Sant'Omobono Area

Sant'Omobono is a church in Rome at the foot of the Capitoline Hill in rione Ripa. It was built in the 15th century and called San Salvatore in Portico. When the church was given to the "Università dei Sarti" (the association of tailors) in 1575, the church was dedicated to their patron saint, Saint Homobonus. Next to it is the Sant'Omobono Area, containing the remains of two Roman temples.

The Temple of Fides (Latin: aedes Fidei) was a minor temple on the Capitoline Hill in Rome. It was dedicated to Fides, the goddess of good faith, who was patron of diplomatic relations. The temple was founded between 254 BC or 250 BC. It was on the southern part of the Area Capitolina, slightly to the south of the Temple of Ops, in a vast piazza in front of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. If still in use by the 4th-century, it would have been closed during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire. Remains found near the church of Sant'Omobono (including fragments of columns, part of a cement podium and a large female marble head, probably from a temple's acroterion) were previously identified as fragments of the Temple of Ops, but are now thought to be linked to the Temple of Faith, due to the nearby discovery of bilingual inscriptions in Greek and Latin and fragments of treaties between Asia Minor and the Roman Senate.

San Giovanni Decollato (the Beheaded John the Baptist) is a Roman Catholic church in Rome, sited on via di San Giovanni Decollato in the Ripa rione.

The Temple of Ops was a minor temple on the Capitoline Hill in Rome. It was dedicated to Ops (later known as Abundantia), the deity of abundance. The temple is first mentioned in 186 BC. It was on the southern part of the Area Capitolina, slightly to the north of the Temple of Faith, in a vast piazza in front of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. It collapsed several times. The temple is last mentioned in 17 AD. If still in use by the 4th-century, it would have been closed during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire. Remains found near the church of Sant'Omobono (including fragments of columns, part of a cement podium and a large female marble head, probably from a temple's acroterion) have previously been identified as fragments of the Temple of Ops. It is now thought, however, that these were from the Temple of Faith, due to the nearby discovery of bilingual inscriptions in Greek and Latin and fragments of treaties between Asia Minor and the Roman Senate - Faith was the goddess of diplomatic relations.

The Porta Carmentalis was a double gate in the Servian Walls of ancient Rome. It was named for a nearby shrine to the goddess or nymph Carmenta, whose importance in early Roman religion is also indicated by the assignment of one of the fifteen flamines to her cult, and by the archaic festival in her honor, the Carmentalia. The shrine was to the right as one exited the gate. The gate's two arches seem to have been set at angles, and were known by separate names. It was unlucky to leave the city through the arch called Porta Scelerata ("Accursed Gate"), which was supposed to have been named for the military disaster at Cremera in 479 or 478 BC, since the 306 Fabii who died had departed through it. The Servian Walls, however, did not exist at that time. The accursed nature of the gate probably derives from the transport of corpses out of the city proper to funeral pyres on the Campus Martius. The family tomb of the Claudii was located outside the Porta Carmentalis.The other gate was the Porta Triumphalis. A governor returning from his province could not enter through this gate unless he had been awarded a triumph. It therefore must have been routine to use the Porta Scelerata for entering, and the Triumphalis for exiting. Funeral processions reversed the normal direction of traffic flow for the Scelerata, as the triumphal procession did for the Triumphalis. Augustus was accorded the special honor of having his funeral procession exit by the Triumphalis.The temples of Mater Matuta and Fortuna were nearby. The Carmentalis was rebuilt by Domitian, and topped with a sculpture group of a triumphal chariot drawn by elephants. The gate is depicted in relief sculpture dating to the reign of Marcus Aurelius.The Vicus Iugarius forked just before reaching the Porta Carmentalis, with one branch passing through the Forum Holitorium by making a right curve around the foot of the Capitoline Hill, and the other passing through the Forum Boarium to the mouth of the Cloaca Maxima on the Tiber. The precise location of the Porta Carmentalis itself remains unclear, despite excavations in the area from the late 1930s onward. Livy names the Porta Carmentalis as the point of entry for a ritual procession undertaken in 207 BC as part of an expiatory sacrifice for Juno. Two white cows were led from the Temple of Apollo through the Carmentalis and along the Vicus Iugarius to the Forum.

The Tarpeian Rock (; Latin: Rupes Tarpeia or Saxum Tarpeium; Italian: Rupe Tarpea) is a steep cliff on the south side of the Capitoline Hill, which was used in Ancient Rome as a site of execution. Murderers, traitors, perjurors, and larcenous slaves, if convicted by the quaestores parricidii, were flung from the cliff to their deaths. The cliff was about 25 meters (80 ft) high.

The Temple of Jupiter Custos (Jupiter the Guardian) was a minor temple in Rome, probably on the Capitoline Hill. It was built by Domitian in memory of his narrow escape from the Capitol during Vitellius' siege. Its site is uncertain – some scholars place it on the rectangular podium in opus caementicium with basalt chips discovered in the 19th century during the construction of via del Tempio di Giove (this podium is now cut in two by the street). However, that rectangular plan does not seem compatible with a temple, which a relief in the Palazzo dei Conservatori places to the right of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.

San Nicola in Carcere (Italian, "St Nicholas in prison") is a titular church in Rome near the Forum Boarium in rione Sant'Angelo. It is one of the traditional stational churches of Lent.

The Forum Holitorium (Italian: Foro Olitorio; English: Vegetable-sellers' Market) is an archaeological area of Rome, Italy, on the slopes of the Capitoline Hill. It was "oddly located" outside the Porta Carmentalis in the Campus Martius, crowded between the Forum Boarium ("Cattle Market") and buildings located in the Circus Flaminius. In ancient times it was the fruit and vegetable market, while the area of the adjacent Forum Boarium served as meat market. It also included a sacred area with three small temples dedicated to Janus, Spes and Juno Sospita.

The Sack of Rome on 24 August 410 AD was undertaken by the Visigoths led by their king, Alaric. At that time, Rome was no longer the capital of the Western Roman Empire, having been replaced in that position first by Mediolanum in 286 and then by Ravenna in 402. Nevertheless, the city of Rome retained a paramount position as "the eternal city" and a spiritual center of the Empire. This was the first time in almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy, and the sack was a major shock to contemporaries, friends and foes of the Empire alike. The sacking of 410 is seen as a major landmark in the fall of the Western Roman Empire. St. Jerome, living in Bethlehem at the time, wrote; "the city which had taken the whole world was itself taken."

The main road to the Roman Capitol, the Clivus Capitolinus ("Capitoline Rise") starts at the head of the Roman Forum beside the Arch of Tiberius as a continuation of the Via Sacra; proceeding around the Temple of Saturn and turning to the south in front of the Portico Dii Consentes, it then climbs up the slope of the Capitoline Hill to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus at its summit. This was traditionally the last and culminating portion of all Roman triumphs.

The Temple of Janus at the Forum Holitorium is the second known temple dedicated to Janus, besides the temple of the same name located in the Roman Forum. It is known that it stood "close to the Theatre of Marcellus" (ad theatrum Marcelli or iuxta theatrum Marcelli) and "outside Porta Carmentalis" (extra portam Carmentalem) and that feasts took place there in August and October. It is highly likely that it is one of the three contiguous temples from the Republican era in the area of the ancient Forum Holitorium – where now stands the church of S. Nicola in Carcere – and more specifically the northernmost one, to the right than the facade of the church. The remains of the temple are seven columns in tuff - a material typical of the original age of construction and of the Roman tradition - incorporated with their architrave in the right side of the church and two columns rising on the basement just near the Theatre of Marcellus.