T. Keith DIX Julius
Caesar's Plans on the Capitoline
Suetonius includes in his life of Julius Caesar a list
of projects de ornanda instruendaque urbe which
were cut short by Caesar's death (44.1-3). This paper
examines two projects in Suetonius' list, the theater and
the library, and argues that both are to be associated
with the Capitoline and were elements in a much larger
complex planned by Caesar.
Caesar had shown his interest in the Capitoline from
early in his political career: as aedile in 65, he
restored to the Capitoline the trophies of Marius, which
had been removed by Sulla (Vell. 2.43.4, Suet.
Iul. 11, Plut. Caes. 6). On the first
day of his praetorship in 62, he disputed the right of
Quintus Lutatius Catulus to rededicate the temple of
Jupiter Optimus Maximus, which had been burned in 83 and
rededicated in 69 (Suet. Iul. 15, Cass. Dio
37.44).
Suetonius says that Caesar intended to build
theatrum summae magnitudinis Tarpeio monte
accubans. In 44, Caesar destroyed the temple of
Pietas in the Forum Holitorium to make space for this
theater, in the area where Augustus would later build the
Theater of Marcellus (Cass. Dio 43.49.3, Plin.
NH 7.121). A theater complex stretching from the
banks of the Tiber to the slopes of the Capitoline would
have been a worthy rival of Pompey's Theater complex in
the Campus Martius. Perhaps Caesar even intended to trump
the temple of Venus Victrix at the summit of Pompey's
cavea, by making the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus
his own "theater-temple."
Caesar's plan "to make public (publicare) the
largest possible Greek and Latin libraries" was also
under way, according to Suetonius, with the task of
obtaining and arranging the libraries entrusted to Marcus
Terentius Varro. While Caesar did not bring these plans
to fulfillment, one of his closest lieutenants, Gaius
Asinius Pollio (cos. 40 BCE), established a
library in the Atrium Libertatis, which he rebuilt ex
manubiis between 39 and 28 (Ov. Tr.
3.1.71-2; Plin. NH 7.30.115, 35.2.10; Isid.
Etym. 6.5.1). Pollio's establishment of a
library has been viewed as his conscious effort to carry
out one of his chief's unfulfilled plans. In particular,
Pollio's choice of the Atrium Libertatis
suggested the connection between Caesar's plans and
Pollio's library, since most Roman topographers have
believed that the Atrium Libertatis stood on the
northwest slope of the Arx at the top of the Clivus
Argentarius, abutting the spot where Caesar's Forum was
to be built (Anderson, Historical Topography of the
Imperial Fora, 24-6).
Nicholas Purcell has overturned that topographical
consensus with his proposal that the Atrium
Libertatis is the building we have come to call the
"Tabularium" on the Capitoline (PBSR 61
[1993] 125-155). If the Atrium
Libertatis was on the Capitoline, we can think of
Pollio's public library, the first in Rome, as the
"Capitoline Library." Pollio may have been laying claim
not only to completion of one of Julius Caesar's
unfinished projects but also to a locale and building
which figured in Caesar's plans to "adorn and build up"
the city of Rome. The building which lay in the saddle
between the two summits of the Capitoline would have
provided a link between the "theater of Caesar" on the
Capitolium and the Senate House of Caesar and Forum of
Caesar below the Arx. This Caesarian complex would have
matched Pompey's complex, with its own theater, Curia,
and Temple of Venus, but would also have bettered it: in
location, with its site embracing the Capitoline and the
Roman Forum rather than being in the Campus Martius; in
divinity, by replacing Venus Victrix with Venus Genetrix
(and Jupiter Optimus Maximus); and in cultural
significance, by incorporating Rome's first public
library. We might even suggest that this swath of
Caesarian territory was intended to isolate Pompey's
complex and shut it off from the heart of Rome.
Abstracts
Index