Religion, propaganda, and the Pax Romana, including the Ara Pacis, the Res Gestae, the imperial cult, the religious revival, the Augustan poets, and the visual program of the new Rome

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to describe Augustus's religious and propaganda program in detail: the Ara Pacis, the Res Gestae, the imperial cult, the religious revival, the literary program, the visual program of the new Rome, and the ideology of the Pax Romana, and engage with the canonical modern scholarship of Zanker and Galinsky.

The answer

The Ara Pacis Augustae

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.

The altar consists of a sacrificial precinct enclosed by a marble screen. The screen's exterior depicts four scenes:

The procession. 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.

Roma and Tellus. 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).

Aeneas and Romulus. 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.

The Ara Pacis combines religious sacrifice, imperial family piety, and the iconography of peace and fertility. Paul Zanker (The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, 1988) treats it as the canonical example of the Augustan visual program.

The Res Gestae Divi Augusti

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.

The original Roman text is lost. The surviving copy comes from the wall of the Temple of Roma and Augustus at Ankara (the Monumentum Ancyranum), with fragments from Apollonia and Antioch in Pisidia. The Latin text is paired with a Greek translation.

The Res Gestae presents the regime as a restoration of the Republic. Key passages:

• Chapter 1: "At the age of 19, on my own initiative and at my own expense, I raised an army by means of which I liberated the state."
• Chapter 20: "I rebuilt 82 temples."
• Chapter 25: "All Italy of its own accord swore allegiance to me and demanded me as its leader."
• Chapter 34: "In my sixth and seventh consulships [28 and 27 BC], after I had extinguished civil wars, and at a time when with universal consent I was in complete control of affairs, I transferred the state from my own power to the discretion of the senate and the Roman people... after which time I excelled all in influence (auctoritas) although I had no more power than the others."

The Res Gestae is the most-studied piece of Roman political self-representation.

The imperial cult

The cult of the emperor varied by region.

In the East. 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.

In Italy and the West. 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.

The Lares Augusti. Augustus added his genius to the household and crossroads shrines, blending the imperial cult into everyday religious practice.

Posthumous deification. Augustus was declared divus (a god) by the senate after his death in AD 14. Tiberius dedicated the temple of Divus Augustus.

The religious revival

Augustus presented himself as the restorer of traditional Roman religion.

Temple restoration. Res Gestae 20 records the restoration of 82 temples in Rome. The Pantheon, the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, the temple of Castor and Pollux, and many others were rebuilt or restored.

Priesthoods. Augustus filled the major priestly colleges: he was a member of all four (pontifices, augures, quindecimviri sacris faciundis, septemviri epulonum). He revived the Flamen Dialis (priest of Jupiter), an old priesthood that had lapsed.

Pontifex Maximus. Augustus became chief priest in 12 BC on the death of Lepidus. The combination of pontificate and political authority became a permanent feature of the principate.

The Secular Games (ludi saeculares). Held in 17 BC, the games marked the beginning of a new "saeculum" or age. Horace wrote the Carmen Saeculare for the occasion. The games were both archaic ritual and Augustan political theatre.

The Augustan poets

Augustus and his cultural minister Maecenas (an equestrian) cultivated the literary elite.

Virgil (70 to 19 BC). The Aeneid (composed 29 to 19 BC, published posthumously) presents Augustus as the destined ruler of Rome, descended from the Trojan hero Aeneas. Anchises's prophecy in Aeneid 6 places Augustus as the climactic figure of Roman history.

Horace (65 to 8 BC). Odes (published in three books, 23 BC; a fourth book around 13 BC) praise the regime's restoration of peace and order. The Odes Roman Odes (3.1 to 3.6) are explicitly Augustan. The Carmen Saeculare was commissioned for the Secular Games of 17 BC.

Livy (59 BC to AD 17). Ab Urbe Condita (history from the foundation), composed across the period, providing the moral and historical narrative supporting the Augustan moral revival. Books 1 to 10 and 21 to 45 survive.

Other poets. Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid (the latter eventually exiled in AD 8 for reasons disputed).

The visual program of the new Rome

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.

Major construction included:

• The Forum of Augustus (dedicated 2 BC), with the temple of Mars Ultor and statues of summi viri (great men of Roman history)
• The temple of Apollo on the Palatine (28 BC)
• The Mausoleum of Augustus (begun 28 BC) in the Campus Martius
• The Pantheon (built by Agrippa, 25 BC; later rebuilt by Hadrian)
• The theatre of Marcellus (named for Augustus's nephew, dedicated by Augustus)
• The Saepta Julia (voting enclosure)
• The Horologium Augusti (large solar clock with an Egyptian obelisk as gnomon)

The Pax Romana

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.

Closure of the doors of Janus. The temple of Janus's doors were closed in time of peace. Augustus closed them three times (29 BC, 25 BC, 13 BC), an unprecedented frequency.

Coinage and inscriptions. The Pax Augusta is celebrated on coins and inscriptions throughout the empire.

Augustan propaganda at a glance

Historiography

Paul Zanker (The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, 1988) is the canonical study of the visual program.

Karl Galinsky (Augustan Culture, 1996) integrates the political, religious, and cultural dimensions.

Mary Beard (SPQR, 2015) emphasises the religious allusions of the titles.

Ronald Syme (The Roman Revolution, 1939) treats the propaganda as a facade for military power.

How to read a source on this topic

Section IV sources typically include extracts from the Res Gestae, the Ara Pacis reliefs, Augustus's coinage, Virgil's Aeneid, or Horace's Odes. Three reading habits.

First, watch the visual-textual integration. The Ara Pacis (image) and the Aeneid (text) make the same claims about the foundation of Rome and the regime. Use both registers.

Second, decode the religious vocabulary. Pietas, auctoritas, restitutor, princeps each carry specific Roman religious-political meaning. Use them precisely.

Third, weigh propaganda against reality. The "restoration of the Republic" was political theatre. The Pax Romana was both ideology and (partial) reality.

Common exam traps

Treating the Ara Pacis as just an altar. It is a propaganda monument with extensive iconography.

Forgetting Maecenas. Augustus's cultural minister coordinated the literary patronage.

Missing the religious revival. 82 temples (Res Gestae 20) and the Secular Games are the standard examples.

Confusing genius and divus. Genius: the personal spirit, worshipped in Augustus's lifetime. Divus: deified, posthumous (AD 14).

In one sentence

Augustan religion and propaganda integrated the visual program of the new Rome (Forum of Augustus, temple of Mars Ultor, Mausoleum, the Ara Pacis Augustae of 9 BC), the literary program of Virgil, Horace, and Livy (coordinated by Maecenas), the religious revival (restoration of 82 temples, the Secular Games of 17 BC, the Pontifex Maximus office from 12 BC), the imperial cult through the worship of his genius in Italy and direct worship in the East, and the autobiographical Res Gestae, a coherent program that Zanker and Galinsky treat as the substance of how the principate communicated its legitimacy and the Pax Romana its ideological reality.