Three columns and part of the architrave (marble beam abovethe columns) of the temple are the only visible remains of a first century BCtemple to Apollo that once stood in the Campus Martius. The earliest temple onthis site was built in 431 BC by the Roman consul Gnaeus Iulius Mento, who builtthe temple in honor of Apollo Medicus (Latin for “ Apollo the Healer”)after a severe plague in 433 BC. The temple was later restored in 353 BC and179 BC. In 34 BC, the Roman consul and general Gaius Sosius began constructionof a new temple to Apollo on this site after his military campaign in 37 BC, where he had attacked Jerusalemand installed Herod the Great as King of Judea. Construction of this new templewas delayed as civil war had broken out in Rome between the forces of Mark Anthony andOctavian (who would later become Emperor Augustus). After the forces of MarkAnthony were defeated, the construction of the temple continued and wascompleted sometime during the early reign of Augustus (emperor from 27 BC – 14AD). According to the ancient Roman historian Livy, the Templeof Apollo Sosianus was filled withmany paintings and sculptures from ancient Greece and was often used by theSenate for meetings.
The remaining three columns and part of the architrave(marble beam above the columns) of the temple date to the 36 BC reconstruction. They were discovered nearby and set up in their present location in 1940. Thearchitrave contains reliefs of objects related to the god Apollo and templesacrifice rituals. At the left side and right sides of the relief aredepictions of an ox skull known as a bucranium which represents an ox killed insacrifice. In between the ox skulls are laurel branches, symbols of the godApollo, which hang between candelabra. This temple has been referred to by Roman historians sincethe first century AD as the Temple of Apollo Sosianus inreference to Gaius Sosius, who began its last major construction.
The name alsodifferentiates it from the Temple of Apollo Palatinus, which Emperor Augustus began building on PalatineHill in 36 BC and completed in 28 BC.
