Augustus, Domitian and the So-called Horologium Augusti

Heslin, Peter

doi:10.1017/s0075435800014842

Cited by 17 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…En los frentes este y oeste destacan cuatro escenas, 18 La relación entre ambos monumentos que Buchner (1976 y, con él, entro otros, Zanker [1992: 175-177] o Elsner [1991: 52-53]) supuso en su momento al considerar al primero un gigantesco reloj solar (la sombra del obelisco-gnomón se proyectaría sobre el ara Pacis en el aniversario del emperador) está siendo cuestionado por nuevos estudios. En la actualidad el llamado horologium Augusti se entiende como una meridiana solar (Heslin 2007;DeLaine 2012). concede al historiador de la religión romana el raro privilegio de añadir a sus fuentes el monumento mismo. Naturalmente también le exige nuevos esfuerzos de evaluación e interpretación de la información que aporta y los problemas que suscita.…”

Section: Arquitectura Del Altar (Fig 1 Y 2)unclassified

Religión y culto en el <em>ara Pacis Augustae</em>

Delgado

2016

Arch. esp. arqueol.

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El ara Pacis Augustae, con toda su magnificencia como obra de arte y todas sus poderosas implicaciones políticas como creación del poder imperial, era esencialmente un altar, es decir, un lugar de culto oficial sometido a una determinada reglamentación religiosa y dotado de un calendario ceremonial específico. En consecuencia esta investigación ha sido ideada y desarrollada para presentar, discutir y, en su caso, dar respuesta a los problemas que presenta el ara Pacis como lugar de culto. El debate se integra y articula en el contexto más amplio de la naturaleza de las arae en la práctica cultual romana y se sustenta en el análisis de la tradición textual del ara Pacis y la propia evidencia arqueológica. Como resultado, se presenta el proceso de institución del ara Pacis Augustae en toda su extensión y complejidad, tanto en sus aspectos propiamente rituales como en su plasmación monumental. SUMMARYThe ara Pacis Augustae, in all its magnificence as a work of art and all its powerful political implications as a creation of the imperial power, was essentially an altar, i.e. an official place of cult subject to certain religious rules and having a specific ceremonial calendar. Accordingly, this research topic has come about and been developed to present, discuss and try to provide a response to the problems that the ara Pacis poses as a place of cult. The debate is organized and is part of the broader context of the nature of the arae in the Roman cultic practice and is predicated on the analysis of the textual tradition of the ara Pacis and the archaeological evidence itself. As a result, we present the process of 'foundation' of the ara Pacis Augustae to its full extent and complexity, both in its own ritual aspects themselves as well as in its physical representation as a monument.PALABRAS CLAVE: Augusto; Principado augusteo; Roma augustea; Religión romana; Arqueología romana.KEY WORDS: Augustus; Augustan Principate; Augustan Rome; Roman religion; Roman Archaeology.La identificación del altar exhumado en el Campo de Marte romano con el ara Pacis Augustae de los 1 jadelga@ull.es http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6949-9768 textos epigráficos -establecida en las últimas déca-das del siglo xix-fue el comienzo de una exégesis sobre el monumento que se prolonga hasta nuestro tiempo. Un repaso atento a los títulos publicados desde entonces muestra que han sido las cuestiones arqueológicas, arquitectónicas, iconográficas, políticas o prosopográficas las que han centrado la atención de los investigadores. Pero desde luego esta nómina de intereses no agota en absoluto las posibilidades de estudio de esta espléndida obra augustea. Para un historiador de la religión romana resulta una paradoja el hecho de que los problemas relativos a la naturaleza religiosa del altar hayan sido tradicionalmente marginados, tratados parcialmente o sencillamente soslayados. El ara Pacis Augustae, con toda su magnificencia como obra de arte y todas sus poderosas implicaciones políticas como creación del poder imperial, era esencialmente un ara, es de...

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Section: Arquitectura Del Altar (Fig 1 Y 2)unclassified

Religión y culto en el <em>ara Pacis Augustae</em>

Delgado

2016

Arch. esp. arqueol.

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“…Up to now, the archaeological records which explicitly hint at Augustus' "celestial" power are mainly the remains of the meridian in the Campus Martius. The original, extensive interpretation of these remains in terms of a complex architectural, sun-related project with the Ara Pacis (Buchner 1976) has been, however, re-assessed by later studies (Heslin 2007, Hannah 2009, Haselberger 2011. It is also true that the Pantheon has been shown to be a building intimately connected with the celestial cycles, since a spectacular hierophany starts there at the spring equinox and reaches its maximum on the day of the foundation of Rome (Hannah 2009, Hannah andMagli 2011), but these results hold for the presently visible, Hadrianic version, and much debate exists on how the original structure conceived by Agrippa looked like.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Augustus' Power from the Stars and the Foundation of Augusta Praetoria Salassorum

Bertarione¹,

Magli²

2015

CAJ

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Augustus' propaganda founded the ruler's power on a series of references to the sky: Caesar's comet, which helped establishing the divine nature of kingship, the completion of the calendar's reform celebrated in the Campus Martius' meridian, and Augustus' association with the Capricorn, the zodiacal sign of the winter solstice. A variety of proofs coming from texts, works of art and numismatics show the key role of such a "power from the stars". We present here new archaeological and archaeoastronomical evidences coming from Augusta Praetoria Salassorum (modern Aosta), founded around 25 BC after the victory of Augustus' army on the Salassi. An emergency excavation along the Aosta's Roman walls has indeed brought to light a block in situ on a corner of one of the towers which carries several reliefs -including a plough and a spade -apparently related to the town's foundation ritual. As a consequence, we carried out a complete analysis of the original urban plan of Aosta and of its relationship with the sky and the landscape, taking into account the complex natural horizon of the Alps in which Aosta's valley is nested. The results show that the town was oriented in such a way as to pinpoint Augustus' "cognitive" relationship with the "cosmic" signs of renewal.

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“…Buchner (1984), who edited the results of the excavation, and was the first scholar to concern himself with the matter, imagined a large piazza entirely paved, with lines extending in the curves typical of sundials, while today the most probable reconstruction seems to reckon on a simple meridian line along a north-south axis (Heslin 2007;Albers 2008). To correctly answer these questions, it would be useful to be able to amplify the archaeological investigations, admittedly complicated in the monumental heart of a multi-layered city such as Rome.…”

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confidence: 99%

The sundial of Augustus and its survey: unresolved issues and possible solutions

et al. 2015

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A lively debate has developed regarding the characteristics of the so-called Horologium Augusti, at first known only through a notice in Pliny and subsequently discovered (at least partly) during the course of excavations begun in 1997 (Leonhardt, in: The Horologium of Augustus: debate and context, 2014). The gnomon of the ''Horologium'' was composed by the obelisk that presently is nearby in ''Piazza Montecitorio'' in Rome (Fig. 1). A large part of the debate has centred on the very function of the Horologium, in particular whether it was a true functioning solar clock or simply a sundial. The scope of the present essay concentrates rather on the metrical accuracy that such a sundial could have had; in particular, we will hazard a hypothesis as to the accuracy with which the direction of the sundial was laid out and the possibility of measuring the azimuth 123Acta Geod Geophys (2016) 51:527-540 DOI 10.1007 in its present placement. Such a detailed geodetic-topographic survey of the portion thus far excavated, could provide useful information for the eventual pursuit of excavations yielding, at the same time, further avenues of research; as an example it would also allow for the deduction of two pieces of information still not entirely established: the exact height of the gnomon, and the exact position of the original placement of the axis of the obelisk.

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Augustus, Domitian and the So-called Horologium Augusti

Cited by 17 publications

References 3 publications

Religión y culto en el <em>ara Pacis Augustae</em>

Religión y culto en el <em>ara Pacis Augustae</em>

Augustus' Power from the Stars and the Foundation of Augusta Praetoria Salassorum

The sundial of Augustus and its survey: unresolved issues and possible solutions

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