Temple d'August — Four Columns in a Courtyard
The Temple d'August in Barcelona features four nine-meter-tall Roman sandstone columns preserved inside a fifteenth-century medieval courtyard atop Mont Taber. Built in the late first century B.C., the temple originally measured thirty-five meters long and seventeen and a half meters wide. Architect Antoni Celles documented the site in 1830, and in 1956 a fourth reconstructed column rejoined three buried columns inside the medieval structure.
Barcelona · from the walk “Stones & Secrets: Hidden Courtyards of the Barri Gòtic” · audio ~3 min · Generated
Carrer del Paradís 10, Barcelona
- The Temple d'August in Barcelona was built in the late first century B.C. atop Mont Taber.
- Four nine-meter-tall Corinthian columns carved from Montjuïc sandstone survive from the original Temple d'August structure.
- Architect Antoni Celles drew detailed plans of the Temple d'August foundations during his 1830 study.
- A fourth column stood at Plaça del Rei from 1879 until returning to Temple d'August in 1956.
How tall are the Roman columns at the Temple d'August in Barcelona?
You're standing on the highest point in the ancient Roman city of Barcino. Look down at your feet near the entrance... do you see that old millstone embedded in the ground? That small stone disc marks the very summit of Mont Taber, a humble hill just over sixteen meters high, where the Romans chose to build the most important temple in their colony more than two thousand years ago.......... Now step inside. Push through the entrance of this fifteenth century Gothic building, and descend into the courtyard. There they are. Four colossal Corinthian columns, nine meters tall, carved from sandstone quarried on nearby Montjuic hill. They were part of a grand temple dedicated to Emperor Augustus, built in the late first century B.C. The full temple once measured roughly thirty five meters long and seventeen and a half meters wide, surrounded by columns on all sides... six across the front, eleven down each flank. A statue of Augustus himself would have presided inside the inner chamber, the cella, gazing out over the forum of Barcino.......... But here is what makes this place truly extraordinary. When the Roman empire crumbled and medieval barcelOna grew on top of the old city, these columns were Not torn down. They were simply... swallowed. Absorbed into the walls of newer buildings, sandwiched between floor slabs, hidden in plain sight for Centuries. People in the fifteenth century noticed them inside the structure and argued about what they were, but nobody could identify them as Roman.......... It was not until eighteen thirty that architect Antoni Celles conducted the first proper study, drawing detailed plans of the temple's foundations. And even then, three columns remained buried inside the building until the late nineteenth century, when they finally emerged during construction work. A Fourth column had crumbled during nearby demolition. It was painstakingly reconstructed from fragments and displayed outdoors at Plaça del Rei starting in eighteen seventy nine. It stood there, alone, for nearly eighty years... until nineteen fifty six, when it was finally reunited with its three siblings right here.......... And the name of the street you just walked down? Carrer del Paraadis. Paradise Street. It reportedly takes its name from a beautiful garden that once existed around this very temple in ancient times. Two thousand years later, the paradise is gone... but these columns remain, silent witnesses to a city built in layers, where every century simply stacked itself on top of the last.