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Home , Luna (goddess)

9 The city of rome under

Key monuments/terms Luna marble Forum Romanum Temple of Divus Iulius Augustan Arch Basilica Aemilia Portico of Gaius & Lucius Temple of Castor Corinthian order Palatine Temple of Palatinus Portico of Danaids Campus Mausoleum of Augustus Horologium of Augustus Ara Pacis Forum of Augustus Summi viri

1. Caesar’s plans In particular, for the adornment and convenience of the city, also for the protection and extension of the Empire, he formed more projects and more extensive ones every day: first of all, to rear a temple of Mars, greater than any in existence, filling up and levelling the pool in which he had exhibited the sea-fight, and to build a theatre of vast size, sloping down from the Tarpeian rock; ...to open to the public the greatest possible libraries of Greek and Latin books; ...to drain the Pomptine marshes; to let out the water from Lake Fucinus; to make a highway from the Adriatic across the summit of the Apennines as far as the Tiber; to cut a canal through the Isthmus... (Suet, Div Iul 44)

2. Marble Since the city was not adorned as the dignity of the empire demanded, and was exposed to flood and fire, he so beautified it that he could justly boast that he had found it built of brick and left it in marble. He made it safe too for the future, so far as human foresight could provide for this. (Suet, Aug 28.3)

3. Augustus and Apollo There was besides a private dinner of his, commonly called that of the "twelve gods," which was the subject of gossip. At this the guests appeared in the guise of gods and goddesses, while he himself was made up to represent Apollo (Suet, Aug 70)

4. Apollo Palatinus You ask why I came so late? Phoebus’s gold colonnade was opened today by mighty Caesar; such a great sight, adorned with columns from Carthage, and between them the crowd of old Danaus’ daughters. Here the statue of Apollo seemed to me more beautiful than the true Phoebus, lips parted in marble song to a silent lyre. There in the midst, the temple reared in bright marble, dearer to Phoebus than his Ortygian land. Right on the top were two chariots of the Sun, and the doors of Libyan ivory, beautifully done. One mourned the Gauls thrown from Parnassus’ peak, and the other the death of Niobe, Tantalus’s daughter. Next the Pythian god himself was singing, in flowing robes, between his mother and sister. (Propertius 2.31.1-16)

5. Ara Pacis When I returned to Rome from Spain and Gaul, having successfully accomplished matters in those provinces, when Tiberius and Publius Quintilius were consuls (13 B.C.), the senate voted to consecrate the altar of August Peace in the field of Mars for my return, on which it ordered the magistrates and priests and Vestal virgins to offer annual sacrifices. (RG 12)

6. Ara Pacis The course of my song has led me to the Ara Pacis. The day will be second from the end of the month (Jan. 30). Come, Pease, your dainty tresses wreathed with Actian laurels, and let your gentle presence abide in the whole world, so that there shall be neither enemies nor banquets for triumphs, but you shall be a glory greater than war for our generals. May the soldier bear arms only to check the armed aggressor, and may the fierce trumpet only blare for solemn pomp. May the world near and far dread the sons of Aeneas, and if there be any land that feared not Rome, may it love Rome instead! Add incense, priests, to the flames that burn on the Ara Pacis, let a white victim fall with wine-anointed brow, and ask of the gods, who lend a favouring ear to pious prayers, that the house, which is the guarantor of peace, may last forever with peace. (, Fasti I. 709-722)

7. Forum of Augustus [text missing]... to Mars, and that he himself and his grandsons should go there as often as they wished, while those who were passing from the class of boys and were being enrolled among the youths of military age should invariably do so; that those who were sent out to commands abroad should make that their starting-point; that the senate should take its votes there in regard to the granting of triumphs, and that the victors after celebrating them should dedicate to this Mars their sceptre and their crown; that such victors and all others who receive triumphal honours should have their statues in bronze erected in the Forum; that in case military standards captured by the enemy were ever recovered they should be placed in the temple; that a festival should be celebrated besides the steps of the temple by the cavalry commanders of each year; that a nail should be driven into it by the censors at the close of their terms; and that even senators should have the right of contracting to supply the horses that were to compete in the Circensian games, and also to take general charge of the temple, just as had been provided by law in the case of the temples of Apollo and of Capitolinus. (Dio 55.10)