The temple of Bellona was an ancient Roman temple dedicated to the goddess Bellona

Bellona (goddess)

Bellona was an Ancient Roman goddess of war, similar to the Ancient Greek Enyo. Bellona's attribute is a sword and she is depicted wearing a helmet and armed with a spear and a torch....

 and sited next to the Temple of Apollo Sosianus

Temple of Apollo Sosianus

The Temple of Apollo Sosianus is a Roman temple dedicated to Apollo in the Campus Martius, next to the Theatre of Marcellus and the Porticus Octaviae, in Rome, Italy...

 and the Theatre of Marcellus

Theatre of Marcellus

The Theatre of Marcellus is an ancient open-air theatre in Rome, Italy, built in the closing years of the Roman Republic. At the theatre, locals and visitors alike were able to watch performances of drama and song. Today its ancient edifice in the rione of Sant'Angelo, Rome, once again provides...

 in Rome.

History

It was first vowed in 296 BC

296 BC

Year 296 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Violens and Caecus...

 by Appius Claudius Caecus

Appius Claudius Caecus

Appius Claudius Caecus was a Roman politician from a wealthy patrician family. He was dictator himself and the son of Gaius Claudius Crassus, dictator in 337 BC.-Life:...

 during the third Samnite War, in the area of the later circus Flaminius

Circus Flaminius

The Circus Flaminius was a large, circular area of land in Rome that contained a small race-track reserved for mysterious games, and various other buildings and monuments. It was located in the southern end of the Campus Martius, near the Tiber River. It was ‘built,’ or sectioned off, by Flaminius...

, outside the pomerium

Pomerium

The pomerium or pomoerium , was the sacred boundary of the city of Rome. In legal terms, Rome existed only within the pomerium; everything beyond it was simply territory belonging to Rome.-Location and extensions:Tradition maintained that it was the original line ploughed by Romulus around the...

 but close to the Servian Wall

Servian Wall

The Servian Wall was a defensive barrier constructed around the city of Rome in the early 4th century BC. The wall was up to 10 metres in height in places, 3.6 metres wide at its base, 11 km long, and is believed to had 16 main gates, though many of these are mentioned only from...

 (allowing it to accommodate extraordinary meetings of the Senate which involved foreign embassies from non-allies or returning or departing generals, neither of which were allowed within the pomerium - for example, the farewell to the proconsul on his departure for his alloted province). Appius's descendent Appius Claudius Pulcher

Appius Claudius Pulcher (praetor 88 BC)

Appius Claudius Pulcher was a Roman politician of the 1st century BC.His father is uncertain — Gaius Claudius Pulcher or most likely Appius, Consul in 143 BC. The son was a supporter of Lucius Cornelius Sulla and served as praetor in 88 BC. He was exiled in that year by Gaius Marius while Sulla...

 (the consul of 79 BC

79 BC

Year 79 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Isauricus and Pulcher...

) rehoused the imagines

Imago

In biology, the imago is the last stage of development of an insect, after the last ecdysis of an incomplete metamorphosis, or after emergence from the pupa where the metamorphosis is complete...

 clipeatae

Clipeus

In the military of classical antiquity, a clipeus was a large shield worn by the Greeks and Romans as a piece of defensive armor, which they carried upon the arm, to secure them from the blows of their enemies...

 (images on shields) of his ancestors there, to advertise his descent from its founder.

The temple - long considered lost - was identified with the remains of a podium

Podium

A podium is a platform that is used to raise something to a short distance above its surroundings. It derives from the Greek πόδι In architecture a building can rest on a large podium. Podia can also be used to raise people, for instance the conductor of an orchestra stands on a podium as do many...

 recovered in the 1930s building works to enable the nearby Theatre to be seen in isolation. These remains belong to a reconstruction in the Augustan period which is not mentioned by the literary sources but is probably related to the transformation of the area during the construction of the Theatre at that time. Augustus

Augustus

Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...

 (with links to the temple's founders via his Claudian wife) may have funded the rebuilding, or the dedicator may have been yet another Appius Claudius Pulcher

Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus

Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus was a senator of the Roman Republic. He was born with the name Appius Claudius Pulcher, into the patrician family of the Claudii. According to Suetonius, Drusus was a direct descendant of the consul and censor Appius Claudius Caecus...

 (consul of 38 BC

38 BC

Year 38 BC was either a common year starting on Sunday or Monday or a leap year starting on Saturday, Sunday or Monday of the Julian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday of the Proleptic Julian calendar...

, conqueror of the Hirpini

Hirpini

The Hirpini , were an ancient Samnite people of central Italy. While general regarded as having been Samnites, sometimes they are treated as a distinct and independent nation...

 and loyal ally and father-in-law to Augustus).

These podium remains are made up of the cement infill between the load-bearing structures. (Those structures were constructed from opus quadratum

Opus quadratum

Opus quadratum is an ancient Roman construction technique, in which squared blocks of stone of the same height were set in parallel courses, often without the use of mortar.-Technique:...

 blocks, looted

Spolia

Spolia is a modern art-historical term used to describe the re-use of earlier building material or decorative sculpture on new monuments...

 for reuse after the temple was abandoned and now lost.) The structure of the church of the Holy Rite by Carlo Maderno

Carlo Maderno

Carlo Maderno was a Swiss-Italian architect, born in Ticino, who is remembered as one of the fathers of Baroque architecture. His façades of Santa Susanna, St. Peter's Basilica and Sant'Andrea della Valle were of key importance in the evolution of the Italian Baroque...

 was moved onto this podium from the slopes of the Capitol at the time of the 1930s excavation and work on the Capitol.

The surviving remains and plan of the temple on the Forma Urbis Romae

Forma Urbis Romae

The Forma Urbis Romae or Severan Marble Plan is a massive marble map of ancient Rome, created under the emperor Septimius Severus between 203 and 211...

 show that it had columns along all sides of the cella

Cella

A cella or naos , is the inner chamber of a temple in classical architecture, or a shop facing the street in domestic Roman architecture...

 (with six - ie hexastyle - along the shorter sides, and nine along the long sides) and had a frontal staircase up onto the podium. The temple's facade, like that of the neighbouring temple of Apollo, was part Carrara marble, part plastered travertine

Travertine

Travertine is a form of limestone deposited by mineral springs, especially hot springs. Travertine often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, tan, and cream-colored varieties. It is formed by a process of rapid precipitation of calcium carbonate, often at the mouth of a hot...

.

The Columna Bellica

In front of the temple was a column used in the archaic Roman ceremony for declaring war involved hurling a spear from Roman territory towards enemy territory. However, when for the first time Rome had to declare war on a state whose territory did not border her own (ie Pyrrhus of Epirus

Pyrrhus of Epirus

Pyrrhus or Pyrrhos was a Greek general and statesman of the Hellenistic era. He was king of the Greek tribe of Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house , and later he became king of Epirus and Macedon . He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome...

), it was hard to see how this rite could be carried out. A prisoner of war was therefore forced to hold a small piece of land in the area of the circus Flaminius

Circus Flaminius

The Circus Flaminius was a large, circular area of land in Rome that contained a small race-track reserved for mysterious games, and various other buildings and monuments. It was located in the southern end of the Campus Martius, near the Tiber River. It was ‘built,’ or sectioned off, by Flaminius...

, where a column was raised (perhaps in wood) as a symbolical representation of the hostile territory and a column then hurled against the column. This new procedure was then used on all subsequent occasions (the last well-known example is in 179 AD, under Marcus Aurelius).

A circular area with the paving restored in front of this temple was interpreted in the excavations as the place where this column was sited, on the basis of literary references. This is now interpreted as where the perirrhanterion (for lustrali

Lustrum

A lustrum was a term for a five-year period in Ancient Rome.The lustration was originally a sacrifice for expiation and purification offered by one of the censors in the name of the Roman people at the close of the taking of the census...

at the end of campaigns) was sited before the temple of Apollo was built.

External links

• S.Platner and T.Ashby, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, 1929
• Plans of the Apollo and Bellona temples on the Comune di Roma site here and here
• The Roman ceremony of the declaration of war (Italian)