THE REMAINING TEMPLES OF POMPEII

THE present chapter will be devoted to the description of the remaining temples and some other public buildings in various quarters of the city.

At the corner of the main street leading to the Forum and that called the Street of Fortune is a small Corinthian temple, dedicated to Fortune by a private person, one M. Tullius. It has been eased with marble both within and without, and is accessible by two flights, of steps. The lower flight, broken in the middle by a podium or low wall, consists of three, the upper flight of eight steps. There is an altar placed upon the podium, which was protected from wanton intrusion by an iron railing running along the side-margins and in front of the steps. Holes for the reception of the uprights still remain, together with pieces of iron. The portico has four columns in front and two at the sides, and the external walls of the cells are decorated with pilasters. At the end of the building is a semicircular niche, containing a small temple of the Corinthian order, richly finished and designed, under which the statue of the goddess was placed.

View of the Temple of Fortune.

This Marcus Tullius, who appears from an inscription on the architrave to have erected this temple, has been supposed to be a descendant of the great Cicero. The belief rests on two circumstances : on the finding in the interior of the building a statue of the size of life, said to bear some resemblance to the busts of the distinguished orator; and on an inscription on the architrave of the temple, which may still be seen lying on the floor of the building. It runs as follows :- X TULLIUS. M.F.D.V.I.D. TER. QUINQUE. AUGUR. TR. MIL. A. POP. EDENT. FORTUNE. AUG. SOLO. ET. PEQ. SUA. That is : Marcus Tullius, son of Marcus, three times duumvir for the administration of justice, Quinquennalis, Augur, and Tribune of the soldiers by election of the people; erected this temple of Fortuna Augusta on his own ground and at his own expense." In a small slip of ground on the southeast side of the temple was found another inscription, running as follows .-- M. TULLII. M.F. AREA PRIVATA.

The first of these inscriptions, as well as four others, satisfactorily ascertain the temple to have been dedicated to Fortuna Augusta; but whether the builder of it belonged to the family of M. Tullius Cicero, the orator, is a question of some difficulty. Only the father and grandfather of the orator bore the name of Marcus Tullius, and some writers have assumed that the temple was built by one of these. But, as Overbeck remarks, the epithet Augusta applied to Fortuna seems to negative this assumption, and to show the building of the temple to have been later than the establishment of the empire.

The statue before mentioned is clothed in the toga pr texta, the robe of office of the Roman magistrates; and what adds value and singularity to the statue, this robe is entirely painted with a deep purple violet colour. But as in the republican times the pr texta had only a purple hem, and as a toga entirely dyed with that colour was an imperial distinction, first assumed by Julius Caesar, there seems reason for believing that the statue must have been intended to represent an emperor, perhaps Augustus. The probability of this inference is increased by the circumstance of a slab of marble having been found in the building, with the following fragmentary inscription: STO CESARI PARENTI PATRIAE.

A female statue, the size of life, was also found within the cells, clothed in a tunic falling to her feet, and above it a toga. The border of the former is gilt; the latter is edged with a red purple bandeau, an inch and a quarter wide; the right arm is pressed upon the bosom, with the hand elevated to the chin, while the left hand holds up the toga. The face of this figure has been sawn off. Some have supposed this a piece of economy of the Pompeians, who, wishing to pay a compliment to some distinguished person, had thought that the cheapest way of doing it was to substitute her face for that originally belonging to the statue.

It is manifest that the ancients have made excavations on this spot, and carried away the columns of the temple and the marble with which it was covered, both within and without. Some of the capitals however remain to show the order of its architecture, and enough is preserved to assure us that it was rich in ornament and highly finished.

Near the theatres, in the Street of Stabi , at the angle small which it makes with the Street of Isis, is a temple called the Temple of sculapius. The entrance leads into an open court, in which stands an altar, large out of all proportion to the size of the building, peculiar in its character. and bearing a striking resemblance to the sarcophagus of the Scipios in the Vatican; the most remarkable points being the triglyphs with which the frieze is ornamented, which are of rare occurrence in constructions of this size and character, and the volutes at the corners, which are not known to occur elsewhere. The court is traversed in its whole width by a flight of nine steps, on the top of which stands the temple itself, comprising a small square cell, with a tetrastyle pseudo-dipteral portico.

In the cell were found two terra cotta statues as large as life, one male the other female; they are now preserved in the terra-cotta collection in the National Museum. The female statue is taller than the male, its height being 8 palms, while that of the latter is only 7 1/4 palms. They are supposed by many authorities to represent Jupiter and Juno, and hence the temple frequently bears the name of those deities. Winkelmann first called them sculapius and Hygeia, and thus gave the temple a new name. The representations of Jupiter and sculapius are very similar in ancient works of art, so that, unless they are accompanied by some symbols, it is frequently difficult to distinguish them. It seems however hardly probable, that if these statues represented Jupiter and Juno, the goddess should have been larger than the god; or that the two chief divinities of Olympus should have been crowded into so tiny a temple. There was also found a marble bust of Minerva, which has led Overbeck to talk about a temple of the three still Capitoline deities. But the size of it is more adverse to such a notion. On the other hand, as, by some mythologists, Minerva is represented to have been the child of sculapius and Hygeia, this bust might serve to confirm the idea of Winkelmann; and the finding of several ex voto offerings of hands, feet, &c., in terra-cotta, affords a further corroboration of it. It is scarcely necessary to mention a third name which has been sometimes given to this temple, namely, that of Neptune, derived from a head sculptured on the capitals of the columns, and thought to represent that deity. We need only add that the robes of the terra-cotta statues bear evident traces of having been coloured red.

Proceeding westward, along the northern side of the same island of buildings, we come to the Temple of Isis, separated from the Temple of sculapius by a narrow passage leading to the great theatre. The destination of this temple is satisfactorily ascertained by the following inscription above the entrance. -- N. POPIDIVS. N. F. CELSINVS. ,EDEM. ISIDIS. TEPRF. 1110TV. CONLAPSAM A. FVNDAMENTO. P. S. RESTITVIT. HVNC. DECVRIONES. OB. LIBERALITATEAT. CVM. ESSET. ANNORVNI. SEXS. ORDINI. SVO. GRATIS. ADLEGERV NT.

" Numerius (or Nonnius) Popidius Celsinus, son of Numerics, restored from the foundation, at his own expense, the Temple of Isis, overthrown by an earthquake. The Decurions, on account of his liberality, elected him when sixty years of age to be one of their order free of expense." The earthquake alluded to was probably that in the year 63, sixteen years before the eruption of Vesuvius.

This is one of the most perfect examples now existing of the parts and disposition of an ancient temple. A rude Corinthian portico encompasses the court; the columns are about one foot nine inches in diameter, the shafts painted. To the two nearest the entrance,.two lustral marble basins, now in the Museum of Naples, were found attached, and a wooden box, reduced to charcoal, probably a begging-box to receive the contributions of worshippers. The des, for the reader will observe that this little building is not in the inscription called a temple, stands insulated in the centre of the court on an elevated podium, and is accessible by a flight of steps occupying only part of its front. On each side of the portico are altars. In front of the cell is a Corinthian tetrastyle portico, comprising six columns. It is flanked by two wings, with niches for the reception of statues : behind that on the left are steps, and a side entrance to the cell. The whole exterior is faced with stucco decorations, capricious in style, and disfigured by a strange mixture of the very commonest species of ornament. Within the temple, at the further end, a strip is parted off, probably for some juggling purposes connected with the worship of the temple. In the south-east corner of the enclosure is a small building, ornamented with pilasters, with an arched opening in the centre, and over the arch a representation of figures in the act of adoration; a vase is placed between them. This building covered the sacred well, to which there is a descent by steps, and served probably for purification of the worshippers and other uses of the temple. The whole is grotesquely decorated with elegant though capricious stuccos, and whimsically painted. The ground-colour between the pilasters is yellow, that of the frieze red, and the flat space between the arch and the pediment is green, while within the arch it is yellow. The cornice was surmounted by terracotta antefixes, which, from a single fragment remaining, representing a mask, appear to have been executed with great taste and skill.