ATRIUM VESTAE
* the house of the Vestal Virgins at the foot of the Palatine,
just east of the forum proper. By the end of the republic this term
had come to mean their dwelling-house, in which sense it is ordinarily
used in extant literature (Fest. 333 ;
Gell. i. 12. 9; Plin.
Ep. vii. 19. 2;
Prud.
Peristeph. ii. 528), but originally it included the whole precinct
of Vesta (cf. Ov.
Fast. vi. 263; Serv.
Aen. vii. 153). This precinct
contained the temple of
VESTA (q.v.), the dwelling of the Vestals, the
sacred grove, the domus Publica or official residence of the pontifex
maximus, and the
REGIA (q.v.) itself or house of the king. This group
was called both Regia and atrium Vestae (Ov.
Fast. vi. 263-264:
hic
locus exiguus qui sustinet atria Vestae [ tunc erat intonsi regia magna
Numae; cf. the confused terms atrium regium (
Liv. xxvi. 27. 3;
xxvii.
11. 16, in reference to the fire of 210 B.C.) and regia Vestae (
CIL vi. 511).
The grove,
lucus (Cic. de div. i. 101 ;
BC 1905, 208-210; Me1. 1908,
238-240), originally covered the space between the atrium and the
Palatine, but was gradually encroached upon, and finally disappeared
entirely, as it would seem. The domus Publica (Suet. Caes. 46) still
continued to be the residence of the pontifex maximus until Augustus,
on assuming that office in 12 B.C., transferred it to the Palatine (Cass.
Dio
liv. 27) and presented the domus Publica to the Vestals (Jahrb. d.
Inst.
1889, 247). In 36 B.C. Domitius Calvinus built the marble Regia, an
entirely separate structure. After the republic, therefore, the precinct
of Vesta included the temple, the grove, and the actual dwelling of the
Vestals, to which the name atrium was generally restricted. This name
would lead us to infer that the court, atrium, was the most prominent
part of the precinct, and it was certainly large enough for meetings of
the senate (Serv.
Aen. vii. 153:
ad atrium Vestae conveniebat (senatus)
quod a templo remotum fuerat-a disputed passage, cf. Van Deman,
Atrium Vestae 10).
Knowledge of the history of the atrium must be derived from the
evidence of the ruins themselves. Some discoveries were made in 1549
(Lanciani,
Storia ii. 203), and extensive excavations were carried out in
1883 and 1899-1902 (for the results in 1883 see Lanciani,
NS 1883, 468-470,
480-486; Ruins 228-234; Jordan, Der Tempel der Vesta u. d. Haus der
Vestalinnen, 1886, 25-40;
Top. i. 2. 292, 427; Auer, Der Tempel der
Vesta u. d. Haus der Vestalinnen, Denkschr. d. Wiener Akademie, 1886,
209-222; Middleton, Ancient
Rome i. 307-329;
Gilbert i. 304-305;
iii. 408-410; for those of 1899-1902,
NS. 1899, 325-333;
1900, 159-191;
BC 1899, 253-256; 1902,30; 1903,70-78;
AA 1900, 8-9; CR 1899,467;
1900, 238;
1901, 139;
1902, 284;
Mitt. 1902, 90-92;
1905, 94; Atti
539-547; HC 204-217; Thedenat 316-334; RE i. A. 502-504; DR
275-293. All previous work has been superseded by Dr. Esther B. Van
Deman's The Atrium Vestae, Washington, the Carnegie Institution,
1909). Cf. also ASA 154, 155; HFP 46-48.
These excavations show some remains of the republican atrium, that
is, the house of the Vestals, immediately south of the temple, adjoining
the domus Publica on the east, with the same north and south orientation.
This indicates the antiquity of both, though almost no remains earlier
than the second century B.C. are now visible. They consist of a small
court with rows of rooms on the south and west sides, with walls and
pavements still visible at some points under the north-west corner of
the latest building; that of the court is a lithostroton pavement of
the Sullan period (
JRS 1922, 29). The domus Publica seems to have
been larger than the house of the Vestals, and to have occupied all the
space between the Sacra via and the earlier Nova via. Its remains,
forming virtually a part of the original atrium (there is, in any case, no
line of demarcation between the two), lie along the north side of the
latest building and were entirely covered up by the road that Nero built
here in front of the shops (see below) (TF 85-86; (Ill. 7)).
Close to the main entrance to the atrium, at its north-west corner,
is the podium, about 3 by 2 metres in dimensions, of a shrine, generally
called aedicula Vestae, and supposed to have been built to house a
statue of the goddess, as the temple itself did not contain any (Cic. de nat.
Deor. iii. 80; de or. iii. 10). This shrine was not built until the second
stage of the imperial atrium, for it blocked a door belonging to that
period (Van Deman, op. cit. 23). Some fragments of the marble lining
and plinth are in situ; and the entablature with an inscription of the
time of Hadrian (
CIL vi. 31578) which records a restoration, together
with numerous architectural bits, have been found. The entablature
has been placed upon a column and a brick pier (
Jord. i. 2. 290-291;
Der Tempel d. Vesta 25-28; HC 203 ; Thedenat 315; LR 226).
The atrium Vestae was probably destroyed in the fire of Nero, and
was certainly rebuilt by him, when he remodelled the whole of this quarter
in a different form and with a different orientation. It now consisted
of a trapezoidal enclosure (in which the temple was included) approximately the size of the later building, with a central court surrounded
by rooms on three sides. Against the north enclosure wall was a row
of tabernae opening into the arcade leading up to the vestibule of the
DOMUS AUREA (q.v.); and the porticus occupied the whole intervening
space between the eastern enclosure wall and the street connecting the
Sacra and Nova via to the east (Vicus Vestae ?). There is thus no space
left for the garden, which, it was thought, might have been a survival
of the lucus (see VESTA, LUCUS); compare Van Deman, Atrium Vestae
pl. A, with AJA 1923, p. 421 and pl. iii., and Mem. Am.
Acad. v. 124 and
pls. 6, 62.
This building was injured by fire, and restored by Domitian, who
erected a colonnade round the court, with a long, shallow piscina in the
centre, and entirely rebuilt the west end. Hadrian built a block of
rooms across the east end, thereby extending the area of the house as
far as the cross street mentioned above; he also closed in the front
of the largest room (13 on Van Deman's plans) on the south, and built
new back walls in this and the room next to it. This was continued
under the Antonines, the object being to diminish the damp, due to the
shutting off of the sun's rays by Hadrian's additions to the
DOMUS TIBERIANA (q.v.). For the same reason the floor level was raised about
0.70 metre. In this period, too, Hadrian's additions were linked up
with the rest of the house, and a second and third story were added over
them. Finally, after suffering injury in the fire of Commodus, the
atrium was restored by Julia Domna, and the courtyard lengthened to
69 metres (it was, as before, 24 metres wide) so as to occupy the whole
of the central area. It was then that the arches spanning the Nova via
were built, serving as a support both to the upper stories of the atrium
and to the structures on the lower slopes of the Palatine (Ill. 8).
After this date various minor alterations were made, including the
construction, in the Constantinian period, of an octagonal structure
enclosing a circle in the centre of the peristyle (perhaps the foundation
of a pavilion, or the edging of a garden bed) and of two small piscinae,
one at each end, to replace the large one, which was no longer in
symmetry with the plan (Ill. 6).
After the last restoration the central court was surrounded by a
double colonnade, replaced at a still later period by a brick wall pierced
by arches. Round the court stood numerous statues of Virgines
Vestales Maximae on inscribed pedestals (
AJA 1908, 324-342;
CIL
vi. 32409-32428;
HF ii. 1243, 1357-61; PT pp. 76-78, Nos. 39, 42).
At the east end was a large hall paved with fine marbles, with three
rooms on each side of it; on the south of it is a small hall, with a sort of
vaulted cellar (possibly the penus of the household) and to the north
is a room in which an archaic altar, belonging to the Republican house,
has been found. On the south side of the courtyard is a group of rooms
used for household purposes, after which comes a series of finely decorated
rooms. At the west end are some rooms which are cut off from the
courtyard, and may, it is thought, have served for the cult of the Lares
(cf.
LARES, AEDES); and further west still are rooms probably used for
the cult of Vesta in connection with the temple. Two hoards of coins
were found in the house-830 Saxon coins, dating down to the middle
of the tenth century, in 1883 (
NS 1883, 487-514), and 397 gold coins
dating from 335 to 467-472 A.D. in 1899 (ib. 1899, 327-330).
A statue of Numa with a head of an ideal Greek type of the fifth
century B.C., with a space for a bronze beard, was found in the house of
the Vestals. As the body shows, it probably belongs to the period
of Trajan (
BC 1919, 211-224). The head shows evidence of the rite of
resectio (see
LUCUS FURRINAE).
