Rome Questions:
1. What’s the Roman Empire like?
2. What do the Romans borrow from the Greeks?
3. What are the Roman arts known for?
4. How are Roman interests different from those of Greece?
5. How did building innovation influence building shape?
6. What kinds of building projects did the Romans create?
7. What do these places tell us about Roman lifestyle and values?
8. How important is literature in Rome?
9. What are the major ideas to come out of Rome?
10. Where do we see these ideas today?
11. Is our era more “Greek” or “Roman”?
12. How does Rome fall?
13. What is lost? What remains?
14. How does Christianity spread?
1. What’s the Roman Empire like?
• Most extensive civilization of ancient times
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Founded 753 BCE
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Story of Romulus and Remus
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450 BCE Consuls and Senate
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Rome grows with Greece
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Republic weakens
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Julius Caesar à Octavian = “Augustus”
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All who follow are emperors
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Senate is for legislating and administering
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“Pax Romana” or “Pax Augusta”
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By 100 AD, city is 1 million!
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Roman Empire grows to 50 million
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Slavery
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Shipping
2. What do the Romans take from the Greeks?
“Captive Greece made Rome captive”
Art treasures from captive lands, especially Greece
Roman art blends Etruscan, Roman, and Greek
Roman religion is based on Greece
Senate
3. What are the Roman arts known for?
Flexibility
Practicality
Organized look
Mingling of beauty and use
4. How are Roman interests different from those of Greece?
Greek
Roman
Philosophy
Drama
Sculpture
Abstract math
High Aesthetics
“Man in his world”
Each building unto itself
Post and lintel
Marble and stone
5. How did building innovation influence building shape?
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Post and lintel’s limitations
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Arch and vault -- allows for mass, size, height!
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Keystone
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Voussoirs
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Barrel Vault
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Ring Vault
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Cross or groin vault
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Dome
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Second big innovation -- concrete & veneers
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Practical materials allow for incredible amounts!
6. What kinds of building projects did the Romans create?
a.
the Roman city
city walls, 4 gates
grid work
Forum, dwellings, nature areas
Forum of Trajan
What’s Greek? What’s Roman?
b. Sculpture
Equestrian sculptures
Storiated Column
Column of Trajan
Tomb, continuous mode of narration, uses symbol
What’s Greek? What’s Roman?
c. Temples
Honorariums
Ara Pacis
Altar of Zeus, Augustus, low relief, meander pattern
What’s Greek? What’s Roman?
Maison Caree
Honors sons of Augustus
What’s Greek? What’s Roman?
Pantheon
Coffered ceiling, oculus
1800 years world’s largest dome
What’s Greek? What’s Roman?
d. Buildings for public use and amusement
Libraries, baths, arenas
Baths
“People’s Palaces”
Calidarium, Tepidarium, Frigidarium
Clerestory windows
Caracalla
Amphitheaters and arenas
Colosseum
Held 50,000
Terraced seating
Shaded
Stories of columns, pilasters
Other arenas had hydraulic systems
Circus Maximus
Held 260,000
Chariot races
What’s Greek? What’s Roman?
e. Aqueducts
To cross water, arch on arch
Water kept in reservoirs
Fed to baths, public fountains, homes
“Form explains function”
Pont du Gard, Nimes
f. Triumphal arches
Memorialize victories, heroes, etc.
Greek? Roman?
g. Palaces
Often heated
Gardens, walkways, coffered ceilings, clerestory windows
7. What do these places tell us about Roman lifestyle and values?
8. How important is literature in Rome?
Preferred Greek writers
Roman history writers have precedence
Poetry = Vergil! Aeneid = based on the Odyssey
Essays and law are highly esteemed
9. What are the major ideas of the Roman world?
A. Stoicism & Epicureanism
B. Organization (architecture, society)
C. “For the Masses” (arts, public spaces)
D. Utilitarianism
10. Where do we see these ideas today?
11. Is our era more Greek or more Roman?
12. How does Rome fall?
• 300 AD “decline”
• Constantine
• 313 -- edict of Milan
• 330 – split empire
• inner weaknesses
unstable emperors
insulated classes
population explosion
moral weakness
• outer pressures
barbarians
• 410 – Rome is plundered
• 410 -- 476 unstable
• Capitol moves to Ravenna
• 476 -- abdication of Romulus Augustus
• Classical Civilization
450---------------1----------------476
Greece’s
Rome
Heyday
falls
Augustine’s City of God, 413 to 426
13. What is lost?
• No leisure time to pass on the essentials of the classical tradition
• Art, Socratic thought, cities, medicine, literacy are gone
• All continental libraries are gone
14. What remains?
• Julian calendar
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Marriage traditions
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Roman laws
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Office of the Bishop
15. How does Christianity spread?
313, Edict of Milan
Reasons to convert -- spiritual, social, political
Barbarians have:
Angry god(s)
Lucky “3”
Shape shifters
“Magic”
Sacrifice, often human
“red martyrs”
Get:
Friendly god
Trinity
ok!
ok!
Jesus as sacrifice
sacrifice your life
through devotion