The Mausoleum of Augustus

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Emperor Augustus died August 19th, 14 AD, after ruling over Rome for 41 years as the first Imperial Emperor. Built in 28 BCE, the Mausoleum was a “who’s who’ of ancient Rome.

 

The list of interred included Augustus, his mother Atia Balba, his 3rd wife Livia, his sister Octavia and her son Marcellus, the Emperor Tiberius and Drusus Germanicus (Livia’s children from a previous marriage), Gaius, Lucius and Marcus Vipsanius Postumus (grandchildren of Augustus from his daughter Julia) and Marcus Agrippa (architect, soldier, son-in-law and best friend).

 

In later years the Tomb became the resting place of the Emperor Caligula, the Emperor Claudius and his son Britannicus, the Emperor Nerva, Poppea Sabina (wife of the Emperor Nero) and Julia Domna (wife of the Emperor Septimius Severus and mother of the Emperor Caracalla).

 

 

The Mausoleum of Augustus is built on the Campus Martius, located on the Piazza Augusto Imperatore, near the corner with Via di Ripetta as it runs along the Tiber. The grounds cover an area equivalent to a few city blocks and nestle between the church of San Carlo al Corso and the Museum of the Ara Pacis. The mausoleum is currently in the process of a restoration with a prospective completion date of late 2019, after which it will open to the public.

 

The mausoleum was one of the first projects initiated by Augustus in the City of Rome following his victory at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE. The Mausoleum was a marvel to behold, 295’ in diameter and 137’ tall. The whole structure was capped (possibly, as reconstructions are unsure at best) by a conical roof and a huge bronze statue of Augustus. Vaults held up the roof and opened up the burial spaces below. Twin pink granite obelisks flanked the arched entryway; these have been removed; one now stands at the Piazza dell'Esquilino (on the northwest side of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore) and the other at the Quirinal fountain. The completed mausoleum measured 90m. in diameter by 42m. in height.

 

A corridor ran from the entryway into the heart of the mausoleum, where there was a chamber with three niches to hold the golden urns enshrining the ashes of the Imperial Family. Two pillars flanking the entrance were mounted with bronze plaques inscribed with the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, the document describing Augustus' accomplishments and victories. Surrounding the mausoleum was landscaped parkland akin to modern public parks, affording a place of retreat at the heart of Rome's heavily urbanized Campus Martius.

 

As legend goes, when Rome was sacked in 410 by Alaric and the Visigoths, they broke into the Mausoleum and stole the gold funerary urns, dumping out the ashes. In one act of destruction, over 250 years of Rome’s royalty literally went up in a puff of smoke.

 

Augustus is remembered for the words, ‘Marmoream se relinquere, quam latericiam accepisset’ (I found a city of brick and left a city of marble). How ironic that his tomb was made in marble and left as a ruin of brick.

 

In the Middle Ages the ruins were fortified as a castle, as was the mausoleum of Hadrian, which was turned into the Castel Sant'Angelo, and occupied by the Colonna family. After the disastrous defeat of the Commune of Rome at the hands of the Count of Tusculum in 1167, the Colonna were disgraced and banished and their fortification in the Campo was dismantled. Throughout the Renaissance it passed through the ownership of several major Roman families, who used it as a garden. At the beginning of the 19th.C. it was in use as a circus.

 

In the early 20th.C. the interior of the Mausoleum was used as a concert hall called the Augusteo, until Mussolini ordered it closed in the 1930s and restored it to the status of an archaeological site. The restoration of the Mausoleum of Augustus to a place of prominence featured in Benito Mussolini's ambitious reordering of the city of Rome which strove to connect the aspirations of Italian Fascism with the former glories of the Roman Empire. Mussolini viewed himself especially connected to the achievements of Augustus, seeing himself as a 'reborn Augustus' ready to usher in a new age of Italian dominance.

 

Restoration

 

In January 2017, Italian authorities announced that due to a €6 million grant from Telecom Italia, the Mausoleum of Augustus would receive a comprehensive restoration that will allow it to open to the public for the first time since the 1970s.  When the Mausoleum opens in late 2019 it will be fully restored and incorporate a multi-media exhibition that will project images of modern and ancient Rome onto the interior walls of the structure.

 

An earlier intention to restore the Mausoleum in time to commemorate the 2,000th anniversary of Augustus' death in 2014 failed due to funding shortfalls. The neglect of the Mausoleum, closed to the public, overgrown with vegetation and used as a dumping ground for litter, had long attracted criticism, especially after the opening of the Ara Pacis museum across the street in 2006.