Discover Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia

The sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia filled the hillside of ancient Praeneste, now Palestrina, 35 km east of Rome. It was probably by a long way the largest Roman sanctuary of all, and it was visible from much of Latium, from Rome itself, and even from the sea. The goddess's title means first-born, or original, and parents brought a newly born first child here in the hope of seeing it survive infancy and carry the family on.

The sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia is where Hellenistic architecture is turned into something Roman, and the article is specific about both halves. The inspiration for this feat of integrated urbanistic design lay not in republican Rome but in the Hellenistic monarchies of the eastern Mediterranean, in sanctuaries like those of Delos and Kos. What Rome added was the massive use of opus caementicium -- concrete -- which made enormous and daring buildings possible.

The result is a work of high technical and stylistic level that treats an entire hillside as one composition: six terraces on substructures, tied together by grand staircases, with a theatre built into the ascent and a round temple at the summit as the resolution. It is axial, it is symmetrical, and it is meant to be read from below and from a long way off.

It also pointed forward. The monumentalisation of the late second century BC foreshadowed the grandiose Imperial style of the following generation, and the influence ran much further than that: features of the sanctuary shaped Roman garden design on steep sites through antiquity, were taken up again in Italian villa gardens from the fifteenth century, and the Victor Emmanuel II Monument in Rome owes much to it.

Concrete is the enabling fact. The six terraces rest on gigantic masonry substructures, and the Roman innovation compared with the Hellenistic sanctuaries this design was modelled on -- Delos, Kos -- was the massive use of opus caementicium, which allowed enormous and daring construction. Without it the hill could not have been terraced on this scale.

It was built for social reasons as much as religious ones. The monumentalisation dates to the late second century BC and was the work of one of that generation of great architects working in Rome and Italy around the turn of the first century. Its motivation was probably the wish for social recognition of groups grown rich from the exploitation of Roman imperialism after the wars in the East -- the sanctuary as a statement by new money.

Two cults were merged into one building. There was a double cult here: Fortuna, and another in which honey was believed to ooze from an olive tree. At the end of the second century BC the sanctuary brought the two together in a single modular architectural structure, with the first on the terrace of the hemicycles -- particularly the eastern one, with the well -- and the second higher up at the main temple.

Sulla may have enlarged it again. Around 80 BC, after founding a colonia here, Sulla may have commissioned further monumentalisation to thank Fortuna and commemorate his defeat of Gaius Marius. Inscriptions in the cryptoporticus record a restoration carried out by two local magistrates in Sullan times.

The fifteenth century repurposed the plumbing. The supporting arches of the cryptoporticus were bricked up and the barrel-vaulted passage was converted into a cistern -- an alteration that is still doing its job, and the reason a well stands in the theatre.

How big is it?

Six vast terraces rising up the hillside on masonry substructures -- probably by far the largest Roman sanctuary, and visible in antiquity from a great part of Latium, from Rome and even from the sea.

Where is the temple itself?

The small circular temple that topped the sanctuary is incorporated into the Palazzo Colonna Barberini at the summit. It held the gilded bronze statue of Fortuna, shown as a young warrior.

How did the oracle work?

By the picking of lots, as Cicero describes. The sortes were wooden tablets used to foretell the future, said to have been found by the Praenestine nobleman Numerius Suffucius -- possibly at the well still preserved in front of the right-hand exedra on the terrace of the hemicycles.

When did it stop?

The oracle continued to be consulted into Christian times until Emperor Constantine the Great forbade the practice, and Theodosius I later forbade it again and closed the temple.

Why does it look like a Hellenistic sanctuary?

Because it was modelled on them. The inspiration for the integrated design lay in the Hellenistic monarchies of the eastern Mediterranean, such as the sanctuaries of Delos and Kos; the Roman innovation was the massive use of concrete, which made building at this scale possible.

Why is there a well in the theatre?

Because the cryptoporticus beneath it was turned into a cistern in the fifteenth century, when its supporting arches were bricked up.