Transcript Chapter 8 Rome - dschumanities1010

Chapter 3
Rome
Urban Life and Imperial Majesty
Origins of Roman Culture:
Greek and Etruscan
• As early as the 8th century BCE the Greeks had colonized the southern
coastal regions of the Italian peninsula
• The Etruscans occupied the part of the Italian peninsula that today is
known as Tuscany
• Scholars continue to debate whether the Etruscans were indigenous
to Italy or whether they migrated from the Near East
Etruscan Roots
• Most of what we know of the Etruscans comes from their art
--no literature survives
--scholars unable to translate their epigrammatic texts
• Richly decorated burial tombs
• Foundations of mud-brick and wooden temples
Etruscan Sarcophagus
Terra cotta, 6' 7" length, ca. 520 BCE
She-Wolf
Bronze, 33", ca. 500-480 BCE
• Etruscan founding myth—
twins Romulus and Remus
found on the banks of the
Tiber by a she-wolf
• The two brothers decided to
build a city on the Palatine Hill
and argued over who would
name the city. Romulus won
by killing Remus, and the city
was named after him
• The date, legend has it, was
753 BCE
Republican Rome
• In 510 BCE the Romans expelled the last of the Etruscan kings and
decided to rule themselves without a monarch
• Unlike Greece, not every free citizen enjoyed equal privileges. In
the Etruscan manner, the Roman free males were patricians (landowning aristocrats) and plebians (the poorer class)
• The Senate was exclusively patrician
Pietas and Portrait Busts
• Under Rome’s patrician system, the upper classes owed dutiful
respect, or pietas, toward others—the gods, country, and family, in
that order
• Propagandistic in nature, the portrait busts that proliferated in the
second and first centuries BCE depict the subjects at or near the end
of life, celebrating pietas through the wisdom and experience of age
• The high level of realism, revealing the subjects’ every wrinkle and
wart, is known as verism (Latin veritas, “truth
A Roman Man
Marble, life-size, ca. 80 BCE
Imperial Rome
• In 27 BCE, Octavian, grandnephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar,
“reluctantly” accepted the Senate’s appointment of imperium and the
title Augustus, “the revered one,” in gratitude for his defeat of Mark
Antony and Cleopatra in 31 BCE and the reunification of a Rome divided
by civil war
• Augustus ruled Rome from 27 BCE to 14 CE. His new title gave him
semidivine status
• In art he is always depicted as young and vigorous
Augustus of Primaporta
• This idealized and propagandistic sculpture was displayed at the
home of Augustus’s wife, Livia, at Primaporta, on the outskirts of
Rome
• The military garb announces his role as commander-in-chief
• Cupid riding a dolphin at his feet recalls the Julian family’s claim
to be descended from Venus and Aeneas
• Augustus’s extended arm points toward an unknown, but
presumably greater, future
Augustus of Primaporta
Marble, 6' 8", ca. 20 BCE
Compare Pose and Proportion to
Polyclitus’s Doryphorus
Ara Pacis Augustae
• One of Augustus’s first acts was to address the deterioration of
morals and family life in Rome and the declining numbers of the
aristocrats
• He criminalized adultery, required men between the ages of 20
and 60 and women between the ages of 20 and 50 to marry, and
punished childless couples with high taxes or inheritance
deprivation
• His Ara Pacis Augustae (Altar of Augustan Peace) celebrates
family with its exterior-wall decorations picturing three
generations of Augustus’s family
Ara Pacis Augustae
Marble, 13-9 BCE
Ara Pacis Augustae
Detail of Imperial Procession
South Frieze
Spatial depth is created by depicting figures farther away
from the viewer in low relief and those closest in high relief.
“I found a city of brick,
and left it a city of
marble.”
—Augustus
Urban Housing: The Insula
• In response to overcrowding, the Romans created a new type of
living space, the insula, a multistoried apartment block
• The insulae essentially were tenements in which 90 percent of the
population of Rome lived
• A typical apartment consisted of two private rooms—a bedroom
and a living room
• Noise was a constant problem, and hygiene an even worse issue
Reconstruction of a Roman Insula
ca. 150 CE
Public Works and Monuments
• Augustus inaugurated what amounted to an ongoing competition
among the emperors to outdo their predecessors in the
construction of public works and monuments
• Rome had developed haphazardly, without any central plan, in
contrast to the empire’s provincial capitals that were conceived
on a strict grid plan
• Water was scarce, and hygiene was poor, so Augustus had
aqueducts built to provide more clean water to the city
Pont du Gard, near Nimes, France
180'
late 1st century BCE, early 1st century CE
The Colosseum
• The Colosseum was built by the emperor Vespasian (r. 69-79 CE)
between 72-80 CE
• He named it after the Colossus, a 120-foot high statue of Nero that
stood in front of it
• A giant oval, 615 feet long, 510 feet wide, and 159 feet high, it could
accommodate audiences estimated at 50,000 who could enter and
exit its 76 vaulted arcades in a matter of a few minutes
Aerial View of the Colosseum
Detail of the Colosseum’s Outer Wall
• Each level employed a
different architectural
order: Tuscan on the
ground floor, Ionic on
the second, and
Corinthian on the third
• All of the columns are
engaged and purely
decorative, serving no
structural purpose
Triumphal Arches and Columns
• While the arch was known to cultures such as the Mesopotamians,
the Egyptians, and the Greeks, it was the Romans who perfected it,
evidently learning its principles from the Etruscans but developing
those principles further
• Hundreds of triumphal arches were built throughout the Roman
Empire
• Like all Roman monumental architecture, they were intended to
symbolize Rome’s political power and military might
Arch of Titus
Rome, ca. 81 CE
In 70 CE Titus’s army sacked the
Second Temple of Jerusalem. In this
interior detail from the arch, Titus’s
soldiers carry the Ark of the Covenant
and a menorah from the temple.
Trajan’s Column
• Trajan was one of the Five Good Emperors who ruled Rome after the
Flavian dynasty (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus
Aurelius)
• His column narrates in a spiral of 150 separate scenes his defeat of the
Dacians (what is now Hungary and Romania)
• Laid out end to end, the complete narrative would be 625 feet long
• This ceremonial column has symbolic meaning; it is suggestive not only
of power but also of male virility
Trajan’s Column
Marble, 125' (including base), 106-113 CE
The Forum Romanum
and Imperial Forums
• The Forum Romanum, or Roman Forum, was the chief public
square of Rome, the center of Roman religious, ceremonial,
public, and commercial life
• Originally comparable to the Greek agora, it became a symbol of
the imperial power that testified to the prosperity—and peace—
that the emperor bestowed upon Rome’s citizenry
• Julius Caesar was the first to build a forum of his own in 46 BCE;
Trajan (ca. 117 CE) was the last
Model of the Roman Forum and
the Imperial Forums
Rome, ca. 46 BCE-117 CE
Forum of Trajan
110-112 CE, Restored View
The Pantheon
• Hadrian’s Pantheon ranks with the Forum of Trajan as one of the
most ambitious building projects undertaken by the Good Emperors
• The Pantheon is a temple to all the gods (Greek pan, “all,” and theos,
“gods”)
• Its interior consists of a cylindrical space topped by a dome, the
largest built in Europe before the twentieth century
• The whole is a perfect hemisphere—diameter of the rotunda is 144
feet, as is the height from floor to ceiling. The 30-foot circular
opening at the top, the building’s sole light source, is the oculus, or
“eye”
The Pantheon
118-125 CE
Interior of the Pantheon
Domestic Architecture:
The Domus
• The Roman domus was the townhouse of the wealthier class of
citizen. It served as a measure of social status, as the vast majority
of the population lived in the insulae
• It was oriented to the street along a central axis that extended
from the front entrance to the rear of the house
• At the center of the Roman domus was the garden of the peristyle
courtyard, with a fountain or pond in the middle
Domus
House of the Silver Wedding, Pompeii
1st century BCE
Peristyle Garden
House of the Golden Cupids, Pompeii, 62-79 CE