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Dr. Steven Zucker: We're in Rome--standing near the Tiber
looking at an ancient Roman temple--a temple that for a long time was misnamed Fortuna Virilis
Dr. Beth Harris: Temple of Manly Fortune
--it looks very much like what you expect a classical temple to look like
--it is small but it's got fluted columns--ionic capitals
Dr. Zucker: Ionic columns derived from the Greek--but this is clearly not a Greek temple
Dr. Harris: Right--it's different in important ways
Dr. Zucker: So for one thing it's on a raised platform and the platform only has steps in the front
--and the Greeks--if you think about the Parthenon for instance
--you would enter from the front or the back
--but in terms of actually rising up to the stylobate--you could ascend from any point
Dr. Harris: Right and I think about a Greek temple more as something
where the worship took place outside of the temple--there was a statue of the god that would be inside
--but it sort of almost like a sculpture in the landscape
--and here it is more of a directional emphasis on front--on the porch
Dr. Zucker: And it's not just directional--
--but I think the worshiper is actually being directed in a very specific way
--so the Romans are in a sense controlling the way you use the building
Dr. Harris: And I think like a Greek temple--only the priest would have gone inside
Dr. Zucker: It also Roman in other important ways--not only does it have the single staircase in the front
--but the building extends out to the edge almost
Dr. Harris: There's larger interior space so that the columns
at the sides and back are not freestanding columns--they're attached columns
Dr. Harris: Yeah--they're engaged--and that's a sort of particularly Roman thing
--the Greeks I don't think would have done that because the Greek used columns actually as structural devices
--and here the columns are just purely decorative as you move back
--in order words the wall is doing the supporting
--the wall actually doing the work of holding up the roof
--so the building is not in great condition
Dr. Harris: It dates from 100 BC--so it's more than 2000 years old
Dr. Zucker: And it's still standing
Dr. Harris: And it's still here surrounded by the modern traffic of the city
--and we get a real sense of what an ancient Roman temple looked like from the period of the ancient Roman Republic
Dr. Zucker: It's really beautifully proportioned
--there's a wonderful kind of rhythm that's created by the columns as they move back
Dr. Harris: And it's got four columns across the front and two deep for that porch space
--and I think a lot of was based on the culture that lived here before
Dr. Zucker: The Etruscans?
Dr. Harris: Yeah--I think actually that this borrows from ancient Etruscans architecture
Dr. Zucker: But I'm seeing lots of Greek influence--I'm seeing dentils
--I'm seeing as we mentioned before the ionic columns--the pediment
--all of which is really speaking of just how important the Greek president was for the Romans
Dr. Harris: It's going back in time--standing here and looking at it
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