• Home
• Europe
• Italy
• Pompeii

Temple of Venus

Address: Insula 1,5

The Temple of Venus of Pompeii is immediately to the right at the entrance to the city along the Marina (Sea) Gate. The goddess Venus (also Aphrodite, the goddess of love, in the Greek pantheon of gods) was the patroness of Pompeian Lucius Cornelia Sulla, as well as the city of Pompeii itself. Before the founding of the Roman colony, this site was occupied by a private house, but it was demolished, and the remains were cleared in the early years of the colony to make room for the temple complex.

In less than 250 years, the temple of Venus was rebuilt twice and destroyed twice. The third building of the Temple of Venus was at the construction stage at the time of the eruption. Therefore, those ruins that you see today on this place actually looked like this 2,000 years ago during the death of the city. The archaeologist managed to find a little on the ruins of the temple of Venus. Workers clearly do not stay in the open. Falling rocks of volcanic magma drove everyone who worked here. Therefore, neither bodies nor serious artifacts were found here.

The main entrance (A) to the Temple of Venus opens on the south side of Via Marina. There was also a secondary entrance (B), which opened from the western end of the street Picolo di Championnet. The first temple complex covered a total area of ​​about 300 square meters. meters Traces of the walls surrounding the courtyard of this first temple can still be seen. Along the east side of the courtyard, which ran parallel to the back wall of the Basilica, there were six rooms, two of which were completely open to the courtyard, and the other rooms could be reached through narrow doorways.

The temple of Venus was rebuilt during the first half of the first century AD. The original podium was retained, but the temple building was replaced with marble stones. As it is known the emperor Augustus liked to say that "he took Rome from brick, and left it from marble." The state policy of the empire apparently concerned not only the capital of the Roman Empire, but all major cities. The foundations of the door pillars (C) and the pedestal on which the statue of the deity stood are preserved from this beautiful building.

Based on the surviving fragments, the cella floor consisted of a polychrome marble covering framed by a white mosaic border. The only remnants of the superstructure that can be identified are currently stored on the granary market of the Forum of Pompeii (Regio VII, Insula 7, 29).