The Temple of Trajan
About
Trajan commissioned this podium temple for the highest point of Pergamon's acropolis, ringed by Corinthian columns — six across the front, nine down each side — meant to honor Zeus Philios alongside the emperors themselves. Its platform needed an enormous vaulted substructure just to level the steep hilltop for construction. Trajan never saw it finished: on 11 August 117 CE, the day he died, his temple stood as an active building site. Hadrian completed it roughly a decade later and joined his own cult to his adoptive father's inside it.
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
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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 →