Various ingenious attempts have been made to decipher the letters of the bronze inscription (which were originally fixed on the frieze of the portico), by means of the holes formed by the bolts which attached them to the stone work. The reading which seems most probable from its agreeing with the style of the building, indicates that it was dedicated to two nobles distinguished with the title of “princes of youth.” It is as follows:—
M. CAESARI AUGUSTI F. COS. L. CAESARI
AUGUSTI F. COS. DESIGNATO PRINCIPIBUS JUVENTUTIS.
This inscription necessarily places the Temple in the age of the Antonines, since the only princes known to whom the above names and title of Principes Juventutis will apply, after the sons of Agrippa, were Marcus Aurelius, and Lucius Verus, adopted sons of Antoninus Pius.
From excavations around the edifice it has been ascertained that the Temple formed a centre from which colonnades extended on either hand. It thus probably stood at the end of a Forum, the colonnades around which enclosed shops and places of business or pleasure. This edifice has passed through many vicissitudes; and it is marvellous how it has survived all the various uses or abuses to which it has been subject. It was naturally in the course of events first changed from a Pagan Temple into a Christian Church; in the eleventh century it formed the council chamber of the municipal body; and at a later time it was degraded into a stable, when the flutings of the columns were grated off to allow carts to pass between them. It then became attached to an Augustinian Convent, and was used as a mausoleum and place of burial. More recently it was occupied as the Hall of meeting of the revolutionary tribunal, and still later as a corn market. Now it has been put in good order, and contains the local museum of antiquities. This Museum comprises some good sculpture, especially a fine statue of Venus ([Fig. 23]), and numerous antiquarian fragments,—many for want of room being ranged round an enclosure in the open air. Portions of Roman mosaics and foundations of an earlier Roman building have been discovered under the soil of the Maison Carrée, thus shewing that it has been erected at a later period than the first occupation of the site by the Romans.
FIG. 23. STATUE OF VENUS.
According to Mérimée the style accords with the time of the Antonines, when the decadence had begun, and when richness and multiplicity of details replaced the simple majesty of the first century. He also points out various irregularities in the structure which would never have been tolerated in the earlier period,—such as, that the columns are not equally spaced, that there is an unequal number of modillions on the opposite sides, that the caps are too low, and the shafts of the columns too long (being 10¼ diameters in height). But notwithstanding these defects the Maison Carrée is a building of which Nimes and France may well be proud.
