User:Annapviki/sandbox/Divine Romulus

The temple of the Divine Romulus is located in the archaeological area of ​​the Roman Forum, in Rome, on the Sacra via summa, behind the so-called republican prison, between the temple of Antoninus and Faustina and the basilica of Maxentius. History The building was the entrance to the imperial complex of the Temple of Peace from the Via Sacra, between the Arch of Titus and the square of the Roman Forum: the different orientation of the imperial complex with respect to the street was resolved by means of its circular plan.

At the beginning of the 4th century the complex of the Temple of Peace was already abandoned and the vestibule was reused by Maxentius, who dedicated it perhaps in 309 AD as a temple in honor of his son Valerius Romulus, who died at a young age and was later deified. The richly decorated portal dates back to that time, framed by two wall wings that formed an exedra overlooking the street, decorated with reused architectural elements. After the defeat of Maxentius in the battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, by Constantine, its function had to change, as some inscriptions, visible until the 16th century inside the building, seem to prove.

Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, and his daughter Amalasunta, donated a room of the Temple of Peace (probably the library) to Pope Felix IV in 527, which was transformed into the basilica dedicated to Saints Cosmas and Damian. On that occasion it was united with the temple of Romulus and a door was opened between the two complexes. The temple then became the vestibule of the church.

In 1631 the floor of the church was redone and raised by several meters due to water infiltrations from the Campo Vaccino, but not the one of the temple, which remained at the level of the ancient Roman road. The bronze door and the porphyry columns were then reused in a new door to the north, which replaced the old one. In 1897 Rodolfo Lanciani rearranged the original door, as it is still visible today, thus interrupting the continuity between the temple and the Basilica; the internal structure of the temple is visible from inside the basilica.

In the past the building had been identified rather imaginatively by the first scholars and antiquarians as the temple of the Penates or the temple of Jupiter Stator founded by Romulus (or by the first citizens of Rome) in the 8th century BC.

Attribution The attribution as the temple of Romulus is rather controversial and is based on medieval information (which could instead refer to an incorrect interpretation of the basilica of Maxentius) and on a coin from the time of Maxentius with a building with a circular base and the writing aeternae memoriae, perhaps more precisely referable to the dynastic mausoleum on the Via Appia Antica.

Some instead maintain that a temple of Romulus never existed and rely for the identification on the remains of an inscription with the dedication to Constantine I by the Senate (according to the supporters of the attribution to the temple of Romulus this inscription would be a sign of a new dedication after the battle of Ponte Milvio).

Another hypothesis, born at the end of the 19th century, is that it is the temple of the Penates, which we know was located on the Velia, near the Forum, on the stretch of the Via Sacra that led to the Carinae: the beginning of the via per le Carinae is in fact visible on the side of the roundabout. It may be that the temple of the Penates was located below the basilica of Maxentius, which occupies a large part of Velia, and that it was later rebuilt not far away. Even the presence of the two apsidal cells would be compatible with the dedication to the Penates, where the cult statues could be placed, as they appear in a coin of Maxentius on the sides of the temple. The building was built with bricks and covered with marble slabs, removed during the Middle Ages. The central body has a cylindrical shape, crowned by a dome, the only one from the Roman era present in the forum, partially remodeled and crowned by a small lantern built in the modern era. The façade, on the other hand, has a receding hemicycle shape which has four niches currently walled up, already used to contain the same number of statues. The best preserved part is the portal, flanked by two columns of red porphyry (the marble of the emperors) with Corinthian capitals in white marble which support a richly decorated reused entablature, as well as the frame, also finished with fine details.

The bronze door is one of the few surviving Roman ones, and has a still functioning mechanism (another one is the Curia Iulia at the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano).

Two rectangular rooms ending with as many apses and connected to the temple were created between the central part of the structure and the adjacent buildings. Two columns of cipollino marble resting on raised bases served as decoration at the entrance to these two rooms. Only the last column, the one located on the right, has survived until present day.

Some traces of frescoes, dating back to the transformation of the temple into a vestibule, are visible from inside the basilica of Saints Cosma and Damiano. The bottom of the nave in fact opens onto the central body of the temple, located at a lower level.

The building stands higher than the Sacra Via Summa because the archaeological excavations of the 19th century mistakenly removed the post-Neronian flooring, thinking it was a medieval addition; thus they were also able to investigate the most ancient layers of the Forum (the current level is from the first empire), but they left the foundations of subsequent buildings uncovered, such as the temple of Romulus itself, the arch of Titus and the basilica of Maxentius. The medieval level of the street is instead testified by a portico which is located a little further on the via sacra, on the left side.