![]() ![]() The east side is the best preserved, and changes carried out by Nero can be noted here. ![]() Vespasian subsequently reduced the consumption of water, returning it to civilian use. During the time of Nero there were fountains and the remains of one of these, consisting of a ship's bow with a boar's head, were found and are now in the Capitoline Museums. The northern side was composed of a row of vaulted rooms. The western side of the platform was constructed with travertine and some remains were incorporated into the bell tower of the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. The known remains are of the four sides of the platform and nothing remains of the temple above. Remains of the Temple at the base of the tower of the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Rome Although not depicted on the Forma Urbis, the temple and gardens were likely encircled on all four sides by a portico (a Porticus Claudia is mentioned by the poet Martial). It was surrounded by a large garden composed of parallel rows of shrubs. Together they depict a temple with a prostyle hexastyle porch (a projecting porch with six columns) on the west side of the building. The design of the Temple is partially known from 7 fragments of the Forma Urbis and a Renaissance drawing of another, now lost fragment, in the Vatican Library. The entrance to the courtyard was from the south, through a monumental central entrance with an imposing stairway, oriented towards the Palatine Hill. The actual temple was constructed on a podium 20 steps above the surrounding platform. The temple stood on a great rectangular platform (180 x 200 meters), supported by powerful retaining walls of 15 metres or more, that are still partly visible. The area occupied by the Temple is approximately bounded by the present roads of Via Claudia, Viale del Parco del Celio and the Clivus Scauri. In the 15th century, Pope Paul II used stone from the ruins of the Claudium to build the Palazzo San Marco in the Campus Martius. Rodolfo Lanciani believed that it could have been falling into ruins as early as the mid 4th century, when a capital from one of the podium columns on the west side was reused in the house of John and Paul (the Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo al Celio was built over the house at the end of the 4th century). The last mention of the temple is from the fourth century and nothing is known of what happened to it after Vespasian’s reconstruction. ![]() A fragment of the Forma Urbis which depicts the southern end of the temple complex shows an apsidal building in front of the stairs and rampway which accessed the temple, which was likely the home of this association. Vespasian reconstructed the Temple of Claudius and established an association dedicated to the worship of the numen of Claudius, known as the Augustales, adjacent to the temple on its southern side. Another conduit was carried to the western edge of the hill and ended right beside the Temple of Claudius. ![]() From there conduits branched off along the hill to the north, bringing water to the nymphaeum and the temple. This branch, known as the Arcus Neroniani, accessed the Claudia at Porta Maggiore and ran 2 kilometers west to the southern side of the Caelian Hill, where it terminated at a structure called the Aqueductium. To supply his nymphaeum with water, Nero constructed reservoirs within the Caelian and built a new branch aqueduct to carry water to the hill from the Aqua Claudia. Archaeological excavations confirm that the water cascaded from the top of the nymphaeum down into 4 basins, which in turn fed into the huge pool in the valley now occupied by the Colosseum, which was in the time of Nero the centrepiece of the gardens belonging to the Domus Aurea. The nymphaeum was made up of tiered columns and semicircular and rectangular niches it likely would have contained a large sculptural group at the centre. The eastern wall was transformed into a grand nymphaeum, or elaborate fountain, to embellish the view from Nero's new palace, the Domus Aurea, on the adjacent Oppian Hill. In 59 Agrippina was murdered by her son, the Emperor Nero, who converted the massive podium built to support the unfinished temple to his own uses. History Ĭonstruction of the Temple of Claudius on the Caelian Hill was begun by Agrippina, the fourth wife of the Emperor Claudius, after his death in 54 AD. It housed the Imperial cult of the Emperor Claudius, who was deified after his death in 54 AD. The Temple of Claudius ( Latin: Templum Divi Claudii), also variously known as the Temple of the Divus Claudius, the Temple of the Divine Claudius, the Temple of the Deified Claudius, or in an abbreviated form as the Claudium, was an ancient structure that covered a large area of the Caelian Hill in Rome, Italy. The Temple of Claudius to the south (left) of the Colosseum (photo of the model of Imperial Rome at the Museo della Civilta Romana in Rome). ![]()
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