The aim of the book is to analyze the Hellenistic influence on temple architecture in central Italy in the middle and late Republican periods (396-31 BC). This is a topic that falls fully within the scholarly debate of the last two decades, which has been oriented toward investigating the origin and formation of Roman architectural language. The author focuses his analysis on sacred buildings, studied from a constructive, typological and decorative perspective in order to have an overall view of Italic architecture in this crucial phase.
The book is divided into an introduction and three parts: The Introduction includes the aim of the research, setting out methodological and terminological aspects and the state of the art. Part One (“Tipologie Templari”) analyzes the temples from a planimetric point of view, distinguishing them by their external appearance (peripteral, peripteral sine postico, pseudo-dipteral, prostyle, tholos) and by their internal division (triple cella, double cella, ‘cella trasversale’). The extensive case history is analyzed in detail focusing on the Italic and Hellenistic examples compared. Part Two (“Decorazione Architettonica”) is devoted to the architectural decoration of the buildings. The first two chapters analyze cyma recta and double cyma podium types, the main features of the Italic temple. Following this, column bases (torus bases, two tori and scotia bases, two tori and double scotia bases), shafts, capitals and entablatures are examined. Part Three, the longest, is dedicated to the catalog of buildings divided into 87 entries, alphabetically listed by site name. Each entry bears a title and the following entries: dating, type, general size, order size, cell size, orientation, description and dating, and bibliography. Some forms deal with more than one temple. Finally, the volume closes with conclusions, bibliography, and tables in which the buildings are classified in chronological order.
This is the first study to take a comprehensive look at temples of the central Italic area of the middle and late Roman Republican age. Temple architecture represents a key indicator of the evolution of the typological and decorative development of Roman architecture. Previous literature has shown a selective orientation directed only toward the analysis of temples of the late Roman Republican period, neglecting the mid-Republican ones. However, an analysis of the mid-Republican period is fundamental for the conspicuous contribution to the architecture of Latium and central Italy.
Kosmopoulos approaches the issue from a solid documentary basis, as shown by the extensive catalog in which he takes care to provide all the edited data on individual buildings, appropriately accompanied by images useful for understanding the text. The approach to each temple is all-encompassing; in fact, the author focuses on the architectural decoration, usually overlooked in many publications.
The cataloged temples can be grouped as follows: Italic temples that fit fully into the local tradition, Hellenistic temples built in Italy, and hybrid temples that represent the most interesting part to understanding the Roman architectural language. In this regard, the author speaks agreeably of Mediterranean Hellenistic architecture (pp. 461-466), also emphasizing the reverse trend, namely the infiltration of Italic elements into the East, particularly in Athens, Kos and Cyprus, an aspect that remains understudied to this day.
The author makes an appreciable analytical effort for two main reasons. First, many of the temples are in a poor state of preservation and lack stratigraphic data useful for dating; in this he interprets the data clearly, providing all that is known about each temple. Second, he has to perform a remarkable work of synthesis in putting together data scattered in articles and books producing a very useful academic tool for later studies not only on Hellenistic architecture built in the Italic area but on Hellenistic architecture in general.
The Sardinian buildings (the Temple of the Sanctuary of Via Malta in Cagliari, no. 9; the Temple of the Forum of Nora no. 50; the ‘k’ Temple and the ‘tetrastyle Temple of Tharros, nos. 79, 1-2) are problematic due to their state of preservation. Despite chronological fluctuations, they are all built after the establishment of the province Sardinia et Corsica and do not belong to a proper Hellenistic area, most likely having a Hellenistic influence from central Italy.
Not all the Hellenistic temples of Sicily are included in the catalog and this may perhaps lead to some confusion (the so called ‘Oratory of Phalarides’ and the Asklepieion of Agrigento, no. 1,1-; the Temple of Eloro, no. 22; the Temple of Megara Hyblaea, no. 42; the Temple of the Agora of Monte Iato, no. 45; the peripteral Temple and the Serapieion of Taormina, no. 75, 1-2). Also excluded are the Temple ‘of Apollo’ of Halaisa, Temple B of Selinunte and the Herakleion of S. Marco d’Alunzio. Some of these in recent years have been the subject of both stratigraphic investigation and study. The Temple of Apollo Aleo of Crimisa is also excluded from the catalog; it represents the only Hellenistic peripteral temple built in western Greece.
The inclusion of some temples in Sicily lacks a thorough framework. This would have required an analysis of the complex issue concerning the influence of Italic architecture on the island, which continued to maintain a strong cultural continuity with its Hellenistic past. It is also highly likely that some Sicilian temples were inspirations for the Italic temples. It is in fact difficult in this chronological phase to identify temples of Italic type in Sicily except for the problematic Oratory of Phalarides.
The well-designed catalog, always accompanied by pictures, follows an alphabetical and territorial order. In the final tables, the same buildings are usefully sorted chronologically (e.g., Rome includes detailed entries on 24 temples). However, one feels the lack of a territorial taxonomy, which is made even worse by the absence of an index of locations. This would have been very useful since this is a voluminous general text useful in facilitating scholarly consultation. Likewise, a map with the location of the main sites mentioned in the text—some little known to the non-specialist reader—would have been useful.
These points aside, the substance of the work is not compromised. It is a valuable work of synthesis, which has a firm methodological foundation. The author always has clarity at heart through limpid language and a substantial number of images. Printing errors are quite rare, a sign of careful revision of the text. Furthermore, the volume is also editorially valuable because of a pleasing typographical layout.