| The temple opens just below the square of the lookout. It is a sacred space of pre-Roman times. It was a meeting place for markets, political or military meetings and parties. In the second century A.D. was buried by landslides and the site was abandoned until Fra 'Pietro da Morrone, Celestine V in the future, he built a church called St. Maria "in gruttis". Then came the settlement around the ruins of Fountain of Love in honor of Ovid, it was thought, in fact, that the remains were those of the temple of the birthplace of the poet, the "Villa d'Ovidio".
But today we know exactly that it was a temple, both from the discovery of inscriptions, statues and graffiti, that the most important discovery: the bronze statue of Hercules in repose, now exhibited in the National Archaeological Museum in Chieti. It is a bronze statue, a gift from a merchant, dated to the third century BC, representing the hero leaning on his left arm on a club from which hangs a lion skin. |