Maison Carrée, Nîmes · Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)

Maison Carrée, Nemausus

Templum Nemausense

TempleGallia Narbonensis · Nimes, FranceBuilt 16 BCE

About

A small, exact temple on a podium at the head of the forum of Nemausus: six Corinthian columns across the front, the rest engaged in the wall of the shrine behind. The dedication is to Gaius and Lucius Caesar, Augustus' grandsons and intended heirs, both dead young — the building is a memorial to a succession that never happened. Its proportions were copied from the Augustan temples of Rome and cut in local limestone by local masons, which is the colonial programme in a single object. In 117 CE it is a little over a century old and in daily use at the centre of a rich Gallic city.

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.

In ancient writing

CIL XII 3156, dedication c. 4-7 CE
Dedicated to Gaius and Lucius Caesar, Augustus's grandsons and heirs. The bronze letters are long gone; the text was reconstructed from the nail-holes that once held them.