Augustus, Domitian and theSo-called Horologium Augusti

PETER HESLIN

thattheobeliskwhich isnow in In I976EdmundBuchnerpublishedan articlesuggesting sundial which had PiazzaMontecitorio inRome originally cast a shadow foran immense Campus Augustus andwhich spreadacross an expanse of the been built by theemperor Martius thesizeof severalfootballfields. Buchnerclaimed thatthissundial, Furthermore, Ara Pacis in sucha way thattheshadow orHorologiumAugusti, with the was integrated and thattheobelisk on thealtaronAugustus'birthday, was also aligned of thesundialfell the with the Mausoleum ofAugustus in such a way that theentirecomplex illustrated ofAugustus inhis birth, peacefulreign, cosmicresonance Principate and thedestiny of the were spectacularly claims or so itseemed, when and death.A few years laterthese verified, Ger ofexcavationsconductedin the CampusMartius by the Buchner publishedtheresults becomepresident.' The man ArchaeologicalInstitute (DAI), ofwhich he had in theinterim with bronze linesand inscriptions remains of an ancientpavementhad been discovered yearsBuchner's thatchartedthepath of theshadow of theobelisk. So in the following way of thisso-called HorologiumAugusti foundtheir reconstruction and interpretation of the into theestablished Augustan building with great rapidity pictureof the ideology 2 programme. noteda seriousarchaeological Meanwhile,Rodriguez-Almeida publishedan articlethat Michael Schutzpublisheda and in i990 physicist problem withBuchner'soriginal thesis, The most brilliantand scathingdemolitionof Buchner'smethods and conclusions.3 was thattheshadowof thegnomonon topof theobe demonstrations striking ofSchfitz's much of thearea Buchnerhad originally liskcould not have reached supposed,including beenmore work on theAugustan Principatehas therefore theAra Pacis. Some recent has in discussingthe circumspect Horologium.4Once Buchner'soriginal reconstruction question thathas not been been swept away, however, thereremainsone important of theobject thattheexcavationsactually what is thesignificance addressedat any length: It may nothave beenbuilt broughtto light? may nothave beenpartof a vast sundial,and it an object forthat. Beyond thephantomof the byAugustus,but it is no less fascinating
first article is E. Buchner, 'Solarium Augusti und Ara Pads', R?mische Mitteilungen 83 (1976), 319-65; the is E. Buchner, Solarium Augusti: Vorbericht ?ber die Ausgrabungen 1979/80', R?mische 'Horologium E. Buchner, Die 87 (1980), 355-73; the two articles were published with an afterword as a monograph: Mitteilungen aus RM 1976 und 1980 und Nachtrag ?ber die Ausgrabung Sonnenuhr des Augustus: Nachdruck 1980/1981 (1982); inDemokratie 'Alte Geschichte all citations have been taken from the latter. On Buchner's career, see S. Rebenich, note in E. und Diktatur: Der Fall Helmut Berve', Chiron 31 (2001), 457-96, at 488 and the brief biographical 10 (1993-4), 77~%4-> at 84. Buchner, 'Neues zur Sonnenuhr des Augustus', N?rnberger Bl?tter zur Arch?ologie 2 to name, and also in reference Buchner's reconstruction appears as established fact in too many monographs in E. M. Urbis Romae works: e.g. E. B?chner, Steinby (ed.), Lexicon Topographicum 'Horologium Augusti', The second Dictionary of Ancient Rome (1992), Jr., A New Topographical (1993-2000), vol. 3, 35-7, 392-3 and L. Richardson, 190-1. 3 della Pontificia 'II Campo Marzio settentrionale: solarium e pomerium', Rendiconti E. Rodriguez-Almeida, Accademia di Archeologia 51-2 (1978-80), 195-212; M. Sch?tz, 'Zur Sonnenuhr des Augustus auf dem Marsfeld', Gymnasium 97 (1990), 432-57. 4 'Mutatas Formas: the Augustan transformation of Roman know For example, compare A. Wallace-Hadrill, to the Age of Augustus (ed.), The Cambridge Companion (2005), 55-84, at 65 and D. Favro, ledge', in K. Galinsky 'Making Rome a world city', in ibid., 234-63, at 247, with fig. 43; for appropriately cautious treatments in recent reference works, s.v. 'Horologium see L. Haselberger (Solare) Augusti', (ed.), Mapping Augustan vol. 5, 730?1 (C. H?cker). Rome (2002), 139 (A. B. Gallia) and Der Neue Pauly, 1

JRS 97 (zoo7), pp. I-zO. ? World Copyright Reserved. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies 2007

PETER

HESLIN

Domitianicmonument unknown with veryinteresting Horologium lies a hitherto impli in relationto cations fortheself-image of theFlavian dynasty and how itpresenteditself theJulio-Claudians. Inorder to address thenatureof this will be necessaryto reviewtheevi monument,it sincesomepeople continuetobelieve that dence forand against Buchner'sreconstruction, Another reason forgoingover this material again is thatthe partsof itcan be salvaged.5 and Schutzwere made independently criticisms ofRodriguez-Almeida of each otherand So we will beginby evaluatingthesecritiques have not been consideredincombination.6 Once we have established alongwith theresponses publishedbyBuchnerand others. what his obelisk andwhat can be said whichAugustus erected we know about thepurpose for of the monumentsin thenorthern about theinterrelationship Augustan CampusMartius, Domitianic pavementthat we can finally was begina discussionof thepurposebehind the discoveredthere.
I THE HISTORY OF AN ERROR

Buchner's reconstruction of a vast Horologium was not new. In i650, the polymath AthanasiusKircherpublishedhisObeliscus Pamphilius,a gorgeously sumptuous work of This massively eruditevolumewas devoted to interpreting sheernonsense.7 thehiero Roman obelisk, theone thatPope Innocent glyphsinscribed on a different X was in the in the courseof re-erecting middle of Piazza Navona. Despite theimpressive apparatusof Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Coptic sources thatKircher deployed,he had no was reallyjusta dedication to Rosetta Stone, and so could not know thatthe inscription Domitian. Instead, it symbolically as a representation Kircher interpreted of a Neopla Hermeticmeditation on 'thehighest tonic, mysteryof Divinity'.8 In the course of his Kircher includeda sectionon anotherobelisk,onewhose expansive treatment, extremely dedicationbyAugustus as an instrument forcasting a shadow and thus measuring the courseof thesunhad beendescribed byPliny inhisNaturalHistory.Kircherassumed that thispassage of Pliny,which we will examine in detail below, describeda sundial.He statedthis a visual reconstruction simply withoutargument, and included of itsformthat Masi. The major features of this drawingof thesundialanticipate Buchner's reconstruc The definitive refutation Masi's ideasabout thissundial ofKircher'sand was organized and scholar by the librarian AngeloMaria Bandini in a deluxe publicationof I750 that accompanied theprojectof excavatingtheobelisk.'0 Itwas longknown thatthe remains
On scholars who cite Sch?tz in their footnotes while ignoring the force of his criticisms in their text, see und die Macht in Rom der Sterne: Antike Astrologie und die Etablierung der Monarchie Schmid, Augustus (2005), 308 with n. 21. 6 As far as Sch?tz's arguments are concerned, there are a number of treatments available from the point of view of gnomonics; for some interesting amplifications, see K. Schaldach, R?mische Sonnenuhren: eine Einf?hrung in die antike Gnomonik in English is (2001), 78-93. The fullest treatment of Sch?tz's criticisms currently available F. Maes, 'The sundial of Emperor Augustus: rise and decline of a hypothesis', The Compendium, North American Sundial Society 12 (September 2005), 13-27, which has been translated into a number of languages and published in the journals of various societies of sundial enthusiasts; even so, itmay not be easy to obtain. My for sending me a copy of his article, along with several others from the Bulletin of the Dutch thanks to Frans 5

had been provided tion.9

to him by his colleague

in the Jesuits, the mathematician

Giacomo

A.

Maes

Sundial Society (Zonnewijzerkring). 7 A. Kircher, Obeliscus (1650), on which see D. Stolzenberg, Egyptian Oedipus: Pamphilius Antiquarianism, Oriental Studies and Occult Philosophy in theWork of Athanasius Kircher, unpub. Ph.D thesis, Stanford University (December 2003), 287-329. 8 J. Godwin, Athanasius Kircher: a Renaissance Man and the Quest for Lost Knowledge (1979), 6. 9 Kircher, op. cit. (n. 7), 80; the drawing is reproduced by Bandini: A. M. Bandini, De obelisco Caesaris Augusti e campi Martii ruderibus nuper eruto commentarius (1750), pi. IV, fig. 3. 10 Bandini, op. cit. (n. 9).

AUGUSTUS,

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AUGUSTI

ofAugustus'obelisk layunderneath the CampusMartius, foritsbase had beendiscovered in theearlysixteenth century when a latrine was beingdug forthehome of a barber who livedin thearea.Therewas also a report fromthepreviouscentury of neighbours digging up various astrologicalfigures inbronze embedded in a pavement; we will examine this report below.The inscription on the obelisk was recorded at that point and it was covered some forty up again. In I748 the was pieceswere excavatedand then years laterthe obelisk inPiazza diMontecitorio,where itstandstoday,a bit to thesouth moved and re-erected of itsoriginalposition (see Fig. i, No. Ii)." The taskof investigating thehistoryand purposeof theobelisk that was beingexcavated was entrusted toBandini.At thetime he wroteKircher's idea of an expansivesundialstillhad generalcurrency, so a large part of it. hiswork isdevoted to refuting The cruxof thiscontroversy between KircherandBandini ishow to interpret thepas sage of Pliny thatdescribesthepurpose for whichAugustus erectedtheobelisk.Bandini was thefirst toexpressforcefully theargument that a very Pliny ishereproviding detailed and accurateaccountof a solar meridian.12 This was notmerely Bandini's own opinionon the eminent matter;he collected letters of supportfrom scholarsthroughout Europe con of Pliny; theseincludedtheconciseopinion of Leonhard curring with his interpretation and an extensivediscussion by Roger Euler, one of history'sgreatest mathematicians, most eminent and astronomers of theeighteenth Joseph Boscovich,one of the physicists
century.13

II PLINY

S EVIDENCE

In the midst of hisdiscussionof obelisks,Plinygivesa detailedaccountof theobelisk that Augustus had erected in theCampusMartius. It is not surprising that thispassage has sometimes casually been understoodas depictinga sundial,since itdescribesan instru ment for most familiar measuringthepositionof thesun's shadow,and thesundial is the such instrument. else: a solarmeridian, Here, however,Pliny is describingsomething true an object that casts a shadow.Plinyhas occa which is a longlinerunning northfrom sion todiscussboth sundialsandmeridianselsewhereinhiswork and does sowith clarity A solar and precision; he understands thedifference.14 meridian is likea sundial with only a singlehour-linethat indicates noon on each day: since theshadow of an object falls the inthe positionof theshadow as itchangesevery day.This indicates waxing ofdaylight as thenoontimeshadow grows shorter summer, every day, and its waning, as thenoon timeshadow grows longer. The translation thatfollowsis from Healy's Penguinedition, inbrackets:15 with some supplements
Ei [obelisco], qui est in campo, divus Augustus addidit mirabilem usum ad deprendendas solis umbras dierumque ac noctium ita magnitudines, strato lapide ad longitudinem obelisci, cui par fieretumbra brumae confectae die sexta hora paulatimque per regulas, quae sunt ex aere inclusae, singulis diebus decresceret ac rursus augesceret, digna cognitu
11 on the basis of Pliny's A meridian linewith signs of the zodiac marked along itwas laid in Piazza di Montecitorio is too small, information; it is strikingly similar in conception to what was found in the excavations. The piazza a line as long as the shadow of the obelisk at noon on the winter solstice. On the history however, to accommodate of the discovery and erection of the obelisk, see Bandini, op. cit. (n. 9), 94-107 and C. D'Onofrio, Gli obelischi di Roma (3rd edn, 1992), 387-402, 414-17. A plaque in Piazza del Parlamento approximately marks the original site

exactly to the north at local noon, when

the sun is at its highest point, one can plot the

(see Fig. 1,No. 1). 12 Bandini, op. cit. (n. 9), 108-10; Bandini notes that Ziegler had tentatively suggested this possibility in the sixteenth century; Ziegler's diagram depicts a simple meridian strip: J. Ziegler, In C. Plinii de naturali historia librum secundum commentarius (1531), 307, reproduced in Bandini, op. cit. (n. 9), table IV, fig. 1. 13 see Sch?tz, op. cit. (n. 3), 436. On Buchner's scorn for Bandini and his collaborators, 14 Plin., NH 2.182-7, 6.211-18, 7.212-15, and 18.326-33 with Sch?tz, op. cit. (n. 3), 433. 15 Plin., NH 36.71-3 and J. F. Healy, Pliny the Elder, Natural History: A Selection (1991), 35if.

PETER

HESLIN

res,ingenio Facundi Novi mathematici.

enormiter iaculante apice,ratione, a capitehominisintellecta. ut ferunt,

is apici auratam pilam addidit, cuius vertice umbra colligeretur in se ipsam, alias

haec observatio XXX iam fere annis non congruit, sive solis ipsius dissono cursu et caeli aliqua rationemutato sive universa tellure a centro suo aliquid emota (ut deprehendi et aliis in locis accipio) sive urbis tremoribus ibi tantum gnomone intorto sive in terram quoque dicuntur acta fundamenta.

Tiberissedimento inundationibus molis facto, quamquamad altitudinem inpositi oneris

Augustus used the obelisk in theCampus Martius in a remarkable way namely to cast a shadow and thus mark the length of days and nights. A paved area was laid out commensurate with the height of themonolith in such a way that the shadow at noon on the shortest day might extend to the edge of the paving. As the shadow gradually grew shorter and longer again, itwas measured by bronze rods fixed in the paving. This device deserves study; itwas the result of a brainwave of [the scientist] Facundus Novius. Novius placed a gilded ball on the apex of themonolith so that the shadow would be concentrated at its tip; otherwise the shadow cast would have been very indistinct [i.e. the tipwould have cast its shadow in an ill-formedmanner]. He got this idea, so it is said, from seeing the shadow cast by a man's head. These measurements, however, have not agreed with the calendar for some thirty years; either the orbit of the sun itself is out of phase or has been altered by some change in the behaviour of the heavens, or thewhole earth has moved slightly off-centre. I hear this phenomenon has also been observed in other places. [Or it could be that a merely local tremor has shifted the gnomon, or themass has subsided due to the flooding of the Tiber, despite the claim that its foundations were driven as deeply into the earth as the obelisk on top is high.] Some things to note about this passage are: it says nothing about telling time; it speaks only of the extent of the pavement in a single dimension; and it says that the purpose of the instrument was to measure the changing length of days and nights. This is a precise account of a solar meridian: it is a single line whose longest extent marks the shadow at noon on thewinter solstice, which is the shortest day of the year. Its purpose is to mark the progress of the solar year: as the noontime shadow shortens and then lengthens, it shows the days growing longer and then shorter. Pliny begins by describing the shadow cast by the obelisk on thewinter solstice, itspoint of longest extent. He then describes with great precision its function from that point in time onwards: how the observer could see grow shorter (decresceret) as summer approached and the days grew longer. Then on the longest day of the year, when the shadow was at its shortest, the noontime shadow would begin to grow longer again (rursus augesceret) as the days grew shorter. This daily pro gress of the noontime shadow was indicated by means of lines (per regulas) in the pave

on a daily basis (singulis diebus) how thenoontimeshadowwould gradually(paulatim)

ment. Even after Bandini, it frequently happened thatPlinywas mistakenlyunderstood to have described a sundial.i6 Scholarlyopinion varied between those who imaginedthat
Augustus
16

had constructed a full sundial, and those who

followed Bandini.17 In order to try

For example, Moretti's of Pliny demonstrates clearly how easily one can slip into making such a paraphrase '... un grande obelisco, la cui ombra, proiettata sopra un pavimento, accorciandosi o allungandosi durante a mano a mano su determinad punti di linee segnate sulle lastre di pietra,' il giorno, indicava le ore passando G. Moretti, Ara Pacis Augustae (1948), vol. 1, 205, n. 2. The problem is that singulis diebus does not mean durante il giorno and Pliny says nothing about indicating the hours, only about indicating the length of the days and nights. So some sources continued to depict a full sundial in the style of Kircher, such as Lanciani's Forma Urbis Romae, reproduced in R. Lanciani, Storia degli scavi di Roma e notizie intorno le collezioni romane di antichit? (2nd edn, 1989-94), vol. 1, 178. 17 Contrast S. B. Platner and T. Ashby, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (1929), 366-7, who describe a meridian line, though strangely they also speak of a pavement extending east and west, and E. Nash, Pictorial (1961-2), vol. 2, 134-6, who describes a full sundial. Dictionary of Ancient Rome mistake:

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of thedays and nights with a full to reconcile Pliny'semphasison measuring the length Buchneradded a few linesto his reconstruction that would have allowed one to sundial, measure the length of theday; thesearemodelled on lines thatappear on a handfulof thefactthatPliny's accountdoes not speak of hours andmonths at all; he describesan instrument whose primary purpose was to indicatethe progress of thesun from solsticeto in the daily-changing of the shadow at noon. Even with solstice,as reflected length Buchner'sextra linesadded on, it isperverseto suppose that when Pliny wanted to des omit tomention itsprimary cribesuch a sundial,hewould completely functions of indi cating thehour of theday and theday of theyear,and only choose to discuss an extra detail.On Buchner'sreading, Pliny'semphasison thelength of theinstrument beingequal tonoontimeshadowon theshortest and inexplicable.19 day of theyear isequallyperverse sucha solar meridian? The main reason Why would Augustushavewanted toconstruct Buchner gives for rejectingthisexplanation is thathe claims that such an instrument This is an unsoundobjection,as Schutzpoints to would have been useless in antiquity. ancient Rome ofmeridiansand their More importantly, usefulness.20 many accountsfrom a very likely contextfortheconstruction Schutzhas suggested with greatplausibility of this meridian.A meridian linehas varioususes, such asmarking the local time particular true of noon, and indicating of the north;but it is also usefulforcheckingthecongruence can check to civilcalendar with thesolaryear.The observer make sure thattheshadowof thesun reachesthecorrect meridian at noon on thecorrect point on the day of thecivil can repeattheprocessyearafter calendar,and then year.For example,on thedays of the solsticestheshadow should fallon eitherend of the meridian line. At thetimeof theerection of theobelisk, the Roman civilcalendarhad recently been with a leapyeareveryfourth corrected by Julius Caesar, so thatit lasted365/4 days, year. the did notproperly theinstructions were given, understand they Unfortunately, pontifices made everythird us, they yeara leapyear instead of every and, asMacrobius tells wrongly were using inclusivereckoning. This mistakewent uncorrected because they fourth, for was decreedof thenext thirty-six yearsuntil9 B.C.,when underAugustus theomission occasionsonwhich leapdays be added, tocompensatefortheexcess three would normally threethathad been added inadvertently.21 Schutz points out an extremely interesting Maxi sequenceof events:afterthedeathofLepidus,Augustuswas finally made Pontifex mus in IL B.C., and so received Roman calendar; theobelisk official forthe responsibility to check thecorrectness with its of thatcalendar, was erectedin meridian,an instrument IO B.C.; in theverynextyear,9 B.C., thecalendar was proclaimedto have been inerror,
small sundials from antiquity." Grafting these extra lines onto a sundial does not change

accepted in his later, circular reconstruction, the shadow of the gnomon would not have reached most points on that line. If, on the other hand, the sundial was circular, it ismost remarkable that Pliny was so careful to perpendicular specify the exact radius, but completely neglected to mention that itwas a circle. 20 Buchner, Sonnenuhr, op. cit. (n. 1), 9, countered by Sch?tz, op. cit. (n. 3), 433-5. 21 Sat. 1.14.13?15 and Solinus 1.45-7 with A. E. Samuel, Greek and Roman Chronology: Calendars and Macrob., Years in Classical Antiquity (1972), 156-8.

italischen Stundenlinien und von der Sonnenuhr des Kaisers Augustus', Bulletin, De Zonnewijzerkring 85.1 (1985), op. cit. (n. 6), 19 and 23. 28-9; and Maes, 19 A full sundial would normally extend north of themeridian, in order to indicate the time of day before and after noon inmidwinter, when the shadow of the obelisk would have been even longer. B?chner originally attempted to to take Pliny's words into account by limiting the northward extent of the sundial to a line running perpendicular the far end of themeridian. But as Sch?tz, op. cit. (n. 3), 452, fig. 5 demonstrated (see below), and as B?chner tacitly

18 Normal-sized sundials with such lines are illustrated and explained by S. L. Gibbs, Greek and Roman Sundials In Buchner's early diagrams these lines are curved, but are (1976), 80-4, with nos 4001G, 1068G, 1072G, 3046,1044. later corrected silently to straight lines; on that problem, see F. de Vries, 'De Daglichtdriehoek op de Zonnewijzer van Keizer Augustus', Bulletin, De Zonnewijzerkring und 84.3 (1984), 17-18; R. R. J. Rohr, 'Von babylonischen

PETER

HESLIN

So we have strong evi circumstantial andAugustus ordered thenecessaryadjustments.22 custodyof the meridian line was erectedin thecontextofAugustus taking dence thatthe Roman calendar. was the means by monumental meridian itself Itwould bewrong to imaginethat the more thana single was detected: would yearofobservations which theflawin thecalendar of theshadow cast have been requiredto detect theerror,and the size and diffuseness On thecontrary, for preciseobservations.23 made the massivemeridian a poor instrument monumentindicatesthatitsfunction was symbolicratherthan theenormousscale of the Maximus, The message themeridian projects is that,as thenew Pontifex utilitarian. Augustus will have the resourcesto ensure thathis father'scalendar is implemented incontrastto theimpotent and exiledLepidus. Itmighthave been thecase that properly, was detectedsome time but that pontifical authority with thecalendar before, theproblem When AugustusbecamePontifex he arranged was felttobe lacking. to make thecorrection for thecalendar to be corrected and fora meridian to be for twoparallel interventions: so thatall ofRome could see thatthecivilcalendar stayedinharmony with constructed on theobelisk isconsistent with of thesun through theyear.The inscription theprogress and to theoffice of this message, as itgivesparticularemphasis to thename 'Augustus' written and isgivena lineof its withoutabbreviation Maximus. This one officeis Pontifex below it.24 andmore crowded lineof titulature own, incontrastto theabbreviated
III THE EXCAVATIONS

DAI of a vast sundial, the reconstruction After thepublicationofBuchner'shypothetical of Friedrich Rakob. The first dig promptly began excavationsin I979 under thedirection of note (seeFig. i, No. 5), but the in the middle ofVia di Campo Marzio foundnothing was spectacularly suc nextdig in thebasementof a house on theeast side of thatstreet with a line The excavators pavementembedded cessful. managed to uncovera travertine inbronze, justas Plinyhad described (seeFig. I, north-south andGreek lettering running No. 4). The surprise was thatthelevelatwhich thepavement was found was ametre and a half too high foran Augustan date. The levelof theflood-prone CampusMartius had andwhich Ara Pacis,whichwas builtcontemporaneously foundat thesame levelas the which itcame to sit.25 a retaining wall builtaround the depressionin subsequently required was foundand thedatingof the Greek lettering The higherlevelatwhich thepavement toBuchnera date under theemperor Domitian,who had done quite originally suggested
been raised after the time of Augustus, and itwas expected that theHorologium would be

is given by the Fasti Praenestini Sch?tz, op. cit. (n. 3), 447-8. The date of Augustus becoming Pontifex Maximus 1, p. 233, with A. Degrassi, Fasti Capitolini (ed.), Res Gestae Divi Augusti (1954), 82, and see T. Mommsen and Solinus cited above; (1883), 45); the year of his correction of the calendar is given by the passages ofMacrobius and the year he erected the obelisk is given by the inscription cited below. 23 Contrast Sch?tz, op. cit. (n. 3), 447-8. On Sch?tz's discussion of the difficulties with the shadow in respect to Buchner's original reconstruction, see below. 24 The text of the inscription (CIL 6.701 and 702; ILS 91) is: (CIL

22

IMPCAESARDIVIF AUGUSTUS IMPXIICOSXFTRIBPOTXIV AEGUPTOINPOTESTATEM POPULIROMANIREDACTA SOLIDONUMDEDIT

The text and layout are secure, since the same inscription appears in four places: the other one was originally in the Circus Maximus obelisks erected by Augustus; 25 Moretti, op. cit. (n. 16), vol. 1, 116. on either side of both of the two and is now in Piazza del Pop?lo. PONTIFEX/MAXIMUS_

AUGUSTUS,

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aL E
2

4. Excavation ofmeridian line 5.Unsuccessful excavation 6. Find-spot of cippi 9. Sacristy ofSan Lorenzo 10.Arco di Portogallo
7. Borehole number 13 8. Basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina

2. Ara Pacis 3.Mausoleum

1. Originalposition ofobelisk (after Schltz)

of Augustus

3 0J

N X

11. Present-day

12.Extent ofBuchner's originalreconstruction 13.Extent ofBuchner'scircular reconstruction

site of obelisk with meridian

Via Ibmacelli A.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~6 40

\clae

a ; n o 0

-~ /009 ~~9,3 1

iS

~ ~

~~~~~~~M

FIG

Panshoin

psiio

ofoblikAr

PaiMuoemadohrfatrsmnindi4h

et

ls

so

ol

I Piazza diColonna Montecitorio

Mu u

~~~~~Piazza

PETER

HESLIN

obeliskshimself.26 The datingof a bitof buildingin the CampusMartius andwho erected a Flavian potteryfound in subsequent explorationsunderneaththepavementconfirmed was alreadyawry inhis day, so itappears likely date.27 Pliny tellsus thatthe instrument it.Some have followed fixed and re-established that Domitian subsequently Buchner in putting theword 'Domitianic' in quotation marks.28Since, however, thepavement is Flavian and Pliny, who was a friend ofVespasian and Titus, did notmention anything inhis extensive about plans forthis projectof restoration discussionof the monument,the Domitian built it seemsreasonablysecure. conclusionthat A singlelong line was foundtravelling exactlynorth-south, with shorterlinesat right west side, reading The long line is labelled with thesignsof thezodiac: on the angles to it. north to south,[KPI]OX and TAYP[OX], and on theother side, readingsouth tonorth, thepointwhere [AE]QN andHIAPe[ENOX]. The west sidehas an inscription indicating summer began (OEPOYI APXH) fortheviewer facing north,and theother sidemarks thepointwhere theEtesian winds stoppedblowing (ETHIIAI nAYONTAI) for the viewerfacing south. This north-south with itsindications of theprogress of theyear line, theseasons and thesignsof thezodiac, running through up one side and down theother, is clearlya meridian line,and there are no indications that itwas part of a largerstruc The viewer would follow theprogressof theyear fromthedepthofwinterdown ture.29 west sideof thepavementas thenoontimeshadowof thesungrewshorter the andmoved thesignsof thezodiac, and thenfollow itup thesignson theeast side of the line through as itgrew longer. Justas Bandini and his collaboratorshad predicted,this is an astrologicalinstrument of thesolaryear as thesunmoves through thezodiac, not an for measuring theprogress instrument fortelling thetime of theday, theday of the month of theyear. month,or the with itspurpose as a scientific The use ofGreek is consistent ratherthana civil instru ment.30 thattheappearanceof the Etesianwinds,whichwould Hannah plausiblysuggests inRome, indicates have been ofmarginal interest a close dependenceon Greekmodels.31 his Nevertheless,Buchner has from the start insisted that this discoveryconfirmed of a vast sundialmeasuring theRoman civil calendar.Buchner and Rakob hypothesis but it isclear thatthesmallcross-lines andmonth-lines, indicatethe360 speakof day-lines cross-lines mark the divisions year,and thelarger degreesof thezodiac, not the daysof the of a sundial,sinceeverysuch sundialcontainsa does not positivelyruleout theexistence as itsnoon-line;but despite searching, no otherpart meridian line thatrunsnorth-south of thisalleged sundialhas everbeen found.Furthermore, there are otherconsiderations that make thisan extremely unlikely prospect.
Buchner, Sonnenuhr, op. cit. (n. i), 66. He suggests that the lettering may be of Augustan date and thus was re see below. used; on Buchner's subsequently revised dating of the pavement to Vespasian, 27 neue Forschungen F. Rakob, 'Die Urbanisierung des n?rdlichen Marsfeldes: im Areal des Horologium Augusti', in L'Urbs: Espace urbain et histoire (1987), 687-712, at 693-4 and Buchner, Sonnenuhr, op. cit. (n. 1), 76. 28 e.g. Richardson, op. cit. (n. 2), 190-1. 29 some uses of Hellenistic science in Roman religion', Apeiron 27 (1994), 99-117, pace R. Beck, 'Cosmic models: at 104, there is no indication that the line dividing Aries and Taurus extends westward; it is cut off by the end of the excavated area before it reaches the length it has on the other side of the meridian line. It is not evident from the 26

between

the signs of the zodiac, not themonth.32 The nature of the object that was

found

as he claims. Even that the angle made by this line with the meridian differs by z? from perpendicular, photographs seem even less square, and if this were so, it is hardly a significant inexactitude; some of the small degree-markers there is an extra one of these squeezed in (on which see below). 30 Thus W. H?bner, Review of Buchner, Die Sonnenuhr des Augustus, Trierer Zeitschrift 46 (1983), 333-8, at 335. 31 R. Hannah, Greek and Roman Calendars d'un (2005), 129; see also P. Fleury, 'Les sources alexandrines (eds), Sciences exactes et sciences ing?nieur romain au d?but de l'Empire', in G. Argoud and J.-Y. Guillaumin ? Alexandrie (1998), 103-14, at 110. appliqu?es 32 'Chronometrie et architecture antiques: le H?bner, op. cit. (n. 30), 335, Sch?tz, op. cit. (n. 3), 454. A. Guerbabi, gnomon du forum de Thamugadi', L'Africa romana 10 (1992), 359-402, at 366, n. 25 suggests that the sundial in the forum of Timgad may provide a parallel for Buchner's reconstruction, in that it seems to have had small indications of the zodiac along the noon-line, in addition to hour-lines.

AUGUSTUS,

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HOROLOGIUM

AUGUSTI

IV PAVEMENT

POMERIUM

Early in thei98os,Rodriguez-Almeida wrote an articlethat pointedout a serious problem with Buchner's reconstruction.33 In I930, two cippioutliningtherouteof thepomerium were foundinsitu in a building on Via di Campo Marzio, right in the midst ofBuchner's reconstruction (seeFig. i, No. 6). One was Vespasianic, theother Hadrianic, so by the of the time Domitianic reconstruction of the meridian, thepomerium had been extended to cut through the westernpart of theproposed sundial.Tacitus tellsus that Claudius extended thepomerium more prisco,which must mean that in his time,and likelyin Vespasian's time too, theaugursyoked a bull and a cow in the traditional manner to If there plough theboundary.34 had been a sundial with a travertine pavementinplace, the pomerium would surely have gone around it. therefore Rodriguez-Almeida suggested that, ifthe Horologium ofAugustuswas not justa meridian,perhaps it was justhalfof a sun hours.35 This suggestion dial, showingonly theafternoon was takenupwith enthusiasm by theexcavator notionof building Rakob, but no parallel fortheextraordinary onlyhalf of a monumental sundial has been suggested.36 In laterpublications, Buchnerdoes not accept this proposal of a monumental sundial deliberately lefthalf-completed by Augustus, and insteadadmits thathis putative Augustan sundialmust laterhave been reduced not just tohalf-size, but indeedto a mere strip.37 thisis to admit that Effectively, the Flavianmonument was a meridian line.38 whichwas discovered Once thisisgranted, theclaim thatthe ofwhich no surviving Augustanpavement, trace has been found, had a larger extentthanameridian isbased on nothing other thanamisreadingof Pliny. This responseto theobservationsof Rodriguez-Almeida entailspostulatinga large scale redevelopment of thearea under Vespasian, whichwould have included extending thepomerium,destroyingtheAugustan pavement,and re-laying the instrument in a This is theapproachBuchnernow takes,even thoughit involves reducedform. arbitrarily Domitian to Vespasian.39The firstimpro re-datingthepavementhe discoveredfrom here is theidea thata Flavian emperor would shrink a vast sundial intotheform bability of a narrowmeridian strip that would have been tinyin comparison with what went before. That was not theFlavianway of building;quite theopposite.A secondproblem arises to reconcilethis whenwe try with theinformation explanation givenbyPliny. Pliny's Natural History isdedicatedtoTitus,who isnot yetemperor andwho has held theconsulshipsix times;thisnarrows thedate down toA.D. 77 or 78. As we have seen, Pliny describes the instrument and its present-day quite thoroughly. The deficiencies inscription on the cippus dates it to A.D. 75, so the fact that Vespasian or an earlier would have merited a emperorhad ploughed the pomerium rightthroughit, surely mention as part of his descriptionof its impairedusefulness.IfVespasian fixedand remodelled theinstrument, thattoo would havemeritedamention,especially given Pliny's

33 ? 'Roma: Reg. ix op. cit. (n. 3), drawing on the publication of two cippi by P. Romanelli, Rodriguez-Almeida, Via della Torretta ? cippi del pomerio', Notizie degli Scavi ser. 6 vol. 9 (1933), 240?4. 34 and Hadrian did little Tac, Ann. 12.23, on which see Richardson, op. cit. (n. 2), 295, who argues that Vespasian more than to renew Claudius' boundary. Varro describes the ploughing Etrusco ritu {De ling. Lat. 5.143). 35 op. cit. (n. 3), 210-n with fig. 7. Rodriguez-Almeida, 36 Rakob, op. cit. (n. 27), 694-7, wim % 4- Guerbabi, op. cit. (n. 32) suggests that the Timgad sundial, of which only part of the lines for the afternoon hours survive, may not have had all of the morning lines represented, since the surrounding buildings would have blocked the sun during those hours; but no such consideration obtains in the open space of the Campus Martius. 37 'Streifen': Buchner, 'Neues zur Sonnenuhr des Augustus', op. cit. (n. 1), 83 and Buchner, op. cit. (n. 2), 36. 38 B?chner says that it is likely that there was another north-south line running next to itwith a civil calendar in Latin, but there is of course absolutely no evidence for this: B?chner, op. cit. (n. 2), 36; the hypothesis is illustrated in Buchner, Sonnenuhr, op. cit. (n. 1), 71, fig. 6. 39 Buchner, op. cit. (n. 2), 36 and see also Rakob, op. cit. (n. 27), 698. The latter reports (694, n. 22) that, according to Dr M. La Torre, the pottery found under the level of the pavement dates it 'in flavische Zeit', without further

specifics.

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to close relationship Vespasian. PlinyandVespasian bothdied inA.D. 79 (the yearofTitus' thesundialafter workwas finished seventh consulship),so if Vespasian remodelled Pliny's narrow todo so. If inA.D. 77 or 78, he had an extremely window ofopportunity Vespasian had such a project even in theplanningstages, it is hard to imagine Plinynot knowing about it. In contrastto theseunlikely hypotheses,thereis a simpleexplanationof the of thepomeriumto theobelisk.Augustus built a meridian strip, whichwas relationship of them respected pomeriumto include byClaudius orVespasian,whichever expanded the western side of the this part of the Campus. The new boundaryran along the meridian, theinstrument, he did notdrastically parallel to it,andwhenDomitian remodelled change itsnature. which theexistence There isonemoreway in of the Vespasianic cippuscastsdoubt on ofBuchnerandRakob. Inorder tobolsterthecase thatthere was a vast theinterpretations Buchnerarrangedforfourteen bore-holestobe drilledinvarious pavementforthesundial, was any directevidenceof a places around theCampusMartius.40 In only twoof these Ara Pacis,well away fromthe bothwere hard by theoriginalsiteof the pavementfound; of thesundial. In eightof theothers, proposed reconstruction Buchner claimed to have of theAugustan and the foundnot any pavement,butwhat he called the foundations as evidencethatboth structures He put thisforward must have been Flavian pavements. were publishedbeforethe meridian line.Since theseresults muchmore expansivethanthe appearance ofRodriguez-Almeida's paper,Buchnerdid not know thatone of thebore which he claimed to have foundevidenceof both foundationlevelscame in fact holes in fromtheother side of theVespasianic pomerium (See Fig. i, No. 7).41This makes it found in thebore-holecoreswere thebasis of expansive, unlikelythatthe 'foundations' unless one iswilling to imaginethat the laterof the two pavements unified pavements, In otherwords, the bore-hole coresmay reflect phases of straddled the pomerium.42 do not provide evidenceof a continuous building in thisarea of theCampus, but they pavementbuilt for a large sundial, and the failureto discover any relevant pavement in fact despite many attempts providessome evidenceagainst it.43

SAN LORENZO

IN LUCINA

Since no archaeologicalevidenceforthe Horologium beyond theconfines of the meridian hasmaterialized, Buchnerhas had to rely of thediscovery of strip upon theearlyrecords theobelisk.The earliestsuch recordcomes fromthenotes of a student of thehumanist on ancient PomponioLeto, who collectedsome ofLeto's comments Roman topography, presented as therecord of a walk around theruins ofRome:44 UBI EST ecclesia sanctiLaurentii in Lucina cum hortis,ibi fuitcampus appellatus comitia. Et ubi estdomusnova facta, Martius: inquo habebantur quae estcapellanorum cuiusdam fuit basisorologii nominatissimi. [aedituorum] capellae s.Laurentii,
Buchner, Sonnenuhr, op. cit. (n. i), 73-5. This is the bore-hole in Via della Toretta, numbered 13 in fig. 1 on pp. 60-1 of Buchner, Sonnenuhr, op. cit. (n. 1), discussed on p. 74. 42 In theory, one could maintain that Vespasian had the Augustan pavement disturbed to plough the pomerium through it and then had the pavement relaid again, but it is hard to imagine what could motivate such a complex procedure when the line could simply have been run around it. 43 In addition to the excavation in the middle of Via di Campo Marzio, in San Lorenzo in and the excavations Lucina discussed below, seven bore-holes were drilled in Buchner's proposed grid: Buchner, Sonnenuhr, op. cit. 1, 2, 3, 7, 11, 12, 13 in fig. 1, pp. 60-1. In none of these explorations was any pavement found (n. 1), Bore-holes 41 40

outside of the meridian line. 44 G. B. de Rossi, 'Note di topograf?a romana raccolte dalla bocea di Pomponio Leto, e testo pomponiano della Notitia Studi e documenti di storia e diritto 3 (1882), 49-86, at 55-7, 59-60, conveniently regionum urbis Romae', reprinted in Lanciani, op. cit. (n. 16), vol. 1, 101.

AUGUSTUS,

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II

/epitaphium?] capellanorum, ibi fuit IN CAMPO MARTIO, ubi est ephm [ephebeum [vidimus] effossum orologium: quod habebatVII graduscircum,et lineasdistinctas metallo inaurato. Et solumcampi erat ex lapideamplo quadrato, et habebat lineas easdem: et in angulisquatuor ventiex operemusivo cum inscriptione ut BOREAS SPIRAT etc. gardens, is wheretheso-called Where the church ofSanLorenzo in Lucina stands with its which electoral assemblies used to be held.And where a new Martius was, in Campus of a certain ofSan Lorenzo, house was beingbuiltforthechaplains chapel in thechurch
therewas found the base of that famous sundial. myself); ithad seven steps around it and located, iswhere the sundial was dug up (I saw it that had the same lines, along with mosaics

of thechaplains is InCampusMartius, in theplacewhere thedormitory [tomb?]

of the four winds in the corners and an

metal.And thepavement was made of largesquareblocks lines decorated with golden

north wind blows' etc. inscription saying'the

San Lorenzo

well with theappearanceof thediscovered Flavian pavement, This description coheres toknowwhere exactlytheseitems were found. The churchof so it would be interesting
in Lucina is north-east of the original site of the obelisk (see Fig. I, No. 8),

were to refer to the church or one of its chapels, thiswould be proof that the pavement of the sundial extended a long distance east of the meridian line. But that is not what the passage says. It refers to a house built for the chaplains and perhaps to a tomb, also for the

reconstruction ofBuchner'sfirst of thesundial,so ifthis passage and it is just within range

word nova applied to thechaplains'house not appropriateto a living Pope, and thatthe not longbeforehe wrote.47 were seen byLeto's student impliesthat theseexcavations of thechapel inSan Lorenzo cannot therefore belong to theconstruction These discoveries itself, which happened some decades earlier,around I463. Thus when Buchnerbaldly of thepersonal chapel of were foundduring theconstruction assertsthat theseartifacts
Cardinal

out that theywere written down some time after I484, since they refer to Sixtus IV in terms

or a chapel in the church,but property This was not the church itself, chaplains.45 close to thespot where somedecades later with thechurch nearby, presumably associated De Rossi, theeditorof these notes,points thebarber who rediscovered theobelisk lived.46

but also the Schutzhas observed, wrong date.48 excavationsunder thepresent-day sacristy of Nevertheless, Buchnerpromised future
in order to try to discover proof that Augustus built an instrument that San Lorenzo extended well to the north-east (see Fig. i, No. 9).49 It appears that these excavations were under a room adjacent

Calandrino

in the church of San Lorenzo,

he has not only the wrong place, as

of theearly thebaptistery Christianbasilica conducted and, althoughthey broughtto light

to the sacristy, there has been no word of any further traces of the

45 Bandini, op. cit. (n. 9), 95 op. cit. (n. 44), 55 points out was in the original, and that place as domus nova above,

hesitantly followed by Lanciani, op. cit. (n. 16), vol. 1, 101. 46 accounts have versions of this story that imply that the pavement was Subsequent Bandini had already shown that these were just corruptions of Leto's version: Bandini, Rossi, op. cit. (n. 44), 56; a point emphasized by Sch?tz, op. cit. (n. 3), 440. 47 De Rossi, op. cit. (n. 44), 55 observes that the word vidimus in the margins of theMS not only had Leto's word for it, but saw the excavations himself. 48 Buchner, Sonnenuhr, op. cit. (n. 1), 51. 49 Buchner, Sonnenuhr, op. cit. (n. 1), 80.

but de Rossi, follows the MS and the early printing of this text in giving Epithaphium, that the abbreviated form ephm given in red in the margin of theMS was surely what epitaphium must be the scribe's conjecture. He thinks this should indicate the same so he tentatively conjectures ephebeum as a residence for young chaplains, and he is found in the church, but op. cit. (n. 9), 96 and de indicates that the student

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Horo Leto did not in factsay thatpieces of the Horologium.50 Schutzpointedout that In a subsequent logium were dug up in thechapel, but to littleeffect.5' publication, in Buchnerreiterates which he does attemptto respondto a fewof Schutz'sothercriticisms, In thislaterarticle, toSchutz's correction.52 and amplifies his error, without any reference he claims specifically thatpart of the Horologium was foundduring theconstruction of Rome Calandrino's tomb in thechapel around I463. In fact, Calandrino died away from in I476, and his bodywas not transferred toSan Lorenzo until much later.53 What is more,Buchneruses this erroneousassertionas thebasis forthesurprising idea he originally He thatthesizeof the described. AugustanHorologiumwas evenbiggerthan a circular now claims thatan evenvastercirclecircumscribed Horologium,with the winds on theoutercircle (seeFig. i,No. I3).54 The 'evidence'forthisis the inscription indicated BOREAS SPIRAT, quoted above,which Buchner stillclaimswas foundin thechurchof San Lorenzo, at thenorth-east edge of the Horologium, despite thefactthatSchutzhad ofPomponioLeto said.Further already pointedout thatthisisnot at allwhat thestudent to the more,Buchnerhas toclaim thatthe phrasebasis orologii in the passage above refers since the pavementratherthan thebase of theobelisk,which is possible but not likely, to fourcornersand seven stepsaround it.These words are hard to passage also refers with a discovery reconcile of a smallportionof theouteredgeof thepavement. Buchner's solution is to dismiss these inconvenient The real parts of thepassage as a 'fantasy'.55 with itsvast circular which is an attemptto salvage fantasyis this 'wind-rose' pavement, theerroneousclaim thatpart of the sundialwas found in San Lorenzo in the face of thattheshadowof the obeliskcould notusefully have reachedthat Schiitz'sdemonstration insucha fundamental is thatthis isnow enshrined far.56 The tragedy pure fiction reference work as the Lexicon Topographicum UrbisRomae.
VI AUGUSTUS AND THE NORTHERN CAMPUS MARTIUS

The most striking ofBuchner'soriginalclaimswas thattheeast-west lineon thesundial marked the that path of thesun's shadowon the day of theequinoxespassed right through Ara Pacis.Buchnerclaimedas a consequencethattheshadow cast by the the middle of the
50 The sacristy is the southernmost of the two westernmost (see Fig. i, No. 9); a plan of the church side-chapels with a key is given at M. E. Bertoldi, S. Lorenzo in Lucina (1994), 134-5, and see p. 39 on Calandrino's chapel. in Lucina', Bollettino di Archeologia 13?15 (1992), According toM. E. Bertoldi, 'L'area archeologica di San Lorenzo 127?34, at x33 and M. E. Bertoldi, 'The recognition of Jean Le Jeune's tomb and of the chapel of St John the Baptist 28 (2003), 28?31, at 28, the DAI was looking for traces of in San Lorenzo in Lucina in Rome', Opuscula Romana theHorologium pavement when the remains of the baptistery were found under the Sala dei Canonici, which is just north-west of the sacristy. See the sketch provided by F. Rakob at fig. 16, p. 133 of 'L'area archeologica', and the in Lucina, Jean Le Jeune, Jean Jouffroy and the search for manuscripts 'San Lorenzo photograph at A. Manfredi, in France during the papacy of Nicholas V (1447-1451)', Opuscula Romana 28 (2003), 9-28, at fig. 4, p. 12. From the sketches, it appears that there may also have been a trench dug in the sacristy, which was originally the chapel = in Lucina, fig. 4, p. 17. Presumably built by Calandrino: Bertoldi, S. Lorenzo fig. 9, p. 130 of 'L'area archeologica' no pavement was discovered under either of these rooms. 51 Sch?tz, op. cit. (n. 3), 4391. 52 Buchner, 'Neues zur Sonnenuhr des Augustus', op. cit. (n. 1). This evasion is noted by Schaldach, op. cit. (n. 6), 80 and Maes, op. cit. (n. 6), 23. 53 See Manfredi, the slightly different information of C. Gennaro, op. cit. (n. 50), 12, n. 15 and compare

K2

in Sch?tz, op. cit. (n. 3), 452, fig. 5. See Fig. 1,No. 13, which roughly corresponds to Sch?tz's circle Ki, at which in Buchner's that the ellipse of the shadow would measure later only 8 by 21 cm. Thus point he calculates reconstruction the sacristy no longer overlaps the sundial, but rather the newly-invented, circumscribed wind-rose.

inDizionario 'Calandrini, Filippo', (i960-), vol. 16, 450-2, at 452. biogr?fico degli Haliani 54 Buchner, 'Neues zur Sonnenuhr des Augustus', op. cit. (n. 1). 55 Buchner, 'Neues zur Sonnenuhr des Augustus', op. cit. (n. 1), 79-80, as noted byMaes, op. cit. (n. 6), 23. 56 On the shadow, see below. The two circles that delimit the extent of the sundial and its circumscribed wind-rose in Buchner's later reconstruction reflect fairly closely the two circles that Sch?tz drew to illustrate theminuscule size of the shadow at increasing distances: compare B?chner, op. cit. (n. 2), 392, fig. 22 with the circles labelled Ki and

AUGUSTUS,

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ball on topof theobelisk would fallon thealtaron theafternoon of theautumnequinox, was Augustus' birthday.57 most arresting which he claimed The two criticisms that Schutz, a physicist, made ofBuchner's work bothhave todowith his failure, despitetheapparatus of sundialsthathe displays,to realizetwo funda of technical detail regarding thetheory his originalreconstructions mental physicalfactsthatrender impossible. was thathe spent to The first of Buchner's technical failures many pages attempting deduce theoriginalheightand positionof theobelisk,not subsequently afterthe realizing discoveryof part of themeridian line that theoriginalheight and position could be calculated fromthat.Schutzdemonstrates thattheobeliskwas in fact straightforwardly of thepositionBuchnerhad reckoned, about 4 m to thesouth-west and theball at itstop m higher (see Fig. i, No. I).5' These alterations would seem to have the was about zV/Z Buchnerdrew,but in fact they potential to change thepositionof theequinox line that tendto cancelout so that, position accordingto thecalculationsof Schaldach, therevised of the line is only about half a metre southofwhereBuchnerput it, which iswithin the marginof errorforthecalculation.59 to the Schiitz'scorrections of theobeliskdo not Despite thefactthat positionand height in theplacementof theequinox line, make an enormousdifference Buchner inhismore recent of thehoro publicationshas been so keen to retainhis original reconstruction logiumthathe has posited without evidencethattheFlavian reconstruction of theinstru mentmust have involved uprootingtheobelisk fromitsoriginalposition and puttingit down again in thepositionSchutz calculated for it. Ifwe recall thatPliny said that the of theobeliskwere as deep as itwas high, it is quite clear thatshifting foundations the obeliskby a distanceof only 3 or 4m would have been a sheer waste of effort, as it would in thecourseof layingthenew.60 out theold foundations have involved digging criticism The second major technical that Schutz made ofBuchner'sattempt to linkthe obelisk and theAra Pacis was thatBuchner's original illustrations depict the obelisk casting a sharp shadow across theCampus and on the altar. Schutz points out that more diffuse thefarther untilat a certain shadowsgrow distancethey disappear. they fall, Thus theshadow of theball on topof theobeliskwould have disappeared well beforeit Ara Pacis.61 meridian linesin Italianchurches, suchas theone hit the Many will have seen inSantaMaria degli Francesco Bianchini installed that Angeli on Piazza dellaRepubblica, of the Baths of whichwas constructed by Michaelangelo out of thecavernoustepidarium were set up in part to help check the accuracyof the Diocletian. These instruments incon of thecalendar,justasAugustus'meridianhad beenconstructed Gregorianreform In order to avoid theveryproblemof theblurring nection with theJulian reform. of ofAugustus' obelisk as an instrument for shadows that will have impairedtheusefulness with thenoontime meridians like Bianchini'swere setup indoors, precise measurement,

calculations fundamentally assume that the degree markers are evenly spaced. 60 Schaldach, op. cit. (n. 6), 89-90. 61 The obelisk is shown with a ball on top, just as Pliny describes, on the relief from the base of the column of Antoninus Pius that shows the apotheosis of the emperor and his wife as they rise from the Campus Martius.

is true, though Sch?tz can hardly be blamed for not noticing it, as it is very obscure in Buchner's original sketch of the pavement. It is scarcely discernible in Buchner, Sonnenuhr, op. cit. (n. 1), fig. 5, p. 70, though it is visible in the photographs, e.g. Buchner, Sonnenuhr, op. cit. (n. 1), fig. 4, p. no. Buchner's subsequent sketches do show it clearly: Buchner, 'Neues zur Sonnenuhr des Augustus', op. cit. (n. 1), fig. 85, p. 82 and Buchner, op. cit. (n. 2), fig. 23, p. 392. Though the presence of this extra degree marker does affect the calculation of the height and position of the obelisk, it does not change it to a new value, as B?chner claims; it adds a larger margin of error to the calculations, as the

57 Buchner, Sonnenuhr, op. cit. (n. i), 37. 58 Sch?tz, op. cit. (n. 3), 455-7. 59 B?chner had insisted that the height of the obelisk must have been 100 Roman feet, on which insistence see Sch?tz, op. cit. (n. 3), 436?42. In this light it is interesting to note that Schaldach, op. cit. (n. 6), 88, calculates, on 100 Doric, not Roman, feet. In reply to Sch?tz's the basis of Sch?tz's method, that the height was approximately calculations, B?chner has pointed out that he did not notice the presence at the beginning of Virgo / end of Aries of an additional cross-stroke intercalated between two of the regular strokes indicating the degrees of the zodiac. This

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elevation of the sun indicated by a beam of light that passed

was precisely on the autumn equinox, but these do not concern us here.63 In a way, perhaps natural that a scientist would do so. For these are not in fact the most

of thechurch.62 thebuildingand landedat noon on a stripin thefloor Augustus' birthday There are also technical objections todo withBuchner'sclaim that
it is a serious

through a pinhole high up on

shame thatSchutz laid somuch emphasison thesenarrow technical errors,thoughit is

weaknesses thatSchutz pointed out inBuchner's argument,thoughtheyare themost Much more damningishis accountof theskewed spectacular.64 way Buchnerpresented the evidencefrom Pomponio Leto. As a result of the Pliny,fromtheexcavations,and from not on these errorsinhandlingtheevidence, but on thenarrow technical focus criticisms, some of thedetailsofBuchner's somehave chosen to imaginethat Schutzmerely refuted ratherthanexploding itentirely. Some have therefore reconstruction wanted tomodify so as to side-stepthe technical Buchner'soriginalproposal slightly problems.For those who wish to salvage Buchner'sconnection betweenaltarand obelisk, theanswerhas been to imaginethattheviewer would see theshadow of thetopmost globe headingeastward positionof theshadow of theobelisk at any timebut noon. The shadow of theobelisk
would have pointed at the Ara Pacis every single afternoon of the year, so without an east-west line in the pavement to draw attention to the path of the globe after noon, the viewer would be unlikely to make a connection with any particular day or season of the due to their very close physical proximity in the open spaces of the northern Campus. toward the altar on the equinox even if it never quite made it there.65The problem is that there is no evidence to suggest that the viewer's attention would have been drawn to the

monuments would certainly have been seen as related, year.On theotherhand, the two
on the right track, as the altar and obelisk were built so close together in time and in space,

In regardto thesignificance of the physical positioning of the monuments, Buchner was

one respect, thegeneralforce ofBuchner's ideasdo broadly and in this withstandSchiitz's narrow technical criticisms.66 Buchner claimed that the angle at which theobeliskwas at the Mausoleum ofAugustus in thedistance.Schutzpointed placedmade itfacedirectly
to have been I50 when the base was found in SitU.67 In reality, however, this discrepancy was unlikely to have been disturbing to the viewer. The striking thingwill have been that

whereas thisanglewas measured by one ofBandini's collaborators, JamesStuart, north,

out that this argument required the original angle of the obelisk base to be i80 37' west of

the obelisk was clearlynot alignedwith the truenorth-south line described by the with thecourse of theVia Flaminia, meridian below it. Instead itwas aligned roughly
which

would
62 63

fact that thevisual linebetween theobelisk and the Mausoleum is parallel to theVia The spectator'seye Flaminia (bothabout i80 west of north) is surelyno coincidence.69
have been drawn to this alignment by the conspicuous fact that the sides of the

ran through the northern Campus

at an angle of about i80 west of true north.68 The

(1999). J. L. Heilbron, The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories Sch?tz, op. cit. (n. 3), 446-9 and Schmid, op. cit. (n. 5), 311-13. On the date of Augustus' birthday, see 10 (1980), 327-55, at 334-5; on B?chner W. Chiron and Augustus' Suerbaum, 'Merkw?rdige Geburtstage', see T. Barton, with Capricorn, association and imperial 'Augustus and Capricorn: astrological polyvalency rhetoric', JRS 85 (1995)? 33~5i> at 44-7. 64 pace Schmid, op. cit. (n. 5), 308-9, and Beck, op. cit. (n. 29), 105. 65 Beck, op. cit. (n. 29), 105 and Hannah, op. cit. (n. 31), 129. 66 See also T. S. Barton, Power and Knowledge: Astrology, Physiognomies, and Medicine under theRoman Empire (1994), 46-7. 67 See Sch?tz, op. cit. (n. 3), 449-50, with fig. 4. 68 on a satellite image of the Campus This is the approximate angle of the modern Via del Corso, as measured Martius accessed 15 August 2006). That this satellite image is not (http://maps.google.com, provided by Google skewed from true north can be confirmed by the vertical orientation of the present-day meridian line in Piazza Montecitorio. 69 as 180 37', Buchner, Sonnenuhr, op. cit. (n. 1), 54, gives the angle of the line from the obelisk to theMausoleum but this would have to be modified in the light of Sch?tz's adjustment to the position of the obelisk. In any case, the figure is approximately 180.

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meridian,even if its obeliskwere orientated well away fromthenorth-southlineof the of thenorthern Campus. westward tilt of i50was slightly less thanthei80 of therest of thesethree Augustanmonumentsin In fact,theconnection betweenthepositioning mathematical calculations, the northern CampusMartius does notdependon anycomplex considerations of urbandesign. When Schiitz'scorrection but arises from straightforward to the locationof theobelisk is takenintoaccount,a linedrawn through theobelisk and Via Flaminiawill pass through Ara Pacis.0 Inother thecentre of the perpendicular to the on an imaginary words, theconnection betweenthealtarand theobelisk isnot dependent evidentin thepositioning and equinox lineof a fictitious sundial,butwas immediately monumentsthemselves. This isnot surprising orientation of the monu giventhatthetwo mentswere erected nearlycontemporaneously. The building of the Ara Paciswas decreed Ara Pacis in I3 B.C.;Lepidus died in i3 or IS B.C.; theobeliskwas erectedin IO B.C.; the How shouldwe was dedicated in 9 B.C., on Livia's birthday, probably her fiftieth.7' Buchnerclaimed that thecomplexof interpret thesecarefully composed juxtapositions? monuments ofAugustus'birth(via theequinoctal line three provideda unified symbolism on his birthday), that was supposed to have special significance and his death (via the as thereisno evidenceforan east-westequinoctal line, Mausoleum).72This isuntenable, monumentscannotbe interpreted as a group. but that does notmean thatthese Let us imagine what would have been evidentto a groupof visitorsto thiscomplex in Via Flaminia, they northon the will findthe Augustus' day. If theyleave Rome travelling itsfaceparallel to theroad.Standinginfront of the Ara Pacis justofftheroadon theleft, of thealtar.The obelisk from behind thecentre altar, theysee theobelisk rising directly faces them almost as squarelyas thealtar (about I8-i5 = 30offsquare).The privileged who put an archover the natureof this vantagepointwas emphasizedby a laterbuilder, Ifour travellers leave theroad,pass Via Flaminia right afterthisspot (seeFig. I,No. IO).73 come rightto theobelisk. thealtar precinctand proceed in a straight through line,they From there but it will infact have seemedtopoint I80 east meridian linepointsnorth, the with respectto thedominantaxis of thearea as defined by theVia Flaminia,which is monuments. When looking offintothedistance, orientation of the echoed in the Augustan not follow the line of themeridian, but would follow the theireyeswould therefore at the Mauso theobeliskdirectly of the direction dominantaxis,whichwould point from So thenorthern side of theobelisk faced the leum (again,give or take an angle of 30).74 western sideof the Ara Pacis facedeach other Mausoleum, while itseasternside and the squarely. was deliberately So it isclear thatthistrio ofmonuments of a right arrangedintheform relationship.75 ofAugustus' career. We This triangle has symbolic possibilitiesin thelight
70 See Fig. i, line connecting i and 2. This was noted in passing by Sch?tz, op. cit. (n. 3), 452, fig. 5, and has rightly been emphasized by Schaldach, op. cit. (n. 6), 91?2. 71 A. A. Barrett, 'The year of Livia's birth', Classical Quarterly 49 (1999), 630-2, at 632. 72 Buchner, Sonnenuhr, op. cit. (n. 1), 55. 73 The so-called Arco di Portogallo, now destroyed and of uncertain date: Platner and Ashby, op. cit. (n. 17), 33. For the position, see Bertoldi, op. cit. (n. 50, 1994), 13, fig. 2 = Rakob, op. cit. (n. 27), 699, fig. 5. 74 were put there by Augustus, and so the eye would Mausoleum Alf?ldy suggests that the obelisks in front of the have been moving from one obelisk to another: G. Alf?ldy, Der Obelisk auf dem Petersplatz inRom (1990), 52 with n. 102, 57, 64 with fig. 14. The difficulty is that these obelisks are not mentioned in Strabo's description of the or in Pliny's discussion of the obelisks of Rome, so they are usually thought to have been put there at a Mausoleum

triangle, and that the orientation

of the individual monuments

emphasized

this mutual

later date (cf.Ammianus 17.4.16). On the possible alignment of the Ustrinum with this axis, see J. R. Patterson, 'The to Empire', JRS 82 (1992), 186-215, at *99 and F. Coarelli, //Campo Marzio: dalle city of Rome: from Republic (1997), 599. origini alia fine della Repubblica 75 and though the position of the obelisk in his Though misled by B?chner about the size of the horologium, illustration needs to be adjusted slightly to the south-west, Alf?ldy had already suggested that this was a triangular composition: Alf?ldy, op. cit. (n. 74), 64 with fig. 14. Schaldach, op. cit. (n. 6), 91 with fig. 51 furthermore notes that itmay be a perfect right triangle with a 90 degree angle at the obelisk; he cautions that exact measurements would have to be taken to confirm this. Ifwe move away from the expectations of gnomonics and mathematics, however, to the urban perspective of the casual viewer, the right triangle is already clear enough.

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was thedeathofLepidus inexile have seen thattheoccasion fortheerection of theobelisk man to calendar. and thatits messagewas that Augustuswas theright manage his father's The Mausoleum ofAugustus had likewisebeen built as a pointed riposteto an absent triumvir: itemphasized Octavian's commitment to stayinginRome upon his triumphant returnfromtheEast in pointed contrast toAntony's reported desire to be buried on A triangle Alexandria.76 ofmonuments,one foreach triumvir: the was Mausoleum that was built afterthepeaceful built aftertheviolentdefeatofAntony, the meridian that supersessionof Lepidus, and theAra Pacis for the blood-stainedOctavian who was intoAugustus, bringer on theobelisk implicitly transformed of peace. The inscription triumvirs: the theoffice refers toeach of thethree Augustus,havingjustreceived dedicator, Maximus from of Pontifex Lepidus in a peaceful succession, looks back pointedly to Actium and theyoungOctavian's violentusurpationofAntony's dominions in theEast ('Aegupto inpotestatem populi Romani redacta').The meridian not onlymeasured the progress of thesun through theyear; italso recordedthededicator'sprogressfromtrium vir toprinceps,from man ofwar toman of peace. can be read together. The obelisk, whichmarks Each pair ofmonumentsin thetriangle was dedicated exactly twenty the final, lingering end of the triumvirate, years after Octavian's entry into Alexandria and looksacross the Campus at the Mausoleum, amonu on it are ment built upon his returnthence; itsEgyptian origin and the inscription reminders of theopposition betweenEast andWest in theyears beforeActium. The Mausoleum, a buildingfordeath,was built justaftera bloody timeof civilwar, and it and new life. faces thealtar thatcelebrates Hannah pointsout thatthe peace, fecundity, Ara Pacis is Egyptianoriginof theobelisk reflects thepacification of the East, justas the of the West.77The meridian, which illustrates associated with thepacification thepassing monumentfortheJulii:the life. Each of thethreeis a family Mausoleum fortheir burial; whichwas dedicatedon Livia's birthday, thealtar, depictingtheminprocession;and the momentwhen finally, as an ostentatioustokenof meridian thatcelebratesthe late in life, his unsurpassedclemency and forbearance, Augustus tookover thepositionof Pontifex Maximus thathis father had occupied early in life,as a tokenof his unprecedented
ambition7 of the days and the return of the years, looks with one face at death and with another at

VII

DOMITIAN

AS BUILDER

AND

PONTIFEX

Now that we have a senseof the symbolic purposes of the monumental solarmeridian constructedby Augustus, we can try to understandwhat motivated Domitian to reconstruct thatPliny tellsus had grown inaccurate the over time. Augustan instrument had settled, in thealluvial Presumablytheobeliskand/orthepavement perhapsunevenly, soil of the flood-prone Domitian's astronomersfelt that the Campus and presumably had now stopped,so thatthepath of thenoonday shadow had ceased to swerve settling fromitsprevious course.79 A new pavement was therefore laid that made the readings accurateoncemore. The factthatthis was reusedas thebase of a water basin pavement not longafterwards thattheobeliskor thepavement had not infactceased to may suggest
was built in 28 b.c., the year after Octavian's According to Suetonius {Aug. ioo), theMausoleum triple triumph. 77 Hannah, op. cit. (n. 31), 129. 78 For the emphasis Augustus wished to put upon his indulgence with respect to Lepidus and the pontificate, see Res Gestae 10.2. 79 at the same time that the new pavement was The other possibility is that the obelisk was re-erected by Domitian laid, as B?chner now claims: B?chner, op. cit. (n. 2), 36. If so, it ismost unlikely that itwould have been re-erected a few metres away from its original position, as B?chner wishes, so we have to confront the possibility that Domitian moved it from an entirely different position in the Campus. On balance, however, this seems a very unlikely scenario. The precise Augustus than Domitian. triangulation of Augustan monuments is more likely to have been designed under 76

AUGUSTUS,

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SO-CALLED

HOROLOGIUM

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went out of true as fastas the Augustanone had subside, and thatthe Domitianicmeridian in Domitian's refurbishment, to done.80 Theremay have been a practicalelementinvolved as custodianof theRoman make the instrument usefulagain, but hismain innovation monthsof the yearafter himself. calendar was symbolic rather than practical:toname two Renewing themonumentalmeridianwill have been similarlysymbolicof Domitian's inheritance ofAugustus'mantle.81 with one particularaspectof Refurbishing the meridianwas also a gestureinkeeping and renewal.The Flavians the great Flavian building programmeof reconstruction emphasizedcontinuity with thepre-Neronian Julio-Claudian dynastyin such a way that criticism ofNero.82In somecases this was fairly obvious, suchas there was oftenimplicit DeifiedClaudius in spiteofNero, who was whenVespasian completedthe Temple of the Inothercases, it was more subtle, major accusedof havingdestroyedit.83 aswith thethree structures thattook theplace ofNero's GoldenHouse: the Baths ofTitus, Colosseum, the Domus Flavia. The Colosseum andBathswere builton thesiteofNero's Golden and the and indeliberate contrastto thosestructures. House and nearhis colossal statue, Whereas was uselessand decorative,the Colosseum andBathswere built forthe thecolossal statue use of thepeople.Whereas the Golden House blurredthedistinction betweencityand Greekmodels, theamphitheatre and country, public and private in a way thatemulated Roman structures thatenforced of social hier bathswere quintessentially distinctions as a privatestructure, the Whereas the housewas stigmatized works of the Flavians archy. were celebratedas a public good.84 The Colosseum followedanAugustanprecedent, the stoneamphitheatre of Statilius Nero in the Great Taurus,which had burneddown under of orderson its facade echoed thedesign of the theatre of Fire, and thesuperposition
Marcellus.85

A similarpoint can be made with respect to the Flavians' own residence. The deliberately low-key dwellingofAugustus on thePalatine had been added to piecemeal Nero builthis grandDomus Aurea, whichwound its until way down fromthePalatine,
into the Forum valley, and up the Esquline again.6 In contrast to Nero, the Flavians

emulated returned squarelyto the Palatine,and builta house that Augustus in itslocation even as itmassively surpassedhis house in scale. IfNero was thebad Julio-Claudian builder whose works theFlavians turned away from,then Augustuswas thegood, but modest builder, whose works were to be amplified.In theCampusMartius, somewhat Greek games in celebration of thevictoryat Augustus had built a wooden stadiumfor Actium;Nero built a wooden amphitheatre there; Domitian, emulating Augustus rather stone stadiumfor Nero and out-doing them Greek games than both,built a permanent there.87 Augustuserectedan obelisk in the CampusMartius; so didDomitian. way inwhich Domitian emulated Augustus as Also relevantforour purposes is the Suetoniusgives Maximus inhis concernfor Pontifex private moralityand public religion.88 a long listofmeasures he took to regulatesexual behaviour,and alsomentionsedicts to
80 On the date of the water basin, see Rakob, op. cit. (n. 27), 700 and Buchner, Sonnenuhr, op. cit. (n. 1), 76. 81 see K. M. Coleman On Domitian's (ed.), Statius, Silvae IV (1988), 80. renaming of September and October, 82 in The Cambridge Ancient History, On the Flavian building programme, see M. Griffin, 'The Flavians', (2nd 'Flaviana', JRS 27 (1937), 54-62, at 54-60; and J. Leberl, edn, 2000), vol. n, 1-83, at 19-21; M. P. Charlesworth, Domitian der HerrschaftsdarStellung und die Dichter: Poesie als Medium (2004), 2.5-86. 83 Suet., Vesp. 9 with Griffin, op. cit. (n. 82), 19-20. 84 These are the themes ofMart., Lib. Spect. 2. 85 Cass. Dio 62.18.2., and see Richardson, op. cit. (n. 2), 383. 86 Suet., Nero 31.1. 87 On Augustus' stadium is now Piazza stadium, Dio 53.1.5; on Nero's amphitheatre, Suet., Nero 12.1; Domitian's Navona: Platner and Ashby, op. cit. (n. 17), 495-6. Both also built venues for sea-fights along the Tiber: Res Gestae 23 and Suet., Dom. 4.2, on which see K. M. Coleman, 'Launching into history: aquatic displays in the early Empire', JRS 83 (1993). 48-74, at 51-5. 88 'La "correctio morum" nella legislazione flavia', On the Flavian programme of moral reform, see F. Grelle, Suetonius: der r?mischen Welt 2.13 (1980), 340?65 and more briefly A. Wallace-Hadrill, Aufstieg und Niedergang The Scholar and His Caesars (1983), 186-7.

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He also punishedseveral prohibit castration and todiscouragethe ofvines. planting Vestal Virgins and theirloversforunchastity.89 The poets credit Domitian with having given He carriedout an extensivepro renewedforce toAugustus' Lex Iulia de adulteriis.90 gramme of construction of temples, which also recallsthepriorities and refurbishment of measureswere takeninhis capacityas censor,but others,such Augustus.91 Many of these have been takenas Pontifex.92 as his punishment of the All of this Vestals,will certainly that Domitian was keen to show thathewas takingthoseoffices as seriously as suggests inkeeping Augustushad done. Refurbishing the meridianwas therefore with thegeneral as harking of the Flavian building back to thrust models. It programme Augustan may also beworth speculating on a more specific message it may have carried.
VIII PHAETHON AND NERO

The meridian constructed byAugustus had a positive message, thatthecalendarwas in of Lepidus,who had good hands again, and a negativeone, thatthe feckless pontificate was over.Justso,Domitian's refurbishment allowedCaesar's calendar todriftintoerror, monumenthad a positive implication, that the institutions ofAugustuswere in of that good hands again, and a negativeone, thatover the lateryears of theJulio-Claudian had managed todriftintoerror.93 The failure of thenoonday shadow to dynasty,things of a world out of joint. fall where itshould would have been a vividvisual representation Pliny,even though he knew thattheerror may have beendue to local subsidence, allowed himselfto speculatethat it fromitscourseor theearth might be due to the sun shifting moving fromitsposition.The erroneousposition of the meridian's shadow could thus have been read as a visual representation of thesun swerving fromitspath, as happened in the mythofPhaethon,a storythatexemplified thedangersof an unfit son succeedingto his father's position.There is some evidence to suggestthat this mythwas particularly and sowe can speculateon how thesymbolism associated withNero inFlavian ideology, in such a context. of there-aligned meridian might function Nero soughtto associatehimselfto somedegree with thesun-god The claim that has a Some have gone so faras to claim that but itcontinuesto be controversial.94 longhistory, Nero deliberately a paradigmof folly cultivatedan associationwith Phaethon, turning intoa heroof noble ambition.95 The difficulty of interpreting theevidenceis illustrated by theprefacetoLucan's epic, in Nero ispicturedas taking which thedeified controlof the chariotof the sun in termsthatcannot help but bring tomind the myth of Phaethon. onwhether we are to imagine Nero as succeeding Opinions differ brilliantly where Phae nihil thonfailed ('telluremque mutato sole timentem', justas badly as I.49), or as failing Phaethon did in the traditional version, as inOvid's Metamorphoses.96 Whatever the answerto these questionsaboutNero's self-identification, thereisno doubt thatinFlavian ideologythetraditional mythofPhaethoncould have been takenas an apt accountof how Nero foundhimself thefeckless Given that unequal to his position.97 Nero claimed to be theequal ofApollo as a singer and theequal of theSun as a charioteer, and given thathe
89 Suet., Dom. 7.1 and 8.3-4 witn Griffin, op. cit. (n. 82), 79-80. 90 Martial 6.7 and Stat., Silv. 5.2.101-2 with Grelle, op. cit. (n. 88), 346. 91 See B. W. Jones, The Emperor Domitian (1992), 79?94. 92 See B. W. Jones (ed.), Suetonius, Domitian (1996), 73 and 76; Grelle, op. cit. (n. 88), 345; and Coleman, op. cit. (n. 81), 107. 93 Pliny's figure of thirty years for the length of time that the meridian had been in error puts the start of it back to the middle of Claudius' principate, but the longest period of error would have been Nero's reign. 94 See M. T. Griffin, Nero: The End of a Dynasty (1984), 215-20 for a sceptical view, and contrast E. Champlin, Nero (2003), 112-44. 95 ou la t?m?rit? sublime', Revue des Etudes Latines 66 (1988), 139-55, followed by L. Duret, 'N?ron-Pha?thon, Champlin, op. cit. (n. 94), 134-5. 96 'Generalising about Ovid', Ramus 16 (1987), 4-31, at 28-9 and M. Dewar, 'Laying iton with Compare S. Hinds, a trowel: the proem to Lucan and related texts', Classical Quarterly 44 (1994), 199?211, at 211. 97 Thus C. E. Newlands, Statius' Silvae and the Poetics of Empire (2002), 315-16.

AUGUSTUS,

DOMITIAN

AND

THE

SO-CALLED

HOROLOGIUM

AUGUSTI

I9

presidedover the Great Fire ofA.D. 64, theretrospective association with Phaethonseems That such a metaphorwas available is shown in another contextwhen inevitable.98 Suetoniusquotes Tiberius callingCaligula a Phaethon for theworld.99 We have some indirect evidencethat Domitian himself found Phaethona congenialtopic. When theboy in Q. Sulpicius Maximus competedsuccessfully Domitian's games inhonourofCapitoline inA.D. 94, he did sowith an impromptu Jupiter compositionin Greek hexameters of the rebuke delivered byZeus toHelios for lending his chariottoPhaethon.100 The subjectof on these thecompositions occasionswas alwaysJupiter/Zeus, and theemperor presidedin In order to preventcontestantsfrompreparing theirextemporeentries in person.101 must have been set by the judgeson the spot.102 advance, the specifictheme Since the presidingjudge in thiscase was Domitian, Phaethonwas presumably his own personal choiceof topic. Perhaps thesuccessof theyoungpoetwas due to the way he pickedup on theallegorythat theemperor wanted thecontestantsto articulate: Phaethon for Nero, Helios for Augustus,and Zeus for Domitian.103
IX CONCLUSION

There have always been reasons to be scepticalof Buchner's reconstruction of a vast sundial in the CampusMartius. There existed largepublic sundials in the Roman world, were of a size thatleft but these at one glance; themlegible Buchner's would have been ten timeslarger.104 we have Strabo's extensivereport Furthermore, of theappearanceof the CampusMartius in theage ofAugustus, which, thoughitdwells at length on the Mauso leum, does notmentionamonumentthat could have coveredan area of groundas largeas the Nor do the All this Mausoleum itself.105 Augustanpoetsmention it.106 provesnothing, but itdoesmean we shouldperhapshesitatebeforeadding a massivelyexpansive monu ment to the Roman landscape. Buchner'sgeneralreconstruction had alreadybeenproposedbyKircherand Masi inthe andwas comprehensively refuted seventeenth century byBandini and his collaboratorsin theeighteenth. The recently-discovered archaeologicalevidencedoes nothingto change theirconclusions.There have been excavationson both sides of themeridian, in the middle ofVia di Campo Marzio to its west and under theside-chapels of San Lorenzo in Lucina to its east, and numerousbore-holeshave been drilled elsewhere inBuchner's proposedgrid,but no trace of pavement outside the meridian linehas beendiscovered. So the discoveryof themeridian line and the failure to discover anythingelse adds circumstantial of Pliny. Of course, Buchner's weight to Bandini's interpretation even iftheentire cannot everbe disprovedabsolutely, reconstruction Campus were dug up. Currentevidence, however,compelsus to accept thesimpler explanation.107 that The complex symbolism Buchner claimedwas articulatedby the monuments is One of theattractions appealing,and someof it,aswe have seen,canwithstandscrutiny. of his interpretation lies in the exactness whichwere claimed of hiscalculations, purported
98 Suet., Nero 53. On Nero's passion for chariot-racing and lyre-playing, see also Tac, Ann. 14.14. 99 Suet., Cal. 11.1. 100 CIL 6.33^76 with M. L. Caldelli, L'Agon Capitolinus (1993), 126, no. 7. 101 Quint., Inst. Or. 3.7.4 and Suet., Dom. 4.4 with Caldelli, op. cit. (n. 100), 65, 68. 102 owe I this point to Kathy Coleman. 103 On the association Domitian cultivated with Capitoline Jupiter, see Caldelli, op. cit. (n. 100), 62-7 and Leberl, op. cit. (n. 82), 51-2. 104 Thus Schaldach, op. cit. (n. 6), 80; see also Guerbabi, op. cit. (n. 32) and Buchner, 'Neues zur Sonnenuhr des

Augustus', op. cit. (n. 1), 79. 105 Strabo 5.3.8. Ammianus mentions this obelisk, but says nothing more about it (17.4.12), which is to be expected if the meridian pavement lay underneath a water basin by his day. 106 references to the Horologium 1, 68 and 3, pace C. J. Simpson, '"Unexpected" Augusti at Ovid Ars Amatoria 80 (1992), 478-84. 388', Athenaeum 107 pace Beck, op. cit. (n. 29), 104, who wishes to invert the burden of proof, saying that 'Nothing in the excavations disconfirms a full grid [of an extensive sundial]'.

20

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HESLIN

confirmed to have been precisely Mathematical precisionpromises by theexcavations.108 of these out of theinterpretation to take the doubt and subjectivity monuments, but thisis who was convincedthat forinterpreting a chimera. he had a skeleton-key Anotherscholar whom the idea of the theobelisksofRome was AthanasiusKircher,from Horologium as derives. thatthehiero a vast horizontalsundialultimately Kircherpersistedin insisting on Rome's obeliskscontainedancient glyphs Egyptian, hermetic wisdom, despite thefact that theantiquity of theCorpus Hermeticumhad alreadybeen debunked famously by he bears todayas thefounder won him thetitle of Casaubon.109 Nonetheless,his industry erroneousvision, Coptic studies. Buchner's similarly single-minded pursuitof an utterly and quite unexpected resultof uncoveringan important Flavian monumentwhose existencehad never even been suspected,and which otherwise would neverhave been found. That monument providesuswith fascinating evidencefortheideologicalsubtlety of the Flavian buildingprogramme.It has longbeen known that theFlavians emphasized that were bringing of thepre-Neronian Even back thestability they Julio-Claudian period.110 Augustus was not beyond criticism, however, as we see when Statius celebrates the seventeenth ofDomitian:111 consulship annis ter Latios deciesquetulit labentibus Augustusfasces, sedcoepitsero mereri: tu iuvenis avos. praegressus
Augustus held the consulship thirteen times over the years, but only late in life did he begin to deserve it; you as a young man have outstripped your ancestors. Augustus was along with the resources that he brought to bear as the head of the DAI, had the positive

wars, and of course he never managed

a spare."' The Julio-Claudian

but he had his flaws:he began his reign drenched in theblood of endless civil dynasty,
to sort out the succession very well.112 By contrast,
gave Caligula to Rome and ran into the ground succession

a model

to be emulated as the founder of the only previous Roman

imperial

Vespasian came to theprincipate aftera briefstruggle, alreadyequippedwith an heirand

with

in theglory Flavian dynasty and better, By contrast, the got better culminating supposedly
that was Domitian. When, after his death, Juvenal called Domitian a 'bald Nero' the

the reign of Nero, whom

the Flavians

painted as the anti-type of the good emperor.

indistin phrase bit particularly deep because theFlavians had expended somuch effort with the 'good' Julio guishing themselvesfromNero, and associating themselves What therefurbishment ofAugustus'meridiandidwas to represent Claudians.114 graphi
cally this sense that theworld was being put back to rights after having run off the rails

The Flavian buildingprogrammethus during theend of theprevious imperial dynasty. a sophisticated communicated message: that the institutions foundedbyAugustuswere inprinciple inexecutionand thatthey but imperfect praiseworthy had been re-founded on
a more secure basis.

Durham University p.j .heslin~durham.ac.uk

see Sch?tz, op. cit. (n. 3), 442-6, F. de Vries, 'De Antieke the specious exactitude of Buchner's calculations, van Keizer Augustus', Bulletin, De Zonnewijzerkring op. cit. (n. 6), 20 Zonnewijzer 84.2 (1984), 19-21 and Maes, with fig. 10. 109 In this error, Kircher was following in the footsteps of Pliny, NH 36.71. 110 e.g. Griffin, op. cit. (n. 82), 11: 'Continuity with the Julio-Claudian Principate in its respectable form, i.e. with ... cites all of these emperors as Augustus, Tiberius and Claudius, was advertised. The Lex de Imperio Vespasiani alone in one.' precedents in four of its eight clauses and Claudius 111 Stat., Silv. 4.1.31-33. 112 See Coleman, op. cit. (n. 81), 76L 113 See Tac, Hist. 2.77 with Griffin, op. cit. (n. 82), 15-16. 114 on the Satires of Juvenal (1980) and S. M. Braund (ed.), A Commentary (ed.), Juv. 4.38, contra E. Courtney Juvenal, Satires, Book 1 (1996), ad loc. 108 On