Gantry of Livie

The Portique of Livie was a monument of the ancient, in periphery of the popular quarters and badly famed Rome of Subure, on the hill of the Esquilin, built between 15 and 7 av. J. - C. by the emperor Auguste in the honor of its second wife, on the site of the house that Vedius Pollion bequeathed year to him 739 of Rome (29 av. J. - C.).

The construction of this monumental gate, located just behind the place where will be built the Thermes of Trajan, was started under the names of its adoptive sons Lucius and Caius, which died during the construction, and when it was completed, Auguste dedicated it under the name of his second wife, Livie.

This Portique is larger than that of Octavie, built 44 years before. One does not know the exact proportions of them, because its iconography is known only by one fragment on marble, found at Rome, in August 1867, in the gardens Saint-Like and Saint-Damien. It formed a vast parallelogram, approximately a third longer than broad (approximately 120m broad by 95m). It was presented in the form of a great rectangular place surrounded by a double gantry. It was surrounded by a double gallery in colonnade. The external gallery was closed by a wall where were spared, on each large side, three niches, quadrangular and two semicircular; and on each small, two quadrangular, refuges and places of rest for the tired walkers. With the four angles small quadrilobate fountains were to be.

The Greek geographer Strabon (in Greek old Στράϐων/ Strábôn , “which has a cast”, in Latin Strabo ), contemporary of Auguste, who made several stays in Rome, from which it gave an enthusiastic description, and there returned on several occasions, was to be in the capital of the Empire in 7 av. J. - C. - the year when it published his Géographie (Γεωγραφικά/ Geôgraphika ) - (or afterwards), because it mentions with admiration the gantry of Livie dedicated this year, like the Campus Agrippae (public park on the Field-of-March).

To build it, Auguste made demolish the very large one and sumptuous residence (8000 m ²) which had bequeathed to him to his death one freed strong rich person, Védius Pollion. The center of the place was occupied by a small rectangular building which presented important resemblances to the Ara Pacis . It would be the Ara Concordia about which speaks the Ovide poet, small a temple, dedicated to the goddess goddess Concorde ( Concordia Augusta ), in the medium of which, two statues, that of Auguste and that of Livie were, respectively represented in March and in Venus. The small temple presented the imperial couple as a model of the agreement which must reign in the Roman State as in the hearths. He was very attended by the young grooms who came to the gantry from Livie to achieve a sacrifice with the goddess Concorde ( Concordia Augusta ), which translates the importance, in Rome, of the political model in the private life.

Ovide ( Publius Ovidius Naso ), in its Fastes speaks to us about this temple:

“With you also, O goddess Agrees, Livie dedicated a splendid temple, in testimony of the harmony which it ensured her loved husband. Will however know it, generations to come: where currently the gantry of Livie is, an immense residence was built; this house only has it was like a city and occupied more space than do not occupy any of many cities inside their walls. It was completely shaven, not on a charge of aspiration to the throne, but because its luxury even appeared harmful. César agree to demolish basic in roof these so imposing constructions and to lose so many richnesses to which he was the heir: Thus one exerts the censure and that one gives of the examples, when, being judge, one does oneself what one recommends to the others.
( Ovide , Records , 637-648).

In its correspondence, Pline the Young person ( Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus ) evokes the Gantry of Livie:

“I had just waked up me; a message of Spurinna: “I go on your premise”. - “Not, it is me which go on your premise”. We meet under the gantry of Livie, returning one at the other to us. It informs me of the mission that Régulus entrusted to him; it joined its authorities, but discrete there, as it was appropriate for perfect an honest man speaking for that which resembled to him if little”.
( Pline , Delivers First, V, Lettre with its expensive Voconius Romanus).

The Encyclopedia or reasoned Dictionary of sciences, arts and the trades of Diderot, in its article “Gantry”, after having defined the gantry as: “GANTRY, S. Mr. (Archit.) species of gallery with arcades without mobile closing, where one walks to cover, which is usually arched & public; & sometimes with sophite, or about floor”, speaks about the Roman gantries and quotes that of Livie:

“One comptoit of the tems of Auguste more than forty five public gantries in Rome filled with shops of merchants who vendoient all kinds of jewels. Between the gantries of princes, those which portoient the name of Palatin gantry, gantries of Apollo, Pumped, Livie, Octavie, of Clutched, étoient most superb”.

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