The History of the Roman Empire: 27 B.C. – 180 A.D.. John Bagnell Bury

the Flaminian Circus, in the Prata Flaminia, a region which might be included in the Campus, in a wider sense of the name, Augustus erected the Porticus Octaviae in the name of his sister, and attached to it a library and a collection of works of art. It was close to the Templum Herculis Musarum built by Fulvius Nobilior, the patron of the poet Ennius, and renewed under Augustus, and surrounded by a portico which was dedicated as the Porticus Philippi, in honor of L. Marcius Philippus, the step-father of the Emperor. Near the Portico of Octavia, were the Theatres of Balbus and Marcellus, both dedicated in the same year (11 B.C.). The first was one of those works which the rich men of the day executed through the influence and example of Augustus. The second had been begun by Caesar, but was finished by Augustus and dedicated in the name of his nephew Marcellus. The Porticus Octavii (close to the Flaminian Circus), which was dedicated by Cn. Octavius after the victory over Perseus, was burnt down and restored under Augustus. It was remarkable as the earliest example of Corinthian pillars at Rome.

      From the Forum the Clivus Capitolinus, passing the temple of Saturn, led up to the saddle of the Mons Capitolinus, the smallest of all the mountains of Rome. Thence it ascended to the southern height, called specially the Capitolium, the citadel of Servian Rome, where the treaties with foreign nations were kept and triumphal spoils were dedicated. Another path led up to the northern height, the Arx, which underwent, little change under the Empire. But on the southern hill it was otherwise; there new buildings arose under the auspices of Augustus. The highest part of the hill was occupied by the great temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, in which the senate used to meet on certain solemn occasions. This temple, burnt down in 83 B.C. had been rebuilt, but it required and received costly repairs in the time of Augustus. Ranged around it on lower ground were many lesser temples, of which that of Jupiter Feretrius, to whom Romulus dedicated his spolia opima, and that of Fides founded by Numa, may he specially mentioned. Augustus increased their number. In 20 B.C. he dedicated the round temple of Mars Ultor, and in 22 B.C. that of Jupiter Tonans, in memory of an occasion, during his Cantabrian expedition, on which he had narrowly escaped death by lightning. This temple, marvelous for its splendor, attracted multitudes of visitors and worshippers, and its position at the point where the Clivus reached the Area Capitolina might suggest that Jupiter Tonans was a sort of gatekeeper for the greater Jupiter on the summit.

      But the Palatine Mount was the centre from which the development of Rome went out. It was the original Rome, the Roma quadrata, where were localized the legends of its foundation. There were to be seen the Casa Romuli, the Lupercal where Romulus and Remus were fed by the wolf, the cornel-tree, and the mundus, receptacle of those things which at the foundation of the city were buried to ensure its prosperity. Under the Republic, the Palatine was the quarter where the great nobles and public men lived. Augustus himself was born there, and there he built his house. So it came about that the name which designated the city of Rome in its earliest shape, Palatium, became the name of the private residence of its first citizen. The palace of Augustus was a magnificent building in the new and costly style which had only recently been introduced in Rome. Ovid, standing in imagination by the temple of Jupiter Stator, where the Palatine hill slopes down to the Via Sacra, could see the splendid front of the palace, “worthy of a god”.

      Singula dum miror, video fulgentibus armis

       Conspicuo postes tectaque digna deo.

      The other great building by which Augustus transformed the appearance of the Palatine was the temple of Apollo, begun in 36 B.C. after the end of the war with Sextus Pompeius, and dedicated eight years later. It was an eight-pillared peripteros, built of the white marble of Luna, and richly adorned with works of art. The chief sight was the colossus of bronze representing Augustus himself under the form of Apollo. Between the columns stood the statues of the fifty Danaids, and over against them their wooers, the sons of Aegyptus, mourned on horseback. Under the statue of the god were deposited in a vault the Sibylline Books. In the porticoes were two libraries, one Latin and one Greek.

      On the northern slope of the Palatine, facing the Capitol, stood the temple of Augustus, which Tiberius and the Empress Livia erected in his honor after his death.

      On the south side the Palatine looks down on the Circus Maximus, which was restored by Augustus. Opposite rises the Aventine, a hill long uninhabited and afterwards chiefly a plebeian quarter, on which the chief shrine was the temple of Diana, whence the hill was sometimes called collis Dianae. This temple was rebuilt by L. Cornificius under Augustus, who himself restored the sanctuaries of Minerva, Juno Retina, and Jupiter Libertas on the same hill. Livy was hardly guilty of exaggeration when he called Augustus “the founder and restorer of all the temples of Rome”.

      A word must be said here about the triumphal arch (arcus triumphalis) which was a characteristic feature in the external appearance of Rome and other important cities of the Empire. Under this name are included not only arches erected in honor of victories, but also those which celebrate other public achievements. A triumphal arch was built across a street. It consisted either of a single archway, or of a large central and two side ones, or sometimes of two of the same height side by side. There were generally columns against the piers, supporting an entablature, and each facade was ornamented with low reliefs. Above all rose an attica with the inscription, and upon it were placed the trophies in case the arch commemorated a victory. The arch of Augustus at Ariminum, erected in memory of the completion of the Via Flaminia, and his arches at Augusta Praetoria and Susa, still stand. The general appearance of the arch resembles that of the gate of a city, and it seems to have owed its origin to the Triumphal Gate through which a victorious general led his army into Rome to celebrate his triumph.