MOVEMENT, SPACE, AND IDEOLOGY IN THE FORUM AUGUSTUM

The Forum Augustum represents one of the most important examples of the public and material dissemination of Augustan ideology. This paper offers a new model for understanding how the Forum's spatial and architectural design communicated that ideology. Departing from scholarly emphasis on the Forum's statuary programme, it examines how the Forum's spaces set up a series of contrasts that structured visitors’ experiences. In the porticoes, the extensive statue programme granted viewers a wide range of choices about what they could see. In the central square and hemicycles ( exedrae ), however, visitors were compelled by the paucity of material to encounter certain images and ideas. This argument shows a new way of understanding the Forum, where movement into and between certain spaces structured how Augustan ideology was communicated, received, and understood.