ROME
Etruscan Supremacy: 700-509 BCE
Provided link between Greek and Roman Art
KEYWORDS: TERRA-COTTA
Roman Republican Period: 509-27 BCE
Begins with overthrowing last Etruscan King, continues with the
Punic Wars against Chartage and ends with Julius Caesar… Major
buildings built more for POLITCAL use than for WORSHIP
KEYWORDS: TEMPLES, ARA PACIS, HOMAGE TO RULERS
Early Empire Period: 27 BCE-180 CE
KEYWORDS: WALL PAINTINGS, CONCRETE, ARCH, COLOSSEUM
The High Empire: 180-195 CE
Five Good Emperors (Trajan, Hadrian, etc.) kept things prosperous
and peaceful.
KEYWORDS: COLUMN OF TRAJAN, HADRIAN’S WALL, PANTHEON
The Late Empire: 195-400 CE
Diocletian had Empire divided into four parts.
KEYWORDS: TETRARCHY, ARCH OF CONSTANTINE
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Archimedes
(287 - 212 B.C.)
Archimedes was a Greek mathematicia
and inventor, who wrote about
geometry and mechanics. Archimedes
was born in Syracuse, Sicily, and was
educated in Alexandria, Egypt. In
mechanics, Archimedes defined the
principle of the lever and is credited
with inventing the compound pulley.
While he was studying in Egypt he
invented the hydraulic screw. This was
a device for raising water from a lower
to a higher level. He is best known for
discovering Archimedes' principle,
which states that a body immersed in
fluid loses weight equal to the weight o
the amount of fluid it displaces. As the
story goes, Archimedes made this
discovery as he immersed himself in a
full tub of water and watched the wate
overflow. Archimedes is also said to
have invented the catapult and even a
mirror system that focused the sun's
rays onto the boats of invaders causing
the craft to ignite.
The Roman House
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Atrium of the House of the Vettii
Pompeii & the
Pompeii, Italy, second century B.C., rebuilt A.D. 62-79
Cities of Vesuvius
One of the best preserved houses at
Pompeii, partially rebuilt and an
obligatory stop on every tourist’s
itinerary today, is the House of the
Vettii, an old Pompeian house
remodeled and repainted after the
earthquake of A.D. 62
The photograph was taken in the
fauces. It shows the impluvium in the
center of the atrium, the opening in the
roof above, and in the background, the
peristyle garden with its marble tables
and mural paintings.
The house was owned by two brothers,
Aulus Vettius Restitutus and Aulus
Vettius Conviva, probably freedmen
who had made their fortune as
merchants. Their wealth enabled them
to purchase and furnished houses that
would have been owned only by
patricians.
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VILLA OF MYSTERIESPompeii
House of Vettii (Ixion Room)Pompeii (1° century A.D.)
ARISTOCRATIC
ROMAN HOUSE
ROMAN CITIES
Pompeii & the
Cities of Vesuvius
The forum was an oasis in the heart of
Pompeii - an open, airy plaza.
Throughout the rest of the city, every
square foot of land was developed. At the
southern end of the town, immediately
after the Roman colony was founded in
80 B.C., Pompeii’s new citizens erected a
large amphitheater. It is the earliest such
structure known and could seat some
twenty thousand spectators. The wordamphitheater means “double theater”,
and the Roman structures closely
resemble two Greek theaters put
together, although the Greeks never built
amphitheaters. Greek theaters were
placed on natural hillsides, but supporting
an amphitheater’s continuous elliptical
cavea required building an artificial
mountain- and only concrete, unknown to
the Greeks, was capable of such a job.
Barrel vaults also form the tunnels
leading to the stone seats of the arena.
Aerial view of the amphitheater, Pompeii,
Italy, ca 80 B.C.
Arena is Latin for “sand”, which soaked up the
contestants’ blood. Instead of refined performances,
the Amphitheater held mostly bloody gladiator
combats.
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Pompeii & the
Cities of Vesuvius
Brawl in the Pompeii amphitheater
Pompeii, Italy, ca. A.D. 60-79
This painting that is found on the wall of
a Pompeian house depicts an incident
that occurred in the amphitheater in A.D.
59. A brawl broke out between the
Pompeians and their neighbors, the
Nucerians, during a contest between the
two towns.
The fight left many wounded and led to a
10 year prohibition against such events.
The painting shows the cloth awning
(velarium) that could be rolled down from
the top of the cavea to shield spectators
from either sun or rain. It also has the
distinctive external double staircases
that enabled large numbers of people to
enter and exit the cavea in an orderly
fashion.
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ROMAN
CASTRUM
FAMILY
PIETAS