Temple of Apollo (Pompeii)

Coordinates: 40°44′57″N 14°29′04″E / 40.74921°N 14.4844°E / 40.74921; 14.4844 (Pompeii)
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Temple of Apollo in Pompeii. Mount Vesuvius is to the far left.

The Temple of Apollo, also known as the Sanctuary of Apollo, is a Roman temple built in 120 BC and dedicated to the Greek and Roman god Apollo in the ancient Roman town of Pompeii, southern Italy.[1] The sanctuary was a public space influenced by Roman colonists to be dedicated to Greco-Roman religion and culture.[2]

Architecture in the Forum

Located in the forum (market place) and facing the northern side of the town, it is the town's most important religious building. It was one of the two earliest temples built in Pompeii, the other being the Temple of Minerva and Hercules, which was near the forum.

62 earthquake, in which a large part of the temple collapsed and repairs which were left incomplete at the time of the eruption.[4] The temple, in the center of a sacred enclosure, was surrounded on all four sides by a wide series of tuff columns from Nocera, originally grooved and with Ionic capitals, that were being replaced with stucco columns and Corinthian
capitals painted in yellow, red and dark blue.

Plan of the temple

The temple itself, a

quattuorviri who dedicated it. To side of the steps is an Ionic column that supported a sundial and an inscribed plaque that was donated by a pair of magistrates, who are recorded to have donated another plaque and seat at the Triangular Forum.[5]

Dedication of a sundial at the Temple of Apollo

In the side of the perimeter wall of the Temple of Apollo, facing onto the town's forum, a niche is extracted containing the mensa ponderaria; the table with the town's official measures, to guarantee the citizen against fraudulent shopkeepers and merchandise.

Excavations

Excavation of the temple first began in February of 1817 and it was mistakenly identified as the Temple of Venus [5] and then as the Temple of Mercury when fragments of a marble statue and two bronze arms positioned to fire an arrow were recovered.[6] The fragments belong to the temple's deities – one representing Apollo, the other a bust of Diana – both of which would have been facing the columns of the portico. They are in display in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, California, though copies of two of them have been placed where the originals were found.

The elegant

metopes and triglyphs resting on the columns was transformed into a continuous frieze with griffins, festoons
and foliage. Today, the remains of the temple front appear as they originally did, since almost all of this transformation in plaster has disappeared.

See also

  • List of Ancient Roman temples

Bibliography

  • Zanker, Paul. 1998. Pompeii: public and private life.[2]
  • Beard, Mary. 2008. The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found[3]
  • Boschi, Federica; Rescigno, Carlo (2021). “The sanctuary of Apollo in Pompeii: new geophysical and archaeological investigations.” GROM Documenting Archeology.[4]
  • Cooley, Alison E.; Cooley, M. G. L.. 2014. Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook.[5]
  • Van Andringa, William. "Statues in the Temples of Pompeii." Historical and Religious Memory in the Ancient World(2012): 83.[6]

References

  1. Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
    Retrieved 30 June 2019.
  2. ^
    OCLC 39143166
    .
  3. ^
    OCLC 1122931416, retrieved 2022-03-25{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  4. ^
    ISSN 2531-6672. Archived from the original on 2023-05-05. Retrieved 2022-05-05.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link
    )
  5. ^
    ISBN 978-0-415-66680-0
    .
  6. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-957206-9
    , retrieved 2022-05-05
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40°44′57″N 14°29′04″E / 40.74921°N 14.4844°E / 40.74921; 14.4844 (Pompeii)

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