Saepta Julia
The Saepta Julia were a multifunctional hypostyle hall in ancient Rome . The 400 by 60 meter hall was located on the Marsfeld west of Via del Corso between Piazza Venezia and Piazza Sant'Ignazio . Today's Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva on Piazza della Minerva stands over part of the ancient portico.
Julius Caesar planned the representative building made of marble as a meeting place for the elections of the comitia centuriata . It was supposed to replace the previous meeting place, which was a simple, fenced and uncovered place in the same place, which was called ovile (Latin for sheep pen ) because of its similarity to a pen . The realization of this structure, however, only succeeded Lepidus and Agrippa in the year 26 BC. Chr. Agrippa dedicated the hall to the Julians . To count the voting tablets since served Diribitorium , one probably directly adjacent large hall.
After the abolition of the comitia centuriata by Tiberius in AD 14, the magnificent building was used as a venue for gladiator fights and games. In the years 60 and 65, individual Neronia competitions took place there. With the construction of the Colosseum , the Saepta Julia lost its importance as an event location and was converted into a market hall, the bustling atmosphere of which Martial describes in an epigram ( Epigrams 9.59).
To the east of the Pantheon , remains of the foundation and plinth area are still preserved.
literature
- Samuel Ball Platner , Thomas Ashby : Saepta Julia. In: A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1929, pp. 460-461 ( online at LacusCurtius ).
- Rudolf Groß : Saepta. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 4, Stuttgart 1972, column 1495.
- Darryl A. Phillips: Reading the Civic Landscape of Augustan Rome. Aeneid 1.421-429 and the Building Program of Augustus. In: Adam M. Kemezis (Ed.): Urban Dreams and Realities in Antiquity. Remains and Representations of the Ancient City (= Mnemosyne. Supplements. Volume 376). Brill, Leiden, Boston 2015, pp. 229–245, here pp. 237–239 ( preview on Google Books).
Web links
- Saepta Julia. In: Rome Reborn. Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia (English, digital reconstruction, with mentions in ancient texts)