Temples!

You’re probably used to temples on ancient coins looking like this:

But how about this?

Let’s look at the largest Roman temple outside of Rome, and its remarkable depiction on provincial coinage!

The first thing you’ll notice is, of course, the imposing aerial perspective. This would have been too experimental a technique for the extremely conservative depictions of imperial coinage, but city-states in the East had much freedom over their coinage and chose to produce some wonderfully innovative designs. Much to the delight of the discerning collector! For similar artistic techniques, see Greco-Roman wall paintings. So striking a view serves here to celebrate one of the most historically interesting temples, as explored:

Heliopolis (now Baalbek), located in modern day Lebanon, became a Roman colony - Colonia Julia Augusta Felix Heliopolitana - in ~15 BC. Construction of this temple begun soon after and was mostly finished after ~75 years, but continued to be built into the reign of Antoninus Pius (although it’s hard to say for sure). Extra bits were added on by later emperors, too, like the Propylaea. It was dedicated to Jupiter, and had columns of diameter ~2.5m and height ~20m! Earthquakes damaged it, and eventually, around 560 AD (under the command of Justinian) eight columns were taken to form part of Constantinople’s Hagia Sofia. After the Arab conquest, it was converted to a fortress (‘qalaa’, by which name it is still known).

Macrobius describes the statue that once stood in the temple:

The temple’s still around, and has been studied for centuries, although the situation in Lebanon makes it difficult to visit nowadays. I love how rich a life the building has had, its history written over and over by different peoples over millenia…

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