Читать книгу Rambles in Rome - S. Russell Forbes - Страница 46

Erected by Antoninus Pius, A.D. 160; and dedicated by the Senate on his death to himself and wife, who were deified, as we learn from the inscription—

DIVO . ANTONINO . ET . DIVAE . FAUSTINAE . EX . S. C.

The vestibule of this edifice, composed of ten Corinthian pillars of variegated green marble (cipollino) supporting an architrave and part of the cellæ, built of square blocks of peperino, still remain. The architrave is adorned at each side with arabesque candelabra guarded, as it were, by griffins.

The portico was excavated in 1876: the ascent to the Temple from the Via Sacra was found to be by a flight of twenty-one steps, fifteen feet in height. The portico now fulfils the same office to the Church of S. Lorenzo in Miranda, which we understand is to be pulled down.

Between this temple and our vantage point a mass of rubble work marks the site of