Il modello architettonico di tempio dall’area della cd. “Sede degli Augustali” a Ostia: vecchie ipotesi, nuovi elementi

Abstract

The tormented vicissitudes of Ostia’s marbles, from their initial disposal in the twilight of antiquity and in the centuries
to come, to their dispersion or reuse in later contexts both in Rome and in other centres in Italy, are widely known. Not
infrequently, and indeed with a certain frequency in Ostia, given the quantity and fragmentary nature of the material in
question, it then happens to trace, in the archaeological area as well as in its vast deposits, pieces or entire architectural,
sculptural and epigraphic portions that join up with others already known, thus allowing for a continuous increase in
knowledge on the relative documentary sources and, ultimately, on the centuries-old history of the city.
In this vein is also the recent recognition of two matching fragments belonging to the entablature and the underlying
capitals of a marble temple model, the lower and almost intact portion of which, corresponding to the podium with
an incorporated access staircase and the pronao and cella above it at the level of the column bases, had already been
found near the so-called “Seat of the Augustals” during excavations in 1939. It is «the most striking example» known
of a type of artefacts with a generally plastic-representational and iconographic function of existing or to-be-built real
architecture, when not ideal, and votive in other cases.
The subject of this contribution is therefore the study and virtual recomposition and reconstruction of the entire temple
model, together with a more up-to-date and opportune reconsideration of the original context of location and provenance
of the object.