Temple of Saturn
About
One of the oldest temples in the Forum, dedicated in 497 BCE at the foot of the Capitoline and rebuilt by L. Munatius Plancus around 42 BCE. Its high podium, concrete faced in travertine, doubled as a public notice board where Romans posted official bills, while the chambers beneath housed the Aerarium Populi Romani, the state treasury, along with archives of laws and senatus consulta, records the Republic considered too important to entrust anywhere else. Standing and functioning as the treasury in 117 CE, the temple's now-familiar row of eight granite columns had not yet been built; that facade dates from a rebuilding after a fire in 283 CE. The Saturnalia festival, instituted at the temple's founding, was still celebrated here every December.
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
- Livy, Ab urbe condita 2.21.2
Dates the temple's dedication to the early Republic and notes the Saturnalia was instituted with it.
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 →