Capitol of Thuburbo Maius
About
Under Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, Thuburbo Maius raised a Capitol in 168 CE on a monumental podium reached by a broad flight of stairs from the forum. Excavators found a sandaled marble foot from a cult statue of Jupiter, estimated at 7.5 meters tall. Carved inscriptions on the building name both emperors alongside Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. In 117 CE this hillside stood empty, more than fifty years before ground was broken.
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
- Pauline Cuzel, Thuburbo Maius et Carthage sous le Haut-Empire Chroniques d'Archéologie maghrébine (2022), pp. 528-563
Epigraphic study reconstructing the Capitolium's long dedicatory inscription from recovered marble fragments (preserved in the Bardo Museum), naming Marcus Aurelius and Commodus and dating the temple's dedication to 168 CE, decades after the 117 CE snapshot.
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 →