nemus et templum. soprintendenza archeologica di pompei, pub.pdf

© Copyright 2008 «L’ERMA» di BRETSCHNEIDER - PIETRO GIOVANNI GUZZO E MARIA PAOLA GUIDOBALDI (a cura di) - Nuove ricerche archeologiche nell’area vesuviana (scavi 2003-2006) - Atti del Convegno Internazio-nale, Roma 1-3 febbraio 2007

MINISTERO PER I BENI E LE ATTIVITÀ CULTURALI SOPRINTENDENZA ARCHEOLOGICA DI POMPEI

NUOVE RICERCHE ARCHEOLOGICHE NELL’AREA VESUVIANA (SCAVI 2003-2006)

a cura diPietro Giovanni Guzzo e Maria Paola Guidobaldi

ATTI DEL CONVEGNO INTERNAZIONALE, ROMA 1-3 FEBBRAIO 2007

«L’ERMA» di BRETSCHNEIDER

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Il Convegno, organizzato dalla Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompei con l’Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte e con la Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Romano, e con un contributo della Casa Editrice “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, si è svolto dal 1 al 3 Febbraio 2007 a Roma, nella Sala del Mappamondo del Palazzo di Venezia.Organizzazione scientifica: Pietro Giovanni Guzzo e Maria Paola Guidobaldi.Organizzazione tecnica: Maria Paola Guidobaldi (SAP) con Biagio De Felice (SAP), Carmela Piemontino (SAP), Franco Barbato (SAP), Francesca De Lucia e Raffaella Leveque (Ufficio Stampa SAP), Sandra Cardillo (INASA) e Mario Di Bartolomeo (Ufficio Mostre della Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Romano).Sono stati pubblicati tutti i contributi e i poster pervenuti in tempo utile per l’avvio del processo di stampa. Sono stati pubblicati, inoltre, i contributi di Rick Jones e di Antonio De Simone, non presentati e discussi in sede di convegno, ma consegnati successivamente per la stampa.

PIETRO GIOVANNI GUZZO E MARIA PAOLA GUIDOBALDI (a cura di)Nuove ricerche archeologiche nell’area vesuviana

(scavi 2003-2006)Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Roma 1-3 febbraio 2007

© Copyright 2008 MINISTERO PER I BENI E LE ATTIVITÀ CULTURALI SOPRINTENDENZA ARCHEOLOGICA DI POMPEI

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Nuove ricerche archeologiche nell’area vesuviana : (scavi 2003-2006) / a cura di Pietro Giovanni Guzzo e Maria Paola Guidobaldi. – Roma : «L’ERMA» di BRETSCHNEIDER, 2008. – 542 p. : ill. ; 28 cm. (Studi della soprintendenza archeologica di Pompei ; 25) Atti del convegno internazionale , Roma 1-3 febbraio 2007.In testa al front.: Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali, Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompei.

ISBN 978-88-8265-479-5

CDD 21. 937.7

1. Scavi archeologici – Pompei – Congressi – Roma – 20072. Scavi archeologici – Pompei – 2003-2006I. Guzzo, Pietro Giovanni II. Guidobaldi, Maria Paola

«L’ERMA» di BRETSCHNEIDER

direttore editorialeRoberto Marcucci

responsabile di redazioneElena Montani

con la collaborazione diErik Pender

direttore tecnicoMassimo Banelli

Coordinamento del processo redazionale per la SAPMaria Paola Guidobaldi

in copertinaOperazioni di rilievo topografico con laser scanner 3D nella Regio IX

di Pompei (foto Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”)


In the Roman world, the provision of temple precincts with groves and gardens was probably fairly common practice, but sacred gardens seldom have been investigated archaeologi-cally, and only a few are known anywhere.1 Even in Pompeii they remain rather elusive. Temple gardens or groves have been postulated here, but never corroborated archaeologi-cally, at the temple of Isis and around the Doric temple in the Triangular Forum, as well as at the temple of Venus on the seafront at Herculaneum.2 The plantings around the subur-ban temple of Dionysos investigated in 1973 by Wilhelmina Jashemski remained the only archaeologically explored sa-cred grove of Roman date in Pompeii until excavations by the author at the temple of Apollo in 1998.3

At Pompeii in-depth exploration of accessible spaces such as atria and peristyles in Roman houses is clearly important for the information that can be gained on early Roman and pre-Roman occupation sequences and the processes of change, but the investigation of open areas around temples is also crucial, as it is here that we should expect to find the preserved remains of sacred groves and gardens. This most certainly applies to the sanctuary of Venus Pompeiana which was first cleared of ancient pumice and ash between 1898 and 1900.4 The primary focus of these and subsequent sporadic excava-tions in the twentieth century was to reveal the architec-tural remains of the temple and the colonnades around it.5 No effort had ever been made to explore the sub-soil in the area between the temple and the surrounding porti-coes in search of evidence for a sacred grove, and, in fact, the existence of plantings on the site was questioned, if not denied, by modern scholars.6 Because much of the courtyard of the sanctuary was intact, and because Ve-nus, as a goddess of fertility, could be expected to have had plantings associated with her cult, the site presented

itself as an ideal location for an investigation into the existence and appearance of a sacred grove.7

A research project of excavation and survey was therefore designed to clarify the following: 8 - the date of the earliest Roman temple garden and its

relationship to the first Roman temple; - the nature and type of plantings in the temple garden; - changes in the design of the temple garden between the

time of its establishment and the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79;

- the use of water in the sanctuary and the nature of dedi-cated votive offerings and monuments.

Seven trenches were opened on the west and east sides of the courtyard, avoiding the areas of nineteenth cen-tury disturbance, the large basalt blocks strewn around the site, and the modern pathway that overlies the most westerly part of the courtyard and the foundations of the adjacent portico (Figs. 1-2). The following is a prelimi-nary report on the fieldwork carried out in 1998, 2004 and 2006 by the University of Sheffield.

The location of this Roman sanctuary on the south-west edge of Pompeii’s lava plateau meant that it spectacu-larly overlooked the valley below and would have been visible for some distance by anyone approaching from this direction. The Pompeian sanctuary is related to a group of impressive terrace sanctuaries in central Italy built between the mid- second and the mid-first century B.C., such as, for example, the sanctuaries of Fortuna at Palestrina, of Jupiter or Venus at Terracina, of Hercules Victor at Tivoli, or of Diana Nemorensis at Nemi.9 As at these sites, the area chosen for the temple of Venus in Pompeii underwent substantial alterations to accom-modate the new complex. In order to build on steeply

1 JASHEMSKI 1995; CARROLL 2003, pp. 60-71 (on the archaeology of sacred gardens in antiquity in general); CARROLL forthcoming (on Roman temple groves).

2 JASHEMSKI 1979a, pp. 155-157, 158-160 (re-ferred to as the ‘Sacred Area’).

3 JASHEMSKI 1979a, pp. 157-158, fig. 244; JAS-HEMSKI 1993, pp. 253-254; CARROLL and GODDEN 2000.

4 SOGLIANO 1899; SOGLIANO 1900; MAU 1900.5 SPANO 1910; MAIURI 1960, pp. 173-176. More

recently excavations have been conducted by E. Curti to explore the pre-Roman remains on the site and the relationship between this quarter of the town and the harbour: CURTI 2005, and see this volume.

6 JASHEMSKI 1979a, p. 157. 7 Venus, like Aphrodite, is most often con-

nected with plants and growing things, so, for ex-ample, by Lucretius, de Rerum Natura 1.1, who refers to the earth spreading flowers under her feet. For the connection between Aphrodite and gardens, see Pindar, Pythian Odes 5.24; Hesiod, Theogony 11.194-195; Strabo, Geography 8.3.12, 14.6.3; Pliny, Historia Naturalis 36.4.16; Pausa-nias, Description of Greece 1.19.2, 1.27.3. See also MOTTE 1973, pp. 121-137; CARROLL-SPILLECKE 1989, p. 24, fig. 7. Venus at Pompeii also had the epithet ‘Fisica’. In this guise, she may not have been primarily fertility related, as she appears also to have had celestial and marine connections, and she acted as a goddess of mediation. COARELLI 2002, pp. 88-89, aligns her with the great Near Eastern goddesses, but one of these goddesses, Astarte, and her eastern Greek counterpart, Aph-rodite, were definitely also fertility deities. On the cult of Astarte/Aphrodite with physical evidence for a sacred grove at Kouklia (Paphos) and Ki-tion (Larnaca) in Cyprus, see Herodotus History, 1.105; KARAGEORGHIS and CARROLL-SPILLECKE 1998, pp. 142-146. On depictions of Venus at Pompeii, see SWINDLER 1923; SCHILLING 1954, pp. 285-289, pls. XIV, XV, XVII, Appendix 1; JASHEMSKI 1979a, pp. 124-131.

8 Funding and support for the 1998 fieldwork were provided by Earthwatch and the University of Sheffield. Fieldwork in 2004 was enabled by funds from the University of Sheffield and the Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust. The British Academy funded the 2006 season.

9 On central Italian terrace sanctuaries, see COARELLI 1987.

Nemus et Templum. Exploring the sacred grove at the Temple of Venus in Pompeii

MAUREEN CARROLL

38 MAUREEN CARROLL


sloping land, masses of building debris, stone, rubble and soil were brought in and deposited here to create a level building site for the new temple and its surrounding porticoes. We excavated this deposit in several places to a depth of over a metre (Fig. 3). The finds extracted from this material in the temple terrace date, in the main, to the second century and first half of the first century B.C., suggesting that the temple of Venus Pompeiana, the pro-tectress of Roman Pompeii, dates to the time after the establishment of the Roman colony in 80 B.C.10 Lead sling shot found mixed in with the building rubble in the temple terrace may point to the Sullan siege in 89 B.C. and the subsequent demolition of buildings damaged in this incident.11 Some of the ceramics in these deposits date as late as the mid-first century B.C., suggesting that the building project may have taken some time after the deduction of the colony to be completed.

The sacred precinct of Venus was inserted into the exist-ing urban fabric of Pompeii, and it became the principal and largest sanctuary of the Roman city. The temple was built on the terrace created for it, and our excavations clearly showed how the porticoes were built on and in-serted into the levelling deposits. Parallel to the porticoes on all sides of the sanctuary was a shallow water chan-nel made of tufa for run-off from the portico roof. One source of water for the sanctuary was a large cistern built under the floor of the eastern portico. Contemporaneous with the building of the temple and its porticoes was the landscaping and planting of the open courtyard as a sa-cred grove, the main floor of the courtyard being beaten earth. Our excavations uncovered planting pits for trees with a maximum depth of 50-60 cm below the tufa wa-ter channels on the edges of the courtyard. The arrange-ment of the pits indicates that the temple grove consisted

10 Pottery analysis courtesy of Myles McCal-lum, University of Nevada.

Fig. 1. Pompeii, sanctuary of Venus in its first Roman phase of the first century B.C. Excavat-ed trenches are shown in grey; the black dots in the trenches are planting pits (plan by O. Jessop).

NEMUS ET TEMPLUM. EXPLORING THE SACRED GROVE AT THE TEMPLE OF VENUS IN POMPEII 39


of a row of trees planted parallel to the colonnades on the north, west and east sides of the sanctuary (Fig. 4). In several of the pits were the buried and complete (but bro-ken) terracotta pots, still in situ, in which young plants once had been started (Fig. 5-6).12 They are of the type with four holes in the lower walls and bottom of the ves-sel (Type A, 14-16.5 cm in height) or with one hole in the bottom (Type B, 19 cm in height), and they are related to the ancient practice of propagating and air-layering trees and shrubs in containers and transporting young plants in them to their destination (Fig. 7).13 The larger vessels

from the sanctuary of Venus may well have been too big and heavy to be suspended from the branches of a par-ent tree for the process of air-layering, but they would be well suited as portable containers for shoots or saplings of trees.

Evidence, such as planting pits that inter-cut each other, clearly indicates that some trees had to be replaced from time to time when they died or failed to flourish, and the remains of wooden stakes driven into the ground or through the buried plant pot reveal that temple garden-

11 Lead sling shot also has been found in the destruction horizon of the Sullan siege at the Casa delle Vestali in Insula VI: JONES and ROBINSON 2005, and see also http://www.archaeology.org/interac-tive/pompeii/field/5.html.

12 CARROLL 2003, p. 89, fig. 70.13 CATO, De agricultura 52; PLINY, Historia

Naturalis 12.7. On excavated plant pots, see JAS-HEMSKI 1979a, pp. 238-240; JASHEMSKI 1993; MESSI-NEO 1993; DESBAT 1997; BARAT and MORIZE 1999; MACAULAY LEWIS 2006.

Fig. 2. Pompeii, sanctuary of Venus from the south-west during excavation in 2006 (photo author).

Fig. 3. Pompeii, sanctuary of Venus, rubble and debris used in creating the deposits for the Roman temple terrace. On the right is the tufa water channel parallel to the north portico (photo author).

Fig. 4. Pompeii, sanctuary of Venus, section through the temple terrace deposits (547, 546) into which a planting pot (544) of the temple grove was inserted. Other features of the Augus-tan period include a levelling layer (523), a lead pipe (534, 535) and the mortar paving (503) of the courtyard. On the upper right are the east portico (550) and the tufa water chan-nel next to it (drawing by O. Jessop).

40 MAUREEN CARROLL


ers propped up the trees or bushes if extra support was needed (Fig. 8). Traces of this kind of gardening activ-ity are extremely rare anywhere. Furthermore, the plant pots testify to the existence of plant nurseries supplying a cult organisation with the desired vegetation in contain-ers for the landscaping of a sanctuary. Analysis of the soil in the containers also points to the practice of soil

enrichment in the nursery in which these plants were grown before being transferred to the temple of Venus. The analysed planting soil in the pots was fertilised with shells, fish vertebrae and the bones of juvenile pigs.14

This sacred grove of Venus was very much an ‘archi-tectural’ one in which trees were planted parallel to the

14 Faunal remains analysis conducted by Sa-rah Viner, University of Sheffield.

Fig. 5. Pompeii, sanctuary of Venus, ceramic planting pot in situ during excavation (photo author).

Fig. 6. Pompeii, sanctuary of Venus, ceramic planting pot lying on its side in situ (photo author).

Fig. 7. Pompeii, sanctuary of Venus, selection of ceramic planting pots recovered in the tem-ple grove (drawing by O. Jessop).



water channel in front of the columns of the colonnades on three sides of the courtyard (Fig. 9). The rows of trees on the two long sides of the courtyard did not con-tinue to the southern limit of the sanctuary, but they did flank the temple itself. A visitor approaching from the south, where there was no portico, would have seen the temple framed and highlighted by this grove. The trees were planted at fairly regular intervals of approximately .90-1.00 m (from the centre of the planting pit to the centre of the next pit), and it is to be expected that they echoed the rhythms of the columns of the porticoes in some way. Although the columns of the porticoes will not have been spaced as closely as the plantings, per-haps there was one tree in front of each column and one in between, giving us a colonnade with columns at intervals of roughly 2 m. This juxtaposition of vegeta-tion and portico columns is evident in other architec-tural contexts, as, for example, in the peristyle garden at the so-called villa of Poppaea at Oplontis, where there is a planting about every 1.80 m in front of each column, and in the courtyard of the Palestra Grande in Pompeii, where there are plane trees at intervals of about 9 m, that is one tree in front of every fourth column.15 It is suggested here that the plantings at the temple of Venus constituted what Latin texts refer to as a nemus, a grove created or manipulated by man and furnished with sa-cred buildings and images.16 Unfortunately, due to later alterations and rebuilding of the sanctuary, it is entirely unclear what images and votives may have stood in the precinct at this time.

The plantings in the sanctuary of Venus are as yet of bo-tanically undetermined types, as no organic remains had survived.17 Analysis of the flotation residues may yet re-veal surviving phytoliths that can shed light on the veg-etation in these planting pits. Jashemski’s excavations at many sites in Campania have demonstrated that the size of Roman planting pots need not mean that only small trees and shrubs were able to grow in them. Trees with the potential to grow quite large and have an extensive root system, such as lemons or citrons, were started in ceramic pots 14 cm in height, for example, at the so-called Garden of Hercules in Pompeii 18 The ancient writ-ten sources do not help much either in determining what grew at the temple of Venus, because they say that the vine, the fig, the olive, the pomegranate, quinces, every variety of the apple, the laurel, the plum, the myrtle, the

hazelnut, and the plane are capable of being propagated by layers using pots or baskets, although we can probably rule out the existence of fruit trees in the sanctuary.19

At any rate, the evidence uncovered in the sacred grove of Venus indicates a regular pattern of alternating planting pits containing one of the two types of pot and plant-ing pits with no pot in them: a type A pot, a pit with no pot, a type B pot, a pit with no pot, a type A pot, and so on (Fig. 10). This may suggest tall vegetation alternat-ing with shorter vegetation, or slender plants alternating with bushier, or it may simply imply a sequence of trees and shrubs that required propagation in ceramic pots and those that did not need this treatment. Candidates for the plantings are laurel, as has been suggested for the peristyle garden at Oplontis (now replanted with laurel), or citrons and oleander, as suggested at Livia’s Villa at

15 Oplontis: JASHEMSKI 1979a, pp. 293-296, figs. 443-446, 464; JASHEMSKI 1981, pp. 43-46, figs. 31-34; JASHEMSKI 1993, pp. 294-295, plan 131; Palestra Grande: JASHEMSKI 1979a, pp. 160-161, fig. 246.

16 SCHEID 1993.17 Palaeobotanical analysis conducted by

Glynis Jones, University of Sheffield.18 JASHEMSKI 1979a, 284-285, figs. 428-429,

and 1979b, p. 408, pl. 58, fig. 8. 19 CATO, De agricultura 51-52, 133; PLINY,

Historia Naturalis 17. 97-98.

Fig. 8. Pompeii, sanctuary of Venus, voids left by wooden stakes, one of which pierced a plant-ing pot in situ next to the north portico (photo author).

Fig. 9. Pompeii, sanctuary of Venus, simpli-fied reconstruction of the Roman temple and its grove with alternating types of trees and bushes in the first century B.C. (drawing by O. Jessop).

42 MAUREEN CARROLL


Prima Porta, although we have no mention of oleander at any temple garden in Greece or Italy.20 The myrtle, with its dark berries and white blossoms, was particularly sacred to Venus and also remains a good possibility.21 Most of the planting pots from the temple of Venus are bigger than examples found in private and commercial contexts in Pompeii, and since, as we have seen, a pot 14 cm in size could accommodate a citron with large roots, we can be confident that the plant pots in the sacred grove were for trees of non-dwarf varieties.22 When less substantial plants such as small bushes or flowers were grown in ceramic containers, these tended to be much smaller.23

It remains to explore how the grove in this sacred com-plex in Pompeii was related to other Roman sanctuaries of the late Republic and early Empire. The arrangement

of temple and plantings resembles that in the sanctu-ary of Hephaistos in Athens, a grove laid out probably in the third century B.C. and replanted thereafter in the late first century B.C., possibly just after the damage caused by Sulla in his attack on Athens in 86.24 A grove laid out somewhat earlier than that in Pompeii, but in a similar manner surrounding three sides of the temple, is that of Juno at Gabii.25 This grove dates to the mid-second cen-tury B.C. and was replanted in the early first century B.C. Of the late Republican terrace temples named earlier, certainly the sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis had a grove of trees planted in pits along the porticoes, as recent pre-liminary geophysics and excavation have suggested.26 These date to the first centuries B.C. and A.D. Perhaps all the other grand central Italian terrace sanctuaries were also planted with a grove, although this has yet to be confirmed by archaeological investigation.

The idea of a planted porticus triplex was taken up later for landscape planning in the context of Augus-tan religious architecture. The courtyard of the victory monument of Augustus, built between 29 and 27 B.C., at Nikopolis, was planted, as ceramic plant pots indicate. Like the earlier terrace sanctuaries in Italy, this colon-naded monument was located in a dramatic setting on a hill sacred to Apollo with a view to the sea below where the battle of Actium was decided in Augustus’ favour.27 Allan Klynne recently has investigated another porticus triplex, built possibly in the 20s B.C., on Prima Porta hill to the east of the Villa of Livia with the open side of the complex overlooking the Tiber valley.28 As terra-cotta planting pots excavated here reveal, this porticus triplex was planted, very possibly with the laurels from which Augustus and later Julio-Claudian emperors cut branches for their triumphal wreaths. The porticus and laurel grove may have been designed intentionally to re-flect the layout of a sacred precinct planted with trees and to therefore act as a manifestation of the divine sanction of the gens Iulia.

The ceramic evidence retrieved in our excavations indi-cates that at the end of the first century B.C. or in the early first century A.D., the temple of Venus and its por-ticoes were refurbished with marble, a material that was increasingly being employed for public and sacred build-ings in Pompeii and elsewhere in the Augustan period. This is further supported by the analysis and dating of

20 JASHEMSKI 1979a, p. 295, although she does not rule out citrons; KLYNNE and LILJENSTOLPE 2000a, 233; KLYNNE and LILJENSTOLPE 2000b, p. 125.

21 PLINY, Natural History 12.2. 22 The planting pots from Pompeii tend to

range from between 12 and 15.5. cm, and many of them, but perhaps not the smallest ones, defi-nitely were used for trees.

23 KLYNNE 1997-1998, fig. 8. According to A. Klynne, investigations in 2006 at Prima Porta uncovered clusters of six vessels of only 9-10 cm in height, and he interprets these as containers for flowers, not trees (pers. comm.).

24 THOMPSON 1937. The cuttings for plantings at the temple of Hephaistos are the same distance apart as the columns of the temple so that the col-umns and the trees mirror each other’s rhythm: THOMPSON 1937, p. 403, fig. 6. The cuttings have sides of up to 90 cm in length and were up to 65-90 cm deep. This almost certainly has to do with the fact that they are cut into the bedrock, mak-ing a large cutting that could accommodate the necessary amount of soil for proper tree growth necessary.

25 LAUTER 1968-1969; COARELLI 1993, pp. 48-52, figs. 1-2. As at the Athenian temple of Hephaistos, the cuttings at Gabii are hewn out of the bedrock, so their large size is also explained by the need for an adequate amount of fertile soil. The biggest cuttings there measure 1.50 by 1.60 m, and are 1.20-1.30 m deep, the smaller ones are 1.20 x 1.30 m in size and .60-.80 m deep. COARELLI 1993, p. 50, suggests the latter might have been for myrtles.

26 GHINI forthcoming, and see GHINI 1993 for recent excavations at Nemi.

27 ZACHOS 2003.28 KLYNNE 2005.

Fig. 10. Pompeii, sanctuary of Venus, plan of one section of the row of planting pits parallel to the east portico (plan by O. Jessop).



surviving architectural elements by L. Jacobelli and P. Pensabene.29 More recently M. Wolf, in an architectural study of the sanctuary of Venus, has suggested that the temple and its colonnades were rebuilt in marble and completed before A.D. 30 on exactly the same alignment and on the same scale as the earlier buildings con-structed of tufa.30 Our excavations clearly show that at the time the temple was rebuilt, the grove was destroyed or intentionally abandoned, and the planting pits and pots were covered by a deposit of soil containing pieces of wall plaster, tile and pottery, as well as off-cuts and chips of white marble (possibly Luna) that may have been left from the Augustan building work on site (Fig. 4). On top of this deposit, the courtyard was now paved with a layer of white mortar, and in places this mortar was applied in more than one layer, possibly as a measure to repair minor wear or damage to the pavement (Fig. 11).31 The sanctuary may not have had a grove in this phase, but the remains of lead water pipes, masonry wa-ter tanks abutting the tufa water channels on the edges of the courtyard, and the bases of monuments and stat-ues (some connected to a water source) indicate that the courtyard clearly was a focus of religious veneration and social activity. Yet, quite how the trees could be disposed of, although they belonged to Venus and were therefore of religious significance, remains unclarified.

Years later, in A.D. 62, most public and private build-ings in Pompeii, including the temple of Venus, were destroyed or ruined by the earthquake. In the follow-ing years, the site was cleared for the reconstruction of the sanctuary and building work on the new temple foundations began. The excavations uncovered rare evidence for the work done in this final phase and for the appearance of a Roman construction site, complete with heaps of stone chips and architectural debris from the cutting of basalt foundation blocks and the carving of columns, architectural decoration and votive monu-ments of white and coloured marbles imported from the eastern Mediterranean.32 The temple was to be the biggest and finest yet on that site, and the builders had dug a broad and deep foundation trench around the old temple and were in the process of erecting courses of large basalt blocks against the original building for the new structure (Fig. 12).33 The precinct itself was enlarged over the slope to the south and out into the street to the north. The sanctuary, however, was never

finished, nor was its sacred grove replanted, because Vesuvius erupted before this could happen.34

Sacred groves in Roman sanctuaries rarely have been the focus of any controlled archaeological excavation. The results of our investigations, therefore, have valid-ity not only for Pompeii, but also for an understand-ing of and insight into the physical appearance and workings of Roman sanctuaries in general, especially those in the late Republic. If our interpretation of the evidence is correct, the establishment of an impressive new landscaped sanctuary in an existing settlement

29 JACOBELLI and PENSABENE 1995-1996.30 WOLF 2004, p. 193.31 MAU 1900, p. 291, mentions this mortar

paving, but erroneously associates it with the first and oldest phase of the temple.

32 On the marbles, see BRUNO et al. 1994.33 The explanations of MAU 1900, pp. 273-279,

regarding the building of the new basalt founda-tions are still valid, although the new excavations now give us a better idea of the actual width of the foundation trench.

34 There may have been a plan to pave the courtyard and insert new plantings and water features into this paving once the sanctuary was complete, but this can only be speculation. For paved precincts and public parks in Rome with inserted plantings, see Porticus of Pompey: GLEASON 1994; Forum Pacis: CARETTONI et al. 1960, pp. 73-74, pl. XX.15-16; ANDERSON 1982, pp. 105-107; LLOYD 1982, pp. 91-92, fig. 1; RIZZO 2001, pp. 234-243, fig. 27; Temple of Elagabalus: VILLEDIEU 2001, pp. 84-100.

Fig. 11. Pompeii, sanctuary of Venus, mortar paving layer of Augustan date in the sanctuary courtyard that seals the remains of the earlier temple grove (photo author).

Fig. 12. Pompeii, sanctuary of Venus, looking north at the Augustan mortar paving cut at the far left after A.D. 62 by the construction trench for the new temple and by these pits associated with the building of this temple (photo author).

44 MAUREEN CARROLL


casts light on the ways in which a community used sa-cred space to express changing political circumstances and social relations. Should an older indigenous sanc-tuary (of the Samnite goddess Mefitis perhaps?) have been replaced by the Roman sanctuary of Venus Pom-peiana, the significance of the appropriation of this space becomes clear, especially if this occurred on the initiative of the Roman colonists.35 By the same token,

a real change in the social identity of the community is also evident if the Roman temple replaced other structures such as private houses of Pompeii’s indig-enous population. In either case, the establishment of the Roman temple of Venus with its sacred grove played a formative role in the political, religious and social transformation of Pompeii from a Hellenistic town to a Roman colony.36

ANDERSON 1982 J.C. ANDERSON, Domitian, the Argiletum and the Temple of Peace, in American Journal of Archaeology, 86, 1982, pp. 101-110.

BARAT and MORIZE Y. BARAT and D. MORIZE, Les pots d’horticulture dans 1999 le monde antique et les jardins de la Villa Gallo-Romaine

de Richebourg (Yvelines), in Société française d’Étude de la Céramique antique en Gaule. Actes du Congrès de Fribourg, Mai 1999, Paris 1999, pp. 213-235.

BRUNO et al. 1998 M. BRUNO, L. CONTI, P. PENSABENE and B. TURI, Pompeii after the AD 62 earthquake: historical, isotopic, and petrographic studies of quarry blocks in the Temple of Venus, in J.J. HERRMANN, N. HERZ, R. NEWMANN eds, Asmosia 5. Interdisciplinary studies on ancient stone. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference of the As-sociation for the Study of Marble and Other Stones in Antiquity, Boston 1998, pp. 282-288.

CARETTONI et al. G. CARETTONI, A.M. COLINI, L. COZZA and G. GATTI, La pianta marmo- 1960 rea di Roma antica, Rome 1960.

CARROLL 2003 M. CARROLL, Earthly Paradises. Ancient Gardens in History and Archaeology, London 2003.

CARROLL M. CARROLL, Temple gardens and sacred groves, in W.F. JASHEMSKI forthcoming ed, Gardens of the Roman Empire, Vol. 1, New York, forthcoming.

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35 SOGLIANO 1937, pp. 109-115; COARELLI 1998; COARELLI 2002, pp. 86-90.

36 MAU 1908, pp. 120-121, 124, refers to Sam-nite houses on the site of the later Roman tem-ple.

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nemus et templum. soprintendenza archeologica di pompei, pub.pdf

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