Ara Pacis Augustae, Rome

Before you is the Ara Pacis Augustae, an ancient Roman altar dedicated to Peace. Rome’s Senate ordered it on the fourth of July, thirteen BC, marking Augustus’s return after years in Hispania and Gaul; it was solemnly dedicated on the thirtieth of January, nine BC. This is peace presented as a public achievement, with religion and political authority deliberately bound together.

Follow the marble enclosure’s carved vegetation: acanthus tendrils teem with creatures, making prosperity feel almost alive in stone. Above them, the long ceremonial friezes gather priests, magistrates, attendants, and Augustus’s household. Women and children appear conspicuously, tying the regime’s promise of stability to family and succession.

Within the enclosure sits the sacrificial altar itself, where ritual had a practical purpose rather than serving merely as decoration. The monument’s history is nearly as remarkable as its imagery. It originally stood beside the ancient Via Flaminia in the Campus Martius, then river deposits gradually swallowed it beneath several metres of silt.

Fragments emerged again during the Renaissance, dispersed into major collections, and were reunited here in nineteen thirty-eight. The reconstructed altar is turned from its ancient alignment, so a side that once faced west now faces south.