“Area Sacra”: Temple D

One of the four known temples in the sacral area near Largo Argentina, Temple D is the least well-known, and lies, largely unexcavated, below Via Florida. From its earliest phase, c.200-150 B.C., only a cement podium remains; during a second phase, dated to the late 2nd-early 1st c. B.C., a larger cement podium (23.5 x 37 m) was built, engulfing the earlier shrine; this phase is dated by remains of the tufa pavement which unified the surrounding area at that time (s.v. *“Area Sacra”: Largo Argentina; Richardson; Claridge 218). The superstructure was rectangular in plan, with a colonnaded façade; fluted plaster pilasters were set into the brick-faced cella, which had a marble-covered cement floor and an unusually large marble threshold block (Richardson). The cella is nearly as wide as the podium, but lacks evidence for internal roof supports; for this reason, Richardson suggests the temple was hypaethral, and thus dedicated to Iuppiter Fulgur, god of lightning (s.v. “Area Sacra”: Largo Argentina). However, the cella walls are extremely thick and could support wooden roof beams directly; given this and the conventional façade, Temple D was probably roofed. The superstructure, probably a Domitianic restoration, gives few clues to the building’s appearance in the Augustan era (Claridge 218).Coarelli (1981), followed by Pietilä-Castrén and Ziolkowski, has identified Temple D as the Temple of the *Lares Permarini, vowed by L. Aemilius Regillus in 190 B.C. during a naval battle against Antiochus III, and dedicated by M. Aemilius Lepidus in 179 B.C. (Livy 40.52.4). This identification is not accepted here (s.v. Lares Permarini, Aedes; *Porticus Minucia), since the Temple of the Lares Permarini is known from the fasti Praenestini to have stood ‘within the Porticus Minucia’ ([LARIBVS PERM]ARINIS IN PORT[ICV MI]NVCIA: Degrassi, Inscr. Ital. 13.2, 543). Thus, to support his identification, Coarelli is forced to argue that the “Area Sacra” in Largo Argentina was surrounded by a colonnade identified as the Porticus Minucia; definitively refuting this theory is Claridge, who points out that the remains of the colonnade supposedly bounding the E side of the “Area Sacra” in fact face the wrong direction, and thus relate to some other space or architectural feature to the E; they cannot, therefore, be related to the temples there (Claridge 218-19). Thus, Temple D remains without a solid identification.