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Temple of Ops

2nd-century BC religious buildings and structuresDestroyed templesRoman temples by deityTemples of the Capitoline Hill

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.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Temple of Ops (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Temple of Ops
Via di Villa Caffarelli, Rome Municipio Roma I

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N 41.8917 ° E 12.4816 °
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Via di Villa Caffarelli

Via di Villa Caffarelli
00153 Rome, Municipio Roma I
Lazio, Italy
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Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus
Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus

The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, also known as the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus (Latin: Aedes Iovis Optimi Maximi Capitolini; Italian: Tempio di Giove Ottimo Massimo; lit. 'Temple of Jupiter, the Best and Greatest') 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. The first building was the oldest large temple in Rome, and, like many temples in central Italy, shared features with Etruscan architecture. It was traditionally dedicated in 509 BC, and in 83 BC was destroyed by fire, and a replacement in Greek style completed in 69 BC (there were to be two more fires and new buildings). For the first temple sources report Etruscan specialists being brought in for various aspects of the building, including making and painting the extensive terracotta elements of the Temple of Zeus or upper parts, such as antefixes. But for the second building they were summoned from Greece, and the building was presumably essentially Greek in style, though like other Roman temples it retained many elements of Etruscan form. The two further buildings were evidently of contemporary Roman 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 60 m × 60 m (200 ft × 200 ft), 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.

Porta Carmentalis
Porta Carmentalis

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.