The Nymphaeum of Κόιντος Μούτιος in Segni, it’s architect and the
Mucii Scaevolae within Latium in the late Hellenistic period
In Segni in Latium, in the early 1990s, a nymphaeum was discovered,
datable between the late 2nd century or the early 1st century BCE.
The monument, of extraordinary significance for the study of Roman architecture of the late-Hellenistic period, is preserved in almost pristine condition including its wall decoration. In the centre of its main façade, a Greek inscription formed from mosaic immortalises the name of its designer:
Κόιντοc Μούτιοc/ἠρχιτηκτόνε [...].
The architect’s name allows us to immediately connect him to C. Mutius
(o Mucius) noted by Vitruvius to have been the designer of the Temple of Honour and Virtue for Caio Mario, voted in 103 BCE. Scholarly consensus supposes the architect to have been a client of the Mucii Scaevolae, and in particular of
Q. Mucius Q.f. Q.n. Scaevola, consul in 117 B.C. The existence in Segni of a second architect, with almost exactly the same name as the first and active at the same time, even though we can’t rule out the possibility that they are the same person, has allowed us to reconstruct a complex framework of relationships between the domi nobiles of the late Hellenistic city, the Mucii Scaevolae
and the political system headed by Caio Mario; a broad web of connections around which, not only in Segni but in all the ‘latin’ cities of the region,
the seed was sown for the great social, economic and cultural flowering of the
Latium laboratory from the Second Punic War to the Social War.
Keywords: Hellenistic architecture, Latium, Signia, Mucii Scaevolae, Q. Mutius
