Virtual Ancient Rome in 3D - TEMPLE OF DEIFIED CLAUDIUS -Video Tour

Greetings to everyone on the channel History in 3D. Today we will speak about one of the greatest temples of ancient Rome. It is a temple to the deified Claudius on the Silian hill, which has begun by Agrippina, almost entirely destroyed by Nero after the fire of 64 and completed by Vespasian. Its platform is identified by the fact that Frontinus tells us Nero extended the arches of the aqua claudia as far as this temple and fragments of the marble plan identifiable as this platform carry the inscription Templum Divi Claudi. Emperor Claudius was deified after his death in AD 54. His fourth wife and niece Agrippina dedicated a temple to him on the Silian hill in hanging gardens decorated with rows of hedges and trees. In AD 59 Nero had his mother Agrippina killed. He then destroyed the temple dedicated to his adoptive father. The remaining part of the hanging gardens was then integrated into the Domus Aurea and the eastern side of the foundation was covered with a large anemphium. Marshall tells us that Nero extended the Domus Aurea. He may possibly be referring to the arcaded and porticoed substructures. Part of this Nero converted to use as a series of fountains and nymphaea from which the water mantled the slope of the Silian with cascades and supplied the pool in the valley below. It was really only the temple itself that Nero destroyed. In his plan to return properties to the people Vespasian reconstructed the temple as the Claudium which appears in the marble Forma Orbis. The temple of Claudius was a huge structure that towered over and dominated the surrounding area. The terrace on which the temple stood measures 180 meters deep and 200 meters wide and stands to a height of nearly 50 meters above sea level, one of the highest positions in Rome. It is framed on all sides by substructures. On the south these reach a height of more than 15 meters. The whole slope between the temple and the Colosseum was a garden spaced with arcades in two stories built of massive blocks of travertine, heavily rusticated. The lower story carried flat arches and the upper carried rounded ones. Even the frieze is rusticated and the only finished part is a Doric pilaster capital between each pair of arches in the upper story and the architrave and cornice this carries. The vaulted substructures behind these arches were completed as rooms in brick-faceted concrete masonry and probably used as shops. A street ran along the base of its front. The stair of approach was axial and evidently spanned the street on a bridge. The temple itself faced the Palatine and there was a grandiose stair of approach on its main axis. It was hexa-style with a pronos, three base dip and a frontal stair. Around the temple, covering most of its platform, the marble plan shows narrow bands. Those toward the front of the platform symmetrical banks of seven straight bands to either side. Those toward the back symmetrical banks of four, which turn at right angles. The interpretation of this is difficult. These might be either hedges or even wooden arbors of the sort familiar from paintings of gardens. There was also a Porticus Claudia, which was clearly just inside the limits of the Domus Aurea and would most naturally be located on the Silian in connection with the temple of Claudius. Fragments of the marble plan contain no indication of a Porticus. Nevertheless, it is probable that a Porticus Claudia surrounded the temple. Looks like, through negligence, the cutter of this part of the marble plan omitted to indicate the columns and cut only the margin. The east rear front is well preserved, ornamented with niches alternately semicircular and rectangular, symmetrically disposed to either side of a larger central excetera. Between each pair of these niches are three or four semicircular niches at much smaller scale. This created a dynamic facade that was to house a sculptural group. At the foot of the colonnade, on a lower level, there were four rectangular basins. Water poured from these basins into a single larger pool. Despite the size and importance of its position, the temple is rarely mentioned in literature. He is only mentioned in one inscription and there is no record of his history. Thank you for watching! Please follow our channel and project and support it if you want. All links are in the description under this video. Stay with us and we'll bring history to life together!