The Oratory of the Forty Martyrs: From Imperial Ante-Vestibule to Christian Room of Worship

Abstract

The Oratory of the Forty Martyrs occupies a strategic symbolical position between the Forum Romanum and the Palatine complexes. Its interior decoration is dominated by representations of the Forty Martyrs of Sebasteia, soldiers of the legendary Legio XII Fulminata. Would a cult to the Forty Martyrs, obviously prominent in the oratory, share any connotations with the pre-ecclesiastical use of the room as part of the vestibule complexes for the imperial residence on the Palatine hill? Though by no means complete, the information given in the primary sources tells of a continuous imperial virtual presence on the Palatine hill. A corresponding presence of the imperial scholae may well have been part of this continuity. The church complex of S. Maria Antiqua and the Oratory of the Forty Martyrs would have been the natural site for an official cult of the Forty Martyrs, and politically a timing for its introduction to Rome at the beginning of the seventh century would suit best.