Forum of Auguste

Origins

Octave Auguste undertook in the year 2 before J.C the construction of this new forum. According to Suétone, Octave had two motivations:

just as César had made wish in the morning of Pharsale, to build a forum if it gained the victory, Octave before the Bataille of Philips (in 42 av. J.C) promised to build a new forum and to dedicate a temple to it to Mars, father of Romulus and god of the war. After the victory, Auguste achieves his wish and set up the Temple of Mars Avenger (Ultor Mars), in the center of a new forum.
the old man Forum romanum and the Forum of César were not enough any more with the reception of crowd at the time of the days of lawsuit. The construction of this third forum, affected with the public lawsuits and the drawing lot of the judges was to unchoke the precedents.

The forum of Auguste was inaugurated on August 1st, month which was devoted to Mars. It opened in its turn the second imposing space near that of César, in the north of the old forum. One notices the considerable time interval (40 years) between the wish of Octave and his realization. The ground under consideration for the construction of this forum bit on the over-populated district of Suburre, Octave thus started by repurchasing some grounds. He testified thus to his pious intention, and into same differed work, for other monuments which went in the direction of its personal propaganda, like the temple of the divine Jules on the old forum, or the temple of Apollo on the Palatin. Moreover this time avoided to him associating with this project Marc Antoine, also winner with Philips.

Auguste financed the forum with the money of the spoils of his military campaigns and it expropria nobody authoritatively to have the ground necessary; he reduced even his project in front of the refusal to sell certain owners.

We are unaware of however on which date work themselves began. Bernard Andreae proposes to go back the forum to Auguste according to similar constructions in the provinces, like the Maison Carrée, that is to say one period between -19 and -12. The dedication of the temple of Ultor Mars took place in the year 2 before J.C, marking the end of work. One placed there the sign S of Crassus whose Auguste had obtained Parthes that they restore these emblems taken to the Romans with the Bataille of Carrhes

Description

The last excavations made it possible to discover the vestiges of this Forum and the gigantic temple whose three the 15 height meters Corinthian columns constitute a marvellous testimony. The whole of 125 m out of 118 m flanked of side gantries was dominated by the temple of Mars Avenger. This one was pressed on a 33 height m wall, the most Roman wall of the city which sheltered the forum of the fire hazards of the turbulent district of Subure near.

The iconographic program of the forum was heavy direction. Auguste in a Quadrige trônait in the center of the place and was described there as “Father of the Fatherland”, titrates that the Senate in 2 granted to him before J.C. Of each dimensioned, at the bottom of the Gantry S, in two large Exèdre S semicircular which faced, of the statues out of marble and bronze, of paintings, the reliefs showed all the great men of Rome and the family Julienne: Enée and Romulus, large Ascagne or the triumphant victors that Auguste proposed “to be used as example with itself and with its successors”: Scipion Émilien, Marius, Sylla, Pumped, Lucullus.

Sources

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