An Augustan Temple Represented on a Historical Relief Dating to the Time of Claudius

The well-known Roman historical relief depicting a procession of togate figures in front of a Corinthian decastyle building is reexamined. The Claudian date first proposed by Sieveking is accepted on the basis of stylistic affinities with the "Ara Pietatis" and the dress of the lictors represented on the relief. The background structure is identified as an Augustan building, perhaps the Temple of Mars outside the Porta Capena, but definitely not the Hadrianic Temple of Venus and Roma as most scholars have argued. The composition of the pediment of the structure is discussed in the context of the iconographical development in Roman art of the encounter between Mars and Rhea Silvia.