Bode’s version of Ara
Johann Bode showed Ara as a simple brick-built altar on Plate XV of his Uranographia atlas of 1801, with flames rising from what appear to be sticks of wood or incense on top of it. Altars were used by the Greeks to take solemn oaths as well as for sacrifices, and in mythology this altar was associated with both uses – in one case an oath between the gods of Olympus, and in the other a sacrifice of the wild animal carried by Centaurus.
