Arch of Augustus (Rimini)

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Arch of Augustus in Rimini, land side

The Arch of Augustus in Rimini , the ancient Ariminum , is a one-gate arch of honor that dates back to 27 BC. Was built in honor of Augustus . It is one of the oldest surviving Roman honor arches and represents an early form of the building type, as can also be found on coins of the same time.

construction

location

The arch rose at the end of the Via Flaminia coming from Rome and was integrated into the city wall of Ariminums, of which it formed the southeastern gate. From here the Decumanus maximus , the longer of the two main streets of the city, took its course towards the city center, ending on the opposite side in the Via Aemilia to Placentia . The Arch of Augustus in the 3rd century BC The city wall dating from the 2nd century BC replaced a city gate from the Sullan period. The free position of the arch today is the result of the removal of the old city wall in the 1930s. Originally, the arch was flanked by polygonal towers, of which only a few remains have survived.

Finding

The single-gate arch, made of local Istrian stone, is 10.40 meters high and 4.10 meters deep. The clear width of its passage is unusually large at just under 9 meters and was not suitable for being closed with a gate. The arch pillars are provided with a fluted half- column on each side of the passage. The half columns stand with the pillars themselves on pedestal- like bases and are Corinthian order . They bear the cranks of an Ionic entablature made of a two-fascia architrave and a smooth frieze to which figures were originally applied or painted. The following horizontal geison with its consoles also took up the cranking, so that the adjoining, recessed triangular gable did not rest on the pillars, but lay between the pillars. The concluding sima was decorated with an anthemion made of palmettes and lotus flowers.

Image fields in the form of imagines clipeatae are attached to the arches. They depict the heads of gods, on the side facing Via Flaminia Jupiter with lightning and Apollo with lyre and raven, on the city side Neptune with trident and dolphin and Roma with sword and armor. On the keystone of the archivolt , a bull protome is depicted in the area of ​​the horizontal architrave, which has four wedge stones on the left and right of the arch. Above the gable is the attic , which, with its battlements visible today, is the result of a medieval reconstruction.

inscription

Inscription on the Arch of Augustus in Rimini

The dedication inscription , which has only survived in parts, was affixed to the outside of the attic . It read:

Senatus Populusq [ue Romanus]
[Imp (eratori) Caesari divi f (ilio) Augusto imp (eratori) sept (imo) ...]
co (n) s (uli) sept (imo) designat (o) octavo {m} v [ia Flamin] ia [et reliquei] s
celeberrimeis Italiae vieis consilio [et sumptib] us [eius mu] niteis

“The Senate and the Roman people to
the Emperor Caesar Augustus, the son of the deified , who received the Emperor's acclamation for the seventh time [...]
who was seven times consul and is intended as consul for the eighth time, for he the Via Flaminia and made the other
famous streets of Italy passable again on his own initiative and at his own expense. "

occasion

The occasion for the honor decided by the Senate and the Roman people was the restoration of the Via Flaminia by Octavian during his seventh consulate in 27 BC. In which he was also honored with the title Augustus . He himself mentions his achievement in his report of the facts, the Res Gestae , and notes that he has also repaired all bridges on the route with the exception of the Milvian and the Minucian .

After the restoration of peace and the restoration of the republic, the restitutio rei publicae , the task of the state, which had been neglected for many years, had to be tackled. As early as 28 BC Augustus and his confidants began to renovate the temples. Now the streets followed. Augustus took over the Via Flaminia and delegated other roads to triumphators who had to fulfill their task from the spoils of war. However, only the names Gaius Calvisius Sabinus and Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus , to whom he assigned the Via Latina, are known . Whether there was a real reason for these measures, for example as a result of civil war damage, whether he needed upgraded roads for military operations, as Cassius Dio suggests, remains uncertain.

Because as a task for the owners of an empire , caring for the streets was a long-standing republican tradition that Augustus filled with new life as part of his restoration of the republic. Augustus himself was honored with two arches for this: the arch in Ariminum and another arch on the Tiber bridge. Both arches carried statues of Augustus, but their appearance cannot be won.

Those with the year 27 BC The beginning of the Pax Romana period , the long-lasting inner peace, was also reflected in the fact that the arch that served as the city gate could not be closed: there was no longer any internal or external danger, the locking of the gates was under the rule of Augustus no longer necessary.

position

Corinthian capital of the Arch of Augustus

Its good state of preservation and its firm dating make the arch an important monument to early August architecture. With the richness of its architectural and ornamental forms, it gives an impression of the appearance of the honorary arches for Augustus, which are no longer preserved. Its formal structure resembles the representation of coins on a denarius from 29 BC. BC, which probably shows the Actium arch in the Roman Forum in Rome, which was therefore also single-gate and decorated with imagines clipeatae . The forms of the capital, like the other decorative forms, are completely up to date and represent the wealth and the not yet closed pre-canonical concept of early August building ornamentation. This can also be seen in the cranking of the entablature, which can be demonstrated here for the first time in an arched monument, but which has found its way from private to theater architecture into public architecture. With the combination of a Corinthian column, Ionic entablature and console geison, the arch unites the architectural elements that are defined for the canonical solution of the Corinthian order at the latest from the Augustan period. In this early form, the rich decorative and design elements of the arch represent the pursuit of publica magnificentia , the precious furnishing of public buildings in the service and for the enhancement of the state, as can also be demonstrated in other buildings, but from the middle Augustan period in favor of a classical calming down of the mold apparatus will be withdrawn.

  • Image decoration of the Arch of Augustus

  • Jupiter
    landside, left arch gusset

  • Apollo
    landside, right arch gusset

  • Neptune
    city ​​side, left arch gusset

  • Roma
    city ​​side, right arch gusset

  • Bull protome
    city ​​side, keystone

literature

  • Bartolomeo Borghesi : L'arco di Rimini. In: same: Œvres complètes. Volume 2. Paris 1864, pp. 361-392.
  • Gunnar Brands : Republican city gates in Italy. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford 1988, p. 102 Fig. 270.
  • Heinz Kähler : Triumphal Arch (Arch of Honor) A 13. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume VII A, 1, Stuttgart 1939, column 411.
  • Guido Achille Mansuelli : L'Arco di Augusto. In: same: Ariminum (Rimini). Regio VIII - Aemilia. Istituto di studi romani, Rome 1941, pp. 78-82.
  • Guido Achille Mansuelli: Il monumento augusteo del 27 a. C. Nuove ricerche sull'arco di Rimini. In: Arte Antica e Moderna. Volume 8, 1959, pp. 363-391.
  • Guido Achille Mansuelli: L'Arco di Augusto in Rimini. In: Giorgio Chierici, Antonio Cremona-Casoli, Gioacchino Mancini (eds.): Emilia romana. Volume 2. Marzocco, Florence 1944, pp. 109-199
  • Sandro De Maria: Gli archi onorari di Roma e dell'Italia romana. "L'Erma" di Bretschneider, Rome 1988, p. 260 f. Cat. No. 58 Plate 37. 38.
  • Giuliana Riccioni: Il tondo apollineo dell'arco die Augusto e il culto di Apollo ad Ariminum. In: Margreet B. de Boer, TA Eldridge (Ed.): Hommages a Maarten J. Vermaseren. Pp. 979-984.
  • Marion Roehmer : The arch as a state monument. On the political significance of the Roman honor arches of the 1st century AD (= sources and research on the ancient world. Volume 28). Tuduv, Munich 1997, p. 48.

Web links

Commons : Arch of Augustus of Rimini  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Patrizio Pensabene: Arco di Susa: forme della decorazione architettonica. In: L'arco di Susa ei monumenti della propaganda imperiale in età augustea. Atti del Convegno di studi (Susa, April 12, 2014). Società di Ricerche e Studi Valsusini, Susa 2015, p. 84.
  2. ↑ CIL 11, 00365 .
  3. ↑ Res gestae divi Augusti 20.
  4. ^ Suetonius , August 30.
  5. ^ Cassius Dio 53, 22, 1 f.
  6. ↑ Leszek Mrozewiez: Via et imperium - Road building and rule in the Roman world. In: Heinz E. Herzig, Regula Frei-Stolba (Hrsg.): Settlement and traffic in the Roman Empire: Roman roads between securing power and shaping the landscape. Files from the colloquium in honor of Prof. HE Herzig on June 28 and 29, 2001 in Bern. P. Lang, Berlin / New York 2004, pp. 345-359, esp. 345-352.
  7. ^ Cassius Dio 53, 22, 2.
  8. ^ RIC² I, 267.
  9. ↑ Ulrich-Walter Gans : Corinthian capitals of the Roman Empire. Jewelry capitals in Italy and the northwestern provinces. Böhlau, Köln / Weimar / Wien 1992, p. 34 Cat.No. 48 Fig. 28.93
  10. ^ Henner von Hesberg : Publica Magnificentia. In: Yearbook of the German Archaeological Institute . Vol. 107, 1992, p. 138 f.
  11. ↑ Ralf Schenk: The Corinthian Temple to the end of the Principate of Augustus (= International Archeology. Vol. 45). Leidorf, Rahden 1997, pp. 124-136.
  12. ^ Henner von Hesberg: Publica Magnificentia. In: Yearbook of the German Archaeological Institute. Vol. 107, 1992, pp. 123-147.

Coordinates: 44 ° 3 ′ 25 "  N , 12 ° 34 ′ 15.5"  E