Temple of Apollo Palatinus

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The Temple of Apollo Palatinus ('Palatine Apollo'), sometimes called the Temple of Actian Apollo, was a temple of the god Apollo in Rome, constructed on the Palatine Hill on the initiative of Augustus (known as "Octavian" until 27 BCE) between 36 and 28 BCE. It was the first temple to Apollo within the city's ceremonial boundaries, and the second of four temples constructed by Augustus. According to tradition, the site for the temple was chosen when it was struck by lightning, which was interpreted as a divine portent. Augustan writers situated the temple next to Augustus's personal residence, which has been controversially identified as the structure known as the domus Augusti. The temple was closely associated with the victories of Augustus's forces at the battles of Naulochus and Actium, the latter of which was extensively memorialised through its decoration. The temple played an important role in Augustan propaganda and political ideology, in which it represented the restoration of Rome's 'golden age' and served as a signifier of Augustus's pietas (devotion to religious and political duty). It was used for the worship of Apollo and his sister Diana, as well as to store the prophetic...

The worship of Apollo in Rome began in the fifth century BCE. According to Roman tradition, the first temple to Apollo was promised to the god in 433 BCE in return for his intercession during a plague. This temple was originally known as the Temple of Apollo Medicus and later as the Temple of Apollo Sosianus, after Gaius Sosius, who restored it around 32 BCE. It was situated in the Campus Martius, outside the ceremonial boundary ( pomerium ) of Rome, since Apollo, whose worship originated in the Greek world, was considered a 'foreign' deity and so unsuitable for a temple within the city. According to the classicist Paul Zanker, Apollo was held in Roman culture to represent discipline, morality, purification and the punishment of excess.

After securing control over the Roman state through victory in his civil war against Mark Antony, Octavian (known as "Augustus" from 27 BCE) made a political and ideological priority of the embellishment and restoration of Rome's built space. According to his biographer Suetonius, he claimed to have found Rome built of brick, and to have left it built of marble. The construction and restoration of temples was a major part of this programme: Augustus claimed to have restored eighty-two of them in 28 BCE alone. The archaeologist Susan Walker has described Rome under Augustus as a "moral museum", by which public architecture and artwork, particularly the display of Greek sculpture, was used as part of Augustus's ideological project. Augustus's developments on the Palatine Hill included the construction and restoration of several of its temples and the intensification of cult activity around it, making the Palatine, previously most significant as an elite residential area, Rome's "new seat of political and religious power", in the words of the classicist Ulrich Schmitzer.

The Temple of Apollo Palatinus was among the earliest of a series of monuments constructed by Augustus around Rome, and his first major architectural project undertaken independently in the city. Other Augustan monuments of the same period included the restoration of the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius in 32 BCE, the construction of the Mausoleum of Augustus in 28 BCE, and the completion in 29 BCE of the Curia Julia, a senate house whose construction was begun in 44 BCE by Octavian's adoptive father, Julius Caesar. Apollo was a favourite god of Augustus. Two laurel trees, symbolic both of Apollo and of victory, stood by the side of the front door of Augustus's house, highlighting the connection between Apollo, Augustus and his victory over Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium. According to a story related by Suetonius, who reports having read it in a work of the Greek author Asklepiades of Mendes, Augustus considered himself the son of Apollo, and Apollo as the patron deity of his family. During the civil war, Augustus used the iconography of Apollo to contrast himself with Antony, who was closely associated with the antithetical god Dionysus ; Augustus was criticised for his rumoured appearance at a feast in costume as Apollo. Augustus further explained his cultivation of Apollo through the tradition that Apollo had protected the hero Aeneas, believed to have been the ancestor of the Romans and the progenitor of Augustus's family, the gens Iulia.

The dedication of temples by generals following military victories was an established part of Roman political culture in the Middle Republic ( c. 200 – c. 100 BCE ), but had largely fallen out of fashion by 100 BCE. Octavian's vow to dedicate the temple followed the victory of his admiral Marcus Agrippa over Sextus Pompeius at the Battle of Naulochus on 3 September 36 BCE: Octavian probably announced the temple's construction in November, during a speech to the Roman senate and people. In 36 BCE, he began buying land in the area of the future temple. The Palatine was considered particularly sacred and among Rome's most fashionable residential districts, and had the additional advantage of being mostly owned by private citizens, from whom Octavian was able to buy land in a private capacity. The precise location of the temple was determined when a bolt of lightning struck part of Octavian's property. On the advice of the haruspices, specialist priests who interpreted divine portents, this was considered to be an indication of a god's desire for a temple, and as urging the construction of a temple to Apollo within the city. Octavian declared that portion of his property to be public land, and initiated the construction of the temple.

The temple was dedicated on 9 October 28 BCE, a day traditionally associated with the worship of deities of victory. The temple's dedication followed Octavian's defeat of the forces of Antony and Queen Cleopatra of Egypt at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, which was linked in Octavian's propaganda with the intercession of Apollo; in thanks for his victory, Octavian constructed a new sanctuary of Apollo at the site of his camp at Actium, and restored the god's existing sanctuary at the entrance to the Ambracian Gulf, where the battle had taken place. It was the second of four temples built in Rome by Augustus, following the Temple of Caesar (dedicated in 29 BCE) and preceding the Temple of Jupiter Tonans on the Capitoline Hill (dedicated in 22) and that of Mars Ultor, dedicated in 2 BCE in Augustus's newly-built forum.

The temple was formally dedicated to Apollo, but considered also to be dedicated to his sister Diana, who was closely associated with Augustus's victory at Naulochus. Roman temples were often dedicated to gods under particular epithets, which could relate to the builder or location of the temple as well as to a specific aspect of the god in question. Although the temple's official name was the Temple of Actian Apollo (using the epithet Actius ), it was also informally known by the same god's epithets Actiacus, Navalis, Palati – all of which referred to Apollo's connection with the Battle of Actium – and Rhamnusius, an epithet of obscure significance which may have referred to the Nemeseion sanctuary at Rhamnous in Attica, sometimes believed to have been the source of the temple's cult statue.

Cossutius, a brick-maker employed by Gaius Asinius Pollio – a politician and literary patron of the early Augustan era – was probably involved in the temple's construction: bricks bearing his stamp have been recovered from the temple and adjacent buildings. Immediately adjacent to the temple, the Portico of the Danaids included two libraries of Greek and Latin literature, known collectively as the Library of Palatine Apollo and considered among the largest and most important libraries in Rome. As well as literary works, these libraries contained artworks depicting some of their authors, and were noted as a repository of legal texts. The portico was used by Augustus to hold meetings of the Roman Senate, particularly during his convalescence from illness in 23 BCE, and to receive official guests and foreign ambassadors. The surviving sources are contradictory as to the opening of the libraries; they may have been opened at the same time as the temple, or at another point before 23 BCE.

After Augustus's death in 14 CE, his successors as emperor occasionally used the temple's precinct for senate meetings. His immediate successor, Tiberius, held one there in 16 CE, while at least one more under Claudius ( r. 41–54 CE ) is attested and was intended, in the judgement of the classicist David L. Thompson, as "a symbolic assertion of the imperial power". According to the Roman historian Tacitus, Claudius's wife Agrippina the Younger had a secret door installed in the room used for the senate meetings, leading to a hiding-place from which she could listen to them. Thompson considers this account less as factual and more as symbolic of Agrippina's influence over the senate. According to the archaeologist Pierre Gros, the sanctuary served as a model for later complexes dedicated to the imperial cult in the western Roman empire.

The temple was damaged in the Great Fire of Rome of 64 CE, but restored under the emperor Domitian ( r. 81–96 CE ); the Portico of the Danaids, probably also destroyed in 64, may never have been rebuilt. The temple was finally destroyed in another fire, during the night of 18–19 March 363. The blaze may have destroyed the precinct as well as the temple itself: the Sibylline Books, housed within the temple, were narrowly rescued from the flames. The cause of the fire was never firmly established. The emperor Julian, who was in the process of an ultimately unsuccessful effort to re-establish Roman polytheism as the empire's dominant religion, considered it an act of arson by Christians: this view has been considered plausible in modern scholarship, particularly as the Sibylline Books were viewed as a symbol of Julian's anti-Christian religious policy, but no secure evidence on the matter exists. Christian writers saw the destruction as a matter of divine intervention: the fifth-century Church historian Theodoret falsely claimed that the temple had been struck by lightning, while the theologian John Chrysostom wrote that God had destroyed the temple to punish Julian's actions. The temple may have been systematically dismantled after the fire; pieces of marble from it were possibly reused in the construction of a new building, of uncertain function, on top of the ruined podium at some point in late antiquity.

In the twelfth century, the philosopher John of Salisbury propagated an account that Pope Gregory I ( r. 590–604 ) had destroyed the Library of Palatine Apollo to create more space for Christian scriptures, but his testimony is considered unreliable by modern scholarship. The only surviving remains of the temple's two libraries date to reconstructions made in the Domitianic period, which rebuilt the structures on higher ground.

The worship of Apollo in Rome began in the fifth century BCE. According to Roman tradition, the first temple to Apollo was promised to the god in 433 BCE in return for his intercession during a plague. This temple was originally known as the Temple of Apollo Medicus and later as the Temple of Apollo Sosianus, after Gaius Sosius, who restored it around 32 BCE. It was situated in the Campus Martius, outside the ceremonial boundary ( pomerium ) of Rome, since Apollo, whose worship originated in the Greek world, was considered a 'foreign' deity and so unsuitable for a temple within the city. According to the classicist Paul Zanker, Apollo was held in Roman culture to represent discipline, morality, purification and the punishment of excess.

After securing control over the Roman state through victory in his civil war against Mark Antony, Octavian (known as "Augustus" from 27 BCE) made a political and ideological priority of the embellishment and restoration of Rome's built space. According to his biographer Suetonius, he claimed to have found Rome built of brick, and to have left it built of marble. The construction and restoration of temples was a major part of this programme: Augustus claimed to have restored eighty-two of them in 28 BCE alone. The archaeologist Susan Walker has described Rome under Augustus as a "moral museum", by which public architecture and artwork, particularly the display of Greek sculpture, was used as part of Augustus's ideological project. Augustus's developments on the Palatine Hill included the construction and restoration of several of its temples and the intensification of cult activity around it, making the Palatine, previously most significant as an elite residential area, Rome's "new seat of political and religious power", in the words of the classicist Ulrich Schmitzer.

The Temple of Apollo Palatinus was among the earliest of a series of monuments constructed by Augustus around Rome, and his first major architectural project undertaken independently in the city. Other Augustan monuments of the same period included the restoration of the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius in 32 BCE, the construction of the Mausoleum of Augustus in 28 BCE, and the completion in 29 BCE of the Curia Julia, a senate house whose construction was begun in 44 BCE by Octavian's adoptive father, Julius Caesar. Apollo was a favourite god of Augustus. Two laurel trees, symbolic both of Apollo and of victory, stood by the side of the front door of Augustus's house, highlighting the connection between Apollo, Augustus and his victory over Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium. According to a story related by Suetonius, who reports having read it in a work of the Greek author Asklepiades of Mendes, Augustus considered himself the son of Apollo, and Apollo as the patron deity of his family. During the civil war, Augustus used the iconography of Apollo to contrast himself with Antony, who was closely associated with the antithetical god Dionysus ; Augustus was criticised for his rumoured appearance at a feast in costume as Apollo. Augustus further explained his cultivation of Apollo through the tradition that Apollo had protected the hero Aeneas, believed to have been the ancestor of the Romans and the progenitor of Augustus's family, the gens Iulia.

The dedication of temples by generals following military victories was an established part of Roman political culture in the Middle Republic ( c. 200 – c. 100 BCE ), but had largely fallen out of fashion by 100 BCE. Octavian's vow to dedicate the temple followed the victory of his admiral Marcus Agrippa over Sextus Pompeius at the Battle of Naulochus on 3 September 36 BCE: Octavian probably announced the temple's construction in November, during a speech to the Roman senate and people. In 36 BCE, he began buying land in the area of the future temple. The Palatine was considered particularly sacred and among Rome's most fashionable residential districts, and had the additional advantage of being mostly owned by private citizens, from whom Octavian was able to buy land in a private capacity. The precise location of the temple was determined when a bolt of lightning struck part of Octavian's property. On the advice of the haruspices, specialist priests who interpreted divine portents, this was considered to be an indication of a god's desire for a temple, and as urging the construction of a temple to Apollo within the city. Octavian declared that portion of his property to be public land, and initiated the construction of the temple.

The temple was dedicated on 9 October 28 BCE, a day traditionally associated with the worship of deities of victory. The temple's dedication followed Octavian's defeat of the forces of Antony and Queen Cleopatra of Egypt at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, which was linked in Octavian's propaganda with the intercession of Apollo; in thanks for his victory, Octavian constructed a new sanctuary of Apollo at the site of his camp at Actium, and restored the god's existing sanctuary at the entrance to the Ambracian Gulf, where the battle had taken place. It was the second of four temples built in Rome by Augustus, following the Temple of Caesar (dedicated in 29 BCE) and preceding the Temple of Jupiter Tonans on the Capitoline Hill (dedicated in 22) and that of Mars Ultor, dedicated in 2 BCE in Augustus's newly-built forum.

The temple was formally dedicated to Apollo, but considered also to be dedicated to his sister Diana, who was closely associated with Augustus's victory at Naulochus. Roman temples were often dedicated to gods under particular epithets, which could relate to the builder or location of the temple as well as to a specific aspect of the god in question. Although the temple's official name was the Temple of Actian Apollo (using the epithet Actius ), it was also informally known by the same god's epithets Actiacus, Navalis, Palati – all of which referred to Apollo's connection with the Battle of Actium – and Rhamnusius, an epithet of obscure significance which may have referred to the Nemeseion sanctuary at Rhamnous in Attica, sometimes believed to have been the source of the temple's cult statue.

Cossutius, a brick-maker employed by Gaius Asinius Pollio – a politician and literary patron of the early Augustan era – was probably involved in the temple's construction: bricks bearing his stamp have been recovered from the temple and adjacent buildings. Immediately adjacent to the temple, the Portico of the Danaids included two libraries of Greek and Latin literature, known collectively as the Library of Palatine Apollo and considered among the largest and most important libraries in Rome. As well as literary works, these libraries contained artworks depicting some of their authors, and were noted as a repository of legal texts. The portico was used by Augustus to hold meetings of the Roman Senate, particularly during his convalescence from illness in 23 BCE, and to receive official guests and foreign ambassadors. The surviving sources are contradictory as to the opening of the libraries; they may have been opened at the same time as the temple, or at another point before 23 BCE.

After Augustus's death in 14 CE, his successors as emperor occasionally used the temple's precinct for senate meetings. His immediate successor, Tiberius, held one there in 16 CE, while at least one more under Claudius ( r. 41–54 CE ) is attested and was intended, in the judgement of the classicist David L. Thompson, as "a symbolic assertion of the imperial power". According to the Roman historian Tacitus, Claudius's wife Agrippina the Younger had a secret door installed in the room used for the senate meetings, leading to a hiding-place from which she could listen to them. Thompson considers this account less as factual and more as symbolic of Agrippina's influence over the senate. According to the archaeologist Pierre Gros, the sanctuary served as a model for later complexes dedicated to the imperial cult in the western Roman empire.

The temple was damaged in the Great Fire of Rome of 64 CE, but restored under the emperor Domitian ( r. 81–96 CE ); the Portico of the Danaids, probably also destroyed in 64, may never have been rebuilt. The temple was finally destroyed in another fire, during the night of 18–19 March 363. The blaze may have destroyed the precinct as well as the temple itself: the Sibylline Books, housed within the temple, were narrowly rescued from the flames. The cause of the fire was never firmly established. The emperor Julian, who was in the process of an ultimately unsuccessful effort to re-establish Roman polytheism as the empire's dominant religion, considered it an act of arson by Christians: this view has been considered plausible in modern scholarship, particularly as the Sibylline Books were viewed as a symbol of Julian's anti-Christian religious policy, but no secure evidence on the matter exists. Christian writers saw the destruction as a matter of divine intervention: the fifth-century Church historian Theodoret falsely claimed that the temple had been struck by lightning, while the theologian John Chrysostom wrote that God had destroyed the temple to punish Julian's actions. The temple may have been systematically dismantled after the fire; pieces of marble from it were possibly reused in the construction of a new building, of uncertain function, on top of the ruined podium at some point in late antiquity.