erings, which might have been political rather than fully reli-
gious in character—meetings of the senate, for example.
These developments culminated in the best preserved of
all Roman temples, the Pantheon in Rome, built by the em-
peror Hadrian (117–138 CE) to replace an earlier building
of Augustus’ time (see Figure 4). Dedicated to all the gods,
it is circular rather than rectangular. It had a conventional
precinct and porch, but the cella, 150 Roman feet in diame-
ter, was roofed with a concrete dome. Light was admitted,
for deliberate effect, through an opening in the center of the
dome.
In the provinces of the empire, temples sponsored by
the authorities usually imitated those of Rome. They most
often employed local building techniques and, usually, local
materials, but they were essentially similar to Roman proto-
types. Local tradition, however, often influenced form. This
is very clear in Egypt, where Egyptian-style temples were still
being built under the Romans. In Greece and part of the east
the relationship was different, because Roman temples them-
selves were already influenced by Greek form and served sim-
ilar religious concepts. Here the local tradition was architec-
tural rather than religious, and was not insisted upon.
Roman temples on high bases were built, some distinctly
frontal, but there was a more ready tendency towards fully
colonnaded arrangements, when money was available. The
Roman East was wealthy—Asia Minor and Syria in particu-
lar—and some temples of the Roman period were quite
splendid. The major Greek cities were already well provided
for—Artemis of Ephesus (Diana of the Ephesians) still had
the temple last rebuilt for her in the fourth century BCE—and
new building was mostly concerned with the political cult
of Rome and with individual emperors (Trajan, for example,
at Pergamum). Pergamum also possesses, in the sanctuary of
Asklepios patronized by the emperor Caracalla, a unique ex-
ample of a temple based on the Pantheon at Rome.
The most splendid of these temples in the Roman East
is that dedicated to Jupiter at Heliopolis, the Roman military
colony at Baalbek in Lebanon. A huge temple stands on a
high podium in the Roman tradition. On the podium is a
Greek-type stepped base. The surrounding Corinthian col-
onnade is arranged in the East Greek (Ionic) manner with
a wider central spacing at each end. In the cella (now ruined)
was a shrine structure with a cult crypt underneath (better
preserved in the neighboring so-called Temple of Bacchus)
serving local religious ritual. Outside was a tall tower altar
of eastern type. Eastern influences can be detected in the ar-
chitectural decoration, such as Persian-style bulls on the
frieze. Finally, the temple was given a precinct (never com-
pleted) and forecourt with a gateway building flanked by
towers which derives from local, not Roman, concepts.
SEE ALSO Architecture; Iconography, articles on Egyptian
Iconography, Greco-Roman Iconography.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arnold, Dieter. Die Tempel Ägyptens. Götterwohnung, Kultstätten,
Baudenkmäler. Zurich, 1992.
Boëthius, Axel. Etruscan and Early Roman Architecture. Harmond-
sworth, U.K., 1978.
Burkert, Walter. “The Meaning and Function of the Temple in
Classical Greece.” In Temple in Society, edited by Michael V.
Fox, pp. 27–47. Winona Lake, Ind., 1988.
Colonna, Giovanni, ed. Santuari d’Etruria. Milan, 1985.
Dinsmoor, William Bell. The Architecture of Ancient Greece. 3d ed.
London, 1950.
Frankfort, Henri. The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient.
5th ed. New Haven, Conn., 1996.
Gros, Pierre. L’architecture romaine. 2 vols. Paris, 1996-2001.
Gruben, Gottfried. Griechische Tempel und Heiligtümer. 5th ed.
Munich, 2001.
Hägg, Robin, and Nanno Marinotos, eds. Greek Sanctuaries. Lon-
don and New York, 1993.
Heinrich, Ernst. Die Tempel und Heiligtümer im Alten Mesopota-
mien. Berlin, 1982.
Hellmann, Marie-Christine. L’architecture grecque, vol. 1, Paris,
2002.
Lawrence, Arnold W. Greek Architecture. 5th ed. Revised by R. A.
Tomlinson. New Haven, Conn. 1996.
Martin, Roland. Greek Architecture, New York, 1998.
Shafer, Byron E., ed. Temples of Ancient Egypt. Ithaca, N.Y., 1997.
Tomlinson, R. A. Greek Sanctuaries. London, 1976.
Ward-Perkins, J. B. Roman Imperial Architecture. Harmonds-
worth, U.K., 1981.
R. A. TOMLINSON (1987)
CLEMENTE MARCONI (2005)TEMPLE: MESOAMERICAN TEMPLES
The most common form of sanctuary in Mesoamerica is the
temple-pyramid-plaza, that is, the peculiar combination of
an elevated foundation, almost always artificially built, with
a temple on the upper platform. Usually adjoining this unit
at the base of the access staircase is a series of open spaces
(plaza, esplanade, altar platform). This basic combination
was perpetuated for over twenty-five centuries, with several
constants that gave it relative coherence within an extremely
varied panorama and allowed it to be integrated into larger
and more complex architectural clusters.
STRUCTURES. The embryonic form of this temple combina-
tion can be found in the principal mounds built from com-
pressed soil or from adobe (sun-dried brick) by the Olmec
in areas around the Gulf of Mexico, such as San Lorenzo (in
the present-day Mexican state of Veracruz) and La Venta (in
Tabasco) between 1200 and 900 BCE. Associated with a
thrust toward monumentality that reflected the cultural
vigor in Mesoamerica at the end of the Preclassic period (600
BCE–200 CE), the temple-pyramid-plaza soon spread to otherTEMPLE: MESOAMERICAN TEMPLES 9065