Pantheum

Famed temple erected by M. Agrippa in the *Campus Martius, c. 27 B.C. (CIL VI 896; known as Pantheum, e.g., Pliny, NH 36.38), with his other building projects there: the *Saepta Iulia, *Diribitorium, *Thermae of Agrippa, *Nemus: Agrippa, and *Stagnum Agrippae. Evidence suggests that Agrippa’s Pantheon had a rectangular pronaos entered from the N by way of two flights of stairs, which was linked, perhaps via a S projection, to a marble-paved, enclosed circular component, which was almost certainly hypaethral.Under the façade of the Hadrianic Pantheon, 19th-c. Italian excavations uncovered a rectangular foundation c. 44 x 20 m (Beltrami 45 ff., esp. figs. 15-16); its N wall, composed of 10 travertine piers and rubble infill, lies beneath the 8 front columns of the Hadrianic pronaos, while centered on its S wall is a projection 21.25 m wide (the depth cannot be determined due to the massive foundations for the Hadrianic rotunda). Traces of two levels of marble paving slabs were located below the rotunda’s floor, one plausibly attributed to the Agrippan monument, the other to its Domitianic restoration. Further, fragments of a circular wall (L. 10 m, H. 1.65 m, W. 0.61 m) were revealed along the SE edge of the Hadrianic rotunda’s foundations; it has the same degree of curvature as the Hadrianic Pantheon (Beltrami 61-68; Tortorici).The results of the limited soundings made in 1892 left open many questions concerning the form of Agrippa’s Pantheon: did it include a rotunda as in Hadrian’s Pantheon, or did it occupy only the area of the later pronaos? Did its main façade and entrance lie to the N or S? Recent excavations before the façade of the Hadrianic structure have shed light on these much debated issues (for earlier theories, see de Fine Licht; Loerke; Gruben; Ziolkowski, with additional bibl.). So far published only by La Rocca in a brief format, the recent investigations unearthed a projection of Augustan date, extending 7.75 m before the N edge of the Agrippan foundations, with a flight of stairs at each corner; these findings argue stongly for a N-facing façade (La Rocca; further, these findings refute Ziolkowski’s theory of a S-facing Temple of Mars, linked to a twin temple of Neptune, the basilica Neptuni). The soundings also confirm that the Agrippan pronaos had columns of the same diameter and inter-axial spacing as the Hadrianic temple; La Rocca follows Chédanne and restores a decastyle façade (contra, Loerke 50, who restores 8 columns in antis). The function of the S projection and the form of the Agrippan construction beneath the rotunda are still open to debate; the most recent reconstructions suggest a round courtyard, open to the sky and of a diameter equal to the Hadrianic rotunda, encircled by either a vaulted ambulatory (Loerke 50, La Rocca) or by a parapet wall (Tortorici 40). As to the colonnaded piazza in front of the Pantheon, Loerke argues that it formed part of the Agrippan complex, since Nero positioned his Thermae with respect to the piazza’s W boundary; compelling as this may be, our map does not represent this courtyard, since the extant remains date to the 3rd c. A.D. (Loerke 51).Literary sources indicate some of the now-lost details of the Agrippan Pantheon. Diogenes the Athenian sculpted a series of caryatids, which perhaps formed the attic order of the ambulatory, masking the vaults (La Rocca), as well as the pediment sculpture (Pliny, NH 36.38-39). The Pantheon also featured capitals of Syracusan bronze (Pliny, NH 34.13). Within the temple was a statue of Divus Julius, and in the pronaos stood statues of Agrippa and Augustus (Dio Cass. 53.27.3-4, 54.1.1). Among the statues of gods in the Pantheon, that of Venus was notable for her earrings made from Cleopatra’s enormous pearl (Pliny, NH 9.121).