina Panella (Ed.): Meta Sudans. I. Un'area sacra in Palatio e la valle del Colosseo prima e dopo Nerone. Istituto poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Libreria dello Stato, Rome 1996, pp. 145-158.
  5. ↑ For the excavation documentation not published in important parts by Colini see Monique Dondin-Payre: Topographie et propagande gentilice: Le Compitum Acilium et l'origine des Acilii Glabriones. In: L'Urbs. Espace urbain et histoire. Ier siècle av. JC - IIIe siècle ap. JC Actes du colloque international, Rome, 8 - 12 May 1985 (= Collection de l'Ecole française de Rome. Volume 98). École française de Rome, Rome 1987, pp. 87-109.
  6. ^ Anna Maria Tamassia: Iscrizioni del Compitum Acili. In: Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma. Volume 78, 1961-62, pp. 158-163.
  7. ↑ AE 1964, 74a .
  8. ^ Henner von Hesberg: The Compitum Acili. In: Mathias Hofter (ed.): Emperor Augustus and the lost republic. An exhibition in the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, June 7th - August 14th, 1988. von Zabern, Mainz 1988, p. 400.
  9. ^ Henner von Hesberg: The Compitum Acili. In: Mathias Hofter (ed.): Emperor Augustus and the lost republic. An exhibition in the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, June 7th - August 14th, 1988. von Zabern, Mainz 1988, p. 398.
  10. ^ Augustus, Res gestae 19.
  11. ↑ AE 1964, 74b .
  12. ^ Cassius Hemina in Pliny, Naturalis historia 29.12.
  13. ^ Elimar Klebs : Acilius . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, Sp. 251 .; in detail Monique Dondin-Payre: Topographie et propagande gentilice: Le Compitum Acilium et l'origine des Acilii Glabriones. In: L'Urbs. Espace urbain et histoire. Ier siècle av. JC - IIIe siècle ap. JC Actes du colloque international, Rome, 8 - 12 May 1985 (= Collection de l'Ecole française de Rome. Volume 98). École française de Rome, Rome 1987, pp. 103-108.
  14. ↑ Gianluca Schingo: Indice topografico delle strutture anteriore all'incendio del 64 dC rinvenute nella valle del Colosseo e nelle sue adiacenze. In: Clementina Panella (Ed.): Meta Sudans. I. Un'area sacra in Palatio e la valle del Colosseo prima e dopo Nerone. Istituto poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Libreria dello Stato, Rome 1996, pp. 145-158.
  15. ↑ CIL 6, 32482 .
  16. ↑ Descriptio XIIII regionum urbis Romae ; to the catalog of regions: Arvast Nordh: Libellus de Regionibus Urbis Romae. Gleerup, Lund 1949.
  17. ↑ Angelo Amoroso: Il Tempio di Tellus e il quartiere della Praefectura Urbana. In: Workshop di archeologia classica. Volume 4, 2007, pp. 53-84 ( online ).
  18. ^ Filippo Coarelli: Il foro romano. Volume 1. Quasar, Rome 1986, pp. 38-40. 111 f.