The figures decorating the temple pediment of Mars Ultor survive in a fragment similar in style to the Ara Pacis and once associated with an altar of Augustan piety (Ara Pietatis Augustae) but now thought to belong to an altar of Claudius degreed in AD 43 upon his triumphal return from Britain (and later reused in the decoration of the Arch of Diocletian, dedicated in AD 303). The panels depict two sacrificial scenes, possibly to the divine Augustus, both of which prominently display a temple façade in the background. One is the Temple of Magna Mater on the Palatine; the other generally has been recognized as the Temple of Mars Ultor. They likely represent a ceremony that started from the Palatine and ended at the Forum of Augustus.
In the center of the pediment is Mars, himself, holding a lance, to whom Augustus vowed the temple for the god's help in avenging Caesar's death. The father of Romulus, he is flanked on the left by Venus, the mother of Aeneas and founder of the Julian line, wearing a long garment and holding a scepter. Seated next to her is Romulus, founder of Rome. On the right is Fortuna, with her cornucopia and steering oar, who had ensured Augustus' success, accompanied by Roma, seated with her weapons. Reclining in the corners of the gable are personifications of the Palatine Hill, where the city began and the imperial palace was situated, and, next to Roma, the river Tiber. The ideology of the sculptural program is reinforced by the ornaments that decorated the pediment, itself. Coins show acroteria on the roof that include Augustus in his quadriga at the apex, and, at the corners, Romulus to his right and a Trojan group to his left, both moving toward the emperor.
The detail above is from a cast of the original relief (in the Museo della Civiltà Romana and the Ara Pacis) and is one of four large marble panels found early in the sixteenth century on land belonging to the Della Valle family and later given to the Medicis. Flanking the entrance, the Della Valle-Medici slabs are walled in the inner façade of the Villa Medici on the Pincian hill, a building now occupied by the French Academy in Rome.
See also the French Academy.
Reference: Augustan Culture (1996) by Karl Galinsky; Ara Pacis (2006) by Orietta Rossini; The Museums of the Imperial Forums in Trajans Market (2007) edited by Lucrezia Ungaro.
