Interior Walls
Inside of Public Approach Front
original east front
Rigorous design with exquisite carving: Like the exterior walls, the interior walls are structured within the powerful geometry of corner pilasters, base, cornice, and intermediate, horizontal stringcourse. In the interior, however, the pilaster are flat, the base plain, and the stringcourse a gentle lotus and palmette design.
The lower portion of the interior walls are thought to be an imitation in stone of wooden walls sometimes set up to delimit altar precincts (see drawing on page 3). Some scholars have suggested that there was just such a wooden precinct wall initially set up for the Ara Pacis.
The upper portion also follows a repeating pattern, but with the parts subtly varied, and with rich, symbolic imagery. Most noticeable are the elaborate, hanging festoons of wild and cultivated vegetation of all season: ivy, poppies, oak, apples, corn, figs, pomegranates, berries, and more. The design of these festoons has long been recognized as the richest and their carving the finest of the entire monument.
The festoons hang from the horns of ox skulls (bucrania), attached by ribbons, the ends of which flutter outward as if in a breeze. Above each of the festoons is a libation bowl (paterae), from which sacrificial liberations were poured.
TO ZOOM IN ON THE LARGE IMAGES, USE THE BUTTONS AT TOP-LEFT.
Tips for using this website
Looking along side of sacrifical altar to wall at right of original east doorway. photo July 2008
|
Same wall as in photo at left. photo July 2008
|
This image shows the wall in the photos at left, as reconstructed in 1938, identifying the original portions. Scanned from Giuseppe Moretti, L'Ara Pacis Augustae; Rome, 2005 (1st ed. 1948), vol.2, fig. 139. Courtesy of the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Rome. Reproduced with appreciation.
|
One of the earliest attempts to suggest the overall design of the Ara Pacis, based on the then limited evidence, preceding the first excavation in 1903. Scanned from Eugen Petersen, "Ara Pacis Augustae, von Eugen Petersen, mit Zeichnungen von George Niemann", Sonderschriften des Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes in Wien, 1902; vol.1, fig.3. Reproduduced with appreciation.
|
"Plate 31 "b. Ara Pacis: Conjectural reconstruction of temporary wooden precinct-wall", "After Pasqui" (drawing first published 1903). Scanned from J.. M. C. Toynbee, The Ara Pacis Reconsidered and Historical Art in Roman Italy. Preceedings of the British Academy; London, 1953, pl.31b. © The British Academy 1953. Reproduced by permission from Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 39. Reproduced with appreciation. |
Same corner as in photos above, here showing Corinthian capital bent at center to fit inside corner. photo July-Oct. 2008
|