The Ara Pacis and the Art of Empire Nick Cofod

1. The visual language of the civil war period

2. Images of a new regime: piety and fecundity

3. The art of empire:

a. How the empire wasn’t ruled

b. The role of images

1. Res Gestae 24.2

Some eighty silver statues of me, on foot, on horse and in chariots, had been set up in Rome; I myself removed them, and with the money that they realized I set golden offerings in the temple of Apollo, in my own name and in the names of those who had honored me with the statues.

2. Suetonius, Augustus 70

Then there was Augustus’ private banquet, known as "The Feast of the Divine Twelve," which caused a public scandal. The guests came dressed as gods or goddesses, Augustus himself representing Apollo. …What made the scandal even worse was that the banquet took place at a time of food shortage; and on the next day people were shouting: "The Gods have gobbled all the grain!" or "Caesar is Apollo, true–but he’s Apollo of the Torments."

3. Res Gestae 12.2

On my return from Spain and Gaul in the consulship of Tiberius Nero and Publius Quintilius (13 BCE) after successfully arranging affairs in those provinces, the senate resolved that an altar of the Augustan Peace should be consecrated next to the Campus Martius in honor of my return, and ordered that the magistrates and priests and Vestal virgins should perform an annual sacrifice there.

4. Res Gestae 4.3

In my triumphs nine kings or children of kings were led before my chariot.

5. Suetonius, Augustus 34

The existing laws that Augustus revised, and the new ones that he enacted, dealt, among other matters, with extravagance, adultery, unchastity, bribery, and the encouragement of marriage in the Senatorial and Equestrian orders. His marriage law being more rigorously framed than the others, he found himself unable to make it effective because of open revolt against several of its clauses. He was therefore obliged to withdraw or amend certain penalties for a failure to marry; increase rewards he offered for large families; and allow a widow, or widower, three years’ grace before having to marry again. Even this did not satisfy the knights, who demonstrated against the law at a public entertainment, demanding its repeal; whereupon Augustus sent for the children whom his grand-daughter Agrippina had borne to Germanicus, and publicly displayed them, some sitting on his own knee, the rest on their father’s–and made it quite clear by his affectionate looks and gestures that it would not be at all a bad thing if the knights imitated that young man’s example. (see also chapter 89)