Aedes Iovis Optimi Maximi Capitolini
About
Chief state temple of Rome atop the Capitoline, originally dedicated 509 BCE; destroyed and rebuilt three times (83 BCE fire, Vitellian-era fire 69 CE, Titus-era fire 80 CE), with the final Domitianic reconstruction in gleaming Pentelic marble dedicated c. 82 CE. This was the temple standing in 117 CE, the terminus of every triumphal procession.
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
- Tacitus, Histories 3.71–72
Describes the Capitol burning in the fighting of 69 CE and calls it the worst disgrace to befall the Roman state, the temple having stood since the kings.
- Livy, Ab urbe condita 1.55–56
The foundation story: the human head found in the footings, read as a sign that this hill would be the head of the empire.
Sources
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 →