Roman Temple Marble

Begun in the first century bc temples to bacchus venus and jupiter still dominate the landscape.

Roman temple marble.

In addition to the bathhouses villas and theatres that were built in the roman city archaeologists believe that amman was once the site of an important roman temple dedicated to hercules. The temple used greek architecture with corinthian columns marble and had a central cella. Once 54 columns of carved granite reached 70 feet high but centuries of looters war and earthquakes have diminished the temples but not the interest in them. One of the best preserved roman buildings the pantheon was built in 126 ad as a temple for all the roman gods.

Furthermore there s even a suggestion that this shrine may once have been the site of a colossal marble sculpture one of the tallest ever made. Many of the greek statues well known from roman marble copies were originally temple cult images which in some cases such as the apollo barberini can be credibly identified. The temple has served as a roman catholic church since the 7th century. The temple is greek in style and was probably the work of an eastern greek architect.

The temple of jupiter king of the gods is befittingly the largest. A very few actual originals survive for example the bronze piraeus athena 2 35 metres high including a helmet. Since the worship of vesta began in private homes the architecture seems to pay homage to the architecture of early roman homes. The image stood on a base from the 5th century often.

The temple s most recognizable feature is its circular footprint. A caesareum was a temple devoted to the imperial cult caesarea were located throughout the roman empire and often funded by the imperial government tending to replace state spending on new temples to other gods and becoming the main or only large temple in new roman towns in the provinces this was the case at évora vienne and nîmes which were all expanded by the romans as coloniae from. The first all marble building was the temple of jupiter stator in rome 146 bce but it was not until the empire that the use of marble became more widespread and the stone of choice for the most impressive state funded building projects. The building also uses that quintessential greek building material pentelic marble from near athens at the time of construction pentelic marble was one of the more expensive building materials and so was rarely used for large projects.