David Castriota examines one of the most important monuments of early Roman Imperial art, the Ara Pacis Augustae, the sculptured marble altar built to celebrate the peace, prosperity, and stability initiated by the reign of Augustus in the later first century B.C. Castriota argues that the floral decoration of the altar enclosure was profoundly significant, operating as a visual counterpart to the technique of metonymy in language. It utilised an array of realistic plants and flowers as allusive elements associated with various gods and goddesses, which together symbolised the support and blessing of the Roman divinities for the Augustan regime. Supporting his argument with evidence from Greek and Roman literature and religion, Castriota shows that the planners of the Ara Pacis adapted and expanded a long tradition of symbolic floral decoration from Greek monumental arts. Throughout his work, Castriota demonstrates that the Roman absorption of Greek precedent enabled viewers to recognise the intended message of divine sponsorship. By examining the origins of the Ara Pacis within its broader historical setting, the author provides new insights into a crucial period that witnessed the emergence of a distinctly Roman Imperial art.
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[This book] focuses on one single aspect of the Ara Pacis, the aspect which, on the face of it, might seem to offer least for discussion: the floral decoration that runs around the bottom of the figural and processional panels of the exterior of the enclosure of the altar. The frieze, brilliant in execution, a little battered in preservation, is alive with varieties of plant life and animal life.... That ... is not mere joi d'esprit, but carries complex signification for the ancient viewer.... This brief summary does ill justice to a complex, learned and densely argued text.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A truly fascinating and marvelously researched book,
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This review is from: The Ara Pacis Augustae & the Imagery of Abundance in Later Greek & Early Roman Imperial Art (Hardcover)
This book provides the most exhaustive and conclusive research on the relationship of Dionysos and Apollo that I have come across. Many of the sources I examined on the subject are referenced here in Castriota's book, distilling their best elements and elaborating on them to bring out whole new dimensions. His examination of the friezes depicting Apollonian laurel and Dionysian ivy lends excellent evidence to the argument for the gods' complimentary relationship, rather than the foolish Nietzschian ideals of an antagonistic relationship between the two which had tainted so much modern scholarship. For those still stuck on Nietzsche's argument: read this book. I recommend it to anyone looking for a thorough examination of the Apollonian-Dionysian relationship. And all this, dear reader, is only one of the chapters. Pick this up now. Believe me, you won't regret it.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An invaluable book.,
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This review is from: The Ara Pacis Augustae & the Imagery of Abundance in Later Greek & Early Roman Imperial Art (Hardcover)
There has been a good deal of scholarship in relation to this monument (The Ara Pacis Augustae), but few scholars have spent much time on the extensive vegetal friezes that are at eye-level on all four sides of the altar. Only a handful of scholars have written more extensively on this topic, and have put forth varying and interesting theories about their greater meaning in the context of the altar. David Castriota is one of the most thorough. Castriota's major argument is that the friezes are an extremely important and integral part of the message of the monument as a whole. They represent through their vegetal imagery and the animals within this vegetal landscape the gods that best exemplified the pax Augustae and the restoration of the mos maiorum, the old Roman values and traditions on which Rome was thought to have been built. In order for this message to convey the intended meaning to the majority of the Roman people, it had to be easily understandable. Both the educated and uneducated should have been able to quickly identify the basic concepts of the imagery it contained and understand what these images stood for without extensive study. Castriota looks first at the precedent for the vegetal friezes and what these earlier works meant to the people who commissioned them, and second, he discusses the widespread use of this type of decoration and how familiar the Roman people were with it. Anyone who has an interest in Augustan history should read this book. The Ara Pacis was not just another piece of beautiful Augustan art. This monument stood as the epitome of the Augustan message of peace brought forth and solidified by Augustus; a peace that had never truly been seen in Roman history to that point.
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