Mixed Signals: The Ara Pacis and the Prima Porta Statue

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Mixed Signals The Ara Pacis and the Prima
Porta Statue

• The Symbolism of Augustan Art and Architecture

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Historical Cycles and the Urbs Aeterna (Eternal
City)

• "The Great Year" and Ekpyrosis ("Fiery
  Cataclysm").
• Neo-Pythagorean Metacosmesis the periodic
  renewal of the world.
• Urbs Aeterna- First Attested in Augustus' Reign
  Tibullus, 2.5.23.
• The cyclic theory makes its appearance with
  Heraclitus (fr. 66 22 Bywater), who will later
  greatly influence the Stoic doctrine of the
  Eternal Return. We find the two mythical
  themes-the Ages of the World and the continuous
  cycle of creations and destructions-already
  associated in Empedocles.the Stoics took over
  from Heraclitus the idea of the end of the World
  by fire (ekpyrosis) andPlato (Tim. 22, C)
  already knew, as an alternative, the End by
  flood. These two cataclysms in a measure
  determined the rhythm of the Great Year (magnus
  annus).
• Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality (1963)

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Tibullus (died 19 BCE), Carmina, 2.5.23-6

• Romulus aeternae nondum formaverat urbis
• moenia, consorti non habitanda Remo
• sed tunc pascebant herbosa Palatia vaccae
• et stabant humiles in Iovis arce casae.
• Romulus had not yet formed the walls of the
  eternal city, which could not accommodate his
  brother Remus but then cattle grazed on the
  grassy Palatine, and humble homes stood on
  Jupiters heights.

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Historical Reconstruction The Augustan Forum

• The Temple to Mars Ultor ("Mars the Avenger"),
  dedicated 2 BCE
• Exedrae and Colonnades Flanking the Temple.
  Left Statues of Augustus' Family and the Aeneas
  group Right Famous Generals from the Roman
  Republic and Romulus and kings of early Rome
• "The juxtaposition of the two portrait
  galleries...justified the position of the
  princep's family in the new Rome by proclaiming
  its unique historical importance. The reality of
  competition between Rome's leading families
  stretching back for centuries...and the relative
  insignificance of the Julii from the fourth to
  second centuries B.C. were all thereby obscured.
  In this version, the Julii had always been Rome's
  most important family, for this family would
  produce her savior." (P. Zanker, Power of Images,
  211)

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Temple of Mars Ultor
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Temple of Mars Ultor on the Capitol
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Forum of Augustus
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Model of Augustan Forum
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Ground Plan of Augustan Forum
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The Mausoleum of Augustus (Campus Martius)

• Political Propaganda Warfare against Antony.
• illegal publication of Antony's will desire to
  be buried beside Cleopatra.
• charges that Antony intended to transfer the
  capital to Alexandria.
• mausoleum as expression of Octavian's loyalty to
  Rome and Italy.
• On Augustus' Funeral (CE 14) "...an ex-praetor
  actually swore that he had seen Augustus' spirit
  soaring up to Heaven through the flames. Leading
  knights, barefoot, and wearing unbelted tunics,
  then collected his ashes and placed them in the
  family Mausoleum. He had built this himself
  during his sixth consulship...at the same time
  converting the neighborhood into a public park"
  (Suetonius, Augustus, 100).

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Ruins of Augustus Mausoleum
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Reconstruction of Mausoleum
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The Ara Pacis (Temple of Peace)

• Dedicated January 30, 9 BCE to celebrate
  Augustus' subjugation of Spain and Gaul (Campus
  Martius).
• West Face Lupercal and Aeneas sacrificing East
  Face Roma and Tellus (Mythological).
• North and South Faces Foundation and
  Inauguration (constitutio) of Temple in July, 13
  BCE (Historical).
• "Through ritual, profane time and space are
  transcended into mythical-or, rather, sacred-time
  and space....Each time the rites described on the
  small altar frieze were enacted, the diachronic
  passage of time was suspended the cycle of
  profane time was regenerated with the dawn of an
  aurea aetas the Augustan peace was renewed"
  (P.J. Holliday).

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Ara Pacis
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Ara Pacis- Aeneas Sacrificing (West Face)
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An Augustan Golden Age Images of Fecundity

• There are two main ways in whichmaps and
  moralities could be constructed out of a living
  ethnic past.The first way was through a return
  to nature and its poetic spaces. This nature
  and these spaces are quite specific they
  constitute the historic home of the people, the
  sacred repository of their memories. They have
  their own historical poetry, for those whose
  spirits are attuned to them. The homeland is not
  just the setting of a national drama, but a major
  protagonist, and its natural features take on
  historical significance for the people.
• The basis ofcommitment is a belief in the
  importance of residence and propinquity Living
  together and being rooted in a particular
  terrain and soil become criteria forthe bases of
  political community. Often such criteria are
  wedded to notions of return to agrarian
  simplicity and self-sufficiency and to the rustic
  virtues corrupted by urban luxury.
• Anthony D. Smith, National Identity (1991) 65,
  117

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Ara Pacis- Pax (Tellus- Venus) (West Face)
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Stopping Historical Time The Myth of the Eternal
Return under Augustus

• Here is Caesar and the whole progeny of Iulus,
  destined to come under the great vault of the
  sky. This, this is he, the man you have heard
  promised to you so often, Augustus Caesar, son of
  a god, who will once again establish the Golden
  Age in Latium, in the region once ruled by
  Saturn. Vergil, Aeneid 6.789-94
• It was decreed by the Greeks in the province of
  Asia.Whereas the providence which divinely
  ordered our lives created with zeal and
  munificence the most perfect good for our lives
  by producing Augustus and filling him with virtue
  for the benefaction of mankind, blessing us and
  those after us with a savior who put an end to
  war and established peace and whereas Caesar
  when he appeared exceeded the hopes of all who
  had anticipated good tidings, not only surpassing
  the benefactors born before him but not even
  leaving those to come any hope of surpassing him
  and whereas the birthday of the god marked for
  the world the beginnings of good tidings through
  his comingPaullus Fabius Maximus, proconsul of
  the provincesuggested for the honor of Augustus
  a thing up until now unknown by the Greeks,
  namely, beginning their calendar year with the
  gods birthday (September 23 63 BC) OGIS 458
  

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Solarium Augusti
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Egyptian Obelisk, Rome
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On the Function of Myth and Ritual Reenactment in
Stabilizing the World

• If it is probable that the intuition of the
  Year as a cycle is at the bottom of the idea of
  a Cosmos that periodically renews itself, in the
  mythico-ritual New Year scenarios another idea,
  an idea different in origin and structure, is
  discernible. It is the idea of the perfection of
  the beginnings, the expression of a more
  intimate and deeper religious experience,
  nourished by the imaginary memory of a Lost
  Paradise, the state of bliss that preceded the
  present human condition. It is possible that the
  mythico-ritual New Year scenario has played such
  an important role in the history of humanity
  principally because, by ensuring renewal of the
  Cosmos, it also offered the hope that the bliss
  of the beginnings could be recovered. For the
  flux of time implies an ever greater distance
  from the beginnings, and hence loss of the
  original perfection. Whatever endures wastes
  away, degenerates, and finally perishes.Fullness
  and force are at the beginningfullness, though
  very quickly lost, is periodically recoverable.
  The Year has an end, that is to say, it is
  automatically followed by a new beginning.
  Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality (1963)

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The Prima Porta Statue

• Augustus as Imperator
• Republican General-Military Garb.
• Augustus as Man-God
• Associations with Venus Bare Feet (Hero).
• Return of the Parthian Standards (cuirass).

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Prima Porta Statue
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Detail of Cuirass, Prima Porta Statue