ROMAN EMPIRE Overview
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ROMAN EMPIRE Overview Monarchy and Republic 753-27 BCE High Empire 96-192ce ● Republican architects mix Hellenistic and Etruscan Features ● Trajan extends the Empire and builds a new forum in Rome ● Republican sculptors depict patricians in super realistic portraits ● Hadrian builds the Pantheon ● Republican painters decorate walls in the first and second styles ● Domination of the classical style erodes under the Antonines Augustus 27BCE-14CE Late Empire 192-337 ce ● Augustan artists and architects revive the Classical Style ● Late Antique style takes root under the Severans ● Augustan painters introduce the 3rd style of pompeian painting ● Portraits of soldier emperors reveal the insecurity of the age ● Constantine founds a new Rome at Constantinople Julio-Claudians and Flavians 14-96 CE ● Neronian and Flavian architects realize the full potential of Concrete ● Neronian painters develop the 4th style of Pompeian wall painting Rome ● Roman empire had millions of people within its borders of many races, religions, languages, and cultures. Rome is an ancient approximation to the modern world in this regard ● Citizen and non citizen culture, Rome required labor, slaves, and soldiers to fuel it’s expanse, Soldiers over time became non citizens just by the sheer numbers of necessity Rome ● Many roman temples and basilicas have an afterlife as churches and mosques today. ● Concrete made the Roman scale of conquest possible, making large roads, apartment buildings, amphitheatres, aqueducts ● Ancient Rome lives on in western civilization today, concepts of law and government, languages, Latin, is the basis of Italian, French, and Spanish. ● You could trace the urban world’s appearance in the modern world to Rome’ s most important invention, Concrete, The Romans used Volcanic Ash and Lime. (the powder, not the fruit.) ● Rome city was founded on the Tiber river and started as a city state in the same way Egyptian, Greek, and Mesopotamian City States did. It expanded past the scale of any other empire and lasted 1000 years. Republic (Rome) ● In 509 BCE Romans overthrew Tarquinius Superbus the last of the Etruscan Kings, and established a constitutional government. ● Rome Founded a Senate, (Latin, A council of Elders), Rome would mostly be governed by this assembly in good times, ● Under extraordinary circumstances, when the senate broke down, a dictator could be appointed for a limited time and only for a specific purpose ● All leaders came from the patrician class of wealthy land owners, who made dedicated their lives to Roman State service ● Plebeians were the commoners, and were not Roman Citizens, this became a problem. Republic (Rome) ● Plebs vs Patricians. ○ This became a very large problem because Romans did not care about money, wealth was a spoil of Power and Honor. ○ Plebs could become wealthy through innovation and commerce. ○ This inequality could be said destabilized the empire by the Late empire period, with the rise of other religions that competed with traditional pantheon of gods. Causing the Civil Wars of Late Empire of 306-398 CE. This inequality can parallel today with income/wealth inequality of the 21st century. ○ https://youtu.be/6Xa9T2OMzmw ○ Republic (Rome) ● In 211 BCE, Marcellus the conqueror of the Sicilian Greek City of Syracuse, brought back Greek art along with the usual spoils of war, This started the craze of Greek inspired sculpture, Painting, and Architecture ● Romans Developed an insatiable taste for Greek Antiques, Rome melded Greek and Etruscan traditions together for their own style ● Republic Architecture Temple of Portunus, Rome, 75 BCE Mixing of Greek Columns, Entablature, Frieze components, with Etruscan Plan/Layout. Etruscan, Staircase, Deep porch, enter from one direction. Republic Architecture ● Temple of Vesta, Tivoli, Italy 100 BCE ● Love of Greek antiquity Architecture brought the Tholos or round temple to Rome. ● Travertine Marble, Corinthian Columns ● Romans did not make this all out of stone, they used concrete fill with brick and veneer. Republic Architecture Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia, Palestrina, Italy. ● Largest, Most impressive use of concrete in the Republic era, ● For the goddess of good fortune ● Had many terraces, multiple tiers, with a tholos on top. ● Republic Architecture https://youtu.be/UYtIFM1ek_M https://youtu.be/lND7_c6my30 ● Barrel Vaults, An extension of a simple arch, concrete fill walls for buttresses, Concrete fill walls provided the ability to add windows at any point in the tunnel. ● Groin Vaults(Cross) vault is formed by the intersection of two Barrel vaults at right angles, they were lighter and needed less buttressing. being suported by more arches. ● Hemispherical Domes Largest dome space in the ancient world, Use of concrete made these much larger than Mycenaean corbeled stone counterparts, Oculus (EYE LATIN) at top provided illumination in the dome interior. Roman Ancestor Portraits Patrician Order Man with Portrait busts of his ancestors, Rome Italy 100 BCE Patricians were separated by the Plebeians by their family wealth and ancestry. Iconography of their ancestors was prevalent in sculpture and painting. Proof they were citizens and important. Story of Marius, a renowned Republican General, who lacked a long genealogy. His patrician colleagues in the Senate mocked him as a man with no imagines (portrait masks), he said, his battle scars were his imagines, the proof of his nobility. This class distinction and hyper intense quest for nobility was the driving force of Rome. Patrician Imagines (Portrait Masks) Polybius, 200BCE For whenever one of the leading men dies… they place a likeness of the dead man in the most public part of the house, keeping it in a small wooden shrine. The likeness is a mask especially made for a close resemblance… And whenever a leading member of the family dies, they introduce wax masks into the funeral procession, putting them on men who seem most like them in height and as regards the rest of their general appearance… It is not easy for an ambitious and high minded young man to see a finer spectacle than this. For who would not be won over at the sight of all the masks together of those men who had been extolled for virtue as if they were alive and breathing.” Patrician Imagines (Portrait Masks) ● Portraiture was a way that Patricians celebrated and extended their power in Roman Society. ● Verism/Veristic (superrealism) ● These likenesses were reserved for elders who held power in the Republic ● The patricians requested not an idealized likeness, rather veristic portraits that captured the detailed likeness, a true memorial of the person. ● Imagine the heads a person had in their portrait room projected the power of the living generation. ● Think of the Bush Family, Clinton Family today. A divide between Political and Commercial power. This dynamic is as old as the Roman Empire ● https://youtu.be/yFY7n-UxMQE ● Patrician Imagines (Portrait Masks) ● Portraiture was a way that Patricians celebrated and extended their power in Roman Society. ● Verism/Veristic (superrealism) ● These likenesses were reserved for elders who held power in the Republic ● The patricians requested not an idealized likeness, rather veristic portraits that captured the detailed likeness, a true memorial of the person. ● Imagine the heads a person had in their portrait room projected the power of the living generation. ● Think of the Bush Family, Clinton Family today. A divide between Political and Commercial power. This dynamic is as old as the Roman Empire ● https://youtu.be/yFY7n-UxMQE ● Verism Sculpture Portrait of a Roman general, from the Sanctuary of Hercules, Trivoli Italy 75 BCE. ● The Osimo Head, (Previous slide) Illustrated the roman’s belief that the head was enough (bust) to capture the likeness ● Ancient Greeks believed the whole body was necessary. ● A mixture of heads veristic along with bodies that were idealized greek like were placed in juxtaposition ● This happened in referencing greek art. ● https://youtu.be/T0fq3XFfxrY ● Veristic Portraits Pompey the Great, ca 55-50 BCE Veristic Portraits Julius Caesar Julius Caesar ● 1st Century BCE The roman desire to advertise the distinguished ancestry led to the placement of portraits of illustrious forebearers on Republican minted coins. ● No Roman even considered this (Pompey the great didn’t and he compared himself to alexander the great.) ● 44BCE Julius Caesar did this shortly before his assassination on the ides of march, featured his portrait and his new title of DICTATOR PERPETUO (dictator for life). ● Denarius was the standard roman silver coin, the term penny drives from this name. ● Caesar’s aging face and receding hairline coincides with the Veristic tradition ● Placing the likeness of a living person on a coin violated all norms of Republican convention. ● https://youtu.be/oPf27gAup9U ● Pompeii /Architecture Amphitheater, Pompeii, Italy 70 BCE ● Pompeii was a city that August 24, 79 Ce Mount Vesuvius erupted and were buried in volcanic ash, most of the city’s residents along with other towns in the area died and were buried in hot ash. ● Emperor Titus (79-81ce) was seen as not favored by the gods between this event and the fire of Rome 80ce, which lasted 3 days and nights. Titus used the construction of the Flavian Amphitheater (later known as the Colosseum) to garner support with the citizenry. 100 days of gladiatorial contest games were staged with the most famous battle between Verus and Priscus, where both men fought so well that they were both awarded wooden swords and their freedoms. ● Titus was blood thirsty. Story has Verus being used at a party where he had to fight a surprise duel. Then titus ordered the death of the loser in front of bloodthirsty wealth patricians. Verus was a slave, who worked 10 months at a rock quarry before picking a fight with Priscus to garner attention of a gladiator training school. Pompeii /Architecture Amphitheater, Pompeii, Italy 70 BCE "As Priscus and Verus each drew out the contest and the struggle between the pair long stood equal, shouts loud and often sought discharge for the combatants.