Peace and death

Sunday, June 28 - Rome

The Ara Pacis ("altar of peace") was erected by the senate along the Via Flaminia to celebrate the Pax Augusta, the end of civil war as brought by Augustus (aka the end of the Republic and the start of the Empire). It's a remarkably persuasive piece of architecture — decorated with portraits of the imperial family, symbols of peace and prosperity, and other pro-imperial propaganda aimed at convincing the populace that this new Empire thing was what the gods really wanted anyway. And anybody coming to Rome from the north couldn't help but see it.

It was lost in the Tiber's flood plains for centuries, but eventually chunks started turning up, and archaeologists were able to do a fair job of reassembling it in the early 20th century. Mussolini had it moved next door to the Mausoleum of Augustus in 1938, which is where it stands today, though his fascist outer building was torn down and replaced in 2006 with a big, antiseptic-white, glassed-in gift-box designed by Richard Meier — very controversial!

adfamiliares hadn't seen the Ara Pacis before, and was suffused with girlish glee the entire time we were there. "It's a very significant monument," she says when I tease her.

( Cut for peace and imperial rule! )

The rest of the set is here.