Theatrum Pompeium / Pompeianum

Pompey’s Theater, dedicated in September 55 B.C., was the first permanent stone theater in Rome, and it remained the largest, and arguably the most important, of the three permanent theaters in the *Campus Martius that existed by the end of the Augustan period (s.v. *Theatrum Marcelli, *Theatrum: Balbus). It was known specifically as Pompeium theatrum (RG 20) or Pompeianum theatrum (e.g., Pliny, NH 34.40), and also under the more general terms theatrum Marmoreum, theatrum Magnum, or simply Theatrum (sources in Gros 35, with Hieron., Chron. a Abr. 2263: theatrum Pompei, and Reg. Cats., Regio VIIII: Theatra ... imprimis ... Pompei). Adjoining the theater on the E was a quadriportico enclosing a sculpture garden, the *Porticus Pompeianae (s.v. *Dona Pompei). Pompey’s Theater was perhaps restored by Agrippa as aedile in 33 B.C. along with all other public buildings (Dio Cass. 49.43.1). It was also restored by Augustus (RG 20; Suet., Aug. 31.5) but it is not known when (Shipley, Brunt and Moore). Favro suggests a date in the 20s B.C. The repeated claim in the secondary literature that this restoration took place in 32 B.C. (e.g., Richardson 1992 on the impossible testimony of RG 20, most recently reiterated by Gros 36), is not substantiated by any ancient source. This dating is perhaps based on Dio’s mention (50.8) of a storm in 32 B.C. in which a statue of Victory fell from the scaenae frons, but there is no explicit mention of structural damage or of a restoration by Octavian at this time. Subsequent restorations are attested in abundance, and this makes it difficult to reconstruct the appearance of Pompey’s Theater under Augustus with absolute certainty. The curved seating area, or cavea, of Pompey’s Theater has a continuing presence in the urban fabric of the modern city: it is visible in the distinct curvature of certain streets (Via di Grottapinta for the internal curve, Via del Biscione and Piazza Pollarola for the external curve), and in the ground-plan of houses built on the theater’s radial foundations, partly extant in cellars (detailed by Capoferro Cencetti 77-78). Modern maps thus allow an accurate reconstruction of the cavea (our map follows Capoferro Cencetti fig. 19, with figs. 3-4, 15); this reconstructed cavea belonged to the original construction phase of Pompey’s Theater (Coarelli 566). The orchestra, the open area at ground level within the cavea, was a perfect semicircle (Coarelli 566-67). The outline of the cavea is also known from drawings of a lost fragment of the Severan Marble Plan, one in the Codex Ursinianus (the basis for Rodríguez Almeida, Forma pl. 32, frag. 39), but note too the Codex Vaticanus Latinus (see fig. 16). The cavea faced E onto the stage building, or scaenae frons. Comparative evidence from other theaters of the 1st c. B.C. lets us reconstruct a stone, rectilinear scaenae frons for Pompey’s Theater in the Augustan period (Sear). The scaenae frons shown on the Marble Plan with its central rectangular exedra and two lateral curved exedrae dates only to its Domitianic rebuilding after the fire of A.D. 80 (Sear). The Marble Plan shows two widely-spaced, parallel rows of 5 squares, adjoining the scaenae frons to the N and S, and extending beyond the outer limits of the cavea. The absence of an outer wall on the N and S suggests that this may have been a thoroughfare that passed between the theater and portico. Our map reconstructs these markings not as an unroofed avenue (cf. Coarelli 552 fig. 140), but as the double internal colonnades of the basilicae, two lateral extensions of the scaenae frons (following Gros 37), which are shown, even though it is not known if they were original or later additions (Capoferro Cencetti 74). On our map, they do not extend beyond the line of the cavea, since the Marble Plan in general exaggerates the width of the portico in relation to the theater. A Temple of Venus Victrix, described both as aedes and templum (Tert., De spect. 10; Gell., NA 10.1), stood in summa cavea, along with a series of smaller shrines. According to the traditional reconstruction, this was a large apsidal temple which projected considerably from the outer wall of the cavea, and was subsequently used as the basis for the tower of Palazzo Orsini-Pio (Coarelli 567; Capoferro Cencetti 78 with figs. 17-19; Lanciani, FUR pl. 21). Indeed, “the curve of the temple’s apse is preserved in the line of a bearing wall within the present Palazzo Pio” (Goldberg, based on autopsy). Richardson’s hypothesis that there was no protruding temple and that Venus Victrix only possessed a modest shrine is partly based on the view that “we can see no trace of a massive rear addition, which would have projected into Piazza Campo de’ Fiori” (Richardson 1987, 125). There is no evidence of this apse on the various drawings of the lost Marble Plan fragment; these show two parallel lines with evenly-spaced squares on their outer edges leading from the cavea and following the central axis, but with no indication of a terminal point, and with no foundations shown projecting inside the cavea, as might perhaps be expected if the lines are to represent the foundations of a temple. The contradiction between the archaeological record and the Marble Plan cannot easily be resolved (cf. Gros 120, who considers the archaeological evidence inconclusive, but also rejects Richardson’s hypothesis of a tree-lined avenue leading to Pompey’s house; s.v. *Domus: Cn. Pompeius Magnus [2]). Our map and the communis opinio therefore retain the apsidal temple of Venus Victrix. Richardson’s observation (1987, 123-24) that such a large theater-temple is nowhere else attested in the Roman world only confirms that Pompey’s theater was in many ways unique.