But of which year? The consuls of the year 13 B.C., when the building of the altar was officially decreed, were Varus (who fell in the Teutoberg forest twenty-two years later) and Tiberius. Those of the year 9 B.C., when the altar was consecrated, were Drusus and Quinctius Crispinus. Now the slab pictured in Fig. 6.11 contains on its left edge, on either side of the veiled background figure with her finger on her lips (who is Augustus’ sister Octavia) a family group. This has been almost certainly identified as Drusus (in uniform, with short tunic), and his wife, Antonia Minor, holding their son Germanicus by the hand. Drusus can hardly be in two places at once. Therefore the consuls on the earlier slab are those of 13 B.C., and the whole procession is imagined as that of the altar’s _constitutio_, when the marble version was not yet finished, not yet, perhaps, even begun. This hypothesis explains the treatment of the enclosure’s inner face, where the recessed panels represent a temporary wooden fence. The swags in marble relief, of barley, grapes, olives, figs, apples, pears, plums, cherries, pine cones, nuts, oak leaves, ivy, laurel, and poppy--all the riches of a fertile Italy at peace--were originally painted, like Della Robbia terracottas, against a blue background. They must have been intended to render the natural festoons swinging in the open air against the blue sky. The _paterae_, or sacrificial bowls, in two alternating patterns of gilded marble, which hang above the swags, must be imagined as suspended from an upper crossbar. The persons in Fig. 6.12 are of the greatest historical interest. The tall man with a fold of his toga over his head, whose careworn face and pronounced Roman nose make a recognizable portrait, can be identified from other likenesses as Augustus’ lieutenant Agrippa, acting as Pontifex Maximus. The child clinging to his toga is then one of his sons, Gaius or Lucius. Gaius, the elder, born in 20 B.C., would have been, in 13, of the age represented here; a modern symbol of Aeneas’ son Ascanius, or Romulus, the son of Mars. The woman in the background with her hand on his head would then be Gaius’ mother Julia, Augustus’ daughter, whom he was later to banish for her immoral conduct. The older woman in the foreground, the most carefully wrought female figure in either frieze, would then be Julia’s stepmother, the redoubtable Empress Livia. [Illustration: FIG. 6.11 Rome, Altar of Peace, frieze with family group of Julio-Claudians. (MPI)] [Illustration: FIG. 6.12 Rome, Altar of Peace, frieze probably portraying Agrippa, Julia, and Livia. (MPI)]