Quirinus, Aedes

Prominent temple to Quirinus located atop the collis Quirinalis (*Quirinal). First built in the 4th c. B.C. (Livy 10.46.7), the temple burned in 49 B.C. and was restored by 45 B.C. (Dio Cass. 41.14.2-3, 43.45.2; Cic., Att. 12.45.2, 13.28.3). Augustus rebuilt and rededicated the monumental aedes in 16 B.C. (RG 19: aedem Quirini ... feci; Dio Cass. 54.19.4). Quirinus was a deity of special interest to the gens Iulia (Porte), and a statue of Julius Caesar was erected in the precinct (Dio Cass. 43.45.3; Cic., loc cit.). Vitruvius (De arch. 3.2.7) describes the temple as dipteral, octastyle and Doric, with a pronaos and posticum; given the time at which he wrote (c. 30 B.C.), Vitruvius probably would have seen the restoration of 45 B.C. (Gros, Coarelli, Manca di Mores 344; contra, Richardson; on the date of Vitruvius, Fleury xxiii). Since Dio relates that the Augustan temple had 76 columns, it must have been dipteral like its predecessor (54.19.4; Gros). The temple precinct was enclosed by a portico known as the porticus Quirini (Martial 11.1.9), and was home to a shrine of Quirinus’ consort Hora (Plut., Quest. 46) as well as Rome’s first sundial, a gift of L. Papirius Cursor in 293 B.C. (Pliny, NH 7.213). The debated Hartwig relief may provide additional information regarding the appearance of the temple’s entablature and pediment (Paris 38). Though the architectural form of the temple is well known, the site on which it was built remains elusive. In the absence of archaeological remains, the temple’s location can only be approximated through examination of its relationships with other, imperfectly-known monuments on the *Quirinal (contra, Manca di Mores and Coarelli, who offer competing archaeological evidence). Varro indicates that the temple was located on that portion of the Quirinal known as the collis Quirinalis (Ling. 5.52); this corresponds to an ancient summit that once rose in the area N of the *Alta Semita and W of the *Porta Quirinalis within the Servian Wall (*Muri; the area roughly corresponds with the NE portion of the Giardini del Quirinale). A dedication to Quirinus recovered in the papal gardens on the Quirinal in 1626 supports a location of the temple N of the Alta Semita and just W of the present-day Via della Quattro Fontane (CIL VI 565). Other locations for the temple have been proposed. Coarelli mentions recent, unpublished excavations that recovered foundations suitable for a large Augustan temple beneath Palazzo Barberini; perhaps following the publication of these remains, the location of the temple will need to be shifted further E. Manca di Mores associates the temple with a group of some 50 fragments of diverse architectural terracottas dating from the early 7th c. B.C. through the Imperial period, including several Augustan ‘Campanian’ panels, recovered near Largo di S. Susanna; however, those with clear architectural elements are exceedingly small (e.g., guttae of diam. c. 3 cm and dentils of just 1 cm width) which suggest buildings no taller than 3-5 m. Such pieces are clearly at odds with the monumental dimensions and, in the Augustan period at least, marble construction of the Temple of Quirinus. Further, to accept her location for the Temple of Quirinus in Largo di S. Susanna requires a radical revision of the topography of the Quirinal, in which all the major monuments are shifted further to the NW; the evidence offered is simply not compelling enough to override the arguments presented above and in conjunction with the sanctuaries of Salus, Flora, and the Capitolium Vetus (contra, Ziolkowski 141).