A City of Brick to a City of Marble
For the entirety of his career,
Augustus's words and deeds were carefully calculated to exploit his
message of peace, prosperity, and revival. And there was no more
important place to express these ideas than Rome itself. At the
beginning of Augustus's reign, the city was not a grand one. Already
some 800 years old, Rome had never been carefully planned or laid-out.
Its growth had been organic and messy. It was extremely
densely populated. And, in comparison to other great cities of the
ancient world - like Alexandria in Egypt or Athens in Greece - Rome looked
shabby and dirty.
Augustus undertook a dramatic program
of urban revival, developing an area of Rome known as the Campus Martius
or the Field of Mars. His aim was not just that of beautifying the
city, but also of preserving in stone the memory of his beneficent rule.
He constructed a series of monuments that were carefully planned to
communicate his messages of peace, prosperity, and revival. And in
order to make Rome look as rich and splendid as cities in the Eastern
Mediterranean, he opened a marble quarry at Luna (Carrara), using gleaming
white marble to cloak the buildings he constructed.
Upon his death, Augustus claimed,
"I found Rome a city of brick and left it a city
of marble."
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