30 ARCHAEOLOGY • July/August 2019RELIGION:
THE TEMPLE OF VENUS OF POMPEII
T
he most important Roman deity in Pompeii
was Venus, the goddess of love and beauty,
and her temple, raised high on an artificial plat-
form next to the Porta Marina (“Marine Gate”),
was the city’s largest sacred site. The temple has
been the subject of archaeological debate for at
least the past decade. “Up until fairly recently, it
was always thought that there was a direct link
between the construction of the temple and the
establishment of the Roman colony in the first
century b.c.,” says archaeologist Marcello Mogetta
of the University of Missouri, who directs current
work at the site. But between 2005 and 2007, an
Italian team questioned whether the first temple
on the site had actually been dedicated to Mephi-
tis, goddess of the pre-Roman Samnites, and later
repurposed as a temple to Venus to honor P. Cor-
nelius Sulla, the nephew of Pompeii’s Roman con-queror, L. Cornelius Sulla. Venus was known to
be the younger Sulla’s favorite goddess.
Although the Italian team concluded that
the temple dated as far back as the late sev-
enth century b.c., Mogetta’s ongoing excava-
tions have now shown that while the area was
settled earlier, the first temple on the spot
was not built until after the establishment of
the Roman colony in 80 b.c. “This debate is
so important because it shows two differentviews of the coming of the Romans to Pom-
peii,” Mogetta says. “It forces us to ask ‘Is
the sanctuary an ancient place of pride for a
local goddess that is honored even when the
Romans take over—a not uncommon occur-
rence—or is it a case of a Roman goddess
being imposed on the local population to
send a message?’ This is crucial to our under-
standing of the changes brought about by the
Roman conquest.”v
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RSamnite-period alleyTerracotta roof
decorationPre-temple construction layers