The Hercules Sanctuary in Pula

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THE DISCOVERY OF A SANCTUARY OF HERCULES

Archaeological investigation performed from 2005 to 2009 revealed the foundations of a Roman period temple with an attendant precinct (courtyard) and porticos in the northeast part of Pula adjacent to the city wall (Fig. 1). The find of a stone block with an image in relief of a club—an attribute of Hercules—bears witness to a Hercules cult site (Fig. 2). The sanctuary was situated in an urban district that included shrines, public baths, a lavish domus, and municipal infrastructure, and was raised during the period immediately following the founding of the Roman colony of Pola.

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A HISTRIAN AND LATE REPUBLIC PERIOD SHRINE

A sequence of structures presenting cultic characteristics were documented in the temple’s courtyard, i.e., precinct (temenos), that succeeded one another over a span of four centuries prior to the erection of a temple at the site, adjacent to a naturally occurring source of water springing from the rock. Initially—in the Histrian period, early in the Late Iron Age—a large rectangular hearth was raised, enclosed with limestone rubble slabs, the form and size of which corresponds to that of a Histrian tomb; possibly an altar (eschara) celebrating an unnamed hero (Fig. 3). Antiquity period writers associated the hero Cadmus and his wife Harmonia with Pula. A rectangular cult structure with a paved floor and drainage for sacrificial liquid was raised at the same site, at a higher elevation, during the period of the first armed encounters with the Romans (Fig. 4). The earlier hearth survived this remodelling of the site. This structure remained in use for at least 170 years, through to the founding of the Roman colony and the raising of a Roman shrine. It was destroyed by fire. An underground room (the hypogeum) with sacrificial remains was built above the ruins of the rectangular structure in the course of the construction of a Roman temple in the 40s BCE. The spring—venerated during the Histrian period—was remodelled following the founding of the Roman colony as the core of a monumental sacral complex associated with the cults of water, fertility, health, and cleanliness, and the cults of ancestors, heroes, and the founders and leaders of the community.vača i vođe zajednice.

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HERCULES; HEROIC FOUNDER OF CITIES AND PROTECTOR OF SPRINGS

A number of Hercules shrines in Italy and the Alpine provinces are sited at sources of water, some of these being thermal springs. The golden age of the construction of monumental sanctuaries of Hercules—which included a temple, the temenos, and porticos on a constructed terrace—runs from the late 2nd c. BCE to the end of Augustus’ reign. The Hercules sanctuary in Pula is one of the structures associated with that period. The relation of Hercules with the deities associated with health was very strong. In Pula this is documented in a mosaic pavement dedicated to Salus, the female deity of health, in the house adjacent to the terrace of the Hercules sanctuary. The Roman cult of Salus, along with that of Hercules, was an extension of the preceding Histrian cult venerated at the same site next to the source of water.

The temple terrace was built over the course of the third quarter of the 1st c. BCE, with the various phases of construction marked by sacral rituals followed by the burial of the sacrificial gifts. The plastered rectangular hypogeum with its sacrificial remains (Fig. 5) adjacent to the temple associated with the cult of Hercules continues the Greco-Hellenistic cultic tradition documented in the hypogeum/heroön at Paestum, and at the Triangular Forum in Pompeii. These sacral buildings are associated with founding rituals and the heroic founder or divine protector of the city. In Pula the temple precinct functioned as the temenos of the hypogeum.

There was a relationship between the spring, the founding of the Roman colony of Pola, the umbilicus, i.e., the epicentre of the centuriation grid—which lies just 120 metres to the north, Hercules as the city’s protector, guardian of the city gate, a possible divine ancestor, and founder of the city, and the siting of the temple at an earlier cultic location. What we know of the cult of ancestors and of the heroic founder points to a number of possible interpretations. The hypogeum may have constituted the urban umbilicus/mundus; a sacred place where the forces of the universe flow, which people could address when seeking divine guidance or prophecy. Besides its role as the city’s spiritual epicentre—mundus and umbilicus—the hypogeum may have constituted a symbolic hero’s tomb associated with the cult of ancestors, the divine founders, and the protectors of the community. In the sanctuary next to the city gate Hercules could be venerated as a divine protector and guardian of the entrance, and as the mythical ancestor and founder of the city. The temple and its temenos may have constituted a monumentalised auguratorium, the sacred templum in which an augur stood when performing the ritual of the founding of a Roman colony. Given that actual construction of the temple ran through to late in the Augustan period it is possible that elements of the imperial cult were appended to the cult of Hercules in the course of the building’s formal inauguration.

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THE ROMAN TEMPLE

 The Roman sanctuary consisted of a temple enclosed by a precinct (the sacred area or temenos) and porticos raised on an artificial terrace. In this sacred courtyard and adjacent to the entrance to the temple was the hypogeum, built atop a burnt Late Republic period sanctuary, and a well, raised over a natural spring. The length of the sanctuary at the terrace is 33 metres, while the length of the courtyard is 25 metres. The width of the complex was greater than the investigated width of 31 metres (Fig. 6). The level of the precinct pavement was slightly lower than that of the adjacent Roman street. The foundations of the rectangular eight-by-sixteen-metre temple were set on the bedrock. Porticos have been documented to the north and west of the temple, while to the east side the consecrated area was bordered by a wall following the line of the temple’s rear wall. The breadth of the interiors of the porticos between the foundation walls is 5.4 metres, with the length of each portico being about 30 metres. We can only posit the presence of a southern portico outside the scope of the investigated area.
The layout of the sanctuary was inspired by Hellenistic Greek shrines, in particular those dedicated to Asclepius, in which the temenos played a significant role in the cult associated with medical treatment and miraculous healing. In the mid-2nd c. BCE Roman policy introduced a new dimension with the concept of the temple temenos enclosed by porticos, transforming it into a means of glorifying triumphant Roman imperatores [commanders]. The erection of the Herculean sanctuary in Pula drastically altered the configuration of the terrain but retained the continuity of a cultic site at the spring. It is associated with the founding of the Roman colony of Pola and inspired by urban planning solutions developed in Rome. A three-winged portico terminating at the line of the rear of the temple follows the models of Caesar’s and Augustus’ forums in Rome more so than it does the Italic Late Republic period model of a sanctuary in which the space facing the temple was open and at times included a theatre. The temenos did not lose its function association with the local cult of spring water, cleanliness, and health. It may have been arranged as a green area or as a sacred garden.

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TWO ROMAN PHASES OF THE TEMPLE’S ERECTION

Construction of the temple with the terrace, portico, hypogeum, and the consecrated well began soon after the founding of the Roman colony of Pola in 46/45 BCE. A significant number of large stone building blocks from an earlier construction phase were found at the base of the terrace embankment, one of which was decorated with the relief image of a club (Fig. 2). While these blocks may have been from a monumental entrance to the temenos of a Late Republic period sanctuary there is at present no archaeological evidence to support this hypothesis. The temple saw two construction phases prior to its completion. The first phase saw the erection of the temple’s foundation, the enclosure wall of the temple precinct, and the raising of the terrace embankment, while the second phase, which followed soon thereafter, saw the construction of the outer foundations of the portico, the portico, and the temple. Construction of the outer foundations of the portico and the raising of the terrace embankment were completed by the beginning of Augustus’ principate. The raising of the embankment to a height of several metres and the installation of a drainage deposit of amphorae established the pavement level of the porticos and of the courtyard. A passage ran along the outer west side of the sanctuary to the south wall of the public baths and the domus.
Two architrave fragments come to us from two different construction phases. The older architrave—which was discarded (Fig. 7)—was slightly larger than the second, more recent architrave (Fig. 8). The incomplete temple suffered a fire and demolition during the Second Triumvirate and the Roman civil wars that followed the murder of Caesar in 44 BCE. The construction of the temple and portico followed the victory at Actium in 31 BCE and the inauguration of Augustus’ reign. The demolished incomplete temple was replaced by a new temple of slightly smaller dimensions

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A PROPOSED RECONSTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE

From the second construction phase we have fragments of the stylobate, columns, capitals, architrave, frieze, and cornice. A reconstruction has been proposed based on their dimensions in accordance with the preserved foundations, according to which the temple was a prostyle tetrastyle with two columns to the lateral side of the pronaos, with eustyle intercolumniation (Fig. 9). The temple stood to a height of 8.9 metres, with a length of 14.6, and a width of 7.3 metres. The length of the cella was 9.2, and the length of the pronaos five metres. A set of seven stairs led up to the entrance to the temple. The stylobate lay at a height of 1.3 to 1.4 metres, with a width of 8.8 and a length of 18.4 metres at the base. A fragment of an inscription on either the construction or renovation of the building dedicated to Hercules (Fig. 10) may have been part of the stylobate panelling. All of the outer elements of the temple were done with Istrian limestone. Marble tiles of various colours were used for the interior decoration, none of which have been preserved in situ. The moulding of the stylobate base is characteristic of the middle Augustan period, while the capitals, architrave, and cornice are inspired by the temple of Mars Ultor in the Augustan forum in Rome inaugurated in 2 BCE. The overall stylistic impression of the temple’s architectural decoration is consistent with the middle and late Augustan period, at the latest the early Tiberian period. The temple’s composite capitals merged Corinthian and Ionic characteristics (Fig. 11).
The enclosure walls of the temenos bore a colonnade of paired Corinthian columns with pilasters at the outer wall of the portico. The architectural decoration of the portico remains unresolved. Based on the stylistic characteristics a cornice with smooth consoles in the form of a beam (Fig. 12) may be attributed to it, as can a rectangular Corinthian capital (Fig. 13).
The temple, and its stylobate, were destroyed in the late 5th c. CE, at the latest during the migration of the Ostrogoths into Italy in 488. The level of the courtyard was raised in the course of the demolition, while the foundations of the temple were taken down to below the level of the temple floor. Parts of the architectural decoration were exploited for the construction of a church with an attendant monastery atop the foundations of the sanctuary and of the neighbouring baths. Residential buildings—part of Church holdings—were raised atop the temple stereobate between the late 5th to the early 7th c., again exploiting fragments of the demolished temple.

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THE COSTS OF RAISING THE HERCULES SANCTUARY

Erection of the sanctuary of Hercules would have required a significant quantity of construction stone, wood, and rope for scaffolding and cranes. The production of architectural decoration and of lime would have occurred on site. Coloured marbles were imported from Italy, Greece, Africa, and the eastern Mediterranean for the interior decoration. A great number of empty wine amphorae of the Lamboglia 2 type were imported from eastern Italy and installed as drainage material in the course of foundation works. The estimated optimum number of labourers is two hundred, with the construction period running between seven and twenty years. The estimated approximate cost of construction materials is between 31,666 and 37,389 sestertii, while the outlay for the wages of stonemasons, carpenters, roofers, and other labourers was about 363,705 sestertii. The total cost of the construction of the sanctuary is estimated to have been about 400,000 sestertii, not including the costs of interior marblework and fresco decoration.

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Bibliography

 STARAC, A. 2009. Nalaz rimskog svetišta u četvrti Sv. Teodora u Puli. Arheološka istraživanja 2008., Histria archaeologica 38-39 (2007-2008), 123-168.
STARAC, A. (ur.) 2011. Pula. Rađanje grada / La nascita della città / The Birth of A Town, Arheološki muzej Istre, Katalog 83 (katalog izložbe), Pula.
STARAC, A. 2018. Hercules' Sanctuary in the Quarter of St. Theodore in Pula, Archaeopress Roman Archaeology 40, Oxford.
STARAC, A. 2020. Deposit of Amphorae in the Quarter of St. Theodore, Pula, Archaeopress Roman Archaeology 75, Oxford.

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The Hercules Sanctuary in Pula
Exhibition
Carrarina 4, Pula
Window to the Past
26. 9. 2023. – 23. 1. 2024.

 Exhibition and text author: Alka Starac
Organizer and publisher: Archaeological Museum of Istria
For the organizer and publisher: Darko Komšo
Editorial Board: Darko Komšo, Adriana Gri Štorga, Katarina Zenzerović
 Set up & graphic design: Vjeran Juhas
Photographs and drawings: Alka Starac
Translation in Italian: Elis Barbalich-Geromella
English translation: Neven Ferenčić
Proofs:
Irena Buršić, Giulia Codacci-Terlević, Adriana Gri Štorga, Milena Špigić, Katarina Zenzerović
Print: MPS Pula
Print run: 700
Pula, 2023.