Myth as a Symbol of Power
Myth as a Political Language
In the ancient world, myth was not merely entertainment. The myths chosen for public display in temples, on friezes, on altars and in statues carried deliberate political messages. When a ruler or a city chose to depict a particular battle between gods and monsters, or a hero defeating savagery, they were making a statement about themselves: we are the forces of order, civilisation and divine favour; our enemies are chaos and barbarism. Understanding how myth was used to express power requires reading ancient art not just aesthetically but politically — asking not only “what does this show?” but “why was this chosen, and what did it communicate to its audience?”
The Centauromachy on the Parthenon
The Parthenon in Athens, completed in 438 BC, was the most spectacular expression of Athenian power and pride. Its sculptures were designed as an integrated programme of mythological messaging. On the metopes — the carved panels between the triglyphs on the exterior of the temple — the south side depicted the Centauromachy: the battle between the Lapiths (a Greek people) and the Centaurs. The story was that the Centaurs had been invited to a wedding feast and, drunk on wine, attacked the Lapith women and attempted to carry them off. In the marble metopes, the conflict is shown in vivid, energetic relief: each panel shows a single combat between a Lapith and a Centaur, muscles straining, limbs entwined, the victory of civilised form over bestial violence. The Centaurs are wild and ungainly; the Lapiths are controlled and graceful even in struggle.
One widely held modern reading, though not the only one, is that the Lapiths represented Athens and the Greeks and the Centaurs the Persians, who had invaded Greece in 480–479 BC and been driven back by Athenian courage. This mythological allegory allowed the Athenians to celebrate their military victory in religious, universal terms: we did not merely defeat invaders, we defeated barbarism itself. Other readings see the frieze as celebrating order over disorder, or simply as the myth told for its own sake, and an ancient viewer need not have seen a political message at all.
The south metopes of the Parthenon show the Centauromachy. Each of the thirty-two panels (originally) showed a single combat between a Lapith and a Centaur. The choice of this myth was deliberate: Centaurs represented barbarism and disorder; Lapiths represented Greek civilisation. The parallel with the Persian Wars was clear to every Athenian who approached the temple.
The Amazonomachy on the Bassae Frieze
The Temple of Apollo at Bassae (in the Peloponnese) had a continuous interior frieze — now in the British Museum — depicting two battles: a Amazonomachy (Greeks fighting the Amazons) and a Centauromachy. The Bassae frieze, carved in the late fifth century BC, is remarkable for its dynamic composition: figures pile on top of one another, weapons clash, Amazons in exotic eastern costumes fight Greek heroes. The Amazon myth was particularly rich in political symbolism. The Amazons were a race of warrior women from the east — their very existence violated Greek social norms (women who fought, who rejected men, who came from the barbaric east). Defeating them in myth meant defeating the “other” in the most complete possible sense: not just a foreign people, but a foreign way of ordering the world.
Both the Centauromachy and the Amazonomachy served the same political-mythological function: they mapped Greek victory over a monstrous or barbaric “other” onto the Greek experience of the Persian Wars. The Centaurs and the Amazons were both perceived as threats to the Greek social order — Centaurs represented uncontrolled animal appetite; Amazons represented a world with the sexes inverted. By showing Greek heroes defeating these mythological enemies, the art celebrated not just military power but the rightness of the Greek way of life. It also worked religiously: these battles took place on sacred buildings dedicated to the gods, implying divine approval of the Greek cause. The gods themselves endorsed the defeat of chaos.
Augustus and the Use of Myth
No ruler of the ancient world used myth more systematically as a tool of political power than Augustus, the first Roman emperor. After the chaos of the civil wars that destroyed the Roman Republic, Augustus presented himself as the restorer of peace and order — and he anchored that claim in myth and religion. He rebuilt temples, revived ancient rituals and embedded himself in Rome’s divine mythology at every opportunity.
The Augustus of Prima Porta statue communicates his power through layered mythological reference. Augustus stands in the pose of a Roman commander, his arm extended as if addressing troops. His breastplate (cuirass) is covered with carved scenes: at the centre, a Parthian commander returning Roman military standards to a Roman general — a real diplomatic triumph of 20 BC that Augustus used as propaganda. Above this scene the sky god (Caelus) holds out his canopy of stars; below sits the earth goddess (Terra), surrounded by symbols of plenty. Sol (the sun) and Aurora (the dawn) drive their chariots at the sides. The whole breastplate presents the Roman world as cosmically ordered under Augustus’s leadership. At the base of the statue, Cupid rides a dolphin — a clear reference to Augustus’s claimed descent through Julius Caesar to Aeneas and then to Venus herself. The statue does not just show a soldier; it shows a man whose rule is woven into the fabric of the universe.
The Augustus of Prima Porta statue (Vatican Museum) is the supreme example of Roman myth used as political propaganda: the breastplate cosmogram, the Cupid dolphin reference to Venus, and the oratorical pose all work together to present Augustus as divinely sanctioned ruler of a cosmically ordered empire.
The Ara Pacis of Augustus
The Ara Pacis (Altar of Augustan Peace), dedicated in 9 BC, was a marble altar enclosed within carved walls. The monument worked on two levels simultaneously. At the literal level, it celebrated a real event: Augustus’s return from successful campaigns in Spain and Gaul in 13 BC, and the peace he brought. At the mythological level, its relief panels embedded this peace in a divine narrative. One panel showed Aeneas making a sacrifice — the ancestor of Rome, the Trojan hero, performing the same pious act of thanksgiving that Augustus was now repeating, showing Roman history as one long sacred covenant between the people and the gods. Another panel showed the goddess Roma seated in armour on a throne of captured weapons, serene and powerful. A third showed a mother goddess (possibly Pax, goddess of peace, or Venus) seated with abundant natural gifts around her — children, animals, flowing water and grain. The overall message: peace, fertility, divine blessing and cosmic order had all arrived with Augustus.
Both Greek and Roman uses of myth for political purposes share the same basic logic: myth gives events a cosmic, divine frame that makes them seem inevitable and approved by the gods. But there are important differences. Greek mythological allegory (the Parthenon Centauromachy; the Bassae Amazonomachy) tended to be indirect — it did not show Athenians fighting Persians directly but encoded the message in mythological form. Roman uses of myth under Augustus were often more direct and personal: the Augustus of Prima Porta puts the emperor himself at the centre of the mythological cosmos; the Ara Pacis shows his family in procession alongside mythological allegories. The Roman emperor was the link between the divine world and the human world in a way no Athenian democratic politician could ever be.