The Porticus Catuli was a landmark (Latin monumentum) on the Palatine Hill

Palatine Hill

The Palatine Hill is the centermost of the Seven Hills of Rome and is one of the most ancient parts of the city...

 in ancient Rome

Topography of ancient Rome

The topography of ancient Rome is a multidisciplinary field of study that draws on archaeology, epigraphy, cartography and philology.The classic English-language work of scholarship is A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome , written by Samuel Ball Platner, completed and published after his...

. It was built by Quintus Lutatius Catulus

Quintus Lutatius Catulus

Quintus Lutatius Catulus was consul of the Roman Republic in 102 BC, and the leading public figure of the gens Lutatia of the time. His colleague in the consulship was Gaius Marius, but the two feuded and Catulus sided with Sulla in the civil war of 88–87 BC...

 (consul

Roman consul

A consul served in the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic.Each year, two consuls were elected together, to serve for a one-year term. Each consul was given veto power over his colleague and the officials would alternate each month...

 102 BC) to commemorate his joint victory with Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius was a Roman general and statesman. He was elected consul an unprecedented seven times during his career. He was also noted for his dramatic reforms of Roman armies, authorizing recruitment of landless citizens, eliminating the manipular military formations, and reorganizing the...

 over the Cimbri

Cimbri

The Cimbri were a tribe from Northern Europe, who, together with the Teutones and the Ambrones threatened the Roman Republic in the late 2nd century BC. The Cimbri were probably Germanic, though some believe them to be of Celtic origin...

 at Vercellae.

The portico was adjacent to the house (domus

Domus

In ancient Rome, the domus was the type of house occupied by the upper classes and some wealthy freedmen during the Republican and Imperial eras. They could be found in almost all the major cities throughout the Roman territories...

) of Catulus, which Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

 regarded as one of the grandest built in the late 2nd century BC. The practice of expanding a family's domus from the relatively modest structures of the mid-Republic began at this time. The Porticus Catuli became known for the display of art works there. Its impressiveness rivaled that of the Temple of Honor and Virtue built by Marius also to commemorate the victory, for which both men earned a triumph

Roman triumph

The Roman triumph was a civil ceremony and religious rite of ancient Rome, held to publicly celebrate and sanctify the military achievement of an army commander who had won great military successes, or originally and traditionally, one who had successfully completed a foreign war. In Republican...

.

The Porticus Catuli was located on a prominent piece of real estate that had already been highly politicized. It had formerly been the site of the house of M. Fulvius Flaccus

Marcus Fulvius Flaccus (consul 125 BC)

Marcus Fulvius Flaccus was a Roman senator and an ally of the Gracchi. He became an administrator of the agrarian reform in 130 BC, and as a solution to the problem of land division among the allied cities, proposed Roman citizenship for the allies' citizens, thus introducing a question that vexed...

, one of the supporters of the popularist

Populares

Populares were aristocratic leaders in the late Roman Republic who relied on the people's assemblies and tribunate to acquire political power. They are regarded in modern scholarship as in opposition to the optimates, who are identified with the conservative interests of a senatorial elite...

 Gaius Gracchus

Gaius Gracchus

Gaius Sempronius Gracchus was a Roman Populari politician in the 2nd century BC and brother of the ill-fated reformer Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus...

 who were condemned to death and had their property confiscated and destroyed. In the mid-1st century BC, the Porticus Catuli was involved in the feud between Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

 and Clodius

Publius Clodius Pulcher

Publius Clodius Pulcher was a Roman politician known for his popularist tactics...

. When Cicero was condemned to exile for putting Roman citizens to death without allowing them right of appeal, Clodius razed Cicero's house and perhaps also the Porticus Catuli to build a shrine (aedes) to Libertas

Libertas

Libertas was the Roman goddess and embodiment of liberty.- Temples and derived inspirations :In 238 BC, before the Second Punic War, having long been a Roman deity along with other personified virtues, Libertas assumed goddess status...

. If the portico was razed rather than incorporated into the new religious complex, it was rebuilt along with Cicero's house when the orator was restored to Rome.