Trabajo presentado al XI Coloquio Internacional de Arte Romano Provincial, celebrado en Mérida (España) del 18 al 21 de mayo de 2009.The temple of the imperial cult located in Calle Holguín in Mérida is the most distinguished testimony of the transmission of urban models to the capital of Lusitania, due both to its age and to its great size and the richness of the materials used. As has been shown by various researchers, the building’s unusual plan, of cella barlonga, is a fairly exact replica of the Temple of Concord in Rome, restored by Tiberius and opened
in the year 10 AD. This means the display has two separate, but complementary, parts. In the first part the results of a recent inspection of the marble material recovered in the excavations of 1999-2006 are exhibited. This involved, above all, the presentation of new pieces and their most precise measurement, thanks to which we have been able to advance a bit further in the architectural reconstruction of both the temple and the porticos on the site. It was proved that the temple had 50-foot high columns, whereas the columns of the porticos were 25 feet high. Displayed in the second part is the discovery of an epigraph that appeared in the recent excavations of the colony’s forum. This inscription has enabled the site to be dated to the Tiberian era
and, at the same time, verifies an earlier proposal of J. C. Saquete, who related the temple’s construction with L. Fulcinius Trio, the governor of Lusitania between the years 21 and 31 AD. The inscription testifies that the temple was built between the years 26 and 30 AD, entrusted to L. Cornelius Bocchus, praefectus fabrum of
the governor and provincial flamen of Lusitania in the year 30/31 AD.Peer Reviewe
