Timgad Capitol
About
A temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva rose on a high podium at Timgad's southwestern edge starting around 160 CE. Its footprint rivaled the Pantheon in Rome, towering over a colony that had by then grown well past its original 12-hectare grid. Fourteen giant Corinthian columns once framed its approach, fragments of which still stand today. In 117 CE, four decades before ground was broken, veterans still farmed the fields where its podium would eventually rise. Begun around 160 CE under Antoninus Pius, roughly 43 years after this map's snapshot date.
What happened here
The building itself is a house for the god, and most people never go inside. Everything public happens on the steps and at the altar in front: an animal led up, examined, killed cleanly, its organs read, the meat divided and eaten. The priest covers his head and a flute player keeps up a noise so no ill-omened word is heard. Worshippers leave what they can afford — a terracotta figure, a coin, a model of the body part they want healed — and the accumulated clutter is periodically cleared and buried on site. On festival days the doors are opened and the cult statue is dressed, garlanded, and sometimes carried out through the streets. The temple also holds money, which is why towns keep their treasury in one.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →