Res Gestae Divi Augusti
Emperor Augustus’s skillful work of public relations
Res Gestae Divi Augusti…For the very few who still study Latin, this title phrase will sound familiar. It is the opening line of Emperor Augustus testament as immortalised on the engraved wall of the Ara Pacis monument in Rome, one of the lasting testimony of his powerful reign. Augustus, who singlehandedly ruled over Rome from 27BC to his death in 14AD, was the first Roman emperor to officially bear the title after the final and chaotic years of the Republic.
In his testament, which can be read as a powerful piece of controlled information, Augustus described his achievements as a ruler, from the political offices he held and the military campaigns he fought to his own personal contribution to the building of the city of Rome. In a mastery of public relations, he omitted to mention his opponents as well as his more obscure deeds to put his own name in the limelight for posterity.
Towards the end of his life, he requested that the text be engraved on bronze plates to be displayed at the entrance of his mausoleum in the Campo Marzio area of Rome. The original plates did not survive, however, the full text came down to us from a far corner of the former empire, where it was systematically engraved on votive temples in an empire-wide propaganda exercise. The most intact version of the many Res Gestae which brought us the knowledge, was found in the temple of Augustus in Ancyra (modern day Ankara in Turkey) in the 16th century.
Today, it is engraved on a wall facing the emperor’s mausoleum on piazza Augustus Imperatore in central Rome and is part of the modern Ara Pacis museum, the first contemporary building to be erected in the historical centre of Rome since the fascist era. Breaking with a long tradition, the new building was commissioned to a non-Italian, the American architect Richard Meier. However, the idea of reproducing the Res Gestae text on a stone at that particular location came from the 1930s when Mussolini undertook a large rehabilitation project of the area in commemoration of the bi-millenium anniversary of Augustus’s birth in 63BC. As part of the project, the square around the mausoleum was rebuilt in a modernist style and the actual arch of peace or Ara Pacis monument, which celebrated the return of peace in the Empire under Augustus, moved next to his grave from its former location near the Pantheon. Mussolini, whose overarching ambition was to revive the greatness of the Roman Empire, had planned a pompous opening of the renovated mausoleum area in September 1937. However, work got delayed and a temporary pavillion had to be built in a great rush not to postpone the ceremony any further, with the engraved Res Gestae text incorporated in the temporary structure.
After the demise of Mussolini towards the end of WWII, the Ara Pacis was no longer a priority and so it stayed in its temporary pavillion until the 1990s. By then, the ancient monument was deteriorating so fast due to dampness and poor insulation that the Italian government and the City of Rome had to intervene and commission a new shell to protect it. One of the conditions was to leave the wall with the engraved Res Gestae untouched and incorporate it into the new building, which Richard Meier succeeded in doing. It was inaugurated in 2005, about two thousand years after the death of Augustus. The story of the Res Gestae is a fine example of the importance of preserving the memory of the past for the understanding of future generations, which inevitably leads us to ask the following question: what will remain of our world in 2000 years, if in the digital age we can so easily erase our memories at the click of a mouse?
