Week 9: The High Empire (aka the good emperors)
Eugène Delacroix, The Justice of Trajan (1840, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen) I. The Year of the Four Emperors (AD 68–9) GALBA (April 68 – Jan 69) OTHO (Jan - Apr 69)
VITELLIUS (Jan - Oct 69) VESPASIAN (July 69 onward) II. The Flavian Dynasty (AD 71–96)
The Flavian family (Vespasian, Titus, & Domitian) in Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s Triumph of Titus (1885, Walters Art Galley) A. Vespasian (AD 69–79)
• rustic persona • army support • administration • equestrians • famously stingy
abandonment of arcana imperii (the imperial mystique) B. Titus (AD 79–81)
• popular & charming • experienced • lavish spender (baths, arch, Colosseum dedication)
Titus, 1c AD (Vatican Museum) …but plague, volcano (AD 79), fire (AD 80)…
Lucius Aelius Sejanus Prefect of the Praetorian Guard
Pierre-Jacques Volaire, The Eruption of Vesuvius, AD 79 (1777) C. Domitian (AD 81–96)
• less beloved • inexperienced • lavish spender (construction, wars) • contradiction btw reign of Rome & that of empire
damnatio memoriae (erasure of memory)
Domitian, 1c AD (Louvre) Flavians as transitional dynasty:
importance of army good administration rise of provincial meritocracy
Whole century of calm: AD 96–192
Arch of Titus, Roman Forum, ca. AD 80 (“spoils of war” panel & reconstruction of Titus’ chariot panel) III. The Antonine Dynasty (AD 96–192)
A. Nerva, AD 96–8
lenient, generous abandons hereditary succession B. Trajan AD 98–119
Caligula by Edward Sorel for The New Yorker (2012) named optimus princeps by the Senate
Trajan’s Markets today
2 plans of Trajan’s Forum Trajan’s Column AD 113 C. Hadrian AD 119–38
• intellectual (loved Greek) • big traveller • not militarily ambitious
Hadrian’s Wall, northern England Pantheon, Rome—possibly designed by Hadrian
Hadrian’s Mausoleum, now Castel Sant’ Angelo Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli (12 mi outside Rome) Capitoline Antinous Antinous (d. AD 130)
Antinous as Bacchus (Vatican) D. Antoninus Pius AD 138–61
• peaceful reign • successful administration • but maybe too peaceful? E. Marcus Aurelius AD 161–80
• Parthian invasion • plague • Unrest in Germany • Meditations F. Commodus AD 180–92
Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus in Gladiator (2000)
Commodus as Hercules (Capitoline Museum) Imperial Fora (of Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, etc.)
(Original) Roman Forum The Basilica originally rectangular; later, with apses!
Basilica Julia (46 BC) Roman Forum The Stadium
Stadium of Domitian, late 1c AD Piazza Navona, today Circus Maximus
reconstructed (above); chariot racing in a mosaic from Lyon (top R); aerial view today (R) The Amphitheater (here, the Colosseum, late 1c AD) Nîmes, France (24,000) Leptis Magna, Libya (16,000)
Pompeii (20,000) Isca, aka Caerleon, Wales (6,000) The Baths The Hypocaust
Bath, England Baths of Trajan, Rome (early 2c AD)
Santa Maria degli Angeli, Rome orig. frigidarium of Baths of Diocletian (3c AD) Urban Change over Time: The Campus Martius