How did Rome become the political
center of a vast empire?
• The building program –its amphitheaters, racetracks, baths, forums and
arches –all these amenities were replicated in the territories the Romans
conquered
• Roman art developed from Hellenistic models, but it differed from its
Hellenistic predecessors in certain key respects:
• Instead of depicting mythological events and heroes, Roman artists
depicted current events and real people
• Rome’s identity was most fully expressed in architecture
• Invented concrete
• Great engineers
• Public works were fundamental to Roman identity
• Propagandistic tools – Roman power
• Dutiful respect
• Sense of duty mirrored in family life
• Augustus transformed Rome into “a city of marble”
The Roman Empire at its greatest, 180 CE.
Hadrian’s Wall, England, 2nd c. CE.
Built by Hadrian to protect the northern frontier of the Empire from Picts
and Scots, the wall stretched 73 miles. The wall epitomizes the imperial
reach of the empire, its military power, and bureaucratic skill.
What are the origins of Roman
culture?
• The Romans descended from two stocks:
• Greeks that early on had colonized southern Italy
• Etruscans who were either indigenous or
immigrated from Asia
• Most of what we know about the Etruscans come
from their art, which has survived in burial tombs
decorated with sculptures and Attic vases
• Tumulus – tomb, a round structure partially
below ground
Sarcophagus, Cerveteri, Italy, 520 BCE.
Husband and wife are depicted reclining on a dining couch.
What are the mythological accounts of
the founding of Rome?
• Two accounts:
• Etruscan: the story of Romulus and Remus who were
raised by the she-wolf and Romulus’ later fratricide
• Greek myth – similar to Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey:
• In his Aeneid, Virgil argues that the Romans are descended
from the Trojans through Aeneas, the semi-divine son of
Venus (goddess of love)
• The word for love in Latin is ’amor’ which is Roma
backwards ‘roma.’
• Virgil distinguishes the national identity of the Romans
from the Greeks while showing its relationship to the
Greeks, as well as its divine pedigree
She-Wolf, 500 BCE.
The two suckling figures representing Romulus and Remus are Renaissance
additions. This Etruscan bronze, which became a symbol of Rome, combines a
ferocious realism with the stylized portrayal of the wolf’s geometrically regular
mane.
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
When was Rome proper founded?
• The Etruscan and Greek myths merged and in 510 BCE
the last of the Etruscan kings was expelled
• Republican Rome consisted of three groups:
• Patricians – aristocrats, priests, magistrates –served in
the Senate -- the legislative body
• Plebeians –craftspeople, merchants – formed their
own legislature, the plebiscites
• Every plebeian chose a patrician as his patron –
paternalistic relationship –patronage –reflected the
family’s central role in Rome
• Equites - cavalry -- rivals to patricians
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
Head of a Man, Brutus, 300 BCE
Founder and first consul of the Roman Republic
Type – imaginary portrait of a Roman founding father, or pater
What was the first Triumvirate?
• 62 BCE, the Senate refused to ratify the land
allotments that Pompey the Great had made
after a successful campaign in Asia Minor.
• As a result he banded together with two other
military commanders, including Gaius Julius
Caesar, to form the triumvirate
• Ceasar subdued Gaul in 49 BCE and marched
back to Rome, killing his rival Pompey
• Ides of March, 44 BCE- Caesar was stabbed to
death in the Senate becoming the martyr of the
people
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
The Roman Man
Romans were depicted in old age in a realistic style called verism that depicted their lines and
furrows. They are examples of the Roman virtue of pietas, or dutiful respect for the gods, country,
and family.
Gravitas
Dignitas
Fides
Portraits of patricians rather than equites
Imperial Rome
• 27 BCE – Octavian became consul of Rome in name,
but an Emperor in actuality
• He took on the Title of Augustus
• Had himself depicted as semi-divine through his
connection to Aeneas and thus, Venus
• Instituted reforms
• Erased distinctions between patrician and equites
• Promoted lower-born citizens to positions of
prominence
• Encouraged family
• Criminalized adultery
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
On the breastplate a bearded Parthian from
Asia Minor hands over Roman standards that
had been lost in a battle of 53 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
Celebration of family
Demonstrates the growing prominence of women in Rome
Augustus’wife Livia is depicted holding Augustus’ family together
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
Augustus and the City of Marble
• Poor infrastructure
• Seneca reacted by preaching Stoicism
• The grand civic improvements Augustus planned would be
a kind of imperial propaganda, underscoring his power and
his role as pater patriae
• Insulae apartment buildings
• Aqueducts
• Public monuments
• Baths for entertainment
• Vitruvius, On Architecture – how to satisfy the city’s needs
for water –Aqua Claudia –delivered water into the city
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 model of a Roman apartment, or insula,
ruins of which survive at Ostia, Rome’s port. 150 CE.
Noise, hygiene
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, 1st c. BCE.
The Romans perfected the arch, learning its principles from the
Etruscans.
aqueduct
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
Colosseum, Rome, 72-80 CE.
Vespian, the former commander in Palestine, built the Colosseum across from Nero’s Golden House.
He named it after the Colossus, a 120-foot high statue of Nero as sun god that stood in front of it.
Concrete
The arena could be flooded for mock sea battles.
Doric, Ionic, Corinthian order
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.
Arch of Titus , Rome, 81 CE. Spoils from the Temple in
Jerusalem
Constructed of concrete and faced with marble, the walls decorated with
narrative reliefs.
In the foreground the soldiers carry the golden Ark of the Covenant, and
behind that a menorah, the sacred Jewish candelabrum.
Columns
• Two of the Five Good Emperors – Trajan and Marcus
Aurelius – built columns to celebrate their military
victories
• Suggestive not only of power but also of male virility
• Trajan’s Column – the most complete artistic
statement of Rome’s militaristic character, consisting of
a spiral of 150 separate scenes from his campaign to
Dacia
• We witness the Romans building fortifications,
harvesting crops –bringing the fruits of civilization to
the world
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, Rome, 118 CE.
Temple to all the gods, and sculptures representing all the Roman gods
were set in recesses around the interior.
Façade –imitates Greek temple – Corinthian columns
Interior of the Pantheon
Pantheon
oculus
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.
Built before the eruption of Vesuvius, this house dispensed with the
atrium; all its rooms are built around the peristyle garden
Literary Rome: Virgil, Horace, Ovid
• Virgil and Horace’s poems were consistent with the values
of the age of Augustus, and so were maintained by the
Emperor.
• Virgil, after the battle of Actium in 31 BCE, retreated to
Naples to compose an epic poem to celebrate Rome
• Aeneid - explains how Aeneas, the Trojan, founded Rome,
jilting the queen of Carthage, Dido, on the way, thus
creating a lasting enmity between Carthage and Rome
• Aeneas – importance of pietas, and stoic resignation to
duty
• Ovid – Art of Love – practical handbooks for seduction
• Metamorphoses – stories of transformations from
mythology