PANTHEON
a temple which, with the thermae, Stagnum and Euripus,
made up the remarkable group of buildings which Agrippa erected in
the campus Martius. According to the inscription on the frieze of the
pronaos (
CIL vi. 896:
M. Agrippa L. f. cos. tertium. Fecit 1) the temple
was built in 27 B.C., but Cassius Dio states that it was finished in 25
(liii. 27:
τό τε Πάνθειον ὠνομασμένον ἐξετέλεσε: προσαγορεύεται δὲ οὕτω τάχα μὲν ὅτι πολλῶν θεῶν εἰκόνας ἐν τοῖς ἀγάλμασι, τῷ τε τοῦ ῎Αρεως καὶ τῷ τῆς ᾿Αφροδίτης, ἔλαβεν, ὡς δὲ ἐγὼ νομίζω, ὅτι θολοειδὲς ὂν τῷ οὐρανῷ προσέοικεν, ἠβουλήθν μὲν οὖν ὁ ᾿Αγρίππας καὶ τὸν Αὔγουστον ἐνταῦθα ἱδρῦσαι, τήν τε τοῦ ἔργου ἐπίκλησιϝ αὐτῷ δοῦναι). This passage is not
altogether clear (
Gilb. iii. 116), but it seems probable that the temple
was built for the glorification of the gens Iulia, and that it was dedicated
in particular to Mars and Venus, the most prominent among the
ancestral deities of that family. In the ears of the statue of Venus hung
earrings made of the pieces of Cleopatra's pearls (Plin.
NH ix. 121;
Macrob. iii. 17. 17). Whether the name refers to the number of deities
honoured in the temple (cf.
πάνθειον,
Rosch. iii. 1555, and the various
πάνθεια in Greek lands,
DS iv. 315), or means 'very holy'
(hochheilige,
cf. HJ 582; Jord. Symbolae ad historiam religionum Italicarum,
KOnigsberg, Index lectionum, 1883), is uncertain: but Mommsen's
conjecture that the seven niches were occupied by the seven planetary
deities is attractive, and Hilsen is now in favour of it. There is no
probability in Cassius Dio's second explanation (v. supra).
In the pronaos of Agrippa's building were statues of himself and
Augustus (Cass. Dio loc. cit.), and on the gable were sculptured ornaments of note (Plin.
NH xxxvi. 38). The decoration was done by Diogenes
of Athens, and Pliny goes on to say (loc. cit.)
in columnis templi eius
Caryatides probantur inter pauca operum (cf. xxxiv. 13: Syracusana
(i.e. aenea) sunt in Pantheo capita columnarum a M. Agrippa posita).
The position of these Caryatides has been much discussed, but is quite
uncertain (Alt. 62-63).
The Pantheon of Agrippa was burned in 80 A.D. (Cass. Dio Ixvi. 24. 2)
and restored by Domitian (Chron. 146; Hier. a. Abr. 2105; cf. perhaps
2101). Again, in the reign of Trajan, it was struck by lightning and
burned (
Oros. vii. 12; Hier. a. Abr. 2127). The restoration by Hadrian
(Hist. Aug. Hadr. 19) carried out after 126 (
AJA 1912, 421) was in fact
an entirely new construction, for even the foundations of the existing
building date from that time. The inscription (see above) was probably
placed by Hadrian in accordance with his well-known principle in such
cases. The restoration ascribed to Antoninus Pius (Hist. Aug. Pius 8:
instauratum ... templum Agrippae) may refer only to the completion
of Hadrian's building. Finally, a restoration by Severus and Caracalla
in 202 A.D. is recorded in the lower inscription on the architrave (
CIL vi.
896).
2 In January, 59 A.D., the Arval Brethren met in the Pantheon
(
CIL vi. 2041); Hadrian held court in his restored edifice (Cass.
Dio
lxix. 7. I); Ammianus (xvi. 10. 14:
Pantheum velut regionem teretem
speciosa celsitudine fornicatam) speaks of it as one of the wonders of
Rome; and it is mentioned in Reg. (Not. Reg. IX).
For a library situated in or near the Pantheon, see
THERMAE AGRIPPAE
(p. 519);
THERMAE NERONIANAE.
The building faces due north; it consists of a huge rotunda preceded
by a pronaos. The former is a drum of brick-faced concrete, in which
numerous brickstamps of the time of Hadrian
3(
CIL xv. 276, 362, 649 a,
811 b, c, I 106 b, 1406) have been found.
4 which is 6.20 metres thick; the
structure of it is most complex and well thought out. On the ground
level the amount of solid wall is lessened by seven large niches, alternately
trapezoidal and curved (the place of one of the latter being taken by the
entrance, which faces due north), and by eight void spaces in the masses
of masonry between them, while in the upper story there are chambers
above the niches, also reached by an external gallery supported by the
middle of the three cornices which ran round the dome. In front of
these masses are rectangular projections decorated with columns and
pediments alternately triangular and curved, which have been converted
into altars. The pavement is composed of slabs of granite, porphyry
and coloured marbles; and so is the facing of the walls of the drum,
which is, however, only preserved as far as the entablature supported by
the columns and pilasters, the facing of the attic having been removed
in 1747 (for drawings, cf.
NS 1881, 264, 292; HJ 585, n. 75).
5 The ceiling
of the dome is coffered, and was originally gilded ; in the top of it is a
circular opening surrounded by a cornice in bronze, 9 metres in diameter,
through which light is admitted. The height from it to the pavement
is 43.20 metres (144 feet), the same as the inner diameter of the drum.
The walls are built of brick-faced concrete, with a complicated system of
relieving arches, corresponding to the chambers in the drum, which
extend as far as the second row of coffers of the dome; the method of
construction of the upper portion is somewhat uncertain (the existence
of ribs cannot be proved), but is probably of horizontal courses of bricks
gradually inclined inwards. Pumice stone is used in the core for the sake
of increased lightness.
The ancient bronze doors are still preserved, though they were repaired
in the sixteenth century. The pronaos is rectangular, 34 metres wide
and 13.60 deep, and has three rows of Corinthian columns, eight of grey
granite in the front row and four of red granite in each of the second and
third. Of those which were missing at the east end (which cannot possibly
have been removed in 1545 (DAP 2. xv. 373, 374), as they were already
absent earlier (compare
Heemskerck i. 10;
ii. 21; Giovannoli, Roma
Antica
(1615), ii. 11), the corner column was replaced by Urban VIII
with a column of red granite, and the other two by Alexander VII, with
grey columns from the thermae Alexandrinae.
6 The columns support a
triangular pediment, in the field of which were bronze decorations; in
the frieze is the inscription of Agrippa; and the roof of the portico
behind was supported by bronze trusses. This portico was not built after
the rotunda, as recent investigations by Colini and Gismondi have shown
(
BC 1926, 67-92), and the capitals of its columns are exactly like those of
the interior (RA 122), though the entasis of the columns differs (Mem.
Am.
Acad. iv. 122, 142). In front of it was an open space surrounded by
colonnades. The hall at the back belongs also to Hadrian's time, and
so do the constructions on the east in their first form. The exterior of
the drum was therefore hardly seen in ancient times.
The podium of the earlier structure, built by Agrippa, lies about
2.50 metres below the pavement of the later portico; it was rectangular,
43.76 metres wide and 19.82 deep, and faced south, so that the front
line of columns of the latter rests on its back wall, while the position of
the doorways of the two buildings almost coincides. To the south of the
earlier building was a pronaos 21.26 metres wide, so that the plan was
similar to that of the temple of Concord.
7 At 2.15 metres below the
pavement of the rotunda there was an earlier marble pavement, which
probably belonged to an open area in front of the earlier structure;
8
but a marble pavement of an intermediate period (perhaps that of
Domitian) was also found actually above this earlier structure, but below
the marble pavement of the pronaos.
The restoration of Severus and Caracalla has been already mentioned;
but after it, except for the account by Ammianus Marcellinus, already
cited, of Constantius' visit to it, we hear nothing
9 of its history until
in 609 Boniface IV dedicated the building as the church of S. Maria ad
Martyres (
LP lxviii. 2). Constantius II removed the bronze tiles in 663
(ib. lxxviii. 3; cf. Paul Diac. Hist. Langob. 5. II;
AJA 1899, 40);
and it was only Gregory III who placed a lead roof over it (ib. xcii. 12).
That the pine-cone of the Vatican came from the Pantheon is a mediaeval
fable; it was a fountain perhaps connected with the
SERAPEUM (q.v.).
The description of it by Magister Gregorius in the twelfth century
(
JRS 1919, 36-37, 53) is interesting, especially for the mention of the
sarcophagi, baths and figures which stood in front of the portico (cf.
DuP 131 for further information as to its history in the Renaissance,
during which it was a continual subject of study for artists and architects).
A porphyry urn (from the thermae of Agrippa), added by Leo X, now
serves as the sarcophagus of Clement XII in the Lateran. For its mediaeval decoration, see
BCr 1912, 25.
Martin V repaired the lead roof (
LPD ii. 544) and Nicholas V did the
same. Raphael is among the most illustrious of the worthies of the
Renaissance who are buried here.
The removal of the roof trusses of the portico by Urban VIII gave
rise to the famous pasquinade '
quod non fecerunt barbari fecerunt
Barberini' (
PBS ii. 38, No. 65 a;
vi. 202-204).
See Beltrami, II Pantheon
(Milan 1898); LR 476-489;
LS ii. 236-240;
HJ 581-590;
BC 1892, 150-159;
1909, 280-289 (restorations, fifteenth to
eighteenth centuries);
Mitt. 1893, 308-318;
NS 1881, 255-294;
1882,
340-359;
1892, 88-90; PI. 351-358. For architectural details, see
Desgodetz, Les plus beaux edifices de Rome
(1682), pls. 1-22; Piranesi,
Pantheon; D'Esp.
Fr. i. 69-74;
ii. 67-68; Durm 550-573; DuP 128-
132; Mem. Am.
Acad. iii. 79; RA 118-131; ASA 77-82. Among the
drawings we may cite Cod. Escurialensis, f. 29, 30 (from originals which
were also copied by Raphael-Uffizi 164; Bartoli cit. lxiv. 99 ;
lxv. 100-
and Jacopo Sansovino (?) Uffizi, 1948-1950; cf. Bartoli in text to ccclix.
fig. 629, and see Hulsen in
OJ 1910, 221) 43, 71 =Sangallo Barb. 13a;
PBS ii. 13, 35-38, 61-63, etc.; cf. vi. 191 sqq.; Sangallo Barb. 9, 10, 11,
13, etc.; Heemskerck, i. 10;
ii. 2, 39.