Temple of Vesta, Tivoli
About
Ten of this small round temple's original eighteen Corinthian columns still ring its drum, perched dramatically on the cliff above the Aniene's waterfalls. Renaissance visitors named it for Vesta, though no inscription confirms which goddess it actually honored, with Hercules and the local nymph Albunea both proposed instead. By 117 CE it has crowned this cliff edge for nearly two centuries, its silhouette already a fixture of the view every visitor to Tibur described.
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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