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The Ara Pacis Augustae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Extract

It is my purpose in this article to discuss the interpretation of the relief from the Ara Pacis, now in the Uffizi Gallery, which is traditionally known as the “Tellus relief” (plate IV).

The most recent detailed discussion of the, Ara Pacis is the monograph of F. Studniczka, which marks a considerable advance on previous work. Studniczka shows that the west door was flanked by two reliefs having to do with legendary figures of Italic or Roman history; to the south, Aeneas sacrificing, and to the north, Mars gazing on the wolf and twins; while the east door was flanked to the south by the so-called “Tellus,” facing right, and to the north by a relief representing Roma and secondary figures, facing left. That the west end was the front of the structure is made clear by the fact that the figures of the north and south sides are facing in that direction.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Albert W. Van Buren1913. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

page 134 note 1 Mr. H. Stuart Jones and Professor F. Studniczka have placed me under obligation to them by valuable criticism and suggestions in connexion with this article.

page 134 note 2 The restored portions of the relief are numerous, but do not affect the evidence discussed in this article. They are indicated in Schreiber, Die bellenistischen Reliefbilder, taf. xxxii, a, and enumerated, somewhat differently, by Petersen, A.P.A. p. 49, n. I.

page 134 note 3 Zur Ara Pacis, Leipzig, Teubner, 1909Google Scholar= Abbh. d. phil.-hist. Kl. d. kgl. sächs. Ges. d. Wissenscbaften, b. xxvii, no. xxvi, pp. 902,Google Scholar f. (4, f.) contains a bibliography.

page 134 note 4 The choice of the east end for representation on the coins of the time of Nero may have been due to its having become more familiar to the populace as seen from the Via Lata.

page 134 note 5 See the discussion in Petersen, A.P.A. pp. 49–54, and Studniczka, Z.A.P. p. 929 (31).

page 134 note 6 Gardthausen's identification as “Pax” has not met with general acceptance. My own chief objections to it are: (I) a representation of “Pax,” if introduced at the point in question, would destroy the symmetry of the composition of the frieze; (2) the details of the group under discussion are indicative of the personification of a geographical entity; see below.

page 135 note 1 Illustrated in Monuments Piot, v (1899), pl. 1.

page 135 note 2 The pantheic symbols in the field naturally do not affect the above identification.

page 135 note 3 Journal of Roman Studies, i (1911), p. 194,Google Scholar note 3. See my observations there, on the peculiar characteristics of this class of personifications.

page 135 note 4 See the discussion of the representations of rivers in my note, loc. cit.

page 136 note 1 Bull. Com. Nov. 1872, 24, taf. 3. It is now in the Palazzo dei Conservatori: Hellsig, Fübrer, 3te Aufll. no. 924.

page 136 note 2 Illustrated in Furtwängler, Die Antiken Gemmen, taf, lvi.

page 136 note 3 Illustrated in Röm. Mitth. xxv (1910), pp. 31,Google Scholar f.

page 137 note 1 I am inclined also to interpret the swans, which are conspicuous among the foliage adorning the exterior podium of the monument, as an allusion to Venus rather than to Apollo.

page 138 note 1 Z.A.P. p. 930 (32).

page 138 note 2 cf. Roscher, , Lex. iii, 1720;Google Scholar Wissowa, Relig. u. Kultus der Römer, 2te Aufl. p. 334, n. 4.

page 139 note 1 C.I.L. xiv, 2898.

page 139 note 2 C.I.L. xii, 4335.

page 139 note 3 I am indebted to Professor Studniczka for the suggestion incorporated in the above paragraph. He is naturally not responsible for the form and details of presentation. In particular, he has expressed himself, Z.A.P. p. 930 (32), as dating the Carthage relief much later than the Augustan age. In that case, it may be a copy from a local monument of that period, or may come from a local post-Augustan monument in which the Roman Ara Pacis was followed.

page 140 note 1 Ptol. Geogr. iv, 8, 2,Google Scholar and the passages in other writers cited in Müller's ed. of Ptol. loc. cit.

page 140 note 2 Except that Roma seems to have occupied the left-hand part, not the centre, of the space to the north of the door.

page 140 note 3 Carm. iv, 14, 43, f: on the other hand, the Tellus and Roma on the Gemma Augustea (see above, p. 136) cannot be quoted as a parallel by those who interpret our central figure as “Tellus”; for on the gem Tellus does not serve to balance Roma, as the interest in the composition starts with the figure of Augustus and moves toward the left: Tellus and her companions are conceived of, from the standpoint of the Augustus, as in the background.