Temple of Augustus: Roman Imperial Temple in Pula, Croatia
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- High
- Country
- Croatia
- Primary era
- Classical
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical
- Civilizations
- Roman
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Temple
On this page8 sections
History
The Temple of Augustus is a Roman temple in Pula, Croatia, built during the late Augustan period when the city, known to the Romans as Pietas Iulia, was a Roman colony. Dedicated to Augustus and the goddess Roma, it formed part of an imperial programme of urban renewal and the promotion of the new political order established under Augustus, Rome’s first emperor, who ruled from 27 BC to AD 14.
Foundation and Augustan construction
The temple was erected over the podium of an earlier sanctuary dated to 42–16 BC. The present building was probably constructed between 2 BC and AD 14, during Augustus’ lifetime. Its dedication to Roma, the divine personification of the city and Roman state, and to Augustus expressed the religious character of Roman imperial rule. Because Augustus was not given the title divus, meaning deified, until after his death, the dedication belongs to the period of his living imperial authority rather than to a later cult of the deified emperor.
The building stood on the north-western side of Pula’s Forum as one element of a group of three temples. It occupied the position to the left of a larger central temple, while a similar temple dedicated to Diana stood on the opposite side. The central temple has not survived, but the rear of the former Temple of Diana remains incorporated into Pula’s Communal Palace, built in 1296.
Religious change and later reuse
Pagan worship was suppressed by the end of the fourth century, when Christianity became the state religion, and the temple was closed. Under Byzantine rule, the building was converted into a church dedicated to Mary. This change gave the structure a new religious function and helped preserve it through later periods.
The former temple subsequently served as a granary and, during the eighteenth century, as a stable. Its portico was also used as an open gallery. In the same century, the scholar Scipione Maffei proposed transferring the building to Venice as an outstanding example of classical architecture. The plan was abandoned because moving the temple would have been too costly.
Damage, restoration, and archaeological use
A fire damaged one side of the cella in the sixteenth century. After Venetian control extended over the Istrian and Dalmatian coast, the damage was repaired during the seventeenth century. Additional buildings were then erected around the temple, incorporating it into a larger complex.
By the late nineteenth century, the temple stood beside Pula’s market and was partly hidden by surrounding houses. Those structures were demolished between 1920 and 1925, and the building was restored toward its original form under the direction of the architect Alessandro Rimini, commissioned by the Soprintendenza di Trieste, an Italian heritage authority.
An Allied air raid on Pula on 3 March 1944 severely damaged the temple and nearly destroyed it. Reconstruction continued until 1947 under the Soprintendenza delle Belle Arti di Trieste. Surviving fragments and archaeological documentation were used to rebuild the structure. Excavations in the former Roman colony of Pietas Iulia had begun in 1806 under General Auguste de Marmont, governor of the Illyrian Provinces during the Napoleonic conquest. Material recovered from these excavations is displayed inside the temple.
The reconstructed building now functions as a lapidarium, a display of stone antiquities, and as a small exhibition space for Roman sculpture and related archaeological material.
Remains
Temple structure
The Temple of Augustus is a raised Roman podium temple, meaning that the main building stands on a solid architectural platform. Its deep porch is prostyle, with columns across the front only, and tetrastyle, with four free-standing columns on the façade. Two further columns were set along the sides, producing six columns in all. The temple measures approximately 17.3 metres long, 8 metres wide, and 14 metres high.
The walls use opus isodomum, a masonry technique in which regularly cut blocks of similar height are laid in even horizontal courses. White marble and finely cut stone masonry contribute to the building’s carefully finished appearance. The Corinthian columns have unusually smooth shafts, rather than the fluting often associated with that architectural order, whose capitals are characterized by acanthus-leaf decoration.
Cella and classical decoration
The cella, the enclosed chamber of the temple, has four corner pillars, and its entrance is framed by pilasters. Traces of fresco remain on the interior walls. The richly decorated frieze resembles the frieze of the Maison Carrée at Nîmes, a larger Roman temple in southern France. The Temple of Augustus has no decorated pediment, while its main inscription was positioned in bronze letters along the architrave, the horizontal beam above the columns.
Dedication and surviving collections
The original dedication was formed from bronze letters fastened to the architrave with nails. Most of the letters have disappeared, but the holes used to attach them remain. The inscription followed the formula ROMAE ET AUGUSTO CAESARI DIVI F PATRI PATRIAE, meaning “To Roma and Augustus Caesar, son of a god, father of the fatherland.” Its wording and the temple’s architectural character identify the building as jointly dedicated to Roma and the living Augustus during the late Augustan period.
Inside the reconstructed temple, the exhibition includes Roman stone and bronze sculptures, portrait busts, reliefs, tombstones, and other archaeological artefacts from Pula and the surrounding region. Together, these objects form the temple’s present lapidarium and preserve material associated with the Roman history of Pietas Iulia.
