Augustus: The New Image of Rome. Sculptures of the Centrale Montemartini

The celebrate phrase of Augustus in which he boasts, and with good reason, that he found a city of bricks and he left a city of marble, is not only a literary quote but also a reality that can be read in the sculptures exhibited at the Centrale Montemartini.
A new figurative language both refined and monumental is unmistakably expressed in the decorations of the Temple of Apollo Sosianius in Campus Martius; of particular interest is a struggle between amazons and Greek heroes on the temple’s tympanum and the procession that celebrated the triple triumph of Augustus recounted in the grand frieze inside the temple. In addition to this great public monument dedicated to Augustus by the consul Gaius Sosius, one of 84 temples renovated during the reign of Augustus, there was also the practice promoted by the emperor of creating large residential parks on the part of private citizens that formed a belt of greenery around the centre of the city.  Among these oases were the gardens of Sallust (horti Sallustiani) decorated with valuable statues and elegant friezes with acanthus leaves, the exuberant vegetation a symbol of the Golden Age established thanks to the peace and reconciliation brought about by Augustus after decades of civil war.

Guided tour by Emilia Talamo