This south entrance would have adjoined the Basilica of Neptune and the site of Agrippa’s public baths ( laconica), the first of their kind to be built in Rome. Some archaeologists think it had a north-facing entrance consisting of a portico looking onto a paved square (like the present building), while others believe that its entrance was to the south (the other side compared to its present location). The exact form of Agrippa’s Pantheon is still debated. Excavations in the nineteenth century and from 1995 to 1997 showed that there is a lower floor, about 1.5 meters below the current floor, which may correspond to this original Augustan building or to its replacement or restoration by Emperor Domitian after it was damaged by fire in 80 CE. The architect was probably Lucius Cocceius Auctus and the building was perhaps completed in 25 BCE. The first historically documented construction of the Pantheon was begun in 27 BCE by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (63 BCE – 12 BCE) a military commander and close collaborator of the Emperor Augustus. Although a temple probably did not exist here at such an early date it seems that there was a small altar dedicated to Mars in the vicinity.
The site corresponded to a marsh called Palus Caprae (the pool of the goat) where Romulus, the mythical founder of Rome, who was son of the god Mars, supposedly ascended into the sky during a thunderstorm while he was reviewing the army 1.
The History of the Pantheon The legend of the first PantheonĪccording to legend a temple was first built here in the seventh century BCE in the Campus Martius (or “Field of Mars”) a large area of about 2 square kilometres where religious festivals and military musters were held, located to the north of the original site of Rome and its seven hills. This extraordinary architectural and engineering achievement of the ancient world inspired many later buildings and has influenced the entire history of Western architecture. People from all over the world visit Rome to admire its near perfect state of preservation, its regular mathematical proportions and its huge masonry dome (the biggest ever built), as well as to discover its mysterious and peculiar history. The Pantheon is a Roman temple which was presumably dedicated to all the gods, as its Latin name Pantheum, comes from the ancient Greek (Πάνθειον) Pantheion, which means “ of all the gods”.
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