Author: E. Di Carlo

Download article as .pdf: Oltre la copia le varianti. Dinamiche di ricezione del Foro di Augusto nell’Occidente romano

The paper examines the reception of the Forum of Augustus in the Roman West, revisiting the interpretive framework in light of archaeological advances made over the past two decades. It first examines the implications that the revised plan of the Augustan complex carries for defining the ‘model’ itself and evaluating the forms its imitation took. The study then turns to the exegetical debate surrounding the clipei, reviewing the principal hypotheses concerning the identity of the bearded protomes, their relationship to imperial ideology, and the ways in which local communities appropriated these images for their own purposes. A close analysis of selected provincial contexts (Mérida, Córdoba, Tarragona and Leptis Magna) alongside Italian ones (Pozzuoli, Luni and Arezzo) allows the notion of imitatio to be reframed: rather than the straightforward planimetric replication of the Forum of Augustus, it emerges as the selective reworking of a broader epigraphic, figurative and architectural vocabulary, one frequently mediated through other monuments of the Augustan building programme. It therefore argues for a reconsideration of the very construct of ‘model’, understood not as a rigid blueprint but as an open semantic system, susceptible to local adaptation and chronological layering, and operating simultaneously across both public and private spheres.