Ara Pacis ★

Emperor Augustus' ancient Altar of Peace in Rome, Italy

Augustus had his "Altar of Peace" built from 13 to 9 BC to celebrate the peace his campaigns to unify the new Empire had brought to Europe, northern Africa, and the Near East.

It's been reconstructed and placed in a huge, post-modern aquarium along the Lungotevere, and though you can admire it from without through the glass walls, it's worth the admission to go inside and examine up close the decorative relief panels that ring the entire exterior.

These carvings depict mythological figures and long processions of prominent citizens from Rome's history above a Greek key band and lower frieze of acanthus leaves and swans.

Not only are they beautiful, but these carvings represent the point at which Roman art finally significantly broke from Greek models to make a strong, classical statement all its own.

The discovery of the Ara Pacis

Since the 16th century, bits of decorative frieze have been recovered from beneath buildings lining the Corso, most making their way to collections in the Louvre, Vatican, and Florence. The bulk of the altar, however, lay under the water table and was serving as the foundation for several palazzi.

Mussolini, who was always looking for ways to link the concept of his new, Fascist empire with that of ancient Rome, order the rest excavated in 1938.

His archaeologists came up with the brilliant plan of freezing the water in the soil, building new supports for the palaces above, and extracting the chunks of marble altar before the ground thawed again.

The reconstituted Ara Pacis is very close to complete, with casts replacing the bits Rome hasn't been able to repatriate from museums. It has been reassembled in a giant aquarium-like building along the banks of the Tiber.

(This used to be in a much smaller aquarium, and you could see it better back then, but the old, simple, utilitarian glass box has recently been replaced with a much larger, fancier, sleeker building designed by Richard Meier—still with glass walls so you can kinda see it without going inside—with a more elaborate interpretive center inside.)

Directly across from the Ara Pacis, in one of Rome's most hideous, Fascist-designed piazze, lie the rotund brick remains of the mausoleum of the man whose accomplishments this altar glorifies: The Tomb of Augustus.

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