Bauforschung and Stadtforschung

Abstract

Augustus’ monumental building program has been well studied among Bauforscher. The emperor devoted special attention to creating monuments and monumental ensembles in high-profile parts of the city. The extent and variety of Augustus’ transformations, from reorganizing the city into 14 regions to restoring and uniting neighborhood compital shrines into a citywide cultic network, have also attracted the interests of scholars focused on questions more pertinent to urban studies, or Stadtforschung. This chapter seeks to combine these two scales of inquiry and explore Augustus’ building program within a single region to demonstrate the variety of ways—from the monumental to the mundane—in which Augustus interacted with a typical urban neighborhood. Within an eight-year period, Augustus built or restored five structures in the upper Subura. The diversity of the projects here provides unique evidence for the full scope of Augustus’ urban interventions, including purely local ones, and reveals a sensitivity to distinct local topographical traditions in residential areas. Moreover, the chapter allows a better understanding of the logistical operations and complications of carrying out such a wide variety of projects within a short time span. In considering the seemingly disparate structures within one region in relation to each other, the methodological complementarity of Bauforschung and Stadtforschung becomes clearer.