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=== The site ===
[[File:Rom, Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Innenansicht 2.jpg|thumb|The interior of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, restored to the appearance of the 8th-century church.]]
The [[basilica]] of Santa Maria in Cosmedin is in an area of Rome along the Tiber River that once housed the [[Forum Boarium]], the ancient cattle market, and a complex of temples and shrines to [[Hercules]]. Archaeologists discovered a platform of ancient [[tufa]] under the [[crypt]] of the church, which they have tentatively identified as part of the [[Great Altar of Hercules|Great Altar of Unconquered Hercules]] (Latin: ''Herculis Invicti Ara Maxima''), possibly dating from the sixth century BCE.<ref>Filippo Coarelli, ''Il foro boario dalle origini alla fine della repubblica'' (Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 1992), vol. 2,
In the sixth and early seventh centuries CE, this area of Rome developed into a Greek quarter (''schola graeca''), a compound initially populated by Greek, Syrian, and Egyptian merchants and by functionaries of the imperial government in Constantinople during the [[Byzantine Papacy]] of
=== The ''diaconia'' ===
Around 550, a hall was built on the site, incorporating some of the loggia columns of the previous building in its west and north walls.<ref>Maria Fabricius Hansen, ''The Spolia Churches of Rome: Recycling Antiquity in the Middle Ages,'' Barbara J. Haveland, trans. (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 2015), 64, 168.</ref> This was identified as a [[Diaconia|''diaconia'']] (deaconry), an early Christian welfare center, where charitable distributions were given to the poor.<ref>Thomas F. X. Noble, ''The Republic of St. Peter:
''Diaconiae'' were funded by wealthy individuals. A mid-eighth century inscription displayed in the narthex records a gift of extensive properties to the church's ministry to the poor by Eustathius (or Eustachius), a Byzantine duke of Rome who had administered the territory of [[Ravenna]] for the papacy.<ref>Noble 1984, 105, 250.</ref> The same inscription also mentions a donation by a “''vir gloriossimus'' [most noble] Georgios” and his brother, David.<ref>Ekonomou 2007, 64n.5.</ref>
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