Piece from a statue plinth with Aeneas inscription

Frammento di basamento di statua con iscrizione di Enea
Type: 
Sculpture
Year: 
From the Augusta Era: 2 BC
Material and technique: 
Luna marble
Inventory: 
FA 1197

From the niche at the back of the exedra in the porticoes in the Forum of Augustus

The inscription reads:

…Aen[e]a[s primus] / Latin [orum rex] / regnav[it annos III] ….
(…Aeneas, first King of the Latins, reigned for three years...)

The hall

Il modello del Foro di Augusto nella penisola Iberica

The central niche of the exedra in the northern section of the Forum was home to a group of sculptures featuring Aeneas as he flees from Troy, saving not only his father Anchises and his young son Ascanius, founder of the gens Iulia (the Julian dynasty) but also the Lares and Penates, the statues of the household gods of Troy, which he took to Rome. It was Romulus who featured in the southern exedra however, to whom Augustus, as the new founder of the city and its empire, looked to for inspiration.