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At the time of its foundation in the legendary reign of Numa Pompilius (7th century BCE), the Temple of Vesta was supposedly a simple round Italic hut, made of wattle and daub, with a thatched roof. The temple was probably burned by the Gauls during the sack of Rome ca. 390 BCE. In 210 BCE, it was saved from another fire that destroyed many of the buildings around it by thirteen slaves, who were set free as a reward. The temple of the Late Republican period had a strange peculiar roof topped by a figure holding scepter and patera and antefixes on the eaves made to look like large gryphon heads.
The temple burned in 14 BCE and again in the Great Fire of 64 CE during the reign of Nero, who restored it soon thereafter, and there appears to have been another restoration under Trajan. The temple of the early imperial period was a tholos (round building) with a shallow dome that retained the figure with scepter and patera from the earlier period. Atop the high podium of this temple was its cella and peripteros with Ionic columns.
The temple was destroyed again by fire during the reign of Commodus in 191. This time, the temple was restored by Julia Domna, the wife of Septimius Severus. The late imperial temple was made of white marble and had an frieze on the entablature decorated with sacrificial implements. It had a base of three steps that led up to the podium. The peripteros had twenty fluted Corinthian columns, standing on plinths that jutted out from the podium. The intercolumniations were filled with grillwork. Inside the temple, a row of engaged columns along the circular wall corresponded to the columns of the peripteros. This temple was closed by the Edict of Theodosius in 394.
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L. Richardson, jr., A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore and London 1992) 412-413. |