Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus
The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, also known as the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, was the most important temple in Ancient Rome, located on the Capitoline Hill. It was surrounded by the Area Capitolina, a precinct where numerous shrines, altars, statues and victory trophies were displayed.
Traditionally dedicated in 509 BC, the first building was the oldest, and most important large temple in Archaic Rome. It was the largest in the Italian world and reflected the wealth of Rome at the end of the Etruscan period.
Like many temples in central Italy, it shared features with Etruscan architecture; sources report that Etruscan specialists were brought in for various aspects of its construction, including the making and painting of antefixes and other terracotta decorations. Built of wood, this temple was destroyed by fire in 83 BC. Its reconstruction employed craftsmen summoned from Greece, and the new building is presumed to have been essentially Greek in style, though like other Roman temples it retained many elements of Etruscan form. The second iteration of the temple was completed in 69 BC. Fires in the ensuing centuries necessitated two further reconstructions, evidently following contemporary Roman architectural style, although of exceptional size.
The first version is the largest Etruscan-style temple recorded, and much larger than other Roman temples for centuries after. However, its size remains heavily disputed by specialists; based on an ancient visitor it has been claimed to have been almost, not far short of the largest Greek temples. Whatever its size, its influence on other early Roman temples was significant and long-lasting. Reconstructions usually show very wide eaves, and a wide colonnade stretching down the sides, though not round the back wall as it would have done in a typical Greek temple. A crude image on a coin of 78 BC shows only four columns, and a very busy roofline.
With two further fires, the third temple only lasted five years, to 80 AD, but the fourth survived until the fall of the empire. Remains of the last temple survived to be pillaged for spolia in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but now only elements of the foundations and podium or base survive; as the subsequent temples apparently reused these, they may partly date to the first building. Much about the various buildings remains uncertain.
History
First building
Much of what is known of the first Temple of Jupiter is from later Roman tradition. King Lucius Tarquinius Priscus vowed this temple while battling with the Sabines and, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, began the terracing necessary to support the foundations of the temple. Much of the Cappellaccio tufa which forms the foundation of the Temple was probably mined directly from the site when it was excavated and levelled for the structure. Modern coring on the Capitoline has confirmed the extensive work needed just to create a level building site. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Livy, the foundations and most of the superstructure of the temple were completed by Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last King of Rome.Livy also records that before the temple's construction, shrines to other gods occupied the site. When the augurs carried out the rites seeking permission to remove them, only Terminus and Juventas were believed to have refused. Their shrines were therefore incorporated into the new structure. Because he was the god of boundaries, Terminus's refusal to be moved was interpreted as a favorable omen for the future of the Roman state. A second portent was the appearance of the head of a man to workmen digging the foundations of the temple. This was said by the augurs to mean that Rome was to be the head of a great empire.
Livy reports that the Temple was dedicated on September 13 in the year the Roman Republic replaced the Roman Kingdom, which is 509 BC assuming the Varronian chronology. Cassius Dio and Plutarch agree with Livy's account. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, it was consecrated two years later, in 507 BC; Tacitus agrees with this interpretation. Dedication of the temple was the responsibility of the new joint heads of state, the two consuls that had been elected for that year. They allocated the duty by drawing lots; it fell to Marcus Horatius Pulvillus. Horatius was consul in both 509 and 507 BC, which is the origin of the disagreement over the date of consecration. Livy records that in 495 BC the Latins, as a mark of gratitude to the Romans for the release of 6,000 Latin prisoners, delivered a crown of gold to the temple.
The original temple may have measured almost, though this estimate is hotly disputed by some specialists. It was certainly considered the most important religious temple of the whole state of Rome. Each deity of the Triad had a separate cella, with Juno Regina on the left, Minerva on the right, and Jupiter Optimus Maximus in the middle. The first temple was decorated with many terra cotta sculptures. The most famous of these was of Jupiter driving a quadriga, a chariot drawn by four horses, which was on top of the roof as an acroterion. This sculpture, as well as the cult statue of Jupiter in the main cella, was said to have been the work of Etruscan artisan Vulca of Veii. An image of Summanus, a thunder god, was among the pedimental statues. The cult statue of Jupiter showed the god standing and wielding a thunderbolt, dressed in a tunica palmata, and the toga picta, dyed purple and bearing designs in gold thread. This costume became the standard dress for victorious generals celebrating a triumph.
The original temple decoration was discovered in 2014. The findings allowed the archaeologists to reconstruct for the first time the real appearance of the temple in the earliest phase. The wooden elements of the roof and lintels were lined with terracotta revetment plaques and other elements of exceptional size and richly decorated with painted reliefs, following the so-called Second Phase model, that had its first expression precisely with the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The temple, which immediately rose to fame, established a new model for sacred architecture that was adopted in the terracotta decorations of many temples in Italy up to the 2nd century BC. The original elements were partially replaced with other elements in different style in the early 4th century BC and anew at the end of the 3rd – early 2nd century BC. The removed material was dumped into the layers forming the square in front of the temple, the so-called Area Capitolina, in the middle years the 2nd century BC.
Repairs and improvements were undertaken over the course of the temple's lifetime, including the re-stuccoing of the columns and walls in 179 BC, the addition of mosaic flooring in the cella after the Third Punic War, and the gilding of the coffered ceiling inside the cella in 142 BC. Over the years the temple accrued countless statues and trophies dedicated by victorious generals, and in 179 some of these attached to the columns were removed to lessen the clutter.
The plan and exact dimensions of the temple have been heavily debated. Five different plans of the temple have been published following recent excavations on the Capitoline Hill that revealed portions of the archaic foundations. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the same plan and foundations were used for later rebuildings of the temple, but there is disagreement over what the dimensions he mentions referred to.
The first temple burned in 83 BC, during the civil wars under the dictatorship of Sulla. Also lost in this fire were the Sibylline Books, which were said to have been written by classical sibyls, and stored in the temple on matters of state only in emergencies.
Second building
During Lucius Cornelius Sulla's sack of Athens in 86 BC, while looting the city, Sulla seized some of the gigantic incomplete columns from the Temple of Zeus and transported them back to Rome, where they were re-used in the Temple of Jupiter. Whether Sulla actually used the entire columns in the temple is not confirmed; the columns from the Temple of Zeus were extraordinarily long and so may have been inappropriate for the Temple of Jupiter. Therefore, it is suggested that either just the capitals were used or the columns off the archaic Peisistratid Temple to Zeus. Sulla hoped to live until the temple was rebuilt, but Quintus Lutatius Catulus Capitolinus had the honor of dedicating the new structure in 69 BC. The new temple was built to the same plan on the same foundations, but with more expensive materials for the superstructure. Literary sources indicate that the temple was not entirely completed until the late 60s BC. Around 65 AD the three new cult statues were completed. The chryselephantine statue of Jupiter was sculpted by Apollonius of Athens; its appearance is generally known from replicas created for other temples of Jupiter in the Roman colonies. It featured Jupiter seated with a thunderbolt and scepter in either hand, and possibly an image of the goddess Roma in one hand as well.Brutus and the other assassins locked themselves inside it after murdering Caesar. The new temple of Quintus Lutatius Catulus was renovated and repaired by Augustus. The second building burnt down during the course of fighting on the hill on 19 December of 69 AD, when an army loyal to Vespasian battled to enter the city in the Year of the Four Emperors.