The Pantheon Module 6 done

Archaeologists and art historians value inscriptions on ancient monuments because they provide information about patronage, dating, and purpose.
The inscription on the frieze identifies Marcus Agrippa as the patron: "M[arcus] Agrippa L[ucii] F[ilius] Co[n]s[ul] Tertium Fecit" ("Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, thrice Consul, built this").
In 1892, interpretation of stamped bricks showed the Pantheon was a rebuilding of an earlier structure by Emperor Hadrian (ruled 117-138 CE), built between 118 and 128.

Agrippa built the original Pantheon in honor of his and Augustus' military victory at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE.
Agrippa's Pantheon was thought to be a small, conventional, Greek-style rectangular temple.
Written sources suggest the building was damaged by fire around 80 CE and restored under Emperor Domitian (ruled 81-96 CE).
After further fire damage in 110 CE, Emperor Trajan began rebuilding, but only groundwork was done before his death.
Hadrian conceived and possibly designed the new building, abandoning the idea of simply reconstructing Agrippa's temple.
Hadrian installed the inscription attributing the building to Agrippa to honor his predecessors.

Archaeological studies indicate Agrippa's original building was not a small rectangular temple.
It contained a portico with tall columns, a pediment, and a rotunda (circular hall).
Evidence of bricks used in the building's construction shows that almost all of them date from the 110s, during the time of Trajan.
The Pantheon should be seen as the final architectural glory of Emperor Trajan's reign, substantially designed and rebuilt beginning around 114, finished under Hadrian between 125 and 128.
Lise Hetland argues that the effort to fit the dating entirely within Hadrian's time shows "the illogicality of the sometimes almost surgically clear-cut presentation of Roman buildings according to the sequence of emperors."
Style categories and historical periodizations should be seen as conveniences subordinate to the priority of evidence.

It is an open question whether the building was ever a temple to all the gods.
Pantheon, or Pantheum in Latin, was more of a nickname than a formal title.
Cassius Dio's account provides important evidence about the building's purpose.
By the fourth century CE, statues of Roman emperors occupied the rotunda's niches.
In Agrippa's Pantheon, these spaces had been filled by statues of the gods.
Hadrian held court in the Pantheon.
The Pantheon was primarily associated with the power of the emperors and their divine authority.

The dome's coffers are divided into 28 sections, equaling the number of large columns below.
28 is a "perfect number," a whole number whose summed factors equal it ( $1+2+4+7+14 = 28$ ).
Four perfect numbers were known in antiquity (6, 28, 496, and 8128), and they were held to have mystical, religious meaning in connection with the cosmos.
The oculus was the interior's only source of direct light.
The sunbeam traced an ever-changing daily path across the wall and floor of the rotunda.
The sunbeam may have marked solar and lunar events, or simply time.
Dio understood the dome as the canopy of the heavens and the rotunda itself as a microcosm of the Roman world, with the emperor presiding over it all.

The Pantheon's basic design includes a portico with free-standing columns attached to a domed rotunda.
The intermediate block transitions between the portico and the rotunda.
A shallow pediment above the portico's pediment may indicate the portico was intended to be taller (50 Roman feet instead of 40 feet).
Taller columns, ordered from Egypt, may not have arrived, leading to the substitution of smaller columns.
Approaching the Pantheon involved walking through a courtyard and up stairs, now submerged.

The Pantheon is one of the most imitated buildings in history.
The walls are made from brick-faced concrete.
The period between Trajan and Comodus (98-192 CE) was the High Empire, experiencing peace and prosperity of the Pax Romana.
"CE" stands for Common Era.