UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Definition of Public Space in Republican Rome Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8zr398bq Author Russell, Amy Publication Date 2011 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California The Definition of Public Space in Republican Rome By Amy Russell A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology and the Designated Emphasis in Gender and Women’s Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Erich S. Gruen, Chair Professor Carlos F. Noreña Professor Mark Griffith Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill Spring 2011 © Copyright by Amy Russell 2011 All Rights Reserved Abstract The Definition of Public Space in Republican Rome by Amy Russell Doctor of Philosophy in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology and the Designated Emphasis in Gender and Women’s Studies Professor Erich S. Gruen, Chair This dissertation uses a combination of literary and archeological evidence to ask how Romans understood and defined public space in Rome during the Republic. The definition of concepts of ‘public’ and ‘private’ in Roman culture differed from that current in modern Western discourse, but just like modern definitions, it was ambiguous and manipulable. Taking public space as a starting-point offers new insights into the Roman concepts, and a behavioural approach, aided by insights from space syntax theory, allows for a partial reconstruction of the diversity of spatial experience in the city. Traditionally, lack of behavioural control has been associated with private space, but for the majority of the population, who were not householders, it was public spaces which were characterised by greater freedom of access and behaviour. Public space was not a monolith, but offered a variety of spatial experiences and was experienced differently by different groups. Moreover, just as the space of the Roman elite house was more ‘public’ than we might naively suspect, public space in the city of Rome was determined by and thoroughly saturated by the private. The Republican Forum Romanum incorporated domestic and commercial space as well as political space, which itself was never neutrally ‘public’ but always contested. The grand victory porticoes of the Campus Martius mark out sacred space but also space associated with an individual general, and their architecture and decoration increasingly mark them as semi-private, until eventually Pompey’s theatre-portico complex incorporates not only a curia but also his own house. We see attempts to exploit the ambiguities of existing discourses of public and private, creating spaces like victory complexes and basilicas. Although Latin uses publicus and privatus as a natural and exclusive pair, the terms were in fact contested even in ancient times, and very little space in Rome was entirely public or entirely private. 1 THE DEFINITION OF PUBLIC SPACE IN REPUBLICAN ROME CONTENTS Contents i List of Figures iii List of Abbreviations vii Acknowledgements viii 1. Introduction 1 The ‘spatial turn’ and scholarship on the ancient world 1 Defining ‘public’ and ‘private’ 4 Discovering Roman concepts 8 Public and private in action in the house 9 Spatial experience and behavioural approaches to defining ‘public’ and 13 ‘private’ Space syntax theory and archaeological approaches to defining the private 19 Status and control 22 2. Revisiting Public and Private in Republican Rome 25 Publicus, privatus and the Roman definition of space 25 Legal texts: publicus, privatus, sacer 26 Plautus: violence and control 28 Claiming public space: violence in the Pro Milone 31 Conclusion: a behavioural definition of ‘public’ space in the Roman world 37 Afterword: Vitruvius and public space in the age of Augustus 39 3. Public Space, Private Space and Political Space in the Forum Romanum 46 The public Forum 47 Communal control and political space 51 Individual control and political space 63 Between public and private: private patrons and political space 77 Conclusion: failures of control 82 4. Individual Claims to Public Space in Republican Victory Monument 85 Individual and community in the victory temple 86 The interplay of public, private and sacred in early political monuments 90 From individual dedications to complexes 92 Visual and spatial differentiation: the role of Greek art 94 1. Marcellus and the arrival of Greek art at Rome 94 i 2. Hercules Musarum as heterotopia 100 3. Metellus Macedonicus and the Granikos Monument 102 Conclusion: kings, generals, and the control of space 104 5. Controlling Space in Pompey’s Victory Complex 108 Archaeology and architecture 113 A unified victory complex 116 Physical control and theatrical surveillance 121 Spectacles of privacy 125 Political space in action in the unified complex 133 Conclusion 136 6. Conclusion 137 Figures 141 Bibliography 174 ii LIST OF FIGURES All figures are located at the end of the main text, p. 141-73 Figure 1.1. The view from the doorway of the House of the Wooden Partition, 141 Herculaneum Author’s photograph Figure 1.2. The view from the doorway of the House of Neptune and Amphitrite, 141 Herculaneum Author’s photograph Figure 1.3. The House of Neptune and Amphitrite, Herculaneum: plan 142 Clarke (1991) 251 Figure 1.4. View of nymphaeum from the triclinium of the House of Neptune and 142 Amphitrite Clarke (1991) pl. 19 Figure 1.5. The House of the Labyrinth, Pompeii 143 Hales (2003) 119 Figure 1.6. The House of Octavius Quarto, Pompeii 143 Hales (2003) 115 Figure 1.7. House of Octavius Quarto: view from Room f along the water feature 144 Author’s photograph Figure 1.8. Grahame’s access analysis of the House of the Labyrinth 145 Grahame (2000) 145 Figure 1.9. Grahame’s illustration of the concept of confinement 145 Grahame (1997) 148 Figure 1.10. Street plan of Pompeii 146 Laurence (2007) 4 Figure 1.11. Distribution of fauces in Region 6 146 Laurence (2007) 127 Figure 1.12. The Vicolo di Narciso with entrances numbered 147 Jones/Schoonhoven (2003) 129 Figure 1.13. View south along the Vicolo di Narciso 147 Jones/Schoonhoven (2003) 132 iii Figure 1.14. Patterns of original block layout in Region 1 148 Ciro Nappo (1997) 98 Figure 1.15. Typical early Region 1 row house with back garden 148 Ciro Nappo (1997) 100 Figure 1.16. Insula 1.11, showing most entrances along north and west side 149 Ciro Nappo (1997) Figure 3.1. The Forum Romanum and Sacra Via in the mid-second century BCE. 150 Wilson (2005) 128 fig. 1 Figure 3.2. The Forum Romanum in the mid-first century BCE. 151 CAH IX2 370 fig. 2 Figure 3.3. The Forum Romanum in the Augustan period 152 Giuliani/Verduchi (1987) Figure 3.4. The natural relief of the Forum basin 153 Ammermann (1990) 635 fig. 4 Figure 3.5. The area of the Comitium in the regal period 153 Carafa (1998) 119 fig. 80 Figure 3.6. The Republican Comitium in Coarelli’s reconstruction 154 Coarelli (1985) 23 fig. 5 Figure 3.7. The Basilica Aemilia, showing traces of older tabernae on a different 155 orientation Freyberger et al. (2007) fig. 5 Figure 3.8 Archaic houses on the Sacra Via 156 Carandini (2004) 93 Figure 3.9. The Forum at Cosa 157 Lackner (2009) 348 Figure 3.10. The Atrium Vestae in the second century BCE 158 Scott (2009) 19, 34 Figure 3.11. The Atrium Vestae in the first century BCE 159 Scott (2009) 36 Figure 3.12. Coin of L. Aemilius Paullus (RRC 419/3) 160 Freyberger et al. (2007) 500 iv Figure 3.13. The Imperial fora 161 Meneghini/Santangeli Valenzani (2007) 40. Drawing E. Bianchi – R. Meneghini Figure 4.1. Fifth-century double temples in the Area Sacra di Sant’Omobono 162 Coarelli (1988) 206; drawing G. Ioppolo Figure 4.2. Republican tempietti, Ostia 162 Rieger (2004) 56 Figure 4.3. Temple of Hercules Musarum on the Marble Plan 163 Carettoni et al. (1960) pl. 29, detail Figure 4.4. Temple of Hercules Musarum: reconstructions 164 Coarelli (1997a) 477, 479 Figure 4.5. Standing remains of Porticus Octaviae, successor to the Porticus Metelli 165 (author’s photographs) Figure 4.6. The Porticus Metelli in the second century BCE (reconstruction) with 165 temples of Juno Regina (L) and Jupiter Stator (R) Nünnerich-Asmus (1994) Abb. 19 Figure 4.7. Porticus Minucia, showing enclosure outside temple B in the Largo 166 Argentina Coarelli (1997a) 334 Figure 5.1. Theatre and portico of Pompey on the Campus Martius (restored plan) 167 Coarelli (1997a) 540 Figure 5.2. Aerial photograph of the area of Pompey’s complex 168 Google Earth (© 2010 Google, © 2011 Tele Atlas) Figure 5.3. Surviving substructures of the cavea: digital composite 168 The Pompey Project (http://www.pompey.cch.kcl.ac.uk/Site_Documentation.htm, last accessed 1 May 2011) Figure 5.4. The structures of the cavea as recorded by Packer 169 Packer/Burge/Gagliardo (2007) 513 (Drawing J. Burge) Figure 5.5. The structures of the cavea as recorded by Monterroso Checa 169 Monterroso Checa (2007) 136 Figure 5.6. The theatre and portico of Pompey on the Marble Plan 170 Carettoni et al. (1960) plate 32 v Figure 5.7. The theatre and portico in Gleason’s reconstructions: plan 171 Gleason (1994) 18 Figure 5.8. The theatre and portico in Gleason’s reconstructions: view from the 171 curia Gleason (1994) 22 Figure 5.9. Wall-painting from the villa at Boscoreale depicting a pierced scaenae 172 frons Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Anderson (1987-88) 23 Figure 5.10. Painted representation of a late Republican villa landscape 173 Wall-painting from the house of M.