JOURNEY TO THE “Ara Pacis” – Rome inside your eyes

One of the most important monuments of ancient Rome, was built by Emperor Augustus to celebrate the pacification of the Mediterranean Sea, after the victorious military campaigns in Spain and France. Completed in Campo Marzio (in the year 17 BC.), the monument – placed at one end of a large sundial – was unusual: the shadow of the spire of the obelisk reached the “Ara Pacis” on the birthday of emperor. The monument consists of a plane surrounded by three sides (and elevated above a staircase), and all this is surrounded by a marble square enclosure, with two portals of entry. http://www.turismoroma.it/?lang=en

The internal and external surfaces of the “Ara Pacis” are decorated with friezes and reliefs, sculpted in Carrara marble. Observing the reliefs on the side walls to the north and south, you discover an ancient event (the procession of July 4, the year 13 BC.), reminiscent of stone that was not possible to remember on paper: the procession of the imperial family. Looking at the festoons of flowers, fruits, garlands of acanthus leaves, maybe even your face will be full of wonder, identical to that – in the sixteenth century – was manifested on the faces of those who had found the monument, after so many centuries of oblivion. http://en.arapacis.it/