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FIDES, AEDES

a temple of Fides, afterwards known as Fides Publica (Val. Max.) or Fides Publica populi Romani (diplomata), on the Capitol. The establishment of the cult and the erection of a shrine (sacrarium, ἱερόϝ) is ascribed to Numa (Liv. i. 21. 4; Dionys. ii. 75; Plut. Numa 16), probably on the site of the later temple. This was dedicated--and presumably built-by A. Atilius Calatinus in 254 or 250 B.C. (Cic. de nat. deor. ii. 61, cf. Aist. de sacris aedibus 16), and restored and re-dedicated by M. Aemilius Scaurus in 115 B.C. (Cic. loc. cit.). The day of dedication was 1st October(Fast. Arv. Amit. Paul. ad Kal. Oct., CIL 2. p. 214,215,242; Fast. Ant. ap. NS 1921,114). This temple was in Capitolio (Fast. locc. citt.; Plin. NH xxxv. 100), and vicina Iovis optimi maximi (Cato ap. Cic. de off. iii. 104), and probably inside the area Capitolina, at its south-east corner near the porta Pandana1 (Hulsen, Festschrift an Kiepert 211-214), rather than outside (Hermes 1883, 115-116; Rosch. ii. 709). It was used for meetings of the senate (Val. Max. iii. 17; App. BC i. 16), and on its walls were fastened tablets on which international agreements were probably inscribed (Ann. d. Inst. 1858, 198 ff.). In 43 B.C. a great storm tore off some of these tablets (Cass. Dio xlv. 17. 3; Obseq. 128). The diplomata of honorably discharged soldiers were also fastened up here (CIL iii. pp. 902, 916; Suppl. p. 2034). The temple contained a painting by Apelles of an old man teaching a youth to play the lyre (Plin. xxxv. 100), but nothing is known of its appearance, construction or later history (Jord. i. 2. 42; RE vi. 2281-2283; Rosch. i. 1481-1483 ; WR 133-134).

1 Hulsen conjectures that the legend of Aracoeli (Chron. Min. iii. 428 ; cf. Mirabil. 13) arose from a wrong reading of the inscription on an altar: 'Fidei Aug(ustae) sacr(um) ' as Fi(lio) Dei Aug(ustus) sacr(avit). See his Bilder aus der Geschichte des Kapitols (Rome, 1899, 31); Journ. Brit. and Amer. Arch. Soc. iv. 39-47; HCh 323; Town Planning Review xi. (1927), 162.

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