Capitoline Temple (Temple of Jupiter)
The heart of the city of Volubilis consists of a forum with adjoining temples, a basilica, a capitol complex dedicated to Jupiter, and several baths (thermes). This was already the civic and political center of the Amazigh city prior to Roman rule but it was given a monumental make-over in the first and second centuries CE.
Jupiter was the imperial god of the Romans. They instituted his worship in all the lands they conquered. They usually did this by associating Jupiter to the principal god of the various provinces and cities they ruled: hence we find Jupiter-Zeus in Greece and Jupiter-Amon-Ra in Egypt. In Volubilis, the precinct of the Temple of Jupiter also housed temples to a number of Amazigh gods in chapels under the lateral porticoes. The identities of most these local deities have not been ascertained.
The Temple of Jupiter is elevated on a plinth above the forum and the basilica. It thus reproduces the geography of Rome itself, where the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline overlooked the Forum and its basilicas.
The building incorporates a Romanesque Corinthian Tetrastyle architectural design, and was dedicated to the Roman Emperor Macrinus. The temple is earmarked for the trinity of Roman gods, Juno, Jupiter and Minerva. According to Rogerson, a council would meet below the Capitoline Temple in order to make a declaration of war, and then later return to this location with the booty of the resultant war.
The reconstruction wrongfully presents an Ionic order instead of a Corinthian one.