Solarium Augusti Totally Explained

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The Solarium Augusti was thought to be the largest sundial the ancient world has known, was erected in Rome by Emperor Augustus, with a 30-metre Egyptian red granite obelisk that he'd imported from Heliopolis. In a triumphant demonstration of Ptolemaic Egypt's subordination to Roman military might the obelisk was employed as a gnomon that cast its shadow on a marble pavement inlaid with a gilded bronze network of lines, by which it was possible to read the time of day according to the season of the year. The solarium was dedicated to the Sun in 10 BC, shortly after Julius Caesar's calendar reform. It was the first solar dedication in Rome. The Solarium Augusti was thought to be integrated with the Ara Pacis, aligning with Via Flaminia, in such a way that the shadow of the gnomon fell across the center of the marble altar on 23 September, the birthday of Augustus himself. New evidence, however, has shown that the Solarium Augusti isn't a sundial and the obelisk's shadow didn't point to the Ara Pacis on Augustus' birthday. The obelisk itself was set up to memorialize Augustus' subordination of Egypt to the control of the Roman empire. The two monuments must have been planned together, in relation to the pre-existing Mausoleum of Augustus, to demonstrate that Augustus was natus ad pacem, "born to bring peace", that peace was his destiny. "The collective message dramatically linked peace with military authority and imperial expansion." Pliny the Elder remarked that in the course of time it had become incorrect, and offered several explanations for the shift. The obelisk was illustrated, supported by a reclining figure, on the base of the Column of Antoninus Pius; it was still standing in the eighth century, but was thrown down and broken, then covered in sediment; it was rediscovered in 1512, but not excavated. In a triumphant rededication, the obelisk, now one of the most prominent obelisks of Rome, was re-erected in Piazza di Montecitorio by Pius VI in 1789. Edmund Buchner excavated some sections of the calibrated marble pavement of the Solarium Augusti under the block of houses between Piazza del Parlamento and Piazza San Lorenzo in Lucina (picture, right).
A broad context for the iconographic programme of which the Solarium Augusti is part is offered in Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (University of Michigan Press), 1988.

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