Becoming Gods

Private Tours of the Vatican Museums

Apotheosis of Antoninus Pius and Faustina

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The marble base is all that has survived of the Column of Antoninus Pius, which was set up in the Campus Martius (Field of Mars) following the emperor's death in 161 CE.

The honorific column, a monolithic 50-foot shaft of granite, was set up near the altar celebrating the deification of the emperor Antoninus Pius (r. 138-161). Six metres of the column stuck out of the hillside of Monte Citorio until 1703. This was later recycled into the repair of other granite monuments. 

The front of the base, one of the showpieces of the Vatican Museums, depicts Antoninus Pius and his wife Faustina (who had been deified in 141) being carried heavenwards by a winged figure (Aion, Eternity). The goddess Roma, bottom right, waves them off, while the personification of the Field of Mars, holding the sundial obelisk, reclines at the left. 

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Base of Column of Antoninus Pius