page_title: Pax (goddess)
section_title: Decline of Worship and Christianity's effect
hierarchical_section_title: Pax (goddess) / History of Worship / Decline of Worship and Christianity's effect
caption_attribution_description: The other panel on the former east (now north) side of the altar. This one depicts a goddess—variously argued to be Tellus (a personification of the earth), Italia, Pax, Venus, or another goddess—holding twins on her lap. The twins have been said to been Augustus' heirs at the time this was constructed, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, and in turn they represent the future of Rome. Surrounding the goddess and children is a scene of fertility: an ox, a sheep, poppies and other flowers, fruit, and a bird. Two nymphs representing beneficial land breezes and sea breezes flank the scene.
context_page_description: Pax, more commonly known in English as Peace, was the Roman goddess of peace derived and adopted from the ancient Greek equivalent Eirene. Pax was seen as the daughter of the Roman king god Jupiter and the goddess Justice. Worship of Peace was organized and made popular during the rule of the emperor Augustus who used her imagery to help stabilise the empire after the years of turmoil and civil war of the late republic. Augustus commissioned an alter of peace in her honour - Ara Pacis and the emperor Vespasian built a temple for her on the Campus Martius called the Forum Pacis. Pax had a festival held for her on January 3rd. In art she is commonly depicted holding out olive branches as a peace offering, as well as a caduceus, cornucopia, corn and a sceptre. Pax is also often associated with spring.
context_section_description: During the evolution of the Roman empire and the Pax Romana the conquered where integrated into society, slaves were freed, and the empire no longer had to be violent with its pacified people. Rebellions and piracy had diminished, and the empire had been consolidated and stabilised under Emperor Hadrian and the Nerva - Antonine dynasty.  This led contemporary writers such as Plutarch to write “so far as peace is concerned the peoples have no need of statesmanship at present; for all war, both Greek and foreign, has been banished from among us and has disappeared”.
  Roman citizens were thus becoming less violent and less willing to serve in the empires’ legions and were becoming more submissive to imperial authority. This however was in antithesis with the Pagan Gods that their forefathers had worshipped and connected to their emperors and legionary armies and thus they became less relevant to the Roman zeitgeist. New spiritual leadership was increasingly being found in Christianity. The Pax Romana had an effect on the adoption and acceptance of Christianity’s peaceful teachings and less so was Pax the signifier of peace – she was being replaced by Jesus Christ. A church leader in the 4th century Eusebius wrote ‘it was not by mere human accident but of God's arrangement that the universal empire of peace came in time for the universal religion of peace.’ The Roman peace at the time however was still regularly sustained by violence, and raids into barbarian territories in Parthia and Germania were still necessary. 
  The Christian religion had an effect on the changing of the perception of the word 'peace' in the Roman world wherein it was transformed into a demilitarised one more accustom to today’s description of peace. The introduction of Christianity as the empire’s sole religion in 382AD, the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the barbarian invasions of the 4ᵗʰ and 5ᵗʰ centuries led to the complete collapse of Pax’s worship.  While there were differences in Pax and Jesus, the concept of peace during the Pax Romana could’ve inspired part of the peaceful message seen within Christianity’s emphasis of peace and its connection with prosperity.
caption: Depiction of Pax on the Ara Pacis.
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