Roman Art History PDF

Roman Art CHAPTER 7 O F ALL THE CIV...

Roman Art CHAPTER 7 O F ALL THE CIVILIZATIONS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD, THE MOST accessible to modern scholars is that of ancient Rome. Romans built countless monuments throughout their empire, many of which are extraordinarily well preserved. A vast literary legacy, ranging from poetry and histories to inscriptions that recorded everyday events, also reveals a great deal about Roman culture. Yet few questions are more Roman art was the art of both Republic and Empire, the art of difficult to address than What is Roman art? a small city that became a vast empire. It was created by Roman Rome was a significant power in the Mediterranean from the artists, but not exclusively; the greatest architect of Trajan s time fifth century bce until the fourth century ce. At the Empire s may have been from Damascus. Perhaps the most useful way to height, its borders stretched from present-day Morocco to Iran, think of Roman art is to see it as an art of syncretism an art that and from Egypt to Scotland (map 7.1). Greece was a relatively brings diverse elements together to produce something entirely early addition to Roman territory, and much of Roman public art new, with a powerful message-bearing potential. Syncretism was draws heavily on Greek styles, both Classical and Hellenistic. In a profoundly Roman attitude, and was probably the secret to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, influenced by early Rome s extraordinarily successful expansion. From the very start, art historians like Winckelmann (see The Art Historian s Lens, Roman society was unusually tolerant of non-Roman traditions, page 157), art connoisseurs exalted Greek Classicism as the height as long as they did not undermine the state. Romans did not, on of stylistic achievement, and considered Roman art derivative, the the whole, subordinate the populations of newly conquered last chapter, so to speak, of Greek art history. This view changed regions, eventually according many the rights of citizenship and radically in the ensuing years, especially as pure connoisseurship receiving non-Roman gods hospitably in the capital. This Roman (an assessment of quality and authenticity) began to yield to other propensity for integrating other cultures led to a remarkably branches of art history. Scholars now focus, for instance, on the diverse world. roles of a work of art in its social and political contexts. Yet regardless of how one assesses Roman artists for drawing on Greek styles, these were by no means the only styles at play in the EARLY ROME AND THE REPUBLIC Roman world. Works of art created in the provinces or for the nonelite have their own style, as do those of late antiquity. There According to Roman legend, Romulus founded the city of Rome were also phases of distinct Egyptianizing in Rome. in 753/52 bce, in the region known as Latium, on a site near the Tiber River. The sons of Mars and Rhea Silvia, who later became a Vestal Virgin, Romulus and his twin, Remus, were abandoned at Detail of figure 7.15, Nile Mosaic, from Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia birth, and raised by a she-wolf (see fig. 6.17). Yet archaeological CHAPTER 7 ROM AN ART 181  T ib A er dr ATL ANTI C ia Sea SCOTLAND Primaporta tic O CEAN North Veii ivoli Se Sea Rome Palestrina a ic Ostia (Praeneste) lt Mt. Vesuvius Naples a B Herculaneum Boscoreale BRITAIN Pompeii Boscotrecase Ty r r h e n i a n Engl ish C h an nel GERMANY Sea Rhin e Se rier in 100 km Ionian e L oir e 100 miles Sea D a n u be FRANCE s p R h ôn e l Po Venice DACIA A DA Segovia Py Nîmes ITALY ré GAL Spalato ETRU né LM es (Split) Black Sea T ib e r AT Populonia U RIA IA Ad r ia RT S PA I N Corsica tic Rome Se PO a MACEDONIA Constantinople LATIUM ASIA MINOR Naples Sardinia Pompeii CAMPANIA Tessaloniki Ti Tyrrhenian TURKEY gr GREECE Pergamon is Sea ANATOLIA up E See inset h rat Athens es Carthage Sicily SYRIA ALGERIA Palmyra M Cyprus N e d i t Crete e r r PALESTINE Lepcis Magna a n e a n S e a Jerusalem Canopus 500 km Alexandria Petra PERSIA 500 miles L I B YA Fayum EGYPT Roman Empire in the early Second Century CE A F R I C A Re N il e d Se a Map 7.1 Roman Empire in the early 2nd century ce evidence shows that people had actually lived on the site since destroyed the southern Etruscan city of Veii in 396 bce. The about 1000 bce. From the eighth to the sixth centuries bce, a Gauls, from the north, sacked Rome in 390 bce, but this seems series of kings built the first defensive wall around the settlement, only to have spurred Rome on to greater conquest. By 275 bce, drained and filled the swampy plain of the Forum, and built a vast Rome controlled all of Italy, including the Greek colonies of temple on the Capitoline Hill, making an urban center out of the south. Three Punic (from the Latin for Phoenician ) Wars what had been little more than a group of villages. The kings against the North African city of Carthage ended with the deci- established many of Rome s lasting institutions, such as priest- sive razing of Carthage in 146 bce, and during the second century hoods and techniques of warfare. In about 509 bce, the Roman bce all of Greece and Asia Minor also came under Roman control. elite expelled the last king, and gradually established a republic, Yet despite its successes, from about 133 bce to 31 bce, the Late with an unwritten constitution. Republic was in turmoil. Factional politics, mob violence, assassi- Under the Republic, a group of elected magistrates managed nation, and competition among aristocratic families led to the the affairs of the growing state. Two consuls headed them, and a breakdown of the constitution and to civil war. Julius Caesar Senate served as an advisory council. Popular uprisings led to became perpetual dictator in 46 bce, a position that other senators greater rights and representation for the nonelite over the next were unable to tolerate. Two years later, they assassinated him. 200 years. Rome gained most of its territorial empire during the During the course of the Republic, magistrates commissioned course of the republic. First Rome and its allies, the Latin League, works of architecture and sculpture to embellish the city as well 182 PA RT I T H E A N C I E N T W O RL D Recognizing Copies: The Case of the Laocoön THE ART HISTORIAN S LENS I n one of the most powerful passages of The Aeneid, Vergil describes the punishment of Laocoön, who, according to legend, was a priest at the time of the Trojan War. He warned the Trojans against accept- apogee of the Hellenistic age. Yet there are cases of artists names being passed down through several generations, and it is not at all clear that the group is in fact the sculpture Pliny admired. ing the wooden horse, the famous gift that hid invading Greeks within. Pliny specified that Laocoön was sculpted from a single piece of The goddess Minerva, on the side of the Greeks, punished Laocoön by marble, and this sculpture is not; even more telling is the fact that a sending two giant serpents to devour him and his sons. Vergil slab of Carrara marble which was not exploited until the reign of describes the twin snakes gliding out of the sea to the altar where Augustus (r. 27 BCE 14 CE) is incorporated into the altar at the back. Laocoön was conducting a sacrifice, strangling him in their terrible Is the sculpture then an early imperial work? Or is this much-lauded coils, turning sacrificer into sacrificed. (See www.myartslab.com.) masterpiece a Roman copy of a Hellenistic work? If so, does that In January 1506, a sculptural group depicting Laocoön and his sons reduce its status? As if this were not debate enough, one contention writhing in the coils of snakes was unearthed on the Esquiline Hill in takes Laocoön out of the realm of antiquity altogether, and identifies Rome. Renaissance humanists immediately hailed the group as an it instead as a Renaissance work by none other than Michelangelo. original Greek sculpture describing this brutal scene. It was, they Evidence cited includes a pen study by the artist depicting a male torso thought, a sculpture that Pliny the Elder praised in his Natural History resembling Laocoön s, dating to 1501. At this point, all that can be (completed in 77 CE). Pliny believed the Laocoön group that stood in said with certainty about Laocoön is that the tidy picture imagined by Titus palace to be the work of three sculptors from Rhodes: sixteenth-century admirers has become considerably murkier. Hagesandros, Polydorus, and Athenodorus. Within a year of its redis- covery, the group had become the property of Pope Julius II, who installed it in his sculpture gallery, the Belvedere Courtyard in the Vatican. The sculpture quickly became a focus for contemporary artists, who both used it as a model and struggled to restore Laocoön s missing right arm (now bent behind him in what art historians consider the correct position). Its instant fame derived in part from the tidy convergence of the rediscovered sculpture with ancient literary sources: The masterpiece represented a dramatic moment in Rome s greatest epic and was described by a reputable Roman author. The Laocoön group caught the rapt attention of the eighteenth- century art historian J. J. Winckelmann (see The Art Historian s Lens, page 157). He recognized a powerful tension between the subjects agonizing death throes and a viewer s pleasure at the work s extraor- dinary quality. Such was his admiration that he could only see the piece as a Classical work, and dated it to the fourth century BCE; any later and it would be Hellenistic, a period that he characterized as a time of artistic decline. So began a wide debate on not only the date of the sculpture, but also its originality. For many scholars, the writhing agony of the Trojan priest and his sons bears all the hall- marks of the Hellenistic baroque style, as seen in the gigantomachy (the war between gods and giants) of the Great Altar of Zeus at Pergamon (see figs. 5.72 and 5.73). A masterpiece of the Hellenistic style, it should accordingly date to the third or second century BCE. On the other hand, evidence from inscriptions links the three artists named by Pliny to sculptors at work in the mid-first century BCE, Laocoön, 1st century CE. Marble, height 7' (2.1 m). Musei Vaticani, making the sculpture considerably later and removing it from the Museo Pio Clementino, Cortile Ottagono, Città del Vaticano, Rome as to enhance their own careers. Roman conquests abroad NEW DIRECTIONS IN ARCHITECTURE brought new artistic forms to the city, especially from Greece, which merged with Italic (i.e., typical of people of the Italian Roman architecture has had a more lasting impact on Western peninsula) forms to create a Roman artistic vocabulary, and the building through the ages than any other ancient tradition. It is an development of new building technologies such as concrete architecture of power, mediated through the solidity of its forms, strongly influenced architectural designs. and through the experience of those forms. Roman builders were CHAPTER 7 ROM AN ART 183  Cella rear Cella of indebted to Greek traditions, especially in their use of the Doric, of Juno rooms Minerva Ionic, and Corinthian styles, yet these traditions inspired build- ings that were decidedly Roman. THE D E V E L O P M E N T O F F O R M S The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill was the first truly mon- umental building of Rome (fig. 7.1). Romans worshiped a wide range of gods, some of them indigenous, but many others adopted Cella of Jupiter from other cultures; in fact, their pantheon of state gods was roughly equivalent to the Greek pantheon. The Capitoline temple honored the chief god, Jupiter, roughly equivalent to the Greek Zeus. Its construction began under two sixth-century bce kings, presumed Tarquinius the Ancient and Tarquinius the Proud, but it was one foundation of Rome s first consuls who actually dedicated the finished tem- walls ple. Its scale was unprecedented on the Italian peninsula, evoking the massive Ionic temples of eastern Greece (see fig. 5.12). It stood on a high masonry platform, with steps leading up to the façade. Six wooden columns marked the front, and six columns flanked porch each side. Two rows of columns supported the roof over a deep porch. An Etruscan artist, Vulca of Veii, crafted a vast terra-cotta acroterion for the peak of the pediment, representing Jupiter in a four-horse chariot. A triple cella with walls of wood-framed mud N 01 6 10 20 30 meters brick accommodated cult statues of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and recent excavations suggest that two additional rooms were 0 20 40 60 80 100 feet arranged across the rear, accessed from the lateral colonnades. The rectilinear forms, the use of columns, and a gabled roof echo 7.1 Restored plan of Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Greek design; yet the high podium and the emphatic frontal Capitoline Hill, Rome. Dedicated ca. 509 bce 7.2 Temple of Portunus, Rome. ca. 80 70 bce 184 PA RT I T H E A N C I E N T W O RL D access set it apart. Scholars call these features Etrusco-Italic, and emphasize the frontal approach. All the same, the Ionic columns they characterize most Roman temples in centuries to come. have the slender proportions of Classical Greek temples, and a Although the practice of borrowing Greek forms began early white marble stucco covering their travertine and tufa shafts, in the Republic, it was particularly marked during the period of bases, and capitals deliberately evoked the translucent marbles of Rome s conquest of Greece, when architects used Greek building Greek architecture. materials as well as essential building forms. After celebrating a Roman architects quickly combined the rectilinear designs of triumph over Macedonia in 146 bce, the general Metellus com- Greek architecture with the curved form of the arch (fig. 7.3). An missioned Rome s first all-marble temple and hired a Greek archi- arch could be a free-standing monument in its own right, or be tect, Hermodorus, for the job. It no longer survives, but was applied to a building, often to frame an entrance. To construct probably close in form to the remarkably well-preserved temple arches, builders assembled wedge-shaped voussoirs, as seen in the to the harbor-god Portunus near the Tiber (fig. 7.2). Dating from Etruscan Porta Marzia at Perugia (see fig. 6.12). These arches are 80 to 70 bce, the temple is in the Italic style: It stands on a extremely strong, in contrast to corbeled arches (see fig. 4.21). podium, and engaged lateral columns (instead of a true peristyle) Voussoir arches were not a Roman or an Etruscan invention: Near keystone spandrel spandrel extrados voussoirs intrados springing centering impost jamb piers bay round arch buttress space buttress included in bay piers barrel vault groin vault 7.3 Arch, barrel vault, and groin vault CHAPTER 7 ROM AN ART 185  Eastern architects used them in ziggurat foundations and in city gates, and Egyptian builders employed them, as well as their extension, the barrel vault, as early as about 1250 bce, mainly in underground tombs and utilitarian buildings, rather than for monumental public buildings; Greeks architects constructed underground structures or simple gateways with arches. The Romans, however, put them to widespread use in public architec- ture, making them one of the hallmarks of Roman building. THE CONCRETE REVOLUTION It was the development of concrete, however, that was a catalyst for the most dramatic changes in Roman architecture. Concrete is a mixture of mortar and pieces of aggregate such as tufa, limestone, or brick. At first, Roman architects used it as fill, between walls or in podiums. Yet on adding pozzolana sand to the mortar, they discovered a mate- rial of remarkable durability which would even cure (or set) under water and they used it with growing confidence from the second century bce onward. Despite its strength, it was not attractive to the eye, and builders concealed it with cosmetic fac- 7.4 Navalia, Rome. First half of the 2nd century bce. Partial reconstruction drawing ings of stone, brick, and plaster, which changed with the passing years and therefore provide archaeologists with an invaluable tool for dating Roman buildings. The advantages of concrete were that controlled and heightened a visitor s experience. The sanctu- quickly evident: It was strong and inexpensive, and could be ary ascended in seven levels. At the bottom stood an early temple, worked by relatively unskilled laborers. It was also extraordinar- a basilica (see page 225), and a senate house. The upper terraces ily adaptable. By constructing wooden frameworks into which rose in a grand crescendo around a central axis, established by a they poured the concrete, builders could mold it to shapes that series of statue niches and staircases. A visitor climbed lateral would have been impossible or prohibitively time-consuming to staircases to the third terrace, where steep ramps, roofed with make using cut stone, wood, or mud brick. In terms of design, the sloping barrel vaults, led upward. A bright shaft of daylight beck- history of Roman architecture is a dialogue between the tradi- oned from the end of the ramp, where an open landing provided tional rectilinear forms of Greek and early Italic post-and-lintel the first of several stunning views across the countryside. traditions (construction using vertical posts to support horizontal On the fourth level, colonnaded exedrae (semicircular recesses) elements) on the one hand, and the freedoms afforded by this framed the altars. Barrel vaults roofed the colonnades, inscribing a malleable material on the other. half-circle both horizontally and vertically (annular barrel vaults). Two quite different Republican structures demonstrate con- Their curved forms animate the straight lines, since columns set in crete s advantages. A building of the second century bce, long a semicircle shift their relationship to the environment with every identified as the Porticus Aemilia, but almost certainly the step a visitor takes. A wide central staircase leads upward to the Navalia, or ship shed for the Roman fleet, is the earliest known next level. After the confinement of the ramps, its steps were building in Rome constructed entirely of concrete. Its dimensions exposed, engendering a sense of vulnerability in the visitor. On this were simply staggering: It stretched 1,600 Roman feet (a little level, shops probably sold souvenirs and votive objects. Standing shorter than modern feet) along the Tiber and was 300 feet deep. on this terrace, a visitor was directly above the voids of the barrel As the partial reconstruction in figure 7.4 illustrates, the architects vaults below, evidence of the architects confidence in the struc- took advantage of the new material to create a remarkably open ture. The next terrace was a huge open court, with double colon- interior space. Soaring barrel vaults roofed 50 transverse corri- nades on three sides. The visitor climbed to a small theater topped dors, built in four rising sections to accommodate the sloping by a double annular colonnade. Here religious performances took terrain. Arches pierced the walls supporting the vaults, so that air place against the magnificent backdrop of the countryside could circulate freely. Roman sailors could pull the ships into beyond, and in full sight of Fortuna, the goddess whose circular these spaces for easy maintenance in the winter months. temple crowned the complex. Its diminutive size drew grandeur East of Rome, in the Apennine foothills, the town of from the vast scale of the whole all accomplished with concrete. Palestrina (ancient Praeneste) is home to another masterpiece of The hugely versatile material plays easily with the landscape, concrete construction (figs. 7.5 and 7.6). The spectacular sanctu- transforming nature to heighten a visitor s religious experience. ary to the goddess Fortuna Primigenia, dated to the late second The first century bce was a turning point in the use of archi- century bce, was an oracular center where priests interpreted tecture for political purposes. One of the most magnificent build- divine will by drawing lots. Architects used concrete to mold ings of this time was the vast theater complex of Pompey, which structures over the entire surface of the hillside and to craft spaces would remain Rome s most important theater throughout antiquity. 186 PA RT I T HE AN C I EN T W O RL D 7.5 Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia, Praeneste (Palestrina). Late 2nd century bce 7.6 Reconstruction of Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia, Praeneste Like Julius Caesar after him, Pompey (active in Roman politics in a raised stage for scenery. In other ways, however, it was radically the 70s and 60s bce) maneuvered his way into a position of sole different. It was not, for instance, nestled into a preexisting hill- authority in Rome and used architecture to express and justify his side. Instead, the architect created an artificial slope out of con- aconstitutional power. To commemorate his conquests, he con- crete, rising on radially disposed barrel vaults, which buttressed ceived of a theater on the Field of Mars, just outside the northern one another for a strong structure. Concrete, in other words, gave city boundary, dedicated to his patron goddess Venus Victrix (the the designer freedom to build independent of the landscape. The Conqueror) (fig. 7.7). Later buildings on the site incorporate curved cavea (seating area), moreover, was a true half-circle, rather traces of its superstructure, and the street plan still reflects its than the extended half-circle of Greek theaters. At the summit of curved form. Moreover, its ground plan is inscribed on an ancient the cavea were three shrines and a temple dedicated to Venus. The marble map of the city, carved in the early third century ce, and curved façade held statues personifying the nations Pompey had new excavations may uncover more of its vaulted substructure. subdued. Beyond the theater, and adjoining it behind the stage The reconstruction in figure 7.7 is therefore provisional, a combi- building, porticoes defined a vast garden, where Romans could nation of archaeological evidence and conjecture; it is likely to admire valuable works of art, such as sculptures, paintings, and change as new evidence emerges. In some respects, Pompey s tapestries, many of which had been brought from Greece. These theater resembled its Greek forebears, with sloping banks of seats public gardens were Pompey s gift to the people of Rome an in a semicircular arrangement, a ground-level orchestra area, and implicit way of winning political favor. CHAPTER 7 ROM AN ART 187  7.7 Theater complex of Pompey, Rome. Dedicated in 55 bce. Provisional reconstruction by James E. Packer and John Burge Pompey s theater complex dwarfed the smaller, scattered of Rome as part of the triumphal procession, the works of art buildings that individual magistrates had commissioned up to that ended their journey by decorating public spaces, such as the point. It was also Rome s first permanent theater. As in Greece, theater complex of Pompey (see fig. 7.7). plays were an essential component of religious ceremonies, and These glistening bronze and marble works provoked reaction. Romans had always constructed the buildings that accommo- For most, it seems, they were a welcome sign of Rome s cultural dated them out of wood, assembling them for the occasion and advance, more visually pleasing than indigenous sculptures in then dismantling them. In fact, some elite Romans spoke out terra cotta. Elite Romans assembled magnificent collections of against the construction of permanent theaters ostensibly on Greek art in their homes; through their display they could give moral grounds, but also because they were places for the nonelite visual expression to their erudition. The Villa of the Papyri in to meet. Pompey circumvented such objections by describing his Herculaneum, a city built on the slopes of Vesuvius in southwest theater as a mere appendage to the temple of Venus at its summit, Italy, preserved an extensive collection in situ when the volcano and in building the complex he set the precedent for the great erupted. The villa and its collection are partially reconstructed in forum project of Julius Caesar, and the imperial fora that would the Getty Museum in Malibu, California. When Greek originals follow (see page 196). were not available, copyists provided alternatives in the styles of known Greek artists. (See Materials and Techniques, page 193, and The Art Historian s Lens, page 183.) A series of letters from Sculpture Cicero, a lawyer and writer of the mid-first century bce, to his FREE-STANDING SCULPTURE In early Rome, as elsewhere friend Atticus in Athens shows the process at work: he asks in Italy, sculptors worked primarily in terra cotta and in bronze. Atticus to send him sculptures to decorate the various parts of his Countless terra-cotta votive objects survive from sanctuaries, villa. (See Primary Source, page 192.) The stylistic borrowings also where visitors dedicated them in hope of divine favor. The grad- had a bold political dimension, showing that Rome had bested the ual conquest of Greece in the second century bce had led to a great cultures of Greece. fascination with Greek works of art, which flooded into Rome as booty. So intense was the fascination, in fact, that in the late first RELIEF SCULPTURE A few strident voices spoke out against century bce, the poet Horace commented ironically, Greece, the invasion of Greek art. Most vociferous was Cato ( The having been conquered, conquered her wild conqueror, and Moralist ), for whom traditional Roman art forms symbolized brought the arts into rustic Latium. Paraded through the streets the staunch moral and religious values that had led to, and justified, 188 PA RT I T H E A N C I E N T W O RL D  7.8 Reconstruction of pedimental sculptures from Via di San Gregorio. ca. 150 100 bce Rome s political ascent. A set of magnificent terra-cotta pediment sculptures discovered on Via di San Gregorio in Rome during sewer repairs in 1878 gives an impression of the art form he was intent on defending (figs. 7.8 and 7.9). The subject of the pediment appears to be a suovetaurilia, a sacrifice of a pig, a sheep, and a bull. The larger-scale figures probably represent divinities per- haps Mars in the center, with breastplate and spear, and two flank- ing goddesses. Smaller figures include a male in a toga, perhaps the presiding magistrate; a male in tunic and mantle; and several victi- marii (attendants to the sacrificial animals). The artists sculpted the figures in such high relief that they are almost fully in the round, and applied them to a smooth background, painted black; they protrude emphatically toward the top, in order to be legible from below. As in Egypt, color conventions distinguish the female figures, with their cream skin tones, from the deeper red males. The pediment may have belonged to a temple to Mars on the Caelian Hill. Scholars date it to the third quarter of the second century bce, which places it at the height of Greek influence in Rome. This is clearly evident in Mars Hellenistic breastplate, the classicizing treatment of the drapery and faces, and the muscula- ture. All the same, the material and technique are distinctly Italic, and the refined modeling and high polish demonstrate how striking terra-cotta works could be. Sometimes Roman sculpture commemorated specific events, as it did in the ancient Near East (see figs. 2.12 and 2.19). Classical Greek sculptors disguised historical events in mythical clothing a combat of Lapiths and Centaurs, for instance, or Greeks and Amazons (see figs. 5.35, and 5.44) and this convention broke down only slightly in the Classical period. The Romans, by con- trast, represented actual events, developing a form of sculpture known as historical relief although many were not historically accurate. The reliefs shown in figure 7.10, sometimes called the 7.9 Victimarius from the Via di San Gregorio pediment. Painted terra cotta, height 411*2" (106 cm). Museo Capitolino, Rome CHAPTER 7 ROM AN ART 189  7.10 Sculptural reliefs from statue base, showing sea thiasos and census, from the so-called Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus or Base of Marcus Antonius. Late 2nd to early 1st century bce. Marble. Musée du Louvre, Paris, and Glyptothek, Staatliche Antiken- sammlungen, Munich Base of Marcus Antonius, probably decorated a base for a statu- spoils from Greece to grace a triumphal monument proof, as it ary group, which scholars place near the route used for triumphal were, of his conquest. By contrast, artists carved the census relief processions through Rome. One long section shows a census, a in Rome to complement the thiasos. Together, the reliefs may rep- ceremony during which individuals recorded their property hold- resent the patron s military and political achievements. ings with the state to qualify for military service (which was a pre- requisite for public office). On the left side, soldiers and civilians PORTRAIT SCULPTURE Literary sources reveal that the line up to be entered into the census. Two large figures flanking an Senate and People (the governing bodies of the Republic) of altar represent a statue of Mars, god of war, and the officiating Rome honored political or military figures by putting their stat- censor, who probably commissioned the monument. Attendants ues on public display, often in the Roman Forum, the civic heart escort a bull, a sheep, and a pig for sacrifice at an altar, marking of the city (see page 196). The custom began in the early Republic the closing ceremony of the census. and continued until the end of the Empire. Many of the early por- On the same monument, the remaining reliefs depict a marine traits were bronze and were melted down in later years for thiasos (procession) for the marriage of the sea-god Neptune and coinage or weaponry. A magnificent bronze male head dating to a sea-nymph, Amphitrite. But these reliefs are in an entirely dif- the late first century bce, a mere fragment of a full-length figure, ferent style. The swirling motion of the marriage procession and gives a tantalizing sense of how these statues once looked (fig. its Hellenistic forms contrast dramatically with the static compo- 7.11). Sixteenth-century antiquarians dubbed it Brutus, after sition of the census relief and the stocky proportions of its figures. the founder and first consul of the Republic. Strong features Moreover, the panels are carved from different types of marble. characterize the over-life-size portrait: a solid neck, a square jaw Scholars suppose that the sea-thiasos sections were not original to accentuated by a short beard, high cheekbones, and a firm brow. this context, but that a triumphant general brought them back as The image derives its power not from classical idealization or the 190 PA RT I T H E A N C I E N T W O RL D 7.11 Brutus. Late 1st-century bce head, modern bust. Bronze, slightly over-life-size. Museo del Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome CHAPTER 7 ROM AN ART 191  Cicero (106 43 BCE) I am at Rome than I can be that you are in Athens. The shortness of PRIMARY SOURCE this letter is due to my doubts as to your whereabouts. Not knowing for certain where you are, I don t want private correspondence to fall Letters to Atticus I. 9 10 (67 BCE, Rome) into a stranger s hands. I am awaiting impatiently the statues of Megaric marble and those Marcus Tullius Cicero was a leading politician and orator in Rome of Hermes, which you mentioned in your letter. Don t hesitate to during the turbulent days of the late Republic. He is known through his send anything else of the same kind that you have, if it is fit for my extensive writings, which include orations, rhetorical and philosophical Academy. My purse is long enough. This is my little weakness; and treatises, and letters. Like many other Roman statesmen, he filled his what I want especially are those that are fit for a Gymnasium. many houses and villas with works of Greek art, either original or Lentulus promises his ships. Please bestir yourself about it. Thyillus copied. Atticus was his childhood friend, who maintained communica- asks you, or rather has got me to ask you, for some books on the tion with Cicero after moving to Athens and served as his purchasing ritual of the Eumolpidae. agent for works of art. IX Cicero to Atticus, Greeting Y our letters are much too few and far between, considering that it is much easier for you to find someone coming to Rome than for me to find anyone going to Athens. Besides, you can be surer that Source: Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 3 vols., tr. E.O. Winstedt (1912 18) stylized qualities of, for instance, the portrait of an Akkadian ruler (see fig. 2.11), but from the creases and furrows that record a life of engagement. The slight downward turn of the head may indicate that it once belonged to an equestrian portrait, originally displayed raised above a viewer. The majority of Republican portraits were stone and date to the end of the second century and the first century bce. Most rep- resent men at an advanced age (fig. 7.12). Wrinkles cover their faces, etching deep crags into their cheeks and brows. Artists played up distinguishing marks like warts, a hooked nose, or a receding hairline rather than smoothing over them. In the example illus- trated here, remnants of a veil suggest that the subject was repre- sented as a priest. Although there is no way of knowing what the sitter looked like, the images appear realistic, so that scholars term the style veristic, from the Latin verus, meaning true. Cultures construct different ideals, and to Romans, responsibility and experience came with seniority. Military service was a prerequisite for office, and most magistracies had minimum-age requirements. An image marked by age therefore conveyed the necessary quali- ties for winning votes for political office, and the veristic style became the hallmark of Late Republican portraiture. Where the impetus to produce likenesses came from is a mystery that scholars have struggled to solve. For some, its roots lie in an Italic practice of storing ancestral masks in the home to provide a visual genealogy in this society, a good pedigree was a reliable steppingstone to political success. Polybius, a Greek historian of the mid-second century bce, recounts that before burying a family member, living relatives would wear these ances- tral masks in a funerary procession, parading the family s history in front of bystanders. (See Primary Source, page 194.) Other scholars trace it to a Greek custom of placing votive statues of athletes and other important individuals in sacred precincts, and 7.12 Veristic male portrait. Early 1st century bce. Marble, life-size. indeed some Roman portraits were executed in Greek styles. Musei Vaticani, Rome 192 PA RT I T H E A N C I E N T W O RL D Copying Greek Sculptures MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES I n order to satisfy a growing demand for Greek sculptures, artists set up copying workshops in Athens and Rome, where they produced arcs intersect is the fourth point (see fig. 4) on the copy. In order to alter the scale from original to copy, the artist simply multiplies or divides the measurements. Having taken a number of points in this copies of famous masterpieces. Some of these copies may have been relatively close replicas of the originals; others were adaptations, way, the sculptor uses a chisel to cut away the stone between the where the copyist s own creativity came freely into play. Given the points. The accuracy of the resultant copy depends upon how many paucity of surviving Greek originals, it is often difficult for scholars to points the sculptor takes. determine the appearance of the original, and thus to distinguish replica from adaptation. One clue to recognizing a marble copy (whether a true replica or a free adaptation) of a bronze original is to look for the use of struts to strengthen the stone, since marble has a different tensile strength from bronze (see the tree trunk and the strut at the hip in fig. 5.33). Scholars have long believed that Roman copyists used a pointing 1. 2. machine (a duplicating device that takes one to one measurements), similar to a kind that was used in the early nineteenth century, but evidence from unfinished sculptures now suggests a different tech- nique using calipers, known as triangulation. By establishing three points on the model, and the same three points on a new block of stone, an artist can calculate and transfer any other point on the model sculpture to a new place on the copy. The sculptor takes measure- ments from each of the three points on the original to a fourth new 3. 4. point, and, using those measurements, makes arcs with the calipers from each of the three points on the new block of stone. Where the The triangulation process Aspiring politicians probably commissioned many of these long rectangular frame surrounds shoulder-length truncated busts Republican portraits, but scholars can rarely give a name to the of the subjects. The very fact that the ex-slaves are depicted visu- individuals portrayed. Inscriptions identifying the subject are ally reflects their freed status; other visual cues reinforce it, such scarce, and the coin portraits that help to identify later public fig- as a ring, either painted or carved on a man s hand, or the joined ures only appear from the mid-first century bce on. By contrast, right hands of a man and woman, symbolizing marriage, which we can readily identify individuals represented in a related class of was not legal among slaves. An inscription records their names monument. In the Late Republican and Augustan periods, eman- and status. In this example, the freed slaves one-time owner cipated slaves commissioned group portraits in relief, which they appears in the center of the relief. mounted on roadside funerary monuments (fig. 7.13). Usually, a 7.13 Funerary relief of the Gessii. ca. 50 bce. Marble, 259*16 + 801*2 + 133*8" (65 + 204.5 + 34 cm). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Archibald Cary Coolidge Fund. 37.100 CHAPTER 7 ROM AN ART 193  Polybius (ca. 200 ca. 118 BCE) stature and carriage. These representatives wear togas, with a purple PRIMARY SOURCE border if the deceased was a consul or praetor, whole purple if he was a censor, and embroidered with gold if he had celebrated a triumph or Histories, from Book VI achieved anything similar. They all ride in chariots preceded by the fasces, axes, and other insignia and when they arrive at the rostra Polybius was a Greek historian active during the Roman conquest of his they all seat themselves in a row on ivory chairs. There could not homeland. His Histories recount the rise of Rome from the third easily be a more ennobling spectacle for a young man who aspires century BCE to the destruction of Corinth in 146 BCE. In Book VI he to fame and virtue. For who would not be inspired by the sight of considers cultural and other factors explaining Rome s success. the images of men renowned for their excellence, all together and as W henever any illustrious man dies they place the image of the departed in the most conspicuous position in the house, enclosed in a wooden shrine. This image is a mask reproducing with if alive and breathing? By this means, by this constant renewal of the good report of brave men, the celebrity of those who performed noble deeds is rendered immortal. But the most important result remarkable fidelity both the features and complexion of the deceased. is that young men are thus inspired to endure every suffering for On the occasion of public sacrifices they display these images, and the public welfare in the hope of winning the glory that attends on decorate them with much care, and when any distinguished member brave men. of the family dies they take them to the funeral, putting them on men Source: Polybius: The Histories, Vol. 3, tr. W.R. Paton (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University who seem to them to bear the closest resemblance to the original in Press, 1923) Painting and Mosaic Lamentably few free-standing portraits come from known archaeo- logical contexts. Romans appear to have displayed them in tombs as well as in homes and public places. Tombs were more than just lodging places for the dead. They were the focus of routine funer- ary rituals, and during the course of the Republic they became stages for displaying the feats of ancestors in order to elevate fam- ily status. Paintings, both inside and out, served this purpose well. A tomb on the Esquiline Hill in Rome yielded a fragmentary painting of the late fourth or early third century bce, depicting scenes from a conflict between the Romans and a neighboring tribe, the Samnites (fig. 7.14). A label identifies a toga-clad figure on the upper right as Quintus Fabius, a renowned general who may have been the tomb s owner. He holds out a spear to a figure identified as Fannius on the left, who wears golden greaves and loincloth. Behind Fannius is a crenelated city wall, and in the lower registers are scenes of battle and parlay. The labels suggest that the images record specific events, relating the subject matter to the relief sculptures discussed previously. Literary sources state that Roman generals also made a practice of commissioning panel paintings of their military achievements, which they displayed in triumphal processions before installing them in a public building such as a temple. As well as ornamenting walls with narrative paintings, Roman artists also decorated floors with mosaics. They fitted together minute colored stones called tesserae to create a pattern or a fig- ured image. An extraordinary example survives from an apsidal 7.14 Esquiline tomb painting. Late 4th or early 3rd century bce. room opening onto the forum at Praeneste (Palestrina) (fig. 7.15; Painted on plaster, 341*2 + 173*4" (87.6 + 45 cm). Museo Montemartini, Rome see figs. 7.5 and 7.6), probably dating to the end of the second century bce. The mosaic is a large visual map of Egypt, perhaps inspired by an Alexandrian work. The Nile dominates. In the depicted different buildings from different perspectives to accom- foreground is Alexandria, with its monumental buildings, lush modate a viewer s movement across the floor, and suggested vegetation, and cosmopolitan lifestyle. A vignette at the lower recession by placing distant scenes at the top of the mosaic: the right may show a Roman general s visit to Egypt. The mosaicist river winds away into the distance toward Ethiopia where hunters 194 PA RT I T H E A N C I E N T W O RL D 7.15 Nile Mosaic, from Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia, Praeneste (Palestrina). First century bce. Height approx. 16' (4.88 m), width approx. 20' (6.10 m). Museo Archaeologico Nazionale, Palestrina pursue wild animals such as crocodiles and hippopotami Antony, who had made an alliance with the Egyptian queen labeled with Greek names. Colors also become less vibrant in the Cleopatra. In 27 bce, the Senate named Octavian as Augustus faraway scenes, a device known as atmospheric perspective. Caesar, and he became princeps, or first citizen. History recog- Remarkable for its fine execution and the richness of its colors, nizes him as the first Roman emperor. The arts flourished in the the mosaic is a testament to a fascination with far-off lands during Augustan age. Artists took a new interest in classicism, while a phase of Rome s rapid expansion. Virgil penned The Aeneid as a Latin response to Homer s epics, and Horace and Ovid wrote poetry of lasting renown. The birth of the Roman Empire brought a period of greater THE EARLY EMPIRE stability to the Mediterranean region than had previously been known. Roman domination continued to spread, and at its largest The last century of the Republic witnessed a gradual breakdown extent, in the time of Trajan (98 117 ce), the Empire stretched of order in Rome, as ambitious men vied for sole authority in the through most of Europe, as far north as northern England, city. Julius Caesar s assassination on the Ides of March of 44 bce through much of the Middle East including Armenia and Assyria, was a last-ditch effort to safeguard the constitution. His heir, and throughout coastal North Africa. Romanization spread Octavian, took revenge on the principal assassins, Brutus and through these regions. Roman institutions political, social, and Cassius, and then eliminated his own rival for power, Mark religious mingled with indigenous ones, leading to a degree of CHAPTER 7 ROM AN ART 195  homogenization through much of the Roman world. Increasingly, with porticoes lining the long sides. At the end of the plaza was a the emperor and his family became the principal patrons of pub- temple to Mars the Avenger, which Augustus had vowed to erect lic art and architecture in Rome. Often, their public monuments after Caesar s assassination. When compared with the free forms stressed the legitimacy of the imperial family. of the Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste, this complex is overwhelmingly rectilinear and Classically inspired, as was most Augustan architecture. This deliberate choice evoked the Architecture pinnacle of Greek achievement in fifth-century bce Athens, and THE I M P E R I A L F O R A During the Republic, the Roman the pervasive use of marble, available from newly opened quarries Forum was the bustling center of civic life (figs. 7.16 and 7.17). It at Carrara, underlined the effect. Sculpture filled the Forum. The was there, in markets and basilicas, that people shopped and porticoes housed full-length, labeled portraits of great men from attended court cases and schools. The Senate deliberated in the Rome s legendary past and recent history, suggesting a link between Forum s Senate House, and temples to the state gods housed cult the past and the Augustan present. In the attic (upper level) of the statues as well as the state treasury. Gladiators fought in the open porticoes, engaged caryatids (supporting columns in the shape of space in the center of the Forum, where temporary wooden draped female figures) flanked shields decorated with heads of bleachers were erected for spectators. The Forum continued to Jupiter Ammon (god of the Sahara, sometimes described as accommodate many essential Roman functions during the Alexander the Great s father). The carved women replicated the Empire, but some moved to new imperial complexes. Pompey s figures on the south porch of the Erechtheion on the Athenian theater complex was the first of a series of huge urban interven- Akropolis (see fig. 5.51), where Augustus architects were engaged tions through which Rome s autocrats curried favor with the pop- in restoration work. Many of the rituals once accommodated by ulace. Julius Caesar and Augustus each commissioned a forum, Rome s historic buildings such as the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter separate from but close to the Roman Forum, establishing a tra- now moved to Augustus Forum, and by diverting these state dition that Vespasian, Domitian, and Trajan followed. As the plan activities to an arena associated with his name, Augustus placed in figure 7.17 reveals, these fora were closely connected to each himself explicitly at the head of Roman public life. other topographically and drew significance from their proximity. The largest of all the imperial fora was Trajan s, financed with A visitor entered the Forum of Augustus directly from that of his the spoils of his wars against the Dacians. Reconstructions of the divinized ancestor Caesar, cementing the connection through complex give a sense of its former magnificence (fig. 7.18). physical experience. Augustus Forum was a large open plaza Located alongside Augustus Forum, it adapted many of that 7.16 View of the Forum in Rome 196 PA RT I T H E A N C I E N T W O RL D  Temple of Trajan 7.17 Plan of the Fora, Rome Temple of Basilica Ulpia Capitoline Jupiter Temple of Venus Genetrix N Forum of Trajan Tabularium Market of Trajan Temple of Concord Temple of Saturn Temple of Mars Ultor Senate Chamber Forum of Augustus Forum of Julius Caesar Basilica Julia Temple of Minerva Roman Forum Basilica Aemilia Forum of Nerva Forum of Vespasian Temple of Castor Temple of Antoninus Arch of Augustus and Faustina Temple of Julius Caesar Temple of Romulus House of the Sacred Way Basilica of Maxentius Vestal Virgins and Constantine Temple of Vesta 7.18 Forum of Trajan, Rome. Restored view by Gilbert Gorski CHAPTER 7 ROM AN ART 197  THE COLOSSEUM Tuscan columns frequently appear in a dec- cornice orative capacity on entertainment buildings. Vespasian was the entablature first to construct a permanent amphitheater for the gladiatorial frieze games and mock sea battles that were so central to Roman enter- arhitrave tainment and to Rome s penal system (figs. 7.20, 7.21, and 7.22). volute capital Putting on shows for the populace was a crucial form of favor- acanthus gaining benefaction, and the audience assembled for diversion but leaf also to see their emperor and to receive the free handouts that he would make on these occasions. Vespasian died before completing the Colosseum, and his son Titus inaugurated it in 80 ce with over 100 days of games, at a cost of over 9,000 animal lives. In terms of sheer mass, the Colosseum was one of the largest shaft column single buildings anywhere: It stood 159 feet high, 616 feet 9 inches long, and 511 feet 11 inches wide, and held well over 50,000 spec- tators. Concrete faced with travertine was the secret of its suc- cess. In plan, 80 radial barrel-vaulted wedges ringed an oval arena. Each barrel vault buttressed the next, making the ring remarkably stable (see fig. 7.22). The wedges sloped down from the outside to the ringside to support seating, as in Pompey s theater, and the architects accommodated countless stairways and corridors base within the wedges to ensure the smooth flow of traffic between cornice the entrances and the seating areas and the arena. During the per- formances, Romans took their seats strictly according to social rank, and the distinctive clothing of each order visually set off one dado pedestal plinth Composite Style Tuscan Style 7.19 Tuscan and composite styles forum s features to new effect. In place of the caryatids in the por- tico attics, for instance, were statues of captive Dacians carved from exotic marbles. Beyond a basilica at the far end, two libraries and a temple defined a small courtyard, where Trajan s Column stood (see figs. 7.39 and 7.40). The Forum s message is clear: The Dacian Wars brought Rome great financial benefit. As in many societies, the ruling elite hoped to dispel the starker realities of war through visual propaganda. The change in patronage from magistrates to emperor is one of the major developments in architecture during the Empire. Another is the invention of the composite capital. To the building styles that they borrowed from Greece, Roman archi- tects added two more (fig. 7.19). One was the Tuscan style, which resembled the Doric style except that the shaft stood on a base. This style was in use throughout the Roman period. The composite capital was an imperial phenomenon: Architects used it as a substitute for the Ionic capital on secular buildings, especially from the reign of the first Flavian emperor, Vespasian (69 79 ce). It combined the volutes of an Ionic capital with the acanthus leaves of the Corinthian capital, to rich decorative effect. 7.20 Exterior of Colosseum 198 PA RT I T H E A N C I E N T W O RL D 7.21 Colosseum, Rome. 72 80 ce group from another. On the hottest days, sailors stationed nearby rigged a velarium, huge canvas sheets, over the seating areas to provide shade. Dignified and monumental, the exterior reflects the structure s interior organization. Eighty arched entrances led into the building, framed with engaged Tuscan columns. On the second story, Ionic columns framed a second set of arches, and on the third are engaged Corinthian columns. Engaged Corinthian pilasters embellish the wall on the fourth. THE PANTHEON But of all the masterpieces Roman architects accomplished with concrete, the Pantheon is perhaps the most remarkable (fig. 7.23). Augustus right-hand man, Agrippa, built the first Pantheon on the site. Its name suggests that he intended it as a temple to all the gods. This was a Hellenistic concept, and it included living and deceased members of the ruling family among the gods. When a fire destroyed this temple in 80 ce, Domitian built a reconstruction, which perished after a lightning strike. The Pantheon we see today, which has a substantially dif- ferent design, is probably the work of Trajan s architect, perhaps Apollodorus. The temple was completed in Hadrian s reign, and as an act of piety, Hadrian left Agrippa s name in the inscription (see The Art Historian s Lens, page 202). It owes its status as one of the best-preserved temples of Rome to its transformation into 7.22 Sectional view of Colosseum a church in the early seventh century ce. All the same, its sur- roundings have changed sufficiently through the ages to alter a visitor s experience of it quite profoundly. CHAPTER 7 ROM AN ART 199  7.23 Pantheon, Rome. 117 25 ce 7.24 Schematic drawing of Pantheon 200 PA RT I T H E A N C I E N T W O RL D  In Roman times, the Pantheon stood, raised on a podium, at ground level at the cardinal points. Engaged pilasters and bronze the south end of a large rectangular court (fig. 7.24). Porticoes grilles decorated an attic level, and high above soared an enor- framed the three remaining sides of the court and extended on the mous dome, pierced with a 27-foot hole, or oculus, open to the south up to the sides of the temple s pedimented porch, hiding the sky. Through the oculus came a glowing shaft of light, slicing temple s circular drum from view. A visitor approaching the tem- through the shadows from high overhead. Dome and drum are of ple s broad octastyle façade would have been struck by the forest equal height, and the total interior height, 143 feet, is also the of massive monolithic gray and pink granite columns soaring dome s diameter (fig. 7.27). For many ancient viewers, the result- upward; but in most other respects, the temple s form would have ant sphere would have symbolized eternity and perfection, and been familiar, evoking an expectation of a rectangular cella the dome s surface, once emblazoned with bronze rosettes in its beyond the huge bronze doors, and a large cult statue. Yet a sur- coffers (recessed panels), must have evoked a starry night sky. prise was in store. On stepping across the threshold (figs. 7.25 and For a visitor entering the cella, there was no obvious cue to 7.26), a visitor faced a vast circular hall, with seven large niches at point out where to go, except toward the light at the center. In 7.26 Plan of Pantheon 7.25 Interior of Pantheon CHAPTER 7 ROM AN ART 201  Two Pantheon Problems THE ART HISTORIAN S LENS U ntil the early twentieth century, most scholars believed that the existing Pantheon was an Augustan building, partially because its ities in its design suggest that it is seriously flawed. These irregular- ities include an inexplicable second pediment, above and behind the first; the fact that the exterior cornices are at different levels on inscription attributes it to Agrippa, Augustus right-hand man. In 1936 38, archaeologist Herbert Bloch produced a masterly analysis of circular drum and porch; and unaccountable misalignments in the Roman brick-stamps stamps that manufacturers impressed on bricks floor plan. To explain these irregularities, scholars initially concluded while they were wet. Often, these incorporated the names of consuls, that the present building is the result of several different building especially in the second century CE, which allows scholars to date campaigns a theory that Bloch s brick analysis roundly disproved. bricks to a span of years, and sometimes even to a precise year. In 1987, while doodling on a napkin over a beer at a pub, three Bloch s assessment of bricks used in the Pantheon led him to confirm British scholars, Paul Davies, David Hemsoll and Mark Wilson Jones, what archaeologists had begun to suspect on the basis of excavations: recognized that if the 40-foot column shafts of the Pantheon s porch that the Pantheon was not Agrippa s temple but a later rebuilding of were replaced with 50-foot shafts, the irregularities would disappear. it. Bloch assigned it to the reign of Hadrian. However, Lise Hetland s The taller shafts would raise the pediment to the level of the ghost new reading of the Pantheon brick-stamps stresses the presence of pediment; the cornices would align around the entire building; and Trajanic bricks in early stages of the temple s construction. This sug- because the shafts would be thicker, the imperfections in the floor gests that building began in Trajan s reign, and ended under Hadrian. plan would be resolved. Gray and pink granite shafts come from The Pantheon may be the work of Apollodorus, designer of Trajan s Aswan in Egypt. Fifty-foot shafts are relatively rare; in the event that Forum, who also constructed an imperial bath building with similar they were for instance lost at sea, 40-foot replacements would have design features. If true, as many believe, this redating will engender been more readily available to keep construction on schedule. The new interpretations of the building s significance and new assess- British scholars contention which is now widely accepted is that an ments of the emperors respective building programs. unforeseen circumstance forced the builders to deviate from the Since the fifteenth century, architects studying the Pantheon have design mid-construction. One of the most admired buildings of antiq- struggled with a paradox: Despite the building s profound impact on uity, in other words, is probably a brilliant compromise between Western architecture from the moment of its construction, irregular- design and necessity. fact, the dome s coffers only make sense perspectivally from the absence of a systemic network of continuous vertical lines directly beneath the oculus. Once a visitor reached the center, between top and bottom means that, visually speaking, the dome molded space and applied decoration combined to provide a stun- is not anchored. The optical effect is that it hovers unfettered ning effect. Beginning in the Renaissance, scholars have found above the visitor who feels, paradoxically, both sheltered and fault with the Pantheon s architect for neglecting to align the ribs exposed. The dome seems to be in perpetual motion, spinning between the dome coffers with the pilasters in the attic zone and overhead in the same way as the heavens it imitates. An all-but- the ground-floor columns. The design is not without logic: a void imperceptible rise in the floor at the center exaggerates this sensa- or a row of coffers aligns exactly over each central intercolumni- tion, which can incite an unnerving feeling similar to vertigo. A ation (space between columns) on the ground floor. All the same, visitor s instinct, in response, is to take refuge in the safety of the curved wall. The building is all experience, and photographs do it no justice. This is the place, so literary sources relate, where Hadrian preferred to hold court, greeting foreign embassies and adjudicating disputes here. The temple s form cast the emperor in an authoritative position as controller of his revolving universe. He must have appeared like a divine revelation before his guests, who were already awed and completely manipulated by the building that enclosed them. The Pantheon is the extraordinary result of an increased con- fidence in the potential and strength of concrete. The architect calibrated the aggregate as the building rose, from travertine to tufa, then brick, and finally pumice, to reduce its weight. The dome s weight is concentrated on eight wide pillars between the interior alcoves, rather than resting uniformly on the drum (the circular cella wall) (see fig. 7.26). The alcoves, in turn, with their screens of columns, visually reduce the solidity of the walls, and 7.27 Transverse section of Pantheon colored marbles on the interior surfaces add energy to the whole. 202 PA RT I T H E A N C I E N T W O RL D As in Trajan s Forum, the marbles were symbolic. They under- of art during his extensive travels, especially in Egypt and Greece. lined the vast reach of imperial authority, assuming trade with or A desire to evoke the far-flung regions of the Empire may also control over Egypt (gray and rose-pink granite, porphyry), have inspired some of the buildings: A fourth-century ce biogra- Phrygia (Phrygian purple and white stone), the island of Teos pher claims that Hadrian built up his villa at Tibur in an extraor- (Lucullan red and black stone), and Chemtou in Tunisia dinary way, applying to parts of it the renowned names of (Numidian yellow stone). provinces and places, such as the Lyceum, the Academy, the prytaneum, the Canopus, the Poecile, and Tempe. And so as to HADRIAN S VILLA AT TIVOLI As well as commissioning omit nothing, he even fashioned infernal regions. This state- public architecture, emperors also built magnificent residences for ment has led modern scholars to give fanciful names to many themselves. From the start of the Empire, the emperor s principal parts of the villa. Few of them are based on archaeological home was on the Palatine Hill in Rome (from which the term evidence, and they lead visitors to faulty conclusions about the palace derives). Yet, like many members of the elite, he had sev- buildings functions. The canal shown in figure 7.28 has long been eral properties, many of which were outside of Rome. The most known as the Canopus, after a town in Egypt. Only recently have famous is the Villa of Hadrian at Tibur (present-day Tivoli). Built scholars proposed more neutral terms for the villa s component