ARCUS AUGUSTI
* two arches erected in honour of Augustus in the forum,
one in 29 B.C., to commemorate the victory at Actium, the other in 19 B.C.,
on account of the return of the standards captured by the Parthians
at Carrhae (Cass.
Dio li. 19;
liv. 8). It is explicitly stated that the
latter stood
iuxta aedem divi Iulii (Schol. Veron. Verg.
Aen. vii. 605).
These arches are represented on coins, that of 29 B.C.
1 on a denarius
of Vinicius (Babelon, Vinicia 4; Cohen, Aug. 544; BM
Rep. ii. 50, 4477-8
= BM Aug. 77, 78), and that of 19 B.C. on coins of 18-17 B.C. (Cohen,
Aug. 82-85; BM Aug. 427-9). The earlier coins represent a triple arch,
surmounted with a quadriga in the centre and barbarians on the sides.
The archways are of equal height, and the middle piers double the width
of the outer. The later coins also represent a triple arch, with quadriga
and figures of barbarians, and piers of the same relative width as the
other, but the central portion is much higher than the sides.
The foundations of one of these arches exist between the temple of
Julius and that of Castor, being laid on the short axis of the former
temple and close to it. They consist of travertine blocks on concrete
beds, and those of three of the four piers are in situ. The middle piers
were 2.95 metres wide, and those of the sides 1.35, corresponding to the
representation on the coins. The depth of the middle piers is also greater
than that of the side piers. The width of the central archway was
4.05 metres and that of those at the side arches 2.55, the breadth of the
whole structure being 17.75 metres. The pavement in the central
passage is still partially preserved, and some of the marble fragments
of the arch have been set in modern brick beds on the travertine foundations, which themselves rest on the pavement of an earlier street.
If the evidence cited above were all we had, we should identify these
ruins with the arch of 19 B.C., on the strength of the scholiast's
iuxta
aedem divi Iulii, but an inscription (
CIL vi. 873), cut in a block of Parian
marble 2.67 metres long, was found in 1546/7 close to these foundations,
which records a dedication to Augustus in 29 B.C. This inscription
may have belonged to this arch, although it cannot have been the principal
inscription on the attic. No trace of a second arch of Augustus in the
forum has thus far been discovered (see also
ARCUS PIETATIS), and the
identification of the existing ruins is therefore still uncertain (Jahrb. d.
Inst. 1889, 151-162; Ant.
Denk. i. 14-15, 27-28;
Mitt. 1889, 243;
1905, 76;
LS ii. 200-202;
CIL vi. 31188 a; DR 439-443; RE
Suppl. iv. 510-511).
Fiechter and Hulsen (ap.
Tobelmann i. 13-16) attribute to this arch
the Doric fragments found near the Regia in 1872 (see their list, repeated
from Jahrb. d.
Inst. 1889, 235). A similar fragment was seen at SS.
Quattro Coronati (
PBS ii. 104-a drawing by the later-seventeenth
century-hand). It is noted by Hulsen that, though an arch was voted
by the senate in 29 B.C., it is nowhere stated that it was consecrated.
He attributes all the coins to the same arch, and follows a conjecture of
Dressel's, by which the inscription is inferred from the legends on the
coins of 18-17 B.C.:
S.P.Q.R. Imp. Caesari Aug. cos. xi. tr. p. vi. civib.
et sign. milit. a Part. Recup. He points out, further, that the inscription
generally attributed to the arch is of the wrong shape and size; for a
criticism of the restoration proposed, see Zeitschr. f. Gesch. d. Arch.
viii.
(1924), 73. Cf. HFP 15.
A single arch representing the same event is shown on other coins
(BM
Rep. ii. 551. 310).