The Ara Pacis

When Augustus returned to Rome in 13 BC after three years in Spain and Gaul, the Senate voted to build an altar to Pax Augusta, the peace he had brought. It stood beside the Via Flaminia on the Campus Martius and was dedicated on 30 January 9 BC, the birthday of his wife Livia. In his own account of his reign, the Res Gestae, Augustus lists the altar among his honors.

The altar itself stands inside a walled enclosure open to the sky. The outer walls are carved in two zones. Below are flowing acanthus scrolls alive with swans and small creatures. Above, on the long sides, a procession of Augustus, his family, priests and officials moves toward the entrance; on the short sides, panels show Rome's legends and a mother goddess with two infants, read variously as Earth, Italy or Peace. Traces of pigment suggest the reliefs were once colored.

The altar was lost for centuries under the rising ground of the Campus Martius. Fragments came to light from the sixteenth century onward, and the monument was reassembled in the twentieth century. It now stands in its own museum beside the Tiber, next to the Mausoleum of Augustus.