Capitolia

Abstract

Capitolia, temples to the triad of divinities Iuppiter Optimus Maximus, Iuno Regina and Minerva Augusta, are often considered part of the standard urban 'kit' of Roman colonies. Their placement at one end of the forum is sometimes seen as schematizing and replicating in miniature the relationship between the Capitolium at Rome and the Forum Romanum below it. Reliably attested Capitolia are, however, rarer in the provinces than this widespread view assumes and there seems to be no relationship between civic status and the erection of a Capitolium. Indeed, outside Italy there are very few Capitolia other than in the African provinces, where nearly all known examples belong to the second or early third century A.D., mostly in the Antonine period. This regional and chronological clustering demands explanation, and since it comes too late to be associated with the foundation of colonies, and there is no pattern of correlation with upgrades in civic status, we propose that the explanation has to do with the growing power and inuence of North African élites, who introduced the phenomenon from Rome. Rather than being a form of temple imposed from the centre on the provinces, Capitolia were adopted by provincial élites on the basis of their relationship with Rome.The notion that Capitolia were a standard feature of Roman urbanism in the Western provinces, a model exported from Rome itself, is central to many inuential studies of Roman urbanism. Over the last 160 years, studies on provincial Capitolia specically and Roman cities generally have argued or assumed that Capitolia were common or normal features of Roman cities in the central and western Mediterranean, and of colonies in particular; that they typically stood on or overlooking fora and were planned on a common axis with them; and that they can be recognized by their tripartite cella and high podium. 1 While notes of caution or indeed doubt on several of these points * We would like to thank for their comments and advice

The impact of Roman expansion and colonization on ancient Italy in the Republican period. From diffusionism to networks of opportunity

“…Mommsen 1912, 421;Beloch 1926, 489), but the archaeological discoveries at the mid-Republican colonies after World War II seemed to give special significance to the small-replica idea also on the physical level of the urban lay-out, read as a direct expression of these socio-political values (cf. Pelgrom and Stek 2014;Quinn and Wilson 2013, 2-3 for earlier interpretations of Gellius' text as indicating a physical resemblance to the city of Rome).…”

Mustis revisited: unpublished inscriptions from the Parisian archives

“…16 Could this be proof that Mustis had a capitol? The latest global review of the controversial issue of capitolia in the Roman world (Quinn and Wilson 2013) concluded that there was conclusive archaeological or epigraphic evidence for 27 capitolia 17 and possibly another eight. 18 If the inscription restitution that includes Juno and Minerva together with Jupiter is accepted, then Mustis would be the twenty-eighth confirmed capitolium in the African provinces.…”

Looking over the builders’ work: foreign architects, artisans, and marble at Meninx (Djerba)

“…In this way, two discernible series emerge. More than 20 years ago, Jens Rohmann (1998, 11–30) observed that in the case of the Traianeum of Pergamon there were two similar series of capitals that only differed in particular details, but nonetheless belonged to the same structure, and he sought to explain the existence of these two series. About a decade later, similar observations were advanced for the Hadrianeum in Rome (Lipps 2010–11, 118–26).…”