This is from Orberg’s Roma Aeterna, pg. 15, in the paragraph at the top of the page.
Deinde, temporibus Augusti, senatus populusque Romanus aedem Concordiae vetustate collapsam in meliorem faciem restituit.
Then, in the times of Augustus, the Senate and Roman people restored the Temple of Concord to a better condition after the old one had collapsed.
Is that a correct translation of that sentence, and of that phrase in particular?
Gratias vobis ago.
Also, supplicio affecti sunt: does this translate to, they were punished (literally: they were affected by punishment)
Gratias vobis ago
Your translation is very free and doesnt show that you have understood the Latin. Vetustate is an ablative so it cannot mean “the old one”. It gives the reason for the present state of the temple of Concord.
I think given the context of the passage supplicio affecti sunt is more like “were put to death”, the usual fate of Rome’s enemies especially after the celebration of a triumph. But others may see this differently.
Remember that translating Ørberg rather defeats it’s purpose.
I see now. So, vetustate collapsam should be translated as after it collapsed with old age?
I would not be inclined to translate this (or indeed anything) literally. That doesnt mean we should not try to be accurate. “with old age” makes it sound as if the temple was an elderly person.
Taking the text as it stands " Then in the time of Augustus SPQR restored the appearance of the Temple of Concord which had fallen into disrepair because of it’s great age." or even “restored the appearance of the ancient Temple of Concord which had collapsed”
The text you are reading is taken from an inscription “S.P.Q.R. aedem Concordiae vetustate conlapsam in meliorem faciem opere e cultu splendidiore restituerunt.”. This is an undated inscription recorded by "the Anonymus of Einsiedeln which points to a restoration of the Augustan temple of Concord at some time later in the empire, perhaps after the fire of Carinus. " (The Temple of Concord in the Roman Forum, Homer F. Rebert and Henri Marceau 1925).
So it seems that the inscription could actually relate to a restoration hundreds of years after Augustus. The fire of Carinus was in 283 AD. I haven’t checked what the latest scholarship on this is and so it might not be the latest view. A lot of excavation has happened since 1925. Unfortunately I do not have Carandini’s Atlas of Ancient Rome to check.
If the inscription were taken to relate to the restoration carried out by Tiberius in 10 AD this destruction of the temple had nothing to do with its age. Amanda Claridge writes “[ it] had been struck by lightening or otherwise burned down in 9 BC.”
If this is the case, couldn’t one take aedem vetustate collapsam as the temple, having collapsed in antiquity, i.e. as an ablative of time.
Perhaps my pointing to the source of this sentence has made it needlessly complicated.
The Roma Aeterna passage begins “Aedes Concordiae antiqua eo tempore aedificata esse…” and so when I read “aedem Concordiae vetustate collapsam” I took “vetustate” as the reason for the ruin of the temple.
The problem with looking at whatever facts we might have about the temple to try to decide the correct meaning is that it just leads to some intractable difficulties.
There seem to have been three successive temples all of which were dedicated to different ideas of “Concordia”. " The earliest was that built by Camillus in 366 B. C. to commemorate the reconciliation of the plebeians with the patricians after a long period of discord. …After the death of Gracchus in 121 B. C., another temple was reared to Concord by
L. Opimius. …The third temple, known as the aedes Concordiae Augustae, was begun by Tiberius in 7 B. C. and dedicated in his own name and that of his brother Drusus in 10 A.D. Whatever may have been the purpose for which it was built it became in the course of the empire a repository for the highly-prized Greek works of art, and continued to be a not uncommon place of meeting for the senate." (The Temple of Concord in the Roman Forum, Homer F. Rebert and Henri Marceau 1925).
I have found the full (?) text of the inscription which I referred to in an earlier post.
This inscription starts by referring to a fire and so this might be the fire of Carinus I mentioned in my previous post and so would point to a restoration of Tiberius’ temple.
In any event these facts exiguous as they are dont really help much but having dug them out I thought I would make a note of them.
I suppose “vetustate” could be taken as an ablative of time but this would mean the temple had not been restored for a long period. Given where the temple is (next to the temple of Saturn at the foot of the Capitol) and its importance as a meeting place of the curia and the place which saw many historic scenes such as Cicero’s Cataline orations, it would seem odd if it collapsed in antiquity and no one tried to rebuild it.
I didnt really address Propertius’ question about " in meliorem faciem restituit." I think the idea here is “build back better” as our politicians love to say. So the temple was restored to have an “(even) better appearance”. As you can see the inscription is slightly more expansive on this point.