It's the so called "temple with portico", a temple on a high basement called podium , surrounded on three sides by a portico (m. 40x25) and probably built during giulio claudian age (first half of the 1 sec. .). dedicated to the cult of the emperor. It's an Etruscan model temple. there were three entries with stairs in peperino that allowed the access to the area porticata,there were four symmetrical niches on the lateral walls , destineted to contain honorary statues. The portico ended with two great apses, that still have traces of white plaster with blue , yellow and dark red blots. the temple with portico had never been restucturated in the following ages. Along the western side, next to a rectangular hall, a door conducts to an external courtyard. Of the old portico, todaywe can see only the quadrangular bases of 24 columns in peperino on the three sides, delimiting together with a canaletta of drainage, a courtyard paved with plates of travertino. it is still visible also the staircase of access to the pronao and the walls of the cell absidata , in which tere were the statue of cult .we hanve no idea of divinity to which the temple was dedicated. he/she could perhaps be the College of the Augustalis cumani.
the temple with portico is surely an etruscan temple because there was the so-called "krépidoma", a high staircase with 3 or more steps that allowed the access only to the priests .other differences are: while The Greek temple is built with heavier materials as marble, stone and tufo,the etruscan one was built with lighter materials like wood and bricks. also The meaning that two people attributed to the building is different. While the Greek considered the temple as the god's home, Etruscans believed that it was a place of cult and payers. |