The College of the Augustales is a Roman religious building in ancient Herculaneum, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, where the priestly college of the Augustales, devoted to the cult of the emperor, probably met. It was built at the end of the first century BC, in the Augustan age, and financed by two brothers, A. Lucius Proculus and A. Lucius Iulianus, who on the day of its inauguration also gave a banquet to the Augustales and the decurions, as an inscription found in 1960 and now fixed on a side wall records.
What to see
The interior is a single square room, divided into three aisles by four fluted Tuscan columns that supported a skylight, which collapsed in the eruption; the piperno capitals are decorated with ovolos and leaves painted blue and red. The walls have pilasters closing in blind brick arches, and carbonised wooden beams can still be seen in the ceiling. In the central aisle, between two walls of opus reticulatum, opens the shrine, added after the earthquake of 62, reached by two marble steps. It is frescoed in the Fourth Style: on the side walls, above tragic masks and painted windows with chariots driven by winged Victories, two pictures show Hercules fighting Achelous and the apotheosis of Hercules with Minerva and Juno, with a rainbow in the background, perhaps an image of Jupiter. The floor is opus sectile in coloured marbles, and at the back a half-column probably held a bust of Augustus.
In the right aisle a partition of opus craticium created a small room for the custodian: his carbonised body was found on the bed, trapped by falling plaster. Statues of Titus, of Augustus and of Claudius as Jupiter, holding a thunderbolt, and of relatives of Marcus Nonius Balbus were found in the college, as well as a small round wooden table with legs shaped like greyhounds. The building was located on 18 May 1740 through the tunnels of Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre and excavated in the open by Amedeo Maiuri between 1960 and 1961.
Visiting
The college has its main entrance on the decumanus maximus, where the carbonised wooden door jamb survives, and a side entrance on cardo III. It is part of the archaeological area: opening hours and tickets should be checked with the Herculaneum Archaeological Park.
Our editors' tip
Outside, to the right of the main entrance, is a small structure enclosed by four yellow tuff pillars, with a marble slab and four small columns, only one of them original: its purpose is unknown, and scholars suggest a dining area, a latrine or a sacred space.
