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A Monument of the Lares Augusti in the Forum of Ostia*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Herbert Bloch
Herbert Bloch
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

Many observant visitors to ancient Ostia must have noticed the remains of a small circular building in the middle of the Forum on the south side of the Decumanus Maximus, the continuation of the Via Ostiensis (Figs. 1-3). It came to light in the excavations of the Forum about forty years ago and was believed by the excavator Guido Calza to be a nymphaeum. Also in his posthumous detailed description of the oldest part of the city, the Castrum, the structure still appears as an ‘imperial nymphaeum.’ It was erected over the northeast corner of a very early rectangular building (Fig. 1 A) dated by Calza at the end of the fourth century B. C. Although the so-called nymphaeum obliterated the part of this building's eastern wall, which it straddles, this structure had been levelled before, when the authorities of Ostia decided to create at the crossing of the Decumanus Maximus and Cardo Maximus, in the center of the ancient Castrum, a monumental square.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , October 1962 , pp. 211 - 223
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1962

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References

1 Ostia. Guida storico-monumentale, Milano-Roma, 19251, 147; 19302, 160.

2 Scavi di Ostia, I, Roma, 1953, 71; cf. also fig. 21.

3 Ibid., 72.

4 G. Becatti, Ibid., 104 f. Meiggs, R., Roman Ostia, 1960, 351 f.Google Scholar

5 Becatti, , Scavi di Ostia, I, 112, 115Google Scholar. Blake, M. E., Roman Construction in Italy from Tiberius through the Flavians, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1959. 63Google Scholar. Lugli, G., La tecnica edilizia romana, II, Roma, 1957, pl. CXXXV, 4 rightly dates the temple “in the first years of Tiberius.”Google Scholar

6 Cf. on these excavations Calza, Scavi di Ostia, I, 38 ff.

7 All references are to the plan of Ostia in the scale 1:500, executed by Italo Gismondi and his collaborators in 1950, which accompanies Scavi di Ostia I. The designation Reg. 1.14.2, which is borrowed from Meiggs, means Regio I, Insula 14, building no. 2.

8 The following dimensions of the shrine of the Lares Augusti in the Forum of Ostia, for the ground plan and shape of which compare Figs. 2 and 3, are taken from a sketch prepared by Aldo Pascolini at Dott. Pietrogrande's behest: Outer diameter of the walls, not including the base: 5.10 m.

Distance between the backwalls of diametrically opposite niches: 4.50 m.

Diameter of floor: 2.97 m.

Distance of the floor from the bottom of the niches: 0.26 m.

Preserved height of the building above the floor: 1.26 m.

9 Notizie degli Scavi di antichità, 1953, 239-306.

10 There is an allusion to them in Meiggs, Roman Ostia, 354; for the correct date of dedication see inscription no. 4 below.

11 Only the reading Caisar(e) -adopted from inscription no. 1-vs. Caisare is doubtful.

12 E. g., et Genis Caesarum. Cf. the convenient collection of comparable Roman inscriptions in Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (henceforth = ILS) 3612-3621, 9250 and n. 15 below.

13 See on Tubero, L. Seius, Adams, Freeman, The Consular Brothers of Sejanus, Am. Journ. of Philol., LXXVI (1955), 70–76.Google Scholar

14 My colleague, Professor Wendell V. Clausen, on the basis of his special knowledge of the manuscripts of the scholia on Persius, kindly informs me that the traditional version of this sentence is correct. Cf. on the passage Wissowa, G., Religion und Kultus der Römer, 1912 2, 167, n. 3Google Scholar. Holland, Louise A., The Shrine of the Lares Compitales, Transactions Am. Philol. Assn., LXVIII (1937), 430, 433Google Scholar.

15 Moretti, Luigi, Vicus Cornicularius, Archeologia classica, X (1958), 231–234Google Scholar. Nothing is said in the article about the actual topography of the site; there are no illustrations. As the inscriptions are in private hands, we are all the more indebted to Moretti for their publication.

16 For a recent treatment of the evidence see Niebling, G., Laribus Augustis Magistri Primi, Historia V (1956), 303–331Google Scholar. Niebling holds that the date of 7 B. C. given by Cassius Dio LV 8-9 is the starting point for the cult in the entire city. Apparently conflicting documents are explained otherwise (Ibid., 323 ff.); so also Nock, A. D., Cambr. Anc. Hist., X, 480Google Scholar, both following the persuasive article of Gius. Gatti, , Bull. Comm. Archeol. Com., XXXIV (1906), 186 ffGoogle Scholar. But see also Taylor, L. R., The Divinity of the Roman Emperor, 1931, 185 ffGoogle Scholar. Moretti, , loc. cit. in n. 15Google Scholar. Latte, K., Römische Religionsgeschichte, 1961, 307Google Scholar.

17 It is, e. g., not mentioned in Niebling's article (n. 16) and was overlooked by Maria Panvini Cotellessa in her treatment of the monument in Lugli, Fontes ad topographiam Urbis Romae pertinentes, III, Roma, 1955, 260, nos. 55 f. In fact, it has been adequately presented only by E. Nash, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome, I, 1961, 290 f., where the meagre previous bibliography is given, to which add Holland, L. A., loc. cit. in n. 14, 434Google Scholar. The text of the inscription printed here is based on the photograph published by Nash, p. 291, fig. 342.

18 Read in line 2: mag(istri) secun(di) vici compiti Acili; in line 3: [M.] Licinius, M. (scil. Licini et) Sextiliae l(ibertus) / Diogenes.

19 CIL XIV 26. Cf. Taylor, L. R., The Cults of Ostia, Bryn Mawr, Pa., 1912, 49Google Scholar. Meiggs, , Roman Ostia, 379Google Scholar.

20 CIL XIV 367 = Dessau, ILS 6164. Cf. Taylor, , loc. cit.Google ScholarMeiggs, , loc. cit. in n. 19Google Scholar.

21 CIL XIV S I, 4570; cf. Meiggs, , Roman Ostia, 333, 379.Google Scholar

22 Cambr. Anc. Hist., X, 498.

23 Degrassi, A., Inscriptiones Italiae, XIII, 1, 1947, 290Google Scholar. Niebling, , loc. cit. in n. 16, 327, n. 121Google Scholar. On the significance of the Kalends of January in the cult of the Lares cf. Johnston, L. D., The Lares and the Kalends Log Class. Philology, XXXIV (1939), 342–356Google Scholar.

24 See n. 18 above. For the omission of anni cf. also inscriptions nos. 1 and 5. Two later examples of this kind of “dating” are given above, p. 219, and below, p. 222.

25 CIL VI 821 with references to Bellorius and Fabretti. Wissowa, , op. cit. in n. 14, 143, n. 2.Google ScholarLatte, , op. cit., 42, n. 2.Google Scholar Cf. also Hülsen, in Jordan-Hülsen, , Topographie der Stadt Rom im Alterthum, I, 3, 1907, 638.Google Scholar Dessau's doubts about the genuineness of the inscription (voiced in CIL XIV 259*) were based on false premises (he overlooked Bellorius' earlier publication) and would now be refuted by the Ostia inscription.

26 CIL VI 451 = Dessau, ILS 3619.

27 CIL XIV S I, 4710 = Dessau, ILS 5395. Cf. Bloch, C.Cartilius Poplicola, Scavi di Ostia III, Roma, 1958, 211 f., 218.Google Scholar

28 Scavi di Ostia, I, 107.

29 See above, p. 220.

30 Accame, S., Bull. Comm. Arch. Com., Bull, del Museo dell'Impero Romano, XIII (1942), 20 ff.Google ScholarNiebling, , loc. cit. in n. 16, 313Google Scholar.

31 CIL XIV S I, 4298. The reading mag(istri), not mag(ister), is correct: Meiggs, Roman Ostia, 222, n. 4. Laribus vici(nalibus): Pietrangeli, C., Bull. Comm. Arch. Com., LXX (1942), 129.Google Scholar

32 Squardapino, M. Floriani, L'ara dei Lari di Ostia, Archeologia classica, IV (1952), 204–208, esp. 207.Google Scholar