PORTICUS DEORUM CONSENTIUM
originally built perhaps in the second
or third century B.C., as a fragment of tufa walling may show (TF 55, 56),
but in its present form due to one of the Flavian emperors, as is shown by
the construction (
AJA 1912, 411, 414), and restored in 367 A.D. by Vettius
Praetextatus, prefect of the city and a vigorous supporter of paganism.
This restoration is recorded by an inscription on the architrave (
CIL
vi. 102). The existing remains are built at an angle against the rock
beneath the Tabularium and the supporting wall of the clivus Capitolinus,
and consist of two parts, a substructure containing seven small rooms,
unlighted and of uncertain use, and above them a platform paved with
marble, on which is a row of small rooms, 4 metres high and 3.70 deep,
made of brick-faced concrete. Seven of these rooms have been excavated,
and there are probably five more still buried. In front of them is a
porticus of Corinthian columns supporting an entablature. The colonnade
has been restored, but most of the entablature and four of the columns
are ancient. The statues of the dei consentes probably stood in the
intercolumniations of this colonnade. According to Varro (RR i. I. 4)
gilded statues of these twelve gods stood in the forum itself in his time
(
Jord. i. 2. 366; HC go; Thed. 162, 360; DR 233-236; RE
Suppl.
iv. 496-497; HFP 20).
