Augustus's Death, Legacy, Will and Effort to Prepare a Successor | Early European History And Religion

AUGUSTUS’S EFFORT TO CHOOSE A SUCCESSOR

Tiberius, Augustus's son and successor

David Silverman of Reed College wrote: “In 23 B.C. Augustus, ill and expecting his demise to come at any moment, gave his signet ring to his friend, general, and later M. Vipsanius Agrippa, while at the same time he entrusted the consul, Piso, with the custody of his personal papers. This was an indication, albeit somewhat ambiguous, that Augustus intended Agrippa to be the emergency successor in the event of his death in 23 B.C. . However, his hopes at that time were truly centered on the man who was then married to Julia, Augustus' daughter by his second wife (Scribonia; cf. Suet. Aug. 62 for his brief first marriage to Claudia); this was his nephew M. Claudius Marcellus, the son of Augustus' sister Octavia. The hopes for Marcellus were dashed by his untimely death at the age of 20 in 23 B.C., an event lamented by the poets (Virg. Aen. 6. 860-886), and Augustus promptly married Julia to Agrippa. So far his machinations illustrate the difficulty of separating the office of the Princeps, in this early stage, from the familial wealth and position of Caesar and Augustus. [Source: David Silverman, Reed College, Classics 373 ~ History 393 Class ^*^]

“Julia's marriage to Agrippa started well. She gave birth to sons, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, in 20 and 17 B.C. (Dio 54. 8 and 18), then two daughters (a Julia who died young, and that Agrippina later known as the Elder), and finally in 12 B.C. another son (Agrippa Postumus). The success of this union, together with the apparently high personal regard in which Augustus held Agrippa, caused him to mark that man out as his heir apparent. In 18 B.C. Agrippa became Augustus' colleague in the tribunician power, and his prominence throughout the period is attested by his appearance on the coins; in 13 B.C. his tribunician power was renewed, and he also held imperium (maius? cf. the fragment of a Greek translation of Augustus' funeral oration for Agrippa preserved on papyrus, ZPE (1970) 226 = Sherk 12) in the provinces. Meanwhile his sons, Gaius and Lucius, were themselves singled out for special honors. Augustus adopted them himself and gave them the honorary title of principes iuventutis. The existence of Gaius and Lucius softened the blow when Agrippa, too, predeceased the princeps in 12 BC. A letter of Augustus to Gaius from A.D. 1, preserved by Aulus Gellius, included these lines: ‘I beg the gods that whatever time I have left might pass with all of us in good health and with the state in the happiest condition, and with the two of you behaving like men and succeeding to my post of honor. (Attic Nights 15.7.3) ^*^

“In 6 B.C. there was agitation at Rome for Gaius Caesar to be made consul (Dio 55.9.2) and Augustus responded, with an outward show of reluctance at the transgression of Republican limitations, by designating him consul for A.D. 1 and his brother Lucius consul for A.D. 4; Gaius was made a pontifex and Lucius an augur. A flood of coinage proclaimed their status as heirs apparent. When Lucius died in A.D. 2, there was still the hope of Gaius, but he too passed away two years later.” ^*^

Tiberius

David Silverman of Reed College wrote: “Tiberius Claudius Nero, the son of Augustus' third wife Livia by her previous marriage (her union with the princeps was childless), had been waiting in the wings. He had proven his abilities as a military commander, by reinstalling a Roman client king on the throne of Armenia (a continual point of contention between the Roman and Parthian empires), by putting down serious unrest in the province of Illyria, and then by strengthening Rome's position on the Rhine frontier. He was consul in 13 B.C. and several years later received a five year grant of the tribunician power; given that Gaius and Lucius were alive at that time, some scholars (e.g. Syme) have taken this as evidence that the tribunician power was not yet the mark of the designated successor it would later become; others prefer to believe that after the death of Agrippa Tiberius was, for a time at least, Augustus' choice to succeed him. In support of the latter position is the fact that Julia, whose sad lot in life it was to be the pawn in Augustus' chess game of succession, was married to Tiberius after Agrippa's death. [Source: David Silverman, Reed College, Classics 373 ~ History 393 Class ^*^]

“In 6 B.C. Tiberius, with his tribunician power still in force, retired to the island of Rhodes. He left his wife Julia, with whom he had never gotten along very well, at Rome. Augustus had assigned him a new command in Armenia, and Tiberius had signalled his reluctance to undertake that command by a hunger strike. Did Augustus want Tiberius to retire to Rhodes, or was it Tiberius' own decision? B. Levick has argued that Tiberius threatened to go to Rhodes, in an attempt to bluff Augustus into calling off the honors for Gaius, and when that failed Tiberius had to make good on his threat. According to Suetonius (Tib. 10), the desire for a rest was the reason given by Tiberius to Augustus at the time of his initial request, but the real reason was that he realized Gaius and Lucius were being promoted ahead of him and he wanted to leave the field clear for them. Dio believes that Augustus was annoyed at the attempts by Lucius and Gaius to put on airs (Dio 55.9.1). He further states that Augustus' purpose in conferring the trib. pot. on Tiberius was to teach Gaius a lesson. And, he conveniently omits to mention, in his account of how Aug. refused to allow Gaius to be made consul for 5 BC, that Aug. promised Gaius the consulship in 5 years. Dio is so far from understanding the situation he is describing, that he represents Tiberius' going to Rhodes as something imposed upon him by Augustus (Dio's word at 55.9.5 is estalê meaning literally "he was sent there"). It is Suetonius who reports that Augustus complained of the decision and called it an act of desertion; in Dio's account, Augustus was complaining because Tiberius refused to go to Armenia as a commander. In short, Dio believes that Augustus first assigned Tiberius to go to Armenia; then, after it appeared that this offended Gaius, Augustus tried to placate Gaius by sending Tiberius to Rhodes as a private citizen, with the pretext that the object was to continue his education. ^^ “Whatever the facts behind the events which led to Tiberius' retirement, it is clear that he had temporarily removed himself from the succession picture. Again according to Suetonius, Tiberius spent his time at Rhodes in true retirement, chatting with the locals, taking long walks, and avoiding contact with the Roman officials who stopped off at Rhodes on their way to destinations further East. This picture has been questioned by G. Bowersock, however; Bowersock traces out a body of evidence which indicates that Tiberius spent his time in Rhodes consolidating his base of power with a view to his eventual succession. ^^

“Those efforts finally bore fruit in A.D. 4 when Augustus, with Gaius and Lucius both dead, recalled Tiberius from Rhodes and adopted him as his son. From that point on Tiberius' position as successor to the Principate was unchallenged. When Augustus died on August 14, A.D. 14, Tiberius was probably at his side (some ancient authors state that Tiberius arrived at Nola after Augustus died; cf. Tac. Ann. 1.5). However, there was a small obstacle present in the person of Agrippa Postumus, the third of the boys born to Julia and M. Agrippa, 26 years old in A.D. 14. Acting on written orders, the cohort assigned as the bodyguard for Agrippa Postumus put him to death; Livia, Augustus' widow, was accused of having forged the orders (her motive was obvious, since Tiberius was her son), but suspicion also fell upon Tiberius himself (Suet. Tib. 22, Tac. Ann. 1.6).

Augustus Prepares Tiberius to Be His Successor

Nina C. Coppolino wrote: “In 6 B.C. Tiberius was given tribunician power for life and was sent to the east to settle the throne in Armenia. At the designation of Gaius in 5 as princeps iuventutis and so as apparent sucessor of Augustus, Tiberius settled at Rhodes for eight years in so-called retirement, which may have been used to gain support in the east for his own succession. In 2 B.C. Gaius was dispatched from Rome to negotiate with the Parthians in the east. In this year Augustus was compelled to banish from Rome his own daughter, Julia, for her scandalous personal behavior, which was a great embarrassment to her father's legislative efforts at moral reform.

With Julia's departure and divorce from Tiberius, Augustus had to make his dynastic plans without the hope of any more male grandchildren, the supply of which dwindled to only Agrippa Postumus, when Lucius and Gaius died, in 2 and 4 A.D., respectively. In 2 A.D. Tiberius was recalled from Rhodes to Rome, perhaps because eastern support for his succession had surpassed Gaius'; Tiberius' consular imperium and tribunician power had run out in 1 B.C. and had not been renewed. In 4 A.D., after the death of Gaius, Augustus adopted Tiberius and Agrippa Postumus. Though Augustus preferred a Julian heir to the Claudian Tiberius, Augustus disliked the wild behavior of Agrippa Postumus and exiled him three years after his adoption. Tiberius, now adopted into the Julian line, was forced to enlarge the line further by adopting, in dynastic preference to his own son by Vipsania, his nephew Germanicus; his mother was the daughter of Augustus's sister, and Germanicus married Augustus's granddaughter, Agrippina.

“From 4 to 11 A.D. Augustus employed Tiberius in campaigns in the Balkans and Germany. In 12 Tiberius celebrated a triumph for Dalmatia and Pannonia, and Germanicus held the consulship. In 13 A.D. Tiberius was again granted proconsular imperium and tribunician power. In 14 A.D. he conducted a census with Augustus and then left Rome for a command in Illyricum.” After Augustus’s death “the armies were loyal to Tiberius, and he had the tribunician right of initiative at Rome. This hereditary system of succession was established by Augustus for centuries.”

Augustus’s Last Days and Signs of His Impending Death

bad omens

Suetonius wrote: “His death, too, of which I shall speak next, and his deification after death, were known in advance by unmistakable signs. As he was bringing the lustrum to an end in the Campus Martius before a great throng of people, an eagle flew several times about him and then going across to the temple hard by, perched above the first letter of Agrippa's name. On noticing this, Augustus bade his colleague Tiberius recite the vows which it is usual to offer for the next five years; for although he had them prepared and written out on a tablet, he declared that he would not be responsible for vows which he should never pay. At about the same time the first letter of his name was melted from the inscription on one of his statues by a flash of lightning; this was interpreted to mean that he would live only a hundred days from that time, the number indicated by the letter C, and that he would be numbered with the gods, since aesar (that is, the part of the name Caesar which was left) is the word for god in the Etruscan tongue. Then, too, when he was on the point of sending Tiberius to Illyricum and was proposing to escort him as far as Beneventum, and litigants detained him on the judgment seat by bringing forward case after case, he cried out that he would stay no longer in Rome, even if everything conspired to delay him — and this too was afterwards looked upon as one of the omens of his death. When he had begun the journey, he went on as far as Astura and from there, contrary to his custom, took ship by night since it chanced that there was a favourable breeze, and thus contracted an illness beginning with a diarrhea. [Source: Suetonius (c.69-after 122 A.D.): “De Vita Caesarum-Divus Augustus” (“The Lives of the Caesars-The Deified Augustus”), written A.D. c. 110, “Suetonius, De Vita Caesarum,” 2 Vols., trans. J. C. Rolfe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1920), pp. 123-287]

“Then after skirting the coast of Campania and the neighbouring islands, he spent four more days at his villa in Capreae, where he gave himself up wholly to rest and social diversions. As he sailed by the gulf of Puteoli it happened that from an Alexandrian ship which had just arrived there, the passengers and crew, clad in white, crowned with garlands, and burning incense, lavished upon him good wishes and the highest praise, saying that it was through him they lived, through him that they sailed the seas, and through him that they enjoyed their liberty and their fortunes. Exceedingly pleased at this, he gave forty gold pieces to each of his companions, exacting from every one of them a pledge under oath not to spend the sum that had been given them in any other way than in buying wares from Alexandria. More than that, for the several remaining days of his stay, among little presents of various kinds, he distributed togas and cloaks as well, stipulating that the Romans should use the Greek dress and language and the Greeks the Roman.

“He continually watched the exercises of the ephebi [Greek youths between the ages of eighteen and that of full manhood, who had regular gymnastic training as a part of their education], of whom there was still a goodly number at Capreae according to the ancient usage. He also gave these youths a banquet at which he himself was present, and not only allowed, but even required perfect freedom in jesting and in scrambling for tickets for fruit, dainties and all kinds of things, which he threw to them. In short, there was no form of gaiety in which he did not indulge. He called the neighbouring part of the island of Capreae Apragopolis [the "land of the do-nothings"] from the laziness of some of his company who sojourned there. Besides he used to call one of his favourites, Masgaba by name, Ktistes [the Greek name for a founder of a city or colony], as if he were the founder of the island.

“Noticing from his dining-room that the tomb of this Masgaba, who had died the year before, was visited by a large crowd with many torches, he uttered aloud this verse, composed offhand: "I see the founder's tomb alight with fire"; and turning to Thrasyllus, one of the suite of Tiberius who was reclining opposite him and knew nothing about the matter, he asked of what poet he thought it was the work. When Thrasyllus hesitated, he added another verse: "See you with lights Masgaba honoured now?" and asked his opinion of this one also. When Thrasyllus could say nothing except that they were very good, whoever made them, he burst into a laugh and fell a joking about it. Presently he crossed over to Naples, although his bowels were still weak from intermittent attacks. In spite of this he witnessed and then started with Tiberius for his destination [Beneventum]. But as he was returning his illness increased and he at last took to his bed at Nola, calling back Tiberius, who was on his way to Illyricum, and keeping him for a long time in private conversation, after which he gave attention to no business of importance.”

Death and Funeral of Augustus

Augustus died on 19 August A.D. 14 at Nola. He was 75 years old , and his reign covered a period of forty-five years. During this time he had been performing “the difficult part of ruling without appearing to rule, of being at once the autocrat of the civilized world and the first citizen of a free commonwealth.” His last words are said to have been, “Have I not played my part well?” [Source: “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901) \~]

death of Augustus

Suetonius wrote: “On the last day of his life he asked every now and then whether there was any disturbance without on his account; then calling for a mirror, he had his hair combed and his falling jaws set straight. After that, calling in his friends and asking whether it seemed to them that he had played the comedy of life fitly, he added the tag: "Since well I've played my part, all clap your hands And from the stage dismiss me with applause." Then he sent them all off, and while he was asking some newcomers from the city about the daughter of Drusus, who was ill, he suddenly passed away as he was kissing Livia, uttering these last words: "Live mindful of our wedlock, Livia, and farewell," thus blessed with an easy death and such a one as he had always longed for. For almost always on hearing that anyone had died swiftly and painlessly, he prayed that he and his might have a like euthanasia, for that was the term he was wont to use. He gave but one single sign of wandering before he breathed his last, calling out in sudden terror that forty young men were carrying him off. And even this was rather a premonition than a delusion, since it was that very number of soldiers of the pretorian guard that carried him forth to lie in state. [Source: Suetonius (c.69-after 122 A.D.): “De Vita Caesarum — Divus Augustus” (“The Lives of the Caesars — The Deified Augustus”), written A.D. c. 110, “Suetonius, De Vita Caesarum,” 2 Vols., trans. J. C. Rolfe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1920), pp. 123-287]

“He died in the same room as his father Octavius, in the consulship of two Sextuses, Pompeius and Appuleius, on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of September [August 19, 14 A.D.] at the ninth hour, just thirty-five days before his seventy-sixth birthday. His body was carried by the Senators of the municipalities and colonies from Nola all the way to Bovillae, in the night time because of the season of the year, being placed by day in the basilica of the town at which they arrived or in its principal temple. At Bovillae the members of the equestrian order met it and bore it to the city, where they placed it in the vestibule of his house.

“In their desire to give him a splendid funeral and honour his memory the Senators so vied with one another that among many other suggestions some proposed that his cortege pass through the triumphal gate, preceded by the statue of Victory which stands in the House, while a dirge was sung by children of both sexes belonging to the leading families; others, that on the day of the obsequies golden rings be laid aside and iron ones worn; and some, that his ashes be collected by the priests of the highest colleges.

One man proposed that the name of the month of August be transferred to September, because Augustus was born in the latter, but died in the former; another, that all the period from the day of his birth until his demise be called the Augustan Age, and so entered in the Calendar. But though a limit was set to the honours paid him, his eulogy was twice delivered: before the temple of the Deified Julius by Tiberius, and from the old rostra by Drusus, son of Tiberius; and he was carried on the shoulders of Senators to the Campus Martius and there cremated. There was even an ex-praetor who took oath that he had seen the form of the Emperor, after he had been reduced to ashes, on its way to heaven. His remains were gathered up by the leading men of the equestrian order, bare-footed and in ungirt tunics, and placed in the Mausoleum. This structure he had built in his sixth consulship [28 B.C.] between the Via Flaminia and the bank of the Tiber, and at the same time opened to the public the groves and walks by which it was surrounded.

Augustus’s Will

Suetonius wrote: “He had made a will in the consulship of Lucius Plancus and Gaius Silius on the third day before the Nones of April [April 3, 13 A.D.], a year and four months before he died, in two note-books,written in part in his own hand and in part in that of his freedmen Polybius and Hilarion. These the Vestal virgins, with whom they had been deposited, now produced, together with three rolls, which were sealed in the same way. All these were opened and read in the Senate. He appointed as his chief heirs Tiberius, to receive two-thirds of the estate, and Livia, one-third; these he also bade assume his name. His heirs in the second degree were Drusus, son of Tiberius, for one-third, and for the rest Germanicus and his three male cbildren. In the third grade he mentioned many of his relatives and friends. [Source: Suetonius (c.69-after 122 A.D.): “De Vita Caesarum — Divus Augustus” (“The Lives of the Caesars — The Deified Augustus”), written A.D. c. 110, “Suetonius, De Vita Caesarum,” 2 Vols., trans. J. C. Rolfe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1920), pp. 123-287]

1851 reconstruction Mausoleum of Augustus in the 1st century,

“He left to the Roman people forty million sesterces; to the tribes three million five hundred thousand; to the soldiers of the pretorian guard a thousand each; to the city cohorts five hundred; and to the legionaries three hundred. This sum he ordered to be paid at once, for he had always kept the amount at hand and ready for the purpose. He gave other legacies to various individuals, some amounting to as much as twenty thousand sesterces, and provided for the payment of these a year later, giving as his excuse for the delay the small amount of his property, and declaring that not more than a hundred and fifty millions would come to his heirs; for though he had received fourteen hundred millions during the last twenty years from the wills of his friends, he said that he had spent nearly all of it, as well as his two paternal estates and his other inheritances, for the benefit of the State.

“He gave orders that his daughter and his granddaughter Julia should not be put in his Mausoleum, if anything befell them. In one of the three rolls he included directions for his funeral; in the second, an account of what he had accomplished, which he desired to have cut upon bronze tablets and set up at the entrance to the Mausoleum; in the third, a summary of the condition of the whole empire; how many soldiers there were in active service in all parts of it, how much money there was in the public treasury and in the privy-purse, and what revenues were in arrears. He added, besides, the names of the freedmen and slaves from whom the details could be demanded.”

Augustus’s Legacy: a Benevolent Dictator, or Something Worse?

The part which Augustus had to perform in restoring peace to the world was a great and difficult task. In the midst of conflicting views which had distracted the republic for a century, he was called upon to perform a work of reconciliation. And it is doubtful whether any political leader ever performed such a work with greater success. When he became the supreme ruler of Rome he was fully equal to the place, and brought order out of confusion. He was content with the substance of power and indifferent to its form. Not so great as Julius Caesar, he was yet more successful. He was one of the greatest examples of what we may call the “conservative reformer,” a man who accomplishes the work of regeneration without destroying existing institutions. [Source: “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901) \~]

Nina C. Coppolino wrote: ““In both the ancient and modern assessments of Augustus, there is a tension between the favorable view that the statesman Augustus atoned for the ruthlessness of Octavian, and the negative view that Augustus pursued power under all circumstances, doomed the nobility, slaughtered libertas, and was the political forerunner of World War Two continental dictators. It is apparent, at least, that the most historically significant result of the principate was the restoration of a ratified rule of law, with Augustus as the supreme judge, initiator, and executive officer. This rule evolved gradually and pragmatically; its basic ideology and administration were transmitted by the dynastic system for centuries of relative stability at Rome. [Source: Nina C. Coppolino, Roman Emperors]

In a review of the book “Augustus: First Emperor of Rome” by Adrian Goldsworthy, Steve Donoghue wrote in the Washington Post: “The man who became known as Augustus played a crucial role in the transformation of ancient Rome from a republic governed by an oligarchy to an absolute monarchy ruled by a dictator. The slain Julius was his great-uncle, and the young relative stepped into the legend’s name and a large portion of his power soon after Brutus, Cassius and the other assassins did their work. Through intense political maneuvering, liberal bribing of the legions and pure dumb luck, Julius Caesar’s grand-nephew first ruled Rome as part of the Second Triumvirate (along with Mark Antony and Lepidus) and then, after a series of victories culminating in the defeat of Antony’s navy at the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C., ruled alone for 41 years”. [Source: Steve Donoghue, Washington Post, October 3, 2014]

Ronald Syme, author of the brilliant 1939 book “The Roman Revolution,” written at the time “Mussolini’s fascism was on the rise in Italy, drew a scathing portrait of Augustus as just another strongman dictator with slick PR, and as Goldsworthy points out, that interpretation set the tone for Augustus studies for more than half a century. Essentially, it’s a question of how you write about military dictators. Augustus has been hailed for 20 centuries as the humble, benevolent founder of the Roman empire, a man who declined honors, was careful to uphold the trappings of the old Roman republic and styled himself merely “princeps,” its first citizen, albeit a citizen with unshared control of the legions, the temples, the grain supply and the popular imagination (as Goldsworthy puts it, more images of Augustus survive than of “any other human being from the ancient world” — doubtless a nod to the mixed parentage of Jesus Christ). Goldsworthy’s unenviable job is to reconcile that paternal figure with the ruthless back-stabber Augustus had to be to become Rome’s first emperor at all.

“That emperor, Goldsworthy admits, “killed a lot of people,” but he “inflicted on the world nothing like the misery of a Hitler or a Stalin.” Our author is aware of how faint this praise is; as he puts it, “to be not as bad as Hitler is scarcely a ringing endorsement.” But he wants to praise Augustus just the same...“Inevitably, he comes back to dictatorship, closing his book with the rather fumbling concession that although his subject was a blood-stained warlord, “as military dictators go, Caesar Augustus was not such a bad one.”

restored Augustus Mausoleum

Mausoleum of Augustus

The Mausoleum of Augustus is the largest circular tomb in the world. It constructed in 28 B.C. near the banks of the river Tiber to house the remains of Augustus and his heirs, including the emperors Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius. [Source: Crispian Balmer, Reuters, December 18, 2020]

Nick Squires wrote in The Telegraph: “A tall entrance leads into the monument, which consists of concentric corridors around a central cylindrical structure where the remains of Augustus and his successors, including Tiberius, Claudius and the psychotic Caligula, were kept. On top of the monument stood a huge bronze statue of Augustus, which has long since been lost, looted or melted down. Vast slabs of marble litter the inner courtyard, the remains of the cladding that once adorned the 300ft-diameter monument. [Source: Nick Squires, The Telegraph, March 2, 2021]

Augustus began the construction of the mausoleum – intended as a vast tomb for him and his family – in 28BC following his victorious campaign in Egypt, when he beat the combined forces of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31BC. “Augustus built the mausoleum as a way of underlining and reinforcing his rapport with Rome, in contrast to Mark Anthony, who was living with Cleopatra and had expressed a desire to be buried in Alexandria,” Tania Renzi, a historian, told The Telegraph in the chill interior of the mausoleum. “Augustus used architecture as a statement of political power. He built a huge bath complex and the Pantheon, but the mausoleum was the biggest project of all. Its dimensions were incredible. Every time an emperor or one of his relatives died, funeral ceremonies were held inside.”

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the monument had a chequered history – it was converted into a fortress by the Colonna family of Rome, then became a palazzo for a wealthy Florentine banker. In the 18th century it was used as an arena for bull-fighting. In one of its inner chambers, visitors will spot iron rings on the wall, used for tethering bulls and buffalo before they were shoved into the arena to face specially-imported Spanish toreadors. There are also the remains of marble urinals, a legacy of the early 20th century, when the mausoleum was turned into a 3,000-seat concert hall where Toscanini, Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky performed.

In 2020, a fter decades of neglect, the Mausoleum of emperor Augustus, was reopened after being restored. Reuters reported: “Once one of the most magnificent buildings in the city, it underwent many changes after the fall of the Roman empire, at one point becoming a fortified castle, then a hanging garden and subsequently an amphitheatre for bullfighting and firework displays. “At the start of the last century it was transformed into a huge theatre for concerts and operas before the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini ordered the dismantling of the auditorium as he sought to restore the landmarks of ancient Rome.

“The site fell into disrepair over the years, trees grew from the walls and rubbish filled the pathways. All that has been cleared and the structure has been made safe thanks to a 10-million-euro ($12.25 million) restoration, partly financed by phone company TIM. According to The Telegraph: “Engineers carried out massive structural consolidation work, stabilising the walls and covering them with a protective layer of “pignoccata”, a special mortar mix. Iron girders and steel rods were used to reinforce vaulted ceilings. The original marble cladding that adorned his tomb was plundered centuries ago and a statue that once towered over the building has long vanished., but tourists will get the chance to glimpse its past glories thanks to virtual reality tours.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901) ; “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932); BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history/ ; Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org ; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Live Science, Discover magazine, Archaeology magazine, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, The New Yorker, Wikipedia, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia.com and various other books, websites and publications.

Last updated October 2024