Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus
The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, also known as the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was the most important temple in Ancient Rome, located on the Capitoline Hill. It was surrounded by the Area Capitolina, a precinct where numerous shrines, altars, statues and victory trophies were displayed.
The first building was the oldest large temple in Rome, and, like many temples in central Italy, shared features with Etruscan architecture. It was traditionally dedicated in 509 BC, and in 83 BC was destroyed by fire, and a replacement in Greek style completed in 69 BC. For the first temple sources report Etruscan specialists being brought in for various aspects of the building, including making and painting the extensive terracotta elements of the Temple of Zeus or upper parts, such as antefixes. But for the second building they were summoned from Greece, and the building was presumably essentially Greek in style, though like other Roman temples it retained many elements of Etruscan form. The two further buildings were evidently of contemporary Roman style, although of exceptional size.
The first version is the largest Etruscan-style temple recorded, and much larger than other Roman temples for centuries after. However, its size remains heavily disputed by specialists; based on an ancient visitor it has been claimed to have been almost, not far short of the largest Greek temples. Whatever its size, its influence on other early Roman temples was significant and long-lasting. Reconstructions usually show very wide eaves, and a wide colonnade stretching down the sides, though not round the back wall as it would have done in a typical Greek temple. A crude image on a coin of 78 BC shows only four columns, and a very busy roofline.
With two further fires, the third temple only lasted five years, to 80 AD, but the fourth survived until the fall of the empire. Remains of the last temple survived to be pillaged for spolia in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but now only elements of the foundations and podium or base survive; as the subsequent temples apparently reused these, they may partly date to the first building. Much about the various buildings remains uncertain.
History
First building
Much of what is known of the first Temple of Jupiter is from later Roman tradition. Lucius Tarquinius Priscus vowed this temple while battling with the Sabines and, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, began the terracing necessary to support the foundations of the temple. Modern coring on the Capitoline has confirmed the extensive work needed just to create a level building site. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Livy, the foundations and most of the superstructure of the temple were completed by Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last King of Rome.Livy also records that before the temple's construction shrines to other gods occupied the site. When the augurs carried out the rites seeking permission to remove them, only Terminus and Juventas were believed to have refused. Their shrines were therefore incorporated into the new structure. Because he was the god of boundaries, Terminus's refusal to be moved was interpreted as a favorable omen for the future of the Roman state. A second portent was the appearance of the head of a man to workmen digging the foundations of the temple. This was said by the augurs to mean that Rome was to be the head of a great empire.
Traditionally the Temple was dedicated on September 13, the founding year of the Roman Republic, 509 BC according to Livy. According to Dionysius, it was consecrated two years later in 507 BC. It was sacred to the Capitoline Triad consisting of Jupiter and his companion deities, Juno and Minerva.
The man to perform the dedication of the temple was chosen by lot. The duty fell to Marcus Horatius Pulvillus, one of the consuls in that year.
Livy records that in 495 BC the Latins, as a mark of gratitude to the Romans for the release of 6,000 Latin prisoners, delivered a crown of gold to the temple.
The original temple may have measured almost, though this estimate is hotly disputed by some specialists. It was certainly considered the most important religious temple of the whole state of Rome. Each deity of the Triad had a separate cella, with Juno Regina on the left, Minerva on the right, and Jupiter Optimus Maximus in the middle. The first temple was decorated with many terra cotta sculptures. The most famous of these was of Jupiter driving a quadriga, a chariot drawn by four horses, which was on top of the roof as an acroterion. This sculpture, as well as the cult statue of Jupiter in the main cella, was said to have been the work of Etruscan artisan Vulca of Veii. An image of Summanus, a thunder god, was among the pedimental statues.
The original temple decoration was discovered in 2014.The findings allowed the archaeologists to reconstruct for the first time the real appearance of the temple in the earliest phase. The wooden elements of the roof and lintels were lined with terracotta revetment plaques and other elements of exceptional size and richly decorated with painted reliefs, following the so-called Second Phase model, that had its first expression precisely with the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The temple, which immediately rose to fame, established a new model for sacred architecture that was adopted in the terracotta decorations of many temples in Italy up to the 2nd century BC. The original elements were partially replaced with other elements in different style in the early 4th century BC and anew at the end of 3rd – beginning 2nd century BC. The removed material was dumped into the layers forming the square in front of the temple, the so-called Area Capitolina, in the middle years the 2nd century BC.
The plan and exact dimensions of the temple have been heavily debated. Five different plans of the temple have been published following recent excavations on the Capitoline Hill that revealed portions of the archaic foundations. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the same plan and foundations were used for later rebuildings of the temple, but there is disagreement over what the dimensions he mentions referred to.
In 437 BC Aulus Cornelius Cossus unhorsed the Veientes' King Lars Tolumnius and struck him down. After taking the linen cuirass off Tolumnius' body, he decapitated the corpse and put the head on a lance and paraded it in front of the enemy, who retreated in horror. Cossus donated the captured armour, shield and sword to the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius on the Capitoline Hill, where as late as the reign of Emperor Augustus it could be seen.
The first temple burned in 83 BC, during the civil wars under the dictatorship of Sulla. Also lost in this fire were the Sibylline Books, which were said to have been written by classical sibyls, and stored in the temple.
Second building
During Lucius Cornelius Sulla's sack of Athens in 86 BC, while looting the city, Sulla seized some of the gigantic incomplete columns from the Temple of Zeus and transported them back to Rome, where they were re-used in the Temple of Jupiter. Sulla hoped to live until the temple was rebuilt, but Quintus Lutatius Catulus had the honor of dedicating the new structure in 69 BC. The new temple was built to the same plan on the same foundations, but with more expensive materials for the superstructure. Literary sources indicate that the temple was not entirely completed until the late 60s BC.Brutus and the other assassins locked themselves inside it after murdering Caesar. The new temple of Quintus Lutatius Catulus was renovated and repaired by Augustus.
The second building burnt down during the course of fighting on the hill on 19 December of 69 AD, when an army loyal to Vespasian battled to enter the city in the Year of the Four Emperors.
Third building
The new emperor, Vespasian, rapidly rebuilt the temple on the same foundations but with a lavish superstructure. The third temple of Jupiter was dedicated in 75 AD. The third temple burned during the reign of Titus in 80 AD.Fourth building
immediately began rebuilding the temple, again on the same foundations, but with the most lavish superstructure yet. According to Plutarch, Domitian used at least twelve thousands talents of gold for the gilding of the bronze roof tiles alone. Elaborate sculpture adorned the pediment. A Renaissance drawing of a damaged relief in the Louvre Museum shows a four-horse chariot beside a two-horse chariot to the right of the latter at the highest point of the pediment, the two statues serving as the central acroterion, and statues of the god Mars and goddess Venus surmounting the corners of the cornice, serving as acroteria. It was completed in A.D. 82.In the centre of the pediment the god Jupiter was flanked by Juno and Minerva, seated on thrones. Below was an eagle with wings spread out. A biga driven by the sun god and a biga driven by the moon were depicted either side of the three gods. After the emperor Theodosius I eliminated the public funding for upkeep of pagan temples in 392, it was spoliated several times through the Middle Ages. During the 16th century, it was subsumed into a large private residence, the Palazzo Caffarelli-Clementino, which became part of the current-day Capitoline Hill.
Decline and abandonment
The temple completed by Domitian is thought to have lasted more or less intact for over three hundred years, until all pagan temples were closed by emperor Theodosius I in 392 during the Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire. During the 5th century the temple was damaged by Stilicho and Gaiseric. In 571, Narses removed many of the statues and ornaments. The ruins were still well preserved in 1447 when the 15th-century humanist Poggio Bracciolini visited Rome. The remaining ruins were destroyed in the 16th century, when Giovanni Pietro Caffarelli built a palace on the site reusing material from the temple.Remains
Today, portions of the temple podium and foundations can be seen behind the Palazzo dei Conservatori, in an exhibition area built in the Caffarelli Garden, and within the Musei Capitolini. A part of the front corner is also visible in the via del Tempio di Giove.The second Medici lion was sculpted in the late 16th century by Flaminio Vacca from a capital from the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.
''Area Capitolina''
The Area Capitolina was the precinct on the southern part of the Capitoline that surrounded the Temple of Jupiter, enclosing it with irregular retaining walls following the hillside contours. The precinct was enlarged in 388 BC, to about 3,000m2. The Clivus Capitolinus ended at the main entrance in the center of the southeast side, and the Porta Pandana seems to have been a secondary entrance; these gates were closed at night. The sacred geese of Juno, said to have sounded the alarm during the Gallic siege of Rome, were kept in the Area, which was guarded during the Imperial period by dogs kept by a temple attendant. Domitian hid in the dog handler's living quarters when the forces of Vitellius overtook the Capitoline.Underground chambers called favissae held damaged building materials, old votive offerings, and dedicated objects that were not suitable for display. It was religiously prohibited to disturb these. The precinct held numerous shrines, altars, statues, and victory trophies. Some plebeian and tribal assemblies met there. In late antiquity, it was a market for luxury goods, and continued as such into the medieval period: in a letter from 468, Sidonius describes a shopper negotiating over the price of gems, silk, and fine fabrics.