TEMPLE OF MARS

TEMPIO DI MARTE
Via degli Specchi/Piazza S. Salvatore in Campo

135 BC maybe Hermodoros of Salamis (active in Rome in the II century BC) for Brutus Callaicus
Nothing is left to be seen of this temple

It was located at the west end of the Circus Flaminius corresponding precisely to the block between Via degli Specchi, the Via and the Piazza di San Salvatore in Campo to left the Palazzo del Monte di Pietà

It was a peripteral temple made out of Pentelic marble on a crepidoma with no podium and therefore in purely Greek style
The church of S. SALVATORE IN CAMPO was built on the exact area of the temple

TEMPLE OF HERCULES WINNER

TEMPIO DI HERCULES VICTOR
Piazza Bocca della Verità

About 120 BC maybe by Hermodoros of Salamis (active in Rome during the second century BC) in Pentelic Greek marble for the merchant Marcus Octavius Herennus, perhaps enriched with the olive oil business

This temple is mistakenly believed to be the “Temple of Vesta”

On a block of stone that was found here, probably the base of the statue of worship, there is the name of the deity Hercules Olivarius, and the name of the sculptor of the statue Skopas Minor, Greek sculptor who also worked in the area of the Circus Flaminius
So the temple was dedicated to Hercules Olivarius and maybe not to Hercules Victor

It was restored under Tiberius (14/37), perhaps after the flood of the year 15 AD
On that occasion nine columns and eleven capitals of marble from Luni were rebuilt

It is the oldest marble building remained in Rome. The first to be built in marble was the Temple of Jupiter Stator in the Porticus of Octavia

It is a peripteral round temple (Tholos) with twenty columns (there is only one base and perhaps the missing column is the “Column of Phocas” of the Roman Forum) on a stepped plinth (crepidoma) with circular foundation of tuff from Grotta Oscura

It became a church in 1132 as S. Stefano delle Carrozze (St. Stephen of the Coaches) from the name of the nearby street Via delle Carrozze (Coahes Street) now disappeared
In 1560 the name was changed into S. Maria del Sole (S. Mary of the Sun) maybe because of a legend (a woman of 115 years emanated light after a picture of the Virgin Mary found in the Tiber River was taken in her house), or maybe because of the proximity of the Mithraeum of the Circus Maximus with the god Mithra represented as the Sun

The structures and the walls of the church were dismantled during the years 1809/14 by Giuseppe Valadier (1762/1839)

Last renovation in 1996
Frescoes with “Scenes of the Virgin Mary and Saints” 1475 by Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere (1471/84) who wanted to place a commemorative plaque on the floor

PORTICO OF OCTAVIA

PORTICO D'OTTAVIA

Via del Portico d'Ottavia

It was a reconstruction of the preexisting Portico of Metellus inaugurated maybe in 131 BC, which Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonian had begun to build in 146 BC after returning from the victories against Andrisco that had won Rome the subjugation of Macedonia

It included on the left the TEMPLE OF JUNO REGINA (prostyle hexastyle), dedicated in 179 BC by the censor Lepidus

On the right there was TEMPLE OF JUPITER STATOR (peripteral hexastyle without postico, i.e. without columns on the back) the first of Rome to be built entirely in marble, work of the Greek Hermodoros of Salamis

The statues of the two gods were made by the Greek sculptors Polycles and Dionysios

After the reconstruction in the years 33/23 BC at the behest of Augustus (27 BC/14) the portico was dedicated by him to his sister Octavia and that's when it took the name of PORTICO OF OCTAVIA

It was restored in 203 AD by Septimius Severus (193/211) and by his son Caracalla (211/217), phase to which date back most of the current remains

It must have been a grand building (about 119 m - 390 feet - wide by about 132 m - 433 feet - deep) facing the Circus Flaminius and perhaps constituting a single unit with the adjacent Portico of Philip

It had a DOUBLE PORTICO on the sides and a simple FRONT PORCH with a protruding propylaeum which emphasized the entrance

Inside, in addition to the two temples, there were TWO LIBRARIES, one Greek and one Latin, and the large hall with apse CURIAE OCTAVIAE located at the back to the temples

Among the statues that adorned it:

Bronze equestrian group of thirty-four statues of Lysippus representatives of Alexander the Great and his officers who died in the battle of the Granicus River (it was located in front of the temples, between them and the Propylaea)

Bronze statue of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi brothers, the first statue of a woman to be exhibited in public in Rome (about 100 BC), whose base is in the Capitoline Museums

Nearby (scholars do not know where exactly) was the PORTICO OF OCTAVIUS (in Latin Porticus Octavia) not to be confused with the Portico of Octavia, built in 168 BC by the orders of the consul Gnaeus Octavius

In the ruins of the portico eventually the church of S. ANGELO IN PESCHERIA was built