Theater des Balbus

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Museo Crypta Balbi, Rome: A piece of the Forma Urbis to the exedra of the Crypta Balbi

The Theater des Balbus ( often treated as the theater and crypt of Balbus because of the associated cryptoporticus ) was an aristocratic-Roman building complex on the middle Campus Martius in Rome , which was built in 13 BC. Was inaugurated.

After the complex had been inappropriately localized for a long time because it was mistaken for an arched section of Circus Flaminius , it is now clear that it was located immediately southeast of the Sacra area on Largo di Torre Argentina and north of the porticoes of Circus Flaminus.

history

Inscription from the Crypta Balbi in Rome, which is attributed to Theodoric

Balbus Minor , proconsul in Africa of Prince Augustus and 19 BC The last person who was allowed to celebrate a triumph - without being a member of the imperial family and even having original Roman citizenship - had the building complex built in the same year. Forays had brought Balbus minor to considerable wealth during his quaestur in the home province Hispania ulterior as well as in his successful war in Fessan against the Garamanten , so that he could finance the construction himself. This made it easier for Rome to ignore its Phoenician origins and to allow it to build a theater. 13 BC BC Balbus minor inaugurated the building. Cassius Dio reports that the area had to be crossed by boat for the inauguration of the theater - due to a flood of the Tiber . In 80 AD the building was badly damaged by a fire in the Marsfeld and rebuilt under Domitian . In late antiquity, the theater was repeatedly damaged by earthquakes, fires and floods of the Tiber. Last renovations go back to Theodoric in the years 507 to 511, meanwhile the theater was still in use.

Location of the Theater des Balbus between the theaters of Pompey and Marcellus

There is little mention of the location of the complex in the ancient sources. In the Notitia and Curiosum of the regional catalog of the city of Rome it is listed as belonging to the Regio IX circus Flaminius . For a long time it was disputed exactly where the complex might have been. After a complete revision of the Forma Urbis was made in 1960 with the additions and corrections necessary up to then, the fragments discovered in 1562 and subsequently kept in different places (FUR AG 1980 # 30a-c) provided decisive information. Already at the end of the 19th century it was recognized, without further localization, that parts of the portico attached to the theater were marked on it and named in inscriptions. Excavations began in 1981 and were completed in the 2000s. Remnants of the audience were excavated in the area of Palazzo Mattei between Via Caetani and Via dei Falegnami. Parts of the enclosing wall of the portico post scaenam from travertine , for the crypt Balbi as substructure served, and a large Exedra were discovered between delle Via dei Delfini, Via Caetani and Via Botteghe Oscure. Today one of the outposts of the Museo Nazionale Romano ( Crypta Balbi ) is housed there. Above all, what has been brought together from the theater complex is exhibited there.

Construction type

The basic concept of the building complex is strongly reminiscent of the once neighboring ensemble of the Pompey Theater . Both theaters were built of stone and had a skene , a portico and an exedra . Both were aligned along the same west-east axis. The area was cleared, regardless of the surrounding ancient buildings, in order to build on it. There was no interest in a harmonious overall urban view. Pliny narrates that four onyx columns were set up in the area of ​​the theater, although a specific location is not mentioned.

With its semicircular grandstand, the theater held between 7,700 and 11,510 seats and was the smallest of the three stone theaters in Rome after the theaters of Pompey and Marcellus. According to Gatti , the ends of Cunei's substructures can be identified, which were built from solid travertine and tuff blocks (mostly opus reticulatum ). In front of the cavea was the scaena frons, which was undetectable in terms of the time when it was built and its substantial nature . Behind this was the extension of the Crypta Balbi on the east side, the substructure of a mighty three-winged portico. Parts of this have been archaeologically proven. The more than 60 meter long outer wall was built in opus quadratum as block masonry . The mighty exedra, also verifiable through the FUR, was used as a latrine in the outdoor area at the latest from the 2nd century AD (under Hadrian ). An inscription referring to a structural formation inside the courtyard was much discussed. She could have named a temple in honor of Vulcan .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Pliny , Naturalis historia 36: 59-60; Cassius Dio 54.18.2.
  2. ^ A b c Jon Albers: Campus Martius. The urban development of the Field of Mars from the Republic to the Middle Imperial Period. Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden 2013, 3.1. Various buildings of the Roman aristocracy , p. 102 ff.
  3. ↑ AE 2001, 508
  4. ^ Tanja Itgenshorst : Tota illa pompa. The triumph in the Roman Republic. Göttingen 2005, p. 208.
  5. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 5: 36-37.
  6. ↑ Cassius Dio 54.25 ; Suetonius , Augustus 29.5.
  7. ↑ Cassius Dio 54.25.
  8. ↑ Cassius Dio 54:24.
  9. ^ Crypta Balbi: Rome on the Net: Ancient Rome, Theater and Hypostyle Hall of the Balbus
  10. ↑ Descriptio XIIII regionum urbis Romae ; to the catalog of regions: Arvast Nordh: Libellus de Regionibus Urbis Romae. Gleerup, Lund 1949.
  11. ^ Stanford Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project: FUR AG 1980 # 30a-c / reconstruction: THEATRVM / [B] A [L] BI) .
  12. ^ Samuel Ball Platner , Thomas Ashby : A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Oxford University Press, London 1929, p. 513 ( online ); Forma Urbis 1960, plate 32. After Giuseppe Marchetti-Longhi: Nuovi aspetti della topografia dell'antico Campo Marzio di Roma: Circo Flaminio o teatro di Balbo? In: Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Antiquité. Volume 82, 1970, pp. 117-158, the definitive and unambiguous localization goes back to Giuseppe Gatti
  13. ↑ a b c Giuseppe Gatti : Dove erano situati il ​​Teatro di Balbo e il Circo Flaminio. In: Capitolium. Volume 15, Issue 7, 1960, pp. 3-12.
  14. ^ Paul Zanker : Three cityscapes from Augustan Rome. In: L'Urbs. Espace urbain et histoire. Actes du colloque international, Rome, 8-12. May 1985, CEFR 98 (Rome 1987), pp. 475-489
  15. ^ A b Daniele Manacorda: Crypta Balbi: Archeologia e storia di un paesaggio urbano. 2nd edition Milan 2003, p. 22.
  16. ^ The regional catalog names 11,510 loca , "places"; Lawrence Richardson Jr .: A new Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Baltimore 1992, p. 318.
  17. ^ Frank Sear: Roman Theaters. An Architectural Study. Oxford 2006, p. 66
  18. ↑ CIL 06, 00798 : Cn. Octavius ​​Titinius Capito […] praef. vigilum, volcano dd ; see. Werner Eck : Monument and inscription: Collected essays on the senatorial representation in the imperial era. De Gruyter, Berlin 2010, p. 127 ff.
  19. ^ Filippo Coarelli : Il Campo Marcio. Dalle Origini alla Fina della Repubblica. Quasar, Rome 1997, pp. 219-223

Web links

Commons : Crypta Balbi  - collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Filippo Coarelli : Il Campo Marcio. Dalle Origini alla Fina della Repubblica Quasar, Rome 1997.
  • Giuseppe Gatti : Dove erano situati il ​​Teatro di Balbo e il Circo Flaminio? In: Capitolium. Volume 15, Issue 7, 1960, pp. 3–12 ( PDF ).
  • Tanja Itgenshorst : Tota illa pompa. The triumph in the Roman Republic (= Hypomnemata. Studies on antiquity and its afterlife. Volume 161). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005 ( review by sehepunkte , review by H-Soz-u-Kult ).
  • Daniele Manacorda: Crypta Balbi: Archeologia e storia di un paesaggio urbano. 2nd Edition. Mondadori Electa, Milan 2003.
  • Giuseppe Marchetti-Longhi : Nuovi aspetti della topografia dell'antico Campo Marcio di Roma: Circo Flaminio o Teatro di Balbo? In: Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Antiquité. Volume 82, 1970, pp. 117-158.
  • Lawrence Richardson Jr .: A new Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1992.
  • Frank Sear: Roman Theaters. An Architectural Study. Oxford Monographs on Classical Archeology, Oxford 2006.
  • Paul Zanker : Three cityscapes from Augustan Rome. 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. 475-489 ( online ).

Coordinates: 41 ° 53 ′ 38 "  N , 12 ° 28 ′ 43"  E