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A New Parallel: Chester
An additional comparison comes from an interesting structure discovered at the Roman military base of Chester, England, datable to the Domitianic period.52 There, an elliptically planned timber-roofed building (Fig. 2.10 a, b) was composed of 12 radiating chapel-like spaces that faced inward onto a colonnaded portico that supported an attic with sculptural decoration. At the heart of the plan there was a small central open-air space where a fountain was placed. Prompted by the 12-part subdivision of internal space, investigators have proposed a polyvalent religious character for the site. This was likely a celebration of the lineage of Augustus in the company of the gods – including Augustus and Caesar – but perhaps also a physical and symbolic image of the world.53 The overall length of the elliptical building, around 40 meters, is comparable to the internal diameter of the Pantheon, and one might ask if Agrippa’s project could have taken a similar form: not a simple annular ring, then, but a series of monumental “chapels” that faced a porticoed colonnade encircling a space open to the sky via an opaion. Hypothetically, where decorative roundels (clipei) may have been placed on the attic at Chester in imitation of similar features in the Forum of Augustus, the caryatids of Diogenes of Athens could have found their place in Agrippa’s Pantheon.
2.10. Plan (a) and model (b) of ancient elliptical building excavated in Chester, England. (Computer reconstructions by Julian Baum in an update of Mason 2000)
Symbolism and the ascensio ad astra of Romulus
As previously mentioned, the site of the Pantheon was associated by tradition with the apotheosis of Romulus, the first king of Rome, and as such, it served as a model for the future consecrationes of later Roman emperors. The fact that Dio Cassius interpreted the cupola of the actual building as a symbolic representation of the heavens is pertinent in this regard. Such symbolism had diverse manifestations. In one sense, it was expressed through the perfection ofmathematical relationships, in particular through the proportions of the interior. As Giangiacomo Martines explains in his chapter, these proportions correspond uncannily to Archimedes’ proposition relative to the properties of the sphere and of the cylinder since the measures of the drum and the cupola coincide (Plate XII).54 Although the hypotheses that envision the rotunda as a sort of solar clock,55 or microcosmic image of the world,56 are perhaps too ambitious for the evidence, it is clear that the dome evoked the vault of the heavens. Moreover, the central opaion left open as the passage between earth and sky evokes an essential element in the process of apotheosis. Gilded bronze stars placed in the coffers of the dome may have accentuated the celestial symbolism.57 The sun’s rays enter through the opaion and, due to the effect of the rotation of the earth, illuminate the walls of the rotunda, its exedrae, and its aedicules in constantly changing ways (Plate IX). These are perhaps the fundamental elements that distinguish the Hadrianic Pantheon from related buildings.
IX. Dome and oculus. (The Bern Digital Pantheon Project)
Thus, the luminous ray of light directed toward and shining through the entrance under the sign of Torus and of the Virgin does not privilege the dates of the equinoxes (when the light falls on the zone between dome and the main order), but rather, like the orientation of the Ara Pacis, the birth date of Rome, April 21. On that date, exactly at midday, the stream of light from the opaion is centered on the entrance bay of the temple. It is as if, at precisely this moment, the emperor had entered the Pantheon illuminated by the sun as a reflection of this calculated arrangement. Like the Augustan obelisk at Campo Marzio, the Pantheon also had a strong solar association and, like the Ara Pacis, a special symbolic relationship with the date of Rome’s foundation. The movement of the sun thus exalts the connection between Romulus, first founder of the city, whose apotheosis the Pantheon celebrates, and Augustus, the new Romulus and second founder of the Urbs after decades of civil war.
Of further possible relevance to the temple’s ideological program is the recurrence of the number 7, as in the number of exedrae in the rotunda, and its multiple 28, which is the number of coffers in each ring of the dome.58Theodor Mommsen thought that the seven exedrae were occupied by statues of the seven planetary divinities.59 This theory poses some difficulty in the choice and placement of these gods, for there were other deities to take into account, including Romulus/Quirinus, the divine Caesar, and perhaps Apollo and Diana in their incarnations of Sol and Luna.60
There remains the problem of determining how much of this subtle program was understood by ancient visitors. Were they aware of the complexity of the mathematical formulas, or the symbolism embodied in the numbers 7 and 28? I don’t believe so.61 Visitors instantly sensed the harmony of the space, as we do today at a distance of roughly two thousand years, having grown up with comparable images from the time of the Renaissance. The starry vault, the great hole in the dome, the apses, the aedicules, and the niches in the walls with the statues of divinities were all probably taken in without much recognition of the architect’s mathematical concerns. Visitors would no doubt have wondered about the significance of the sunbeam that moved along the walls and washed the niches and their sculptures with dramatic effect. Only subsequently, perhaps with the help of experts or local guides, would ancient visitors have sought to reconcile the number of the niches and the distribution of divinities with a familiar belief, or scheme, or programmatic logic.
It seems to me that one of the most significant elements for the ancient visitors’ cognition of the Pantheon at a semiological level is a scheme that follows the rules of a templum on a circular plan. More precisely, with its division into 16 segments (seven exedrae plus eight niches plus the entrance), the plan imitates the celestial templum according to the rules of Etruscan learning, the disciplina Etrusca, as transplanted into Roman religion, and the well-attested distribution of the gods in the sixteen regions of the celestial templum.62 Not all visitors would have appreciated the complex system that must have suggested the scheme, but certainly they would have learned some of the essential ideas of it. Perhaps the statues of the gods would have roused dormant memories and rendered comprehensible the otherwise complicated figural program. The distribution of the statues might even have reconciled the number 7 with the more or less canonical distribution of the gods in the 16 regions of the heavens.63 It is even conceivable that the luminous solar beam streaming through the opaion was intended to fall on the divine statues on their principal festival days.64 If it did not, the potential for such an effect remained as appealing for the ancients as it does for present-day visitors.
Agrippa’s Pantheon: Greek or Roman?
Dio referred to the possibility of naming the edifice after the emperor. Just as the Greek term Augousteion refers to the divinized Augustus honored in a manner consistent with Hellenistic tradition, so too Dio’s Pantheion implies an association of divinized mortals with the Olympian gods. The most accurate interpretation of the term Pantheion can be deduced from an inscription on one of the altars in the sanctuary of Demeter at Pergamon,65 which points to a translation as “temple of all the gods” rather than simply “extremely sacred.” Both the cult of the 12 gods and the cult of all the gods operated as flexible systems, subject to local variations.66 In the religious attitudes behind these cults, there is a certain liberty that contrasts with traditional cults, which typically could not be altered without loss of civic identity.
Just as a new divus, King Eumenes II, was included among the 12 Olympian gods in Pergamon, Julius Caesar would become the first mortal to be celebrated among all the gods in Rome. In both cases, these were probably only specific moments in the evolution of more complex forms of dynastic cults that extended to other members of the family. There is, in addition, a “cosmic” valence that should also be taken into account, as is evident in the figural program of the Great Altar of Zeus, where the battle between the gods and giants involves earth, sea, and sky. Symptomatic of a general trend, rulers play superhuman roles in the gods’ scheme for bringing peace and prosperity ba
ck to the world, along with an equilibrium between cosmic and terrestrial forces.
In this context, Edmund Thomas has correctly associated the Pantheon’s program with that realized by Antiochus I of Commagene (c. 86–36 BC) in the construction of the hierothesion on Mount Nemrut (Nemrud Dağ, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in modern Turkey).67 The hierothesion, a religious sanctuary, is simultaneously Antiochus’s tomb, a cult site to him and his ancestors, and also a sanctuary of all the gods.68 On the summit of the mountain, the sovereign constructed two enormous terraces, from which five divinities on thrones dominate the landscape. Four of them are syncretistic divinities of the Greco-Persian pantheon, while the fifth divinity is Antiochus himself, co-opted among the gods.69 We know that he wanted his tomb, hence his body, buried in close proximity to the gods, some of whom were planetary deities. In Rome, the Pantheon was perhaps dedicated to an analogous goal. Although the morphology of these buildings may not be comparable, it is also true that a cult of all the gods or of the 12 gods did not require a predetermined spatial configuration. Indeed the commonly accepted premise of a circular space as indicative of function as well as typology is misfounded.70 Thus, in spite of obvious differences, the important link between the ideological forms adopted by a Greek ruler and the nascent Augustan principate should not be underestimated.
Andreas Grüner has argued that Agrippa’s Pantheon was not a sacred building, but a sacred enclosure comparable less to Greek structures than to a tradition of Roman open-air (hypaethral) and centrally planned temples.71 The fundamentally Roman aspect of the project and the limited nature of comparisons with Greek buildings are not in question. Nevertheless, it cannot be a question of strictly Roman characteristics, for the very name Pantheon reveals decisive Greek connections. The case of the Tychaion of Alexandria seems to confirm those links.
The Tychaion of Alexandria
As with the Mausoleum of Augustus, parallels in the architecture and topography of Alexandria have also been cautiously advanced for the Pantheon.72 The most significant example is a structure dedicated to Tyche, goddess of fortune or prosperity, cited only in late antique documents, the earliest of which is from the fourth century AD.73 The monument apparently stood in the area of the royal palaces, by the side of the canal also called Tychaion that flowed toward the center of the city.74 The monument was described in detail in one of the ekphraseis collected under the name of Libanus of Antioch (AD 314–393), even if not by his hand.75 The text by the Pseudo-Libanus is complicated and ambiguous:
An enclosure is placed in the middle of the city, dedicated to many divinities, but on the whole it is said to be of Tyche.... The place is formed as follows: the whole is artistically elaborated from the pavement to the ceiling; the building is articulated by semicircular niches, before each of which are placed columns of various kinds. The niches were built for the exhibition of works of art, and it is possible to enumerate the niches instead of the statues; between the statues rise columns. There are not statues of all the gods, but of twelve. And a high point emphasizes the position of the founder relative to the other heights and their positions; the statue has the appearance of the Soter [royal savior] and holds that through which the city is usually nourished. And Charis stresses the nature of the earth; she is encircled by half of the statues of the gods, according to their number. Exactly at the center is placed a sculptural group depicting Tyche, who through a crown gives notice of Alexander’s victory. And Tyche crowns Gaia, who in her turn crowns the winner. Victories are at Tyche’s sides and through them the artist has emphasized well Tyche’s power, as Tyche knows all of victory. Thus the appearance of the place culminates in the laurel crown that is held by the statue. And one high on a seat discusses philosophy, another is nude and bears in the left hand an image of the heavens, but the right is held over all; nude, without clothes, he is represented as such. And bronze stelai, on which are inscribed the laws of the city, are inside on the pavement. And inside there are doors that lead to the sacred enclosure of the Muses. Kings of bronze are inside, not all those that follow one another in time, but only the most renowned of them.76
From this passage we may draw several facts and inferences: Although it survived until the seventh century,77 the Tychaion must be dated to the Hellenistic period because its center was occupied by a representation of Alexander the Great without any reference to Roman emperors. Semicircular exedrae housed statues of the 12 as-yet-unidentified gods.78 On a high point of the structure, (a high plinth, or the top of a column?), the statue of an unidentified Soter (a title associated with the Ptolemaic kings of Egypt meaning literally: savior, deliverer) held an attribute connected to fecundity.79 A statue of Charis (embodiment of grace, kindness) was surrounded by six divinities, and there was a complex sculptural group composed of Tyche, flanked by Victories, who crowned Gaia (mother earth), who in turn crowned the only mortal clearly identified, Alexander the Great.80 The location of these sculptures, like those of the unidentified kings, is a matter of conjecture. The location of bronze stelai inscribed with civic laws on the pavement of the sanctuary is equally unclear.
It is nonetheless evident that the Tychaion was a covered building of religious purpose with a variety of imagery.81 Its dedication to Tyche and the cult of the 12 gods must have been related in some way to Alexander and the unidentified Soter, both of whom are mentioned in the description. The other unamed kings mentioned were perhaps added over the course of time. Relevant to the Pantheon is the program of the Tychaion, possibly a circular building with exedras/apses containing statues of gods and of the sovereigns who bore comparison with them. The alliance of the gods and the sovereigns with political functions emerges from the presence of the civic laws inscribed on the stele of the interior.
The Pantheon as a Place of consecratio and of Imperial Veneration
Evidence for the north-facing orientation of the Pantheon of Agrippa and its similarity in plan to the present building are key elements in the interpretation of the monument and the role it played in the ideological program underlying the monumentalization of the central Campus Martius. The choice of the site can be related to the legend of the disappearance of Romulus.82 According to one version of events, the heavenly ascension of Rome’s founder occurred during a military review in a place originally called Ovile, the enclosed area for voting that was later replaced by the Saepta Iulia, not far from the palus Caprae.83 The whole area was subsequently transformed by Caesar and then Agrippa and Augustus. As a result, the marshy palus caprae was transformed into the elegant stagnum Agrippae, Agrippa’s vast artificial lake. Over time, the Saepta lost its original civic and military functions, becoming a market square and a place of diversion for idlers.84 Thus, the proximity of the Pantheon appears to hark back to mythical events associated with the very origins of Rome itself. Indeed, the reprise of the plan of the Hadrianic Pantheon in many later centrally planned mausoleums with porches, which cannot be accidental, perhaps represented a cultured reference specifically to the first Roman assumed among the gods and, more generally, the prospect of postmortem divinization.85 The right to be buried in the Campus Martius was conceded to several illustrious men by decree of the senate and at public expense for analogous symbolic reasons. Later, the northern area of the Campus Martius directly in front of the Pantheon would become sites for altars consecrated to subsequent Roman emperors.86
In topographical context, therefore, it would seem that the Pantheon operated as the focal point for an innovative religious system. It was a place of veneration of the principal Olympian divinities (probably including Romulus/Quirinus), along with the first divinized member of the gens Iulia, Julius Caesar. Judiciously, Augustus himself must have rejected the idea of presuming this honor while still alive, preferring to have his statue placed with that of Agrippa in the porch of the temple while no doubt awaiting his turn to move into the temple proper. The Pantheon was thus born with historical and dynastic functions, assimilating episodes, observances, and associative topographical
values that had not previously been coherently linked: the apotheosis of Romulus; the presence of tombs of illustrious men honored by service to the Republic; the sanctification of Julius Caesar, with its echoes of the death and divinization of Romulus;87 and the future apotheosis of Augustus, the new Romulus by virtue of founding a new Rome, and thus heir to his immediate and distant forebears.
The eagle holding a crown of oak in its talons that decorated the pediment of the Pantheon, according to the interpretation of the fastening holes by Lucas Cozza, recalled the moment recounted by Suetonius (Vita Augusti 97) when a real eagle landed on the tympanum of the temple, the portent that had augured the death and divinization of Augustus (Plate XVII).88 The oculus in the dome presented that union of earth and sky that symbolized an apotheosis into the heavens. The space to the north of the Pantheon, which the pediment overlooked, was later occupied by the Temples of Matidia and Hadrian and the altars of imperial consecratio destined for the massive funerary pyres of deceased emperors. The symbolic ritual that took place for these occasions is well known: The pyre was lit and when the flames reached the summit, they consumed the knots that held an eagle imprisoned in a cage. The eagle, finally free, flew off carrying with its mighty wings the divine aspect of the emperor liberated from his mortal remains.89