Porticus: Apollo (Palatium)

Portico, or porticoes, on the *Palatine built by Augustus in close connection with his Temple of *Apollo (RG 19: templumque Apollinis in Palatio cum porticibus ... feci). Erected, perhaps, by 23 B.C. (Carettoni 1983, 9), these colonnades are known primarily through literary evidence (e.g., Prop. 2.31.1-2; Ov., Trist. 3.1.59-62). Propertius refers to ‘the golden portico of Phoebus [Apollo]’, aurea Phoebi porticus (loc. cit.) due to the overall effect created by its giallo antico columns. The portico was adorned with statues of the 50 daughters of Danaus (Prop., loc. cit.; Ov., loc. cit.), which were probably rendered as female herms in a variety of colored marbles (Balensiefen 189-98); three of these sculptures, datable to the Augustan period and rendered in black ‘nero antico’ marble, were discovered in 1869 by Rosa directly N of the Temple of Apollo (Tomei 37-38). Fragments of similar female herms in red ‘rosso antico’ marble have also been reported (though not preserved, Tomei 39). There may also have been statues of the sons of Aegyptus (Schol. Pers. 2.56), but this is debated (Balensiefen 189-98). With or without the additional figures, the use of polychrome marble imported from remote regions of the empire must have created a powerful visual effect. The accounts of Propertius and Ovid are generally thought to suggest that the statues of the Danaids were placed in the intercolumniations of the portico (loc. cit.; Gros 55, Tomei 48). However, study of the herms leads Balensiefen to propose a two-storeyed porticus with the Danaids placed along the upper storey, though such use of free-standing herms as caryatids would be unique in contemporary architecture (194). Modern scholarship (e.g., Gros 55) often equates the porticus of the Danaids described by Propertius and Ovid with the porticus connected to the Temple of Apollo and the Greek and Latin Library (*Bibliotheca Latina Graecaque). However, literary sources addressing the Augustan Palatine use the noun ‘porticus’ mostly in the plural (esp. RG 19; also, e.g., Vell. Pat. 2.81.3; Suet., Aug. 29.3), thus the porticus of the Danaids may be just one of the several porticoes in the area (Balensiefen 198, 204). The close physical relation between the Portico of the Danaids and the Temple of Apollo has been placed within the late Republican tradition of building temples on terraces enclosed by porticoes (e.g, Terracina: Zanker 27). A number of locations have been proposed for the portico of the Danaids. Velleius Paterculus writes of ‘the Temple of Apollo and porticoes around it’ (templumque Apollinis et circa porticus facturum promisit: 2.81.3), which led to the theory that they encircled the temple. However, excavations around the temple do not attest to remains of a portico (Balensiefen 198-200). Perhaps the porticus had a closer physical connection with the library, given Suetonius’ account that Augustus ‘added porticoes together with the Latin and Greek library’ to the temple (addidit porticus cum bibliotheca Latina Graecaque: Aug. 29.3). Excavations on the Palatine revealed two colonnaded peristyles below the terrace of the Temple of Apollo (Carettoni 1978); one belongs to the House of Augustus (*Domus: Augustus, fig. 10, B), the other stood W of the Greek and Latin Library (id. 1978). Coarelli (99) and Castagnoli (122) associated these with the Portico of the Danaids (both authors cautiously refrain from specifically naming one, or both, porticoes that of the Danaids). Whereas Balensiefen conceives of a longitudinal portico of c. 100 m spanning the entire length of the Domus of Augustus above the *Circus Maximus, supported by thick walls (which appear on Lanciani, FUR pl. 29) and having two façades, one facing the Circus and the other oriented toward the Temple of Apollo (201-3), Pensabene rejects Balensiefen’s placement as too distant, given the close connection between the porticus and the Temple of Apollo attested in the literary sources (Prop., 2.31.1-1; Suet., Aug. 29.3), and also because the statues are not capable of the load-bearing rôle Balensiefen assigns them (Pensabene 154). Instead, Pensabene proposes that the Danaid statues adorned the second storey of a columnar façade he reconstructs at the lower peristyle of the House of Augustus, either as freestanding statues on a balustrade or at the cornice level (153-54, fig. 27). Such diverse theories result from the scarcity of definitive archaeological evidence and the vague ancient accounts; as a consequence, the Portico of the Danaids cannot be placed with certainty on our map and it is indicated only by an index number in the vicinity of the Temple of Apollo.