The Mute Stones Speak: The Story of Archaeology in ItalyMacKendrick, Paul Lachlan
History
The Mute Stones Speak: The Story of Archaeology in Italy
MacKendrick, Paul Lachlan
Italy -- Antiquities
The figured upper panels on the enclosure’s outer face are the most
interesting part of the monument. On the north and south faces a
procession moves westward. It is imagined as turning the corner of
the enclosure and entering the west doorway to sacrifice at the altar.
The heads on the north side were heavily restored in the Renaissance,
but the fasces, the laurel crowns, the senatorial shoes and rings,
the cult objects carried make it clear that the procession is of
magistrates and priests. The south side, which faced the city, must
have been considered the most important half, and here, indeed, many
historical figures of Augustus’ family and court have been identified.
It is noteworthy how the division of the friezes into dynastic and
non-dynastic halves parallels the arrangement of the Hall of Fame in
Augustus’ Forum.
The face in the upper right corner of the fragmentary left panel in
Fig. 6.10, though cracked badly across the eye (for the whole weight
of the Palazzo Fiano rested upon it for centuries), is recognizable
from other portraits, from what remains of the profile, and from the
treatment of the hair, as Augustus himself. The figures in the spiked
caps to the far right are _flamines_, priests of Jupiter and Mars. The
figure second to the left of the first _flamen_, all by himself in the
background, is a spectator, the very type of the old Republican Roman.
Lictors with the fasces precede the figure to the spectator’s left of
Augustus. This figure, then, must be the consul of the year, with the
other consul on the other side of the Emperor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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