Concordia, Aedes (2) (also Templum) (Fig. 19): the temple at the foot of the northeastern lobe of the Capitoline Hill overlooking the Forum Romanum at the end of the Sacra Via. It was traditionally vowed by Camillus in 367 B.C. during the troubles connected with the passage of the Licinian laws (Plutarch Cam. 42.3). Camillus was released from his vow on the following day when the people, having obtained their goal, voted to build the temple for him (Plutarch Cam. 42.4; Ovid Fast. 1.641-44). But this temple seems never to have been built, though Plutarch specifies that the place for it, where the present temple stands, was designated. This was the Area Concordiae (Livy 39.56.6, Livy 40.19.2; Obsequens 4), between the Volcanal and the base of the Capitoline, and beside the Gradus ad Monetam (Ovid Fast. 1.637-38). The first monument here seems to have been the Aedicula Concordiae (see Concordia, Aedicula) of Cn. Flavius, built in 304, which was replaced by the temple of Opimius of 121.

In 121 B.C., following the death of C. Gracchus, the senate ordered the construction of this temple by L. Opimius (Appian BellCiv 1.3.26; Plutarch C. Gracch. 17.6). The day of dedication was probably 22 July (Degrassi 486). Thereafter, the temple was very frequently used for meetings of the senate, especially when there was a question of civic discord or disturbance to be discussed (cf., e.g., Cicero, Cat. 3.21, Cicero Sest. 26, Cicero Dom. 11, Cicero Phil. 2.19; Cass. Dio 58.11.4). It was also used occasionally as a meeting place by the Arval Brethren (Henzen, p. iv). See also Basilica Opimia.

In 7 B.C., as a part of his triumph, Tiberius undertook to restore the temple, using the spoils of his German campaigns for the purpose (Cass. Dio 55.8.2). This rebuilding was carried out on a lavish scale, and the finished temple was dedicated in the names of Tiberius and his dead brother Drusus on 16 January (Ovid Fast. 1.637-38; Degrassi 398-400) A.D. 10 (Cass. Dio 56.25.1) or A.D. 12 (Suetonius Tib. 20). The latter is more likely to be correct.

Tiberius's temple was of unusual plan, thanks to the restrictions imposed on it by the site. The cella has a transverse axis, being 45 m wide and 24 m deep, while the hexastyle pronaos is only 34 m wide and 14 m deep. The back wall comes tight against the base of the Tabularium. The approach was by a wide stair running the full width of the pronaos. Exploration in the interior of the podium indicates that Opimius's temple was of similar size and proportions. In the cella a row of white marble columns raised on a continuous plinth projecting from the wall divided the walls into eleven bays, each containing a niche. The axial niche on the northwest wall must have been for the cult figure of Concordia, shown as enthroned, carrying a patera and a cornucopia. The Corinthian columns of the interior order are of great elegance; pairs of leaping rams replace the corner volutes. Pilasters of the same design responded to them along the walls (E. von Mercklin, Antike Figuralkapitelle [Berlin 1962], 201-4 no. 494). The modillion cornice of the exterior, of which a large fragment is preserved in the open gallery of the Tabularium, is widely regarded as the finest architectural fragment surviving from the Augustan period, a model of classical decorative motifs combined with harmony and restraint. Of the decoration of the temple, only the threshold of the cella in two blocks of Porta Santa marble and some bits of the pavement survive on the site. The exterior of the temple was covered entirely with marble, and it carried an extraordinarily elaborate program of statuary on the roof, though the pediment was evidently left blank. This is shown on coins of Tiberius (B. M. Coins, Rom. Emp. 1.137, 139 nos. 116, 132-34). The statues on the roof are identified as the Capitoline triad in the center, flanked by Ceres and Diana, with Victorias at the corners of the pronaos and cella roofs. The stair of approach is flanked by statues of Hercules and Mercury.

Tiberius enriched his temple with works of art, and it seems to have become a museum. He obtained a statue of Vesta from Paros (Cass. Dio 55.9.6), and Pliny mentions an Apollo and a Juno by Baton (Pliny HN 34.73), a Latona with her twin children by Euphranor (Pliny HN 34.77), an Aesculapius and a Hygeia by Niceratus (Pliny HN 34.80), a Mars and a Mercury by Piston (Pliny HN 34.89), and a Ceres, a Jupiter, and a Minerva by Sthennis (Pliny HN 34.90). There were also paintings: a bound Marsyas by Zeuxis (Pliny HN 35.66), a Liber Pater by Nicias (Pliny HN 35.131), and a Cassandra by Theodorus (Pliny HN 35.144). There were also four elephants of obsidian, a gift of Augustus (Pliny HN 36.196), and a sardonyx that had belonged to Polycrates of Samos and was a gift of Livia (Pliny HN 37.4). Dedicatory inscriptions were found in the ruins (CIL 6.90-94, 30856-57; ILS 153, 3782-83), and others mention an aedituus of the temple (CIL 6.2204-5, 8703; ILS 4998).

The temple is shown on coins of Orbiana, the wife of Alexander Severus (B. M. Coins, Rom. Emp. 6.144 no. 307), and an inscription preserved only in the Einsiedeln sylloge (CIL 6.89 = ILS 3781) records a restoration after it had become dilapidated. It was still standing in the fourth century and was listed in the regionary catalogues in Regio VIII, but seems to have collapsed in the time of Pope Hadrian I (A.D. 772-95, LPD 1.512, LPD 522).

MAAR 5 (1925): 53-77 (H. F. Rebert and H. Marceau); CQ 36 (1942): 111-20 (A. Momigliano); RendPontAcc 34 (1961-62): 93-110 (M. Guarducci); Nash 1.292-94; PP 33 (1978): 260-72 (L. Richardson).