IUPPITER HELIOPOLITANUS, TEMPLUM
This sanctuary was erected on the
Janiculum, on the site of the
LUCUS FURRINAE (q.v.), probably in the
latter half of the first century A.D. Scanty traces of it have been found.
More considerable remains of an edifice erected in 176 A.D. were also
discovered, but only about one quarter of it has been cleared. It consisted, like the first, of an open square temenos, oriented on the points
of the compass, and divided into four equal compartments by two
transverse lines of amphorae; the enclosure wall of the temenos wab also
formed, in part, of rows of amphorae which had, as it appears, some
unknown ritual significance. Two small rooms (one with arrangements
for ritual washing) were also found. Below was a large fishpond.
Interesting objects were found in a boundary ditch, which soon served
as a favissa. The date is given by the inscriptions. Besides the two
cited s.v.
LUCUS FURRINAE, there is another altar (of uncertain provenance)
dedicated to Iuppiter Heliopolitanus and the Emperor Commodus on
29th November, 186 A.D., by one M. Antonius Gaionas, who is called
Cistiber Augustorum (?), i.e. quinque vir cis Tiberim (
CIL vi.
420=30764; cf.
Mitt. 1907, 244). He also erected an altar found at
Porto (
CIL xiv. 24）
I.O.M. Angelo Heliopolitano pro salute Imperatorum
Antonini et Commodi.
This Gaionas was already known from his sepulchral inscription
(
IG xiv. 1512;
CIL vi. 32316), where he is mentioned as
κίστιβερ and as
δείπνοις κρείϝας πολλὰ μετ̓ εὐφροσύνης.
A slab (mensa) with a dedication to Iuppiter Heliopolitanus pro salute
et reditu, et Victoria of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus (176 A.D., contemporary with the Antonine column and recording the same victories)
erected by the same Gaionas, was found used as building material in the
fourth century temple, as well as another undated dedication.
And, agreeably to this, one of the recently discovered inscriptions
speaks of him as
δειπνοκρίτης ; see Cumont in
CRA 1917, 275-284, who
interprets the difficult text
δεσμὸς ὅπως κρατερός θῦμα θεοῖς παρέχοι, ὃν δὴ Γαιωνᾶς δειπνοκρίτης ἔθετο, which is carved on a marble slab (with a hole in
the centre communicating with a cavity which extends behind the whole
slab), by supposing that the slab was placed vertically at the end of a
basin, which contained fish to be consumed at the sacred banquets at
which he was a steward. Gauckler had indeed already supposed the
existence of a large fish-pond below the sanctuary even before the time
of Gaionas. The presence of a fine statue of Bacchus and a fragment
of a statuette is explained by Cumont to presume the use of wine to the
point of intoxication at the sacred banquets (op. cit. 281). A dedication
to Iuppiter Maleciabruditanus (i.e. the protecting deity of the city of
Jabruda in the Antilebanon) also came to light. Hiilsen, on the other
hand, points out that, had the slab stood vertically for a considerable
period, the calcareous deposit would have been heavier on the lower half
of the slab, instead of being, as it is, equally distributed: and he therefore
still explains it as the top of a treasure chest, with a hole for offerings,
supposing that it was used in a water tank after the destruction of the
sanctuary.
It would appear that the edifice of Gaionas was destroyed in or about
341, in consequence of the edicts of Constans and Constantius II, and that
a building consisting of porticos surrounding a fountain was erected on
its site. The most recent temple was thus, no doubt, erected in the
time of Julian the Apostate. The rectangular portico became the court
in the centre of the new temple. (For the plan of the three superposed
temples, see Gauckler, Sanctuaire Syrien, pls. xxxv., I., li.;
CRA 1909,
617, pi. i.;
1910, 378, pls. i., ii).
On the east of it a smaller octagonal enclosure was built, in the centre
of which was a triangular mass of masonry-an altar which contained
a bronze statuette of a male deity, possibly Chronos, enveloped by a
serpent and surrounded by seven hen's eggs. On either side of the
enclosure were two smaller chapels.
At the west end of the court was a sanctuary with a plan like that of
a basilica-narthex, nave and two aisles. In the apse was the statue
of Iuppiter Heliopolitanus, and in the cavity beneath, the upper part of a
human cranium, the relic of a dedicatory sacrifice. It has further been
noticed by Gauckler that the head of the statue of Bacchus and two other
heads had been ' segmented,' i.e. sliced at the crown; but whether this
has any ritualistic significance, as Gauckler believed, is doubted by Crawford (Mem. Amer.
Acad. i. 103-119). Several tombs were also found in
the sanctuary, which may have been those of individuals who had been
sacrificed.
The objects found have been removed to the Museo delle Terme
(PT 120-122), but no further work has been undertaken by the Italian
Government.
See Gauckler in
CRA 1907, 135-159;
1908, 510-529;
1909, 424-435,
617-647;
1910, 378-408;
BC 1907, 45-81;
Mel. 1908, 283-336;
1909,
242-268; Nicole and Darier, ib. 1909, 1-86
(all these are reprinted in
Gauckler, Le Sanctuaire Syrien au Janicule, Paris 1912); Htilsen,
Mitt. 1907, 225-254; Geogr.
Jahrb. 1911, 215-217; Cumont in
CRA
1917, 275-284; Lanciani, Wanderings in the Roman Campagna, 170-179.
A complete bibliography is given by Darier, Les Fouilles du Janicule
a Rome, Geneve, 1920.
