Divus Iulius, Aedes

The Temple of the Deified Julius Caesar on the E side of the *Forum. Erected on the site where the people had burned Caesar’s corpse, the temple was begun in 42 B.C. by the Triumvirs (Dio Cass. 47.18.4) and completed by Octavian (RG 19.1: aedem divi Iuli; Dio Cass. 51.22.2). It was dedicated on 18 August 29 B.C. (Degrassi, Inscr. Ital. 13.2, 497). Three foundations of a massive opus quadratum structure found in the immediate vicinity of the temple have been interpreted by Steinby as the remains of a 2nd-c. B.C. ‘Basilica Aemilia’ which would have run along the E end of the Forum, but it is extremely unlikely that the sources would fail to record the destruction of such an important structure (Patterson). The temple stood on a platform c. 3.5 m high to which lateral ramps on either side of the structure provided access. These ramps, which continued as arcuated porches along the sides of the structure and along the NE wall of the *Regia, have been identified (contra, Palombi) as the porticus Iulia (known only from schol. ad Pers. 4.49; cf. Dio Cass. 56.27.5). The ramps may have been connected behind the temple by means of a cryptoporticus (Richardson). A semicircular exedra in the center of the platform contains the remains of a small circular structure, probably the altar built by Octavian to replace the original altar and column marking the site of Caesar’s funeral pyre (which the consul P. Cornelius Dolabella had removed in 42 B.C: Cic., Att. 14.15.2, Phil. 1.5). This exedra was subsequently walled off, an action Coarelli connects with Augustus’ decision to restrict the temple’s right of asylum by denying access to the altar (cf. Dio Cass. 47.19.2-3). Most scholars identify the platform on which the temple stood as the rostra aedis Divi Iulii (cf. Frontin., Aq. 129.1), also known as the rostra Iulia (Dio Cass. 56.34.4), but Coarelli (following Torelli) has argued that the rostra aedis Divi Iulii was in fact a separate tribunal in front of the temple. The combination of temple and speaker’s platform was very common, however (*Castor, Aedes), and the plan for the Temple of Divus Julius seems to have been modelled closely on that of the Temple of Venus Genetrix (*Forum Iulium); the traditional identification of the rostra aedis Divi Iulii as the platform to the temple proper is the most likely solution (Ulrich). The temple itself rose on a second platform, approached by a frontal staircase. Very little of the temple has survived, but extensive excavations of 1950-54 uncovered most of the structure’s ground-plan (Gros; cf. LTUR III, fig. 81).