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Temple of Janus (Forum Holitorium)

3rd-century BC religious buildings and structuresTemples of the Fora Venalia
San Nicola in Carcere Rome
San Nicola in Carcere Rome

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.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Temple of Janus (Forum Holitorium) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Temple of Janus (Forum Holitorium)
Via del Teatro di Marcello, Rome Municipio Roma I

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N 41.891277777778 ° E 12.48 °
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Tempio della Speranza (?)

Via del Teatro di Marcello
00153 Rome, Municipio Roma I
Lazio, Italy
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San Nicola in Carcere Rome
San Nicola in Carcere Rome
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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.

Theatre of Marcellus
Theatre of Marcellus

The Theatre of Marcellus (Latin: Theatrum Marcelli, Italian: Teatro di Marcello) is an ancient open-air theatre in Rome, Italy, built in the closing years of the Roman Republic. At the theatre, locals and visitors alike were able to watch performances of drama and song. Today its ancient edifice in the rione of Sant'Angelo, Rome, once again provides one of the city's many popular spectacles or tourist sites. Space for the theatre was cleared by Julius Caesar, who was murdered before its construction could begin; the theatre was advanced enough by 17 BC that part of the celebration of the ludi saeculares took place within the theatre; it was completed in 13 BC and formally inaugurated in 12 BC by Augustus, named after his nephew Marcus Claudius Marcellus who had died in 23 BC. The theatre was 111 m in diameter and was the largest and most important theatre in Ancient Rome; it could originally hold between 11,000 and 20,000 spectators. A catalogue complied at the end of the 4th century recorded that the theatre's seating capacity was 17,580 persons. It was an impressive example of what was to become one of the most pervasive urban architectural forms of the Roman world. The theatre was built mainly of tuff, and concrete faced with stones in the pattern known as opus reticulatum, completely sheathed in white travertine. However, it is also the earliest dateable building in Rome to make use of fired Roman brick, then a new introduction from the Greek world.The network of arches, corridors, tunnels and ramps that gave access to the interiors of such Roman theatres were normally ornamented with a screen of engaged columns in Greek orders: Doric at the base, Ionic in the middle. It is believed that Corinthian columns were used for the upper level but this is uncertain as the theatre was reconstructed in the Middle Ages, removing the top tier of seating and the columns.Like other Roman theatres in suitable locations, it had openings through which the natural setting could be seen, in this case the Tiber Island to the southwest. The permanent setting, the scaena, also rose to the top of the cavea as in other Roman theatres. The theatre fell out of use in the early 4th century and the structure served as a quarry, e.g., for the Pons Cestius in 370 AD. However, the statues located inside the building were restored by Petronius Maximus in 421 and the remaining structure still housed small residential buildings. In the Early Middle Ages the theatre was used as a fortress of the roman family of Faffo or Fabi (called "from Pescheria") and then at the end of the 11th century (when it was known as templum Marcelli), by Pier Leoni and later his heirs (the Pierleoni). This saved the complex from further destruction. The Savelli held it in the 13th century. Later, in the 16th century, the residence of the Orsini, designed by Baldassare Peruzzi, was built atop the ruins of the ancient theatre. By the 19th century, rises in the street level meant that almost half the ground floor was below it. Now the upper floors are divided into multiple apartments, and its surroundings are used as a venue for small summer concerts; the Portico d'Ottavia lies to the north west leading to the Roman Ghetto and the Tiber to the south west. In the 17th century, the English architect Sir Christopher Wren explicitly acknowledged that his design for the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford was influenced by Serlio's engraving of the Theatre of Marcellus.