MINERVA, TEMPLUM
* Among the buildings attributed to Domitian (Chron.
146) is a
templum Castorum et Minervae, and the same designation is
employed in the Regionary Catalogue (Cur. Reg. VIII, om. Not.). This
would indicate either one structure, or two near together, an inference
that is supported by the discovery of part of the statue of Minerva near
the lacus Iuturnae (NS 1901, I 14, fig. 73).
On the tabulae honestae missionis after 89 A.D. (CIL iii. Suppl. pp.
1965-2005, 2035),
1 it is stated that the originals were placed
in muro post
templum divi Aug. ad Minervam, and the same juxtaposition of these
two temples is found in Martial (iv. 53. 1-2:
Hunc, quem saepe vides
intra penetralia nostrae / Palladis et templi limina, Cosme, novi). The
shrine of Minerva should, then, be situated between the temple of Augustus
and the temple of Castor, and many scholars have accepted Hulsen's
theory which identifies it with the large court (19 by 21 metres) which
served later as the forecourt of S. Maria Antiqua, behind, i.e. east, of the
temple of Augustus and in front of the building supposed to be the
bibliotheca divi Augusti, or else with a smaller shrine standing in this
court (HJ 83-84;
Mitt. 1902, 79-80; HC 172-175 ; Th6d. 310; Tea in
BA 1921, 356 sqq.; ZA 92-94; see also
Gilb. iii. 45 ;
Rosch. ii. 2990).
Another explanation is that Domitian, after restoring the temple of
Castor, rededicated it under the name of Castorum et Minervae (Mommsen, Chron. 354, P. 652). (For further particulars and the description
of the ruins, see
TEMPLUM D. AUGUSTI.)
A more recent theory (Richmond in Essays and Studies presented to
William Ridgeway on his Sixtieth Birthday,
Cambridge 1913, 206-211）
is that the templum Minervae (Chronog. Cur. Mart. locc. citt. and
CIL
x. 6441）
2 was a library erected by Domitian in honour of Minerva and
really her chief temple in Rome, and that this structure comprised the
complex of buildings of the time of Domitian, commonly called the
templum d. Augusti and bibliotheca templi d. Augusti. The Minerva
of the diplomas (v. supra) is the name given to part of the earlier library
belonging to the temple of Augustus-although separated from it by a
wall, which was built by Tiberius and lay south of the existing church
of S. Teodoro. Still more recently Bartoli (
BC 1924, 250-259) has
maintained that the phrase ad Minervam refers to a statue, not to a
temple at all; Chron. and Cur. cit. would then refer to the temple of
Minerva in the forum Nervae (YW 1925-6, 113). The juxtaposition of
the temple with that of Castor and Pollux is, however, strongly against
this view.
