Altar of Peace Museum

The Altar of Peace Museum is a unique historical monument from the era of Octavian Augustus. After the solemn return of Octavian Augustus from Spain and Gaul and the successful annexation of these regions to Rome, the Altar of Peace, known in many countries, was erected in the center of historical Italy. It was here that priests could sacrifice cows and sheep to Janus every year.

Features of the altar of the Octavian Augustus era

The Altar of Peace Museum resembled a rectangular structure with two entrances - east and west. The altar itself was located inside this building. It had corresponding steps that surrounded it on each side, as well as a three-part frieze.:

• The upper part of the frieze includes ornaments in the form of plants, as well as the sea and landscape on both sides of the figure of Apollo, and the lower part has a very rich pictorial, graphic or sculptural decoration of plant elements.
• The eastern part of the Altar of Peace Museum building is represented by sculptural images of a man: the left part of the entrance is Italian figures, and the right is Roman figures.
• The frieze opposite represents a scene with the figure of Mars (to the left of the entrance itself), the lord of war and the ancestor of all the indigenous inhabitants of Rome. Aenea, whom we know about in the fiction of Virgil's narrative work, is on the right.

Description of the Altar of Peace Museum

The rest often feature processions - they depict Augustus himself and his wife Livia, as well as employees of the emperor's family and servants of the deity performing a sacrifice. The art standards of the classicizing type are the reliefs of the Altar of Peace Museum, which resembled the monuments of Greece.



In the center is a figure with a veil on her head - the goddess of the earth (Saturnia Tellus), is with 2 babies on her lap, and a cow and a baby sheep graze at her feet. On the sides of the figure of the Italian character are figures of deities in the form of women, personifying the winds (auras): the figure on the right sits on the dragon Caesar, and the figure on the left sits on a swan. The boat full of water at the feet of the figure on the right represents the Eridani, Italy's largest river. The goddess of the earth, an Italian personification, is surrounded by winds. And the image of Rome, conceived by those who created the Altar of Peace, symbolically means the union of Italy and a state of stability, directly between Italy and Rome, which was the main goal of Augustus, his political views.

How to get there

The Altar of Peace Museum is located in the Campo Marzio area on the banks of the Tiber, at the corner of Via Augusta Lungotevere and Via Tomacelli. You can get to this place by metro to the Flaminio station, and then walk about five hundred meters. If you want to save time, you can take buses numbered 628-926, drive from Flaminio Square and get off at the Augusto Imperatore stop. From the Spagna metro station, take Via Condotti and Via Tomacelli. You should go to the main river of Rome. You can also take the bus 224 or 590. Parking is available on the Tiberis Embankment.