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, & ) 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, 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 & 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, , 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) (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 , today

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 , Rome (early 2c AD)

Santa Maria degli Angeli, Rome orig. frigidarium of (3c AD) Urban Change over Time: The