70 MICHAEL DEWAR
by Julius, Augustus, and Tiberius Caesar, thus creating something
akin to a unified monumental precinct proclaiming the glory of the
Julian House. Yet there were limits to what even those three passion-
ate builders could do: space was, as we have noted, in short supply,
and not even in ancient Rome did fires happen every day. Hence the
most spectacular activity of the Julians had been the massive increase
in public space provided to the north by the Forum of Caesar with its
Temple of Venus Genetrix and the adjoining Forum of Augustus with
the Temple of Mars Ultor.^6
The result was that there was relatively little room left for the
Flavians. One corner, set back a little from the Forum Square proper,
was more or less unclaimed by any truly monumental building, and
Vespasian’s sons snapped it up. Beyond the angle made by the Tem-
ples of Saturn and Concord they constructed a building rather old-
fashioned in style, the Temple of the Deified Vespasian. The temple
was probably not yet complete when Titus himself met an untimely
death only two years after his father, and it is possible that it was then
formally dedicated to father and son as the Templum Divorum
Vespasiani et Titi.^7 Later Domitian would also rebuild the Curia,
enlarging it to such an extent that it was necessary to demolish the old
shrine to Janus Geminus that marked the entrance to the Argiletum
and then to smooth the god’s ruffled feathers by building him a more
magnificent shrine, this time to Janus Quadrifrons, in the Forum Tran-
sitorium. Janus now looked out in four different directions, thus sym-
bolically uniting the whole conglomeration:
nunc tua Caesareis cinguntur limina donis
et fora tot numeras, Iane, quot ora geris.
at tu, sancte pater, tanto pro munere gratus
ferrea perpetua claustra tuere sera.
(Mart. 10.28.5–8)
Now your threshold is surrounded by the gifts of Caesar, and you num-
ber as many forums, Janus, as you have faces. But do you, holy father,
in gratitude for such bounty, hold fast your iron doors with bolt never
drawn.6 For the work of Augustus and Tiberius in the Forum Romanum see e. g. Ward
Perkins 1981, 39–40, 45, and also Zanker 1988, 81–2, who describes the Forum as a
‘showplace of the Julii’.
7 For the Templum Vespasiani see Ward-Perkins 1981, 70–2. With regard to the
common belief that the temple was also dedicated to Titus, however, Thomas 2004,
26 n. 24 rightly urges caution.