Rome’s Altar of Augustan Peace: An Ancient Example of Political Branding

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about peace, and the lack thereof, lately. This post was going to be saved for a later date, but I decided that the time for it is now.

I could easily have stayed in Rome for a year and still not have had time for all the things I wanted to see there. I tried hard not to think about that during the precious 3 ½ days we managed to carve out of our itinerary for that city. Needless to say, I had to do some serious triage when choosing what we’d do. Some things, of course, were absolutely not to be missed. Others could be missed, but I’d probably never forgive myself if I did. Category 3 was the one I struggled with the most. Those were things I’d really, really like to see, but may not have time for. (Category 4, of course, included all the things I couldn’t care less about.)

But if a window of opportunity opened, which experience in Category 3 would I choose? First world problems, I know, but I really did struggle. (Woe is me.)

The only reason the Altar of Peace, aka the Ara Pacis, did not make it into Category 2 was that, frankly, it wouldn’t come with any bragging rights. When we got home, if we said to anyone, “Guess what! We saw the Altar of Peace!” most people would give us a blank stare, and the only one who would feel the disappointment if I admitted that I had missed this site would be… me. But dang it! I really wanted to see it!

So I was thrilled when a spare two hours opened up and we happened to be in the neighborhood and were able to squeeze it in after all. It’s an amazing place, full of history, and well worth seeing. (Yeah, I know, I’m a nerd. But hey, if its historical significance doesn’t grab you, its carved reliefs are really pretty, it gets you away from the crowds, and the building is air conditioned.)

The reason this altar is so significant is that it was commissioned by the Roman Senate in 13 BC to be an altar dedicated to the Pax Romana, in honor of Augustus’ triumphal return to Rome after his 3 years of fighting in Hispania and Gaul. It was completed and consecrated in 9 BC.

The Ara Pacis was originally located on the Northeast Corner of the Campus Martius, which is a bit ironic, because it means Field of Mars, and Mars is the god of war. That field is where soldiers practiced their maneuvers, and boys exercised in hopes of becoming a soldier in the future. It is also where the people voted, where heroes of the Roman Republic were buried, and where Ancient Kings were said to be entombed.

Augustus made an intentional mark on the Campus Martius. The Ara Pacis was at the Northeast corner. The Solarium Augusti, aka the Horologium Augusti, once mistaken to be a sundial but later discovered to be a way to ensure the civil calendar remained aligned with the solar year, was to the west of that. Much further North, in a barely used part of the campus, was his very imposing Mausoleum. To the south of the Solarium was the Saepta Julia, a corral-shaped edifice that managed the crowds on voting days and prevented fraud. (It was actually conceived by Julius Caesar, but Augustus was his adoptive son, and thus he, too, was part of the Julio-Claudian family line.) Right next door to that was the original Pantheon (round, yes, dome with oculus, no), which used to have a huge statue of him on its front porch.

Augustus was an expert at branding before branding was branding. He knew how to toot his own horn while appearing humble. He knew how to bend the narrative in ways that made him look good while advancing his agenda. Love him or hate him, he was the consummate politician. Even though it was the Senate that voted for the altar, and even though the funds for it came out of the state coffers, it was a propaganda tool that reflected Augustan ideology through and through.

Augustus wanted to be associated with the peace brand, so to speak, and he did such a great job that it’s impossible to talk about the Altar of Peace without talking about him. It’s no coincidence that the 200 year Pax Romana began right around the time that his Altar of Peace was erected. He knew that portraying himself as the sole source of peace in the land would make him politically significant and legitimize his imperial control.

The goddess Pax wasn’t particularly popular in the Roman pantheon until Augustus seized upon her. She was the goddess of Peace, of course, and was said to be the daughter of the goddess of Justice and Jupiter, who was the god of sky and thunder and king of all the gods. Pax is often depicted holding out an olive branch as a peace offering, which is why we use the term, “extend the olive branch” to this very day when we are attempting to reconcile with someone.

Augustus knew that the people would embrace the concept of peace. For the hundred years prior to the Pax Romana, Rome experienced constant bloodshed in the form of civil wars, political assassinations, street gangs, mass executions, seizures of properties, and armies that were loyal to generals who were pitted against one another. Who could blame the citizens for wanting peace? If I believed that practically deifying Augustus and slaughtering a bull on an altar once a year would give me some peace, I’d be all for it, wouldn’t you?

But here’s the thing. (Yes, there’s always a thing.) The Altar of Peace doesn’t celebrate peace in the way we think of it. The symbolism of this altar is all about Augustan Peace. It’s about giving off the appearance that the Republic is intact while he was, in fact, making it an empire.

Augustus did not consider peace to be a passive thing. It was not a time when one could let out a deep breath and snuggle up with a good book. No. Peace came from military success. It was about order maintained by strong authority. Peace is the product of Roman dominance under Augustus.

The altar is about power. It gives off the message that Augustus restored the Republic, and that he rules with Rome’s institutions, at their behest, and that he was not above them or the gods, and yet, the altar still subtly shows who really has the power: Augustus.

The altar also promotes the moral reforms pushed by Augustus. Those reforms emphasized duty to gods, family, and state, social harmony, and seriousness and self-control. No decadence. No excess. Only restrained and orderly abundance. Moral behavior. And above all, Augustus is the guardian of Roman virtue. Augustus brings fertility to the land, the people, and to Rome’s future.

The procession reliefs are very telling. Augustus, of course, is the primary focus, and he has a retinue of priests, senators, and magistrates, all legitimizing his power. And then there’s a procession of women and children and members of the imperial family, which symbolizes that after him, his family should continue his dynasty in order to keep Rome secure. But of course, this is not a monarchy! Oh no! It’s just that the leaders should always come from Augustus’ bloodline. That’s all. No royalty. This is a Republic, after all! (Incidentally, these reliefs are the first official portrayal of women and children on a public monument.)

There are several smaller mythological panels, including one of Aeneas, the son of the goddess Aphrodite, who was supposedly one of Augustus’ ancestors, and one of Romulus and Remus suckling the wolf. These panels imply that Augustus is simply fulfilling his destiny, and is ruling by fate. He was meant to deliver this peace to the Roman people, and was the only one who could do so. The gods approve of peace, so Augustus had their divine favor.

As I said above, though, Pax Romana was not peace as we know it. While there were no sustained civil wars during that period, there were a few short-term ones. While there was a predictable succession of power for long stretches, there were still rebellions. And while institutions were stable and while violence within the empire’s core provinces was limited, there were criminal executions and oppression. During the Pax Romana, “pax” would be better translated as “order and obedience”.

The altar of peace celebrated order after chaos, thanks be to Augustus. He made peace and stability ideologically sacred. And the people believed. During the Pax Romana, the roads were safe, the taxes were predictable, the grain supply was stable, there was a great deal of investment in the Roman infrastructure, and Mediterranean trade flourished. There were more pathways to citizenship for non-Romans.

While things were relatively calm internally, Rome continued to conquer and suppress resistance. The border wars with other countries were ongoing. In other words, they still fought with their neighbors. But the family bickering pretty much came to an end. Much of this was due to the fact that Augustus disbanded rival armies, and had the soldiers paid by the state, not the generals. He also created a standing army loyal to him alone. He had legions stationed permanently along the frontier.

But a lot of people did not benefit at all from the Pax Romana. For conquered people, Roman conquest involved mass killings, enslavement, and land confiscation. Rebellions were brutally crushed. Slaves had no legal rights, were constantly exposed to violence, and separated from their families. Rural people often had their land confiscated so that it could be gifted to war veterans. Small farmers became tenants to larger estates, or they were forced to join the military, Political dissidents would be either forced into exile, executed, and/or condemned to damnatio memoriae (erasure from history). Peace was maintained through surveillance, patronage, and fear, not democratic consent.

The Altar of Peace is an excellent propaganda tool. Of course all you see when you look at it is families, fertility, order, and gods. But you get the distinct impression that all of this peace is the result of violence, battles, conquest, and oppression. The altar practically shouts, “Peace (meaning order and obedience) is Rome’s moral destiny!”

The Romans made annual sacrifices at the Ara Pacis for the next 400 years, 200 years after the Pax Romana ended. (Hope springs eternal.) The rites were performed by priests, magistrates, and Vestal Virgins, but then petered out in the late 300’s, as Pagan practices were increasingly restricted and then totally outlawed as Christianity took hold.

After the Pax Romana, civil wars were frequent, and it was quite common for emperors to rise and fall within a year. There were military coups, and the economy broke down. There was border pressure from all sides. At that point, the Pax Romana, in retrospect, must have seemed peaceful, indeed.

From a practical standpoint, being right at a bend in the Tyber River, the Campus Martius was muddy at the best of times, and entirely flooded at the worst of times. Once the altar stopped being used, it was increasingly neglected and/or pilfered for its friezes, and with each subsequent flood, what remained was eventually covered with 13 feet of silt and mud and was forgotten about entirely.

In 1568 several fragments of the Altar of Peace were found beneath buildings far away from the altar’s original site, and then in 1859 even more fragments were found elsewhere. Excavations began in earnest in 1903. Meanwhile buildings were being demolished around the Mausoleum of Augustus to bring it back into view. It wasn’t until after WWI that people started talking about reassembling the Altar of Peace, but it didn’t officially begin until 1937.

There was no room to rebuild the altar in its original location, but since there was now all this open ground around Augustus’ Mausoleum, it seemed fitting to reassemble the altar right next to it. That makes perfect sense to me. But I have to admit that it was a bit cruel to make me get that close to the Mausoleum, the one thing that I wanted to see most of all, and not be able to enter. (It’s closed for renovations for the foreseeable future.)

And while the location for the reconstruction makes sense, the building they designed to accommodate it is controversial. All things being equal, it is a nice building, if it were in a city known for its modernity, and was being used for a different purpose entirely. But to place the majestic, ancient, historical Ara Pacis in this contemporary, oversized building, and then place that building amongst the beautiful, historic architecture that makes Rome the iconic city that it is, is nothing short of a travesty. If Augustus were still in his Mausoleum, he’d be outraged to have to put up with such a view.

I do appreciate, however, that they managed to incorporate the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (The Deeds of the Divine Augustus, written, of course, by the man himself), into the architecture. You can see it on the Eastern outer wall of the building, in 8 panels of travertine with bronze letters. These panels fit in with the city even if the building does not. Of course, these panels are in the original Latin. To see a full translation, go here, and to see Latin panels on the museum, go here.

Panel 2 of the Res Gestae on the wall of the Museum of the Ara Pacis.

The Res Gestae is even further evidence that the man was the consummate spin doctor. It never comes right out and says he is the absolute ruler. He makes himself sound like he’s a modest servant of the people. And yet he still manages to sound arrogant.

Some of the things he wants us all to know in this comprehensive list of deeds is that he, alone, ended decades of civil war, he, alone conquered Egypt, and that he was more powerful than anyone else, but had no more power than others, officially. He claims that Rome ruled the world because of him, and that foreign rulers begged him for mercy. He claims that he spared everyone in civil wars who asked for pardon, completely overlooking the fact that the victims of his mass executions never had the chance to ask for pardon. According to him, he rebuilt Rome almost single-handedly, was universally loved, and history will agree that he reshaped the world. (Just so you know. And yeah, that last tiny bit may be true.)

Speaking of arrogance and ugly buildings, this whole section of town looks really strange. Check out the Piazza Augusto Imperatore. You can catch a glimpse one of the buildings that makes up this architectural pimple on the butt of Rome to the left of the Mausoleum in our image below, and I’ll include a black and white photo of the whole monstrous complex from its heyday in the 1930’s. The reason it screams Fascist-Era urban redevelopment is that that’s exactly what it was.

Fascists the world over are fascinated by ancient Rome, but only the bits that fit with their warped ideology. So Mussolini started off by clearing the land around Augustus’ Mausoleum so it would be more visible. That sounds great, in theory, but for the fact that he made this decision unilaterally, and bulldozed 120 buildings, over 300,000 square feet of one of the oldest, most continually occupied neighborhoods in Rome, and then surrounded the Mausoleum on three sides with the ugliest buildings imaginable. (Thank God he left the churches of San Rocco and San Girolamo dei Croati south of the Mausoleum alone.) The first Ara Pacis building, added in 1938, is the lower one on the near side. It was even more incongruous than the current one, which finally opened up as the museum one sees today in 2006.

So, yeah, thanks Mussolini, for having the Ara Pacis put back together. (Even a blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while.) But if Augustus haunts his Mausoleum, if he ever pops his head outside, he must be very confused and disgusted. He must think that the world has gotten a lot uglier in his absence.

But once you enter the Altar of Peace Museum and get past its clean, crisp, modern surroundings, the altar itself consumes you. It is absolutely gorgeous. I’ve already shown you its jaw-dropping exterior, but the interior has many creative slaughter-themed embelleshments, too. The whole thing must have really been a sight to see when it was painted.

Even if you are fascinated by the friezes, you can’t avoid the fact that it was the site of grizzly animal sacrifices (usually bulls) every year. You see the drain holes for the blood. And what is that I spy near one of the drain holes? Blood stains? After all this time? No. It’s rust stains from having been housed in its Fascist-era building with it’s rust-prone steel girders for decades before they built this one.

But still, that begs the question, how did they clean this place up in an era before water hoses? I mean, bulls bleed a lot. I feel for the poor people who had to sluice the place down after having lugged buckets of water from the nearest source. Drain holes or not, that had to have been hard work. At least the main ceremony was done on January 30th each year, not during the heat of summer.

When you look at the solemn processionals, you can see that these ceremonies were taken very seriously. It was a different time. It’s rather unfair to impose our modern, judgy squeamishness on people who lived more than 1700 years ago. And it’s not like this was the only place where such sacrifices were practiced. To emphasize this, the museum also has a display with replicas of other sacrifice friezes from other places.

As with every savvy museum, once you’ve been dazzled by everything there is to see, you exit through the gift shop. That’s where I snapped this picture of the busts of Augustus for sale, with his Mausoleum to the left just outside the window. He’s still a recognizable brand centuries later. I couldn’t help but think that Augustus would have been really amused, but not particularly surprised by that.