page_title: Fortuna Huiusce Diei
section_title: Temple
hierarchical_section_title: Fortuna Huiusce Diei / Temple
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Roma, Centrale Montemartini: Fortuna huiusce diei ttesta e braccio di acrolito trovati nell'Area sacra di largo Argentina (1929)
context_page_description: Fortuna Huiusce Diei was an aspect of the goddess Fortuna, known primarily for her temple in the Area Sacra di Largo Argentina at Rome. Cicero lists her among the deities who should be cultivated in his ideal state, because "she empowers each day". She thus embodies an important aspect of time as it figures in Roman religion: every day of the year had a distinct and potent nature, which the public priests were responsible for knowing and aligning the community with by means of the religious calendar.
context_section_description: The Temple of Fortuna Huiusce Diei in the Area Sacra was vowed by Q. Lutatius Catulus at the Battle of Vercellae in 101 BC. It is the only known temple to this goddess, and probably the first. Its founding belongs to a period of religious innovation, with new cult titles for traditional Roman deities, and an increasing tendency to embrace imported gods, particularly those of the Greeks, through theological and artistic interpretation. Catulus himself was known as a lover of Greek culture in his taste for art and poetry, and in matters of lifestyle. The architectural design of the temple reflects cultural syncretism: the frontality of its podium design would have placed the focus on the cult statue in the Roman manner, but some aspects are Hellenistic.
  Colloquially, the temple was known as the aedes Catuli, "Catulus's temple," an indication of how public works served as monuments to their builders. In building this temple and the portico known as the Porticus Catuli, Catulus was competing with his co-commander and consular colleague Gaius Marius. Although the two had celebrated a joint triumph, they became bitter political rivals, and Catulus felt that Marius had received disproportionate credit for the outcome of the war. Public buildings were a form of "self-advertisement" in the competition among the ruling elite of Rome. The choice of Fortuna as the deity honored by Catulus links his self-presentation to that of Sulla, who served under him and later took the name Felix, "Lucky."
  Modern scholarly consensus identifies the temple with the site known as Temple B in the Largo di Torre Argentina of Rome, a rich archaeological site in the ancient Campus Martius. The construction would have intruded on an earlier templum usually identified with that of Juturna, and in some instances this sharing of space by deities indicates complementary functions. The Temple of Juturna (Temple A) was vowed by an ancestor of Catulus, Gaius Lutatius Catulus, during the First Punic War. The public prominence of the gens Lutatia was thus enhanced by the collocation of the two.
  Varro implies that the temple building (aedes) was of the less-common tholus type, round like those of Hercules in the Forum Boarium and Circus Flaminius, and having a colonnade. His siting of it near the Villa Publica facilitated the identification of the Area Sacra ruins as this temple. In the description of Lawrence Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (1992),
  The temple is raised on a low podium, with a broad stair of approach projecting toward the east. The peripteros was of eighteen Corinthian columns, the shafts of tufa, and the bases and capitals of travertine. The walls are of concrete faced with opus incertum, and the podium is faced with tufa plates and moldings.
  The cella was taken down and rebuilt at a later period to install an "enormous" base for a colossal cult statue.
caption: Head and arm of the colossal cult statue of Fortuna Huiusce Diei, on display at the Centrale Montemartini
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