This dissertation explores the idea of the monument in the Roman imagination of the Augustan age (31 BCE – 14 CE). It examines the different ways in which three Augustan poets – Horace in his Odes, Vergil in his Aeneid, and Ovid in his Metamorphoses – imagined their works as monuments that contributed to the broader discourse of monumentality of the period. A survey of the importance of architecture to how the Romans structured the world around them conceptually will be followed in each subsequent chapter by a reading of these poems which seeks to accomplish two goals: [1] to demonstrate the very nuanced manner in which the Augustan poets fashioned their works as monumenta (“monuments”) and [2] to connect aspects of the poems’ monumentality to strategies employed by the princeps himself in his Res Gestae when discussing his reconstruction of Rome on both a literal and metaphorical level. This study will argue that by analyzing the sophisticated manner in which these poets contributed to the monumentalization of their city we can understand better the success that Augustus had in turning Rome from a city of brick to one of marble – not just in its physical landscape, but in the Roman imagination, as well. The conclusion will then look at what the Roman understanding of monumentality in the Augustan age can reveal about possible limitations of the discourse surrounding the idea of the monument today.PhDClassical StudiesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111470/1/ngeller_1.pd
