IN AD 408, WHEN a decree provided that all temples be put to new (secular) uses, strange events took place in the Forum of Peace, as recalled by Marcellinus Comes, a Latin chronicler at the court of Constantinople who died around AD 534: “In the forum of Peace there were rumblings of the earth for seven consecutive days” (Chronica minora 2.69: “in foro Pacis per dies septem terra mugitum dedit”). The same event is attested to in the much later Excerpta Sangallensis, dating from the ninth century: “During the consulship of Bassus and Philippus in Rome there were rumbling of the earth for seven consecutive days in the forum of Peace” (“Basso et Philippo conss. Romae in foro Pacis terra mugitum dedit per dies VII”). Likewise, the Continuatio Codicis Hauniensis reports that “the same year for seven consecutive days in Rome in the Forum of Peace there were rumbling of the earth, indicating the definitive end of captivity, which destruction two years later was completely fulfilled” (“Eodem anno per dies VII Romae in foro Pacis terra mugitum dedit significans captivitatis exitium, quem post biennium experta persolvit”) – probably a subtle reference to the sack of Alaricus the Visigoth in AD 410.

The earthquake of AD 408 is unlikely to have totally destroyed the Templum Pacis, which was still functioning eleven years later. Indeed, on March 23, AD 419, the Christian praefectus Urbi Aurelius Anicius Symmachus (in office from December 24, 418, to January 420) recorded a riot in the Templum Pacis, at that time called the Forum of Vespasian. The memory of Vespasian, its original founder, was still alive. In his capacity as Rome's prefect, Symmachus reported to the court in Ravenna about the problematic succession to Pope Zosimus, who had died on December 26, 418. In particular, in his letter of March 23, 419 (Coll. Av. 29), a document more often cited than read, he describes what happened three days earlier, on March 20.