AEC 09.12
Roman Culture and Society - Lecture 1
Rome, the Centre of the World
Introduction to the module
Key themes
Word-association game
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/modules/rcs/
Opening discussion - How did life in Rome differ from life in modern world?
Rome’s centrality
Rome, centre of the world
 Literal centrality
Vitruvius, On Architecture 6.1 [= Dudley pp.4-5]
(Southern peoples have the keenest wits, but lack valour, northern peoples have great courage but are
slow-witted)… Such being the way Nature has arranged the universe, and allotted to all these peoples
temperaments lacking in moderation, the really perfect land, which is under the middle zone of heaven,
and has on either side of it the whole extent of the world and its several countries, is that inhabited by
the Roman people.
The fact is that the peoples of Italy have the best constitution in both respects - both in
physique and in the mental intelligence that is a match for their valour… So Italy, lying between the
North and the South, combines the advantages of each, and her pre-eminence is well founded and
beyond dispute. So by her wisdom she can repel the assaults of the northern barbarians, by her courage
she can defeat the ploys of the southerners. It was therefore, a divine intelligence that placed the
city of the Roman people in an excellent and temperate country, so that she might acquire the
right to rule over the whole world.

Golden Milestone.
Dio Cassius, Roman History 54.8 [= Dudley p.81]:
At this time, Augustus was appointed the Commissioner for all roads in the neighbourhood of Rome.
As such, he set up the Golden Milestone…
Plutarch, Life of Galba 24 [= Dudley p.81]:
He went down into the Forum, where stands the golden column which is the terminal point of all the
roads that pass through Italy.

Navel of the city
City of Marvels
 Humble beginnings
Livy 40.5: To aggravate the suspicions against Demetrius, they used to bring up the subject of the
Romans in their conversations with him. Some would run down their national character and
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institutions, others spoke lightly of their military achievements, others scoffed at the appearance of
the City, its lack of adornment in both public and private buildings, whilst others, again, spoke
contemptuously of different public men. The young man, thrown off his guard by his devotion to the
name of Rome and his opposition to his brother, defended them in every way, and thus made himself
an object of suspicion to his father and laid himself open to charges of disloyalty.

Augustan transformation
Suetonius, Augustus 28.3:
‘The city, which was not built in a manner suitable to the grandeur of the empire, and was
liable to inundation of the Tiber, as well as to fires, was so much improved under his administration,
that he boasted, not without reason, that he found it of brick, but left it of marble.’

Size of the city
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Population - 1 million?
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Size of monuments/scale of architecture:
Baths of Caracalla
Cloaca Maxima:
Pliny the Elder, Natural History 36.104 [= Cooley (2003) K3]:
…most remarkable of all, the Great Sewers of the city… turning Rome into a city supported on arches
beneath which ships could sail, as happened during the aedileship of Marcus Agrippa
Cf. Circus Maximus
Constantius II response to Trajan’s Forum, AD 357
Ammianus Marcellinus 16.13-18 [= Dudley p.29-30]:
But when he came into the Forum of Trajan, a construction in my view unique under the whole canopy
of heaven, admired even by the unanimous verdict of the gods, then he stood still in amazement,
turning his attention upon the vast complex around him, which is far beyond any description, and not
again to be rivalled by mortal men…

Rhetoric of number:
Pliny the Elder, Natural History 36.101 [= Cooley (2003) K3]
Even if we omit for the moment the Circus Maximus, built by the Dictator, Caesar, 600 metres long
and 200 metres wide, with buildings of some 3 acres apiece, plus seating for 250,000, we must surely
include the following in our catalogue of outstanding architectural works…
SHA Heliog. 26.6
He used, too, to play jokes on his slaves, even ordering them to bring him a thousand pounds of
spiders-webs and offering them a prize; and he collected, it is said, ten thousand pounds, and then
remarked that one could realize from that how great a city was Rome.
Late antiquity: Notitia and Curiosum
Severan Forma Urbis

In praise of Rome:
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Pliny the Elder, Natural History 36.101 [= Cooley (2003) K3]:
This seems an appropriate moment to turn to the wonders of our own city, to analyse the rich lessons of
the last 800 years, and to demonstrate that in architecture as well we have conquered the world.
Frontinus, On the Aqueducts 1.16:
With such an array of indispensable structures carrying so many waters, compare, if you will, the idle
Pyramids or the useless, though famous, works of the Greeks.
Aelius Aristides, Orations 26.62 [= Dudley p.223]
But of this city, great in every respect, no one could say that she has not created power in keeping with
her magnitude. No, if one looks at the whole empire and reflects how small a fraction rules the whole
world, he may be amazed at the city, but when he has beheld the city herself and the boundaries of the
city, he can no longer be amazed that the entire civilised world is ruled by one so great.

Display of curiosities:
No museums
temporary - triumphal processions
permanent - temples
Pliny the Elder Natural History 36.196 [= Cooley (2003) K42]:
Augustus dedicated four amazing elephants made of obsidian in the Temple of Concord.
Rome's historical consciousness
Aeneas' ship: Procopius Gothic Wars 8.22.7-16
Romulus' hut
History of Rome

Forum of Augustus:
Suetonius, Augustus 29
A great number of public buildings were erected by him, the most considerable of which were a forum,
containing the temple of Mars the Avenger… The reason of his building a new forum was the vast
increase in the population, and the number of causes to be tried in the courts, for which, the two
already existing not affording sufficient space, it was thought necessary to have a third. It was therefore
opened for public use before the temple of Mars was completely finished; and a law was passed that
causes should be tried, and judges chosen by lot, in that place. The temple of Mars was built in
fulfilment of a vow made during the war of Philippi, undertaken by him to avenge his father's murder.
He ordained that the senate should always assemble there when they met to deliberate respecting wars
and triumphs; that thence should be despatched all those who were sent into the provinces in the
command of armies; and that in it those who returned victorious from the wars should lodge the
trophies of their triumphs.
Suet. Aug. 31:
Next to the immortal Gods he honoured the memory of the leaders who had raised the estate of the
Roman people from obscurity to greatness. Accordingly he restored the works of such men with their
original inscriptions, and in the two colonnades of his forum dedicated statues of all of them in
triumphal garb, declaring besides in a proclamation: "I have contrived this to lead the citizens to
require me, while I live, and the rulers of later times as well, to attain the standard set by those worthies
of old."
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Responses to the forum:
Ovid Fasti 5.551-568:
The Avenger descends himself from heaven to behold his own honours and his splendid temple in the
forum of Augustus. The god is huge, and so is the structure: no otherwise ought Mars to dwell in his
son’s city. … He surveys on the doors weapons of diverse shapes, and arms of lands subdued by his
soldiery. On this side he sees Aeneas laden with his dear burden, and many an ancestor of the noble
Julian line. On the other side he sees Romulus carrying on his shoulders the arms of the conquered
leader, and their famous deeds inscribed beneath the statues arranged in order. He beholds too the
name of Augustus on the front of the temple; and the building seems to him still greater when he
reads the name of Caesar.
Overall effect:
 designed to elevate Augustus

generated a historical tradition for the city
Cf Innsbruck Hofkirche (Court Church)
City of the Gods

Foundation of Rome as ritual: Parilia 21st April.
Plutarch, Life of Romulus 12.1 [= Beard-North-Price (1998) vol. 2, p.119, 5.1b]
Now it is generally agreed that the foundation of the city took place eleven days before the Kalends of
May. And this day is celebrated by the Romans with a festival, which they call the birthday of their
country.
Pomerium (cf Beard-North-Price (1998) vol. 2 p.95 4.8c).

Gods living in Rome.
Livy 5.52:
“When you see such momentous consequences for human affairs flowing from the worship or the
neglect of the gods, do you not realise, Quirites, how great a sin we are meditating whilst hardly yet
emerging from the shipwreck caused by our former guilt and fall? We possess a City which was
founded with the divine approval as revealed in auguries and auspices; in it there is not a spot which is
not full of religious associations and the presence of a god; the regular sacrifices have their appointed
places no less than they have their appointed days. Are you, Quirites, going to desert all these gods-those whom the State honours, those whom you worship, each at your own altars?”
Appropriation of others’ gods [cf. Beard-North-Price (1998) vol. 2 p.41, 2.6a] – 396 BC,
Camillus – Livy 5.21.1-7.

Topography and ritual: Lupercalia 15th Feb [cf. Beard-North-Price (1998) vol. 2
pp.119-124]

Augustan ‘restoration’ – Horace Ode 3.6.1-8 [= Cooley (2003) G28]:
Ancestral crimes, though innocent, you’ll pay
The gods for, Roman, till you restore
Their temples, their crumbling shrines,
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And images with black smoke besmirched.
Because you hold yourself less than the gods, you rule.
Hence your beginning: to this ascribe your end.
Neglected, the gods have visited many
Woes upon grief-stricken Italy.
Rome and its Empire

Knowledge and Power
Control over geography:
Agrippa's Map
Pliny the Elder Natural History 3.17 [= Cooley (2003) T10]:
Agrippa was a meticulous worker, particularly in the pains he took with this particular project, since he
was planning to set before the eyes of Rome a map of the whole world.
Control over time: Pliny the Elder Natural History 36.72 [= Cooley (2003) K36]
The deified Augustus found a remarkably ingenious use for the obelisk in the Field of Mars as a means
of recording the sun's shadow and thus calculating the length of days and nights. He laid down a paved
area equivalent in length to the shadow of the obelisk itself at noon on the final day of the winter
solstice. On this at regular intervals, which were marked by bronze inserts in the pavement, he recorded
the daily reduction in the shadow and then its increase once more.

Monumentalizing conquest
From spoils of war:
 Republican tradition: Republican Temples in Largo Argentina

Vespasian and the Jewish wars:
Forum of Peace - AD 75
Josephus Jewish War 7.162 [= Dudley p.130]
Here too he stored his especial pride, the golden vessels from the Temple of the Jews..
Flavian Amphitheatre/Colosseum
Imp(erator) Caes(ar) Vespasianus Aug(ustus)
amphitheatrum novum
ex manubiis fieri iussit
‘Victorious Commander Caesar Vespasian Augustus ordered the new amphitheatre to be built from the
spoils of war’. = Alföldy (1995)


Trajan and the Dacian wars:
Trajan’s forum
The benefits of empire
Marbles
Animals
Food
Gems/ precious metals
Fine textiles/ wood
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
The new Alexandria

Rivalry of the Rivers Tiber and Nile: - Pliny Elder Natural History 36.70

Pyramids – Cestius

Obelisks: Conquest of Egypt
ILS 91 (Cooley 2003, K35)
Imperator Caesar Augustus, son of the deified god, chief priest, hailed as victorious general 12
times, consul 11 times, granted tribunician power 14 times, gave this as a gift to the Sun once Egypt
had been brought under the power of the Roman People.

Multicultural Capital
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Traders visiting
Appropriation of foreign gods:
Great Mother: Beard-North-Price (1998) vol. 2 pp.43-49)
Isis from Egypt
Christianity
Extension of Citizenship
Foreign emperors
Rome = the world
 Pompey the Great

Ovid: Fasti 2.684: 'The world and the city of Rome occupy the same space' - urbis et
orbis.

RGDA heading ‘Below is a copy of the achievements of the deified Augustus, by
which he made the world subject to the rule of the Roman people’
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RCS Bibliography: Lecture 1
Rome, the Centre of the World
Key readings
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@Purcell, N. (1996) ‘Rome and its development under Augustus and his
successors’ in Cambridge Ancient History volume 10 (second edition) pp.782811 [D 57.C2]
@Purcell, N. (1992) 'The city of Rome' in The Legacy of Rome: a new
appraisal, ed. R. Jenkyns, 421-54 [DG 77.L3]
General
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Claridge A. (2010, 2nd edn) Rome [DG 65.C5]
@Cooley, A.E. (2000) 'Inscribing history at Rome' in The Afterlife of
Inscriptions, ed. A.E. Cooley, 7-20 [CN 513.A3]
Coulston, J. and Dodge, H. (2000) Ancient Rome: The Archaeology of the
Eternal City [DG 65.A6]
Edwards, C. (1996) Writing Rome: textual approaches to the city [PA
6019.E3]
Edwards, C. & Woolf, G. (eds) (2003) Rome the Cosmopolis [DG 63.R6]
(esp. ch. by Scheidel)
@Gowers, E. (1995) ‘The Anatomy of Rome from Capitol to Cloaca’ JRS 85:
23-32
Hope, V. (2000) 'The city of Rome: capital and symbol', in Experiencing
Rome: Culture, Identity and Power in the Roman Empire, ed. J. Huskinson,
63-94 [DG 78.E9]
Price, S. (1996) ‘The place of religion: Rome in the early Empire' in
Cambridge Ancient History vol. X (2nd edn) 812-847 [D 57.C2]
Purcell, N. (1994) ch. 17. 'The city of Rome and the plebs urbana in the late
Republic' in The Cambridge Ancient History vol. IX (2nd edn) [D 57.C2]
Purcell, N. (2010) 'Urbanism' in Barchiesi, A. and Scheidel, W., eds, The
Oxford Handbook of Roman Studies [DG 209.O94]
Robinson, O. F. (1992) Ancient Rome: City Planning and Administration
[NA 9092.R6]
@Scobie, A. (1986) ‘Slums, sanitation, and mortality in the Roman world’,
Klio 68: 399-433
@Stambaugh, J.E. (1988) The Ancient Roman City chs 4 & 5 [DG 82.S8]
Debate on Population figures
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@Scheidel, W. (2006) 'Population and demography' Princeton/Stanford
Working papers in Classics [online PDF]
@Scheidel, W. (2007) 'Roman population size: the logic of the debate'
Princeton/Stanford Working papers in Classics [online PDF]
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@Scheidel, W., Morris, I. and Saller, R. (eds.) (2007) The Cambridge
economic history of the Greco-Roman world esp pp.38-86 [DE 61.E2 + ebook]
@Lo Cascio, E. (1994) 'The size of the Roman population: Beloch and the
meaning of the Augustan census figures', Journal of Roman Studies 84: 23-40
Sourcebooks
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Beard, M., North, J., Price, S. (1998) The Religions of Rome (2 vols) [BL
802.B3]
Cooley, M.G.L. (2003) The Age of Augustus [DG 279.A4]
Dudley, D.R. (1967) Urbs Roma. A source book of classical texts on the city
and its monuments [DG 68.D8]
Looking up specific monuments
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Nash, E. (1968) A Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome [NA 310.N2]
@Platner, S. & Ashby, T. (1929) A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient
Rome [DG 63.P5; also online at Lacus Curtius]
Sear, F. (1998 - earlier edns also available) Roman Architecture [NA 310.S3]
Steinby, E.M. (1993-2000) Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae 6 vols [DG
63.L3] (some articles in English)
Ward-Perkins, J.B. (1981) Roman Imperial Architecture [N 5300.P3]
Augustan Rome
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@Eck, W. (2003) The Age of Augustus, chapter 13 [DG 279.E2]
Evans, J.D. (1992) The Art of Persuasion. Political Propaganda from Aeneas
to Brutus [DG 82.E9]
@Favro, D. (1993) ‘Reading the Augustan city’, in P.J. Holliday (ed.)
Narrative and Event in Ancient Art [PA6029.M6]
Favro, D. (1996) The urban image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press) [DG 63.F2]
@Favro, D. (2005) ‘Making Rome a world city’ in K. Galinsky, ed., The
Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus ch.9 [DG 279.C2 + e-book]
@Galinsky, K. (1996) Augustan Culture: an interpretive introduction – ch. 5
[DG 272.G2]
@Haselberger, L. (2000) 'Imaging Augustan Rome' in Journal of Roman
Archaeology 13: 515-28 [Arts periodical]
Haselberger, L. (2002) Mapping Augustan Rome (Journal of Roman
Archaeology suppl. no. 50) [Oversize DG 66.M2]
@Luce, T.J. (1990) ‘Livy, Augustus, and the Forum Augustum’, in Between
Republic and Empire. Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate, eds
K.A. Raaflaub and M. Toher, 123-38 [DG 279.B3 + e-book]
Nicolet, C. (1991) Space, geography and politics in the early Roman empire
[DG 30.N4]
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@Patterson, J.R. (1992) ‘The City of Rome: from Republic to Empire’ JRS
82: 186-215
Wallace-Hadrill, A. (1993) Augustan Rome (Bristol Classical Press) [DG
279.W2]
Zanker, P. (1988) The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus [N 5760.Z2]
Vespasian
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@Alföldy, G. (1995) ‘Eine Bauinschrift aus dem Colosseum’, ZPE 109: 195226
@Millar, F. (2005) 'Last Year in Jerusalem: Monuments of the Jewish War in
Rome', in J. Edmondson, S. Mason, J. Rives, eds, Flavius Josephus and
Flavian Rome [DS 115.9.J6 + e-book]
Trajan
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Packer, J. (1995) ‘Forum Traiani’, in LTUR II D-G, ed. E.M. Steinby
(Quasar, Rome) 348-56 [DG 63.L3]
Packer, J. (2001) The Forum of Trajan in Rome. A Study of the Monuments in
Brief [NA 325.F6]
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