Back to the full dot-point answer
NSWAncient HistoryQuick questions
Section IV (Historical Periods): The Augustan Age 44 BC to AD 14
Quick questions on Religion, propaganda, and the Pax Romana under Augustus: HSC Ancient History
15short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is the Ara Pacis Augustae?Show answer
The Altar of the Augustan Peace, dedicated on 30 January 9 BC near the Campus Martius. Commissioned by the senate in 13 BC to commemorate Augustus's safe return from Spain and Gaul.
What is the Res Gestae Divi Augusti?Show answer
Augustus's own account of his life and deeds, written in the first person. Composed at the end of his life and intended for inscription on bronze pillars at his mausoleum.
What is the imperial cult?Show answer
The cult of the emperor varied by region.
What is the religious revival?Show answer
Augustus presented himself as the restorer of traditional Roman religion.
What is the Augustan poets?Show answer
Augustus and his cultural minister Maecenas (an equestrian) cultivated the literary elite.
What is the visual program of the new Rome?Show answer
Augustus claimed (Suetonius, Divus Augustus 28) that he had "found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble." The boast was substantially accurate.
What is the Pax Romana?Show answer
The Augustan peace was both ideology and reality. Real military pacification (Spain 19 BC, the Alps 16 to 13 BC, Gaul and Germany pushed back temporarily) coexisted with proclamation.
What is historiography?Show answer
Paul Zanker (The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, 1988) is the canonical study of the visual program.
What is the procession?Show answer
South and north walls show the imperial family, senators, magistrates, the Vestal Virgins, and priests in a religious procession. The procession includes Augustus, Agrippa, Tiberius, Livia, Drusus, and the children of the imperial household.
What is roma and Tellus?Show answer
The east entrance shows Roma (the personification of the city, armed) and Tellus or Pax (the earth goddess or peace, with children, fruits, and animals representing Italian fertility).
What is aeneas and Romulus?Show answer
The west entrance shows Aeneas sacrificing at Lavinium and (probably) Romulus and Remus with the wolf, linking Augustus to the foundational figures of Roman myth.
What is in the East?Show answer
Direct worship of Augustus as a god. The Greek world had long worshipped Hellenistic rulers as divine; Augustus accepted this in the East. The temple of Roma and Augustus at Ankara housed the Res Gestae.
What is in Italy and the West?Show answer
Direct worship was avoided in Augustus's lifetime. His genius (the personal protective spirit) was worshipped. The Ara Romae et Augusti at Lugdunum (modern Lyon, dedicated 12 BC) was the centre of the Western imperial cult.
What is the Lares Augusti?Show answer
Augustus added his genius to the household and crossroads shrines, blending the imperial cult into everyday religious practice.
What is posthumous deification?Show answer
Augustus was declared divus (a god) by the senate after his death in AD 14. Tiberius dedicated the temple of Divus Augustus.