Sanctuary of the public Lares

Sanctuary of the public Lares
General description
The Sanctuary of the public Lares overlooks the east side of the Civil
Forum of Pompeii, being placed between the Macellum and the Aedes Genii
Augusti.
It is a huge, quite squared hall, provided with two lateral alae and an apse in
the back wall; the front of the building is open, since the façade is formed
by a row of eight columns aligned with the colonade of the forum. There are
three niches in each side wall of the main room, in the antae and east of the
alae, and two more niches in the rear wall, on both sides of the apse. The
niches, alae and the end of the apse are all equipped with bases; besides, a
bench runs along the internal surface of the apse. The centre of the building
is underlined by the base of an altar.
At present, structural elements are built in opus quasi-reticulatum, opus
incertum and opus testaceum (for those definitions, see the glossary of the
Fortuna Visiva Project under the voice: “Building Technique”). Traces of the
original decoration reveal that it was covered with crustae of marble, paved
with opus sectile, adorned with marble columns, at least in the apse, and
statues on the bases.
3D model of the Public Lares building
Intended use and interpretation
Since the building’s discovery, the recognition of its purpose has been quite
difficult. Scholars agree on the public function because of the position in the
forum and the richness of the lost architectural decoration. However the lack
of its furniture, including statues and inscriptions, still constitutes an obstacle
for establishing a definitive function.
The idea of the public use of this building prevailed during the 19th century.
The building has been alternately identified with the Curia, the Senaculum or
the Decurionatus of the city. All these terms stand for the meeting venue of
the decuriones, members of the senate of the city, more precisely named
ordo of the decuriones. Archaeologists formulated this hypothesis for the
function of the building because its main feature is the almost open and
circular space, which scholars used to believe particularly suitable for public
assemblies.
Plan of the Lares sanctuary with remains of the ancient paving (Mazois)
Following this hypothesys, the base in the centre of the apse, which is the
largest, would have hosted the seats of the duoviri, the chief magistrates of
the city; statues of gods or eminent people would have occupied the bases
located in the alae and in the niches; finally, the altar in the centre would
have been used for religious rites during the assemblies.
Aedes Genii Augusti and the building of Eumachia were restored and
covered with marble after the earthquake.
At the end of the 19th century, August Mau (Mau 1899), followed by
important scholars and superintendents of Pompeii such as Antonio
Sogliano and Amedeo Maiuri, identified the building with the Lararium
publicum. In his reconstruction of the building, Mau assumed that the
aedicula in the apse hosted three small statues, thus presenting «striking
analogy to the shrines of the Lares found in so many private houses». As
private houses had places of worship for the domestic lares, the city could
have had a place of worship for the public Lares in the heart of the forum.
Niches and alae would have hosted images of other deities, generally
associated with Lares.
This interpretation dominated until recently. However, scholars today point
up the relationship with the emperor and the imperial family (Zanker 1993
and Dobbins 1994).
Mau already thought that the sanctuary could have been dedicated to the
cult of the Genius Augusti, a sort of instance of the divine nature of the
emperor, and the Public Lares, as a result of the reorganization of the
worship of the those tutelary divinities by Augustus.
Today Paul Zanker notices that the building was designed in such a way as
to create a gallery of statues, perhaps of the members of the imperial family,
as happened in many other cities of the western part of the roman empire. It
is not surprising that John Dobbins calls the building «sanctuary of the
Imperial Cult».
Dating
Photograph of juncture between Sanctuary and Aedes Genii Augusti
On the contrary, according to Heinrich Nissen the sanctuary was built after
the earthquake, under the emperor Vespasian or his sons (Nissen 1877).
Since the building was the headquarter of the Collegium of Augustales, thus
devoted to the imperial cult, the three niches fitted well for the portraits of the
three-members family.
The post-earthquake thesis has been substained by other scholars; among
them John Dobbins, who recently conducted a new survey in the forum and
a stratigraphic study of the structures (Dobbins, Pompeii Forum Project).
Dobbins examined the junction points between the Sanctuary and the Aedes
Genii Augusti, and pointed out that:
The dating of the building is even more controversial. In particular is still
debated whether the foundation of the building occurred before or after the
earthquake of 62 a.C.
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the current façade of the Aedes and the southern anta of the Sanctuary
both overlap a previous structure belonging to the Aedes in a more
ancient phase;
August Mau was the first to base his considerations on the physical
relationship between the sanctuary and the adjoining buildings (Mau 1879).
He stated that the sanctuary had been built between 20 and 50 a.C.
because it abutted the near Aedes Genii Augusti (7-2 b.C.) and the
Macellum (14-19 a.C.). Thus Mau thought that the Sanctuary was older than
the flanking two buildings and that it already existed when the façades of the
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the southern ala of the Sanctuary leans on the external wall of the
Aedes;
-
the western end of the southern anta of the sanctuary is the result of a
later reworking.
The Sanctuary of Lares is therefore later than the Aedes Genii Augusti,
indeed is later than the phase related to the rebuilding of its precinct wall,
due, according to Dobbins, to the earthquake. Furthermore, the absence of
visible post-earthquake repairs, the similarity of the sanctuary to
architectural models developed in Rome in the age of Nero and, finally, to
the obliteration of the street running along the South side of the Macellum,
which implies a new urban scheme, lead Dobbins to conclude that the
sanctuary of public Lares was built after 62 b.C.
Further researches will help in future to clarify this fundamental question.
History of knowledge: the Sanctuary through some
documents of the XIX century
The Sanctuary of the Public Lares was brought into light in 1818: the source
of news related to this discovery is Giuseppe Fiorelli, Superintendent of
Pompeii and Director of the National Museum of Naples in the second half of
the XIX century.
Some years later, Franz Christian Gau, according to Carlo Bonucci (director
of the excavations), identifies the building with the Senaculum.
In the opera Les Ruines de Pompéi (Paris, 1812 – 1838) by François
Mazois, the plan of the building and its longitudinal section, showing its
North side, are represented in vol. III, Pl. 37. This print, dating between 1818
and 1829, shows the remaining part of the ancient paving and the attempt to
reconstruct its geometric design.
Gau claims to have seen the pavement, no longer visible while writing. A
base of pillar and a fragment of frame are the only remnants of the
architectural decoration. However, he speculates that there were two
columns in front of each ala and a series of columns leaning on the wall of
the apse. He encloses the plan by Mazois, although rejecting his
«restoration», with the hypothetical extension of the alae to encompass the
lateral columns on the façade: the idea was born to justify the larger
columns of the sanctuary in comparison with those of the Forum Porticus.
In his Pompeianarum Antiquitatum Historia (Naples, 1860-1864), a sort of
diary of the excavations compiled from the handwritten notes by former
superintendents, he writes that a beautiful building, «with walls adorned by
elegant niches», ending with a much larger one, where «a monument
consisting of several statues may have been located», was discovered on
July 15th, along the eastern side of the forum.
Several drawings and prints show how the archaeological remains appeared
at the eyes of the discoverers and to the first visitors. Such documents have
variable importance and reliability, depending on: the cultural and technical
background of the creators, the purpose of the work, the live examination or
the previous models. Yet, some of them are very useful to the knowledge of
buildings discovered some time ago and probably spoiled or restored since
that moment.
A sketch (Gell 1801-1831, Pl. 15) representing the Sanctuary from the west
side of the forum, near by the Temple of Jupiter, was made by an English
drawer or architect, probably William Gell. It dates between 1818 and 1820,
very close to the discovery of the building, since the adjoining Macellum
appears still covered. It is a frontal view of the sanctuary, provided with a
very small plan and some handwritten remarks: the building, identified with a
Curia, is furnished with eight «corinthian» columns of «fine white marble»
«within the antae», with «statues in the niches» and «in the centre at the
end», and finally with slabs of «Phrygian marble» on the floor.
Lares sanctuary in a etching by Rossini (ca. 1831)
In the same period, two more measured plans give the same evidence of the
sanctuary: two, very similar drawings of the outer walls made by Pierre-
Achille Poirot (Poirot 1826, Pl. 59) and Félix Duban (Paris, Ensba, PC
40415-2-003). The first one, dating in 1826, made by a French architect and
painter of architecture; the second drawn by F. Duban, architect of the École
des Beaux-Arts de Paris, during his “pensionnat” in Rome, between 1823
and 1828.
niches, the apse and the alae, as shown by Figures 40 and 41 of his
publication Pompeii. Its life and Art (New York, 1899). Bases and socle
support columns belonging to shrines-aediculae standing on the angular
pilasters and containing the statues.
Also Luigi Rossini, in his monograph entitled Le antichità di Pompei (Rome,
ca. 1831), outlines and etches a view of the «Curia» (p. XXXVIII), printed in
1830. In the related caption he writes that some remains of the ancient
paving and piece of mouldings of the attic type were still visible on the floor
and on the walls during his visit to Pompeii.
While many travellers and scholars documented the state of the ruins, many
others went beyond trying to reconstruct or to imagine the original
appearance of the sanctuary. The École Nationale Supérieure des BeauxArts de Paris keeps in its archives the Envois, and the related Mémoires,
made by its students of the 4th year. Students were sent to Rome in order to
make them deepen ancient architecture. They were required to submit the
«Envois», that is drawings of monuments, represented in the “current state”,
and the related «Restaurations» (hupothetical reconstructions). Many of
them choose Pompeii as a subject instead of Rome.
Félix-Emanuel Callet, for example, left a general plan of the forum
“restaurée” (Paris, Médiathèque de l'architecture et du patrimoine,
AP77N00229), giving a particular reconstruction of the sanctuary: a
continuous wall placed between the antae closed the entrance of the
building, which was considered open to the forum by all the contemporaries;
two columns were in front of the alae and two rows of columns were aligned
with the pillars at the end of the apse.
The evocative restoration of the forum by Léon Jaussely (Paris, Ensba, Env
100-05) is more recent. It goes beyond the archaeological reconstruction.
His frontal view of the eastern side of the forum, dating in 1910, shows a one
floor Corinthian Portico, surmounted by an entablature richly decorated by
statues. The Portico is closed by gates, placed between the columns on all
of the sides, in order to preserve the precious furniture. This drawing is just
an exercise of architectural design inspired by the ruins of Pompeii.
Nevertheless, it testifies the role which the ancient city played in the training
of architects and artists and in the education of gentlemen, as well as in the
imaginative world, still in the 20th century.
Jaussely’s reconstruction was influenced by the hypothesis of the
archaeologist August Mau. Mau detected a socle running along the inside of
the structures, projecting out in correspondence with the bases in the
Mau (1899), cross sections of reconstruction of Sancturary
Because of the different thickness and the consequent different height of the
rear and of the lateral walls, Mau argued that the apse and the alae only
were roofed: the central room was a «paved court open to the sky».
Consequently, the bases in front of the entrance held a two level Portico
[joining that of the neighboring buildings, but devoid of the roof.
References
GELL 1801-1831 - Gell W., Pompeii. Recueil de vues, plans, détails
d'architecture, relevés de fresques executés par un architecte ou
dessinateur anglais de 1801 à 1831, Tome 2, Pl. 15. Set of drawings in the
Library of the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art in Paris, bound in two
volumes. The first one contains preparatory drawings to the first issue of the
famous Pompeiana: The Topography, Edifices and Ornaments of Pompeii,
London 1819 by W. Gell. The second one is formed by drawings excluded
from the edition of 1819. Some of them will be included in the later editions,
not the sketch of the sanctuary of Lares (Pl. 15), which remains unpublished.
POIROT 1826 - Pierre-Achille Poirot, Carnets de dessins, Tome 2 (Pompeia,
1826), pl. 59. Paris, Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art
MAU 1899 - Mau A., Pompeii. Its life and art, New York 1899
ZANKER 1993 AND DOBBINS 1994 - Zanker P., Pompei, Torino 1993; Dobbins
J.Jr., Problems of Chronology, Decoration, and Urban Design in the Forum
at Pompeii, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 98, n. 4, 1994, pp. 629694 (see the section of the Imperial Cult Building in the Pompeii Forum
Project website)
MAU 1879 - Mau A., Pompejanische Beiträge, Berlin 1879
NISSEN 1877 - Nissen H., Pompejanische Studien zur Städtekunde des
Altertums, Leipzig 1877