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21.5 Augustus' Pacification of the Alpine Tribes and his Trophy at La Turbie
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From the course by Yale University
Roman Architecture
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From the lesson
Making Mini Romes on the Western Frontier
Romanization was meant to provide amenities to Rome’s new colonies while, at the same time, transforming them into miniature versions of Rome. The focus here is on western frontier sites in what are now North Italy, France, Spain, and Croatia. Highlights include: the Theater at Orange, the Maison Carrée and the Pont-du-Gard at Nîmes, and the Trophy of Augustus at La Turbie.
Meet the Instructors
Diana E.E. KleinerDunham Professor of History of Art and Classics at Yale University
History Of Art
Another very interesting building in France is the one that I show you now.
Which was a fountain.
These aqueducts, you know, these aqueducts brought not
only water for daily use but fed fountains.
And I want to show you one fountain. from the, from Roman
Gaul, from France, what is France today. The so-called Temple of Diana wasn't
a temple.
It was a fountain, as I mentioned and it
was built during the Hadrianic period, between 100 and 130.
What makes this fountain particularly interesting is if
we just looked at this, if I asked
you, if I put this up and said to you, what do you think this was?
You would be unlikely to say a fountain because you can
see that this structure is in the form of a basilica.
It's a barrel-vaulted central chamber with side aisles that are also barrel-vaulted.
You can see the barrel-vault of this side aisle over
here, you can see a barrel-vault of the central space here.
You can see that there are columns on tall bases.
You can make out over here that the triangular pediment on top of a niche.
There were a series of niches along
the wall with alternating triangular and segmental pediments.
But most interesting of all is the central central space, the central barrel-vaulted
space with these barrel-vaulted side aisles which
is exactly the scheme of a typical basilica.
And it, it, it's another example of something I've shown
you throughout the semester that I've called the interchangeability of form.
The way in which certain building types, in
this case the Basilica, built initially as a civic
structure for the trying of law cases becomes
a, a plan that is used in other context.
Whether it's in residential architecture as we've already seen.
And in this case in, in the form of a fountain.
So that's particularly interesting.
Also interesting is the fact that although this is a
barrel-vaulted structure, it is made entirely out of local stone.
No concrete whatsoever in this particular part of France, no concrete.
Stone construction.
It's a masterwork when you consider that this was all done out of stone and
done extremely well.
Look how smooth the stones are, and look the designers have even been
talented enough to create ribs with stone in
that stone barrel vault for this amazing structure.
And you should be reminded, when I talk about the interchangeability of form.
Of the underground basilica that we looked at way back
when in the time of Claudius, which was built underground,
made out of concrete faced with stucco as you'll recall, but used for a secret sect.
And in this case the use of this basilican structure for a fountain in Roman France.
Up to this point, we have looked at monuments that were
made possible by Rome's subjugation of this particular part of the world.
The subjugation,
we know, of, at least, 44 Alpine tribes, and so while all of these buildings
that I've shown you come because of
that subjugation and subsequent Romanization of the area.
There is one monument spectacularly sited, that actually celebrated honors that
very subjugation and it's to that that I now want to turn.
It is as I, as I mentioned, spectacularly sited along
the french riviera not far from Nice, not far from Monte Carlo.
You see it here.
It is the Trophy of Augustus, the Tropaeum
Augusti, as you'll see on your monument list.
And it is located in a town called La Turbie.
And you can see it rising up in the midst of modern La Turbie here.
It dates, we believe, to seven, to seven,
to 6 BC.
And thus in the age of Augustus and celebrates quite
specifically Augustus', and the inscription
tells us this, Augustus' subjugation
of 44 Alpine tribes in this particular part of the
world, a monument put up to honor that victory of Augustus.
So essentially, a trophy monument.
You can see that it is only partially preserved and
I show you here a view of it.
Down the street of the, the modern street as it looks today.
Where you can see it rising up over that street.
And if you look very carefully, you will see that the stone that
the structure is made out of is very similar, in fact exactly the same.
As the stone used for the local houses.
Now, this is very interesting because what the monument
did not look, even though it's only partially preserved today, even less of it
was preserved earlier on. And it was in the 1930s
that an American patron, decided that he wanted to reconstruct
the as best that could be done, the trophy monument at La Turbie.
Because there was recognition that the monument at La Turbie had served as
a quarry essentially for the local inhabitants.
And over the years they had been taking the stone from the Victory Monument
of Augustus an using it, that's why it's the same stone, using it in their houses.
An this American wanted to rectify it, it. So he gave, he, he, he, he donated the
funds that enabled them to take, to tear down, to demolish, 32
houses.
And come up with 3,000 fragments from the Victory Monument, the trophy at
La Turbie, and reconstruct it as best as they could, from those fragments.
And that's what you see there now.
Here's a view of it as it looks today, as well as a model.
And what you can see from both of these is not only the inscription
and the trophy, in relief, on this side, that mentions the 44 alpine tribes.
But the monument itself.
And this model makes it very clear what the general form was.
A round structure with columns encircling it on a
base, and then the whole thing placed on a very
large and tall pedestal with a pyramidal element at
the top and a crowning statue at the very apex.
This scheme of placing a rotunda on top of a
tall base is something that we have seen as characteristic
of funerary architecture from the age of Augustus.
Think of the tomb of Cecilia Matella, for example.
And it is that scheme that is used here.
So another example of this interchangeability of form.
That a form that was used for mausoleum architecture, now used for
a trophy monument of the same time but in a different part of the world.
The model
also shows you that there were niches up around the central circular structure.
Those were, those had in them portraits
of Augustus' lieutenants who hap-, who helped him.
Placate this particular part of the world, and then at the top of the
stepped pyramidal structure, a portrait of a,
a bronze statue of the emperor Augustus himself.
Here's a detail of La, of, the Victory
Monument at La Turbie with all of those stones.
Re- from the, from those 32 demolished houses, reused here to reconstruct it.
We, there is concrete used here.
But it's a Gallo Roman form of concrete.
You'll see in Ward-Perkins that he refers to this work as petit appareil,
Which is essentially a Gallo Roman version of concrete construction.
Wit, stone facing, little work you
know little pieces of stone that are very similar
to opus and cardum but different enough and,
and distinctively French enough to be called petit appareil.
The victories,
Augustus's victories and pacification of this part of the
world also lead to the the construction of arches.
And I want to turn to a couple of those now.
The arch at [UNKNOWN] also in the south of France.
You see it here.
It dates to around 20 BC and it probably served as both
an arch in honor of these victories that Augustus celebrated here but
also as a gateway into the city. It's very simple.
It looks very much like we've come to know Augustian
arches are with a single arcuated bay in the center.
Columns in this case on two separate bases.
Fluted columns.
They're, the capitals are not preserved so we don't
know if they were Corinthian but they were probably Corinthian.
A very elaborate archivolt as you can
see here with the coffering extremely well preserved.
And then if you look very closely at the decoration
you see a couple of figures standing on either side.
These are actually, they're headless now.
But they're actually figures of captives, of captives, of local captives
to make reference again to the fact that this was military.
A military operation that allowed Augustus to take over these to subjugate
these 44 Alpine tribes and, and others in this particular area.
And that that subjugation is referred to
here by the representation of those captured barbarians.
A much more important and more interesting arch, is this one.
It's an arch that is located in Orange,
back to Orange, also in the south of France.
The date of this monument is very controversial.
And I think by looking at the general view and also a detail, you can see why.
It is a triple-bayed arch with a large
central arch, two smaller ones on either side.
With columns on tall bases, Corinthian columns in between them.
You can see that the central element
with its pediment projects into the viewer's face.
You can also see that the every
inch of space is completely covered with decoration.
Figural decoration, piles of arms and armor from the enemy,
so much so that it tends to de-materialize the arch.
These are all characteristics of later Roman architecture, think the Arch of
Septimius Severus, which I'll show you again in a moment, which has
led some scholars to date this as late as AD 200 or
AD 203, 204, at the same time as the arch of Septimius Severus.
And it was long thought to be that also because no one could concede that
this idea of the triple bayed arch could turn up in let's say, Augustian or
Tiberian France, Gaul. Before i turned up in Rome.
So getting up to that issue I've
raised on several occasions about center and periphery.
Does everything flow from the center?
Or are sometimes they're formed sometimes developed
in the periphery and then make their
way back into the center is a, a, an age old and very interesting question
to ask.
But I think you can see the reasons why
scholars, some scholars have dated this to the Severan period.
Here's the view and I'll say more about that in a moment.
A view here with a, another view showing an engraving giving you a sense
of the kind of sculptural decoration that would have been placed at the top.
The omnipresent figure in the chariot, four horse, or in this case,
four horse, I think, in this case, chariot.
And then figures or captured, captured individ-, captured
barbarians, as well as trophies, on the apex.
Here's our comparison with the Arch of Septimius Severus and the Roman Forum.
And I think you can see the cl-, the close association between the two.
The triple bay, the profusion of decoration that we see in the arch on
the left hand side as well.
Here's a detail of the attic, which shows you an interesting battle scene where
the figures are very heavily outlined as you can see here which is unusual.
Scholars have, have suggested, and I think correctly,
that the reason for that is that these
individuals, these artists in this part of Gaul,
were probably working from copy books or copy scrolls,
I guess I should say.
Drawings of battle scenes, typical Greek or Roman battle
scenes that they could use Helenistic battle scenes perhaps.
They are only Roman battle scenes that they copied and these were drawings.
And consequently, they copied them quite, quite quite
exactly by showing the outlines around the figures.
It's one, it's speculation, but I think it's an interesting
speculation in this very frenzied battle scene from the uppermost part.
With the regard to the date of this monument though, the plot thickens.
Oh, one other detail, if you look at side
of the arch, you see an arcuated element inside.
You can barely see the triangular pediment, but
there's an arcuation inside an unbroken complete triangular pediment.
So that scheme of placing the arcuation also
tends to be a late feature.
However, scholars who spent a lot of time looking
at the sculptural decoration of this monument, of the
piles of arms and armor that one finds there,
which by the way includes piles of arms and
armor from a naval victory, which is interesting, as
well as piles of armor, arms and armor from
victories on land, which has made some scholars speculate
that this refers to a kind of generic victory.
It's a victory on land and sea by whoever this honored.
But, very interesting is the fact that
there is one armament that is inscribed with the name Sacrovir.
Sacrovir.
Sacrovir we know was someone who was
living and active, in the time of Tiberius.
He lead a revolt in this part of Gaul in AD 21
against the local Roman governor and his excessive taxes.
And it has been speculated that that Sacrovir,
who was mentioned here is that very same Sacrovir
and that it is very conceivable therefore that this
arch was put up in the time of Tiberius.
I've given you a date of AD 25.
I believe that myself.
Although it does defy you know, defy imagination to
a certain extent to think of an arch with
all of these features that I've described today as
early in the south of France as AD 25.
But it's something for you to think about in terms of
our whole question of the relationship
between periphery and center and periphery.
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