Inside and up the Mausoleum of Augustus

Hey, this is Darius. Join me here for an exclusive look at the history of the Mausoleum of Augustus and we'll get exclusive access inside the monument and upstairs in the monument. Going as high up as we can, we'll truly get a sense of just how impressive this monument was and how it dominates still today, Piazza Augusto Imperatore. The Mausoleum of Augustus is a job site. So much progress has been going on in recent years. This is sponsored by Tim Foundation. What an incredible job they're doing. What an incredible opportunity to explore the site. So much progress has been made. I can't wait to see more. This tomb held emperors for a century. We're making our way down into the archaeological site where it's a work in progress and so much progress has been made. Not too long ago, the outer piazza looked like this, but they're putting in a ramp and they're creating a new piazza. Here it is, almost completed, although the project is still ongoing. Now, originally, the raised Ghesdae on bronze tablets greeted you at the entrance of the mausoleum, also flanked by two obelisks brought from Egypt today Let's go inside. Here's that grand entrance that would take you to the heart of the mausoleum. And we can see that there is quite a bit of archaeological material on display here, but by and large, the interior area has been gutted. As we walk around here, we see the remains of vaulting. We see the remains of the walls covered with reticulate work. Now, this is opus reticulatum, and it's cobelia. These are cut pieces of tuff, and that's how you face concrete, by and large, in the Augustan age, not with brick. And that is what tells us what is contemporary in the time of Augustus. When we look around here, we see so much other brickwork that's all modern to make this into a visitable archaeological site. It also makes these chunks of walls and debris more legible. As we wind our way past some of the vaulting and even chunks of marble, we do understand how magnificent it truly originally was. And we see some of the exterior blocks of Carrara marble. It was as beautifully decorated and carved as anything in the form of Augustus and in the Roman form. Here we have part of the cornice made of Carrara marble, beautifully preserved. This all would have been on the exterior of the mausoleum, giving it an incredible appearance. And that reticulate work and the concrete was hidden away. But as this model shows here, this is what's left behind. And we can understand the engineering. You have arches turned on their side that are big voids that you would have actually had for the planting of trees, as we'll soon see. But here's the central area. And we can understand then so much is missing. But what was at the heart of it? In the middle of the 18th century, Piranesi certainly saw much better preserved ruins than what we see. And he designates an area B around a sensual shaft, the presence, the remains of a spiral staircase winding its way up to the upper floors. He writes this note in the margins. So we really have an idea of what was going on for the elevation of the mausoleum. In the new restoration project and the new archaeological investigation, Alberto Mancini and Paolo Vergili have this new reconstruction of view of what it would look like with that spiral staircase winding your way to the top to a huge tholos temple-like structure, a round temple. We'll see the same concept for the spiral staircase within the Column of Trajan. That is where you had, for a century, the urns deposited of the various members of the imperial family. And of course, you'd also get an incredible view of the city of Rome. This dominated the campus marshes. We have another clue as to what it looked like. This is the Tropaeum Albium. It's Augustan in date. And it is roughly the size and scale of the Mausoleum of Augustus. Look how it dominates the city today. It's about 35 meters in height, but probably was about 50 meters in height originally. And it is a tholos structure on top of a squared base. It is a great insight in just how impressive the mausoleum dominated the landscape. We also must keep in mind that there was always originally a relationship between the Mausoleum of Augustus to the north, and it faced due south to the entrance of the Pantheon, which faced due north. And the idea is the Pantheon, dedicated to the deification of the emperor, it's only going to happen after the emperor died and was buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus. Now let's go inside that central chamber area to understand exactly how this dynamic worked. Let's step inside this extraordinary space. Now today it's filled with the remains of the burials, the urns of various family members of the emperor Augustus. But here's where the staircase would have been, that ramp, that helical staircase was right in this void, taking us all the way to the top, all the way to that religious space, that tholos, that temple where the people were laid to rest. But today, in the ground level, these urns are on display for the public. What's so incredible is when you come to the core of the Mausoleum of Augustus, you're getting to this point here, you have the ashes stored in the urns, and those urns are mostly robbed out. But what we have is the inscriptions, and right here we have one that details who was laid to rest here, Marcellus, as in the theater of Marcellus, and his mother, Octavia, who was the sister of Augustus himself. Inside the Mausoleum of Augustus, this is becoming an archaeological site that you can visit, and what's extraordinary is you're connected to all this history. You're connected to the places where some of the greatest, most famous names from ancient Rome were laid to rest, like Marcellus, Augustus, Agrippa, Livia, the Julio-Claudian family members that we all know from I Claudius. You can come here and be connected to that past. And of course, the Mausoleum of Augustus was something enormous, rivaling one of the wonders of the world. I'm talking about the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. But you have other influences from the Tomb of Alexander in Alexandria, you have the Etruscan Tumuli, and even Roman Republican tombs. So, so many things would stand out, but by calling your tomb the Mausoleum, you're obviously referring to that great wonder of the world. Now, we don't really understand the Mausoleum of Augustus unless we look at the Mausoleum of Hadrian, which is much better preserved. It's a copy and so much better preserved because it becomes a palace and a fortification in the papal period. But we can come here today and tap into that history. This is a place that got pillaged, but we still have some of the remains of the urns. We still have here on display some of the beautiful travertine marble architectural features. But this was a place that became a fortification in the Middle Ages, a garden. It became part of a series of structures for entertainment, a bullring, even ultimately a theater for the opera. Then finally dismantled by Mussolini, the area was rehabilitated. And in recent years, it's been kind of forgotten and neglected. This new project is incredible because it's refurbishing, conserving, and finally making accessible this site. And it's really going to be beautifully connected to another Augustan monument that's next door, the Ara Pacis Museum. So we're getting a whole new refocus on the history of Augustus. And it really is an extraordinary opportunity to be here today. All right, we're done with the ground floor. Now we start to ascend and we can see the original Opus Reticulatum walls. But what's inserted inside this gutted monument is a staircase that takes us up to the first level. And again, we can appreciate the original walls faced with Opus Reticulatum. And we're passing through some of the radial walls they've blasted through to make this incredible route that allows us to get a sense of the scale of this monument. Only by being inside here, we can really admire the engineering and we can admire the size. And in some portions, they have to put in a modern roof, but not everywhere. We're still going up. Here's a quick view of the metal cage that's going to accommodate the elevator. There's so many other staircases for the public to enjoy and explore this incredible tomb of Augustus. We're making our way up and now we can peer down into that central area. This shaft area would have ascended all the way to the full height of the mausoleum originally, up to 50 meters, we think, capped by a statue of Augustus himself. It's described by contemporaries like Strabo. It would have been something truly extraordinary even though it was faced in marble. That's all been stripped away. But here we are only halfway up the hulking ruin that still stands and we're getting a great view of the piazza down below, which is now going to become an incredible public piazza. We ascend further. We're going to the topmost area that's preserved of the mausoleum of Augustus and it's not even halfway up the original monument. So we're just over 20 meters up. Again, this will eventually be accessible to the public, but right now you're traveling through time with Darius Aria and you're getting this exclusive access and this appreciation of history. We get an incredible view of the cypress trees planted in the fascist era as they tried to refurbish and tried to make this as authentic of a feel as it could for the original version of the mausoleum of Augustus. The cypress trees are trees of mourning. They're associated with funerary processions. They're associated with cemeteries. And from up here, we get a view of the Ara Pacis Museum by Richard Meyer. Beyond it is the Tiber River. Here's Santa Roca Cupola. And here now is another view of that same piazza. And then there's San Ambrogio Church. So it's an extraordinary walk around an incredible monument. But when you're in the modern street level down below, because the ground level has gone up several meters, you don't really appreciate the size and scale that you do when you're up on top. It's truly an overwhelming experience to be here on top of the mausoleum of Augustus. And now, finally, one story up and the second topmost part of these remains. You really get to experience the scale of this thing, how massive it was. You can see down below the excavation is still taking place to make this accessible with ramps. But already, it's palpable. You can feel, you can perceive how enormous this project was, how it greeted you and dominated the landscape when you entered from the north into Rome. This was the mausoleum of Augustus. It was truly a statement he was starting his dynasty. This is an incredible job site. It's going to be the most amazing public piazza. And of course, I think it's going to be worth the price of admission to go into such a historic monument very soon, open to everybody. There's so much more to see. There's so much more to explore. Join me. Travel through time with me throughout the Mediterranean. Be sure to hit the like button and subscribe. And I'll take you on a new adventure real soon.