Ara Pacis

The Ara Pacis Augustae (Latin, "Altar of Augustan Peace"; commonly shortened to Ara Pacis) is an altar to Peace, envisioned as a Roman goddess. It was commissioned by the Roman Senate on 4 July 13 BC to honor the return of Augustus to Rome after three years in Hispania and Gaul, and was consecrated on 30 January 9 BC by the Senate to celebrate the peace established in the Empire after Augustus's victories. The altar was meant to be a vision of the Roman civil religion. It sought to portray the peace and fertile prosperity enjoyed as a result of the Pax Augusta (Latin, "Augustan peace") brought about by the military supremacy of the Roman empire, and act as a visual reminder of the Julio-Claudian dynasty that was bringing it about.

The Altar was originally located on the northern outskirts of Rome, on the west side of the Via Flaminia, in the northeastern corner of the Campus Martius, a formerly open area that Augustus developed as a complex of monuments; the Ara Pacis Augustae stood in the flood plain of the river Tiber, where it became buried under four metres of silt over the centuries.