Death and the Emperor

This book offers the first comprehensive study of the funerary monuments made for the Roman emperors. These monuments, which include the Mausoleum of Augustus, Trajan's Column, and the Column of Marcus Aurelius, are among the best known and most extensively excavated and documented structures of Roman antiquity. Because of their diversity of forms and decorative programs, however, they have been examined in isolation from one another and from a limited number of perspectives. In this study, Penelope J. E. Davies examines these commemorative arches, obelisks and other types of architecture with a view to determining the political or ritual motivations behind their designs. She demonstrates that these monuments served a dual role, as memorials to the dead and as accession monuments that would guarantee dynastic continuity for the monarchy on the precarious occasion of the emperor's death.