Temple of Hercules Victor

For other uses, see Sanctuary of Hercules Victor (Tivoli).
Temple of Hercules Victor
The Temple of Hercules Victor, in the Forum Boarium
Temple of Hercules Victor is located in Rome
Temple of Hercules Victor
Temple of Hercules Victor
Shown within Augustan Rome
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Coordinates41°53′19″N 12°28′51″E / 41.8887°N 12.4808°E / 41.8887; 12.4808

The Temple of Hercules Victor (Italian: Tempio di Ercole Vincitore) or Hercules Olivarius (Latin for "Hercules the Olive-Bearer")[1] is a Roman temple in Piazza Bocca della Verità, the former Forum Boarium, in Rome, Italy. It is a tholos, a round temple of Greek 'peripteral' design completely surrounded by a colonnade. This layout caused it to be mistaken for a temple of Vesta until it was correctly identified by Napoleon's Prefect of Rome, Camille de Tournon.[2]

Despite (or perhaps due to) the Forum Boarium's role as the cattle market for ancient Rome, the Temple of Hercules is the subject of a folk belief claiming that neither flies nor dogs will enter the holy place.[3] The temple is the earliest surviving mostly intact marble building in Rome and the only surviving one made of Greek marble.[4]

  1. ^ Barton Sholod, "Charlemagne in Spain. The Cultural Legacy of Roncesvalles", p. 144
  2. ^ "...houses built into the round Temple of 'Vesta', which de Tournon correctly identified as of Hercules Victor, were removed" in 1811 (Salmon 1995, 150).
  3. ^ Leone Battista Alberti, Architecture Archived 2011-06-05 at the Wayback Machine, trans. James Leoni (1755), p. 117.
  4. ^ "Temple of Hercules". World Monuments Fund. Retrieved 2019-12-15.