Decorazioni e società: l’ordine visuale degli ornamenti ad Ameria in età Augustea

Abstract

After 12 BC, the establishment of the Pax Augusta and the assumption of the title of pontifex maximus by Augustus affected the social life of the Italic municipalities. The religious fervor is associated with the cultural and economic growth of the city. Refined marble ornaments, decorated public and private monuments reflecting the vitality of the aristocratic classes, involved in a strong cultural relationship with Rome. In Ameria, the aristocracies financed the construction of magnificent public monuments, such as the theatre, by employing decorative patterns created for the Augustan complexes of Rome, and in the religious sphere, the Augustan divinities dominated. The vegetable ornamentation of Ameria’s public and private monuments becomes part of a new, well-structured semantic system. The increased value of some types of ornaments can be argued in the decoration of a marble slab, recently discovered in the suburb. A recently discovered fragment with the same olive raceme decoration opens the possibility of a better understanding of the original display context.

Keywords: Pax Augusta, local worships, visual system, marble ornamental system, semantic power of the decorations