page_title: Portonaccio (Veio)
section_title: The temple of Apollo
hierarchical_section_title: Portonaccio (Veio) / The site / The temple of Apollo
caption_attribution_description: English: Etruscan male torso from Veii, probably Hercules, 550 BC
context_page_description: The sanctuary of Minerva at Portonaccio is an archaeological site on the western side of the plateau on which the ancient Etruscan city of Veii, north of Rome, Italy, was located. The site takes its name from the locality within the village of Isola Farnese, part of Municipio XX, city of Rome.
  It is important for the elaborate polychrome terracotta decoration that was found here with a quantity and quality unparalleled in Etruria, much of which can be seen in the Villa Giulia.
context_section_description: This sanctuary, among the most ancient and venerated on all of Etruria, was outside of the city and on a road leading to the Tyrrhenian coast and the Veii salt flats. Its most ancient nucleus was tied to the cult of the goddess Minerva and a small temple, a square altar, a portico and stairs from the road were built in about 530-530 BC in her honour. The three-cell temple with the polychrome terracotta decorations was erected in about 510 BC in the western part of the sanctuary. Adjacent to the temple there was a great pool with a tunnel and a fence that enclosed the sacred woods. The temple was in honour of the god Apollo in his prophetic oracle aspect inspired after the Delphi model to which purification ceremonies were tied. Heracles, the hero made god dear to tyrants, and maybe also Jupiter, whose image we have to imagine on the central wall of the temple were tied to Apollo. 
  By the middle of the 5th century BC, all work on the temple was complete and it began a slow decline while the structures sacred to Minerva were renovated on the eastern sector of the sanctuary. The starting up again of the cult worshipping Minerva, which continued also after the conquering of Veii by Rome (396 BC) is documented by a splendid series of votive statues of classic and late-classic style boys, such as the famous head, “Malavolta” as to indicate the important role of the goddess in the rituals of the passage from adolescence to adulthood that signalled the fundamental phases of the life of the members of the aristocratic families of Veii. In the 2nd century BC, the tuff mine that destroyed the central area of the sanctuary was opened causing damage to the temple and the sliding down of material downhill. The recovery of the fragments of the sanctuary determined the start up of excavations in 1914, which continued after the discovery of the famous statue of Apollo in 1916.
caption: Huge male torso from the Temple of Apollo, probably Hercules, 550 BC
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image ExifOffset": "38", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2778", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3008"}