The Temple of Apollo Palatinus ('Palatine Apollo'), sometimes called the Temple of Actian Apollo, was a temple to the god Apollo in Rome, constructed on the Palatine Hill on the initiative of Augustus (known as "Octavian" until 27 BCE) between 36 and . It was the first temple to Apollo within the city's ceremonial boundaries and the second of four temples constructed by Augustus. According to tradition, the site for the temple was chosen when it was struck by lightning, which was interpreted as a divine portent. Augustan writers situated the temple next to Augustus's personal residence, which has been controversially identified as the structure known as the .
The temple was closely associated with the victories of Augustus's forces at the battles of Naulochus and Actium, the latter of which was extensively memorialised through its decoration. The temple played an important role in Augustan propaganda and political ideology, in which it represented the restoration of Rome's 'golden age' and served as a signifier of Augustus's (devotion to religious and political duty). It was used for the worship of Apollo and his sister Diana, as well as to store the prophetic Sibylline Books. Its precinct was used for diplomatic functions as well as for meetings of the Roman Senate, and contained the Portico of the Danaids, which included libraries of Greek and Latin literature considered among the most important in Rome.
Augustan poets frequently mentioned and praised the temple in their works, often commenting on its lavish artistic decoration and statuary, which included three cult statues and other works by noted Greek artists of the archaic period and the fourth century BCE. These poets included Tibullus, Virgil and Horace, whose was first performed at the temple on 3 June 17 BCE during the Secular Games.
The Great Fire of Rome in damaged the temple, but it was restored under the emperor Domitian (). It was finally destroyed by another fire in 363 CE, which was rumoured to be an act of arson committed by Christians. The temple has been excavated and partially restored in various phases since the 1860s, though only partial remains survive and their documentation is incomplete. Modern assessments of the temple have variously treated it as an extravagant, Hellenising break with Roman tradition and as a conservative attempt to reassert the architectural and political values of the Roman Republic. It has been described by the archaeologist John Ward-Perkins as "one of the earliest and finest of the Augustan temples".
History
Background
The worship of Apollo in Rome began in the fifth century BCE. According to Roman tradition, the first temple to Apollo was promised to the god in 433 BCE in return for his intercession during a plague. This temple was originally known as the Temple of Apollo Medicus and later as the Temple of Apollo Sosianus, after Gaius Sosius, who restored it around 32 BCE. It was situated in the Campus Martius, outside the ceremonial boundary () of Rome, since Apollo, whose worship originated in the Greek world, was considered a 'foreign' deity and so unsuitable for a temple within the city. According to the classicist Paul Zanker, Apollo was held in Roman culture to represent discipline, morality, purification and the punishment of excess.
After securing control over the Roman state through his civil war against Mark Antony, Octavian (known as "Augustus" from 27 BCE) made a political and ideological priority of the embellishment and restoration of Rome's built space. According to his biographer Suetonius, he claimed to have found Rome built of brick, and to have left it built of marble. The construction and restoration of temples was a major part of this programme: Augustus claimed to have restored eighty-two of them in 28 BCE alone. The archaeologist Susan Walker has described Rome under Augustus as a "moral museum", by which public architecture and artwork, particularly the display of Greek sculpture, was used as part of Augustus's ideological project. Augustus's developments on the Palatine Hill included the construction and restoration of several of its temples and the intensification of cult activity around it, making the Palatine, previously most significant as an elite residential area, Rome's "new seat of political and religious power", in the words of the classicist Ulrich Schmitzer.