‘The emperor Augustus claimed to have ‘found a city of brick and stone and left one of

marble’ (Suetonius, 121 A.D., The Life of Augustus, 28, 3). Examine and compare
archaeological, architectural and documentary evidence to assess how far you agree
with Augustus’ statement about his impact on the city of Rome.’

In evaluating the words1 of Rome's first emperor, as recorded by Roman biographer, Gaius

Suetonius Tranquillus and Greco-Roman historian, Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus,

archaeological, architectural, and documentary data will be reviewed. Although Gaius

Octavius, named Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus after his testamentary adoption by Gaius

Iulius Caesar, was known as Octavian before, he will be referred to by name of Augustus

throughout the assignment. Due to the limited scope of this essay I will focus on

archaeological information that has enabled architects and archaeologists to create 3-D

models. Documentary evidence, namely literary descriptions, will depict Rome before and

after Augustus’ reign, showing what he had achieved. I will examine one of Augustus’ public

buildings, the Ara Pacis. It is apparent from this monument and others that Augustus was

mainly concerned with important public buildings, which would reflect favourably on his

public image both in Rome and beyond. Their impact can be seen both in literary and other

documentary evidence, even centuries later.

Rome is situated in a landscape dominated by rocks that erupted from neighbouring

volcanoes, the Monti Sabatini and Alban Hills districts. Pyroclastic flow deposits from both

volcanoes interfinger within Rome and cap her hills with tuff. Roman builders initially

quarried soft local tuff (di Palatino), a kind of pyroclastic psephyte made up of ash, crystal,

lava, mineral cements, and other types of rock to use for podiums, such as the podium of the

Temple of Iuppiter Optimus Maximus (Jackson 2006a). As Vitruvius (de arch. 2.7.1–2)

1
Suetonius Divus Augustus 28,3 'Urbem […] obnoxiam excoluit adeo, ut iure sit gloriatus marmoream se
relinquere, quam latericiam accepisset.'
1
points out, Palatine tuff does not provide durability as it disintegrates when wet but will

sustain considerable weight when used in covered areas. Later on, Peperino and Albani stone,

which are harder volcanic stones, as well as travertine, a hard, calcareous limestone were used

for the Tabularium, the Theater of Pompey, and the Forum of Caesar. Strong travertine was

also applied to areas of great stress in a building and for pavements. By the end of the

Republic, Romans used seven different kinds of tuffs and travertine and established a new

design of cut- stone masonry combined with small, functional elements of concrete

construction.

Despite its disadvantages, Romans always favoured stone for their monumental

architecture. For their private buildings they also used sun-dried mudbrick, later to be

substituted by fired clay bricks. The Romans perfected brickmaking during the first century

A.D. when the manufacture of both bricks and mortar was improved by new techniques of

laying and bonding.

Cicero (de leg. agr., 96) warns visitors ‘that they […] will laugh at and despise Rome' and

Horace (od. 3, 6, 1-4) confirms that Romans will have to atone for their fathers' financial

shortcomings. Rome’s outward appearance was generally considered deplorable and

undeserving of a powerful nation (Grüner 46-47). The young ruler may have even agreed

with Suetonius, who claimed that ‘The city was not adorned as the renown of our empire

demanded’(div. Aug. 28), yet he initially did not have the resources nor the political support

to begin clarifying Rome’s urban image.

Augustus’ building programme (Gros 15-17), is quite difficult to assess in its complexity

because several Augustan buildings, such as the Temple of Fortunae equestris, (Tac. ann.
2
3,71.1; Popkin 291) disappeared from the urban landscape, soon after they had been erected

or were absorbed by of layers of divergent architectural styles. The fact that public

architecture was used to promote and increase the elite’s power was not a new concept.

During the Roman Republic, victorious generals obsessed with self-aggrandizement paraded

their spoils through the city centre and were expected to contribute part of their booty to the

urban improvement of the capital. In the second century B.C. the social control of the Roman

elite as a whole as well as the personal power of individual senators grew. Yet, by the late

first century B.C., Republican Rome was still marred by decaying public buildings,

dilapidated temples, mostly unpaved roads, idiosyncratic water supply and minimal fire

prevention. These were matters for which the Aediles, the Republican magistrates responsible

for Rome’s infrastructure, had originally been elected. Whereas dictator Sulla had confined

his building activities mainly to the Forum Romanum and the Capitoline Hill, Pompey

selected the area north of the Circus Flaminius and west of Largo Argentina for expansion.

By building the first permanent theatre in Rome, Pompey significantly changed the

appearance of the central Campus Martius. Private architectural patronage was repeatedly

called upon. Yet, efforts to embellish Rome were sporadic and their results, due to lack of

central administration, negligible.

After Gaius Julius Caesar’s assassination in 44 B.C., Tacitus describes Augustus’ course of

action as a well-staged return to an idealized res publica with institutions based on the

traditional customs and virtues of the ancestors, thus ‘taking into his hands the functions of

Senate, magistrates, laws’ (ann. I,1,2). Augustus also resorts to calling all the political processes

and practices by Republican names and adheres to traditions of cult to remain safe within a

Republican construct that had stopped working. Augustus insists on continuity in his urban
3
building projects such as the reconstruction of the Circus Flaminius or the transformation of

the Forum Romanum. The columns of his marble projects were vertically enhanced by

excessively tall platforms as well as Corinthian columns that had a height nine to ten times the

diameter, those on the temple to Mars Ultor even over seventeen metres. Augustus made his

architects utilize existing, flexible building types to house the evolving imperial bureaucracy.

One of the greatest examples of Augustan state art is the Ara Pacis Augustae, a

sanctuary consisting of a painted marble altar in a walled enclosure, which was erected in

Rome’s Campus Martius in honour of Emperor Augustus and dedicated in nine B.C. Timing,

location, design, and decoration of the altar were all carefully planned and organized to serve

Augustan ideological aims, as Ovid in his Fasti and Augustus in his Res Gestae Divi Augusti

confirm. Augustus chose the date to announce the impending arrival of the Golden Age (as

echoed in the Metamorphoses by Ovid) in a free Republic.

Image1 The Ara Pacis Augustae

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ara_Pacis#The_east_and_west_walls accessed 10/03/2020

4
Originally built in a prominent position at the Via Appia, the Ara Pacis was part of a spacious

complex that also held the emperor’s tomb and an Egyptian obelisk. Visitors today are faced

with a reconstruction that was finished in 1938 under the supervision of Giuseppe Moretti,

but pieces of the scenes had been discovered as early as the sixteenth century. In the same

year, the Museo dell’Ara Pacis, a monument to house the altar, was raised beside the Tiber to

be replaced by a structure designed by American architect Richard Meier in 2006. During

reconstruction, the altar was rotated so that the viewer now approaches the altar from the

south. Restoring the Ara Pacis continued throughout the twentieth century, both to stop the

decay related to age and to correct earlier, haphazard attempts at salvage.

Individual features of the altar are reminiscent of huge, third-century Hellenistic altars

such as the” Nymph” altar at Knidos, at a size of 11x4 m, or the altar for Apollo and

Aphrodite on Tinos, which are much larger than the Ara Pacis Augustae. The altar court at

Samothrace is the size of 17 x 13,5 m and boasts an inner altar which is enclosed by a wall

yet does not have any sculptural adornments. Recently, there have been more convincing

suggestions, put forward by Rehak and Kleiner that the Ara Pacis most closely resembles

janiform constructions in style and size. The janiform enclosure wall and its decoration are

strongly reminiscent of traditional wooden pier and lintel constructions and fence palings.

The Latin term for gate is synonymous with the god Janus, who is responsible for auspicious

entrances or exits, especially if the departure of a Roman army was concerned.

The Ara Pacis has a tuff and travertine core that is faced with Luna marble on all its

visible surfaces which are decorated with floral sculptures.

The entrances of the enclosure are axially aligned and broad enough to have accommodated

double doors. Each of them is lined with a profile of three fascia along the exterior, and tapers
5
slightly toward the top (Torelli). On the west front we are faced with Tellus nursing Romulus

and Remus and another female personification on a frieze with acanthus plants inhabited by

insects, birds, and other creatures. Ancient visitors would have had no difficulty in

recognizing Aeneas sacrificing to the Penates on the east panel. From the interior of the

enclosure wall, the lower register shows a repetition of vertical laths, and the upper register

features festoons that are draped between ox skulls and hung under renditions of embossed

sacrificial bowls. Only two figures are preserved from the long frieze on the outer east end of

the altar. On the south and north exterior sides, more individuals move in two parallel

processions from the east end of the altar toward the west end. The south frieze includes

fragments of four victimarii, who carry sacrificial equipment. Although the question of the

three unusually clad children has not been resolved so far scholars have agreed that the

children, be they relatives of Augustus(Pollini, Rose, Kuttner) or pledges of empire(Simon,

Allen) had an important role to play in international relations.

The images in relief that cover the Ara Pacis define the essence of Augustan culture,

while their arrangement on the monument conveys a sense of the new order. The Ara Pacis

Augustae is to serve as a reminder to all who view it that it was Augustus, who had brought

peace and tranquillity to an empire previously torn by unrest and turmoil. Augustus himself

mentions the Ara Pacis in his work (RG 12). Although the images of sacrifice and piety

depicted on the Ara Pacis are typical of Augustan art they make a clear statement. They have

been dedicated to an abstract phenomenon of peace to show to all of Rome that Augustus has

revived peace after a long period of internal and external turmoil.

Though building activity seems to have increased between 44B.C. and 14A.D., architectural

historian Favro argues that the marble structures of Augustus’ building programme had little
6
visual impact on Romans walking the streets. Rome’s urban topography interfered with sight

lines and made many of Augustus’ new marble structures difficult to see. Dr Favro (UCLA

Rome Reborn project) explains that in order to find out in how far the urban landscape of

marble monuments had changed under the reign of Augustus she and her team had reverse

engineered ancient Rome by using an integrated software platform for procedural modelling.

Data on over 400 known early-imperial structures had been collated, and various ancient

materials had been consulted. ‘Structures are not rendered realistically but take the form of

massing models color-coded by building material and period of construction.’ (Favro 302)

After comparing her results Favro does not hesitate to point out that Augustus’ words in all

probability were extremely exaggerated.

marble buildings: pink brick buildings: grey buildings under construction: yellow

Image 2 Rome in 44 B.C.. (reconstruction courtesy of D. Favro)

7
Image3 Rome in 14 A.D. (reconstruction courtesy of D. Favro)

Classicists confirm (Rehak, Lamp, Fay, Blevins) that Augustus' famous words are first found

in Roman biographer's Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus' (Aug. 28,3) translated as

'<Augustus> found it [Rome] of brick but left it of marble'

although he composed his Latin Lives of Caesars around 121 A.D., at about a century after

Rome's first emperor had died on August 19, 14 A.D.

The precise wording and its authenticity, however, remain doubtful (Favro 1996). Apart

from the considerable lapse of time between Augustus’ boast and Suetonius’ quote, the

biographer is known to intersperse his Lives of Caesars with gossip and scandal, leaning

quite heavily on theatre language. Moreover, the words seem vaguely reminiscent of ancient

Exitus literature (Sterling 384 -385). The way a famous person died and, most notably, the

last words he spoke, were deemed crucial for character appraisal in ancient literature.

Suetonius, however, did not include the quote in the rubric dedicated to Augustus' death

(div. Aug.90,1) but put it in the rubric of Augustan building ambition.

8
 Semantically, Suetonius presents his readers with a Roman who is boasting of his

successful building program. One cannot but realize that Augustus insists on the success of

his actions as a monarch, not a Republican magistrate. Suetonius' citation serves as a

metaphor2 on various levels. The physical size of Augustan Rome was so enormous that,

according to historiographers Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Ammianus Marcellinus, it

could not even be captured from a 'bird's eye's view' (Bruno 177), let alone the human eye.

Thus, the city of Rome stands for the equally unprecedented magnitude and power of the

Roman Empire, as 'The extent of the Roman city and the world are the same' (Ovid, fasti

2,684). The interrelation between a capital's architectural magnificence and the power of its

empire was a common metaphor in Roman literature, as Tacitus (hist.3,72) and Velleius

Paterculus (hist. Rom. 2,89) emphasize.

Translations of Graeco-Roman historian Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus’ Roman History,

which starts off with the landing of Aeneas in Italy and ends with Dio’s consulship, reword

the passage in Suetonius with

‘That Rome, which I found built of mud, I shall leave you firm as a rock.3’

Dio explicitly states the emperor's words are justified and should be interpreted as a metaphor

of Rome's political transformation rather than her architectonic perfection (Harrington 54;

Gros 304). Instead of specifying the building material Augustus used as marble, he makes

Augustus use the Greek term for ‘rock.’ Suetonius’ quote of Augustus’ words indirectly

highlights the fact that up to the first century B.C., marble was scarcely used for public

2
OED 'A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it
is not literally applicable' accessed 10/03/2020
3
Cassius Dio RH 56,30,4 'τὴν Ῥώμην γηίνην, παραλαβὼν λιθίνην ὑμῖν καταλείπω.'

9
buildings, with the exception of the temples of Iuppiter Stator, Iuno Regina, Iuppiter Optimus,

the Round Temple of Heracles by the Tiber and Caesar’s Saepta Iulia.

Both the archaeological and architectural findings testify to Augustus’ interest in

public architecture as means of propaganda but show no excessive activities concerning

marble buildings. The extant literary documentation since only recorded by two authors with

a huge time lapse between each of them and Augustus does not offer sufficient proof that

Augustus, even if he had actually said the words, left Rome a town of marble to posterity.

10
Bibliography
Augustus, C. 1967 Res Gestae. Translated by P. A. Brunt and J. M. Moore. Oxford. Oxford
University Press.

Blevins, S. 2013 Eternalizing the Emperor: Architecture, Cult, and Deification in Imperial
Rome, Austin.

Bruno, G. 2018 Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film. Verso.

Cassius Dio 1987 The Roman History: The Reign of Augustus, trans Ian Scott-Kilvert,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Cicero, M.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0019%3Atext%
3DAgr.%3Aspeech%3D2%3Asection%3D44 last accessed 10/03/2020

Claridge, A. 2010 Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Coulston, J.C.N. and Dodge, H. (eds.) 2000 Ancient Rome: The Archaeology of the Eternal
City. Oxford, Oxford University School of Archaeology.

Cunliffe, B.W. 2008 Europe Between the Oceans: Themes and Variations: 9000 B.C. to A.D.
1000. New Haven, Conn., London, Yale University Press.

Dunsch, B. 2015 ‘Sortitus exitum facilem: Der Tod des Augustus bei Sueton’, in Philologus
159(2) 327–364.

Dyson, S. 2010 Rome (Ancient Society and History) Johns Hopkins University Press

Erdkamp, B. 2013 The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome (Cambridge Companions to

the Ancient World)

Evans, J. D. (ed.). 2013 A companion to the archaeology of the Roman Republic.

Halicarnassus, D. 1968 The Roman Antiquities Transl. Earnest Cary, Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.

Dyson, S. 2010 Rome: A Living Portrait of an Ancient City. Baltimore Johns Hopkins
University Press.

11
Favro, D. 1996 The Urban Image of Augustan Rome. Cambridge University Press.

Favro, D. 2012 Se non è vero, è ben trovato (If Not True, It Is Well Conceived): Digital
Immersive Reconstructions of Historical Environments, Journal of the Society of
Architectural Historians, Vol. 71, No. 3, Special Issue on Architectural Representations 1
(September 2012), pp. 273-277.

Favro, D. 2017 ‘Reading Augustan Rome: Materiality as Rhetoric InSitu’, in Advances in the
History of Rhetoric Vol. 20, no.2, 180-195.

Fay, S. 2006 Body/Temple Metaphor: Early Christian Reconciliation with Roman

Architecture, University of Ottawa, Ottawa.

Gros, P. 1976 ‘Aurea templa: Recherches sur l’architecture religieuse de Rome à lépoque
d’Auguste, in Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 231.

Grüner, A. 2005 Ruinen ohne Romantik: Zerstörte Gebäude als urbanistisches Problem der
frühen Kaiserzeit, in R. Neudecker & Zanker, P. eds. Lebenswelten: Bilder und Räume in der
römischen Stadt der Kaiserzeit. 39-50. Wiesbaden

Harrington, J. 1970 Cassius Dio: A Reexamination. University of Kentucky, ProQuest

Dissertations Publishing.

Horace, Q. 1926 Satires. Epistles. The Art of Poetry. Translated by Fairclough, H. Rushton.
Cambridge: Loeb Classical Library.

Jackson, M., C. Kosso, F. Marra and R. Hay. 2006a ‘Geological Basis of Vitruvius Empirical
Observations of Material Characteristics of Rock Utilized in Roman Masonry.’ in
Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Construction History, edited by M.
Dunkeld, J. Campbell, F. Louw, M. Tutton, B. Addis and R. Thorne, 1685-702. London.

Jackson, M.D., and Marra, F., 2006b Roman stone masonry: Volcanic foundations of the
ancient city: American Journal of Archaeology, v. 110, p. 403–436.

Juvenal, D. 1918. Juvenal and Persius. Translated by G.G. Ramsy Cambridge: Loeb Classical
Library.

Kleinert, D. Buxton, B. 2008 Pledges of Empire: The Ara Pacis and the Donations of Rome,
in American Journal of Archaeology 112, 57 – 89.

12
Livy, T. 1998 Ab Urbe Condita. V.54.4. Translated by T.J. Luce. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

Luberti, G. 2017 A review of the stratigraphy of Rome (Italy) according to

geochronologically and paleomagnetically constrained aggradational successions, glacio-
eustatic forcing and volcano-tectonic processes, Quaternary International 438 40-67

Martial, M. 1993 Epigrammata. Translated by Ker, Walter. Epigrams. Cambridge: Loeb

Classical Library.

Moss, C. 1988 Roman Marble Tables. Princeton University.

Ovid, P. 2013 Fasti Translated Anne Wiseman, Peter Wiseman, Oxford University Press.

Paterculus, V. 2011 Translated J. C. Yardley The Roman History: From Romulus and the
Foundation of Rome to the Reign of the Emperor Tiberius.

Plinius, C. 1927 Natural History trans. William Thayer, Harvard: Loeb Classical Library.

Pollini, J. 2012 From Republic to Empire Rhetoric, Religion, and Power in the Visual Culture
of Ancient Rome University of Oklahoma Press.
.
Popkin, M. 2015 ‘Decorum and the Meanings of Materials in Triumphal Architecture of
Republican Rome, in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians Vol. 74, no. 3, 289-
311.

Rehak, P. 2006 Imperium and Cosmos: Augustus and the Northern Campus Martius,
University of Wisconsin Press.

Reitz, B. 2012 ‘Tantae Molis Erat: On Valuing Roman Imperial Architecture.’ Aesthetic Value
in Classical Antiquity, edited by Ineke Sluiter and Ralph M. Rosen, Brill 315–344.

Roman, L. 2010 Martial and the City of Rome, The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 100, 88-
117.

Rose, C.B 1990. ‘Princes and Barbarians on the Ara Pacis.’ AM Vol. 94, 3, 453-67.

Shirley, E. 2009 Ars Temporis: Resisting Age in Ovidian Elegy and Augustan Art, Indiana
University.
13
Seth, B. 2016 Building Mid-Republican Rome: Labour, Architecture, and the Urban Economy

Siwicki, C. 2019 Architectural Restoration and Heritage in Imperial Rome (Oxford Studies in
Ancient Culture & Representation) Oxford University Press.

Stamper, J. 2005 The Architecture of Roman Temples: The Republic to the Middle Empire,
Cambridge University Press.

Sterling, G. 2001 Mors philosophi: The Death of Jesus in Luke, The Harvard Theological
Review, Vol. 94, No. 4 383-402.

Strabo, 1969. The Geography of Strabo, trans. H. L. Jones, Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.

Suetonius 1920. The Lives of the Caesars – The Deified Augustus, trans. J.C. Rolfe,
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Swan, P. 2004 The Augustan Succession: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman
History Books 55–56 9 B.C. – 14 A.D. Oxford Press.

Tacitus, 1942 trans. Alfred Church and William Brodribb, The Annals, New York City:
Modern Library.

Torelli, M. 1996 ‘Roman Art, 43 B.C. to A.D. 69’, in A. K. Bowman, E. Champlin, and A.
Lintott, eds., The Cambridge Ancient History X. The Augustan Empire, 43 B.C.-A.D. 69
(second ed.; Cambridge,)

Vitruvius, M. 1960 The Ten Books of Architecture. Translation by Morris Hicky Morgan New
York.

Wardle, D. 2007 A Perfect Send-off: Suetonius and the Dying Art of Augustus (Suetonius,
Aug. 99) Mnemosyne 60, 443-463.

Wagoner, B. 2011 Meaning Construction in Remembering: A Synthesis of Bartlett and

Vygotsky. Theoretical Psychology: Global Transformations and Challenges, edited by J.
Stenner, J. Cromby, J. Motzkau, J. Yen and Y. Haosheng. pp.105- 114. Toronto. Captus Press.

14
Zanker, P. 2012 The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Jerome Lectures, 16th Series)
Ann Arbor, Michigan.

15