Area of the Dii Consentes.
The ancient road leading up to the Capitol made a turn behind the Temple of Saturn, and a portico with semi-Corinthian or Composite columns has been restored from some columns and capitals found here in 1835. At the back of this portico were twelve recessed chambers occupied by chapels of the twelve deities called the Dii Consentes. Four of these still remain under the modern Via del Campidoglio. The walls are chiefly of brickwork, apparently of the second or third century, but the back wall against the ascent to the Capitol is of hard tufa. The interiors were faced with marble, of which traces are left. From the inscription found in 1835 upon the architecture it appears that Vettius Prætextatus, a prefect of the city in A.D. 367, restored the statues of the Dii Consentes, which had stood here from ancient times. Varro mentions gilded statues of the gods of the council as near the Forum, and also speaks of their temple. This portico and chambers cannot, however, have been a temple, but were evidently clerks’ offices connected with the state depositories near the Temple of Saturn. Cicero speaks of the clerks of the Capitoline ascent.[55] Vettius Prætextatus, who restored the building in 367, was notorious for his opposition to the Christian religion and for his zeal in supporting the ancient cultus. He held several offices, and was pro-consul of Achaia under Julian, and probably recommended himself to that emperor by his attachment to the old Roman religion.
Schola Xanthi.
Below the portico and its chambers stands another row of lower chambers, three of which are said by Marliani to have been found entire in the sixteenth century. Inscriptions found here give the name of Schola to the chambers, and hence they have been called Schola Xanthi, from the name of Xanthus, which occurs in the inscription as a restorer. They were undoubtedly clerks’ offices, similar to those behind the portico of the Dii Consentes above them.
Temple of Vespasian.
We now turn from the portico of the Dii Consentes to the three Corinthian columns which stand under the large building called the Tabularium. These three columns have now been proved to belong to the ruin of a temple dedicated to Vespasian by his son Domitian. This position of Vespasian’s temple agrees with the statements of the Notitia and Curiosum and of Statius. The inscription, of which only the letters ESTITUER now remain, was seen and the whole of it transcribed by a writer of the ninth century, whose MS. is preserved at Einsiedlen.[56] It recorded the restoration of this temple by Severus and Caracalla. The letters ESTITUER stand at the lower edge of the frieze, showing that there was another line above. This upper line was DIVO. VESP. AUG. S.P.Q.R., and referred to the original building of the temple, while the lower line recorded its restoration. The temple was approached by a flight of steps from the road between it and the Temple of Saturn, the uppermost of which were placed between the columns and have been partially restored. The three columns which now remain are the three corner columns of the portico. They have fluted shafts and Corinthian capitals. The letters of the inscription were of metal, and the holes of the rivets which fastened them are still visible. The architrave and cornice are ornamented very richly with the usual mouldings, and there are some most interesting reliefs upon the frieze representing sacrificial implements and the skulls of oxen. A horsetail for sprinkling, and a sacrificial knife with a vase, a patera, an axe, and a high priest’s mitre are plainly distinguishable. Another portion of the entablature was pieced together by Canina and is still kept in the rooms of the Tabularium. The walls of the cella were built of travertine faced with marble. Against the back wall stands a large pedestal which supported the statue of the deified Emperor.
Temple of Concord.
Next to the temple of Vespasian, we are told by Statius, stood the Temple of Concord. The site is also determined by passages in Plutarch and in Dion Cassius, and by the plan given in the Capitoline map. Excavations were carried out here in 1817, 1830, and 1835 which resulted in disclosing the foundations of the temple, and in finding some inscriptions which attest the dedication of this spot to the goddess Concord. The temple of Concord was founded according to Livy, Ovid, and Plutarch by Camillus in B.C. 367, on the memorable occasion when the senate after a long and anxious debate, wisely determined to make peace with the Commons by throwing open the office of Consul to the plebeian order.[57]
It was placed near the old meeting-place (Comitium) of the privileged families (gentes), as if constantly to remind them that the newly established concord of the community was under the special sanction of the gods. When the Temple of Camillus was first restored we do not learn. The earliest notice of a new Temple to Concord is the statement that the Consul Opimius was ordered by the senate on the death of C. Gracchus to build a new temple to Concord. The temple seems to have been a kind of Pantheon or museum, for it was filled with a great number of statues of various gods, and with curiosities. On the left-hand side of the remaining foundations of the cella are two large pedestals which probably supported two of the principal statues.
Tiberius rebuilt it after his German campaign in A.D. 6 and 7, and dedicated it in honour of himself and his brother. The form of the latest restoration, which seems to have been carried out after the building behind it, the so-called Tabularium, was built, as it is placed so close to that building and must have rendered the decorations on its walls invisible, can be traced by the present relics of foundation walls, and presents a singular deviation from the normal plan of a Roman temple. The pronaos, or front chamber, is narrower than the cella or shrine behind it, and forms a sort of porch to it. This is an instance of the form of temple called prostylos by Vitruvius, and consisting of a broad Tuscan cella with a narrow Greek portico.[58]