ROME: The Mythological City

The Ara Pacis Augustae  As promised here is my post on the Ara Pacis! Ever since visiting the Ara Pacis in 2017 I have been complete enamoured with the structure and it is by far my favourite Augustan building. Currently it is my intention to try and write my third year dissertation on the topic. https://youtu.be/8d6-ysEKgMQ I made this video whilst walking around the Ara Pacis in 2017 and thought I would share it here so you can get a sense of scale and just how impressive the building is.  Me outside the Ara Pacis in Rome during my 2017 visit to Italy I thought it would be a good idea to start this blog with quick overview of the monument before moving one the iconography present on the altar and most importantly the significance and message conveyed by the building.  Location - Campus Martius / field of Mars near Augustus Mausoleum in Rome.  Date - Consecrated on the 4th July 13 BCE (Livia's Birthday)         ...

Myth and Cult - East Vs West In our lecture on Myth and Cult it got my wondering to what extent Augustus himself was a cultic figure. It didn't take much research on JSTOR and a read of the ancient sources such as Suetonius and Cassius Dio, to quickly realise that the imperial cult was a major religious institution in the Roman Empire. One thing that quickly came to my attention was the difference in attitude and appearance of the cults between the East and the West. I was tempted not to right this post but felt that I couldn't help but at least mention this phenomenon as it is important to the next post on The Ara Pacis (finally!)  Therefore I am just going to outline the difference between the ruler cult present in the East Vs the West. In the East - They are used to worshiping their kings/leaders as gods Eg/ Egyptian pharaohs and Persian kings  - Therefor Augustus can and does establish a ruler cult of himself with little public backlash/outcry. Although Su...

Myth and Making a Difference - Augustus in  Modern History In today's lecture we talked about how myth could be used to benefit todays society. We looked at myth in relation to autism and how myth allows these children to relate to the world around them and get them asking questions. The lecture itself was so creative and interactive with Susan giving us some off the activities she gave the children, including colouring in the chimney piece panel that is present in the Adam Room in Grove house and using craft objets to bring aspects of this scene to life. It was truly a great lecture and we should defiantly do more colouring in our lectures as everyone really enjoyed it. As interesting as this was it got my wondering if myth was ever used in a negative way as a way to condone or justify atrocities. This idea original stems form my Myth of White post where I discuss the fact that far right groups and the red pill community use the ‘whiteness’ of classical statues to justify the...

Augustus’ use of the mythical founders of Rome in the establishment of his principate.  Whilst researching and filming the Romulus and Remus video I made for my last posting I began to find a lot of research relating to Augustus' use of the foundation myths in his principate. Thanks to prior knowledge and the research I did on the Prima Porta statue for the first post I wrote, I knew that Augustus often linked himself to Aeneas. However, I didn't realise to what extent he also used the myth of Romulus and Remus. Throughout the lectures so far we have looked extensively at what myths mean/do with a particular focus on  Morales' definition that myth is something done rather than 'something'. This idea coupled with my curiosity about how Augustus used the founding myths of Rome led me to writing this post. The idea of Augustus linking himself to a founder of Rome is by no means a new one (not even for this blog), however I wanted to take a look at the ancient...