REPUBLICAN AND IMPERIAL TEMPLES IN ROME

At the end of the Republic, the city of Rome possessed a great number of old temples constructed in tuff, timber framing and mud brick. As a rule, they must have had wall paintings that covered the roughly constructed walls, thereby forming an important aspect of the decoration. The use of these traditional building materials continued until the beginning of the first century AD, although by then new techniques were increasingly practiced. Most monuments discussed in this section belong to the group of public monuments financed by the city's prestigious citizens.

Gradually, constructions in brickwork grew in number and volume and their walls also had to be covered with stucco work or paintings. Furthermore, covering temples with marble became a booming business, the first columns and capitals in this material having been introduced in the middle of the second century BC. Although at first these elements were seen as manifestations of un-Roman luxury, they had now become standard materials for religious and public monuments alike. Even the walls were now composed of blocks of marble. The temples of Portunus and Hercules -Olivarius or Victor -on the Forum Boarium are clear examples of this ‘modern’ combination of materials and techniques. The exterior sides of the walls of these late second century BC shrines are covered with a white stucco relief. In the Temple of Portunus the suggestion of marble orthostates is rendered in shallow relief, combined with colourful panels. The cella had a floor in opus signinum. The round cella of the Temple of Hercules had stucco slabs imitating rectangular marble blocks, as was the practice in the First Style. In the latter monument the first Corinthian capitals and columns of Pentelic marble in Rome are recorded, whereas the floor is made of travertine blocks. Marble would remain a precious material in Roman architecture and, therefore, was rarely covered with stucco. For this reason the marble temples will not be discussed in this study.

A shrine for Jupiter on Tiber Island dates to the early second century BC. Its scant remains were explored in the 1990s by Paola di Manzano and Roberto Giustini.