Bellona, Aedes

A large Temple of Bellona, the archaic Roman goddess of war, stood immediately E of the Temple of *Apollo Medicus. The temple was vowed in 296 B.C. by Appius Claudius Caecus during a battle with the Etruscans and Samnites and dedicated after his victory (Livy 10.19.17; Ov., Fast. 6.199-208; De Nuccio 71). Archaeological evidence suggests that the temple was rebuilt at the time of Augustus, probably along with the aedes Apollinis (La Rocca 1987, 366). Located just outside the city walls, it was a favorable place for the senate to meet, especially to receive generals on their return from military campaigns (Viscogliosi, LTUR 191). In 79 B.C., the consuls Appius Claudius Pulcher and P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus placed the imagines clipeatae of their ancestors in the temple (Pliny, NH 35.12: in Bellonae aede). The special connection between the temple and the Claudian family is perhaps further supported by the proximity of their tombs on the W slope of the *Capitolium (Viscogliosi, LTUR 191), but the location of this sepulcrum is not certain (*Sepulcrum: Gens Claudia). The remains of the temple were discovered in Piazza Montanara in the course of demolition work in 1932-33, and were excavated in 1938-39 (Colini, esp. fig. 1). They were convincingly identified with the Temple of Bellona by Coarelli through an association with fragments of the Severan Marble Plan depicting the temple (Coarelli; Rodríguez Almeida, Forma pl. 23, frags. 31d,e; cf. Ziolkowski). The peripteral, hexastyle temple had a deep pronaos and was raised on a high platform (De Nuccio fig. 4; Viscogliosi 1995, fig. 1). The podium had a concrete core with a mixed aggregate of tufa, attributed to the Augustan period; its encasing opus quadratum masonry has been completely robbed, and very little survives of the marble architectural decoration of the superstructure (De Nuccio). An L-shaped peperino portico enveloped the NW edge of the precinct, both defining the compound of the Temples of Apollo and Bellona, and screening the rising slopes of the Capitoline hill. Based on the dating of the sporadic pieces of architectural decoration, it is suggested that the temple was reconstructed roughly in the same years with the renovations of the Temple of Apollo Medicus, and was probably dedicated by Appius Claudius Pulcher (also known as Appius Maior), consul of 38 B.C., in the year 33 or 32 B.C. after his triumph over Spain (La Rocca 366). On the Augustan travertine pavement directly in front of the platform of the Temple of Bellona, and adjacent to the porticoes of the *Theatrum Marcelli, the footprint of a “roughly circular” monument was traced by La Rocca (LTUR 300-1; id. 1993, fig. 2 and 23-24), who identifies this spot with the Columna Bellica. Literary sources associate this column with middle- and late-Republican fetiales, a ritual declaration of war, which took place before the Temple of Bellona, since that area was considered foreign territory after the collective memory of the 3rd-c. B.C. war against Pyrrhus (Serv., ad Aen. 9.52; Wiedemann 480-82). The ritual was revived at the time of Augustus (Ov., Fast. 6.205) and involved throwing a spear, presumably over the column, which marked Rome’s border with the symbolic foreign territory.