Tiro Diritto

Carved antler discovered at the Grotte de Lortet rock shelter in the French Pyrenees

The Ara Pacis Augustae

The Ara Pacis Augustae (Latin, "Altar of Augustan Peace"; commonly shortened to Ara Pacis) is an altar in Rome dedicated to the Pax Romana. The monument was commissioned by the Roman Senate on July 4, 13 BC to honour the return of Augustus to Rome after three years in Hispania and Gaul and consecrated on January 30, 9 BC. Originally located on the northern outskirts of Rome, a Roman mile from the boundary of the pomerium on the west side of the Via Flaminia, the Ara Pacis stood in the northeastern corner of the Campus Martius, the former flood plain of the Tiber River and gradually became buried under 4 metres (13 ft) of silt deposits. It was reassembled in its current location, now the Museum of the Ara Pacis, in 1938, turned 90° counterclockwise from its original orientation so that the original western side now faces south.

“The God Osiris Antinous true of voice - he has become a fair-faced youth, with holiday eyes, whose heart rejoices like a hero since he has received the order of the gods at the moment of his death. One will repeat for him every ritual of the Hours of Osiris, and every ceremony as a mystery.”

- Anon., obelisk of Monto Pincio, Rome, AD 130. The inscription was composed in hieroglyphs for Emperor Hadrian to commemorate his favourite, Antinous, who drowned in the Nile.

“Antinous was a favourite of the Emperor Hadrian and died in Egypt. Hadrian honoured Antinous by building a city on the spot where he died and naming it after him; and he set up statues, or rather, sacred images of him, practically all over the world.”

- Dio Cassius (c. 155-235)