Temple of Concord

Start with the ground beneath your feet. Here, at the western edge of the Roman Forum, the stone is uneven and worn smooth in places. Above you rises the Capitoline Hill, steep and close. At its foot is a long, low platform of rough brown core and a few pale marble fragments. It is easy to walk past. Many visitors do. But this broken platform was once one of the most richly decorated temples in Rome.

This is the Temple of Concord. The Romans called the goddess Concordia. She stood for harmony between citizens, and above all for peace between rich and poor, rulers and ruled. That idea mattered deeply to a city that often argued with itself. A temple to agreement, placed in the political heart of Rome, made a public promise. It also carried a quiet warning about what happens when that agreement fails.

According to Roman tradition, the first temple here was vowed in 367 BCE by Marcus Furius Camillus, a celebrated general. Rome was then split by a long struggle between the patricians, the old aristocratic families, and the plebeians, the common citizens. New laws opened the highest office to plebeians, and the conflict eased. Ancient writers say Camillus promised Concord a temple to mark that reconciliation. Historians debate how much of this story is true. But it shows how Romans liked to remember the origin of this place.

Now comes the first surprise. In 121 BCE, the temple was rebuilt by the consul Lucius Opimius. He had just led the violent suppression of Gaius Gracchus, a reformer who championed the poor. Gracchus died, and many of his supporters were killed. Then Opimius restored a temple to harmony. Many Romans saw this as bitter hypocrisy. Ancient sources record that someone wrote a mocking line on the building at night. It said, in effect, that an act of discord had built the temple of Concord.

The temple was also more than a shrine. The Roman Senate sometimes met inside it. The most famous meeting came in 63 BCE, during the conspiracy of Catiline, a nobleman accused of plotting against the state. The orator Cicero was consul that year. In this temple, the senators debated what to do with the captured conspirators. Cicero gave one of his speeches against Catiline during that debate. The prisoners were executed soon after, only a short walk from here.

Look again at the shape of the platform. It does not run deep into the hillside like most temples. Instead, it is wide and shallow. The main hall, called the cella, stretched sideways, with the porch projecting out toward the Forum. The reason is simple. There was very little space between the busy square and the cliff of the Capitoline. The builders turned the usual plan on its side. That unusual layout is one of the things scholars find most interesting about this site.

The building that most ancient visitors knew came later. The future emperor Tiberius rebuilt the temple on a grand scale, and it was dedicated in the early first century, around 10 CE. It now honoured Concordia Augusta, harmony linked to the imperial family. The new temple was faced in white marble. Its decoration was famous for its fine carving. A large piece of its cornice survives today and is kept in the museums on the hill above you.

Here is the second surprise. Under Tiberius, this temple became something close to an art gallery. Pliny the Elder, a Roman writer of the first century, listed many works displayed inside. There were Greek paintings and sculptures by well-known masters, and even precious stones offered to the goddess. A Roman walking in from the noisy Forum would have found a calm room full of treasures. In a sense, this was one of the earliest public art collections in the city.

Now lift your eyes behind the platform. The massive wall of stone blocks rising up the hill is the Tabularium, a building of the first century BCE. It probably held state records and connected parts of the Capitoline. Its arched galleries are now part of the Capitoline Museums. Above it stands the Senator's Palace, the seat of the city government, built on those ancient foundations. So the modern city hall of Rome sits right above the temple of civic harmony.

Turn slightly and take in the neighbours. Just beside this platform stand three tall Corinthian columns with a piece of decorated beam on top. They belong to the Temple of Vespasian and Titus. A little further on, eight granite columns hold up a heavy entablature. That is the Temple of Saturn, which housed the state treasury. In front of you rises the Arch of Septimius Severus. Together they form one of the densest corners of ancient Rome.

Why is so little left of Concord itself? After the ancient city declined, its buildings became a quarry. Over many centuries, people took the marble away. Much of it was burned in kilns to make lime for mortar and new construction. Bronze fittings were melted down. What remains is the inner core, the part that was too rough and heavy to reuse. The temple did not fall in one dramatic moment. It disappeared slowly, piece by piece.

If you want a different view, climb to the terraces of the Capitoline Hill. From the overlook behind the Senator's Palace, you can see the whole Forum laid out below. From there, the shape of the temple platform is much easier to read. You can see how tightly it was packed against the slope. You can also follow the line of the Sacred Way, the ancient road that ran through the Forum toward the Colosseum.

Before you move on, stand still for a moment. Listen to the footsteps on the gravel, the voices in many languages, the birds in the pines on the Palatine Hill. Look once more at this low, broken platform. Romans came here to argue, to vote, to pray for agreement, and to admire beautiful things. As you walk away, notice how the old stones still sit beneath the living city above them. Concord, it seems, was always something Rome had to keep rebuilding.