DIRIBITORIUM
a building in the campus Martius in which the votes cast
by the people, presumably in the Saepta, were counted by the diribitores,
or election officials. It was begun by Agrippa, but opened and finished
by Augustus in 7 B.C. (Cass.
Dio lv. 8). Its roof had the widest span of
any building erected in Rome before 230 A.D., and was supported by
beams of larch one hundred feet long and one and a half feet thick, of
which one that had not been needed was kept in the Saepta as a curiosity
(Cass. Dio, loc. cit.; Plin.
NH xvi. 201 ;
xxxvi. 102). Caligula placed
benches in the Diribitorium and used it instead of the theatre when the
sun was particularly hot (Cass.
Dio lix. 7), and from its roof Claudius
watched a great fire in the Aemiliana (Suet. Claud. 18).
Cassius Dio (lxvi. 24) states that this building was burned in the great
fire of 80 A.D., but also (lv. 8) that in his day (early third century) it was
standing unroofed (
ἀχανἠς), because, after its wonderful roof of great
beams had been destroyed, it could not be rebuilt. As it is impossible
that such a building in this locality should not have been repaired after
the fire of 80, we must suppose that it was a hall without a roof for one
hundred and fifty years. We must also suppose that it was very near
the Saepta to facilitate the counting of votes, but it is very difficult to
find a location large enough for such a structure near the Saepta except
on the south-west, under the church of the Gesu, where, however, no
traces whatever of any ancient building have been found. For this
reason, in spite of the fact that Saepta and Diribitorium are mentioned
together as if they were separate buildings (Cass.
Dio lvi. 24), Hulsen
has developed the theory that it was really the upper story of the Saepta.
The masonry of the latter seems to be too massive for a one-storied
structure, and the enormous beams would be admirably adapted for a
hall like that which the Diribitorium is represented as being (
BC 1893, 136-142; HJ 562-564). The mediaeval name Diburo belongs, however,
to the
DIVORUM TEMPLUM. See also
SAEPTA IULIA.
