Month: March 2017

Mausoleum of Augustus

On By Paul Coby and Sally BlandfordIn Imperial, ItalyLeave a comment

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Overall          2 ** it’s in terrible state – but gets the ranking because of what it is!

Display         0 nothing, what a shocker

Access           1 * you can’t go in but can get a view from the fascist square around it

Atmosphere 1 * gloomy neglect

Other             5 ***** Just think who it was for – one of the major figures of World History and it’s next door to the re-located but, magnificent Ara Pacis in it’s modern Museum.

The Mausoleum of Augustus was built by Augustus in 28BCE on the Campus Martius, close to the Tiber north of Rome.

Intriguingly it was one of the first – not the last – projects initiated by Augustus in Rome, just after assuming unchallenged power over the ‘Republic’, after his Victory at Actium in 31 BCE.  He lasted until 14AD.  Does this suggest an element of pessimism in his character or just careful planning?

Just imagine if Octavian as he then was had died in Egypt of disease in 30BCE, it seems highly likely that the Roman Republic would have continued to tear itself apart with Civil Wars and the apparent inevitability and stability of the Roman Empire created by Augustus and Agrippa might never have happened.  Thus the 5 stars in the ‘other’ category.  Just think what if…..

It was circular in plan and consists of concentric rings of brick.  It was planted with cypresses and probably capped with with a status of Augustus.  There were burial spaces in vaults inside and granite obelisks flanked the arched entry.

We know that Marcellus, Agrippa, Drusus, Octavia Minor, Gaius Caesar, Lucius Caesar were interred there before Augustus.  After him the ashes of Livia (his wife), Germanicus, Agrippina, Nero and Drusus sons of Germanicus, Caligula, Tiberius, Claudius, Britannicus and Nerva were interred there.

There is a story that in Alaric’s Sack of Rome in 410, that the ashes of the imperial family were scattered on the ground as the Goths made off with the urns.  However there appears to be no corroboration for this.  The Mausoleum was used as castle in the middle ages, became successively a bull ring and a theatre, until cleared by Mussolini with the newly reconstructed Ara Pacis alongside.  After the War it was allowed to fall into shame-fall neglect, although at last renovations seem to be underway, financed by a Telco.

At present the site is closed during reconstruction works.

Hadrian’s Mausoleum, Rome

On By Paul Coby and Sally BlandfordIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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Overall          4 **** bashed about but still huge and hugely impressive

Display         2 ** some bilingual display boards but bookshop shut!

Access           3 *** lots of stairs, crowds even in March

Atmosphere 2 ** there is not much of Hadrian’s work left above the circular ramp

Other             4 **** approached over Pons Aelius, surviving from 137 and it’s in Rome!

I have never been a fan of Hadrian and the more I read of him, the more I see him as the Emperor who put the Roman Imperial Project into reverse.  So Hadrian’s Wall is a Monument to the Roman Army’s failure to complete the Conquest of Britannia and a vast labour creation and energy displacement scheme for legionaries.  At least he didn’t give up Dacia as he gave up Mesopotamia.  I could go on…..

Augustus’ Mausoleum was full up by this time, and Hadrian never one for self effacement embarked on building his new larger edifice in 130, approached directly by a new Tiber Bridge the Pons Aelius (see another in Newcastle).   He probably knew that the Roman Senate who hated Hadrian for his Greek sophistry, beard and behaviours, would not support this after his death.

It is unclear exactly what the final Mausoleum looked like; reconstructions suggest a vast circular structure, topped by a hill with cypresses and perhaps a quadriga with the deified Hadrian ascending to the heavens on the top.

The Mausoleum has been knocked about since it was completed by Hadrian’s last minute adopted successor Antoninus Pius (pius because he completed it) in 139 just after the bearded one’s death.  It was incorporated in the Aurelian Walls in 271 as a redoubt, but that did not save it and Rome from being sacked by Alaric and his Visigoths in 410.  The ashes of Hadrian and succeeding Augusti are assumed to have been scattered at that time.  The statues around the top of the Mausoleum were used to drop on the heads of Ostrogothic besiegers in 537.

It acquired the title of Castel San Angelo after an appearance of the Archangel Michael to end the plague of 590.  Converted to military uses it became a Renaissance Fortress for the Popes – complete with an elevated escape corridor (the Passeto di Borgo) from the Vatican Palace used by Clement VII to escape Charles V’s mutinous soldiers in the Sack of 1527.

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As a Roman site it is strangely dissatisfying – the lower levels with the entrance niche where a gigantic statue of Hadrian probably stood, and the curving and rising corridor through the masonry are evocative, even with the swarms of visitors.   The so-called Chamber of the Urns having been turned into a Renaissance draw-bridge is not.  From then on the Mausoleum becomes the Pope’s Palace Fortress.

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