Ancient Rome: The Spirit of Empire

1. Ancient Rome: The Spirit of Empire

2. The Drama of Roman History The Rise of Republican Rome: • City founded in 753 B.C.E. (legend) • Republic: government of representatives chosen to act for the people at large • Romans conquered Italian peninsula • Struggle between patricians and plebeians • After Italy, the Mediterranean: Punic Wars

3. In 146 B.C.E., Romans conquered Corinth and the entire Hellenistic world and culture. • Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.E.) conquered Gaul (France), had himself named dictator for life in 46 B.C.E., assassinated in 44 B.C.E. • Octavian (63 B.C.E. – 14 C.E.) defeated Mark Antony in 31 B.C.E.

4. Imperial Rome • Romans rude farmers compared to cultured Athenians • Culture began under Octavian’s (Caesar Augustus) Pax Romana: “I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.” • Virgil: The Aeneid • Romans absorbed Greek culture and were very practical

5. The Art of an Empire • Statues and buildings: political advertisements • Augustus: Augustus of Primaporta (fig. 4.15), Ara Pacis (fig. 4.16) • Trajan: Forum, Column of Trajan (fig.4.17)

6. The Architecture of Rome • Buildings for practical purposes: • Basilicas, baths,, libraries • Innovations: concrete and the arch • Arch: flexible construction • Barrel vault, cross vault, dome • Concrete: quick and inexpensive allowed for fast construction

7. Roman Buildings • Concentrated on interiors • Buildings for recreation: baths were beauty salons, library, shopping mall • Basilica of Constantine • Baths of Caracalla • Colosseum (fig.4.12)

8. The Pantheon • Only building from antiquity entirely preserved, dedicated to the seven planetary gods (figs. 4.13 and 4.14) • Built by Hadrian in 120 C.E. • Interior is perfect hemisphere • 30 ft. opening, oculus for light

9. Roman Art and Daily Life • Family: basis of social identity – paterfamilia • Women had confined social roles, but could own property, divorce their husbands, and could inherit their husband’s wealth.

10. Pompeii • Destroyed in 79 C.E. by eruption of Mt. Vesuvius • First excavated in the 18th century, offers glimpse of Roman household & decoration • Atrium, wall paintings, mosaic (figs. 4.25, 4.28) • Busts to commemorate family members: realistic renditions, death masks

11. Roman Theater and Music • Entertainment: a birthright! • Theater: Comedies and tragedies borrowed from Hellenistic empire • Plautus: comic playwright, farces, coarse humor • Terence: fully developed characters, mocked Greeks • Seneca: tragedian, exaggerated plots

12. Bear fighting and gladiator fights were preferred to plays • Pantomime: elements of farce, improbable situations, exaggeration, and horseplay • Often obscene spectacles • Theaters were large structures with multi-storied stages which could hold up to 60,000 spectators • Men played all the roles • Actors were often slaves – not respected

13. Roman Music and Dance • Imitated Greek music and instruments • Orators had musicians play for effect • Tuba, horn, organ (hydraulis), aulos, cythara (twelve-stringed lyre)

14. Roman Poets • Catullus: lyric poet who studied Sappho, wrote love poems • Ovid: poet, wrote Metamorphoses, and became asource for many other European writers, such as Chaucer and Shakespeare

15. Virgil: epic poet, his work The Aeneid celebrated traditional Roman values. It was propaganda for Roman imperialism. • Story of Aeneas, a Trojan warrior’s adventures. • Unifying theme: destiny • Dido and Aeneas

16. Roman Satire • Superior over the Greeks • Satire – an artistic form that wittily ridicules human folly or vice • Horace: fables • Juvenal: criticism of Roman life

17. Roman Philosophy • Lucretius: good is moderate and lasting pleasure – Epicureanism • Stoicism: duty and world order, divine reason controls the universe, happiness can be found in social duty • Marcus Aurelius: Meditations (stoic Roman character)

18. Rome’s Division and Decline • Diocletian: Empire had grown unwieldy, so it was divided into East and West • In the third century, Constantine moved the capital to the East, to Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey.