IUPPITER STATOR, AEDES
(templum, Pliny):
a temple which, with that
of Iuno Regina and the enclosing
PORTICUS METELLI (q.v.), was built by
Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus after his triumph in 146 B.C. (Vell.
i. I. 3). It is referred to as aedes Iovis Metellina (Fest. 363) and aedes
Metelli (Plin.
NH xxxvi. 40;
CIL vi. 8708). It was inside the porticus
Metelli (
Vitr. iii. 2. 5), close to the circus Flaminius (
Macrob. iii. 4. 2;
Hemer. Urb., CIL i'. p. 252, 339), and its exact site is known, beneath the
church of S. Maria in Campitelli. The temple of Juno was just west of
this, on the opposite side of the Via della Tribuna di Campitelli. It is
not stated in so many words by Velleius (loc. cit.) that Metellus built
both temples, but this is the natural inference from the passage. He is
also said to have been the first to build a temple in Rome entirely of marble,
and this statement probably applies to both structures. In front of the
temples Metellus placed Lysippus' equestrian statues of Alexander's
generals, and in them were a number of famous works of art (Fest. 363;
Plin.
NH xxxvi. 24, 34, 40). According to Vitruvius (iii. 2. 5) the temple
of Jupiter was the work of Hermodorus of Salamis (
RE viii. 861-862), and
was an example of a peripteros with six columns across the front and
rear and eleven on the sides. The space between the columns was
equal to that between the columns and the wall of the cella. As
there were no inscriptions on the temples (Veil. loc. cit.) and evidently
representations of a lizard and a frog among the decorations (
σαύρα, βάτραχος), the legend arose that the architects were two Spartans, Saurus
and Batrachus; and further that, as the decorations in the temple of
Jupiter belonged to that of Juno, and vice versa, the statues of the
deities had been set up in the wrong cellae by the mistake of the workmen
(Plin.
NH xxxvi. 42-43;
RE iii. 145). The idea that an Ionic capital
now in S. Lorenzo fuori has anything to do with these temples has
generally been abandoned (HJ 539, n. 87).
After 14 B.C. Augustus either rebuilt the porticus Metelli, or replaced
it by the
PORTICUS OCTAVIAE (q.v.), and presumably restored the enclosed
temples at the same time. That of Jupiter is mentioned on an undated
inscription of the empire (
CIL vi. 8708 :
aedituus de aede Iovis porticus
Octaviae), and it is included under the rubric Aedes of
Region IX in
Not. (om. Cur.). The temples are also represented on a fragment (33)
of the Marble Plan, that of Juno as hexastyle prostyle, and that of
Jupiter as hexastyle and peripteral but with ten columns on a side instead
of eleven, as Vitruvius says it had (see above). This discrepancy may
perhaps be explained as due to some changes made by Augustus' restoration. Lugli (ZA 229) maintains that, like the porticus Octaviae, they
were restored by Severus.
The existing ruins of both temples are concealed for the most part by
modern houses in the Via di S. Angelo in Pescheria, and consist chiefly
of substructures and walls of travertine and of brickwork, with
fragments of marble columns and entablature. Three fluted columns
of white marble belonging to the temple of Juno, 12.50 metres in height
and 1.25 in diameter, with Corinthian capitals and entablature, are
visible in No. I of that street. Of the history of these temples after
the fourth century, nothing is known (HJ 538-540;
Rosch. ii. 684-686.
Cf. also Bull. d.
Inst. 1861, 241-245; Ann. d.
Inst. 1868, 108-132).
