Augustus and the Ara Pacis: Rome's Altar of Peace

In 13 BCE, the Roman Senate voted to build an altar to Pax, the goddess of peace, to honor Augustus's return from campaigns in Gaul and Spain. The Ara Pacis Augustae, or Altar of Augustan Peace, was consecrated four years later on the Campus Martius. This episode unpacks the altar's intricate reliefs, including the imperial family procession with Augustus, Livia, Agrippa, and the little princes Gaius and Lucius Caesar, alongside Aeneas and Romulus. Lucas and Luna explore how the altar's iconography crafted a visual narrative of peace, piety, and dynastic continuity, drawing on Virgil's Aeneid and Augustus's own Res Gestae. They discuss the mysterious fragment of a child's face, the role of the Senate in commissioning the monument, and how the Ara Pacis survives today as a fragmentary but powerful emblem of Augustan ideology. #Augustus #AraPacis #PaxRomana #RomanArt #AugustanPropaganda #Livia #Agrippa #CampusMartius #RomanReligion #Aeneid #RomanSculpture #ImperialFamily #ResGestae #RomulusAndRemus #RomanHistory #FexingoHistory #History #AncientRome Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo