The Partial Historians: Augustus' Mausoleum with Dr Victoria Austen

Introducing the Partial Historians, an Ancient Roman History Podcast, part of the Memory Collective Podcast Network! This episode originally aired on the PH feed in spring 2024. Dr Rad and Dr G speak with Dr Victoria Austen (also a friend of LTAMB!) about Augustus' Mausoleum in Rome. And, not to worry, there are plenty of jabs at Augustus, as is only right. Find more from the Partial Historians here https://partialhistorians.com/. Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here:mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. The Partial Historian's music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com grouptrip.

• 0:43Speaker 01

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• 2:12Liv Albert?

  Hello, this is Let's Talk About Myths, baby, except not really, not today. Today, once again, I am here with a special episode, not from me, your regular host, Liv, but from one of the new podcasts, or rather, the very pre-existing podcasts that have newly joined the Memory Collective Podcast Network. Now, we are still in these really early stages of figuring out what everything in this collective and network are going to look like. It's very slow-going because, you know, it's all being done in what little free time any of us can scrounge up.

• 2:57Liv Albert?

  But I'm so grateful to have so many amazing podcasters that I could immediately reach out to and say, "Hey, do you want to be part of this thing that I'm trying to build?" So that part is coming along a little smoother than everything else. And so today, I am here presenting an episode from the third podcast to join our little network, The Partial Historians. Now, The Partial Historians, you will know them from past episodes of my podcast, as well as bonus episodes that we've done for both of our Patreons. But specifically, these two ladies, Dr. Rad and Dr. G, have been at podcasting far longer than me.

• 3:39Liv Albert?

  They're going on or past their 10-year anniversary, which is just so cool. I have been friends with these ladies since I started, I think, or at least very early on in my podcasting days. They're just so delightful, covering Rome in a way that is accessible and interesting and lacks all of the ragey dude bros who love to talk about Rome. And so, obviously, we love them. And this episode is- Well, it features another past guest of the podcast who I also love. This is an episode they did last year with Victoria Austin about Augustus's mausoleum.

• 4:21Liv Albert?

  Lots to do with just Rome in general. Again, that stuff is so interesting, but which I don't regularly bring you because I'm just not all about Roman historical content unless someone wants to come on my show and tell me about it, which again, I do welcome. But thankfully, the Partial Historians are here to give you all of the really nitty gritty Roman history, not least because they are both professors of exactly that, but also they're just fun. And Victoria Austin is another incredible scholar in this field, but also friend of mine. We once sang karaoke to Disney's Hercules and it was truly delightful, truly delightful. And so I'm thrilled to have this episode play with Vicky. You can

• 5:04Liv Albert?

  find more from the Partial Historians wherever you're listening to this. Search for the Partial Historians. They are utterly delightful and have so much Roman history to give you. And we will all be bringing you more things together as well. I'm going to be sitting down with Dr. G very soon to talk about the Vestal Virgins because, oh my God, there are some things in Rome that I am desperate to know about, provided I have an expert come to tell me about those things. But until then, please enjoy this episode of Partial Historians and check them out wherever you're listening right now. There are also links in the episode's description as always.

• 5:56Speaker 03

  Welcome to the Partial Historians.

• 5:59Speaker 04

  We explore all the details of ancient Rome.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Rad.

• 6:14Speaker 04

  And I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.

• 6:25Speaker 03

  Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

• 6:45Speaker 04

  Hello and welcome to a very special episode of The Partial Historians. Dr Rad and myself, Dr G, are thrilled to welcome back Dr Victoria Austin to the show. And you might remember her fantastic conversation with us a little while back now about Augustus and temporal space and representation. And today, we're going to be looking at Augustus's Mausoleum. So, a quick bio. Dr Victoria Austin holds an MA and a PhD from King's College London.

• 7:25Speaker 04

  She has lectured in the Classics at the University of Winnipeg and is currently the Robert A. Oden Jr. Postdoctoral Fellow for Innovation in the Humanities and Classics at Carlton College, Minnesota. Her research interests span the Latin literature of the Late Republic and Early Empire, ancient Roman gardens and landscapes, race and ethnicity in the ancient world, the reception of classical myth and the integration of digital humanities into the classroom. Austin's monograph, Analysing the Boundaries of the Roman Garden: Reframing the Hortus, was released in 2023 as part of the Bloomsbury Ancient Environment Series.

• 8:07Speaker 04

  And coming up, Vicky is currently partway through a series of talks for the American Institute of Archaeology on Gardens and Commemoration. Welcome back, Vicky.

• 8:18Speaker 05

  Yay, so great to be back. I'm so, so excited to talk more things, Augustus. As we know, I'm a big fan.

• 8:25Speaker 04

  Me too. Dr Rad is outnumbered.

• 8:28Speaker 05

  We've already got eye roll, already.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  I was, I was going to say, look, I'm very happy to see you again, but less happy to see your friend.

• 8:39Speaker 05

  Ouch, ouch.

• 8:41Speaker 03

  But look, you know what? I am going to embrace it because I have some fantastic dad jokes here. So Augustus' mausoleum, you might say that everyone in the Julio-Claudian period is just dying to get in.

• 8:57Speaker 05

  Amazing. I mean, ten out of ten. No comments. Flawless.

• 9:04Speaker 03

  So look, let's start with the basics. Dr. Austin or Vicky, if I may be so familiar. What is this thing? How did it come about?

• 9:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, so this is basically where Augustus wants to be buried. Bold move in that, you know, he creates it when he's still living. Like, this is very much his project. It's not like something that people put up for him. He's like, no, I'm going to create my own tomb structure. And I'm going to model it on potentially one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. Because, you know, he doesn't do anything small. So this is why it's called the mausoleum of Augustus. Because it's based on, we think, maybe the Mausoleum tomb, which was one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. So time-wise, it was finished in 28 BCE.

• 9:54Speaker 05

  So this is, you know, still kind of pretty early on, actually, in his principate. You know, when you think he was there for, you know, a good more than 30 years or so. So he was thinking about his afterlife. He was concerned about his commemoration.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, like an Egyptian ruler or something. He's just very focused on that end goal.

• 10:17Speaker 05

  And kind of like structurally as well, it's obviously, it's very impressive. It's like this huge kind of concrete structure, which, and concrete in itself is a kind of Roman innovation, which is kind of relatively still new at this time period. You know, they're still experimenting with, oh, we can use this new material. Or so we can do round things instead of like all square things. So it's this big kind of circular structure domed, and it's planted kind of all the way around. We think to kind of emulate what, create a kind of monumental version of a traditional Etruscan type tomb, which is called a tumulus, which is,

• 10:57Speaker 05

  you know, in its most primitive form, that would be kind of like just a mound of earth that was kind of your tomb spot. So Augustus kind of seems to have taken that idea and then just done it, you know, huge, huge monumental scale as, as he likes to do with everything.

• 11:13Speaker 03

  It sounds extremely presumptuous.

• 11:15Speaker 05

  Yes, it is.

• 11:16Speaker 03

  Within, within keeping of his character.

• 11:18Speaker 04

  Yes, very much so. And I'm particularly thinking about the date of twenty eight BCE, because this is right before twenty seven, which is usually considered a landmark for him in terms of like sealing the deal on his power. And he's already out there being like, oh no, guys, I am a big deal. I know it. You guys know it. I've killed everybody who hates me by now.

• 11:42Speaker 05

  And I think particularly because there's this idea of it's such a big structure that clearly he was thinking of it in terms of it wasn't just going to be for him, it was going to be for other family members. So it's like, it's going to be like a dynastic kind of monument in itself. And I think, like you said, the fact that he's creating that so early in his principate kind of speaks to, oh, he may have been doing all of his, I'm just restoring the republic schtick, but you know, on the side, he's like, no, actually I'm going to create this huge monument for me, my family, all my heirs. So like that idea of like the family dynastic structure, I think it's very telling that he's already creating

• 12:26Speaker 05

  a very obvious building and structure, like super early, really.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  Although, to be fair, he wasn't a well man, was he?

• 12:36Speaker 05

  No, and I think, I think that's part of it. He had so much anxiety over death. Um, and you know, then all of his heirs keep dying, as we know, along the way.

• 12:45Speaker 03

  It came in handy. It didn't go to waste.

• 12:46Speaker 05

  He chooses someone that I, you know, so I think, I think it also, the, the early day also represents a bit of that anxiety over, you know, I've got to start thinking about. My death and what happens when I die, like pretty early on, really.

• 13:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, definitely.

• 13:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, look, that's tough, isn't it? That anxiety and and also that monumentalism. What a fascinating character. I don't understand, Dr Rad, why you're not so interested.

• 13:13Speaker 03

  I I am intrigued, but it's more the fact that I'm like, why can't people just see through him?

• 13:20Speaker 05

  I think I said this last time, like, I like, I love him to study. That doesn't mean I think he's a great person. I I also see through him, so you know.

• 13:31Speaker 03

  No, I think it's more, I think it's more Dr G I'm talking to here. She she genuinely likes him.

• 13:39Speaker 04

  I think it's just because in the portraiture, he comes across as being relatively good looking, so I'm willing to forgive him from things. So, but that's just me being really basic.

• 13:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:49Speaker 04

  But thinking about the mausoleum and its location, like, to what extent is it sort of part of his broader sort of sense of building, sort of like a topographical thing for himself, an Augustan sort of way of thinking about Rome?

• 14:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, and so I think I was actually talking about this very topic with my students, actually, last week, because we were we were doing the Augustan period in Roman art and archaeology. And I was I was saying that one of his innovations really is, you know, late republican building projects like kind of Pompeii's theatre complex, Julius Caesar had his forum, you know, it's this idea that you're kind of entering a bit of a zone that is, it's like the Pompeii zone or the Julius Caesar zone, and we're kind of entering those spaces, and it's framed by that individual power. But what Augustus does is he's like, all of Rome is now my zone. It's not just a small part. It's like, I'm doing this everywhere. So again, like, in terms of scale, that's what's kind of innovative.

• 14:49Speaker 05

  And the mausoleum is part of the Campus Martius, which he is one of his kind of three main areas in the city that he really focuses on for his redevelopment. So we have the mausoleum, but we also have the Arapacus, which I spoke a lot about on the last time I was with you. And then there's also this monumental Sunday. As well, the Horum, yeah. And they're all very close together in this Campus Martius area. And, and I think, again, it speaks to this kind of projection of a new type of power. Because, you know, you have your Mausoleum, which is thinking about kind of commemoration, long term. But at a family kind of dynastic level, you've got the altar of peace, the Araipacus eventually, which is, you know, commemorating.

• 15:33Speaker 05

  I've brought peace to Rome for the first time. And, and then with the sundial, I think that's, that's particularly interesting. Cause it kind of, I think it's also symbolic that he is kind of not just in charge of space, but also he's controlling time as well. Um, so these three monuments kind of are all working together, kind of past, present, future. There's like this temporal element. And I think, so you can't just think of the Mausoleum, you know, as a static kind of isolated entity in itself. I think a lot of its meaning also comes from the fact that it's connected to these other very important Augustan monuments. And you, you have to imagine if you're a Roman, you're walking through the Campus Martius, like you're gonna be able to see all three of these things.

• 16:17Speaker 05

  Within a very short walk, you know, you'll be able to see them from each other, like they're very, very close together.

• 16:24Speaker 04

  And this association with the Campus Martius in particular, this idea that there is a whole Augustan precinct. And there is a really long history of how the Campus Martius is used. And now it's being sort of, uh, it's evolving. Under Augustus's sort of building regime as well.

• 16:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. And I think what, what I think is fascinating and also just kind of very telling about. The building project in the Campus Martius is, it's very representative of so many things that Augustus does in that he's kind of seen. Kind of political figures kind of use art and architecture and space in these building projects. To project their own individual power, but they never had the opportunity to kind of extend that on mass scale. And so now he's in this position where he can start to do this in a way, he kind of takes all of these seeds that. Have been done at an individual level and he's just putting it all together, doing it to a huge, huge scale.

• 17:24Speaker 05

  Um, and just really hammering it home, like everywhere you go. There's this sense of Augustus kind of framing your experience of the city. Like you have to imagine that there's not many places like right in the core. Where you're not far from an Augustan building project. Cause if you're not in the Campus Martius. You might be near the Palatine Hill. That's where his house is, or you're in the Forum and he redeveloped the Forum. So there's like. Everywhere you go, there's this kind of just presence of him and kind of framing your experience of the whole city, I think, which is very, very innovative, I think of him.

• 17:59Speaker 03

  It sounds like my waking nightmare.

• 18:03Speaker 05

  You're surrounded on all sides. You can't escape.

• 18:07Speaker 03

  But I do appreciate, I do appreciate that long before Doc Brown and Marty McFly, Augustus was thinking about the space time continuum and how to disrupt it.

• 18:14Speaker 05

  Yes, he really was. And I think there's, there's a famous, the kind of famous. Theory, I suppose, about these kind of three, three monuments all kind of like working together in the Campus Martius. It, it has been suggested that the, the shadow of the sun dial would go. Directly through the entrance of the Ara Parcas on Augustus's birthday. So it's like.

• 18:36Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 18:37Speaker 05

  It's basically, I have conquered time, like.

• 18:41Speaker 05

  I am in charge and I think, you know, Julius Caesar, his uncle had, had redone the calendar and so. The sundial was now with the Julian calendar i- in mind. And so again, it's just this, yeah, it's the way that space and time and. With the mausoleum, there's then this idea of like an afterlife, like even though I'm not there. You're going to still be thinking about me. And it's the same with the Ara Parcas, you know, it, it was set up with this annual sacrifice. In mind and that's going to keep going on even when Augustus dies. So there's this, again, it's like a kind of cyclical eternal presence, I think, that he's trying to establish there.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  I'll give it to him. He certainly does pay attention to detail and it suddenly hit me. That Dr. G being an absolute Virgo, this must be what appeals to her.

• 19:31Speaker 05

  Oh, my God, this is, this is the connection. It's I'm a Virgo.

• 19:37Speaker 04

  It is all beginning to make sense.

• 19:39Speaker 03

  It absolutely is.

• 19:42Speaker 04

  He's just so organised. He's thought of everything.

• 19:46Speaker 03

  I get it now and I will stop giving you crap about it.

• 19:50Speaker 05

  We can't help it. It's in the stars.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Yeah. Now, look, this is probably my favourite part of Augustus's mausoleum to talk about because, I mean, I'm sorry, there's no other way to say it, but he's such a dick in that it's very much about who's allowed in, who's not. It's my club. I'm going to control it. Are you on the VIP list or are you not? So who gets buried in this thing in the end and who gets left out because they've done something to upset him?

• 20:19Speaker 05

  Yeah. Oh, that's a really good question. I'm trying to think exactly who is in there. I know the last person that is in there is Nerva, actually. But in terms, in terms of like the Giulio chordians, um, I don't know. Who is?

• 20:34Speaker 03

  Well, we, we know that famously Julia, obviously.

• 20:37Speaker 05

  Does not. I bet she doesn't get in there. No.

• 20:40Speaker 03

  She does not. So for those of you who haven't listened to our millions of discussions about Augustus, Julia is his one and only actual child. You'd think she'd be a shoo-in, but no.

• 20:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, but no, she's, she's morally not, not on.

• 20:56Speaker 04

  Yeah. You would think in the end that, that in death that he might allow it, you know, like there'd be some sort of forgiveness, but he's absolutely no.

• 21:06Speaker 05

  And I think it really speaks to like the harshness of that, like relationship and that he like the, the ability to like cut off the personal from the political that like. And again, this speaks to, it's a dynastic monument, which is different from a family monument. And obviously there are times when that overlaps. But the fact that, as you said, it's not a, it's not by default that you get in there. Like there are choices being made.

• 21:36Speaker 04

  No. And we see some like tragic moments because obviously Augustus is thinking about his own mortality. But he's also spending a lot of his time trying to figure out who's going to sort of come into place. After him and a whole bunch of them die early. So like Marcellus ends up in there, Gaius and Lucius end up in there. You know, and it's like, in a way, despite the fact that Augustus is probably a terribly power hungry kind of individual, you have to feel a little bit of compassion for the fact that he's bearing a lot of his young male relatives that he had great hopes for.

• 22:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I think there is this sense that, you know, a- again, this maybe speaks to why this was such an important building for him and that anxiety over the succession. You know, his entire project, it was only ever going to reach its complete fruition if there was some kind of succession, because there, you know, if that had not been secured, then there's nothing to say that you couldn't have just like gone back to a republic system, like, you know, it's it's not until that moment that Tiberius actually comes in and he becomes like the next emperor that it's like, oh, we can actually say now that we're doing something different here.

• 22:52Speaker 05

  Than just like a one man thing. So I think, I think it's kind of possibly underestimated the amount of anxiety around that and just yeah, he keeps picking these people and then it's like a curse and then they die. Literally, he's like, I choose you and now you're dead.

• 23:10Speaker 03

  Like the, the, the touch of death is like when Augustus says, you're gonna succeed me.

• 23:15Speaker 05

  And then he's just left with Tiberius by the end. So it's

• 23:17Speaker 04

  This explains Tiberius's reluctance. You've seen the pattern. He's like, just say no.

• 23:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, don't, don't, don't look at me. Stop looking at me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, to be fair, to be fair, because I suppose it functioned in this way during Augustus's lifetime, it's not just during Augustus's lifetime that it is used as like a who's in favor and who's not kind of monument. The whole dynasty continue to use it in this way. Yeah.

• 23:45Speaker 05

  Yeah. And so again, it's like that idea of so much, it's when we're thinking about commemoration. And I think this idea of like memory and who is allowed to be part of That memory, like so many, that is a political choice that is being made along the way. And I think I I I think that's why. I I'm kind of fascinated with this temporal aspect and the the playing of time, because, you know, commemoration in general. It's something you're you're doing in the present, but it obviously engages with the past because it's about kind of ancestors. But it also looks Augustus is kind of looking to the future when he creates it because it's this idea of.

• 24:25Speaker 05

  And he kind of ironically ends up burying there, like who would have been the future. And then the future is kind of like changing in real time. And so I think there's this really interesting. Dynamic there with time. And, you know, one of the things that I'm particularly interested in, obviously, thinking about gardens is that. You know, it it's created with lots of plants and greenery around it, which I think. Again, speaks to this temporal kind of cyclical aspect that, you know, the plants are always there. But they, so they kind of are the same, but they're not because they're continued, because nature is continually evolving. So it's like, it kind of appears to be this.

• 25:05Speaker 05

  Ever-present feature, but that that feature is in itself kind of always moving. It's not static. And so I think, again, he kind of. Taps into the the power of plants, I suppose, in that way to really enhance that kind of temporal aspect of the commemoration.

• 25:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it is kind of interesting to think that a lot of the people that end up getting buried in there are younger.

• 25:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  Members of the of the dynasty, which I think kind of. Speaks to the fact that if you're, if you grow up to be an adult, if you live long enough, you're gonna tick somebody off and someone's gonna wanna kick you out.

• 25:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, the all the all the young ones, it's just they didn't have enough time to do anything.

• 25:46Speaker 03

  No, no, they were like, well, you were five, so we didn't, we didn't hate you yet.

• 25:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:51Speaker 04

  Except for a group of posthumous, like, you know, there's always the exception.

• 25:56Speaker 05

  He's, he's, you know, he's he's okay. He he doesn't annoy anyone.

• 26:01Speaker 03

  No.

• 26:03Speaker 04

  But I getting back to this aspect of plants. So when we think about the Roman architectural landscape, it tends to be the case that people talk about the buildings a lot and sometimes trees get mentioned. So in people's like sort of imagination of that space of Rome, it's kind of like marble structures, clean streets, you know, it's all happening, there's carts and everything everywhere. And there's not necessarily a lot of room or space to think about how nature is incorporated into some of that. But with Augustus's Mausoleum, there is a deliberate incorporation of nature into parts of the structure. And I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit to that.

• 26:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I think the Mausoleum is like a microcosm of what is going on in the Campus Martius in general, in that there's this idea of rather than how our modern eyes might see it, as you said, it's like a series of individual monuments and the monuments bit comes first. And that's the kind of thing that you focus on. And then maybe ideas of plantings and stuff are more peripheral, or you're like, oh, sure, they planted some trees. But I think we need to kind of invert that idea and think of the Campus Martius itself is this huge kind of landscaped, green kind of park, almost like a kind of sacred, grovey, you know, sacralidyllic type landscape. And within that

• 27:29Speaker 05

  are dotted a series of monuments. So I feel like actually we need to think of it as the monuments are kind of part of this broader kind of sacred-esque type landscape, as opposed to there are these monuments and then there happens to be a few plantings around it. And I think that's really crucial to kind of understanding the experience of the Campus Martius in general, because, you know, Augustus wants people to experience these sites and be there. And so you you're giving this kind of broad, open, green space to a population who, if you're living in the city of Rome, you know, you don't have your own garden. I mean, I think a few of Roman gardens is like from Pompeii, where you've got these individual houses.

• 28:13Speaker 05

  And they each have their own little nice courtyard garden. If you're living in Rome, you're in a stuffy apartment complex, sharing one room with, you know, ten thousand, you know, ten, ten, ten other people and you don't have access to nature in that way. And so these kind of more quote unquote public areas become really important. And I think Augustus really understood the importance of like putting greenery and kind of open space as part of that because it creates this distance, I suppose, um, from their very urban, maybe small scale reality. And then suddenly you can go to this

• 28:54Speaker 05

  wide open space that you're very much aware, I presume that Augustus is kind of, it's public, but you know, he's allowing us to be here, um, in that he's opened it up in this way. But it's just dotted by all of these reminders of Augustus being there. So I think I think the plantings are actually, we shouldn't think of them as being, you know, marginal. I think actually that's kind of like, that's the main thing. And then the monuments are within that.

• 29:22Speaker 04

  Hmm, interesting, interesting. All right. I will, I will hold on to these thoughts because you've given me food for thought. And now, and, and I'm thinking about the kind of potential for a natural fallacy to emerge that somehow Augustan power is immersed and is part of and is coming from nature.

• 29:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:40Speaker 04

  And, but I won't go too far down that path. That is an unformed thought.

• 29:45Speaker 05

  No, I completely agree because like so much of his imagery and like we spoke about this on the previous episode, so much of his imagery and kind of this connection to the gods, he, he created through the use of symbolic plants, like plants were, plants as symbols were so central to his kind of um, image, image making in that way. And in fact, on the mausoleum, we, we don't have much of the kind of decoration that would, would have gone on the exterior. It, it wasn't just like plain concrete. There would have been kind of marble decoration. And we know that either side of the entrance way, there were kind of carved. Marble panels that featured laurel and like this is very probably symbolic of the fact that

• 30:30Speaker 05

  he has two laurel trees either side, you know, either side of the entrance to its house, which itself is meant to mimic the use of laurel trees outside of religious buildings. And you know, the laurel is associated with Apollo, Augusta sees himself as Apollo. You know, even on coins, there's just these two laurel trees and it's like, that's an Augustan coin, like that's a symbol for him. And so I think the fact that it's like consciously on his mausoleum, like flanking the entrance. Again, it kind of speaks to this idea that he's kind of harnessing these planty symbols. And and it's not by accident. There's like these repeated patterns. And so

• 31:10Speaker 05

  yeah, with these two laurel trees, it's like they're at my mausoleum, they're at my house, they're on coins. I wear them in my triumphal crowns, you know, it's like, this is my plant, it's effing everywhere.

• 31:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, branded.

• 31:26Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, this, this is, this is not quite the same thing, but there is also that idea that comes through Augustus, that urban city life is not what made Rome great, it's nature, it's the rural existence, it's being connected to the land and agricultural practice and that sort of thing as well. Which is is not quite the same thing, but.

• 31:49Speaker 05

  But I think it's part of it because I mean, the fact that he's doing this in the Campus Martius, which in itself is like representative of this kind of like, it's like original kind of public type land. And there's a lot of kind of literary, I say a lot, there's pieces of literary evidence from this kind of late republican into the Augustan period where one of the kind of moral tropes that kind of comes up is there's a lot of anxiety about the loss of kind of sacred landscapes in the context of the civil war. And so I think he plays you know, he's, it's a smart move, he's creating a new sacred landscape with the Campus Martius and he's like, I am at the centre of it. So like.

• 32:32Speaker 05

  And again, that's. You know, about as close to declaring yourself a god as you can get without actually.

• 32:38Speaker 03

  Look, I think, I think I'm also sensing one of the reasons why I've perhaps instinctively disliked Augustus, and that's the Australian in me is very uncomfortable with someone who's so openly being like, yeah, I am at the centre of everything, I am the shit.

• 32:54Speaker 04

  Ah, you want to, uh, some tall poppy syndrome?

• 32:56Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah. There, there is actually, honestly, i- it is a cultural thing that Australians aren't uh, comfortable with ambitious people.

• 33:05Speaker 05

  Oh, really? Interesting. Okay. Yeah. But, but no, I think, yeah, Augustus would not fit in there then.

• 33:13Speaker 04

  Certainly not.

• 33:15Speaker 03

  No, but I actually, to come back to our earlier thing, I just thought, uh, out of interest, I would have a, have a look at a list of people that ended up making it in during Augustus's lifetime. So obviously we know Marcellus.

• 33:26Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 33:27Speaker 03

  His, yeah, his, his intended heir, Nidro Uno, who unfortunately died very, very young and unexpectedly. The son of his sister Octavia. Octavia, of course.

• 33:38Speaker 05

  Yes, I know. Yeah, Octavia is in there. Yeah, so it's not just limited to men as well, which is quite interesting. Like, they allow, he does allow some women in there.

• 33:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I mean, I, I get Octavia because after all, she's like the opposite of Julia the Elder, his daughter, in that she's very dutiful, does what, what is asked of her, you know, does her bit for the succession. Uh, Agrippa, who is not a blood relative, of course.

• 34:05Speaker 04

  No, but they're like brothers in their hearts.

• 34:07Speaker 03

  They are. I mean, look, if, if anyone deserves to go in there, it's Agrippa. Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't think Augustus would have been Augustus without Agrippa, but it's good that he acknowledged that. I will say that much.

• 34:20Speaker 03

  And then, of course, my man, Atyberius, after Augustus's death, obviously.

• 34:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:26Speaker 03

  Ends up in there. But so do people like Germanicus.

• 34:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:29Speaker 03

  Who, yeah, who we might expect as well. Uh, Antonia Minor.

• 34:34Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 34:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, mother of Claudius. Britannicus.

• 34:39Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Poor Britannicus.

• 34:41Speaker 03

  Tragically murdered by one of his own relatives, which is why it's kind of weird that he ends up in there.

• 34:45Speaker 04

  Really? Well, first I killed him and then I put him in the mausoleum because that's the right thing to do.

• 34:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And of course, and of course Claudius himself. Now, I'm just going to point out, we are missing, of course,

• 34:58Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 34:58Speaker 03

  Nero and Caligula.

• 35:00Speaker 05

  He's not in there.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  No, no, he's definitely not.

• 35:04Speaker 04

  Yeah. So being a relative is not enough to get you in there.

• 35:08Speaker 03

  It is definitely not. Being an emperor isn't enough to get you in there.

• 35:11Speaker 05

  And again, this is, this is the point about the, a dynastic monument. We, we think of it because I think we're so maybe skewed by our idea of like modern monarchy, which is very kind of like family oriented, oriented in this idea that then it's the, the family and the dynastic part, they're not one and the same. And obviously with the Julius Claudians, there's a lot of overlap, but you know, no one is, there's no father, son succession in the Julius Claudians. It's, it's

• 35:40Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 35:40Speaker 05

  It's like, who's alive and who, who do we not want to murder? Oh, you'll be the next one.

• 35:46Speaker 04

  Congratulations. You survived long enough.

• 35:50Speaker 03

  It would be fascinating if the modern British monarchy was run along the same lines. Who's alive and who do we not want to murder?

• 35:57Speaker 05

  Pick. Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:59Speaker 04

  Oh, that would open up the field. Goodness me.

• 36:01Speaker 05

  That really would. Yeah.

• 36:03Speaker 04

  So thinking about the mausoleum, not just in the Augustan period, but it does have a huge legacy over time. Like there's obviously part of the structure still remains to this day. And it's not like people after ancient Rome were like, you know what? Never going in there. Don't know what that's about. Uh, it was definitely, it had many afterlives, if you like. And I'm wondering if you can take us through some of the ones that have really appealed to you when you've been thinking about this structure.

• 36:31Speaker 05

  I mean, I think this is, this is what I found so fascinating. And this, this really started as a, a very small, I was like, well, what did kind of happen after the Augustan period? And it has opened up this whole new world of research to me. And now I'm looking up hopes and who's it, who's in charge of Rome in the pre-modern? Period and all this, but it's it's fascinating. It's it's not like a linear kind of journey. Yeah, it it kind of comes and goes in these cycles in a really, really fascinating way. So as I think I just said, like, the last burial that we can kind of officially associate with it is um Nerva

• 37:08Speaker 05

  in ninety six C E. And then it kind of, we have very, very fragmentary and limited evidence from when from that kind of peak use period as a burial plot. And then it really kind of like drops off. Uh, and we don't have like a ton of information. Uh, it pops up in the tenth century. It's called the Mons Augusta by Gregorius, I think it is. Uh, he he refers to the site as this like Mons Augusta. And then in the twelfth century, we have this really interesting reference in the Mirabellia um Urbis Romae, which is essentially like a guidebook to the ancient city. And it's it's referred to as the Augustus.

• 37:48Speaker 05

  But um it also includes this really interesting legend, which is actually not found in the ancient sources, but it's described in the Mirabellia. And it says that the the mound itself has beca- is is special and people still like kind of go to it and and worship it. And it's still a special site. Because he talks about the author of the Mirabellia of that Augustus bought mounds of earth from all different parts of the empire and put it on top of his, put it as part of the plantings of the tomb.

• 38:21Speaker 03

  Wow, that's very cool.

• 38:23Speaker 05

  So fascinating. And like, I wish we had any kind of character, kind of, any hint of this in the ancient sources. But I mean, the they obviously got this idea from somewhere um in the Mirabellia. Because it's discussed as something, it's like, this is the well-known site that you're gonna go visit. And, you know, it said that Augustus bought these mounds of earth from all over. And like, that is such an imperial statement. Again, this like control of space and time. He's like, I'm literally bringing the earth from all of the places and putting it on my tomb.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  I was gonna say. Sounds so on brand.

• 39:00Speaker 05

  No, it's so on brand. And so, which I think is also just really interesting that in the Mirabellia, it's like the earthy part is seen as the most kind of famous part of the commemoration. It's not the structure. He like talks about the earth as being like this central thing that that they're gonna look at, which again, when I think about these kind of the temporal aspect of plantings is and and why people use them in commemoration. Again, it's like, it's always there. But it's changed over time. Um. So yeah, that's a really fascinating little uh reference in the twelfth century. And then we basically have like nothing and we don't really know what happened to it.

• 39:41Speaker 05

  This is a contentious time in in pre-modern Rome. Um. You know, the city in itself goes through various phases of kind of decline and then people try and you know, put more effort into it and all this kind of stuff. And you know, there's lots of anxiety kind of from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries about, oh, Rome, it was so great. And now we've let it go to ruin and and you can kind of think about the mausoleum i- in that way. What we do then know is that then in the sixteenth century, when, you know, the popes, they've been away in France and then they've come back to Rome and they start to like really rejuvenate the city. And so as part of that kind of regeneration in the sixteenth century, it gets

• 40:25Speaker 05

  the site in itself gets bought by an elite gentleman called um Monsieur Soderini. He's he's part of this Florentine family. And they're like, we want to invest in Rome. And so we're gonna buy, we're gonna buy us some ancient sites. We're gonna make our mark in Rome. And and the Soderini family, they buy the mausoleum and this is the kind of thing that I've been looking at the most is that they then Soderini turns it into his own sculpture gallery slash garden. So he he kind of uncovers it and there's this amazing letter. I'm gonna bring it up so I can read it to you. Um. From fifteen forty nine.

• 41:09Speaker 05

  And there's an Italian Giovanni Battista Bassini and he writes to his friend and he says, I am writing this letter to you in the middle of the tomb of Augustus, which my monsignor Sodarini has undertaken to redo. And he has transformed it into a rather lovely garden with some rooms there for eating. And this is his pastime. This place called the mausoleum is now a vegetable garden and there are some fine salad leaves here. So he's using, he's using the language of like a vegetable garden and leaves. But he's talking about the sculptures. So he's like, again, super interesting for me in terms of the language because he's playing on that dynamic,

• 41:50Speaker 05

  which Augustus did as well of like, we're being all rustic and, and old school. And we're tapping into old school nature. And he's describing these very like aesthetic kind of sculptures as like the rustic salad leaves. I think, and so in terms of like commemoration, for me, this is really interesting as well because by turning it, he, he has his like private collection of ancient sculptures. And then they're being displayed inside the tomb. So it, it's like, it becomes like a site of commemoration to the ancient world in general, but also still to Augustus because they still refer to it as the mausoleum of Augustus.

• 42:33Speaker 05

  But then it's also now starting to commemorate Sodarini's own identity as well. It's like this elite kind of culture, like I can collect all of these ancient sculptures. And again, it's a private collection, but then he opens it up to the public and it becomes this site. It then, again, it gets featured in a load of guidebooks from like the 16th to the 18th century. Um, as like, this is a place to go, like you've got to go to the mausoleum. You've got to see the sculptures. And yeah, so I just think that's really fascinating that he like, kind of took, took the outside plantings from the Augustan period. He's kind of turned the concept inside out to some extent. Now the garden's inside and it's got all of his quote unquote salad leaves for us to look at.

• 43:18Speaker 03

  Well, you look, I, I'm going to thank you because you've just given me a great idea for Dr. G's next birthday. So I'm going to start saving so that I can buy the mausoleum and turn it into a, a little place for her. You know, a little home away from home.

• 43:45Speaker 06

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• 46:50Speaker 05

  Honestly, I want someone to buy the mausoleum that will actually let me in there because I had such high hopes this summer when I was there and I met Dr. G and we were like, yes, we're here, we're going to do Augustan things. And then, once again, the mausoleum is close to the public because they are doing even more renovation work.

• 47:10Speaker 04

  I was going to say, there was a moment a few years ago, pre-COVID, where it had reopened.

• 47:13Speaker 05

  I've been open.

• 47:14Speaker 04

  And I was like, oh, I'm so excited because I was just about to go. And then I had to cancel the trip because of COVID. Thank you very much. And then by the time I could get back, it was closed again. I was like, oh, no!

• 47:27Speaker 05

  I was like... This is my moment. And, and what's really fascinating though, one thing I did notice when I was there in the summer is around the kind of construction, they obviously have kind of barriers. And on the barriers, they have highlighted like key dates in the mausoleum's kind of history. And they've got dates related to Augustus, obviously. They've got dates related to Mussolini, which we can come on to. But then also, one of the key dates in this timeline is this 1549 date. They actually have it as, as a key kind of date. So this Sodderini garden, I, I'm kind of interested when it's reopened, if they're gonna make a bit more of that part of its history in terms of like exhibitions or something like that, because

• 48:11Speaker 05

  there is like not a lot written on this. The kind of one, one kind of key article kind of speaks more about trying to identify the sculptures that were in it as opposed to like thinking about it as I am, as this kind of continuation of garden space and commemoration. But I think, yeah, I was really surprised to see that the, the government or the, the kind of museum like it had this 1549 date on as, as part of like the kind of key timeline. And I was like, because I'm pretty sure not many people know about that. So.

• 48:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:45Speaker 04

  I don't, I think it speaks to what is this broader legacy, because there is something about circular buildings. So it sounds like a segue. But there is something about the attraction of circular buildings or oval shaped buildings, which because they're quite rare in terms of the architecture, generally speaking, they tend to stand out and they tend to garner attention. But this also affects how they might be repurposed and how people think about their repurposing as well. And so there is something about the visual of having a circular gallery that you can kind of wind your way through and around and that allows Sodderini to do this moment where he's like, look, I'm a bit like Augustus here.

• 49:29Speaker 04

  And I've created this space which allows you to engage with time and, and all of this kind of stuff as well. And perhaps there are some replantings going on. Who knows?

• 49:40Speaker 05

  And and again, we don't have any evidence for this particular, like the the remnants of how Soderini had utilized it, that there's no physical evidence of it because um as we can go on to, like it's then it goes through other phases of redevelopment and it gets buried and built on and attached to and all of this stuff. But we do have a lot of engravings from these guidebooks, very consistent in terms of the imagery. And so I think we do have a pretty good idea of what it maybe looked like. And so like I'm looking at one on my screen now and I I can send you one for the for the website. Um it's this idea of you've got this kind of walkway up to the front and it's flanked by ancient statues.

• 50:24Speaker 05

  And then you kind of go in through the entranceway. And then the interior, it kind of looks like the the sculptures were kind of round the edge. And then you've got like a planted series of kind of walkways and like box hedges in the interior. And as you said, it's like you're guiding, you know, different pathways and you're maybe, you know, leisurely strolling round. And yeah, I I just think it's it's really, really fascinating. I and yeah, just the kind of consistency of the engravings, I think, from from this couple of centuries. I think we can get a fairly good idea of what it maybe looked like. But for some reason, from the eighteenth kind of century onwards, it it goes into another period of decline.

• 51:05Speaker 05

  And and we don't really get much um going on then until kind of we get a period of like a hundred years of kind of decline. And then we've got um the next kind of key infamous phase, I think, is when Mussolini comes along. Um. Great, great. With his pickaxe. And again, in terms of like commemoration and memory and identity, you can see th- this building is being used by different people at different times, you know, Augustus does it. Soderini is doing it in his own way. And then you've got Mussolini coming in and his whole shtick is that, oh, it's gone into disrepair. Again, this idea of it being like buried and earth and it's like under.

• 51:50Speaker 05

  Cover and then Mussolini's thing was he comes along and he's got his pickaxe and he's like, I am uncovering or revealing the ancient city and it's like a make Rome great again kind of idea. He's like, we have let our history go into disrepair. And so the Campus Martius area for him becomes central to his whole kind of reorganization of Rome. And like, this is an area that had been kind of turned into almost like a residential district and he basically just clent like cleared it out completely. You know, this people didn't get a choice. It's like, no, I'm going in there. I'm getting rid of all of the residential

• 52:30Speaker 05

  stuff. And yeah, I I actually went down a rabbit hole a few weeks ago on YouTube and found some amazing YouTube footage of, I guess they were kind of like those like Italian government like type newsreel type things that would have been shown. And it's like, here's Mussolini like going and he's like walking up this what looks like this kind of mound of earth and he's got his pickaxe and it's like Mussolini is revealing the Mausoleum of Augustus and it's like caught on camera. And this is one of the things that he goes to and it becomes part of his whole kind of memory and and and his use

• 53:10Speaker 05

  of the ancient city and re recovering quote unquote, the ancient city to regain this kind of power for himself, kind of again, shows this idea of like the space time continuum.

• 53:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, look, this this will be familiar to many students of ancient history in Australia and probably other places, but I know the syllabus in Australia, because we of course look at the way that Mussolini and his cronies are involved in Pompeii and Herculaneum.

• 53:40Speaker 05

  Ah, okay.

• 53:41Speaker 03

  So, yeah, that the idea that Mussolini obviously is connecting to ancient Rome as propaganda, basically for his own regime will be will be familiar territory to them. Yeah.

• 53:53Speaker 05

  And I mean, I don't think it's not unsurprising that he also really wanted to uncover Augustan monuments. Like, he was like, he's my guy. Like, he.

• 54:06Speaker 05

  My.

• 54:06Speaker 03

  He speaks bigger than my language.

• 54:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, he is, you know, he, we'd probably have called him a fascist. It doesn't come as a surprise to me that like, that is, that is a particular area and like, he wanted to do it with the Ara Parkas as well, like he actually bought, he's the, I mean, he's the reason why we have it all nicely kind of reconstructed in, in the nice, beautifully air-conditioned museum that it's in now. I mean, it's, it, it's just kind of fascinating to me that, that Augustus, these Augustan monuments are kind of, they, they keep being reused, repurposed and, and for different forms of memory and kind of like tapping into memory, I think.

• 54:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, and like, it seems obviously objectionable that someone like Mussolini would be able to do this, but at least, as you say, there is some preservation and interest involved, because I remember the only time I've ever been able to see it, it had fallen, as you say, into one of those states of disrepair, uh, when I was there, which would have been in the early two thousands. It was covered in rubbish. I was told it was even unsafe to be in the area. Yeah. Because it was used as kind of a temporary refuge for people who maybe didn't have anywhere else to go. And so, yeah, I mean, not that I'm saying Mussolini was a good thing, or that fascism is a good thing.

• 55:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 55:26Speaker 03

  Let me be very clear on that, but there is some, some good ideas behind the idea of governments investing in heritage, yeah.

• 55:33Speaker 05

  And I think, uh, I'm, I'm kind of fascinated by the fact that, I don't know whether it's because of the size, or it's just kind of so unwieldy, or people don't really know what to do with it, but you, you would think as such a key Augustan monument, that it would not have maybe gone through these periods of decline.

• 55:52Speaker 03

  I know.

• 55:53Speaker 05

  And in itself, like, I feel like it's one of the least well-known Augustan monuments, probably because so few people have actually been able to like engage with it in any way. But it was like so sent, like, to him, it would have been so central. He'd have been very disappointed at this, at the lack of,

• 56:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:11Speaker 05

  of the deterioration, but, but then.

• 56:14Speaker 03

  And not to mention that Hadrian's Mausoleum on the other side sort of now has precedent, you would say.

• 56:20Speaker 05

  Exactly. And so there's this idea that like, why? Why did it fall into disrepair? And this is kind of the frustrating thing about this kind of gap in the evidence that we have from, I I guess like from the imperial period up until when it kind of crops back up in the in the pre-modern period. I'm just kind of intrigued as to why, why was it allowed to get into that state?

• 56:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:47Speaker 05

  But compared to like other buildings, that that's what doesn't make sense to me.

• 56:52Speaker 03

  No.

• 56:53Speaker 05

  I mean, part, part of me wonders, one thing I I do want to look into i- is that I think as well, possibly the area that it's in, the Campus Martius, obviously, one of the things that good old Agrippa did was, you know, put in this drainage system which allowed them to build there in the first place. But it's so close to the river that it does su- it has suffered over time from a lot of flooding. And I have to wonder like,

• 57:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 57:19Speaker 05

  was a famous flood, I think in the eleventh or the twelfth century of the Tiber. And I have to wonder like whether that's part of why it got into this state of disrepair.

• 57:29Speaker 03

  Right.

• 57:30Speaker 05

  Just because of its location and then i- if there was flooding and that kind of thing. So that might be part of it. But um, but yeah, it's kind of interesting how when it does get rejuvenated, i- it's always in the same kind of way, like this, they're kind of using the Augusta model, but then doing their own kind of thing with it, which I think is really interesting.

• 57:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, but i- i- it is really weird, as you say, because if we think about what Augustus is doing here as being a little bit similar to like what an Egyptian pharaoh would do is in terms of thinking about, you know, long term, where am I going to end up? What kind of monument do I want? You know, how am I going to use it, design, et cetera? I mean, the Egyptian government does not neglect the, you know, the the pyramids, you know, to be like, I'm looking those or or the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Like it's, if, I mean, if I think about, we've just had the Ramses exhibit, well, it's still going on actually at the time of recording, to the Australian Museum here. And going to that, it was like being in a mosh pit. There were so many people crowded in to see this stuff. And it's like people care about this kind of stuff.

• 58:34Speaker 03

  And it's certainly not neglected. So it is a weird thing to to overlook, especially because, and something we haven't really mentioned. It was weird to have people buried inside the city of Rome, to have hu- to have human remains inside the city. That that is rare in this particular culture.

• 58:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I think that is, again, that kind of speaks to this kind of bold, the initial bold statement that Augustus is making. It is just, it's not just in the location in relation to his other monuments, which we've already talked about. But as you said, just the fact of having this like grand burial monument. So like so close to the centre of Rome, like the centre of, like, I mean, people kind of still. Want to think of the Campus Martius. It's like, oh, it's like a little bit out there, but I'm like, it's still very set, like, it's not, it's not the suburbs, like, it's.

• 59:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, like guys, it's it's an easy walk from the Forum.

• 59:30Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 59:30Speaker 03

  You know, you're gonna be fine.

• 59:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, you know, you can have a nice, you can have a Sunday stroll up to the Campus Martius, no problem. But but yeah, just kind of that in itself of that statement of. Again, it speaks to his, I'm doing things differently, that he he places it so centrally, you know.

• 59:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:52Speaker 05

  Very interesting.

• 59:53Speaker 03

  Definitely. So broadly speaking, after having looked at the Mussolini and the Augustus context, and then looking about. The legacy of that and the reuse of it over time, what what do you feel we can learn by looking at this particular monument?

• 1:00:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, I think it, for me, it's interesting on many levels, but I think currently the kind of things that I'm most interested in. Uh, this idea of the kind of reuse of ancient monuments in later periods. And and how how they in themselves can take on new ideological meanings. Whether that be on a personal level like Soderini or a political level like Mussolini. Um, so this idea of monuments in themselves, the the kind of multivalence and the ever changing.

• 1:00:44Speaker 05

  Nature of like how these monuments are received and what they mean. And I think this is like such an interesting, neat case study in how you've got this one thing. And it's like so many different things all over. I mean, I haven't even said like, it was also the site of a bullfighting ring at one point. I mean, that's.

• 1:01:03Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 1:01:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, look at, how did we skip over that? This is so that kind of like continual reuse and and this um. This kind of cyclical nature of like decline and regeneration of monuments and reuses. I think it is a really nice. Case study of of that. And then also my my idea, my focus on on gardens and landscapes, again. It really speaks to me of this need to not. Think of the kind of monuments as like physically monumental structures and then kind of maybe plants or plantings or landscape. As being this kind of marginal, kind of nice to have thing.

• 1:01:48Speaker 05

  Um, I I think we really underestimate the importance of the collaboration of those two things. And I think. We tend to think of thing that hi- that relationship hierarchically with monuments are like the thing and then. Oh, we've got some nice like gardens and stuff that we maybe look at. Whereas I think the more I'm looking at the ancient world and even kind of later receptions. The more I think that we shouldn't be thinking about these hierarchically and and instead in conversation with one another. And again. I just think the mausoleums are a really fascinating example of of that trend. And so I think it can teach us, you know. Quite a lot about those two broader ideas.

• 1:02:30Speaker 03

  Well, I I think that's a very good point because I think what we see increasingly in modern eras is a neglect of the natural world and the importance of that to ourselves. To our peril, basically.

• 1:02:43Speaker 05

  I mean, you have to think about, I mean, when I when I lived um in in Winnipeg, a lot of a lot of people would always comment like. The downtown, it had like no trees or like planting. And like that that conversation around like urban forestry and like that idea of we need to we we created these urban environments that were like so devoid of nature. And now everyone's recognizing the need that we actually need to put it back in. And I think the Romans were ahead of the game in that in that they, you know, they were not, they were not afraid to kind of just because it's an quote unquote urban area. That doesn't mean it's devoid of nature. And I think, again, we've kind of thought of these two things as

• 1:03:27Speaker 05

  in our modern frameworks, we're thinking of these things very separately. But I think I I'm kind of hopeful that with this idea of replanting and kind of urban forestry and and and putting plants back into more traditionally urban environments, I think is a move, a move in a in a more positive direction. Because I think we we've kind of lost that idea that we can have both at the same time.

• 1:03:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I I think that comes to that that very popular idea of Rome being a city of marble. And it's like, no, that's just one part of it. And it's the same thing for us in Sydney. I mean, there are places like in Western Sydney and that sort of thing where we're recognizing increasingly for for mental health, to help with, you know, heat waves and that sort of thing. It's really important to integrate nature into, you know, places where people are living. You can't just have brick and concrete.

• 1:04:17Speaker 05

  No, and I mean, yeah, thinking about like the heat in itself, I mean, like when you're just surrounded by concrete, it is, it's like so much more oppressive than if there's like, the minute you get into a bit of nature or by some trees. Uh, and so you've got to think of like the climate of Rome, like this is part of the enjoyment of this area that Augustus created and like, it wouldn't have been nice if it was literally just like I'm like, you're not going to pave the entire Campus Martius in marble. I mean, that's good, but like parts of it were, but it just makes so much more sense to have this kind of collaboration of the natural and the the ornamental.

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm just picturing a lot of Romans like, you know, running along in their sandals and slipping around when it rains.

• 1:05:03Speaker 04

  Oh, no, no, this is a disaster. If only there were some grass around here, I'll tell you what. So to wrap this conversation up, um, and thinking about the way in which there is a tendency today, and maybe through time as well, the desire to restore structures to honour their original purpose, why they were first built. So Augustus's Mausoleum has never been forgotten as being related and connected to Augustus through all of that time. And though people have reused it in various ways, such as the galleries and the bullfighting and things like that, there was that recognition that it did have this original purpose. It was related to Augustus.

• 1:05:45Speaker 04

  And now, when we see the restoration work that's underway today with the structure, it is really about that Augustan period of its history and not so much about the things that came after it, or at least it doesn't seem to be that way. Although I'd be curious to see what it looks like if they ever let me in. So I'm interested in what are some of the implications you see in this sort of contemporary desire for restoration to original purpose?

• 1:06:12Speaker 05

  Well, I think there's such a fine line to be with that, particularly with the Mausoleum of Augustus. Again, it's kind of an interesting case study for that conversation because we actually don't know what it really looked like in its original format. Like, we, we have an idea, but because of all of the many layers of rebuilding and reuse, like, it is actually impossible from the archaeological record to actually figure out what the structure would have been like. And so, most of the time, we're relying on the description from Strabo's Geography, which talks about that there's this monumental structure and it's planted and all of this kind of stuff.

• 1:06:56Speaker 05

  And then there are these kind of, all of the reconstructions have been based on that and also on its relationship potentially as a model for then Hadrian's Mausoleum. So. Originally, like, there's this idea of it being this kind of multi-tiered structure, and that's what people think of when they they try and. Are trying to kind of recreate the original Augustan context, but we don't actually have. We can't definitively say based on the archaeology if it was a multi-tiered structure, because we've only got the base level of it. So I think it's it's a really interesting study in like, projection of when we can't know the original. Like, wh- what then are we trying to create? Like, what?

• 1:07:39Speaker 05

  Uh, I I I struggle with them, like. Why do we need to actually know what it may have exactly looked like? I think there's often like this. Idea of like, we need to know what it actually looked like, so we can reconstruct it or like, show what it was. And you're getting that quote unquote, original sense of the monument. But we will never know the origin, like, because it's framed in the landscape in a completely different type of way, like. The way we are engaging with it, we now are engaging with these with these monuments. Based on all of the layers of history and we're coming to our modern lens, like I said.

• 1:08:20Speaker 05

  Very hard for people to think about it as nothing more than like a monumental structure, like they're not thinking about the trees. And I mean, part of my research is like, you know, we're trying to, if we are obsessed with the original, then we need to try and get back to, well, like. How would they actually be viewing it? And so I think sometimes we can get a bit caught up in trying to find. Some kind of essence to individual pieces that we're like, trying to hold on to. And I think. You know, I think as humans, we we want that certainty and stability of like, we can say, this is what it looked like for. People walking around in the Augustan period, and this is what they would have quote unquote, experienced, but. Hmm.

• 1:09:05Speaker 05

  You know, we when we're moving through space and time, like, that's a, we're just totally different individuals in that way, so. So I think it's important to recognize or or try and figure out what it would have originally been like, but I think. It's also important to recognise that these things are always evolving and that there's not like this one static way of viewing.

• 1:09:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, and there's kind of like an impossibility.

• 1:09:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:35Speaker 04

  Embedded in that, isn't there, where it's like, I mean, I would love to know what it originally looked like.

• 1:09:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:40Speaker 04

  The chances of that ever happening.

• 1:09:42Speaker 05

  And I think, and I think then also we limit ourselves by if we're only focused on, but what did it look like? I'm like, that's one part of investigating these monuments, but also there are so many other questions that we can ask and and interesting things we can kind of think about when it comes to monuments and and and memory and kind of what they mean. And and yeah, I think just just focusing on like trying to reclaim some original purpose is it's just kind of missing the point, I think of.

• 1:10:16Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:10:17Speaker 05

  Monuments and memorialisation in general, because the whole point is that it's a continual process. So like, why would we want it to be exactly the same?

• 1:10:27Speaker 04

  Well, I think we can safely say that with our modern technology, Augustus would not be averse to us making some improvements if it would make him even grander.

• 1:10:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:10:36Speaker 04

  So by all means, build it up, make it a fricking skyscraper.

• 1:10:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean. Yeah, it it and it's interesting, we still, we still kind of, even though it is rundown and there's still a desire to reclaim it even now, that that that they've not given up, no one's given up hope, like there have been these periods of decline, but it's like, we should, we should do something with this because it's kind of that implicit recognition that this is important, but we're not entirely sure why it's important, but we're gonna do something with it.

• 1:11:09Speaker 04

  And it has a substantial footprint in the spot where it is, like it's huge to try and walk around it, it takes a little while.

• 1:11:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:16Speaker 04

  And you're like trying to peek in through the gates, being like, what's going on in there, guys? Like, it's a whole blocks worth in size.

• 1:11:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, the best view you can get is actually from inside the Arapakas Museum because you're a bit raised and then I mean, it's still blocked now, it's blocked now because of all of like the scaffolding, but from the inside of the museum, you can at least kind of look a bit over into what it is. But yeah, you're right, like this is huge, it's not something. You can never take it in in one go, really, because it's like, like the Colosseum. Like, you've got to, like, you're experiencing it from multiple angles and ways. And you can't just, it's not a small thing that you can just stand there and look at. Like, you've got to experience it in space, so.

• 1:12:00Speaker 03

  Well, and I think this also speaks to something about people. I mean, obviously, we've increasingly got digital areas and spaces for ourselves. But at the end of the day, much like we can't lose our connection with the actual natural world, we can't lose our connection with physical spaces. They still really matter to us because of the way that we're wired. We're not wired to exist only in a digital space. And so you've given me a lot of hope that I will be able to repurpose this as a space for people to come and ponder the greatness of people like Dr. G, Dr. Austin, and also reflect on what a manipulative, evil, son of a bitch Augustus was.

• 1:12:43Speaker 05

  I knew it was coming. She's got to get the final word in.

• 1:12:48Speaker 03

  End, end episode.

• 1:12:53Speaker 05

  Exit stage left.

• 1:12:57Speaker 03

  No, no, but yeah, no, I mean, I think having a space to go and, and yeah, and think about Augustus and all the things that he did, it's, it's good.

• 1:13:08Speaker 05

  I agree. One of these days, you know, the last conversation we had, we manifested that we would meet in Rome and Dr. G and I did meet in Rome. So now if we manifest that we'll be able to go in the mausoleum of Augustus, maybe it will happen, maybe this will. Oh, yeah, we'll get Dr. Rad over there and surreptitiously record that conversation.

• 1:13:31Speaker 03

  Dr. G and I are saving a way for a partial historian's expedition.

• 1:13:36Speaker 05

  There you go. So we will, we will hope that the mausoleum is part of that experience for you.

• 1:13:42Speaker 03

  Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, like, I want to, I want to look at the remains of Augustus.

• 1:13:49Speaker 05

  Look him in the eye and tell him what you think.

• 1:13:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right. Say, I see what you were doing. You didn't fool me.

• 1:13:57Speaker 05

  Goodness me. Well, on, on that note, thank you so much, Vicky, for joining us and chatting all about the mausoleum. It's been fabulous to have you. Thank you.

• 1:14:12Speaker 03

  Thank you for listening to this special episode of The Partial Historians. You can find our sources, sound credits, and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman. You too can support our show and help us to produce more fascinating content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return, you receive exclusive early access to special episodes just like this. Today, we would like to say a special hello to Roman, Jessie, and Dylan, some of our recent Patreon members. Thank you very much, Leigh, for your support. However, if you just got mugged out on the dangerous streets of ancient Rome, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five-star review.

• 1:14:55Speaker 03

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• 1:15:27Speaker 01

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