CONTENTS
 Vitruvian Architecture
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Key Elements of Roman Architecture
o Columns
o Arches
o Building Materials
Infrastructure
Roads
o Roadworks
o Via Appia
o Via Flamina
o Via Sacra
Bridges
o Milvian Bridge, Rome
o Bridge over the Tagus river at Alacantra, Spain
Aqueducts & Sewers
o Punic quanats
o Cloaca Maxima, Rome, Italy
o Hadrian’s Aqueduct, Carthage, Tunisia
o Aqueduct at Segovia, Spain
o Pont du Gard, Nimes, France
Public Buildings
Temples
o Greek Temple orders and styles
o The Tuscan temple
Rectangular Temples
o Temples of Rome & Augustus at Lepcis Magna, The Capitolium of Rome & Thuburbo Majus,
Tunisia
o Maison Caree, Nimes, France
o Temple of Bacchus at Baalbek, Lebanon
 Exterior
 Interior
Round Temples
o Temple of Venus at Baalbek, Lebanon,
o Temples of Vesta in Tivoli and Rome, Italy
o The Pantheon, Rome
 Exterior
 Interior
Basilicas
o Greek influences: the basiliké stoa
o Vitruvian utilitarian model: Basilica at Cosa, Etruria
o Pompeian Model: Pompeian basilica
o Basilica Nova Maxentius
Baths
o A day at the thermae
o Stabian Baths, Pompeii
o Hadrianic Baths, Lepcis Magna
o Baths of Caracalla, Rome
o Baths of Diocletian, Rome
o Hunting Baths, Lepcis Magna
Circuses
o What is a circus?
o Circus Maximus, Rome
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Theatres
o Greek influences
o The Roman theatre
o Theatre at Timgad
o Theatre at Lepcis Magna
o Theatre at Aspendos
o Theatre at Sabratha
o Theatre at Orange
o Reconstruction of the theatre of Marcellus, Rome
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Amphitheatres
o Gladiators
o Amphitheatre at Pompeii
o Amphitheatre at Nimes
o The Flavian Amphitheatre, Rome
Vitruvian architecture
Vitruvius was a Roman architect active in the late 1st century BC. He was heavily influenced by Greek geometry
and philosophy particularly Pythagorean aesthetics (the philosophy of Beauty) and was especially interested in
the ratio of proportionality known as the Golden Mean and signified today by the Greek letter (phi).
According to Vitruvius, buildings should mimic nature, which in turn mimics the ideal forms of mathematics.
Vitruvius studied Pythaorean philosophy and found that in all natural things from inanimate rocks to the
humming hives of bees geometry abounds. He wrote a series of treatises entitled De Architectura in which he
said that architecture should resemble life and to this end he described the ideal proportions of a man. Leonardo
Da Vinci famously sketched this Vitruvian Man and showed how he fitted perfectly into a square and an
equilateral triangle according to the dictates of the Golden Mean. Vitrvius also outlined 3 principals upon which
buildings to his way of thinking should be built.
1. firmitas – it must be built of strong and durable material
2. utilitas – it must be functional and usable
3. venustas – it must be beautiful. This last one is very complicated. Simply put it must look beautiful but
beyond boasting exquisite decoration it must conform to the mathematical laws of proportionality
If all these principals are adhered to, then the resultant building will through its proportional symmetry
convey a sense of eurythmia: an intrinsic harmonous beauty.
Columns
The Romans adopted the Greek styles of columns early in their history probably due to
contact with Greek colonists in Italy.
There are three orders of Greek columns:
1. The Doric Order
– often plain in appearance, slightly fat and lacking a base
2. The Ionic Order
– elegant, narrow, tall and crowned by the distinctive
capital decorated simply with ram-horn volutes - carvings
3. The Corinthian Order
– like Ionic columns but crowned by a seeming floral
display. The Romans sometimes incorporated ram-horns in their
Corinthian capitals but it is the acanthus leaves that
appear to grow organically that define Corinthian columns.
Column shafts can be either plane or fluted (ridged).
In addition to the order a building took from the columns it featured in its façade it also had a style. The style of
a building can be discovered simply by counting the number of columns in the façade in Greek. For more on
this see the section on Temples.
The arch was known to the Egyptians and the Greeks but never used to its potential until Roman times. The
Greeks favoured the post and pillar format of the temples for their public buildings but this limited them in
terms of space they could leave in a building. They made fine use of triangular roofs however but again the
structures suffered from great stresses and strains, which limited the Greeks to using very strong, hard and
expensive marble. The arch could be constructed with anything from cheap brick to polished marble and
allowed the Romans to play with space.
Roman arches were constructed from unmortared (no cement) voussoirs (wedge shaped blocks) which were
held in position by a central keystone.
Thrust is the term given to the downward and outward force exerted by the combined weight of these blocks
and the great weight that they often supported.
In many buildings, supporting walls had to be reinforced by means of strong thick walls known as buttresses
that stopped the arch from collapsing due to the thrust of its load.
When several concentric arches are combined and juxtaposed they formed a tunnel known as a barrel-vault. When
two barrel-vaults intersected at right angles they formed a cross-vault and when an arch constructed in three
dimensions formed a dome.
Building materials
Stone
Tufa
Travertine
Pentelic Marble
Porphyry
Alabaster
Tufa is an igneous rock like pumice, which ranges in its strength and hardness. It is distinctive due its pockmarked appearance; caused by trapped air bubbles in the cooling lava.
Travertine is a sedimentary limestone (sometimes mistakenly identified as marble) that comes from a large
quarry in Tivoli near Rome. It is typically pock marked and porous and can be polished to a fine finish. The
Colosseum is constructed almost entirely from travertine. Its actual name in Latin was lapis tiburtinus - stone
from Tibur (ancient Tivoli). It comes in a variety of colours ranging from light brown to mottled red.
Pentelic marble is a fine white marble imported from the Athenian quarry in Greece. A similar Italian
marble was quarried at Luna.
Porphyry a highly prized redish purple granite was imported from Egypt at huge expense.
Alabaster (sometimes known as gypsum) is a soft whitish chalk quarried in Tuscany, north of Rome. It was
used for carving decorations. When heated in boiling water it acquires a translucent quality resembling true
marble. Albaster is properly a natural mineral compound rather than an actual rock.
Compounds
Stucco
Stucco is a durable cement-like plaster made simply from lime, sand, marble dust and water. It was used in
varying consistencies (ratios of contents to water) as a dressing for exteriors and interiors alike.
Concrete is a compound material made by mixing cement (lime, sand and water) with an aggregate: usually gravel or
shingle. It was originally discovered by the Egyptians but they failed to realise its potential. In the 1 st century BC
however the Romans became masters in the uses of concrete. Concrete suffers from thrust and often cracks along
faults in walls. This is due to the fact that concrete is porous and so it swells and shrinks depending upon its water
content. The Romans however discovered that when mixed with pozzolanic ash (a volcanic ash of varying colours
found around Mt. Vesuvius near Naples) at a ratio of 2:1 with lime before being added to the mixture of sand,
aggregate and water the resultant concrete was slow drying, water proof once dry and very hard wearing. Roman
water channels and sewers were coated in this type of concrete and sections of the original aqueduct in Rome are still
in use today. The Roman harbour at Cosa in Tuscany was built with Roman concrete and also remains in use today.
Concrete was often faced with slabs of marble to make the walls look more appealing but the Romans were very fond
of building walls with concrete because it was so strong, moldable and cheap.
Roman Roads
All roads lead to Rome.
3 Famous Roads of Rome
Via Appia “the queen of the long roads (Statius)” and main road to the south.
 Length: 211km south from Rome to Capua – the original road.
 Built by Appius Claudius Caecus (censor) 312BC.
 It was the first long road built specifically for troops to march to and from Rome.
 It crossed the Pontine Marshes to the south which had up until that point formed a geographic obstacle (and
a high risk of malaria) to the Romans in their skirmishes with the nearby Oscan tribes.
 71BC 6000 defeated slaves of Spartacus’ slave revolt were crucified along the Via Appia between Rome
and Capua.
 It was extended several times afterwards by a further 375km and finally by Trajan in the 1 st century AD to
Barium (modern Bari) and Brundisium (Brindisi); ports on the heel of Italy.
Via Flamina – most important road to the north.
 Built by Gaius Flaminus (censor) 220BC.
 Length: 311km
 It begins just inside the northern gate of Rome in the Aurellian walls at Porta Flaminia (now Piazza del
Popolo – the square of the poplars) and ends in the ancient city of Ariminum (Rimini) on the Adriatic.
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Under Vespasian in AD69 the tunnel through the mountain at Furlo was enlarged. It is still used today
along the modern highway known as the SS 3 Flaminia.
Via Sacra
 The oldest and consequently most sacred street of Rome.
 It begins on the Capitoline Hill, passed through the Forum Romanum and ended at the Colosseum.
 It passed some of the most sacred sites in Rome hence the name and formed part of the Via Triumphalis – a
route rather than a road used by victorious consuls during Republican times and later by Emperors on their
triumphal parades.
What remains of the fabled Golden Milestone that stood at the centre of the Forum Romanum. It was said to be
the very centre of Rome. All distances were calculated from and all the roads ultimately led to this point.
Bridges
Roman bridges are a testament to Roman stone masonry as much as they are to the use of the arch. Roman
bridges were constructed with unmortared masonry (no cement). Dry rectangular stone blocks were put
together in stretcher and header courses: one layer of blocks was laid lengthwise, whilst the next was laid
perpendicular. The blocks were then dovetailed together (held by pressure caused by small wedge shaped
blocks hammered between them) or else held together by means of metal pins. And in true Virtruvian style
bridges often featured graded arches, the largest being at the centre and grading down in size symmetrically to
the sides.
Pons Milvio (The Milvian Bridge) in Rome
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Built by Consul Marcus Aemillius Scaurus in 109BC to replace the original wooden bridge built by
Consul Gaius Claudius Nero (not the famous Emperor Nero) in 206BC.
 Built primarily of unmortared tufa but faced with travertine
 Bridge is slightly hump-backed but the hump is located between the 3rd and 4th arches to meet the slightly
higher bank on one side.
 Two barrel-vaults flank the 4th arch forming flood-passages to relieve the bridge when the Tiber is in flood.
 Similarly the imposts (feet of the piers) are wedge shaped on the up-river side. These act as breakwaters
that direct the force of water through the arches and off of the piers.
 The viaduct on top is 8m wide and enclosed by two parapet walls on either side.
 6 arches. The widest spanning almost 60ft/18.55m
 The bridge carried the Via Flaminia across the Tiber. It would have been used as a main thoroughfare for
the movement of people and goods.
Additional Information NOT IN WHEELER
 It was the scene of a famous battle (The Battle of the Milvian Bridge) during the civil war between
Emperors Constantine I and Maxentius in AD312; a battle in which Constantine was victorious.
The bridge across the Tagus river valley at Alacantara, Spain.
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Located at the city of Alacantara near the border between Spain and Portugal.
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Built of unmortared granite
There is a dedication to Trajan on the triumphal arch at the centre
IMPeratori. CAESARI DIVI NERVA Filio. NERVAE
TRAIANO AVGVSTO GERMANICO DACICO PONTIFici. MAXimo. This is the official title of
Trajan as Emperor. The inclusion of Dacico means that the inscription was carved after Trajan’s triumph on
return from Dacia (AD102).
Bridge built by AD106
The piers are buttressed to withstand the thrust of the arches and held together by means of metal
clamps to withstand the pull of the river. The up-river sides are rounded so as to act as breakwaters,
which direct the flow of water through the arches and stop the water from exerting full pressure on the piers
themselves.
The widest arches at the centre measure 94ft/28.8m
The length of the bridge is almost 200m (194m).
The viaduct is 8m wide
At the highest point, the bridge is more than 50m above the river.
6 arches in total hold up the viaduct linking the two sides of the Tagus ravine.
There is a little Roman temple on the city side, bearing a dedication to the bridge builder: Gaius Julius
Lacer.
The bridge has been broken in parts
several times over the centuries by the
Moors, the Spanish and the Portuguese.
Less than masterful repairs were made
using mortared masonry as the Spanish
masons responsible were clearly not as
highly skilled as their Roman forebears.
Left: The little temple on the Alcantara
side of the bridge with a dedication to the
architect.
Waterworks: Sewers and Aqueducts
Past influences and precedents
The Greeks
Polycrates of Samos (a Greek island) famously cut a water channel that stretched some 1,100ft long linking a
water source with the city. It was in essence an aqueduct as it was covered. It was however crudely constructed,
being simply hewn through the rock.
Persian & Etruscan
The Persians had used qanats to irrigate the arid landscape of Iran long before Rome was even founded. The
Phoenicians acquired this technology and it quickly spread throughout the various Punic colonies scattered
throughout the Mediterranean, including Etruria (Tuscany).The Romans therefore perfected an earlier Etruscan
method of irrigation and drainage.
A qanat – which is a Persian word – was a purpose built underground water channel that sloped very gradually
downward from higher ground, from an aquifer - a subterranean water rich layer of permeable rock. This was
tapped. Vertical shafts were then dropped at regular intervals along the channel from which water could be
drawn. The channel would eventually come out into the open in the foothills where it would become a canal that
would irrigate the surrounding landscape.
This illustration is NOT IN WHEELER
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Cloaca Maxima (Great Sewer) of Rome
Built when Rome was ruled by Etruscan kings prior to the foundation of the Republic by Tarquinius
Priscius c.600BC.
It was originally fed by three streams from the hills around the forum and was for the most part an open
drain, though certainly some of the lower parts must have been tunneled below ground.
The technology is basically a reverse qanat. Instead of drawing water from the main channel, waste was
added through drains.
In 33BC Marcus Agrippa an accomplished general and then an elected aedile responsible for public works
as well as a close personal friend of Caesar Augustus carried out extensive and badly needed maintenance
of the sewers. He perfected the Etruscan drains and turned them into a fully functional city sewage network.
The barrel vaulted tunnels were probably added at this time.
There were six other sewers in Rome that ran into the Cloaca Maxima just before it reached the out-fall into
the Tiber near the ancient bridge Ponte Rotto.
By the 1st century AD the 11 aqueducts that supplied Rome with fresh water ultimately ended in the Cloaca
Maxima so the water pressure in the sewer was kept constant. This flushed out blockages.
The sewer had its own goddess, Cloacina – an aspect of Venus. A shrine to Venus Cloacina was erected in
the Forum Romanum directly over a drain to the sewer. Janus was also somehow connected to the sewer, as
Constantine I erected an arch to Janus Quadrifrons (4 headed Janus) again over a drain to the Cloaca in the
Forum Boarium (the cattle market). The specific meanings of these cults have been lost over time but the
Romans must have felt that these deities were as important as their sewers; else they would not have built
shrines to them.
The Cloaca Maxima – illustrations NOT IN WHEELER
Above: The out-fall of the Cloaca Maxima is located near the ancient Roman bridge called Ponto Rotto (the broken bridge). When the
Tiber is not in flood as it is above the little sewer’s opening can be seen from a raised platform on the quay where the fisherman is
sitting. You can gain access to the sewer in various places along its route. No more than a trickle of water runs through it today but it
isAqueducts
still in use as an emergency overflow for Rome’s main drainage network.
Aqueducts were purpose built Roman water
channels in which the gentle flow of water
was carried by the force of gravity. The ducts
themselves (like this one) were lined with fine
concrete mixed with pozzolanic ash. This
formed a waterproof seal that prevented
leaking. The duct was then covered with stone
slabs to protect the water from animal and
fecal contamination. The duct was then buried
underground.
What we call aqueducts today, are usually
only a tiny portion of the original aqueducts
of which they are a part. Of all the aqueducts
in Rome, only 10% are visible above ground.
The aqueduct bridges, which we mistakenly
call aqueducts, were brought into use to carry
aqueducts across irregular terrain like valleys
and ravines.
The aqueduct bridges that survive are as much a testament to Roman surveying techniques as they are to
engineering and architecture. The line and levels of aqueducts had to be exact. Aqueducts do not tolerate many
twists and turns. The flow of water has to be gentle and very slight, so the straighter and more gradual the
gradient the less likely the water is to erode the channel from the inside. For example, the Pont du Gard outside
Nimes in France drops only 34cm per kilometre and drops only 17m vertically in its entire length of 51km (30
miles).
Vitruvius was the first to describe how water finds its own level and therefore aqueducts work by the power of
gravity. He went on to describe in great mathematical detail the problems facing any aqueduct. The fragility of
the watercourse was the main one. The flow of water had to be gentle to prevent erosion of the channel and
blow outs. And despite the precision of Roman engineering, aqueducts had to be constantly maintained so as to
guard the purity of the water, which they carried.
Interesting fact
In AD95 Emperor Nerva appointed Frontinus, one of his generals, to the position of curator aquarum
charged with carrying out a full survey of all 11 aqueducts that served Rome. At the end of the first
century he published De Aquaeducto, which counts as the first published survey of public works.
Thanks in part to Vetruvius’ original calculations he was able to detect discrepancies between the
intake and out-fall volumes and to uncover illegal tapping of the aqueducts by individuals and local
industries.
Single Tiered: Aqueduct of Hadrian, ancient Carthage, Africa - modern Tunis, Tunisia
 Built AD131
 Original length 90km/55 miles from Zaghoun mountains to Carthage, modern Tunis – see Wheeler,
p.150, Il.133
 Built primarily of local sandstone and reinforced with brick
Double Tiered: Aqueduct of Segovia, Spain
 Wheeler says it was built c.AD10 but recent research suggests that it was probably later: between the late
1st and early 2nd centuries AD during the reigns of Emperors Vespasian or Nerva.
 Built of unmortared granite blocks
 36 arches on each tier
 The upper arches are smaller but wider: 5.1m/16.1ft.
 The lower arches are taller but narrower: 4.5m/14.8ft
 Combined height including the water channel is 34m at the centre
 The total length of the aqueduct bridge is approximately 900m
 Simple moulded imposts break the monotony of the piers: 2 on each pier of the upper level and 4 on
most piers of the lower level except towards the sides where it is the lower piers that grade away gradually.
 At the top the water channel is lined with concrete and which forms a U shaped duct 0.55 by 0.46 meters
(1.8 by 1.5 feet) and was once covered with granite slabs.
It was partially destroyed by the Moors in 1072 but carefully restored to its original glory by King Ferdinand
and Queen Isabella in the 15th century.
Three tiered: Pont Du Gard, ancient Nemausus, Gaul – modern Nimes, France
 Built c.AD14
 Total length of aqueduct was 50km/31miles from Fontaines d’Eure near the modern town of Uzes to the
Roman city of Nemausus (Nimes).
 Total length of aqueduct bridge at highest level: 275m across the small Gardon river
 Combined height of all the tiers was 49m/180ft above the river
 Lower tier: 6 arches, 142 m long, 6 m thick, 22 m high
 Middle tier: 11 arches, 242 m long, 4 m thick, 20 m high
 Upper tier: 35 arches, 275 m long, 3 m thick, 7 m high
 Water channel: 1.8m/(6ft) high, 1.2m/(4ft) wide and has a gradient of 0.4%
 The whole aqueduct delivered 6 million gallons of water daily to Nemausus
 Breakwaters and wide span of 6 lowest tiers eliminate water erosion from river
 Moulded imposts break the monotony: 2 on uppermost tier of piers & 3 on the middle.
 The aqueduct bridge doubles as a viaduct on the first level, though the modern road is actually a newer
bridge built in the 18th century to safeguard the Roman aqueduct.
 Some of the granite blocks weigh as much as 6 tons bear the original Roman mason marks indicating their
exact place and number right or left.
For illustrations of these aqueducts see Wheeler, pp. 150-51, Ills.132. 133 & 134