Temple of Apollo, Pompeii · Wikimedia Commons

Temple of Apollo, Pompeii

Templum Apollinis, Pompeii

TempleItalia · Pompeii, ItalyBuilt 550 BCE · Destroyed 79 CE

Not standing in 117 CE

About

The oldest sanctuary in Pompeii stood just west of the forum, a colonnade of forty-eight columns enclosing a raised temple reached by a broad flight of steps. Worship on the spot goes back to the sixth century BCE, when Greek and Etruscan traders were already dealing along this coast. A bronze Apollo drawing his bow faced a bronze Diana across the court, and a sundial on a column kept the sanctuary's hours. Vesuvius buried the whole city in 79 CE. In 117 CE the temple lies under several metres of ash and pumice, its roof gone and its columns snapped.

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 X 787, dedication before 2 BCE
The magistrates Marcus Holconius Rufus and Gaius Egnatius Postumus paid 3,000 sesterces for precinct works, by decree of the council; the text names the town 'Colonia Veneria Cornelia'.