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The temple attributed to the Genius of Emperor Vespasian, located to the cast of the Forum, consists of a large courtyard, preceded by a vestibule surrounded by an arcade and fitted with a cella at the rear positioned on a tall podium with a base for the statue of the Emperor. The external walls of the religious area, built of tuff and bricks, are marked by pilasters framing wide blind windows surmounted alternately by triangular and lunated gables. These walls had not yet been plastered ar the time of the eruption in AD 79 as the building had either not been finished or was awaiting refurbishing.
The most interesting part of the temple is the sacrificial altar with the representation of an official sacrifice in honour of the Emperor. All four sides of the pulvino altar, built in white marble, were decorated with bas-reliefs; the altar stood on a plinth and is located in the middle of the yard, along the same axis as the hall and the cella. On the main side of the altar, the one opposite the entrance to the temple, the sacrifice of a bull is represented on the background of a tetrastyle temple. The scene is set right in the front of the Temple of Vespasian in Pompeii. The person conducting the sacrifice has a part of bis toya pulled onto bis head (capite velato) as he pours libations over a tripod; he is assisted by two young servants (camilli) carrying the equipment required
for the sacrifice and accompanied by two lictors and a flautist striking up a tune.
The victimarius, bare-chested and succinetus
(Lewearing an apron = limus), equipped with a hammer and helped by one of bis servants leads the bull to the place of sacrifice where another servant is waiting for them. Along the short sides of the altar, below a festoon of flowers and fruits hanging in bucranes, the tools required for the sacrifice are shown: a towel (mantile), the baton of the augurs (lituus), a case containing incense (acerra) represented on the north side; a dish (patera), a ladle (simpulum) and a jug on the south side. On the side facing the cella, between two branches of laurel stands out a wreath of oak leaves set on a shield (clipeus), similar to the one hung on the fa~ade of
Augustus's house on the Palatino hill, by the Roman Senate and which had been passed on to Vespasian. The depiction of the sacrifice of a bull on an altar, a rite usually performed only in the honour of living emperors, whereas emperors deified after death were offered ox sacrifices, strengthens the hypothesis that the building was devoted to Vespasian.
Source
Soprintendenza
Archeologica di Pompei |
