Roman Symbolism on the Ara Pacis Augustae

Many rulers throughout the ages and all over the world have sought to make themselves godlike. The kings of medieval Europe and the emperors of ancient China have claimed the Mandate of Heaven, Indian aristocrats have cited the holier position afforded them by their higher caste, and the unbroken line of Japanese emperors have established themselves as direct descendants of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu. No surprise, then, that we find the same in Rome. While Julius Caesar failed in ruling for very long, in death he became a God, as Romulus had in being swept up into Heaven. Building on his adoptive father’s status, Augustus succeeded where Caesar had failed in founding a stable (or at least maintainable) autarchy with himself effectively deified. More than this political achievement, though, Augustus integrated himself into what might be called the cult of Rome, becoming a God in its pantheon of pre-existing deities and godlike heroes. In so doing, Augustus became a fixture of what, according to anthropologist Clifford Geertz, can be defined as a cultural system qualifying as religious. The Ara Pacis Augustae is an outstanding complex of symbols in this system which constitutes a religious reality based on the mythologizing of history.

The Ara Pacis is, just at a cursory glance, riddled with iconic imagery. On the southeast frieze, the Tellus character, an earth goddess also expressing simultaneous embodiments of the Goddess Pax and Venus Victrix, begins to imply the nature of Augustan peace (that is, peace from victory). Moreover, it does so in divine terms, as it were, by giving at once the symbols for victory and peace, like a compound word, and in so doing presents the two not only as inseparable, but as the same thing. Diagonally across from Pax/Venus, on the northwest frieze (facing the Campus Martius) is Mars himself, reminding us that war is prerequisite for victorious peace. That the scene of the brothers Romulus and Remus being suckled by the she-wolf is beside the War God in this same frieze brings home the mythological fact of Mars’ divine patronage of the city and empire of Rome. This patronage in myth is a reflection of the psychology of war with which the empire was founded, and thus the positioning of Mars and the brothers together states with symbols that from the beginning, war has been Rome’s means of survival and growth.

To parallel and complement this northwest to southeast axis of war and victorious peace, the northeast and southwest friezes present the city-Goddess Roma and the hero Aeneas, respectively. Roma sits atop a heap of weapons, presumably captured spoils of defeated enemies, stating quite clearly that all that is good in Rome (that which she represents) literally rests upon victory in war and the conquest of others. In the diagonally opposing frieze, Aeneas combines the aspects of the corresponding Mars/brothers scene, in that he is both an avatar of the War God and progenitor of the city (not to mention the Julian clan). Portrayed in the act of sacrifice to the Gods, the sense of his piety and righteousness is heightened. Thus, a relationship is delineated between the pious warrior-founder and the deified personification of the city he fought to found. At the center of this symbological cruciform is the altar proper, which bears a frieze depicting a sacrificial procession of Vestal virgins. Graced with these symbols of great virtue – piety, chastity, reverence, and so on – and holiness, the heart of the Ara Pacis virtually bears words of divine endorsement. Further, since the building lies on the edge of the Campus Martius, demarcating the physical spaces of war and peace, and serving as gateway between the two, the Vestals’ are ensconced here almost as gatekeepers. They sanctify the passage from peace to war, making Roman conquest divinely legitimate, and they purify the conquering returners’ passage from war to victorious peace, the pax Augusta.

Augustus himself is probably the most significant symbol of all. Situated on the west end of the long south frieze, near Aeneas, he is also engaged in sacrifice. His proximity to the Trojan hero, their mutual depiction of performing pious offerings, and our knowledge as beholders of these symbols that Augustus traces his lineage to Aeneas all serve to firmly identify the princeps with his mythic ancestor. Augustus is portrayed here halfway between history and myth; though a historical figure, his association with Aeneas and his alignment within this great symbological statement make him symbolic in this context. The presence nearby of Augustus’ one-time heir Marcus Agrippa, dead by the time of the Ara Pacis’ completion, lends itself to this atmosphere: the fact of Agrippa’s death is insignificant to his function as a symbol in this Augustan program. The priests with whom Augustus and Agrippa mingle are supporting symbols, like an affirming commentary written alongside a primary holy text. They magnify the symbolic value of the imperial family behind them, and the procession of senators on the north frieze opposite them. These two long processional friezes, comprising the “real” historical figures of the time, become mythologized in the context of the Ara Pacis. Though the senators depicted on the north frieze may’ve been particular, historical people, they jointly serve as the archetypal Senatus Populusque Romanus; likewise with the priests and imperial relatives on the south frieze. All of them are frolicking in Augustus’ symbological playground, their play supporting the rendition of himself as the primary symbol of the set.

What, then, does the symbol-Augustus say, what is the meaning of him rendered as a word? Certainly aggrandizement of his figure is intended; but without knowledge of his intentions – which is beyond us – we may only speculate whether we are to read this exalted sign for a man as a statement of his personal glory, or as an exemplar of beneficent statecraft. Indeed, other prominent symbol-sets of the period pertaining to Augustus himself can be interpreted either way. His Res Gestae may be read as at least somewhat symbolic on account of Augustus’ selectivity in representing himself through his deeds, if not by the full title itself, which identifies him as divine: Res Gestae Divi Augusti. Since the text is just a list of Augustus’ numerous accomplishments, honors, and charitable deeds, and such heavy emphasis is put on pointing out his refusal of dictatorships and other honors, it is easy to quickly dismiss it as purely self-aggrandizing. Jumping to such a conclusion, however, is unfair to Augustus and the study of his symbology. Though the Res Gestae definitely does come off as egotistical, we can no more write it off as such than acknowledge it as what Augustus considered the best account he could leave of how to build a state, as he had done.

In Virgil’s epic poem, the Aeneid we find another, even more symbologized Augustus, this time as a yet unborn soul pointed out to the hero Aeneas by the shade of his father Anchises. This representation, inextricably couched in mythos, is grandiosely presented: “This, / this is the man you heard so often promised – / Augustus Caesar, son of a god, who will / renew a golden age in Latium, / … and stretch / his rule beyond… the paths / of year and sun, / beyond the constellations….” (Aeneid VI ll. 1047-1054) This representation is so far gone as to be completely symbolic, and thus entirely susceptible to the conclusion warned against above. However, such an argument is comparable to saying that the books of the New Testament serve only to aggrandize Jesus or his disciples, inasmuch as both are legendary works purporting a modicum of historicity. We must limit ourselves, therefore, in examining this Virgilian Augustus to observing it as another occurrence of an Augustus-symbol in the greater context of the system of symbols in the Augustan cult of Rome.

It is this symbol set that we are really examining here, and the religious reality it supports. This cult language of signs, as it were, which is outstandingly visually represented in the Ara Pacis, is not exclusively Augustan per se. The famed Roman historian Livy uses the symbols of myth to bolster his account of the rise of Rome as much as Augustus does to embellish his image. He even acknowledges as much, when in his preface he writes:

Events before the city was founded or planned, which have been handed down more as pleasing poetic fictions than as reliable records of historical events, I intend neither to affirm nor to refute. To antiquity we grant the indulgence of making the origins of cities more impressive by commingling the human with the divine, and if any people should be permitted to sanctify its inception and reckon the gods as its founders, surely the glory of the Roman people in war is such that, when it boasts Mars in particular as its parent and the parent of its founder, the nations of the world would as easily acquiesce in this claim as they do in our rule. (Livy pp. 3)

What Livy here (and throughout his work) reveals is the dependence of history on myth, or even further, the equation of the two in our minds. It is this which establishes the Geertzian “moods and motivations” in the Roman citizen, and pervades his experience of attending rites at the Ara Pacis with the “aura of factuality” that makes those moods and motivations “uniquely realistic.”

This myth-based history, though largely done away with (or at least, denied) in its classical form in our modern and post-modern world, is not entirely absent: we all remember the story of Washington cutting down the cherry tree. Though certainly anathema to our recent obsession with accurate record-keeping, we ought to consider whether this mythologized, symbol-based historicity is really inimical to us, and what the benefits to the strength and cohesion of our people may be, individually, as families, and as a nation.

Works Cited

Caesar, Augustus. “The Accomplishments of Augustus (Res Gestae Divi Augusti).” Roman Civilization: Selected Readings, Vol. 1, The Republic & the Augustan Age. Ed. Lewis & Reinhold. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. 561-572.

Galinsky, Karl. Augustan Culture. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996.

Geertz, Clifford. “Religion as a Cultural System.” Reader in Comparative Religion. Ed. William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt. New York: Harper & Row, 1965. 205-216.

Livy. The Rise of Rome. Trans. T.J. Luce. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Virgil. The Aeneid of Virgil. Trans. Allen Mandelbaum. New York: Bantam Books, 1981.