Читать книгу Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - Charles K. Dillaway - Страница 16

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Templum was a place which had been dedicated to the worship of some deity, and consecrated by the augurs.

Ædes sacræ were such as wanted that consecration, which, if they afterwards received, they changed their names to temples.

Delubrum comprehended several deities under one roof. The most celebrated temples were the capitol and pantheon.

The capitol or temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, was the effect of a vow made by Tarquinius Priscus, in the Sabine war. But he had scarcely laid the foundation before his death. His nephew Tarquin the proud, finished it with the spoils taken from the neighboring nations.

The structure stood on a high ridge, taking in four acres of ground. The front was adorned with three rows of pillars, the other sides with two. The ascent from the ground was by a hundred steps. The prodigious gifts and ornaments with which it was at several times endowed, almost exceed belief. Augustus gave at one time two thousand pounds weight of gold, and in jewels and precious stones to the value of five hundred sestertia.

Livy and Pliny surprise us with accounts of the brazen thresholds, the noble pillars that Scylla removed thither from Athens, out of the temple of Jupiter Olympius; the gilded roof, the gilded shields, and those of solid silver; the huge vessels of silver, holding three measures—the golden chariot, &c.

This temple was first consumed by fire in the Marian war, and then rebuilt by Sylla. This too was demolished in the Vitellian sedition. Vespasian undertook a third, which was burnt about the time of his death. Domitian raised the last and most glorious of all, in which the very gilding amounted to twelve thousand talents—on which Plutarch has observed of that emperor, that he was, like Midas, desirous of turning every thing into gold. There are very little remains of it at present, yet enough to make a Christian church.

The capitol contained in it three temples: one to Jupiter, one to Juno, and one to Minerva. Jupiter's was in the centre, whence he was poetically called “Media qui sedet æde Deus”—the god who sits in the middle temple.

The pantheon was built by Marcus Agrippa, son-in-law to Augustus Cæsar, and dedicated most probably to all the gods in general, as the name implies. The structure is a hundred and fifty-eight feet high, and about the same breadth. The roof is curiously vaulted, void places being here and there for the greater strength. The rafters were pieces of brass of forty feet in length. There are no windows in the whole edifice, only a round hole at the top of the roof, which serves very well for the admission of light. The walls on the inside are either solid marble or incrusted. The front, on the outside, was covered with brazen plates, gilt, the top with silver plates, which are now changed to lead. The gates were brass, of extraordinary work and magnitude.

This temple is still standing, with little alteration, besides the loss of the old ornaments, being converted into a Christian church by Pope Boniface III. The most remarkable difference is that where they before ascended by twelve steps, they now go down as many to the entrance.

There are two other temples, particularly worth notice, not so much for the magnificence of the structure, as for the customs that depend upon them, and the remarkable use to which they were put. These are the temples of Saturn and Janus.

The first was famous on account of serving for the public treasury—the reason of which some fancy to have been because Saturn first taught the Italians to coin money; but most probably it was because this was the strongest place in the city. Here were preserved all the public registers and records, among which were the libri elephantini, or great ivory tables, containing a list of all the tribes and the schemes of the public accounts.

The other was a square building, some say of entire brass, so large as to contain a statue of Janus, five feet high, with brazen gates on each side, which were kept open in war, and shut in time of peace.