The Pantheon, honoring all the gods, has endured the perpetual attack of nature, through rain, weathering, and earthquakes for 1800 years. It has also survived wars, and, to a lesser degree, the attacks of human scavengers.

An earlier Pantheon, built by Marcus Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus, used travertine in its construction, and was damaged irreparably by a fire. The current structure was built around 130 CE, based on dates stamped on the bricks in the structure. Its large inscription states, "M AGRIPPA L COS TERTIUM FECIT", meaning that Consul, Marcus Agrippa made this. Hadrian apparently wanted to credit Agrippa, since he had provided the original Pantheon.

The Pantheon is built entirely of brick, stone, and concrete with no steel or iron components to provide tensile strength. It owes its longevity to unusual concrete having impressively high tensile strength . The way ancient Roman concrete achieved this, through both chemistry and placement technique, is analyzed and described well in two excellent articles:

     The Roman Pantheon: The Triumph of Concrete by David Moore

     The Secrets of Roman Concrete by Ben Herring

David Moore also provides an overview of Pantheon engineering in his article, The Pantheon, at RomanConcrete.com.

Imperium in the Pantheon of Rome and its Pavimentum by Patrick Hunt discusses the inlaid opus sectile floor.

The spherical roof of the Pantheon was originally gilded in bronze. This surface survived over 1000 years, and was then apparently removed along with the bronze portico trusses by Pope Urban VIII for other purposes, including the baldacchino of St. Peter's. This inspired the famous graffito, Quod non fecerunt barbari fecerunt Barberini. Barberini was the family name of Urban VIII, thus the Latin proverb states that what the barbarians didn't do, the Barberini did.



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