Temple of Bellona

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Podium of the Temple of Bellona

The Temple of Bellona ( Latin aedes or templum Bellonae ) was the main sanctuary of the Roman goddess of war Bellona on the Martian field in Rome .

Bellona was the goddess of the intoxication of war and the ecstasy in battle and was worshiped in various places in Rome. Their most important temple was built in 296 BC. Praised by Appius Claudius Caecus during his second consulate before a battle against a united army of the Etruscans and Samnites . The temple was consecrated a few years later, after 293 BC. On a June 3rd.

location

Location of the Temple of Bellona

According to Ovid , the temple overlooked the end of the nearby circus and the Fasti Venusini call it Bellon (ae) in cir (co) Flam (inio) . Servius also tells of the columna bellica that it stood in the area of ​​the Circus Flaminius in front of the temple of Bellona. The temple was therefore near the Circus Flaminius, and according to Ovid at one of its ends. Filippo Coarelli was able to plausibly explain which of these endings was meant by a message from Plutarch : When there was unrest in the theater due to a law of Lucius Roscius Otho , Cicero led the angry crowd from the theater to the temple of Bellona. The games were played by Roscius Otho himself in his capacity as praetor in 63 BC. Organized. Games organized by praetors were always ludi Apollinares , held in honor of Apollo . Location of the event was therefore the the temple of Apollo Medicus in Circo location, archaeological previously undetectable Apollo Theater .

identification

In the immediate vicinity of the Apollo Sosianus Temple, the podium of a temple of indeterminate allocation, which rose next to that of Apollo, was known since the liberation of the Marcellus Theater from post-ancient buildings and subsequent excavations in the 1930s. Filippo Coarelli identified the temple of Bellona with this podium, which has been examined again and again since then. In addition, he succeeded in connecting a fragment of the Forma Urbis Romae with the temple . It fits into the remaining fragments of the area around the Marcellus Theater and shows the plan of the temple with the approach of the neighboring Temple of Apollo, the further fragment of which closes the gap to the theater.

Building description

Cassette fragment of Konsolengeisons from Augustan temple

The podium with its core from Opus caementicium can be dated to the Augustan period and comes from a restoration of the Bellona temple, which has not been passed down, which was initially seen in connection with the construction of the Marcellus Theater and the early August restoration of the Temple of Apollo by Gaius Sosius . Eugenio La Rocca brought this construction phase with Appius Claudius Pulcher , the consul of the year 38 BC. And partisans of Augustus, in connection. He was supposed to start building in 33 or 32 BC. After his triumph over Spain. The investigations and excavations that have been carried out since then have shown, however, that the building, judging by the style of its octagon decoration, could not have received its Augustan design until the late Augustan period and hardly before the Temple of Mars Ultor .

The podium, which has been stripped of its ashlar cladding, reveals the traces of the columns and walls. The few remains of its rising architecture show that it was built partly from Lunensian marble and partly from stuccoed travertine . The podium temple rose on a high substructure and could be reached via a front flight of stairs. Like the Temple of Apollo, the temple opened to the south to the almost adjoining theater building.

Its column layout corresponded to that of a hexastyle peripteros . So it had six pillars on the fronts and a ring of pillars surrounding four sides . The long sides were eleven columns deep. Its dimensions corresponded to about 24.25 meters in width and 46.70 in length, of which the approximately 14.25 meters wide cella took up about 21 meters in depth. The pronaos was laid out quite deeply. The overall dimensions exceeded those of the Temple of Apollo. As a real peripteros, the temple was not a typical representative of Roman temple construction , but rather followed a type of the Greek temple , which was also represented in Rome with a few examples: Temple A of the area sacra des Largo Argentina , the Dioskurentempel on the Roman Forum and the middle one Temple of the neighboring forum holitorium .

Finds of parts of the structural members can be reconstructed as follows: The temple was Corinthian order . The fluted columns stood on Attic bases , had a lower diameter of 1.48 meters and were crowned by Corinthian capitals carved in two parts. The columns supported a truss of three-fascia architrave and a frieze decorated with tendrils, several parts of which have been preserved. The entablature was completed by a console geison , which was decorated with rosettes in the recessed cassette fields between the consoles.

Both temples were framed by an L-shaped portico that separated the area of ​​both temples from the surrounding buildings on the east and north sides.

history

The temple has been associated with the Claudian family since its construction , an enduring relationship that established a tradition that was evidenced roughly by the fact that in 79 BC. The consuls Appius Claudius Pulcher and Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus imagines clipeatae donated their ancestors to the temple , in this case round portraits . It is also possible that the Claudian family grave, which has not yet been precisely located, was near the temple.

The Senate met several times in the temple, for example in the run-up to the senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus of the year 186 BC. BC, which was issued in connection with the Bacchanalia scandal . Above all, the temple outside the Pomerium offered the opportunity to receive returning victorious generals who were forbidden to enter the city and to negotiate with them about the granting of a triumph. Foreign delegations could also be received here by the Senate, whose presence in the city was not desired or seemed opportune. The temple is still mentioned in the 3rd century by Cassius Dio and the writers of the Historia Augusta .

In front of the temple of Bellona stood the columna bellica , the war pillar that played an important role in the ceremonial setting of the opening of war by the priesthood of the fetials . From here, outside the sacred border of the city and therefore already on enemy territory, a lance was thrown in the direction of the imaginary enemy and a war began. During the 2nd and 1st centuries BC Almost forgotten, the ceremony was revived under Augustus and Augustus himself declared war against Cleopatra as a fetiale in 32 BC. Chr.

Eugenio La Rocca believed that he could identify the location of the column in a circular hard shoulder on the Augustan travertine paviment in front of the temple. However, a renewed cleaning and examination of the area brought the result that the footprints observed by La Rocca are only rounded by chance and localization at this point in the axis in front of the temple can be excluded.

literature

  • Filippo Coarelli : Il Tempio di Bellona. In: Bulletino della Commissione Archeologica Communale di Roma , Volume 80, 1965-1966, pp. 67-72.
  • Antonio Maria Colini : Scoperte presso Piazza Campitelli. In: Capitolium. Volume 16, 1941, pp. 385-393.
  • Matilde De Nuccio: Tempio di Bellona: studi preliminari. In: Archeologia Laziale. Volume 12, 1995, pp. 71-77.
  • Marilda De Nuccio: La decorazione architettonica dei templi del Circo Flaminio: Il tempio di Bellona. In: Sebastián F. Ramallo Asensio (ed.): La decoración arquitectónica en las ciudades romanas de occidente. Actas del Congreso Internacional celebrado en Cartagena entre los días 8 and 10 de October 2003. Universidad de Murcia, Murcia 2004, pp. 37-54
  • Marilda De Nuccio: La decorazione architettonica del tempio di Bellona. In: Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma. Volume 112, 2011, pp. 191-190.
  • German Hafner: Three paintings in the temple of Bellona. In: Communications from the German Archaeological Institute. Roman department . Volume 94, 1987, pp. 241-265.
  • Ömür Harmanşah: Bellona, ​​Aedes. In: Elisha Ann Dumser (Ed.): Mapping Augustan Rome (= Journal of Roman Archeology . Supplement 50). Portsmouth 2002, p. 66 f. ( Online ).
  • Lawrence Richardson Jr .: A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1992, p. 37 fsv Bellona, ​​aedes.
  • Alessandro Viscogliosi: Bellona, ​​aedes in circo. In: Eva Margareta Steinby (Ed.): Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae . Volume 1. Quasar, Rome 1993, pp. 190-192.
  • Alessandro Viscogliosi: Ad aedem Apollonis. In: Archeologia Laziale. Volume 12, 1995, pp. 79-92.
  • Massimo Vitti: Note di topografia sull'area del Teatro di Marcello. In: Mélanges de l'École française de Rome. Antiquité. Vol. 122, 2010, pp. 549-583 ( online ).
  • Adam Ziolowski: The Temples of Mid-Republican Rome and their Historical and Topographical Context (= Saggi di Storia Antica. Volume 4). Bretschneider, Rome 1992, p. 18 f.

Web links

Commons : Temple of Bellona  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Titus Livius 10:19 , 17 ; Pliny , Naturalis historia 35.3 (12) ; Ovid , Fasti 6, 201-204 ; CIL 11, 1827 .
  2. ↑ Adam Ziolowski: The Temples of Mid-Republican Rome and Their Historical and Topographical Context. Bretschneider, Rome 1992, p. 18
  3. ↑ Ovid, Fasti 6,201; Fasti Venusini ad III non. Iun. ( Attilio Degrassi : Inscriptiones Italiae. Vol. 13: Fasti et Elogia. Fasz. 2. Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, Rome 1963, p. 58).
  4. ^ Servius, commentary on Virgil's Aeneid 9:52: in circo Flaminio… ante aedem Bellonae.
  5. ↑ Ovid, Fasti 6,205-208.
  6. ↑ Plutarch , Cicero 13.2–4 (especially 13.4).
  7. ↑ Livy 27:23, 5.
  8. ↑ Antonio Maria Colini: scoperte presso Piazza Campitelli. In: Capitolium. Volume 16, 1941, pp. 385-393
  9. ^ Filippo Coarelli: Il Tempio di Bellona. In: Bulletino della Commissione Archeologica Communale di Roma , Volume 80, 1965-1966, pp. 67-72.
  10. ↑ Eugenio La Rocca: L'adesione senatoriale al 'consensus': i modi della propaganda augustea e tiberiana nei monumenti 'in circo Flaminio'. 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. 347-72; here: p. 366.
  11. ↑ Marilda De Nuccio: La decorazione architettonica dei templi del Circo Flaminio: Il Tempio di Bellona. In: Sebastián F. Ramallo Asensio (ed.): La decoración arquitectónica en las ciudades romanas de occidente. Universidad de Murcia, Murcia 2004, p. 41 f.
  12. ↑ Marilda De Nuccio: La decorazione architettonica dei templi del Circo Flaminio: Il Tempio di Bellona. In: Sebastián F. Ramallo Asensio (ed.): La decoración arquitectónica en las ciudades romanas de occidente. Universidad de Murcia, Murcia 2004, p. 39 f.
  13. ↑ Marilda De Nuccio: La decorazione architettonica dei templi del Circo Flaminio: Il Tempio di Bellona. In: Sebastián F. Ramallo Asensio (ed.): La decoración arquitectónica en las ciudades romanas de occidente. Universidad de Murcia, Murcia 2004, pp. 43-46.
  14. ↑ Marilda De Nuccio: La decorazione architettonica dei templi del Circo Flaminio: Il Tempio di Bellona. In: Sebastián F. Ramallo Asensio (ed.): La decoración arquitectónica en las ciudades romanas de occidente. Universidad de Murcia, Murcia 2004, p. 46 f. Fig. 16-18.
  15. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35.12.
  16. ↑ Alessandro Viscogliosi: Bellona, ​​aedes in circo. In: Eva Margareta Steinby (Ed.): Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae . Volume 1. Quasar, Rome 1993, p. 191.
  17. ↑ Cicero, Speeches against Verres 2,5,41; Plutarch, Sulla 7.6 ; Cassius Dio 50,4,5.
  18. ↑ CIL 01, 00581 .
  19. ↑ Livy 26:21 , 1 ; 28.9.5 ; 28,38,2 ; 31.47.7.
  20. ↑ Livy 30:21 , 12 ; 30.40.1 ; 33,24,5 ; 42.36.2.
  21. ↑ Cassius Dio 69.15.3 (70.2.2).
  22. ↑ Historia Augusta, Septimius Severus 22.6.
  23. ↑ Servius with the Scholien Danielis zu Virgil, Aeneid 9,52.
  24. ^ Thomas Wiedemann: The fetiales : A Reconsideration. In: Classical Quarterly . Volume 36, 1986, pp. 478-490; here: pp. 480–482.
  25. ↑ Ovid, Fasti 6,205.
  26. ↑ Cassius Dio 50,4,4 f.
  27. ↑ Eugenio La Rocca: Columna Bellica. In: Eva Margareta Steinby (Ed.): Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae . Volume 1. Quasar, Rome 1993, p. 300 f .; ders .: Due monumenti a pianta circolare in circo Flaminio: il perirrhanterion e la columna Bellica. In: Russell T. Scott, Ann Reynolds Scott (Eds.): Eius Virtutis Studiosi: Classical and Postclassical Studies in Memory of Frank Edward Brown (1908–1988). National Gallery of Art, Washington DC 1993, pp. 17-29 especially 22-24.
  28. ↑ Massimo Vitti: Note di topografia sull'area del Teatro di Marcello. In: Mélanges de l'École française de Rome. Antiquité. Volume 122, 2010, pp. 549-583 with note 85 f.

Coordinates: 41 ° 53 ′ 32.6 "  N , 12 ° 28 ′ 47.6"  E