by Susan Jaques
Built of local limestone by architects from Rome, the graceful edifice is a textbook example of the Tuscan-style temple Vitruvius described in the first century B.C.E. Elevated on a nine-foot-tall podium, the temple was originally approached by a monumental flight of stairs on the west end. Despite its name, the Maison Carrée is not a square but a rectangle, twice as long (eighty-two feet) as it is wide (forty feet). The building features a deep pronaos or vestibule leading to the cella, a windowless room that originally housed a cult image.
The façade is executed in the Roman Corinthian order with six freestanding columns topped by capitals decorated with acanthus leaves. The twenty columns along the sides and back are engaged—attached to the exterior walls of the cella. The workmanship and details recall Augustus’s Temple of Mars Ultor in Rome; the frieze of deeply carved acanthus garlands evokes Augustus’s Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace) on the Campus Martius dedicated in 9 B.C.E.31 Above the columns, the architrave is divided into three zones, carved with reliefs of rosettes and acanthus leaves.32
It’s thought that the Maison Carrée was originally a gift to Nemausus from Augustus, rebuilt during the reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, or Antoninus Pius. James Anderson suggests that the rebuilding may have been inspired by the increasing importance of Nîmes, as the likely birthplace of Trajan’s wife, Empress Plotina.33 Hadrian would dedicate a basilica to Plotina in Nîmes. The Maison Carrée’s purpose was not just religious. As Sheila Bonde writes, “In the colonies, in particular, these cult sites often served the purpose of demonstrating corporate identity with, and allegiance to, Rome.”34
Thanks to the Maison Carrée’s continuous use over the centuries—as a town hall, private home, Christian church, granary, seat of town prefecture, and horse stable—it managed to avoid despoliation and major changes. Lost in the Middle Ages, the original inscription was reconstructed in 1758. The dedication honors Augustus’s grandsons and presumptive heirs Gaius and Lucius Caesar, who both died suspiciously young, two years apart: “To Gaius Caesar, son of Augustus Consul [and] to Lucius Caesar son of Augustus Consul Designate; to [them], First Citizens of the Young.”35
Even the renowned Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, who drew his ancient and Renaissance models from Italy, looked to the spectacular Maison Carrée. “. . . the local inhabitants say that it used to be a basilica. But as the composition of the edifice is unrelated to that of basilicas, I tend to think that it was a temple,” wrote Palladio. The harmonious Maison Carrée also became a model for French architects. Louis XIV considered moving it to Versailles.36
France’s classical monuments were rediscovered in the latter third of the eighteenth century. In 1778, architect Charles-Louis Clérisseau published Antiquités de la France, an assortment of architectural plates of Nîmes’s Roman monuments. Thomas Jefferson visited and was so impressed with the Maison Carrée, he had a stucco model made, which he used as a model for Virginia’s statehouse in Richmond, co-designed with Clérisseau.
After the French Revolution, Nîmes’s iconic temple became the headquarters for the first prefecture of the Gard region and later an archive. Stendhal was also a fan. “The overall effect is admirable,” he wrote. “I have seen more imposing monuments in Italy itself but nothing as pretty as this pretty antique, even though rather overcharged with ornamental detail, which however doesn’t exclude the beautiful. It’s the smile of someone who is habitually serious.”37
Vignon’s neoclassical temple was a larger version of the Maison Carrée, combining the grandeur of Rome with the new symbols of the French Empire. An exterior frontispiece contained the dedication pediment: “The Emperor Napoleon to the soldiers of the Grande Armée.” As Annie Jourdan puts it, in his temple to heroism, Napoleon distinguished himself from France’s kings by sharing glory with his soldiers.38
Twenty-eight steps led up to the Madeleine’s porch and a majestic view down the rue Royale across the Place de la Concorde to the Palais Bourbon across the Seine. Fifty-two fluted Corinthian columns sixty-six feet tall surrounded the entire building, with eight along the portico (versus six in Nîmes). Vignon embellished the entablature with an architrave topped by a frieze adorned with garlands and putti—less ornate than the Maison Carrée. The dentils adorning the cornice gave the façade an austere look.
Like the Maison Carrée, the interior of the Madeleine featured a cella, or inner room. The windowless building was lit from above, with three cupolas over the nave resting on pendentives and Corinthian columns. Each year, on the anniversaries of the battles of Austerlitz and Jena, the monument was to be illuminated, and a preliminary concert given on the virtues needed for a soldier, and praise of those who perished in battle.39 Per Napoleon’s order, marble tablets were inscribed with the names of the fallen soldiers from the battles of Ulm, Austerlitz, and Jena (organized by army corps and regiment). There were to be bas-reliefs featuring the Grande Armée’s regiments, statues of marshals, along with the “flags, standards and drums” taken from the enemy.
As counterparts to his Army’s Temple of Glory, Napoleon ordered two additional “temples.” The riverfront Palais-Bourbon on the Quai d’Orsay occupied a strategic position in the axis of the Vendôme Column and Place de la Concorde. In 1750, Louis XV acquired the palace, originally owned by the daughter of Louis XIV and his official mistress Madame de Montespan. Confiscated from the Prince du Condé during the Revolution, the mansion was adapted for use by the Council of the Five Hundred and later by the Legislative Body during the Consulate and Empire.
In 1806, Napoleon hired Bernard Poyet to replace the palace’s original 1722 façade with one that would complement the Madeleine. To the existing mansion, Poyet attached a peristyle of one dozen Corinthian columns perpendicular to the axis of the Concord bridge, creating a temple portico. Part of the plan went unrealized, included statues of legislators for the foot of the staircase leading to the peristyle. The first sculpture by Chaudet in 1810 depicted Napoleon returning from Austerlitz and followed by the flags, which he dedicated to the Legislative Body. Napoleon reportedly disliked the result, declaring that he regretted “no longer being an artillery lieutenant to fire a cannon on this portico of bad effect.”40 Today the building houses the French National Assembly.
After the Revolution, Notre-Dame-des-Victoires had housed the Bourse, or stock exchange. Now Napoleon returned the building to the Church and ordered a new Roman style temple—a “temple de l’argent.” In 1807, Napoleon Bonaparte hired Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart to design the new stock exchange. A friend of sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon and member of the Academy of Architecture, the Paris-born architect had sheltered portraitist Élisabeth Vigée Lebrun in his home before she fled Paris during the Reign of Terror. Brongniart was among those who stayed and was ruined by the Revolution.
As Renée Davray-Piekolek writes, the architect regarded the Bourse commission as a consecration.41 Responding to Napoleon’s wish to have his stock exchange look like a temple of commerce, Brongniart may have looked to Rome’s imperial cult Temple of Vespasian and Titus for inspiration. Located at the westernmost area of the Roman Forum near the Arch of Septimius Severus, the temple was begun by Titus in 79 and finished by his brother Domitian around 87. Measuring 108 feet long by 72 feet wide, with six freestanding columns across the front, the temple was dedicated to the deified father and son. Three of its Corinthian columns still stand at the southeast corner of the podium (a section of the entablature featuring a carved frieze with cult objects and sacrificial implements is housed at the Capitoline Museum).42
The site chosen for the new stock exchange was a former convent, the Filles Saint-Thomas d’Aquin, confiscated during the Revolution. After numerous sketches by Brongniart, the first stone was laid in 1808. Roughly twice as big as the Temple of Vespasian and Titus at 226 by 135 feet, the building was accessed by steps leading to a gallery. Adorning the main and lateral façades were twenty-four and forty Corinthian columns, respectively. Each corner featured an allegorical statue; Justice by Dure
t, Commerce by Dumont, Agriculture by Seurre, and Industry by Pradier. Brongniart died in 1813; his monumental temple de l’argent was finished twelve years later by Éloi Labarre. The Palais de la Bourse was called “Palais Brongniart” in honor of its designer.
FOUR
COINING AN EMPIRE
While campaigning in Egypt, Napoleon reportedly found a medallion of Julius Caesar at the ruins of Pelusium on the easternmost bank of the Nile. He considered it a lucky omen.1
In 44 B.C.E., to mark his proclamation as perpetual dictator, Caesar ordered his portrait struck in silver. Distributed throughout the Empire, the coin featured his unique profile—receding hairline covered up with a laurel wreath, prominent nose and chin, protruding cheekbones, and long neck with an Adam’s apple.2 On the coin’s flip side were the initials of the triumvir of the mint, Lucius Aemilius Buca, along with the symbolic caduceus (staff), fasces (bundle of rods and a single axe), orb, and axe.
Caesar was the first to have his portrait on a Roman coin.3 Because portraits were associated with the ousted kings of the sixth century B.C.E., Rome’s early coins had been decorated instead with symbols of the city. With the formation of the Republic in 509 B.C.E., coins frequently featured images of divinities on the obverse (front) and symbols of power on the reverse (back). For example, the head of Mars was paired with an eagle holding a thunderbolt; Jupiter matched with Victory placing a wreath on a trophy.
With the Republic, wealthy, illustrious Romans were allowed to glorify their ancestors and families by minting coins. As Daniele Leoni explains, “. . . coins began to take on a cultural expression with ever-more obvious political implications quite apart from the economic function for which they had been conceived. They thus became a “monumentum”, or rather they provided new evidence testifying to what it meant to actually be a part of ancient Rome . . .”4
In 44 B.C.E., the same year that his commemorative coin was issued, Julius Caesar’s dictatorship ended with his assassination on the Ides of March. Caesar’s adopted son and heir, Caius Julius Caesar Octavian, who would rule as Emperor Augustus, perfected the propagandistic use of portraiture. Augustus had more portraits made than any other emperor—in cameos, sculptured portraits, relief sculptures, and coins. A fan of Hellenistic art, Augustus introduced a new iconographic style for his portraits modeled after the image of the god Apollo, whom he considered his protector.
According to Diana Kleiner, coins were an especially effective vehicle for imperial propaganda because they were handled daily by citizens both in Rome and the Empire’s provinces.5 Without an information system to communicate, the widely circulated coins helped preserve loyalty and disseminate news throughout the growing Roman Empire, explains C.H.V. Sutherland.6
In 37 B.C.E., Octavian used a sestarius to legitimize his claim to power by highlighting his adoption by Caesar. The obverse shows Octavian wearing a beard of mourning with the label Divi filius, the son of a god. The flip side features Divus Julius, the deified Julius Caesar (the Senate proclaimed Caesar a god in 42 B.C.E.).7 In 28 B.C.E., Octavian starred on a silver cistophorus as the harbinger of peace, crowned with a laurel wreath with the text: “Protector of the freedom of the Roman people.”8
The next year, Octavian took the name Augustus and minted a gold coin to celebrate Rome’s conquest of Egypt. His image was paired with the text: “Augustus, consul for the seventh time . . . Imperator, son of the divine Caesar.” A hippopotamus representing Egypt with the words “Egypt conquered” decorated the reverse.9 To commemorate the honor bestowed on him by Rome’s Senate, Augustus minted another coin that year with Jupiter’s eagle clutching a garland of oak leaves.
As part of Augustus’s reform of Rome’s monetary system, various base metal denominations were introduced including the gold aureus.10 Powerful symbols appeared in coinage to evoke Augustus’s main propaganda themes—military victory, peace, and prosperity (pax romana), and his divine descent from Aeneas, son of Venus.
Like during the Roman Republic, buildings were reproduced on imperial coins. Augustus minted images of public monuments including the Altars of Peace and the Lion, Temples of Jupiter Tonans, Jupiter Olympus, and Mars Ultor, and the Triumphal Arch after the Parthian Victory. An aureus minted in Spain around 18 B.C.E. featured the three-vaulted Parthian Arch topped by a quadriga from the Roman Forum.11
According to Suetonias, the aging Augustus “had only partial vision. His teeth were small, few and decayed; his hair, yellowish and rather curly; his eyebrows met over his nose. . . . His body said to have been marred by blemishes of various sorts . . . and a number of dry patches suggesting ringworm.”12 Still, Augustus was always portrayed as youthful and athletic—even at his death at 76 in 14 C.E.
Rome’s future emperors continued to incorporate prestigious architecture into their imperial coinage. Nero featured his Golden House, the Triumphal Arch, Gate of Ostia, and Temple of Janus. Titus depicted the Colossus; Trajan the Basilica Ulpia, Trajan Forum, the Trajan Aqueduct Way and Column, and Trajan Gate.13
As Daniele Leoni details, the Imperial Roman Mint produced coins in gold, silver, and bronze/brass using the time-honored proportions of twenty-five denarrii to the aureus, four sestertii to one denarius, and four asses to the sestertius. A quinarius was worth half an aureus. Sestertii and dupondii were minted in brass, an alloy of copper and zinc regarded as more valuable than bronze. Provincial mints were also active. Among them, Alexandria produced bronze drachmas; Pergamon and Ephesus turned out silver sistoforii (equivalent to three dinari); and Tyre created silver tetradams.14
Rome’s emperors followed Augustus’s lead, using coins to spread their images and proclaim their military victories throughout the Empire. As they did in sculpture and cameos, emperors starting with Augustus often minted coins bearing the names and images of their wives, parents, children, grandchildren, and siblings. Special consecration coins with the words consecratio or aeternitas were minted to spread word of the divinization of emperors and family members.
Starting with Augustus and continuing until the end of the Roman Empire, the emperor’s image took the place of the sacred figure on the obverse of coins. Imperial appellatives were also inscribed in abbreviated form on the obverse; if space ran out, the list of titles and honors continued on the reverse. For example, imperator (emperor) appeared as IMP; Pontifex Maximus (Rome’s highest religious appointment) as P M or Pont Max; and Caesar as CAE, CAES or CAESAR. Of his many ranks, Pater Patriae or P P (Father of the Fatherland) is the title Augustus most wanted on his coins.15 Of all his titles, Trajan most prized Optimus Principi, the best of the emperors.
The Senate hailed new emperors with the slogan “may you be as lucky as Augustus and better than Trajan.” Trajan was the first Roman emperor to regularly issue bronze medallions. Generally heavier than sestertii, these dramatic medallions were commemorative and not part of the monetary system. It was during the reign of Trajan’s successor Hadrian, explains Jocelyn Toynbee, that continuous series of bronze medallions debuted, including “framed” medallions with a broad rim or circle around the central design.16 According to Toynbee, medallions marked key events in the personal and political lives of the emperors. These included everything from adoptions, marriages, births, and deaths to religious celebrations and imperial adlocutios (allocutions) to the Praetorian Guard or imperial armies.17
Commodus was especially a fan. His medalists produced exceptional medallions in high relief to commemorate imperial events and honor the gods. After Commodus’s assassination in 192, successive emperors like Septimius Severus continued to commission medallions. The largest and most striking were probably presented as gifts by Rome’s emperors.18
“From the middle of the 1st century onwards,” writes Toynbee, “the imperial government had appreciated, as few governments have done before or since, not only the function of coinage as a mirror of contemporary life, of the political, social, spiritual, and artistic aspirations of the age, but also its immense and unique possibilities as a far-reach
ing instrument of propaganda.”19 For example, to mark Rome’s nine-hundredth anniversary in 147, Antoninus Pius issued a propagandistic nine medallion series including the story of Hercules and Cacus, and Aeneas’s flight from Troy.20
Allegory was central to Roman coinage, with the reverses featuring personifications like Victoria, Abundance, and Peace. Thanks to their clothing and attributes, these representations were easy to recognize. Victoria was usually represented by a seminude, winged female figure in various poses. Often she crowns or offers a crown to the emperor, or leads his triumphal quadriga. Abundance, also a female figure, was typically depicted holding a cornucopia and ears of corn. Though Rome was founded and maintained by war, writes Francesco Gnecchi, peace was considered a gift from the gods. In numerous coins, Pax was celebrated as a female figure, commonly carrying a long scepter, olive branch, palm, or crown.21
Like Rome’s emperors, Charlemagne used coins to help unify his growing empire and enforce his authority. As part of a series of monetary reforms, the Frankish king consolidated minting authority and deleted the names of moneyers from coinage. Like today’s euro, silver coins bearing Charlemagne’s name or initial and title were accepted throughout his realm. Around 794, Charlemagne launched a thinner, larger, heavier version of the denier, introduced by his father Pepin the Short. The new design featured a cross and royal title on the obverse, and Karolus (Charlemagne in Latin) monogram and mint name on the reverse.22
The Roman medallion also inspired the creation of a new genre in Renaissance Italy. Starting in the fourteenth century, as part of the interest in classical civilizations, Italian humanists began collecting ancient Greek and Roman coins. In 1439, the northern Italian court painter Pisanello invented a prototype of the modern medal. It featured a portrait on the obverse of visiting Byzantine emperor John VIII Palaeologus with a symbolic image on the reverse. As in ancient Roman coinage, inscriptions often reflected the subject’s titles, qualities, or motto. Pisanello’s format—the antiquity-inspired subject in profile—caught on and became the standard for portrait medals.