A small open-air shrine dedicated to Cloacina, called Sacrum Cloacina by the Romans. The Shrine of Venus Cloacina marked a main entrance to the Cloaca Maxima sewer system, which drained the naturally swampy area of the Forum Romanum. The shrine was contained within a semi-circular marble wall of unspecified height, with a diameter of roughly 8 feet. Within this enclosure was a travertine collared drain composed of smallish blocks of tufa, or cappellaccio, along with several small statues of Venus Cloacina. The date of the shrine's construction is unknown. Livy notes that in 33 B.C. Agrippa, the aedile under Augustus, inspected the shrine while refurbishing the Cloaca Maxima, which had been built several centuries earlier, possibly by the pre-Republic king Tarquinius Superbus. It isn't clear, however, whether Agrippa built the shrine or merely had it refurbished as well.
Cloacina was an ancient deity, called "Our Lady of the Sewers". She was, as her title implies, the patron deity of sewers, and especially, it would seem, of the Cloaca Maxima. Early Cloacina was eventually assimilated into the Roman belief system as an aspect of Venus, as happened with many of the older feminine deities.
All that remains today of the shrine is its marble foundation, which can be found at the Forum, immediately northwest of the ruins of the Basilica Aemilia.
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