Product Description

The publication devoted to the Victory Monument of Augustus at Nicopolis – The Tropaeum of the Sea Battle of Actium is completed with the release of the third volume, bringing to conclusion a long-term and demanding research program of international scope.

The Monument erected by Augustus to commemorate his naval victory at Actium in 31 B.C., over the combined fleet of Mark Antony and Queen Cleopatra of Egypt, dominates the hill on which he had established his headquarters, on the outskirts of the newly founded city of Nicopolis. Closely associated with the emergence of the Roman Empire, the monument ranks among the most significant archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century on account of its historical, ideological, and artistic importance.

This monumental complex combines a permanent victory tropaeum with an organized cult space, at the center of which stood a monumental Altar of Pentelic marble adorned with an elaborate sculptural program. 

The third volume focuses on the systematic and fully documented reconstruction of the thousands of fragments deriving from the decoration of the Altar and of the monument as a whole. This study makes a substantial contribution to the understanding of public art in the Age of Augustus and of the visual language shaped through the creative interaction of Greek and Roman traditions.

The volume is the result of many years of sustained and methodical research conducted by Konstantinos Zachos and his international team of collaborators. It offers a fully documented and extensively illustrated presentation of the Monument and brings the trilogy to completion with a synthetic and scholarly assessment of its place in the history of art and in the ideological formation of early Imperial Rome.