Defining Rome's Pantheum
Siwicki, CS
Date: 7 December 2019
Article
Journal
Journal of Ancient History
Publisher
De Gruyter
Publisher DOI
Abstract
Writing in the early third century CE, Julius Africans claimed to have built a library ‘in the
Pantheon’ in Rome, although the exact location remains elusive. In considering the competing possibilities
for the site of the library, this study argues that the building we commonly refer to as the Pantheon does not
correspond to the ...
Writing in the early third century CE, Julius Africans claimed to have built a library ‘in the
Pantheon’ in Rome, although the exact location remains elusive. In considering the competing possibilities
for the site of the library, this study argues that the building we commonly refer to as the Pantheon does not
correspond to the ancient understanding what the Pantheum was. The case is made that it was not a single
building, but instead comprised a larger complex, of which the still-standing structure was only one part. This
interpretation allows for a number of details associated with the Pantheon to be rethought within a wider
context and alternative proposals to be made regarding the forecourt, the ‘arch’ in the centre of this space, the
location of the now lost caryatids and bronze columns, the little understood Severan restoration, and the
meanings of the much-discussed inscriptions on the façade.
Classics, Ancient History, Religion and Theology
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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