Altar of Peace Museum
The Altar of Peace Museum is a unique historical monument of the era of Octavian Augustus. After the triumphant 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, located in the center of historical Italy. It was here that the priests could sacrifice cows and sheep to Janus every year.
Features of the altar from the era of Octavian Augustus
The Altar of Peace Museum resembled a rectangular structure with two entrances - eastern and western. Inside this building was the altar itself. It had corresponding steps that surrounded it on each side, as well as a three-part frieze:
- The upper part of the frieze includes an ornament 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 person: the left part of the entrance is Italian figures, and the right part 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. Aeneas, whom we know about in the fiction of Virgil's narrative work, is on the right.
Description of the Altar of Peace Museum
On the remaining frequent ones you can see 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 standards of art of the classicizing type are the reliefs of the Altar of Peace Museum, which resembled the monuments of Greece.
In the center there is a figure with a veil on her head - the goddess of the earth (Saturnia Tellus), is with two 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 is seated on the dragon Caesar, and the figure on the left is on a swan. The boat full of water at the feet of the figure on the right represents the Eridani, the largest river in Italy. The goddess of the earth - the 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 the state of stability, directly between Italy and Rome, which was the main goal of Augustus and 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, on the corner of Via Augusta Lungotevere and Via Tomacelli. You can get to this place by metro to Flaminio station and then walk about five hundred meters. If you want to save time, you can take bus numbers 628-926 from Piazza Flaminio and get off at the Augusto Imperatore stop. From Spagna metro station you need to take Via Condotti and Via Tomacelli. You should go to the main river of Rome. You can also take bus 224 or 590. Parking is available at Tiberis Promenade.
