Ricerc@Sapienza

During the 1960-1964 archaeological campaigns, two large areas were excavated beneath the Augustan floor of the Basilica Iulia at the Roman Forum. This excavation allowed to highlight the technical features of the Augustan building site, which behaved the construction of deep foundations and the raising of the area of the Basilica. Among the materials collected from the Augustan filling layers, high-quality fragments of painted plaster attributable to the first style have been recognized. Because of its stylistic and technical characteristics, this decoration appears exceptionally similar to that of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, which is dated to the first half of the second cent. BC. The paper discusses the formation of the filling layers of the Basilica Iulia and suggests that these painted plasters, together with the well-known early 5th cent. BC terracottas, found in the Augustan layers of the Basilica, could have belonged to the nearby temple, that was under reconstruction during the late Augustan period. Furthermore, the paper focuses on the use of the first style decoration in Rome, which old and new excavations have documented both in public and private buildings.