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Templum Mars Ultor
The Temple of Mars the Avenger
Walking up the Via dei Fori Imperiali towards the Capitoline Hill I passed the Templum Mars Ultor on the north side of the via.
The temple is located within the Forum Augustum. The night before the Battle of Phillipi (42 B.C.) in which Augustus defeated Gaius Julius Caesar's murderers, Augustus vowed to erect a temple in honor of Mars Ultor, the avenging God of War. The temple was dedicated 40 years later in 2BC. The temple was a very large temple with Corinthian columns fifty-eight feet high. The high podium and marble staircase of the Templum Mars Ultor, with an altar in the center, and the standing columns can still be seen. The Arco dei Pantani can just be seen to the right of the columns, the street behind it now many feet higher than the ground level of the temple.
