The Partial Historians: Augustus' Mausoleum with Dr Victoria Austen
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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 podcast's

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. 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 episode.

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. They're going on or past their 10 year anniversary, which is just so cool. I have been friends with these ladies since I was

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. 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 Again, that stuff is so interesting, but which I don't regularly bring you because I'm just not all about Roman historical content unless someone wants to come on my show and tell me about it, which again, I do welcome.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...

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 find more from the Partial Historians wherever you're listening to this podcast.

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. Welcome to the Partial Historians. We explore all the details of ancient Rome. Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Radd.

And I'm Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts. Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city. 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 here.

Dr Victoria Austin holds an MA and a PhD from King's College London. 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 Carleton College, Minnesota. Dr Victoria Austin holds an MA and a PhD from King's College London.

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.

Austen's monograph, Analyzing the Boundaries of the Roman Garden, Reframing the Hortus, was released in 2023 as part of the Bloomsbury Ancient Environments series. 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. Yay! So great to be back. I'm so excited to talk more things Augustus. As we know, I'm a big fan. Yes.

Me too. Dr. Rad is outnumbered. We've already got eye roll already. I was going to say, look, I'm very happy to see you again, but less happy to see your friend. LAUGHTER

Ouch. Ouch. But look, you know what? I am going to embrace it because I have some fantastic dad jokes here. So Augustus is more salient. You might say that everyone in the Julia-Claudian period is just dying to get in. Amazing. I mean, turn out then. No comment. Flawless. Okay.

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? 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 mausolus tomb which is one of the seven ancient wonders of the world so

Time-wise, it was finished in 28 BCE. So this is, you know, still kind of pretty early on, actually, in his principle, you know, when you think he was there for, you know, a good more 30 years or so. So he was thinking about his afterlife. He was concerned about his commemoration. Yeah.

Yeah, like an Egyptian ruler or something. He's just very focused on that end goal. And kind of like structurally as well, it's obviously, it's very impressive. It's like this huge kind of concrete structure where,

which in concrete in itself is a kind of Roman innovation, which was kind of relatively still new at this time period. You know, they're still experimenting with, oh, we can use this new material 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 the

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, 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 he likes to do with everything. It sounds extremely presumptuous. Yes, it is. Within keeping of his character. Yes. Yeah.

Very much so. And I'm particularly thinking about the date of 28 BCE, because this is right before 27, 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. And I think particularly because, you

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 principle kind of speaks to, oh, he may have been doing all of his. I'm just restoring the Republic shtick, 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, the,

dynastic structure I think it's very telling that he's already creating a very obvious building and structure like super early really although to be fair he wasn't a well man no and I think I think that's part of it he had so much anxiety over death and you know then all of his heirs keep dying as we know along the way it came in handy he chooses someone they die 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 yeah definitely yeah look that's tough isn't it that anxiety and and also that monumentalism what a fascinating character yeah I don't understand Dr. Radwell you're not so interested

I am intrigued, but it's more the fact that I'm like, why can't people just see through him? 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 also see through him. So, you know, that's fine.

No, I think it's more Dr. G I'm talking to here. She genuinely likes him. I think it's just because in the portraiture he comes across as being relatively good looking, so I'm willing to forgive him for things. But that's just me being really basic. Yeah, fine. 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 and Augustine sort of way of thinking about Rome? Yeah. And so I think I was actually talking about this very topic with my students actually yesterday.

last week because we were doing the Augustan period in Roman art and archaeology. And I was saying that one of his innovations really is, you know, late Republican building projects like kind of Pompey'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 Pompey 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. 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 Arapakis, which I spoke a lot about on the last time I was with you. And then there's also this monumental sundial as well, the Horolonia. And they're all very close together in this campus marshes 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 Arapakis eventually, which is, you know, commemorating I've bought.

peace to Rome for the first time. And then with the sundial, I think that's particularly interesting because 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. 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 Augusta monuments. And you have to imagine if you're a Roman, you're walking through the campus marshes, like you're going to be able to see all three of these things within a very short walk.

you'll be able to see them from each other. They're very, very close together. And this association with the campus marshes in particular, this idea that there is a whole Augustan precinct and there is a really long history of how the campus marshes is used. And now it's evolving under Augustus' building regime as well. Yeah, absolutely. And I think 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 and 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 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. Because 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. It sounds like my waking nightmare. You're surrounded on all sides. You can't escape. 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. Yes, he really was. And I think there's a famous, the kind of famous...

I suppose, about these kind of three monuments all kind of like working together in the Campus Martiuses, it has been suggested that the shadow of the sundial would go directly through the entrance of the Ara Parcus on Augustus' birthday. So it's like, it's basically, I have conquered time. Like, I have.

I am in charge. And I think, you know, Julius Caesar, his uncle had redone the calendar. And so the sundial was now with the Julian calendar 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. Yeah.

You're going to still be thinking about me. And it's the same with the Arapacus. You know, 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 cycle.

presence, I think, that he's trying to establish there. 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. Oh my God, me too! This is the connection. It's I'm a Virgo as well. It is all beginning to make sense. It absolutely is. It's all very clear. Yeah.

He's just so organized. He's thought of everything. I get it now and I will stop giving you crap about it. We can't help it. It's in the stars. Yeah.

Absolutely, yeah. Now look, this is probably my favourite part of Augustus' 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? 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 of like the Julia Claudians, I don't know. We know that famously Julia obviously does not. I bet she doesn't get in there. No.

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

It's not by default that you get in there. Like there are choices being made. 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. Yeah. And I think there is this sense that, you know, again, this maybe speaks to why this was such an important building for him and that anxiety over the succession is

You know, his entire project, it was only ever going to reach its peak.

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 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 and then yeah literally he's like I choose you and now you're dead like the touch of death is like when Augusta says you're gonna succeed me and then he's just left with Tiberius by the end so it's this explains Tiberius's reluctance he's seen the pattern he's like just say no yeah yeah 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. 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 think that's why I'm kind of fascinated with this temporal aspect and the playing of time because, you know, commemoration in general, it's something 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, 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'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 continuing, because nature is continually evolving. So it's like, it kind of appears to be this

ever-present feature, but that feature is in itself kind of always moving. It's not static. And so I think, again, he kind of taps into the power of plants, I suppose, in that way to really enhance that kind of temporal aspect of the commemoration. Yeah, and it is kind of interesting to think that a lot of the people that end up getting buried in there are younger members of the dynasty, which I think kind of

to the fact that if you're, if you grow up to be an adult, if you live long enough, you're going to tick somebody off and someone's going to want to kick you out. Yeah. All the young ones, it's just, they didn't have enough time to do anything. No, no. They were like, well, you were five. So we didn't, we didn't hate you yet. Except for a group of posthumous. Like, you know, there's always the exception. He's, he's, you know, he's, he's okay. He doesn't annoy anyone. No.

But 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 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 heritage

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. Yeah. And I think the mausoleum is like a microcosm of what is going on in the campus marshes 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 marshes itself is this huge kind of landscaped green kind of park, almost like a kind of sacred

grovy, sacrilegious type landscape. And within that 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 marshes in general, because, you know, Augustus wants people to experience these sites and be there. And so 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...

Fewer Roman gardens is like from Pompeii where you've got these individual houses 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, 10,000, you know, 10 other people and you don't have access to nature in that way. And so these kind of more quote unquote public areas are

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, from their very,

urban, maybe small scale reality. And then suddenly you can go to this 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 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.

Interesting. Interesting. All right. I will, I will hold onto 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. Yeah. And, but,

I won't go too far down that path. That is an unformed thought. 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 wasn't just like plain concrete there would have been kind of marble decoration and we know

Either side of the entranceway, there were kind of carved marble panels that featured laurel. And like this is very probably symbolic of the fact that he has two laurel trees either side, you know, either side of the entrance to his 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. Augustus 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 powers.

planty symbols and and it's not by accident there's like these repeated patterns and so

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. Yeah, yeah, brand it. Well, I mean, this is not quite the same thing, but there is also that idea that comes through Augustus that, like,

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 not quite the same thing. 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 literature

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, it's a smart move. He's creating a new sacred landscape with the Cousmarchists and he's like, I am at the centre of it. So like, it's like,

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

Ah, you want some tall poppy syndrome. Oh, yeah. There is actually, honestly, it is a cultural thing that Australians aren't comfortable with ambitious people. Oh, really? Interesting. Okay. Yeah. But no, I think, yeah, Augustus would not fit in there then. No.

No, no, no. Certainly not. No, no. But I actually, to come back to our earlier thing, I just thought out of interest, I would have a, have a look at a list of people that ended up making it in during the rest of his lifetime. So obviously we know Marcellus. Yep. He's, yeah, he's,

His intended heir, Nero Uno, who unfortunately died very, very young and unexpectedly, the son of his sister Octavia. Octavia, of course, ends up in there. Yeah, Octavia is in there. Yeah, so it's not just limited to men as well, which is quite interesting. He does allow some women in there. Yeah, well, I mean, 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 is asked of her.

you know, does her bit for the succession. Agrippa, who is not a blood relative, of course.

No, but they're like brothers in their hearts. They are. I mean, look, if anyone deserves to go in there, it's Agrippa. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think Augustus would have been Augustus without Agrippa, but it's good that he acknowledged that. I wouldn't say that much. And then, of course, my man, Tiberius, after Augustus' death, obviously, ends up in there. But so do people like Germanicus, who we might expect as well. Antonia Minor. Yeah.

Hmm. Yeah. Mother of Claudius. Britannicus. Oh, yeah. Poor Britannicus. Tragically murdered by one of his own relatives, which is why it's kind of weird that he ends up in there. Well, first I killed him and then I put him in the mausoleum because that's the right thing to do. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And of course, Claudius himself. Now I'm just going to point out.

We are missing, of course, Nero and Caligula. He's not in there. No, no, he's definitely not. So being a relative is not enough to get you in there. It is definitely not. Being an emperor isn't enough to get you in there.

And again, this is the point about the dynastic monument. 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 and this idea that then it's

the family and the dynastic part, they're not one and the same. And obviously with the Julio-Claudians, there's a lot of overlap, but you know, no one is, there's no father-son succession in the Julio-Claudians. It's like, who's alive and who do we not want to murder? Oh, you'll be the next one. Congratulations. You survived long enough. Yes.

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? Yeah, who do we pick? Yeah. Oh, that would open up the field. Goodness me. That really would, yeah. 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. Right.

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. I mean, I think this is what I found so fascinating. And this really started as a very small, I was like, well, what did kind of happen after the Augustine period? And it has opened up this whole new world of research to me. And now I'm looking up

and who's in charge of Rome in the pre-modern period. It's fascinating. It's not like a linear kind of journey. Yeah, 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 Nerva in 96 CE. And then it kind of,

We have very, very fragmentary and limited evidence from that kind of peak use period as a burial plot. And then it really kind of like drops off and we don't have like a ton of information. It pops up in the 10th century. It's called the Mons Augusta by Gregorius, I think it is. He refers to the site as this like Mons Augusta.

And then in the 12th century, we have this really interesting reference in the Mirabilia Urbis Romae, which is essentially like a guidebook to the ancient city. And it's referred to as the Augustum. But it also includes this really interesting legend, which is actually not found in the ancient sources, but it's

described in the Mirabilia and it says that the mound itself is special and people still like kind of go to it and worship it and it's still a special site because he talks about, the author of the Mirabilia, 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 two. Wow.

Oh, that's very cool. So fascinating. And like, I wish we had any kind of character, any hint of this in the ancient sources. But I mean, they obviously got this idea from somewhere in the Mirabee because it's discussed as something it's like, this is the well-known site that you're going to 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 communication,

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. I was going to say, it sounds so on brand. It's so on brand. And so I think it's also just really interesting that

In the Mirabilia, 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 they're going to look at. Which again, when I think about these kind of the temporal aspects of plantings is and why people use them in commemoration. Again, it's like it's always there.

But it's changed over time. So, yeah, that's a really fascinating little reference in the 12th century. And then we basically have like nothing and we don't really know what happened to it. This is a contentious time in pre-modern Rome. 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 12th to the 14th centuries about, oh, Rome, it was so great. And now we've let it go to ruin. And you can kind of think about the mausoleum in that way. What we do then know is that then in the 16th century, when, you know, the Pope's

They've been away in France and then they come back to Rome and they start to really rejuvenate the city. And so as part of that kind of regeneration in the 16th century, it gets the site in itself gets bought by an elite gentleman called Monsieur Soderini. He's part of this Florentine family. And they're like, we want to invest in Rome. And so we're going to buy we're going to buy us some ancient sites.

we're going to make our mark in Rome. And the Solorini 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 kind of uncovers it and there's this amazing letter. I'm going to bring it up so I can read it to you from 1549. 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 Soderini 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. But

So 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, which Augustus did as well, of like, we're being all rustic 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 that they eat, which I think...

And so in terms of like commemoration, for me, this is really interesting as well, because by turning it, he has his like private collection of ancient sculptures and then they're being displayed inside the tomb. So 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. But then it's also now starting to commemorate Soderini's own identity as well as 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 as like, this is a place to go. Like you got to go to the mausoleum, you got to see the sculptures. And yes, I just think that's really fascinating that he like kind of 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. Well, look, 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 little place for her, you know, a little home away from home. Thank you. Honestly.

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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 was closed. It's close to the public because they are doing even more renovation work. I was going to say there was a moment a few years ago, pre-COVID, where it had reopened. 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. I was like, this is my moment. And what's really fascinating, though, one thing I did notice was

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

So one of the key dates in this timeline is this 1549 date. They actually have it as a key kind of date. So this Soderini garden, I'm kind of interested when it's reopened, if they're going to make a bit more of that part of its history in terms of like exhibitions or something like that, because there is like not a lot written on this. The kind of 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 government or the kind of museum, like it had this 1549 date on as part of like the kind of key timeline. And I was like, because I'm pretty sure not many people know about that.

Yeah. And I think it speaks to what is this broader legacy, because there is something about circular buildings. 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 Sotirini to do this moment where he's like, look,

I'm a bit like Augustus here and I've created this space which allows you to engage with time and all of this kind of stuff as well. And perhaps there are some replantings going on. Who knows? And again, we don't have any evidence for this being

particular like the remnants of how Soderini had utilized it that there's no physical evidence of it because 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 may be look like. And so like I'm looking at one on my screen now and I can send you one for the for the website. It's this idea of you've got this kind of walkway up to the front and it's flanked by ancient statues. And then you kind of go in through the entrance way and then the interior. It kind of looks like the sculptures were kind of round shaped.

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 just think it's,

It's really, really fascinating. And yeah, just the kind of consistency of the engravings, I think, from this couple of centuries, I think we can get a fairly good idea of what it maybe looks like. But for some reason, from the 18th kind of century onwards, it goes into another period of decline and we don't really get much going on then until kind of

We get a period of like 100 years of kind of decline. And then we've got the next kind of key infamous phase, I think, is when Mussolini comes along with his pickaxe.

And again, in terms of like commemoration and memory and identity, you can see 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 story.

schtick is that oh it's gone into disrepair again this idea of it being like buried and earth and it's like undercover 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 marshes

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

like cleared it out completely. You know, people didn't get a choice. It's like, no, I'm going in there. I'm getting rid of all of the residential stuff. And yeah, 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 shot. 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 story.

kind of memory and his use of the ancient city and 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. Well, look, 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 created

And his cronies are involved in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Ah, okay. So, yeah, the idea that Mussolini obviously is connecting to ancient Rome as...

basically for his own regime will be familiar territory to them. And I mean, I don't think it's not unsurprising that he also really wanted to uncover Augustan monuments. Absolutely. He was like, he's my guy. Like he's the big...

He's bigger than my language. You know, we 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 Arapakis as well. Like he actually bought he's I mean, he's the reason why we have it all nicely kind of reconstructed in the nice, beautifully air conditioned museum that it's in now.

I mean, it's just kind of fascinating to me that Augustus, these Augustan monuments are kind of, they keep being reused, repurposed and for different forms of memory and kind of like tapping into memory, I think. 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

Yeah.

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. Yeah, be very clear on that. But there is some good ideas behind the idea of governments investing in heritage. Yeah. And I think 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 would think as such a key Augustan monument that it would not have maybe gone through these periods of decline. I know. I feel like it's one of the least well-known Augustan monuments, probably because so few people have actually been able to engage with it in any way.

But it was like so central. Like to him, it would have been so central. He'd have been very disappointed at the lack of the deterioration. And not to mention that Hadrian's mausoleum on the other side sort of now has precedent, you would say. 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 guess, like from the imperial period up until when it kind of crops back up in the pre-modern period. I'm just kind of intrigued as to why...

Why was it allowed to get into that state? Yeah. But compared to like other buildings, that's what doesn't make sense to me. No. I mean, part me wonders, one thing I do want to look into is that I think as well, possibly the area that it's in, the campus marshes, obviously...

One of the things that good old Agrippa did was, you know, put it in this drainage system, which allowed them to build there in the first place. But it's so close to the river that it has suffered over time from a lot of flooding. And I have to wonder, like, was a famous flood, I think, in the 11th or the 12th century of the Tiber. And I have to wonder, like, whether that's part of

why it got into this state of disrepair. Right. Just because of its location and then if there was flooding and that kind of thing. So that might be part of it. But yeah, it's kind of interesting how when it does get rejuvenated, it's always in the same kind of way. Like they're kind of using the Augusta model, but then doing their own kind of thing with it, which I think is really interesting. Yeah, but it is really weird, as you say, because it's,

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 pyramids, you know, to be like, I will look on those or, or the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Like it's,

I mean, if I think about, we've just had the Ramsey's 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 crammed in to see this stuff. And it's like people care about this kind of stuff. And it's certainly not neglected. So it is a weird thing to overlook, especially because, and something we haven't really mentioned, it was weird.

weird to have people buried inside the city of Rome, to have human remains inside the city. That is rare in this particular culture. Yeah. And I think that is, again, that kind of speaks to this kind of bold, the initial bold statement that Augustus is making 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 grand burial monument so close to the centre of Rome. I mean, people kind of still...

want to think of the campus marshes, 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 like, guys, it's an easy walk from the forum. You're gonna be fine. Yeah, you know, you can have a nice, you can have a Sunday stroll up to the campus marshes, 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 places it so centrally, you know. Yeah. Very interesting. Definitely. So broadly speaking, after having looked at the Morthalim and the Augustus context and then looking about the legacy of that and the reuse of it over time, what do you feel we can learn by looking at this particular monument? 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 are this idea of the kind of reuse of ancient monuments in later periods and how they in themselves changed.

can take on new ideological meanings, whether that be on a personal level like Soderini or a political level like Mussolini. So this idea of monuments in themselves, the kind of multivalence and the ever-changing nature of how these monuments are received and what they mean. And I think this is 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 like, how did we skip over that? So that kind of like continual reuse and this kind of cyclical nature of like decline and regeneration of monuments and reuses, I think it is a really nice thing.

case study of that. And then also my focus 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. I think we really underestimate the importance of the collaboration of those two things. And I think we tend to think of 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 instead in conversation with one another. And again, I just think the mausoleum is a really fascinating example of that trend. And so I think it can teach us, you know, quite a lot about those two broader ideas. Well,

Well, 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. I mean, you have to think about, I mean, when I lived in Winnipeg, a lot of people would always comment like the downtown, it had like no trees or like plantings and like

that conversation around like urban forestry and like that idea of we need to, 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,

Just because it's a 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 in our modern frameworks, we're thinking of these things very separately. But I'm kind of hopeful that with this idea of replanting and kind of urban forestry and putting plants back into more traditionally urban environments, I think is a move forward.

move in a more positive direction because I think we kind of lost that idea that we can have both at the same time. Yeah, well, I think that comes to 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 recognising increasingly for mental health, to help with 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. No, and I mean, yeah, thinking about like the heat in itself, I mean, like when you're just surrounded by concrete, it's like so much more oppressive than if there's like... The minute you get into a bit of nature or buy some trees, 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 in 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 marshes in marble. I mean, like part of it were, but it just makes so much more sense to have this kind of collaboration of the natural and the ornamental.

Yeah, I'm just picturing a lot of Romans like, you know, running along in their sandals and slipping around when it rains. Oh no, no, no, this is a disaster. If only there was some grass around here, I'll tell you what. So to wrap this conversation up 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. 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? Well,

Well, I think there's such a fine line to be walked 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 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. 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 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 a really interesting study in, like, projection of when we can't know the original, like, what then are we trying to create? Like, what...

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 original, 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 monuments based on all of the layers of history. And we're coming to a modern lens, like I said, 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 in

to individual pieces that we're like trying to hold on to. And I think, you know, I think as humans, 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, you know, when we're moving through space and time, like that's a, we're just totally different individuals in that way. So I think it's important to recognize or try and figure out what it would have originally been like. But I think...

It's also important to recognize that these things are always evolving and that there's not like this one static way of viewing. Yeah. And there's kind of like an impossibility embedded in that, isn't there? Where it's like, I mean, I would love to know what it originally looked like, but the chances of that ever happening. And I think then also we limit ourselves by thinking

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 interesting things we can kind of think about when it comes to monuments and memory and kind of what they mean. And I think just focusing on like trying to reclaim monuments

some original purpose is it's just kind of missing the point. I think of monuments and memorialization 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? 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. So by all means, build it up, make it a freaking skyscraper. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's interesting. We still kind of...

even though it is run down and there's still a desire to reclaim it even now, 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 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 going to do something with it anyway.

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. 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. Yeah. The best view you can get is actually from inside the Arapakis museum because you're a bit raised and then you're

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. Cause it's like, like the Coliseum, 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. 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 it's,

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 space

of people like Dr. G, Dr. Austin, and also reflect on what a manipulative, evil son of a bitch Augustus was. I knew it was coming. I knew it. And she's got to get the final word in. Yeah.

End. End episode. Exit stage left. But yeah, I mean, I think having a space to go and yeah, and think about...

Augustus and all the things that he did. It's good. 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. Yeah.

surreptitiously record that conversation. Dr. D and I are saving a way for a partial historian's expedition. There you go. So we will hope that the mausoleum is part of that experience for you. Absolutely, yeah. I want to look at the remains of Augustus. Look him in the eye and tell him what you think, really. That's right. I see what you were doing. You didn't fool me. LAUGHTER

Goodness me. Well, 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. 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.

Thank you very much, Leigh, for your support.

However, if you just got mugged out in the dangerous streets of ancient Rome, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five-star review. That goes for our book as well. Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome. When you're a forward thinker, the only thing you're afraid of is business as usual. Workday is the AI platform that transforms the way you manage your people and money today so you can transform tomorrow. Workday, moving business forever forward.

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