Marcus Agrippa: Right-hand Man of Caesar Augustus (33 page)

Figure 4. Excavations in the nineteenth century established that older foundations exist below the present Pantheon, which are presumed to be of Agrippa’s original building.

The Pantheon’s joint square and circle plan was not unique, but there was only one other building in Rome at the time with a porch in front of a rotunda, which is the so-called ‘Temple B’ in the Largo Argentina whose builder and purpose is unknown.
¹⁴⁷
The round enclosed sacred space of the cult building, with a diameter of some 18.9m (62ft), echoed the domed
tholos
of earlier times in Greece, more usually associated with burial. The door, which opened into the rotunda, was reached by six steps covered by a colonnaded porch formed of a row of single columns of stucco covered tufa, about 11.5m (38ft) wide, providing cover or shade as dictated by the weather. The Pantheon differs in its scale and detail. In the present arrangement the
pronaos
of the Pantheon has three rows of Corinthian columns, eight of grey granite in the front row and four of pink granite imported at great expense from Mons Claudianus (modern Gebel Fitery) and Syene (Aswan) respectively in Egypt in each of the second and third, which may possibly have been salvaged from Agrippa’s original Pantheon and reused in the later rebuilds (
fig. 5
).
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The columns are 40 Roman feet high and weigh up to 100 tons each. The exterior adornments of the Pantheon attracted the attention of Pliny the Elder who saw it in the first century CE just as its original builder had erected it:

Figure 5. Piranesi’s drawing of the Pantheon as it was in 1756 displays the inner structure of the
pronaos
. Hadrian may have reused materials from Agrippa’s original Pantheon in the extensive rebuilding after its destruction by fire.

The presence of a
fastigium
– a Latin word meaning ‘slope’ or ‘summit’ but which refers to the triangular structure above the
pronaos
– suggests it was similar in appearance to the pediment of Hadrian’s Pantheon, and thus its front elevation was traditional and Greek in style.
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The enclosed space in a pediment was often filled with statues depicting mythological stories of gods or heroes. The design scheme created by Diogenes of Athens for the decorations is entirely lost. However, the statues Pliny refers to may have been placed not in, but on top of the
fastigium
, located on platforms at each end and on the apex, which were common features of Roman public buildings and are often depicted in images of temples shown on coins.

The reason for Diogenes’ choice of caryatids as columns is not clear. The Roman architect Vitruvius writes,

As Pliny describes them, the caryatid-shaped columns would likely have appeared as they do in the ‘Kore Porch’ (Porch of the Maidens) of the
Erechtheion
on the Acropolis of Athens. The
Erechtheion
offers an interesting analogue for the Pantheon. The main building was sacred to Athena Polias and Poseidon Erechtheos with adjoining sacred precincts for holy relics, which included the score marks left by Poseidon’s trident as it struck the acropolis, an olive tree, and various altars to Hephaistos and an Athenian hero named Boutos.
¹⁵²
In the
Erechtheion
the draped caryatid figures form the shafts of six columns with Ionic capitals above their heads. In Agrippa’s building these shapely columns may have supported the roof of the
pronaos
or surrounded the main wall of the rotunda as the regular fluted columns do in the round, roofed Temple of Hercules Victor in the
Forum Boarium
or the tholos-style ‘Temple B’ in the Largo Argentina in Rome.
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From the outside Agrippa’s Pantheon may have looked like the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washinghton, D.C., designed by the architect John Russell Pope and completed in 1943, though its rotunda is surrounded by Ionic columns, not caryatids.
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That building is open on all sides to let in light and air. The caryatids of Agrippa’s building may have stood on a low wall – like the
Erechtheion
– forming the rotunda which supported a tiled roof, unless the space was left open to the sky.

The entrance to the original structure may once have borne the now famous inscription:

However, the bronze letters on the present building (
plate 17
) are faithful modern copies – even the iconic pediment with its entablature, which today bears them, probably does not date from Agrippa’s time.
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The inscription may have been designed specifically for the Hadrianic edifice as a homage to its original builder, since he is known to have scrupulously retained original dedications after he restored buildings.
¹⁵⁶
The formula of the inscription is problematic for a temple. One scholar has pointed out that it does not specify a god, as would be expected of a temple, that it is not a votive dedication, nor actually a dedication at all.
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One compelling theory identifies the Pantheon as a monument commemorating Agrippa’s victorious
land
battles, dedicated to Mars, complementing as it does the neighbouring
Basilica Neputini
, dedicated to Neptunus, which celebrated his successes at
sea
.
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Placing the statues of Agrippa and Augustus outside, as the joint victors, makes sense in this context. The figure of Iulius Caesar, located close by the entrance, would have represented a divine link between the mortal men outside and the Olympian gods Mars and Venus inside.
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Further it is possible the statue of Iulius Caesar gazed out across the
Campus
to the final resting place of the man who inherited his name. The
Fasti Frati Arvalum
, a list of public holy days, maintained by the Arval Brothers – the aristocratic organization which came to be responsible for sacrifices on behalf of the imperial family and of which Agrippa was a member – shows an entry made some time after 12 BCE in the addendum for 23 September for gods in the
Campus Martius
:

Significantly all three gods listed – divine patrons of Augustus and Agrippa – are the
di Actii
associated with victory in the Actian War.
¹⁶¹
As the Pantheon was paid for by Agrippa, he may have always intended it to be a private shrine (
sacrum privatum
) and not a public temple (
aedes publica
), since he did not arrange for it to be consecrated according to religious law; but he did make it – like the Basilica of Neptunus – accessible by the public.
¹⁶²
Augustus’ Temple to Apollo Actius located beside his own house on the Palatinus was also such a private shrine. As Roman public opinion did not approve of victory celebrations over fellow Romans – Sex. Pompeius and M. Antonius in Agrippa’s case – erecting the Basilica and Pantheon was a politically acceptable way for him to mark his military successes and to express his gratitude to the appropriate gods.
¹⁶³
Yet it is also possible that the iconic inscription, which has come to symbolize the building, may not have been what Agrippa originally wrote on it at all.
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The original appearance and meaning of Agrippa’s Pantheon remain frustratingly enigmatic.

The design of the interior space of Agrippa’s Pantheon is also a mystery. The present rotunda has a diameter of 43.3m – 2.3 times that of Temple B in the Largo Argentina. Curious is that Pliny’s description of the original building focuses on the art decorating the front, yet he says nothing of the main structure, whereas Dio specifically mentions the vaulted roof of the later structure which he says ‘resembles the heavens’.
¹⁶⁵
Pliny was writing about the building dating from Agrippa’s time and his silence about the interior of the rotunda, in comparison to Dio who was describing the Hadrianic rebuild, perhaps hints at a restrained style of decoration – one suited to the rustic sensibility of its client – that did not merit particular comment. Unless new sources dating to antiquity are found, it is unlikely we will ever know what a visitor to the original Pantheon saw shortly after its opening when he went inside.

It may have been during this period that the foundations were laid for Agrippa’s own final resting place. Called the
Sepulchrum
or
Aedes Agrippae
(
fig. 12
) its exact location is not known with certainty, though if the remaining letters on fragments of the so-called ‘Marble Map of Rome’ dating to the later Severan period are of this monument, it may have stood between the
villa Publica
and the Baths of Agrippa in the modern Via del Gesù.
¹⁶⁶
It may have been built using marble shipped in from Agrippa’s own quarries located in Phrygia.
¹⁶⁷

The question inevitably arises about how much Agrippa was personally involved in these civil engineering projects? As he was paying for the works out of his own pocket he must have taken a very active interest, at least selecting the architects and agreeing the designs, contributing ideas about the features or critiquing the final appearance of the buildings. Based on his earlier enthusiasm as aedile for hydraulic engineering projects, in which he is known to have inspected Rome’s main sewer or the
Portus Iulius
in person, he was probably a regular visitor to the construction sites, checking on the quality of building materials and encouraging the civil engineers, craftsmen and labourers on-site to work harder and faster. This would have been particularly true of the Pantheon where the building may have had his own name on it. Agrippa would likely have consulted Augustus before he departed about his intentions for the development of the
Campus
: seemingly everything he did was done with his friend’s best interests in mind, and carried out with his approval.

What motivated Agrippa to spend his own money on these lavish edifices in the
Campus
and to dedicate them to memorializing the cause of Augustus? Dio suggests that he did it ‘not out of any rivalry or ambition on Agrippa’s part to make himself equal to Augustus, but from his hearty loyalty to him and his constant zeal for the public good’; Augustus’ response to his friend’s
fidelitas
and
humanitas
‘so far from censuring him for it, honoured them the more’.
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Augustus knew only too well how fortunate he was to have such a friend in whom he had absolute trust.