The Ara Pacis and the Accidental Shift of Volume II

When it comes to the next part of my orchid research, I told myself that I wouldn’t pick up Volume II until 2027. 

Now that my research was finally out there in the world, after pouring myself into the project for so long, I had decided that I needed a much-deserved break. I also know myself well enough to recognize that when I get interested in something, I tend to dive in with a kind of hyperfocus that doesn’t let go until I’ve learned everything I can. It’s a byproduct of having an ADHD brain—and while it’s a gift in research, it can also be exhausting.

Once I fall down a rabbit hole, I don’t just explore it: I start mapping the tunnel system, labeling the chambers, excavating the entire warren, and drafting a bibliography. Suddenly it’s three months later, I’ve accidentally written another volume, and oh look...formatted an entire formal references section at the bottom. Funny how that works. At this point, I’ve accepted that my hobbies don’t stay hobbies for very long; they apply for full-time employment and expect me to provide benefits.

And with all of that in mind, I really did intend to rest.

I meant it in the exact same way people mean it when they announce they’re going to take up a quiet, simple hobby and then immediately buy specialized equipment. I told myself I would step back, breathe, and let my brain settle after months of intense research. For a little while, I actually managed it. I drifted around the edges of my interests without letting myself latch onto anything too firmly, trying to enjoy the rare feeling of not being buried under stacks of notes and source material.

It was a lovely idea while it lasted. At least, that was the plan.

One evening, while I was supposedly on my research break, I found myself typing "earliest references of orchids in art" into a search bar. Purely out of curiosity, or so I told myself. It was meant to be a harmless little check—the kind of quick search you do when you’re trying not to start anything serious.  Instead, it dropped me straight into an Archaeology Magazine article on the Ara Pacis (Archaeology Magazine, 2024).  One minute I was "just checking," and the next I was staring at orchids carved into Roman marble like they had been waiting for me to notice them. And there, tucked among the vines and flowers, were orchids! The earliest documented orchids in Western art, sitting in plain sight on a monument I had, admittedly, never heard of.

So after finding the Ara Pacis orchids, I did what any responsible researcher on a self-imposed break would do: I took a deep breath, reminded myself that Volume II wasn’t supposed to start yet, and very deliberately reined myself in. I let myself scratch the itch just enough to confirm what I had found, but I didn’t let it turn into another full excavation.

I’ve been behaving… mostly. I still wander over to the edge of the rabbit hole from time to time, just to make sure it’s still there, but I haven’t climbed down with a lantern and a notebook the way I usually do. I’m calling it "restraint," even though it feels more like I’ve put my research instincts behind a baby gate and told them to stay there until 2027.

It's only 163 days, but who's counting?

The Ara Pacis itself was entirely new to me until that search dropped it in front of me. It wasn’t a monument I had ever studied that I can recall, nor had it appeared in any of the usual corners of my reading, so I looked at it with the distinct curiosity that comes from finding something unexpectedly relevant.

What I began to learn was that the Ara Pacis was, at its core, a bit of masterclass Roman propaganda (Galinsky, 1996). It was commissioned by the Roman Senate in 13 BCE to commemorate Augustus’ return from his campaigns in Gaul and Hispania, and completed a few years later in 9 BCE as a public expression of stability, renewal, and the promise of peace under his rule (Zanker, 1988). The monument we see today is a reconstruction assembled from surviving fragments (UCLA, "Ara Pacis Overview"), which means that any close study of its imagery involves both the original Augustan carving and the work of later preservation.

The Tellus/Pax relief panel on the Ara Pacis.
Source: Exploring Art with Alessandro

The altar was built of carved marble, its panels wrapped in an intricate procession of vines, blossoms, and botanical symbols—each element chosen to convey continuity and abundance within the vision Augustus had for Rome. Botanical imagery was a common way for Augustan artists to express ideas about prosperity, continuity, and the stability of Rome’s future (Galinsky, 1996), so the inclusion of recognizable plant forms fits neatly within that visual vocabulary.

Mixed in with the vines, blossoms, and other flora carved into the marble, the orchid-like depictions are subtle enough to overlook on first glance, yet unmistakable once you realize what you are looking at.

Left: Detailed close-ups of relief panels from the Ara Pacis showing floral and bud structures.
Right: Photographs of living Mediterranean orchids illustrating the distinct floral silhouettes.

A wider view of the Ara Pacis botanical frieze with its iconic swan motif, alongside a living spike of Spiranthes spiralis.

When I looked more closely at the images of the carvings themselves, I could finally see the shapes that the articles were describing, and the orchids became easier to pick out once I knew what to look for.  The sources I read identified the plants as Orchis italica and Orchis purpurea (Cozzolino & Pellegrino, 2019), both native to the Mediterranean and recognizable by the dense, tapering clusters of their flower spikes.

Species Identified:

• Orchis italica (Naked Man Orchid)
  
• https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:648750-1
• Habitat: Mediterranean terrestrial
• Visual Identifiers: Dense, conical flower spike with distinctively lobed lip structures.
  
  
• Orchis purpurea (Lady Orchid)
• https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:649036-1/images
• Habitat: Mediterranean & European terrestrial
• Visual Identifiers: Robust, compact spike topped with a dark, helmet-like galea.
  
  
• Spiranthes spiralis (Autumn Lady's-tresses)
• https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:658457-1
• Habitat: Mediterranean, European, & Western Asian temperate grasslands and dry scrub
• Visual Identifiers: Slender vertical spike with small, scented white flowers arranged in a distinct single-row spiral.

The first identification of orchids on the Ara Pacis was made by botanist Giuliana Caneva (1992), and later work by Salvatore Cozzolino and Giovanni Pellegrino helped narrow the carvings down to Orchis italica and Orchis purpurea based on their distinctive Mediterranean growth forms. The sculptor carved those clusters in a way that aligns closely with how these orchids grow in the wild, which makes the identification straightforward once you’re familiar with their general form. Once I compared the carved silhouettes with photographs of the living plants, the match was clear enough that the identification seemed entirely reasonable.

These particular species matter because their presence on the Ara Pacis places orchids in Roman visual culture much earlier than anything I had documented before.  Up to this point, the earliest clear representations I had been able to trace in Western art appeared several centuries later, mostly in medieval manuscripts and early botanical illustrations (Singer, 1959), which suggested that orchids didn’t enter the artistic record until formal herbals began to take shape. Seeing them carved into Augustan marble in the first century BCE moves that starting point back by a significant margin. It shows that orchids were familiar enough to Roman artists to be included in a public monument meant to communicate ideas about prosperity, renewal, and the natural world under Augustus’ rule.

For my timeline, this changes where Volume II begins.

I had expected the next phase of the project to open in the early medieval period, following the gradual reappearance of orchids in illustrated manuscripts, but the Ara Pacis pushes that boundary straight back into antiquity. It means that the story of orchids in Western art doesn’t begin with monastic scribes or early herbalists, but with Roman sculptors working within a carefully constructed political message.  The orchids on the Ara Pacis aren’t the main focus of the monument, yet their inclusion shows that these plants were part of the environment and the artistic awareness of the time, holding enough visual significance to be carved alongside other symbols of abundance. This single detail shifts the opening chapter of the timeline I thought I had settled, giving Volume II a much earlier point of departure than I originally planned.

For now, I’m letting the discovery sit right where it is, knowing full well it will shape the next phase of the project when I’m ready to return to it.

If you'd like to take a virtual tour of the Ara Pacis, the Museo dell'Ara Pacis has a virtual tour you can take on their website: https://tourvirtuale.arapacis.it/

References

Archaeology Magazine. (2024). Article on the Ara Pacis. https://archaeology.org/issues/january-february-2013/digs-discoveries/roman-ara-pacis-altar-flowers/

Caneva, G. (1992). Il significato delle piante nell’Ara Pacis. Fratelli Palombi Editori.

Cozzolino, S., & Pellegrino, G. (2019). Mediterranean orchid studies. Mediterranean Botanical Research Group.

Galinsky, K. (1996). Augustan culture: An interpretive introduction. Princeton University Press.

Singer, C. (1959). A short history of biology. Oxford University Press.

UCLA Center for European and Russian Studies. (n.d.). Ara Pacis overview. https://ieo.ucla.edu/rome-ara-pacis/

Zanker, P. (1988). The power of images in the age of Augustus. University of Michigan Press.