Apollo Medicus / Sosianus, Aedes

The Temple of Apollo, specifically of Apollo Medicus (Livy 40.51.6: aedem Apollinis Medici, for 179 B.C.; though often simply called aedes Apollinis, e.g., Livy 4.29.7), was situated outside the *Servian Wall ‘between the *Forum Holitorium and the *Circus Flaminius’ (Asc., Tog. cand. 70 Stangl: inter forum <H>olitorium et circum Flaminium). It was ‘by the *Theater of Marcellus’ (AD THEATRVM MARCELLI: Fast. Arval. and Urb., Degrassi, Inscr. Ital. 13.2, 35, 63; cf. RG 21: theatrum ad aedem Apollinis). Lavishly rebuilt in the Augustan period by C. Sosius (cos. 32 B.C.), thus also known as Apollo Sosianus (Pliny, NH 13.53, 36.28: in templo Apollinis Sosiani), the temple was one of the most richly-decorated in Rome. The cult of Apollo Medicus had long been an architectural presence on the site, since in 433-431 B.C. it was vowed and dedicated by the consul C. Iulius following a plague (Livy 4.25.3; 7.20.9; Viscogliosi, LTUR 49). It has been proposed that in the early 2nd c. B.C. the temple was substantially rebuilt in relation to the construction of a new theater in the area in 179 B.C. (Livy 40.51.3; Viscogliosi 1996, 15-33). This tetrastyle-diastyle Temple of Apollo (probably the one mentioned in Vitr., De Arch. 3.3.4) was excavated in part below the Augustan phase of the temple (Viscogliosi 1996, 15-33, pl. 1-3). Well-preserved remains document, indisputably, the complete rebuilding of the temple by C. Sosius following a new design, probably after his victory in Judea in 34 B.C.; this dating is primarily based on stylistic analysis of the building’s splendid architectural decoration (Viscogliosi, LTUR 50-51). The pictorial narratives of the internal frieze suggest that Augustus may have been responsible for the completion of the project, presumably after his triumphs in 29 B.C.; otherwise C. Sosius must have re-oriented his ideology for this narrative program (La Rocca 1985, 83-102; id. 1988, 122-23). The Augustan temple was a pseudo-peripteral temple with a deep hexastyle pronaos, built on top of a high, opus quadratum tufa masonry podium with an opus caementicium tufa core (Viscogliosi 1996, 35-43, esp. fig. 40 and pl. 5; excavated in 1937-38, see Colini). No staircase was designed in front of the temple, probably due to the limited space between the façade and the *Theatrum Marcelli, so the access to the pronaos was through two flights of small stairs on either side of the podium. The excavations in 1997 at the Augustan street level between the Temple of Apollo and the Theater of Marcellus identified the circular foundations of the so-called Perirrhanterion resting upon the Augustan pavement, suggesting that this Julio-Claudian/Flavian monument might have had a predecessor on the very spot at the time of Augustus, but for the moment the archaeological evidence still seems to be rather flimsy (La Rocca, LTUR 79-80).