Round Temple: Tiberis

The well-preserved Round Temple by the *Tiber, with its ring of 20 Corinthian columns surrounding a circular cella, had been attributed to the first half of the 1st c. B.C. (Strong and Ward-Perkins), and intensive re-examination of its architecture has suggested a more precise date in the early 1st c. B.C. (Rakob and Heilmeyer 19, 35-36). Sometime in the decades after Augustus, major repair work was carried out on about half of the colonnade; at this point Luna marble was used in place of the original, imported Pentelic marble — a remarkably luxurious material at the time of its construction. Further, the presence of Greek masons can be plausibly deduced from the workmanship of the original capitals, whereas other details of the temple’s execution are at odds with Greek practices (esp. the flat, not curved, ends of the fluting on the column shafts) and are ascribed to local workshops. The temple was elevated on an artificial platform, some 12 m above the Tiber and 2-3 m above the *Forum Bovarium (Coarelli 1988, 38 fig. 4; cf. Rakob and Heilmeyer 4); it stood outside the Forum Bovarium, and probably just beyond the Republican circuit wall as well (s.v. *Muri: Forum Bovarium-Tiberis). In addition to the Greek marble and workmen, an inscribed statue base found next to the temple (CIL VI 33936=ILS 5483, unearthed in the 1890s) attests to the presence of a work by the 2nd-c. B.C. Greek sculptor Scopas the Younger, ...]O OLIVARIVS OPVS SCOPAE MINORIS, possibly the Hercules Olivarius listed by the late-antique Regionary Catalogues (Regio XI) in the area NW of the Circus Maximus. Based on this, Coarelli advocates an attribution of the Round Temple to Hercules Olivarius (Coarelli, LTUR 19-20; id. 1988, 180-204), while still cautiously considering a possible identity with the Temple of Hercules Victor ad portam Trigeminam (Coarelli, LTUR 22-23, cf. id. 1988, esp. 92-103, 180). Ziolkowski argues for the latter attribution, specifying further that it is L. Mummius’ Temple of Hercules Victor. While this thesis, despite Coarelli’s rebuttal (1988, 186 n.21; on which, see Ziolkowski 330-33), appears attractive to Palombi (25), he ultimately recommends caution and, for good reasons, declares the question unresolved.