Humanities 110
William Diebold
February 15, 1999
"Contexts for the Ara Pacis"

I. Monuments

Ara Pacis Augustae (Altar of Augustan Peace), Rome, 13-9 B.C.
Parthenon, Athens, 447-432 B.C.
Mausoleum of Augustus, Rome, begun 31 B.C.
Solarium Augusti (Augustus' Sundial), Rome, begun 13 B.C.

II. Quotations

a) "context: 1) The part of a written or spoken statement in which a word or passage at issue occurs; that which leads up to and follow sand often specifies the meaning of a particular expression; 2) The circumstances in which a particular event occurs; a situation [Middle English, from Latin contextus, coherence, sequnece of words, from the past participle of contexere, to join together, weave]" (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)

b) "Go jump in the lake" (Gerald Graff, "Determinacy/Indeterminacy," p. 166)

c) "On my return from Spain and Gaul in the consulship of Tiberius Nero and Publius Quintilius after successfully arranging affairs in those provinces, the senate resolved that an altar of Augustan Peace should be consecrated next to the Campus Martius in honour of my return, and ordered that the magistrates and priests and Vestal virgins should perform an annual sacrifice there" (Res Gestae Divi Augusti, ed. Brunt and Moore, c. 12.2)

d) "Rome must appear marvelous to all the people of the world: vast, ordered, powerful as it was in the time of the first emperor, Augustus." (Benito Mussolini, 1925; quoted in Kostof)

III. Bibliography

John Elsner, "Cult and Sculpture: Sacrifice in the Ara Pacis Augustae," Journal of Roman Studies 81 (1991), 50-61.

Graff, Gerald. "Determinacy/Indeterminacy," Critical Terms for Literary Study, ed. F. Lentricchia and T. McLaughlin (Chicago, 1990), 163-76.

Kampen, Natalie. "The Muted Other." Art Journal Spring, 1988, 15-19

Kostof, Spiro. "The Emperor and the Duce: The Planning of Piazzale Augusto Imperatore in Rome" in Art and Architecture in the Service of Politics, ed. H. Millon and L. Nochlin (Cambridge, 1978), 270-325