Concordia, Aedes (Arx)

The first temple to Concord, dedicated in 216 B.C., stood on the *Arx (Livy 22.33.7-8: aedem (sc. Concordiae) in Arce faciendam locaverunt; Fast. Ant. mai.: CONCORD(IAE) IN CAPIT(OLIO), Fast. Praen.: CONCORDIAE IN ARCE: Degrassi, Inscr. Ital. 13.2, 4, 119, 406-7). Richardson (1978) placed it on the site of the Temple of *Concordia Augusta on the grounds that in arce and in foro should be synonymous, and that no duplication of the cult of Concordia is otherwise attested. The existence of a separate Temple of Concordia on the Arx is now fully accepted, not least by Richardson (1992; Giannelli, LTUR). Platner and Ashby suggested that this temple stood on the E edge of the Arx overlooking the Temple of Concordia Augusta. This lets us identify Concordia in arce, at least tentatively, with the podium remains in the Aracoeli garden investigated in 1876 and 1931. These consist of walls of Fidenae tufa (c. 30 x 25 m) and concrete walls from a later Domitianic restoration, built over a smaller, preexisting structure of cappellaccio, dated to the 6th c. B.C. (Giannelli 1978, 63-66; id. 1980-81). Since there are good reasons to reject Giannelli’s attribution of these remains to the Temple of *Iuno Moneta, the Temple of Concordia is the next best candidate. Addendum Our identification of the Concordia temple in arce with the foundations in the Aracoeli garden is tentative and hypothetical, but no more so than the recent proposal that it stood NE of the church of S. Maria in Aracoeli “in the area once occupied by the northernmost cloister of the Franciscan monastery, whose cistern deleted all preexisting structures”: P.L. Tucci, “‘Where high Moneta leads her steps sublime’. The Tabularium and the Temple of Juno Moneta,” JRA 18 (2005) 19 n.49. The remains in the Aracoeli garden and the possibility of a temple NE of the Aracoeli church are discussed further below, s.v. Iuno Moneta, Aedes.