Mars, Aedes (Via Appia)

Rome’s main Temple of Mars was situated outside the city (Vitr., De arch. 1.7.1) on the N side of the *Via Appia between its first and second milestones (CIL VI 10234, l.4: … VIA APPIA AD MARTIS INTRA MILLIARIVM I ET II …; App., B Civ 3.41; Servius, ad Aen. 1.292: templum; Not. Regio I: aedes; Richardson; Platner–Ashby). It was vowed in 388 B.C. by T. Quinctius, if Livy 6.5.7-8 is to be associated with this Temple of Mars and not that on the *Campus Martius (cf. *Mars, Aedes [Campus Martius]; Richardson; with caution, Platner–Ashby). Literary sources affiliate the temple with the *Porta Capena (e.g., Livy 7.23.3: extra portam Capenam ad Martis aedem), yet Appian relates that the temple was 15 stades outside the city (c. 2775 m, almost two Roman miles: loc. cit.). Excavations in 1848 found a large mass of marble from a collapsed building outside the Aurelian porta Appia, which may have belonged to the temple (Canina); while this association has not been followed in more recent scholarship, several pertinent inscriptions unearthed near the first milestone of the Via Appia confirm that the temple stood in the immediate vicinity (CIL VI 473, 474, 478; Platner–Ashby, Richardson). The Temple of Mars was an important landmark in ancient Rome; it is frequently mentioned in connection with the paving and repaving of the Via Appia (Livy 10.23.12, 10.47.4) and the surrounding neighborhood was known as ‘ad Martis’ (Livy 38.28.3; Cic., Q Fr. 3.7.1; Suet., Ter. 5; CIL VI 10234). Further, the sloped section of the *Via Appia leading up to the temple was known as the clivus Martis (s.v. Via Appia).AddendumF. Albertson has argued that a Claudian relief (fragments in the Vatican and the Museo Nazionale Romano) represents this temple of Mars. If so, the temple was decastyle with Corinthian capitals and an architrave with only two fasciae. On the relief, the temple's pedimental sculpture depicts Rhea Silvia approached by Mars, as well as the she-wolf nursing the infants Romulus and Remus.F.C. Albertson, “An Augustan temple represented on a historical relief dating to the time of Claudius,” AJA 91 (1987) 441-58.