The temple of Jupiter Anxur stands on Monte Sant'Angelo, also called Monte Giove, 227 metres above Terracina: the last spur of the Ausoni mountains, which runs down to the sea and closes the Pontine plain to the south. A sanctuary stood here soon after the Roman conquest and the opening of the Via Appia in 312 BC, with terraces in polygonal masonry; in the second half of the second century BC the so-called small temple was built, and at the start of the first century BC, in Sulla's time, the complex was rebuilt on a monumental scale, with a circuit wall, a military camp and the great temple on a terrace in opus incertum.
What to see
The terrace of the great temple rests on a front of twelve arches opening onto as many barrel-vaulted rooms, linked to one another and facing a long corridor. The temple stood on a high podium with a flight of twelve steps and had six Corinthian columns on the front; the almost square cella had a white mosaic and the base for the statue. Beside it was the oracular sanctuary, a natural rock with cavities from which a breath of air emerged, encased in a base carrying a small shrine.
Higher up, the entrenched camp was defended by walls with nine round towers; to the west the small temple keeps nine vaulted rooms with traces of second-century BC frescoes. The attribution to Jupiter Anxur is debated: an inscription and votive objects dedicated to Venus suggest the cult of Venus Obsequens, while the minor sanctuary was perhaps dedicated to Feronia.
Visiting
The complex is part of the Monti Ausoni and Lago di Fondi park; the first excavations were carried out by Pio Capponi in 1894. Opening times and tickets should be checked beforehand.
Our editors' tip
In the Middle Ages the ruins were called the palace of Theodoric, and in the early Middle Ages a Benedictine monastery of Saint Michael the Archangel settled here, giving the hill the name Monte Sant'Angelo: a corridor of the substructure was turned into a church, with ninth-century frescoes.
