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Honouring Augustus
After centuries of reuse and years of closure, the Mausoleum of Augustus is now open to visitors. Dalu Jones examines the structure’s long history and how, with its neighbour the Ara Pacis, it forms a modern monumental complex to the ancient emperor in the heart of Rome.
Visitors to Rome were puzzled for many years by a large and decaying cylindrical stone and brick mound. Surmounted by cypress trees, sunk in a deep hollow below the present street level, and hardly visible from behind a high fence, this forgotten mound had essentially become a substantial dumping ground in the fashionable heart of the capital. Information panels lining the fence since around 2007 proclaimed that the neglected site actually contains the ruins of one of the most important monuments of antiquity: the magnificent tomb of none other than Augustus (63 BC-AD 14), the first Roman emperor, who had it built on the banks of the river Tiber in 28 BC, shortly after his final victory in E
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