It is not often that we are fortunate enough to get to chat to one of our amazing guests a second time, but sometimes the gods are just that kind. We sat down to speak to the one and only Dr Victoria Austen about Augustus’ mausoleum.

Special Episode – Augustus’ Mausoleum

Dr Victoria Austen holds a MA and PhD from King’s College London. She has lectured in the Classics at the University of Winnipeg and is currently the Robert A. Oden, Jr. Postdoctoral Fellow for Innovation in the Humanities and Classics at Carleton College, Minnesota. Her monograph Analysing the Boundaries of the Roman Garden: (Re)Framing the Hortus’ was released in 2023 as part of the Bloomsbury Ancient Environments Series. Vicky has recently been speaking for the American Institute of Archaeology on gardens and commemoration.

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‘The Mausoleum of Augustus’ from Pietro Santi Bartoli, Gli antichi sepolcri ii, 1727. courtesy of Carleton College Special Collections.

What is Augustus’ mausoleum?

Augustus did not rest on his laurels after winning the Battle of Actium against Cleopatra and Mark Antony. He set about consolidating his political position and figuring out exactly what that would entail.

Augustus set about transforming the city itself as part of his political machinations. Some of his key monuments include the Ara Pacis, the Horologium Augusti (think giant sun dial), and the mausoleum.

He started construction on this tomb in 28 BCE and positioned it on the Campus Martius (Field of Mars). This is much earlier than you might expect. Augustus’ position was not unchallenged and there was still much to be decided regarding his status in Rome. Nonetheless, Augustus set about building this large circular mausoleum, intending to use it not just for himself, but his family.   

Eventually the tomb would house the remains of numerous members of Augustus’ family, as well as the princeps himself. Names you might recognise include Agrippa (his BFF and the husband of his daughter Julia), Marcellus (his nephew), Octavia (his sister), and Gaius and Lucius (his adopted sons).

After Augustus’ death, his family continued to use the mausoleum. Livia (his wife), the emperors Tiberius and Claudius, Germanicus, Antonia Minor and Britannicus would all find their way to this monument.

However, there was not an open-door policy for anyone with Julio-Claudian blood. The mausoleum became a sort of litmus test of who had fallen from grace and would be punished with exclusion… forever! You might already have spotted that Julia, Augustus’ only biological child, and her daughter Julia, did not make the cut. Ouch! Nor did the emperors Caligula and Nero. You had to earn your spot.     

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Donati, A. (1584-1640) Roma vetus ac recens, courtesy of Carleton College Special Collections.

What happened to the mausoleum?

As with so many ancient monuments, the mausoleum has been repurposed many times. Tune in to hear about the Soderini family and their resurrection of the space, as well as good old Mussolini, who just loved to forge connections between himself and figures like Augustus.

Things to Look Out For:

• Augustus getting BURNT by Dr Rad on numerous occasions.


• Good-natured tolerance from Drs A and G about afore-mentioned Augustan burns.


• Deep-seated longing to see inside the mausoleum.


• Discussion of the recent restoration project.


• The need to pay more attention to the plants and green spaces in the ancient world. Won’t someone think of the greenery???


• The importance of green spaces in urban environments in both ancient and modern times

Sound Credits

Our music is by the highly talented Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Automated Transcript

Dr Rad 0:12
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Dr G 0:30
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Dr G 1:01
Hello, and welcome to a very special episode of the partial historians. Dr. Rad and myself, Dr. G are thrilled to welcome back Dr. Victoria Austen to the show. And you might remember her fantastic conversation with us a little while back now about Augustus and temporal space and representation. And today we’re going to be looking at Augustus his mausoleum. So a quick bio. Dr. Victoria Austen holds an MA and a PhD from King’s College London. She has lectured in the classics at the University of Winnipeg and is currently the Robert A Odin Junior Postdoctoral Fellow for innovation in the humanities and classics at Carleton College Minnesota. Her research interests span the Latin literature of the late Republic and early empire, ancient Roman gardens and landscapes race and ethnicity in the ancient world, the reception of classical myth and the integration of digital humanities into the classroom. Austen’s monograph Analysing the Boundaries of the Roman Garden: Reframing the Hortus was released in 2023, as part of the Bloomsbury ancient environment series, and coming up, Vicky is currently partway through a series of talks for the American Institute of Archaeology on gardens and commemoration. Welcome back, Vicky.

Dr Victoria Austen 2:34
Yeah, it’s so great to be back. I’m so so excited to talk more things, Augustus as we know, I’m a big fan.

Dr G 2:41
Me too. Dr. Rad is already

Dr Victoria Austen 2:44
Eye roll already.

Dr Rad 2:46
I was I was going to say, Look, I’m very happy to see you again, but less happy to see your friend. Look, you know what, I am going to embrace it because I have some fantastic dad jokes here. So Augustus is mausoleum, you might say that everyone in the Julio Claudian period is just dying to get in.

Dr Victoria Austen 3:14
I mean, I

Dr Rad 3:20
so Look, let’s start with the basics. Dr. Austen, or Vicky, if I may be so what is this thing? How did it come about?

Dr Victoria Austen 3:30
Yeah, so this is basically where Augustus wants to be buried. bold move in that, you know, he creates it when he’s still living like this is very much his project. It’s not like something that people put up for him. He’s like, No, I’m gonna create my own team structure. And I’m gonna model it on potentially one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. Because, you know, he never He doesn’t do anything small. So this is why it’s called the mausoleum of Augustus, because it’s based on we think maybe the Mausolus tomb, which was one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. So timewise it was finished in 28 BCE. So this is, you know, still kind of pretty early on actually, in his principle, you know, when you think he was there for you know, good, good more 30 years or so. So he was he was thinking about his afterlife, very concerned about his commemoration.

Dr Rad 4:26
Yeah. Like, yeah, like an Egyptian ruler. Yeah, thing. He’s just very focused on that end goal.

Dr Victoria Austen 4:34
And kind of like structurally as well. It’s obviously it’s very impressive. It’s like this huge kind of concrete structure, which and concrete in itself is a kind of Roman innovation, which was kind of relatively still new at this time period. You know, they’re still experimenting with oh, we can use this new material. So we can do round things ins