The Temple of Bellona was a

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...

dedicated to the

goddess A goddess is a female deity. In some faiths, a sacred female figure holds a central place in religious prayer and worship. For example, Shaktism (one of the three major Hinduism, Hindu sects), holds that the ultimate deity, the source of all re ...

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

Bellona in

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

. It was located at the northern end of the Forum Olitorium, the Roman vegetable market, near the Carmental Gate. The Temple of Apollo Sosianus and the Theater of Marcellus were located nearby.

History

Theater of Marcellus and Forum Olitorium

It was first vowed in 296 BC by

Appius Claudius Caecus Appius Claudius Caecus ( 312–279 BC) was a statesman and writer from the Roman Republic. He is best known for two major building projects: the Appian Way (Latin: Via Appia), the first major Roman road, and the first Roman aqueduct, aqueduc ...

during the third Samnite War, in the area of the later

circus Flaminius The Circus Flaminius was a large, circular area in ancient Rome, located in the southern end of the Campus Martius near the Tiber River. It contained a small race-track used for obscure games, and various other buildings and monuments. It was "bu ...

, outside the

pomerium The ''pomerium'' or ''pomoerium'' was a religious boundary around the city of Rome and cities controlled by Rome. In legal terms, Rome existed only within its ''pomerium''; everything beyond it was simply territory ('' ager'') belonging to Rome ...

but close to the

Servian Wall The Servian Wall (; ) is an ancient Roman defensive barrier constructed around the city of Rome in the early 4th century BC. The wall was built of volcanic tuff and was up to in height in places, wide at its base, long, and is believed to hav ...

, allowing it to accommodate extraordinary meetings of the Senate which involved foreign embassies from non-allies or returning or departing generals, neither of which were allowed within the pomerium - for example, the farewell to the

proconsul A proconsul was an official of ancient Rome who acted on behalf of a Roman consul, consul. A proconsul was typically a former consul. The term is also used in recent history for officials with delegated authority. In the Roman Republic, military ...

on his departure for his allotted province. Appius's descendant Appius Claudius Pulcher (the consul of 79 BC) rehoused the imagines clipeatae ("images on shields") of his ancestors there, to advertise his descent from its founder. The temple is depicted in the '' Forma Urbis Romae'' of the 3rd century.

Archeology

The temple – long considered lost – was identified with the remains of a

podium A podium (: podiums or podia) is a platform used to raise something to a short distance above its surroundings. In architecture a building can rest on a large podium. Podiums can also be used to raise people, for instance the conductor of a ...

recovered in the 1930s building works to enable the nearby Theatre to be seen in isolation. These remains belong to a reconstruction in the Augustan period which is not mentioned by the literary sources but is probably related to the transformation of the area during the construction of the Theatre at that time.

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

(with links to the temple's founders via his

Claudian Claudius Claudianus, known in English as Claudian (Greek: Κλαυδιανός; ), was a Latin poet associated with the court of the Roman emperor Honorius at Mediolanum (Milan), and particularly with the general Stilicho. His work, written almo ...

wife) may have funded the rebuilding, or the dedicator may have been yet another Appius Claudius Pulcher (consul of 38 BC, conqueror of the

Hirpini The Hirpini (Latin: ') were an ancient Samnite tribe of Southern Italy. While generally regarded as having been Samnites, sometimes they are treated as a distinct and independent nation. They inhabited the southern portion of Samnium, in the more ...

and loyal ally and father-in-law to Augustus). These podium remains are made up of the cement infill between the load-bearing structures. (Those structures were constructed from

opus quadratum ''Opus quadratum'' ("squared work") is an ancient Roman construction technique, in which squared blocks of stone of the same height were set in parallel courses, most often without the use of Mortar (masonry), mortar. The Latin author Vitruvius d ...

blocks, looted for reuse after the temple was abandoned and now lost.) The structure of the church of ''Santa Rita da Cascia in Campitelli'' by

Carlo Maderno Carlo Maderno or Maderna (1556 – 31 January 1629) was an Italian architect, born in today's Ticino, Switzerland, who is remembered as one of the fathers of Baroque architecture. His façades of Santa Susanna, St. Peter's Basilica, and Sant ...

was moved onto this podium from the slopes of the Capitol at the time of the 1930s excavation and work on the Capitol. The surviving remains and plan of the temple on the Forma Urbis Romae show that it had columns along all sides of the

cella In Classical architecture, a or naos () is the inner chamber of an ancient Greek or Roman temple. Its enclosure within walls has given rise to extended meanings: of a hermit's or monk's cell, and (since the 17th century) of a biological cell ...

(with six - i.e. hexastyle - along the shorter sides, and nine along the long sides) and had a frontal staircase up onto the podium. The temple's facade, like that of the neighbouring temple of Apollo, was part

Carrara marble Carrara marble, or Luna marble (''marmor lunense'') to the Romans, is a type of white or blue-grey marble popular for use in sculpture and building decor. It has been quarried since Roman times in the mountains just outside the city of Carrara ...

, part plastered

travertine Travertine ( ) is a form of terrestrial limestone deposited around mineral springs, especially hot springs. It often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, tan, cream-colored, and rusty varieties. It is formed by a process ...

The Columna Bellica

In front of the temple was a column used in the archaic Roman ceremony for declaring war involved hurling a spear from Roman territory towards enemy territory. However, when for the first time Rome had to declare war on a state whose territory did not border her own (i.e.

Pyrrhus of Epirus Pyrrhus ( ; ; 319/318–272 BC) was a Greeks, Greek king and wikt:statesman, statesman of the Hellenistic period.Plutarch. ''Parallel Lives'',Pyrrhus... He was king of the Molossians, of the royal Aeacidae, Aeacid house, and later he became ki ...

), it was hard to see how this rite could be carried out. A prisoner of war was therefore forced to hold a small piece of land in the area of the

, where a column was raised (perhaps in wood) as a symbolical representation of the hostile territory and a spear then hurled against the column. This new procedure was then used on all subsequent occasions (the last well-known example is in 179 AD, under

Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ( ; ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoicism, Stoic philosopher. He was a member of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty, the last of the rulers later known as the Five Good Emperors ...

). A circular area with the paving restored in front of this temple was interpreted in the excavations as the place where this column was sited, on the basis of literary references. This is now interpreted as where the ''perirrhanterion'' (for lustrali at the end of campaigns) was sited before the temple of Apollo was built.

External links

S.Platner and T.Ashby, ''A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome'', 1929
*Plans of the Apollo and Bellona temples on the Comune di Roma sit

an
here
{{DEFAULTSORT:Temple Of Bellona (Rome) 296 BC 3rd-century BC establishments in the Roman Republic 3rd-century BC religious buildings and structures 1930s archaeological discoveries Bellona Rome R. XI Sant'Angelo Roman temples by deity Bellona (goddess)

History

Archeology

The Columna Bellica

See also

External links