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 p463  Aedes Saturni

Article on pp463‑465 of

Samuel Ball Platner (as completed and revised by Thomas Ashby):
A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome,
London: Oxford University Press, 1929.

Saturnus, AEDES (fanum also in Varro and Macrobius, templum also in Macrobius and Not.): the temple erected close to the original ara at the foot of the Capitoline and edge of the forum (Varro V.42: in faucibus (Capitolii); Liv. XLI.21.12: in foro Romano; Macrob. I.8.1: ad Forum; Fest. 322: in imo clivo Capitolino; Serv. Aen. VIII.319, Auct. Orig. 3.6: sub clivo Capitolino; Serv. Aen. II.116, Hygin. Fab. 261: ante clivum Capitolinum; Dionys. I.34.4; VI.1.4). It was the oldest temple of which the erection was recorded in the pontifical archives, but there was marked disagreement as to the exact date. One tradition ascribed its dedication to Tullus Hostilius; according to another it was begun by the last Tarquin (Varro ap. Macrob. I.8.1; Dionys. VI.1.4). Elsewhere, however, its actual dedication is assigned to the magistrates of the first years of the republic, either to Titus Larcius in his dictator­ship in 501 (Macrob. loc. cit.), who also is said to have commenced building the temple in his second consul­ship in 498 (Dionys. VI.1.4); or to Aulus Sempronius and M. Mamercus, the consuls of 497 (Liv. II.21; Dionys. loc. cit); or to Postumus Cominius, consul in 501 and 493, by vote of the senate (Dionys. loc. cit.). A different tradition seems to be preserved by Gellius (ap. Macrob. I.8.1: nec me fugit Gellium scribere senatum decresse ut aedes Saturni fieret eique rei L. Furium tribunum militum praefuisse). Which Furius is referred to is not known (RE VII.316, 354‑356; Peter, Hist. Rom. Reliq. 12.155), and this form of the tradition is probably valueless.​1 The dedication of the temple may safely be assigned to the beginning of the republic.

In 174 B.C. a porticus was built along the clivus Capitolinus from  p464 the temple to the Capitolium (Liv. XLI.27.7). In 42 B.C. the temple was rebuilt by L. Munatius Plancus (Suet. Aug. 29; CIL VI.1316; X.6087). It is mentioned incidentally in 16 A.D. (Tac. Ann. II.41), and at some time in the fourth century it was injured by fire and restored by vote of the senate, as recorded in the inscription on the architrave (CIL VI.937). It is represented on three fragments of the Marble Plan (22, 23, 30), and is mentioned in Reg. (Not. Reg. VIII).

Throughout the republic this temple contained the state treasury, the aerarium populi Romani or Saturni, in charge of the quaestors (Fest. 2; Solin. I.12; Macrob. I.8.3; Plut. Tib. Gracchus 10; App. B. C. I.31; RE I.667, 671), and in it was a pair of scales to signify this function (Varro, LL V.183). Under the empire the same arrangement continued, but the aerarium Saturni now contained only that part of the public funds that was under the direction of the senate as distinguished from the fiscus of the emperors, and was administered by praefecti generally instead of quaestors (Plin. Ep. X.3.1; for the inscriptions relating to the aerarium, see DE I.300; and for occurrences of aerarium populi romaniº or Saturni, Thes. ling. Lat. I.1055‑1058). It is probable that only the money itself was kept in the temple, and that the offices of the treasury adjoined it, perhaps at the rear in the Area Saturni (q.v.), until the building of the Tabularium in 78 B.C., when some at least of the records were probably transferred thither. Other public documents were affixed to the outer walls of the temple and adjacent columns (Cass. Dio XLV.17.3; CIL I2.587, col. 2, l. 40; Varro, LL V.42).

On the gable of the temple were statues of Tritons with horses (Macrob. I.8.4), and in the cella was a statue of Saturn, filled with oil and bound in wool (Plin. NH XV.32; Macrob. I.8.5; Rosch. IV.431), which was carried in triumphal processions (Dionys. VII.72.13). The day of dedication was the Saturnalia, 17th December (Fast. Amit. ad XVI Kal. Ian., CIL I2 p245, 337; Liv. XXII.1.19). There are a few blocks of the podium of the original temple still remaining, and a drain below and in front is probably as early, in which case it and some similar drains close by are the earliest examples of the stone arch in Italy (TF 51‑54 attributes the drain to the fourth century B.C., but his suggestion as to its object is unacceptable). There is no trace of any construction of an intermediate period, and the existing podium belongs to the temple of Plancus. It is constructed of walls of travertine and peperino, with concrete filling, and was covered with marble fa­cing. It is 22.50 metres wide, about 40 long, and its front and east side rise very high above the forum because of the slope of the Capitoline hill. The temple was Ionic, hexastyle prostyle, with two columns on each side, not counting those at the angles. Of the superstructure eight columns of the pronaos remain, six in front and one on each side, together with the entablature, hitherto attributed to the period of the final restoration. It seems more likely that Fiechter (Toeb. I.5 sqq.) is right in attributing the cornice to the  p465 Augustan period, on the analogy of several other cornices (T. Divi Iuli, Magnae Matris, Regia, etc.). The architrave blocks with the palmette frieze below them belong to the forum of Trajan, whence they were removed for the fourth century restoration (ibid. 62‑66). The front columns are of grey and those on the sides of red granite, while the entablature is of white marble. The columns are 11 metres in height and 1.43 in diameter at the base; but in some of them the drums that form the shaft have been wrongly placed, so that the shaft does not taper regularly toward the top. The bases also are of three different kinds — Attic, and Corinthian with and without a plinth.

The steps of this temple were of peculiar form, on account of the closeness of the clivus Capitolinus and the sharp angle which it made in front of the temple, the main flight being only about one-third the width of the pronaos. (For the latest excavations round the temple, see NS 1899, 49; AA 1899, 7; CR 1899, 234; BC 1902, 26; Mitt. 1902, 9; for the later tradition of the site, BC 1914, 87‑88, 102; for the temple in general, Jord. I.2.360‑363; Gilb. III.401‑403; Rosch. IV.429‑432; WR 205‑206; HC 77‑79; Thédenat 113‑115, 227‑229;​a RE II. A. 219, Suppl. IV.463‑466; DR 151‑160; ASA 3, 44, 45; HFP 18‑20; Mem. Am. Acad. II. 1918, 58.) It may be represented in a relief of the time of M. Aurelius (Cons. 25) and is certainly seen in one of those of the Rostra Augusti (q.v.). Considerably more of the temple was existing when Poggio first visited Rome in 1402 than was left in 1447, as we learn from his De varietate fortunae (Urlichs, 238): 'superest porticus aedis Concordiae (sic), quam, cum primum ad urbem accessi, vidi fere integram, opere marmoreo admodum specioso; Romani postmodum, ad calcem aedem totam et porticus partem, disiectis columnis, sunt demoliti. In porticu adhuc literae sunt S.P.Q.R. incendio consumptam restituisse.'

The Authors' Note:

1 It is, however, preferred by Beloch, Röm. Gesch. 12, 13.

Thayer's Note:

a Platner cites the 1908 edition of Thédenat, which I haven't found online. Online at Gallica, however, is the 1898 edition; in it, the main passages on the Temple of Saturn are on pp126‑130 and 263‑264; but see also the (rather discreet) "Module de recherche" search function to the left of the pages.

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