Diribitorium

Spacious rectangular building in the *Campus Martius, where the votes cast in the adjacent *Saepta Iulia were counted (Pliny, NH 16.201: quae diribitorio superfuerat, 36.102). M. Agrippa initiated construction of the Diribitorium (probably in the 20s along with his other building projects in the Campus Martius), but it was only completed by Augustus in 7 B.C. (Dio Cass. 55.8.4). The name derives from the election officials, the diribitores, who were responsible for tallying the votes (Richardson, Torelli). Portions of the S wall of the Diribitorium were uncovered in late-19th c. excavations under Corso Vittorio Emanuele II near Piazza del Gesù; the opus quadratum walls found date to the Augustan period (Richardson; Tortorici 27; De Rossi and Gatti; Lanciani, FUR pl. 21) and were associated with slabs of a travertine pavement (De Rossi and Gatti). Similar traces of the N wall have been found under SS. Stimmate di S. Francesco (Gatti 63-64; Tortorici 27). Since the Augustan physical remains align with the depiction of the Diribitorium on the Severan Marble Plan (Rodríguez Almeida, Forma pl. 26, frags. 35 l, p, q, r, gg, hh), the placement of the W and E walls may be reconstructed. While the Diribitorium shared its W boundary with the Saepta, it extended further to the E and was slightly tapered at its NE corner (Torelli). The main entrance may have been along the W façade, which (at least in the Severan period) was comprised of a row of large piers that opened onto the *Hecatostylum (frags. 35hh, 37c). On the N, where the Diribitorium joined the Saepta, ran a long corridor (Torelli); while the two buildings were certainly in communication, the form of the entrances onto the open plaza of the Saepta remains uncertain. The Diribitorium was the largest building under a single roof in Augustan Rome, with wooden roof beams 100 Roman feet long; these trusses were such a marvel that an unused one was displayed in the Saepta as a curiosity (Pliny, NH 16.201, 36.102). The roof suffered irreparable damage in the conflagration of A.D. 80 (Dio Cass. 66.24) and thereafter the Diribitorium remained open to the sky (Dio Cass. 55.8.4; for post-Augustan use as a theater: Dio Cass. 59.7.8).