Material Culture

2. The Rhetoric of Empire
(II) Material Culture

Augustus claimed – it has since become a cliché – that he found Rome brick and left it marble. As Galinsky points out, this was more than simply a metaphor.44 New shiny buildings dominated the centre of the city, with new temples in particular taking pride of place. The new temple of Apollo on the Palatine, close to Augustus’s own house, was an early showpiece and statement of intent, with all kinds of associations with ancient traditions. Augustus had promised Apollo a new temple in Rome (where to this point he had only had one) after his victory over Sextus Pompey in 36 BC, a turning-point in his own fortunes (it is important to remember that, granted the history of the previous fifty years, nobody could have dreamed that the young Octavian would survive that round of civil warfare, let alone attain such lengthy pre-eminence).45 But the forum, not least the new temples there, eventually formed the centrepiece of the new Rome; it was dedicated in 2 BC, the same year that the Senate voted him the title of pater patriae, father of the fatherland. It was closely related to the themes Virgil expounded in the Aeneid (see below), and constituted, quite deliberately, one of the most beautiful buildings in the world...