(RegioIX) This area of the town of Rome was for a long time nothing but a marshy plain. By the end of the Empire, the urban development of the Campus Martius made it one of the districts of Rome where the highest number of remarkable monuments could be seen. Each “dynasty” did want to leave its mark. It was the great IXth district of the City of Rome, between the Capitol on the south side, the Via Lata and Flaminia in the west, and the Tiber on the east side. I invite you to visit it.




















Let’s begin our visit by the immense porticoes of Sæpta Julia, in the centre of the Campus Martius, that formed a large square with a temple and gardens. The right side of the portico, towards the Baths of Agrippa, was called “Portico of the Argonauts” and the left side “Portico of the Maleagre”.







In the foreground the temple of Hadrian , and in the background the temple of Matidia.. Matidia was Emperor Hadrian’s mother-in-law, and he had this temple built in her honour, the deified Matidia. Very rare precedent in history of mankind that a man deifies his mother-in-law. Today it remains from the temple of Hadrian marble corinthian columns encrusted in the wall of the Rome Stock Exchange. This bird’s-eye view brings out that both temples were built on the same line. Nevertheless the free space between the temples stresses that they were two different temples.














The Amphitheatre of C. Statilius Taurus on the Via Recta that leads us to the Via Tecta and the west side of the Campus Martius.



















The cult of Isis, coming from Egypt, had its sanctuary in the Campus Martius. The Aqua Virgo, at the bottom of the picture, is connecting close to the portico of Sæpta Julia.










Next to the temple of Isis and Serapis stood as well on the Campus Martius another impressive portico called the " temple of the Divines " Porticus Divorum . One can see there as well, between the Temple of the Divine and the Saepta Julia, in the left centre of the picture a great insula called "the Delta" because of its shape reminding the capital D of the Greek alphabet.








As if it was soldered to the south portico of Sæpta Julia, the Diribitorium appears on the left of the picture as a rectangular portico that had been used for the counting of the votes . It could as well be used for handing out money or food to the people, and the pay to the soldiers. Just right of the Diribitorium, the Emperor Claudius let build a large square to be used for the free handing out of wheat to the plebs of Rome. This is the Portico of Minutius, the temple of which, in the center, from the republican period, could be the Temple of the Nymphs . This temple is said to have been used for the archives of documents concerning the beneficiaries of wheat distributions.

















We have here a global sight of north side of the Campus Martius, between the Via Recta and the Mausoleum of Augustus.















The Pantheon, first built by Agrippa, Augustus’s son-in-law, then by Hadrian who built it again, was a temple dedicated to all gods. From the whole Roman Antiquity, it is the best kept building. The Roman Pantheon was a model for its form as much as for its architecture. The perfect harmony of proportions between heigth and width could let a perfect circle be drawn inside. The cupola is still today the greatest existing masonry.




















The Via Flaminia (today Via del Corso) towards the center of Rome. Right appears the solar clock, and at the top of the picture you guess the Column of Marcus-Aurelius. Left, along the Via Flaminia, you see the complex of the “temple of Aurelian’s Sun”.









The south side of the Campus Martius. The region of the Circus of Flaminius. This wide rectangular space, planned by the Tribune Flaminius (consul in 198 BC), was situated close to the Theatre of Marcellus, that can be seen at the top right of the picture. During a long time the plebeian games were celebrated at this place. Almost in the centre of the picture of the “circus”, the portico of Octavia and the portico of Philippus.