Basilica Hilariana

Roma Capitale records that the building was discovered at the end of the 1800s and largely excavated in the following century, and that an inscription on a statue base and a portrait head found inside show it was built by Manius Publicius Hilarus, a wealthy pearl merchant and follower of the cult of Cybele. A central courtyard is preceded by an entrance vestibule giving on to further rooms, with an upper floor that no longer stands; the vestibule mosaic shows animals round a human eye pierced by a lance, apotropaic in function. In the third century a shrine was built for the pine sacred to Attis, the Arbor Sancta. From the fourth century some of the service rooms were given over to production, and the building was abandoned between the fifth and sixth centuries.