The neighborhood of Sullan Bellona at the Colline gate - article ; n°2 ; vol.87, pg 653-665

Palmer (R.E.A.)

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Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Antiquité - Année 1975 - Volume 87 - Numéro 2 - Pages 653-665
Robert E. A. Palmek,~~ The Neighborhood of Sullan Bellona at the Colline Gate~~, pp. 653-665. A review of ail the temples and cuits of Bellona in the city of Rome demonstrates that they were infected with the worship of Ma of Comana. L. Cornélius Sulla twice owed victory over his civil enemies through the intervention of Ma. Therefore he built a temple to Ma Bellona at the Colline Gate on the embankment of the Agger. From the terrace (pulvinus) on which her temple stood Bellona was called Pulvinensis. She named a Roman neighborhood, formerly the Campus Sceleratus. On Monte Mario (Mons Vatieanus) she had ties with Silver Apollo of the Vatican just as other Bellonas may be linked to Apollo or Aesculapius.
Robert PALMEK The Neighborhood of Sullon Bellona at the Colline Gate pp 653-665 review of all the temples and cults of Bellona in the city of Rome demonstrates that they were infected with the worship of Ma of Comana Cornelius Sulla twice owed victory over his civil enemies through the inter vention of Ma Therefore he built temple to Ma Bellona at the Colline Gate on the embankment of the Agger From the terrace pulvinus on which her temple stood Bellona was called Pulvinensis She named Roman neighbor hood formerly the Campus Sceleratus On Monte Mario Mons Vaticanus she had ties with Silver Apollo of the Vatican just as other Bellonas may be linked to Apollo or Aesculapius
13 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

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• Publié par: MELANGES_DE_L-ECOLE_FRANCAISE_DE_ROME
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1975
• Nombre de lectures: 73
• Langue: English

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Robert E. A. Palmer
The neighborhood of Sullan Bellona at the Colline gate
In: Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Antiquité T. 87, N°2. 1975. pp. 653-665.
Abstract
Robert E. A. Palmer, The Neighborhood of Sullan Bellona at the Colline Gate, pp. 653-665.
A review of all the temples and cuits of Bellona in the city of Rome demonstrates that they were infected with the worship of Ma of
Comana. L. Cornelius Sulla twice owed victory over his civil enemies through the intervention of Ma. Therefore he built a temple
to Ma Bellona at the Colline Gate on the embankment of the Agger. From the terrace (pulvinus) on which her temple stood
Bellona was called Pulvinensis. She named a Roman neighborhood, formerly the Campus Sceleratus. On Monte Mario (Mons
Vatieanus) she had ties with Silver Apollo of the Vatican just as other Bellonas may be linked to Apollo or Aesculapius.
Résumé
Robert PALMEK The Neighborhood of Sullon Bellona at the Colline Gate pp 653-665 review of all the temples and cults of
Bellona in the city of Rome demonstrates that they were infected with the worship of Ma of Comana Cornelius Sulla twice owed
victory over his civil enemies through the inter vention of Ma Therefore he built temple to Ma Bellona at the Colline Gate on the
embankment of the Agger From the terrace pulvinus on which her temple stood Bellona was called Pulvinensis She named
Roman neighbor hood formerly the Campus Sceleratus On Monte Mario Mons Vaticanus she had ties with Silver Apollo of the
Vatican just as other Bellonas may be linked to Apollo or Aesculapius
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Palmer Robert E. A. The neighborhood of Sullan Bellona at the Colline gate. In: Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome.
Antiquité T. 87, N°2. 1975. pp. 653-665.
doi : 10.3406/mefr.1975.1031
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/mefr_0223-5102_1975_num_87_2_1031NEIGHBORHOOD OF SULLAN BELLONA THE
AT THE COLLINE GATE
PAR
Robert E. A. Palmer
In the year 296 the consul Appius Claudius (Caecus) faced the com
bined forces of Etruscans, Gauls and Samnites somewhere in southern
Etruria. Explicit in its reference to the a single source records
the consul's vow of a temple to the goddess Bellona1. Appius built the
temple in which he was the first Roman to install decorative likenesses
of his ancestors 2. His descendants still made offerings in the temple
some three centuries later 3. A freedwoman of his clan still kept the
devotion to the goddess of war in her Cappadocian guise 4. Quite recently
F. Coarelli has amply demonstrated the temple's site and remains beside
the oldest Roman temple of Apollo at the edge of the Circus Flaminius
at the foot of the Capitolium 5. The apparently coincidental link with
Apollo will be reinforced in the course of this essay.
Besides the Bellona of the Circus Flaminius the goddess had at least
three other Roman temples. The most recently discovered shrine of
1 Livy 10.19; E. T. Salmon, Samnium and the Samnites (Cambridge, 1967)
pp. 263-64. Ovid, F. 6.199-208, emphasizes the Tusco duello from the land
of the battle.
2 Pliny NH 35.12.
3 CIL, VI 1282, which must belong to the temple as we now know its
location thanks to Coarelli.
4 See below on Ma.
5 F. Coarelli, II tempio di Bellona, in BC 80 (1965-67) pp. 53-72; his a
rgument is confirmed by CIL, VI 1282. In early times the Claudii had been given
at public cost burial grounds below the Capitol (Suet. Tib. 1.1). These may
have lain near the future site of Bellona's temple, but of course actual burials been found in the Campus Martius at the foot of the national monument
of Italy's unification, a location also sub Capitolio, loosely speaking.
MEFRA 197 5, 2. 44 ROBERT E. A. PALMER 654
Bellona is revealed by a tombstone set up by Apidia Ma who seems to
have sold sacred vessels at the temple of Bellona Insulensis. This temple
should be situated on the Tiber Island and be related to the Cappadocian
Ma whom the Eomans knew as Bellona 1. The third temple of Bellona
stood in Augustan Region III where the goddess was called Rufilia.
The location of the fourth temple belonging to Bellona Pulvinensis has
not yet been determined although guesses have been made 2. Finally,
a shrine of Bellona stood on the Oapitolium in 48 B.C. and apparently
rose again later (see below). One of these Bellonas very probably gave
her name to the Eoman neighborhood Vicus Bellonae. This neighborhood
and its temple form the subject of our essay.
Since it cannot be Bellona's temple of the Vicus Bellonae and since
chronology merits the priority, I begin with Bellona Eufilia: [d(is)] m(a-
nibus) / L(ucio) Cornelio Ianuario / fanatico ab Isis Serapis / ab aedem
Bellonae Rufìliae / v(ixit) a(nnos) XXII, m(enses) XI, d(ies) XXI fe-
c(it) / C(aius) Calidius Custos amico / b(ene) m(erenti) 3. The regionary
catalogues name the third Augustan region Isis et Serapis. Like other
regions (VI, Alta Semita; VII, Via Lata; XII, Piscina Publica), the third
region was named after its main street 4. The presence of Bellona Bufìlia
on the street of Isis and Serapis is not the last association of these three
deities. The epithet Rufilia has been variously interpreted as 'blood red'
or as the gentilicial name of the temple's founder 5. It must be noted
that the goddess' fanaticus bears the praenomen and gentilicial name of
L. Cornelius Sulla. Sulla's ancestors were Rufini or Run. The most f
amous was P. Cornelius Sulla Rufus Sibylla, praetor and decemvir in
212 B.C. He instituted the Ludi Apollinares for the Apollo who was
neighbor to the Claudian Bellona 6. His forebear, Rufinus the consul of
290, triumphed over the Samnites 7. Rufinus was the first of his line
1 S. Panciera, Nuovi documenti epigrafici per la topografia di Roma antica,
in Pont. Ace. Rom. Arch. Rend. 43 (1970-71) pp. 121-25.
2 Coarelli, op. cit., p. 66 n. 128.
3 CIL, VI 2234 = ILS, 4181a.
4 Very probably the Vicus Isidis of Tert. Idol. 20.2; CIL, VI 32462 =
ILS, 4280: Gallo Diasuriaes ab Isis et Serapis; M. Rostowzew, Tess. Syll. 494:
obv., ab Ise et Serap., rev. Harpocrates.
5 Aust, RE, 3.1 (1897) col. 256; Platner-Ashby, TDAR, p. 83.
6 F. Münzer, RE, 4.1 (1900) col. 1518; Broughton, MRR s.a. 212; cf. Coar
elli, op. cit., p. 41 ff.
7 This is the famous Rufinus whom Fabricius expelled from the senate
in 275 for owning ten pounds of table silver. See Broughton, MRR, s.aa. 290,
275; Degrassi, II 13.1, p. 545; Salmon, op. cit., pp. 276-77, 282-83, 383. NEIGHBORHOOD OF SULLAN BELLONA AT THE COLLINE GATE 655 THE
to experience unusual dreams: he dreamt his own blindness and awoke
blind 1. Sulla Felix had more efficacious dreams as we shall see. Yet
Sulla's names are borne by the fanaticus ab aedem Bellonae Bufiliae.
L. Cornelius Januarius received his tombstone from C. Calidius Custos.
In 80 B.C. Sulla's consular colleague and his wife's first cousin, Q. Cae-
cilius Metellus Pius, successfully campaigned for the election of C. Cali
dius to the praetorship. Calidius had brought the bill which recalled
Metellus' father from exile in 98 B.C. 2. A Metellus built the temple of
Isis which apparently gave its name to the street and region in which
Bellona Eufllia was worshipped 3.
Bellona Eufilia very probably received her temple from P. Cornelius
Eufinus after his triumph over the Samnites in 290 just as Ap. Claudius
vowed a temple to Bellona in 296 when he faced the same enemy. L.
Cornelius Sulla assigned his freedmen to care for a temple built by the
last of his ancestors to hold the consulship. A temple to Isis was raised
near that of this Bellona and was associated with the Caecilii Metelli.
The unique document of Bellona Eufilia records a descendant of Sulla's
freedman and a descendant of a freedman of C. Calidius who was a client
of the Metelli.
Before turning to Sulla's devotion to Bellona we must survey the
Cappadocian element injected into the dictator's ancestral interest in
the Italian Bellona whom his consular ancestor worshipped. The Cap
padocian was called Ma. She originated in the town of Comana
situated in a deep and narrow valley of the Antitaurus Mtns. Her chief
1 Pliny NH 7.166. Compare the famous blindness of Ap. Claudius.
2 Cic. Plane. 69, Val. Max. 5.2.7.
3 Platner-Ashby, TO AB, pp. 285-86. An upper limit to the date of this
temple can be derived from the nickname of P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio,
consul in 138 B.C.; see F. Münzer, BE, 4.1 (1900) cols. 1501-1502. At the colony
of Puteoli Serapis already had a temple by 105 B.C. (ILLBP, 518). M. Michel,
Inventaire préliminaire des documents égyptiens découverts en Italie (Leiden,
1972), pp. 167-71, distinguishes the Iseum Metellinum from the temple of Isis
and Serapis in the third region. But his arguments are faulty and, further,
he knows nothing of Vicus Isidis (above, p. 654, n. 4). The adjective Metellinum is
a less common type than those in -anus. Thus in the regionary catalogues we
find Hercules Sullanus in Region V (i.e. outside the Servian Wall). For examples
of the formation in -anus or -ianus see CIL, VI 114, 131, 135, 186, 204, 463,
466, 645, 649, 792, 8706, 30874,