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
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