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 p493  Aedes Spei

Article on p493 of

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

Spes, aedes: a temple in the Forum Holitorium, built and dedicated by A. Atilius Calatinus during the first Punic war (Cic. de leg. II.28; de nat. deor. II.61 (if Spes is to be read here instead of Fides); Tac. Ann. II.49; HJ 508‑509; Rosch. IV.1296). It was struck by lightning in 218 B.C. (Liv. XXI.62.4), burned in 213 and restored the following year by a special commission (Liv. XXV.7.6; cf. XXIV.47.15‑16), and burned again in 31 (Cass. Dio L.10.3: ναὸς Ἐλπίδος). Germanicus dedicated the temple in 17 A.D. (Tac. Ann. II.49), necessarily after a restoration, but it is altogether improbable that Augustus failed to repair the damage of 31 B.C., and it is to him that Frank (who identifies it with the southern temple) attributes the existing structure. In 179 B.C. M. Fulvius built a porticus post Spei a Tiberi ad aedem Apollinis Medici (q.v.) — so the editors: Frank prefers the MS. reading post Spei ad Tiberim, i.e. the temple of Spes near the Tiber (Liv. XL.51.6; cf. DAP 2.vi.246). The day of dedication was 1st August (Fast. Arv. Vall. Ant. ap. NS 1921, 104, ad Kal. Aug., CIL I2 p214, 240, 248, 323; Praen. NS 1897, 421; EE IX.740).

There is no further mention of this temple, but it is probably the middle and the largest of the three of which the ruins now exist beneath the church of S. Nicola in Carcere and belong for the most part to the period of the republic. It was about 30 metres long and 10 wide, of the Ionic order, and amphiprostyle hexastyle. A lofty flight of steps, twelve or thirteen in number, led up to the pronaos, and in the middle of these steps was a long pedestal. Three of the fluted columns in travertine, 8.70 metres in height and 6.90 in diameter, are built into the façade, while portions of the cella wall and other columns have been incorporated in other parts of the church (for the description of  p494 these remains and the literature, see Delbrueck, Die drei Tempel am forum Holitorium, Rome 1903; Hellenistiche Bauten II.43;​1 Gött. Gel. Anz. 1904, 561‑563; Mitt. 1906, 191; HJ 511‑514; TF 126‑130).


The Authors' Note:

1 Here he accepts Wissowa's conclusions in Gött. Gel. Anz. cit. and makes the Doric temple that of Juno Sospita instead of Janus (sic: for, as a fact, he had previously identified it as that of Spes). See Ianus, Iuno Sospita, Aedes (1).


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