“Area Sacra”: Temple C

One of the four known temples in the sacral area near Largo Argentina, Temple C was perhaps the oldest, originally built in the first half of the 3rd c. B.C. concurrently with, or slightly earlier than, *Temple A (contra, Richardson). The temple was prostyle, tetrastyle sine postico, with widely-spaced façade columns perhaps of the Tuscan order. The massive tufa podium, with heavy moldings typical of the early 3rd c. B.C., still stands, though the visible remains of the cella floor and superstructure are Domitianic in date (Claridge 217).Before the mid-2nd c. B.C., a new altar built on a large platform in front of the temple, and inscribed A. POSTVMIVS A. F. A. N. ALBINVS DVOVIR LEGE PLAETORIA REFICIVNDAM COERAVIT, replaced the original (Coarelli 1981, 15). Broughton identified the altar’s restorer as A. Postumius Albinus (Luscus), cos. 180, and IIvir aedi dedicandae in 175 B.C., who also dedicated an altar to Verminus (ILS 4019), perhaps to abate a plague (Livy 41.21.5-12). This accords well with Coarelli’s date for the altar’s construction (1981, 15); yet Kajanto, Nyberg, and Steinby argue strenuously, on epigraphic considerations, that the inscription likely refers to the consul of 151. In either case, the altar was still a prominent feature in the Augustan era, for even though the installation of the first tufa pavement engulfed the platform (s.v. *“Area Sacra”: Largo Argentina), care was taken to leave the altar exposed; it was finally buried by a second pavement dating to A.D. 80 (Claridge 217).Coarelli (1981) and Ziolkowski (1986; id. 1992) offer competing identifications of the temple itself, as the Temple of *Feronia (c. 272 B.C.) and the Temple of *Iuturna (c. 241 B.C.) respectively (s.v. “Area Sacra”: Largo Argentina on the difficulties of identifying Temples A, C and D).