Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity 9780511979743.9780521470711

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ROMAN ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM Since antiquity, Roman architecture and planning have inspired architects and designers. In this volume, Fikret Yegül and Diane Favro offer a comprehensive history and analysis of the Romanbuilt environment, emphasizing design and planning aspects of buildings and streetscapes. The authors explore the dynamic evolution and dissemination of architectural ideas, showing how local influences and technologies were incorporated across the vast Roman territory. They also consider how Roman construction and engineering expertise, as well as logistical proficiency, contributed to the making of bold and exceptional spaces and forms. Based on decades of firsthand examinations of ancient sites throughout the Roman world, from Britain to Syria, the authors give close accounts of many sites no longer extant or accessible. Written in a lively and accessible manner, Roman Architecture and Urbanism affirms the enduring attractions of Roman buildings and environments and their relevance to a global view of architecture. Lavishly illustrated with over eight hundred images, including numerous new plans and drawings as well as digital renderings, the book will appeal to readers interested in the classical world and the history of

architecture and urban design, as well as a wide range of academic fields. Fikret Yegül is a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Trained as an architect and architectural historian, he has extensive field experience in archaeology, notably as a long-term member of Harvard’s Sardis Excavation. Yegül is completing a major publication on the Temple of Artemis. Among his other books is Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity, which received the prestigious Alice Davies Hitchcock Award from the Society of Architectural Historians. Diane Favro is a distinguished professor emerita in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of California, Los Angeles. Author of the influential book The Urban Image of Augustan Rome, she has pioneered research applications of virtual reality digital reconstructions with Rome Reborn (1993), the Digital Roman Forum (2002), and Digital Karnak (2007). She was a director of the UCLA Experiential Technologies Center, president of the Society of Architectural Historians, and the Samuel H. Kress Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art.

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ROMAN ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM FROM THE O RIGINS TO LATE ANTIQUITY

FIKRET YEGÜL University of California, Santa Barbara

DIANE FAVRO University of California, Los Angeles

University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, ny 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521470711 doi: 10.1017/9780511979743 © Cambridge University Press 2019 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2019 Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data names: Yegül, Fikret K., 1941– author. | Favro, Diane G., author. title: Roman architecture and urbanism : from the origins to late antiquity / Fikret Yegül, University of California, Santa Barbara; Diane Favro, University of California, Los Angeles. description: New York : Cambridge University Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references. identifiers: lccn 2018013119 | isbn 9780521470711 (hardback) subjects: lcsh: Architecture, Roman. | City planning–Rome. classification: lcc na310 y44 2018 | ddc 722/.7–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018013119 isbn 978-0-521-47071-1 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

CONTENTS

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Preface and Acknowledgments

page vii

Introduction: The Question of Romanization

1

1 Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire

4

2 Temple Architecture of Republican Rome and Italy

81

3 Technology of Building

112

4 Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome

186

5 Residential Architecture

244

6 Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines

294

7 Architecture and Planning in Italy and the Western Provinces: From the Republic to the Empire

409

8 Architecture and Planning in North Africa

487

9 Greece under Roman Rule

556

10 Architecture and Planning in Asia Minor

597

11 The Roman Near East

707

12 The Late Empire in Rome and the Provinces: From the Severans to Constantine

800

General Bibliography Glossary Index

863 867 887

Color plate section found between pages 560 and 561

v

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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This book has been a long time in coming – fifteen years or so. We thank Beatrice Rehl for entrusting us with this challenging project and having the patience while we attended many other unfinished ones on the front and back burners. Actually, this book has been in preparation for thirty-nine years for one of us and thirty-one years for the other, exactly the number of years since we first stepped into a classroom to teach “Roman Architecture.” We knew somehow that we were writing the book all along in response to our thousands of students’ needs, wishes, and input. Therefore, our first and comprehensive thanks goes to generations of our students, graduate and undergraduate – some of whom went on to become valuable teachers of the subject themselves – whose interest in Roman architecture gave us the inspiration and courage to start and finish this work. A book that takes some forty years of gestation is naturally shaped in accordance to the changes and developments informing the field through the hard work and discoveries of hundreds of our colleagues. We are the grateful beneficiaries of the evolving archaeological, architectural, historical, literary, and theoretical research on Roman architecture and urbanism; we followed with admiration (and sometimes contributed to) the research, analyses, and re-creative syntheses of the present and the past. Four decades brought a lot of new, hard data on which to base our knowledge, but more importantly they changed the way we look at and see the evidence. Naturally, it also brought a lot of differences and controversies in our perceptions and interpretations of issues and their meaning. We are thankful to all searchers and researchers for their tireless labors and insight, ideas, and recommendations, some of which we shared and reflected, others we

considered, always with interest, and merged them in greater or lesser degree into our own understanding of Roman architecture and its evolving parameters. Being aware, even appreciative, of conflict and polemics does not necessitate the taking of sides, especially in a book of this sort, but when we needed to we tried to make our critical opinion clear and accessible. (Roman art and architecture has its own strong, indigenous, Italian roots, as recent scholarship underlines, but was not deaf to the influences from their Etruscan and Greek neighbors; Greek and Jewish civilizations were not the only ones that shaped the Roman presence in the Near East as occasionally claimed; there are architecturally more meaningful and gratifying ways of looking at Nero’s Domus Aurea than endless antiquarian debates about its rotating dining hall, etc.) Throughout, our tendency was to emphasize the aspects of concern to architects – structure, space, light, experience, sequencing, order – without compromising those of classicists, historians, and archaeologists. Now, to the book itself. The primary audience for this book is the university community, interested public, architects, and designers. It is a broadly conceived book on the architecture, cities, and urbanism of the ancient Romans from the early Republic to the end of their Empire. We aim to cover this vast architectural geography with many examples and many illustrations presented in the context of a continuous and chronological narrative emphasizing social, political, and cultural issues that served as a framework for the world they shaped and built. Although we try to avoid detail and sometimes privileged overviews, we seek general meanings that illuminate the particular. Still, we include in our discussion the new horizons and the new controversies current in our field not so much to vii

Preface and Acknowledgments advocate specialized views, but to illustrate how such controversies, varying opinions, creative debates, and new discoveries can enliven scholarship even when they may not lead us to verifiable solutions. While acknowledging that Rome was the center of power that ruled and shaped the cultural and artistic output of the far-flung periphery of the Empire, as strong believers in the dynamism of the provinces, we try to avoid the all-too-common Rome-centric and Italo-centric approaches in our coverage. We thus explore the creative role played by the provinces in shaping Roman architecture and urbanism. We enjoy providing ample stage to the contributions of this vast periphery (five or six of the total twelve chapters), but enjoy even more presenting on this stage the interdependent and interactive nature of the play between all sides. Neither Rome nor its creative provinces stood alone. We start each chapter with a relevant background of social and political history – fundamental to any study of Roman art and society. Yet, as trained architects and architectural historians, our emphasis lies in elucidating the structural, spatial, functional, and symbolic aspects of architecture within its larger civic and natural setting. We strive to highlight the human component of architecture by attempting to recreate the world of Roman patrons and builders; and by inviting the reader to an experiential tour of the realm they built and left for us. Following a traditional framework, we present our narrative in twelve chronologically and/or regionally organized chapters. During our research it became clear to us that a tightly organized chronological framework following the traditional sequence of emperors, their architectural and civic contributions, is effective for Rome and Italy, but less so for the provinces. Although an overall chronological narrative of the policies and events in each province can set the stage and highlight certain specific imperial themes (such as those of Hadrian in Athens and Septimius Severus in Lepcis Magna), a more cogent discussion results by treating buildings and architecture as types in the context of cities. Consequently, our methodology varies in different chapters depending on what we think serves best in presenting the material clearly and cogently. The scope and complexity of the field makes certain overlaps in the material unavoidable, even meaningful and beneficial. Early chapters on the technology and process of building and on residential architecture inform more specialized discussions in other chapters. We are comfortable with repeating some information in specific cases if it makes the chapters individually more complete and clarifies their meaning. In order to maintain an integrated and running narrative, we avoid viii

notes except when we refer directly to ancient or modern sources, or quote from them, where they are given in short form in the text. However, we include a fairly extensive and specialized bibliography for each chapter that verifies our indebtedness to the community of Roman scholars and archaeologists, but goes far beyond what we are able to cover in our discussion. Our gratitude in acknowledging those who gave us the facts and ideas, new discoveries and theories, gave us the courage to plow our own rows in the field. When we were completing our studies, an outstanding cadre of scholars, who had come of age in the 1940s and 1950s, were changing our views and our understanding of Roman art, architecture, and urbanism in an outpouring of seminal and synthetic research. We are fortunate to have had many of these names (which still define the modern approach to the study of Roman art, culture, and identity) as directly our teachers or mentors: George M. A. Hanfmann, Ernst Kitzinger, Frank Brown, Richard Brilliant, Larry Richardson, John B. Ward-Perkins, and, of course, William L. MacDonald – we modestly perceive that one could not have asked for a better tutorial staff in our chosen field. Our book, of course, reflects much of their inspiration, knowledge, and methodologies; but it goes beyond to include the contributions of a very large number of our valuable peers, and students, who are defining the new and future horizons of the field – as the many quotations and acknowledgments included in our text show. We refrain from giving long, customary lists of thanks to individuals. Those whom we owe thanks, and there are many, know it, and to them we send our gratitude. We also send special thanks to colleagues and institutions who generously shared their visual material as a matter of friendship and courtesy. We thank the students and friends who created and critiqued the numerous new drawings which we hope enhance understanding and visual pleasure. We thank the readers of our lengthy manuscript for their positive and invaluable advice. Our respective home institutions, the University of California, Santa Barbara and University of California, Los Angeles, provided professional and financial support through sabbaticals and minor research grants. These were helpful in allowing us to travel far and wide into the world of the Romans; there are very few sites and monuments mentioned in this study that we have not actually seen, often repeatedly. The American Academy in Rome, especially its library (where much of this book was written) provided over many years the privileged atmosphere of research and collegiality, our heartfelt gratitude is extended to their administrators and staff. The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery gave us an

Preface and Acknowledgments inspiring collegial and architectural environment in which to finalize the manuscript, and the unstinting help of Lara Langer and Elise Ferone with image permissions. And, of course, our families in America and Turkey have been in our minds as they lavished their interest and impatience through every stage of this long project (“Now, when are you going to finish that book!”). Like Cicero’s three aims for a story – to interest, to teach, to move (and, add Vitruvius’ quest for delight) – this story, too, aims to do those things and inspire our readers to set their own sails for further adventures in Roman architecture across three continents; it has certainly instructed and delighted us in its stages of research and writing. One of us an architectural historian, the other an architectural historian and architect, Roman architecture and cities have been our lifetime love and inspiration. This is partly because Roman architecture is complex, sophisticated, and endlessly engaging, reflecting the full range of the factual and symbolic experiences of a complex and sophisticated society. For the researcher, the subject offers the challenge and satisfaction of an all-out multidisciplinary and scholarly involvement. It is informed by institutional and personal concerns alike. It can be appraised

from a practical and technical angle, as well as from an intellectual and theoretical one with equal pleasure and passion. Yet there is a final secret we would like to share with our readers. Like all true architecture, the value and appeal of Roman architecture, too, ultimately and beyond all archaeological, cultural, and symbolic content, resides in its own architectonic qualities: its dramatic setting; its powerful, sublime, immeasurable form; its space, shape, mass, volume alive in rotating light – ultimately it is about its sheer, joyous, visceral presence – the great arches of Alcantara leaping over the fast-flowing Tagus; the complex spaces of Nero’s Octagon searching for their order in light; and the complex iterations, endless variations, multiple curves and countercurves of intersecting Roman vaults and domes everywhere. As we finish writing this introduction, we enjoy looking at one of these vaults just above our desks at the library of the American Academy in Rome, windows cut into the cryptoporticus vault with superbly modeled curves of dissolving light – designed in the early twentieth century by the firm of McKim, Mead and White, many of whose masterful neoclassical creations, such as these windows, were directly inspired by Roman architecture.

ix

Antonine Wall Hadrian’s Wall

Chester

BRITANNIA Londinium Xanten

ATLANTIC OCEAN Trier

Lutetia

GERMANIA Aventicum

GALLIA

Olbia

PANNONIA DACIA

Nimes

Pula

BLACK SEA

L DA Split

IC AT

RI

Tarragona

CORSICA

A

Italica

TYRRHENIAN SEA Volubilis Cherchel

Carthage Cirta

IONIAN SEA

SICILIA

Delphi Athens

Corinth

Timgad

ASIA MINOR

SYRIA

CRETE

NUMIDIA

CYPRUS

Baalbek

Dura Europos Palmyra

Damascus

MEDITERRANEAN SEA Jerusalem

Apollonia Ptolemais

Cyrene

CYRENAICA

Gerasa Petra

Alexandria Karanis

EGYPT

x

Antioch

Side

Syracuse

Sabratha Lepcis Magna

map 1

MESPOTAMIA

Hierapolis

Dougga

Gigthis

500 km

Smyrna Ephesus

Ankyra

Salamis

MAURETANIA

0

BITHYNIA

Troy Pergamon

GREECE

ARMENIA

PONTUS

Byzantium

MACEDONIA

Naples

SARDINIA

Sinope

THRACIA

SE

Rome

Merida

Varna

A

ITALY

AD

HISPANIA

I AT M

Conimbriga

Velleia

Glanum

L

A

P

S

Augusta Praetoria

CISALPINE GAUL Susa

Brescia

Milan

Turin

Desenzano

Aquileia

Sirmione Verona

Trieste

Adige

Veleia

Po

Pola

Spina Luni/Carrara

Iader

Rimini Fano Ancona

A

Arno

Marzabotto

Fiesole

I

T

P

E R

Salona

U IA

N

N

I

C

U

M

Palestrina Cori Alatri Arpinum Pietrabondante Fregellae

Ardea

N

us

Lir

Minturnae Herdonia Benevento Capua Cumae Naples Baiae Herculaneum Misenium Pompeii Pozzuoli Stabiae Capri Paestum

E

Antium Torre Astura Ferentium Terracina Sperlonga

AP UL IA

S

SARDINIA

R

I

Portus Ostia

Pe sc ar a

r

Lake Albano Lake Nemi

Y

ADRIATIC SEA

be Ti

CORSICA

L

Spalato/Split

E

R

Perugia Orvieto Terni Cosa Viterbo Narni Tarquinia Sutri Falerii Veii Tivoli Alba Fucens Cerveteri Rome Gabii

L

Brindisi

Metapontum

TYRRHENIAN SEA

IONIAN SEA

Locri

Segesta Utica Carthage

SI CI LI A

Taormina

Morgantina Piazza Armerina Agrigento Megara Hyblaea Syracusa

A F R I C A

0

200km

map 2

xi

Antonine Wall Housesteads Chester

Hadrian’s Wall Newcastle-on-Tyne

Lincoln Bowness

York

Leicester Caerwent

Gloucester Cirencester Caerleon Aquae Sulis

BRITANNIA

Colchester

Verulamium Londinium

Silchester

Londinium

Exeter Fishbourne

Xanten er e Riv Rhin

Gisacum

Lutetia (Paris)

Trier

GERMANIA Alonnes

Autun Derventum Aquae Neri

GALLIA

Lugdunum

Montmaurin

Clunia Segovia Conimbriga Alcantara

Evora

Bara

HISPANIA

Bilbilis

Merida Alange

Tarraco

Italica

0

map 3

xii

200km

Carmona

Baelo

nu

Badenweiler Augusta Raurica Vindonissa Aventicum

be

R iv er

Carnuntum Aquincum

Vienne

Vasio Arausia Carpentras Nimes Cemenelum Arles Glanum La Turbie Narbo Nicaea/Nice Massilia Forum Julii Marseilles Ampurias Rome

Sagunto Munigua

Da

Villa du Magny

Carnuntum Aquincum

PANNONIA

DACIA Apulum

Aquileia

Sarmizegethusa

Sirmium

Pula

er be Riv

Iader/Zadar

Tragurium

Danu

Romula

Gamzigrad

Salona Split

Ratiaria

Adamkilissi

Nicopolis ad Istrum Philippopolis

Doclea

Stara Zagora Edirne Byzantium

MACEDONIA Stobi Thessalonike

Costanza Varna

Philippi Olynthos

Samothrace

Dion Dodona Kassope Nikopolis

GREECE

Smyrna Samos

Delphi Delos Cos

Marathon

Lindos

Patras Isthmia

Corinth Nemea Epidaurus Argos

Athens Eleusis Piraeus

CRETE Gortys

Olympia 0

200 m

Sparta

map 4

xiii

Lixus

Cherchel Banasa Volubilis

MAURETANIA

Tipasa

Hippo Regius

Tiddis Calama Thibilis Djemila Cirta Setif Khamissa Timgad Lambaesis Tebessa

Carthage

El Djem

NUMIDIA

Gafsa

Thenae

Utica Zana Bulla Regia Thuburbo Maius Chemtou

Apollonia

Sabratha

Uthina

Tripolis

Zaghouan

Dougga Madauros

Gigthis Carthage

Haidra

map 5

xiv

Ptolemais Arsinoe

Cyrene

Bernice/Benghazi

Mactar

Sbeitla

Lepcis Magna

0

200 m

BLACK SEA Varna Sinope

Trapezus

Pompeiopolis

Ly

PONTUS

Heraclea Pontica

BITHYNIA

Nicea

Lampsacus

Cyzicus

Apamea Prusa

Amastris

Lake Van

lys

Nicomedia

Ha

Byzantium/Constantinopolis

Ri

ve

r

THRACIA

Ankyra Sangarius River

GALATIA

Pessinus

Troy Alexandria Troas

Nemrut Dag

Aizanae

Assos

AEGEAN SEA

Amisos cus

Pergamon

IONIA Sardis

Blaundos

Antioch-in-Pisidia Apamea-C Iconium

Edessa

Tyana

Smyrna Hieropolis Ephesus Laodicea Sagalassos Isaura Tralles Nysa Aphrodisias Tarsus Teos Priene Cremna Soli Magnesia Alabanda Ariassos Selge Elaeussa-S Miletus Lyrbe Cibyra Perge Lagina Olba Termessos Didyma Aspendos Iassos Mylasa Stratonicea Seleucia Attalia Side Cadyanda Arycanda Phaselis Kos Tlos Myra Anemurium Caunos Cnidus Telmessus Pinara Antiphelos Salamis RHODES Xanthos Patara

Anazarbus

Zeugma

Alexandria ad Issum Antioch Seleucia Pieria Laodicea

SYRIA

CYPRUS Tripolis

CRETE MEDITERRANEAN SEA

0

Byblos

200km

map 6

xv

Hierapolis

Tigris River

Qalb Luzeh Simon Stylites Aleppo Antioch Seleucia Pieria Ruweiha Babiska Dana Serdjilla Laodicea Bara Scythopolis Apamea

Hatra

Dura Europos

Hosn Soleyman CYPRUS

Emesa/Homs Tripolis

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

Byblos Beirut Sidon Tyre Tiberias

Caesarea Neapolis

Baalbek Niha Damascus Umm el Jemal Mismiyeh Shakka Suweida Shahba Kanawat Bostra Seia Gerasa

Philadelphia/Amman Jericho Mschatta Jerusalem Herodian Eleutheropolis Masada Dhat Ras

Petra Aquaba

map 7

xvi

Palmyra

Euphr ates R iver Seleucia

Ctesiphon

INTRODUCTION THE QUESTION OF ROMANIZATION – TO BE OR NOT TO BE (ROMAN)?

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Few issues in current Roman scholarship proved more engaging and enduring (and occasionally controversial and disruptive) than the discourse on Romanization. The perception of being Roman, or not being Roman, in a world that was dominated or at least administered by the Roman state is a question of central importance to all aspects of Roman Studies in art, architecture, literature, and history. The concept not only opens the door for politically relevant discourse on the nature of cultural and national identities, it also defines the way that we look at art and architecture made by groups with different identities, Roman or other. It seems opportune to add our voice to the chorus here in a generalized and introductory way to offer an overview, although this subject will come up in the following chapters linked to specific historical or regional contexts where it will be discussed further (see the collection of essays in Mattingly 1997, esp. 7–24; also Barrett, 51–64). A state that ruled from Syria to Scotland, that called the entire Mediterranean its own, and that organized and urbanized vast communities of peoples of different religions, languages, and backgrounds is bound to attract considerable criticism, both ancient and modern. This is particularly true in our own day when our more liberal sensibilities find world empires and colonial practices distasteful and disdainful, although judgment often is based, inappropriately, on nineteenth-century models from the great era of Western colonialism and imperialism. Of course the process of becoming Romanized, has positive as well as negative connotations. To take the straightforward dictionary meaning of the word, Romanization is about “making non-Romans Roman” or subjecting them to the influence of Roman culture and technology. The

process is faintly suspect and misleading; it fails to represent the other side in the process of acculturation. In a world in which we celebrate and cherish our differences, the goal of eroding the individual or tribal culture in order to consolidate unity appears anything from insensitive to oppressive. It becomes all the more so when the attempt of “making Roman” was imposed on a group, as it often was, as a result of military conquest. This was clearly the view expressed by Calgacus, the Briton chieftain, when he lashed out against the Roman armies conquering Britain: Robbers of the world, now that their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle even the sea. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for his country. Neither the East nor the West has been able to satisfy their lust. Alone among mankind they covet with equal glut poverty and riches. To plunder, robbery, slaughter – they misname as empire; they make desolation and call it peace. (excerpts from Tacitus, Agricola 30)

One can add many more unfortunate and tragic consequences of military conquest and occupation by the expanding empire – loss of life, property, liberty, identity, and the sad acceptance by the subjects of a sense of inferiority. Not just the Britons of Britain but also the Marcomanni of Germany, Gauls of France and Belgium, Berbers of Africa, Bedouins of Syria, and nomads of everywhere had their tale of woe to tell – those resonate in our childhood memories of delightful stories of Asterix the Gaul and his brave friends fighting and outsmarting Caesar’s cloddish legions. There are, however, many stories also that represent Romans in a positive light. Roman conquest and 1

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity presence often brought the advantages of peace and prosperity to Romans and locals alike. In terms of agriculture, there is hardly a land that did not enjoy substantial increases in productivity under Roman administration as a result of Roman technological know-how. In many cases, admittedly, this was in cooperation with local traditions. In an atmosphere of expanding economy, hard-work promoted social mobility. The rags-to-riches story of the Mactar Harvester, who started his life as a day-laborer and ended it as a member of his local Senate – and proudly inscribed his tale on stone – may be an exception, but it underscores what was possible (see later). In Timgad, where an entire seminomadic city of local tribes grew around the orderly veteran’s colony, the opportunities were shared by many, while allowing individual choices. In all of the provinces, intermarriage between Roman veterans and local aristocracy brought mutual benefits: the advantages of Roman citizenship to the natives, and the acceptance into local high society and wealth to the retired soldiers, who often came from unexceptional Italian backgrounds. It is true that evidence for rapacious soldiers and tax collectors harassing villages is widespread. So is the evidence for the opposite: an unprivileged Jewish widow in Judea (c. 130 ce) could seek her rights and ask for justice in a complex legal case by presenting before the Roman judges a maze of documents going back in time half-a-century (the Babatha Archives, see later in this book). A local governor of Syria would send a letter to a village in the Hauran offering protection against any wrongdoing by marauding soldiers and officials, encouraging them to stand up for their rights, and would exhibit the decree in a public building for all to see. Imposing legal and administrative standards across the land, offering unrestricted access to and equal protection before law – privileges not many are lucky to enjoy in our own world, especially in the lands where Babatha and her friends lived – were also what Romanization was about. Romanization followed a complex scenario involving the play of numerous indigenous and imported sources, a multidirectional process of integration, experimentation, and exclusion across a large landscape. Especially in the Hellenized provinces of Greece, Asia Minor, and the eastern Mediterranean, it was far from being a unilateral and deliberate imposition of the culture of the conqueror upon the conquered. Geography mattered. Regarding the city of Sagalassus and the larger Pisidia as a “case study,” M. Waelkens offers a closely observed narrative of how the Roman conquest of this remote region in southern Asia Minor resulted in a gradual but steady amalgamation of Greek and Roman traditions of administration, governance,

law, and civic structure into not perhaps a seamless whole but, instead, a reasonably harmonious integration and coexistence of the willing (“becoming Roman and staying Greek,” borrowing an insightful expression from G. Woolf, whose work generally illuminates some of the negative consequences of Roman conquests: Woolf 1994, 116–143; see also Waelkens 2002, 311–368; Yegül 2000, 133–153). Reorganization of land and agriculture; creation of a network of good roads, bridges, harbors, emporia; establishment of institutions of justice, order, and security (while keeping the hard military in the background); encouragement of social mixing of the local élite with imported Roman populations; foundation and development of cities and urban structures to a fault – and, most cogently, to make all this possible, creation of a socially porous society through the granting of Roman citizenship first to individuals, groups, and then to masses – were some of the key concerns of the multifarious agenda of what we call Romanization. While reflecting on the peace and prosperity of the countryside (where well-to-do urbanites could take occasional refuge), Romans ultimately believed that civilization and civilized life were synonymous with cities. They conquered vast territories, and for the most part strove to build cities to carry their civilizing mission, as they understood it, even in the farthest corners of their empire. Law, order, and applied technology were among the fundamental aspects of Romanization, but so too were the temples and basilicas, markets and libraries, theaters and baths. “God made the country, human art built the town,” Varro wrote (De re rustica, 3.1), and that is the sense in which we best understand the essence of Romanization – as urbanization. And that is basically how Aelius Aristides, a Sophist from Smyrna in Asia Minor, must have seen it: Neither does the sea nor the great expanse of land keep one from being a citizen regardless of whether it is Asia or Europe. All is open to all men. No one is a foreigner who deserves to hold office or to be trusted, but there has been established a common democracy of the world, under one man, the best ruler and leader, and all men assemble here as it were at a common meeting place, each to obtain his due. What a city is to its boundaries and territories, so Rome is to the whole inhabited world, as if it had been designated its common town. (Aelius Aristides, Regarding Rome 26.60–2)

These are powerful words. Aristides of Smyrna was as much a “foreigner” to Rome as Calgacus the Briton was, but his city and land were not under Roman attack. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, the province

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity of Asia, especially its western coast, was a special case of Romanization in which the seller and the buyer were in agreement. As a primary exponent of the literary-rhetorical Sophist culture of Asia, Aristides enjoyed his privileges and used his pulpit to reiterate the loyalty of the provinces (or, at least of Asia) to the emperor. Deeply rooted in the Hellenized culture of the land, he and his friends could be and feel like Romans without any loss of their Greek identity and paideia: for them, Rome had created an urban culture in which it was difficult to feel like an outsider. Up to a point, this was true for Annobal Tapapius Rufus or Iddibal Kafada Aemilius of Africa, or Malé, son of Yarhai, of Palmyra, and, perhaps, for the children and grandchildren of Calgacus, who lived in Roman cities, intermarried with Roman citizens to achieve citizenship themselves, owned land in the country, prospered under Roman law, and became leaders of their provincial communities – and left a record of their achievement in proud, bilingual inscriptions, artwork, and architecture that was as much the product of their and institutions. We do not wish to employ the modern word and concept of ‘Romanization’ to denote a beneficial view, as was common with early twentieth century scholarship, employing (or declaring) Rome’s “civilizing influence” upon its conquered territories and peoples. Nor is the opposite view, inspired by 1990s post-colonial discourse and plucked from modern contexts, equating Romanization with the brutal concepts of imperialism, exploitation and erasure of identities a viable alternative. To cast the Romans in the unmitigated role of benefactors or villains, is simple-minded and simply skates the issue (see Mattingly 2013 and its critical review by Brouwers 2017). Our view of Romanization is a two-way street, in which the conqueror and the conquered influenced each other in a broad fluid (and often unequal) process of acculturation; identities were formed and exchanged in different degrees, varying across land and time. To declare Romanization

invalid in order to substitute imperialism’s modern connotations is to replace one cliché with another. Romanization as a multivalent construction of mutual exchanges – and firmly rooted in the process of urbanization – is valid and serviceable. Ours is not an encomium of Rome, or a denigration. As architects and architectural historians (writing a book on architecture and cities), we unabashedly admire the many benefits Roman cities and urban life offered to its denizens – the heated toilet seat, the standard of weights and measures in the market, the tribunal in the basilica, and the “speakers-podium” in the forum – were all real and symbolic parts of the city defining this civilization. Along with other scholars, we recognize the lasting and transformative value of granting Roman citizenship to native populations as a privilege of real and symbolic significance in smoothing the way to “becoming Roman,” a privilege to which Romans were often quite open, unlike the Greeks (Beard 2015, 66–69, 165–166). Yet, we are also aware that these benefits sometimes came at a price. They did not reach all; many people experienced poverty, inequality, and oppression. Clearly, there was a world less fortunate, less Romanized, less explored by scholars beyond the reach of the aqueducts. A tribal chieftain who rebels against the outrage of Roman occupation, an élite philosopher who extols the virtues of the life he has known under Roman rule – these represent extreme positions born of special conditions. For most people, from native Italians to foreign-born of all cultural and racial backgrounds on the borderlands, the satisfaction index must have been somewhere in between, changing over time, place, and family circumstance – and for the most part, the benefits and misfortunes of life under a great ecumenical umbrella, shared alike. Ultimately, even the fundamentally different perceptions of Romanization by Italo Calvino’s camel-driver and sailor must have merged in the everyday concerns of their everyday lives (Calvino 1974, 17–18).

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URBAN DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE IN ROME AND ITALY DURING THE REPUBLIC AND THE EARLY EMPIRE

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Romulus showed great forethought . . . Even back then he must have divined that the city would one day furnish the seat and home of a mighty empire. In all probability, no other city located in any other part of Italy could have more easily secured such extensive power. Cicero De Rep 2.5.10

In a passage from the sixth century ce, Procopius described the Romans as “the most city proud people known” (Goth. 8.22.7). While their myths, art, and literature reverberated with agrarian associations, from the earliest days the Romans stubbornly, unswervingly associated their achievements with an urban locus. The conquest of Italy and the “subsequent expansion of the empire relied on a system of urban centers for further conquest, defense and administration, and these also participated in the spread of Rome’s version of civilization” (Sewell 2010, 9). The Romans developed elaborate stories to justify the position of their namesake city, citing divine intervention as well as the strategic, economic, and transportation advantages of the site. An island (Insula Tiberina) in the Tiber River allowed traders to easily cross the watery barrier, while the hills to the east offered protection. At the bridgehead on the right bank, markets developed to conduct trade with the Etruscans and numerous tribal groups in central Italy. Yet the site was not perfect (Figure 1.1). The hills had sharp scarps and little water; the lowlands were marshy, unhealthy, and flood-prone. Raw materials were few. The unruly Tiber made navigation unpredictable. A heavily laden cart took more than a day to reach the seaside salt beds and port at the sea 25 kilometers away. Early occupants acknowledged that Rome’s placement did not provide the security and ease of access found at other early Italian cities such as 4

Veii and Cuma. And yet it was Rome that came to conquer the world. Why? Common sense dictates that the inland location provided adequate access to the sea by way of the river, while simultaneously offering some protection from potential coastal attacks. Some ancient authors inflated the amenities offered by the site, but Strabo, writing in the first century, presented a different view. He perceptively argued that, established as a matter of necessity rather than of choice, the challenging location molded Roman character by compelling the occupants to reshape the topography, seek accommodation with surrounding peoples, and organize large workforces to create a mighty walled city (Geog. 5.3.2, 7). The valor and toil of the Romans, their pragmatic and focused character seen in veristic Republican portraits, were irrevocably associated with the fixity of the specific urban site. Thus the place and the actions of its residents, rather than the form of the city, forged an inclusive collective identity, a potent strategy at a time when diverse peoples occupied the Italian peninsula. Wars, sacks, and negative comparison with bettersituated and “planned” contemporary cities periodically sparked discussions about moving the center of Roman power, yet the locus of the early settlement on the shores of the Tiber, anchored by the practical advantages of the location and bolstered by the emotional attractions of its founding myths, could not be abandoned.

AN OVERVIEW If the authors had been writing this book forty years ago, they might have begun the story of architecture in Rome and Italy with the mythic account of the city’s

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire

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figure 1.1 Map of early Rome showing major pathways, city fortifications and the four regions ascribed to Servius Tullius: I Suburana (Caelian, Oppian Valley), II Esquilina, III Collina (Viminal, Quirinal), IV Palatina; rendered by Marie Saldaña and Diane Favro.

formation by Romulus, whose legendary ancestors could be traced back to the Trojan hero Aeneas and the goddess Venus. Rome’s historic tradition places this event sometime in mid-eighth century bce (April 21, 753 bce to be exact according to Varro). This legend, like all legends has its problems and variations, but clear archaeological evidence of Iron Age settlements on the Palatine Hill of Rome in the form of crude huts and walls datable to the ninth and eighth centuries bce fleshes out the myth with scientific affirmation. Thirty, forty years ago, when we started teaching this subject, we would have attributed the spectacular transformation of this rude and rustic Iron

Age village on the hill, one among many competing tribes and settlements of central Italy and Etruria, to the warlike discipline of a grim, conquering city-state that established a Republic, and over time a mighty empire. Throughout all stages of Rome’s development we would have recognized that a “superior” Etruscan culture to the north and even a more superior one of Greeks to the south (the area known as Magna Graecia) provided convenient cultural and geographical contexts (Figures 1.2 and 1.3). As the backdrop to the forces and factors that were instrumental to Rome’s rise, we would have identified the trilogy of cultures that shared the peninsula with the Romans, namely, 5

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity Vulci Norchia

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figure 1.2 Topographic map of early Italy and Sicily; rendered by Diane Favro.

Rome’s Etruscan neighbors at shouting distance across the Tiber immediately to the north; the Greek colonies in southern Italy and Sicily; and, of course, the plethora of Latin-speaking central Italian tribes and settlements. These last, like Rome, shared each other’s land and customs, as well as languages. We would have enunciated with some relish, the culturally superior material culture of the Greeks backed by the thousands of fine artistic artifacts, sculpture, bronzes, architectural terracottas, and painted vases that proudly fill the museums of Italy. A few steps behind, we would have counted the Etruscans, as the middlemen in disseminating Greek culture through trade and commerce, but also as the creators of a distinct and sophisticated culture of their own in the heartland of the Italian peninsula highlighted by their vibrant paintings, expressive sculpture, expert metalwork, and distinctive military, funerary, and religious architecture (for a comprehensive anthology of the “Etruscan world of Rome” in a very broad context, see Turfa 2013). This picture-perfect construct may in its main lines still be correct but grossly oversimplified. Particularly in religion, cult, linguistics, and architecture, Etruscan leadership can be substantiated (for example, the Latin nomenclature for almost all Roman religious rituals derives its origins from Etruscan language). In art, 6

from the Apollo of Veii to the Mars of Todi, witness the pages and pages of illustrations in any good art history textbook displaying impressive seventh- and sixth-century Etruscan products as the forerunners of Roman art at a time when there was nothing comparable in quality and quantity in the city on the Tiber. Therefore, in adapting new views, we should consider that the scholars who write revisionist histories which minimize or totally nullify the formative role of all outside influence upon Rome, themselves may be neither interested nor trained in the visual arts and its powerful language to build or reform civilizations. Yet the old narrative relating to the relationship among Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans definitely needs nuance in its telling, emphasis, and details. There has been an enormous amount of work in the last quarter of a century or so, and much of it archaeological, which has changed or refined this picture in large and small ways. As described succinctly by our colleagues Nancy and Andrew Ramage, “Etruscan and Roman art and architecture sprang from similar roots. Both were derived from an early Italic culture, and both were receptive to foreign influences and inspiration, whether from the Greek colonies, other parts of the Greek world, or from the Near East” (Ramage and Ramage 2005, 57) (Figure 1.4).

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figure 1.3 Topographic map of central Italy; rendered by Diane Favro.

A new perspective in assessing the nature and legitimacy of Roman art and architecture is the view that art made in or used on the Italian peninsula (including the large category of objects created by Etruscan and Greek artists for Roman patrons) counts basically as Roman-Italian. In a different way of telling A. Kuttner writes: “The corpus of republican art motifs from myth and religion, even when shared with a wider (Greek) world, needs to be reviewed always in

local sociological contexts and in the light of the accumulated visual environment that conditioned patrons and viewers” (Kuttner 2004, 303; Welch 2010. In this new environment, even the well-established international vocabulary of classicism could be reviewed and recast in creatively hybrid forms to express new values and new identities. When confronted with the harder and practical realities of building, “designers (adapted and renewed) international canons for Doric, 7

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

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figure 1.4 Plan of early Roman Capua with gridded centuriation (dotted lines) of the surrounding territory; rendered by Diane Favro.

Corinthian, or Ionic architecture for locally distinctive arcaded and arched forms” (Kuttner 2004, 298) – whose formative importance as new expressions in architecture will be expanded and emphasized later in these pages. Thus, the definition of Roman Republican art and architecture, as all art and architecture produced by and for the peoples of the Republic in or out of Italy, offers breadth and flexibility and resonates with the inclusive outlook in the arts and humanities of our times. To give it greater currency and relevance, it also parallels the modern view that all art produced by different ethnic and national groups on a land over time becomes the heritage of the peoples who ultimately live on that land, strive to uphold its traditions, and who assume the pride of its stewardship as well as the responsibility for its protection. An important aspect of Roman-Etruscan interactions relates to the century before the formation of the Republic in 509 bce when Rome was led by a series of kings or tyrants of Etruscan and local origin – a regal tradition that admits a century or more of monarchical rule, but not necessarily a fully established Etruscan hegemony. Starting from the sixth century bce, Rome’s autocrats might have oppressed their subjects in the usual autocratic ways, but they also contributed toward the establishment of a public life, institutions, and architecture – in sum, the creation of a city. Tarquinius Superbus (meaning arrogant or lofty), the last king of Rome, in local myth and modern memory seems to be particularly mired in cruelty and violence. In a speech Patrick Henry gave 8

before the Virginia House in 1765, King George III of England was made an example of despotic oppression comparable to Tarquinius – and who, in some ways, followed the path of antiquity by being overthrown by the new American Republic. Nonetheless, the expelling of Tarquinius did not mean that Etruscan presence and influence in Rome came to an end. Rome by the sixth century had its own preferred “Latin culture and cosmopolitan population,” adopting only selected aspects of Etruscan culture. We should neither minimize the influence of this culture over Rome, nor define it in bland notions of superiority, but see the Romans and Etruscans as parallel and intertwined societies developing within the same cultural koine (Cornell 1995; Forsythe 1997). Current scholarship also places special emphasis on the various and varied traditions of the Italian tribes as the incubators of the indigenous cultures that shaped and sustained Rome from its earliest days through its Empire (Figure 1.3). This approach, even when it supports the view that the urban architecture of Italy was profoundly changed through the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean during the third and second centuries bce, and the “wholesale importation of material culture proved profound and sweeping,” contends that the direct and indirect influences of Hellenism “did not lead to a complete change of identity” (Becker 2014, 25). What identity is and how it is created are, of course, tricky questions that invariably lead to perceptions of self and the other, social inclusions and exceptions, and eventually, concepts of nationalism. It is

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire perhaps best to see how these complex networks of outside influences represented refining rather than defining values in the formation of this identity. If the Italic roots of Roman civilization remained the bedrock on which other cultural motifs were truly internalized and embellished, it would be useful and cogent to seek and identify these overlapping cultural strands as represented in architecture and urbanism. Republican Rome increasingly attracted people from all over the Mediterranean, which in turn ensured a vibrant diversity in most Italian settlements. Colonists transported ideas from Rome and other urban locations: people from Magna Graecia carried strong Hellenized traditions often straight from Greece; resettled veterans brought concepts from throughout the Mediterranean and the Near East. Cities digested indigenous and foreign architectural and urban influences, intermingling hybrid forms to create what Vitruvius famously defined as the “Italic custom” (consuetudo Italico), as distinguished from more insular Greek designs (De Arch. 5). Participating in this intermingling, Rome did not necessarily dictate developments but helped filter and strengthen evolving styles through its unifying, permanent presence. The city on the Tiber was a part, albeit an increasingly prominent one, of the larger ethnic and cultural caldron of peninsular Italy. Throughout the land, cities, colonies, and their civic architecture exhibited characteristics responding to common values and common needs, but they also displayed differences because of individual aspirations and inventions. Bolstering individuality, in most cases a single person, a community leader, not a committee oversaw projects. Cities in the Republican period affirmed a conceptual link with the Romans collectively. When Aulus Gellius, writing in the second century ce, called colonies “small copies and likenesses” of Rome, he was not referring to Rome’s physical environment but to the idea of Rome as a world city, and the greatness of the Roman people (Gell. NA 16.13). Starting with the early Republic, the primary impetus for city planning, especially the famously popular grid plans, came directly from the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia (Metapontum, Megara Hyblaea) where they had been in use since the eighth century onward; or by way of Etruscan cities such as Marzabotto (Figure 1.5). These Roman grid plans built ex novo reflected the basic egalitarian nature of the Republic and its colonies, but the strict layouts and their message of equality were frequently frayed over time and use. Early cities were multinodal with “nucleated centers” for civic buildings situated around a flat, open space – the forum – often lined with elite housing, while religious structures dominated high locations, as in Cosa (see later). In their fora, citizens

came together organizing themselves in various social and political representative bodies, marking their space by using temporary posts and other demarcations. In the planning of the mid-Republican colonies, the influence of Greek (and, indirectly, also Etruscan and Punic) town planning cannot be denied, but the borrowing and diffusion was selective and intelligent. As government at local and state levels became more formalized, the need for more permanent structures gave rise to types such as the Comitium, which was a curved or circular open-air space for citizens’ assemblies, and the boxy, rectangular, roofed curia for council meetings. Rome’s earliest Comitium was on the slopes below the Capitoline Hill, taking advantage of topography to rise above the gathering space below. Another prominent example of assembly architecture, the basilica, despite the Greek origins of its name (basileus = ruler), was by all accounts an integral part of Roman fora, traditionally associated with central Italian examples from the late Republic. Yet, its colonnaded, porticoed, semi-open form and public function is easily related to the Hellenistic stoa, as are the Roman peristyle enclosures (such as the four-sided porticus or a quadriporticus), a familiar building type of the Republic. The morphology of the forum itself and its alleged relation to the Hellenistic market place can be credibly argued, but not established as fact. Reflecting on the uncertainty of current scholarly thinking on these relationships, J. A. Becker comments that “At this stage it is clear that more inquiry into the earliest forms of civic buildings in Italy is required before we can simply declare that Roman civic forms are Greek derivatives” (Becker 2014, 18). On the subject of defense architecture, the agger and fosse (bank and ditch) systems of early Rome documented on the Esquiline Hill are well known to any student of Roman topography. Such earthwork defenses were fairly common in early Italian cities such as Ardea and Satricum and could be alternatives (or forerunners) to the more expensive masonry walls. The sheer size and the complex planning of the stone fortifications protecting archaic cities of Etruria and Latium, such as Rusellae, Gabii, and Alatri (Figure 1.6), identify them as important community projects. Their massive construction, sometimes in refined polygonal masonry, underscores not only their functional efficacy as defenses but also a city’s pride and sense of identity. They were, and are, beautiful and impressive to look at. Long after these walls stopped protecting a city, they continued to serve in augmenting its prestige. Domestic architecture in the first millennium bce immortalized by Romulus’ legendary hut was firmly anchored in the real Iron Age settlements of central Italy. Circular or rectangular structures constructed in 9

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

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wattle-and-daub, wooden posts supporting pitched roofs of thatch, are not only documented through archaeological finds, but also illustrated by painted clay, hut-shaped cinerary urns. As we see in Marzobotto, Aquarossa, and San Giovanale, by the sixth and fifth centuries bce simpler plans were replaced by houses with complex internal spatial divisions signifying differentiation of function. The widespread 10

adoption of the city grid must have encouraged the development of rectilinear house plans (House A, Figure 1.5). The interest in order and axiality may indicate growing Hellenic influence: Greek-inspired cities filled with Greek-inspired houses. An important qualification here is that this adaptation or influence of one or another form of Greek domestic architecture (as it, too, varied considerably) as a defining element of

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire

figure 1.6 Acropolis wall of polygonal and quasi-ashlar construction, Alatrium; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

colonial mass housing was neither defining nor exclusive. Increasingly pleasure-prone and refined, late Republican patrons demonstrated great sophistication in choosing among the diverse architectural options

available. The greater challenge lies not in isolating Greek and Roman practices and preferences in conceptualizing the qualities of their features (such as loosely and not always correctly characterized atrium, peristyle, 11

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity pastas, or prostas types) but in amalgamating and incorporating them into meaningful combinations. Yet, when we analyze the morphology of the “Roman house” with its iconic atrium, even this observation needs qualification. Etruscan tombs of the seventh and sixth centuries display houselike arrangements and vestibular spaces that can be viewed as proto-atriums. Archaic period houses from Marzobotto, Gonfienti, and Ruselllae are organized around internal, impluvial courtyards, an arrangement fundamentally closer to the Roman atrium than the peristyle of the typical Mediterranean house. We may not be able to pinpoint the source of the atrium but we could agree that its origins “are latent in the indigeneous traditions [of Italy] and . . . it is not an imported form” (Becker 2014, 14). This is not what we can easily claim for the basilica, one of the most common forms of civic architecture, which received its institutionalized concept mainly from Rome but its earliest forms from Greece. The Latin word basilica derives from the Greek word basilike stoa (a royal or kingly stoa), which is well illustrated in some of the best-known examples of the stoa-like type, especially from the Greek-speaking East, such as the Augustan basilica at Ephesus (see later). As an institution serving as a law court, civic, administrative and commercial center, the basilica is preeminently Roman. Following the basic architectural form of a colonnaded, roofed building (with nave and aisles) basilicas were ubiquitous components of Roman fora as stoas were of Greek agoras. Vitruvius’ description of the basilica he designed and built at Fano (ancient Fanum) is often accepted as a textbook example of a Roman basilica (De Arch. 5.1.6; see Figure 3.8), where the building is entered on its long side, or on its short axis, facing a projecting exedra for a tribunal; interior colonnades divide the space into a central nave and surrounding aisles, tall columns carry a clerestory roof. However, in actual examples, there is an impressive variance in basilica types and designs, changes well explained by differences in location, site, and need – as will be shown later. Finally, we will consider religious architecture. The formative role of Etruscan and central Italian traditions in the creation of the textbook Roman temple with its deep pronaos, high podium, and frontal approach, needs no special pleading. Dozens of examples united by similar compositions and modest materials like tufa, wood, and painted terracotta demonstrate an architectural manner rooted in Italy’s own soil, one that culminated in the sixth-century Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome (see later). The design fundamentals of the Italian “podium temple” (as opposed to the Greek peristyle temple in the broadest sense) appear to reflect the clear rational practice of religious ritual even 12

when the teleological meaning of the ritual as expressed through augury can be shrouded in mystery. It appears that the need for an unobstructed viewing of the sky in order to establish a fixed position in its immensity encouraged the temple’s wide pronaos porch and elevated position; the desire to comprehend and charter the celestial void in reference to human measure articulated the temple’s sense of orientation and axiality. Yet, this augural architectural manner developed even from its inception with an eye toward a different, distant cultural horizon, toward the more sophisticated forms of classicism imbued in Greek architectural tradition, Greek marbles, and the work of Greek craftsmen. The particular steps in the “development,” forward, sideways, even backward, were never linear and never favored the purer forms of direct imitation. In the late first century bce, Augustan artists and architects exploited an art and architecture characterized by successful recreations of classicism, mainly with an Attic flavor, but also by inventive syntheses of regional and Hellenistic influences. The evocation of past styles and forms, while simultaneously celebrating new interpretations and meanings, is potently seen in the Forum of Augustus. There the Temple of Mars Ultor boasted inventive Corinthian capitals with Pegasus figures and walls encased with blazing white marble not from Greece but from Italian quarries at Luna (Carrara, where Michelangelo extracted his stone). Rome’s successful political expansion into Italy and beyond achieved in many stages and over centuries naturally resulted in the establishment of a large, standing army. This led to the practical need for settling and caring for a growing number of veterans. Romans utilized colonization as the primary means for relocating and rewarding the retired soldiers, first in Italy, then increasingly in the provinces. During the first century bce, the government settled 130,000 veterans in Italy, roughly 3 percent of the entire population of the peninsula (Laurence 2011, 47). Urban amenities – paved roads, clean water, commodious civic spaces, recreational buildings, temples to the gods – became more important and desirable expectations for the urban poor also transferred from the overcrowded capital, or veterans well familiar with the standards of other great cities across the empire. As a result, the victorious generals, consuls, censors, and aediles often provided the funds not only to erect public buildings in the capital but also in many provincial cities of Italy. Powerful individuals who attempted to hold Rome’s future in their hands sought to expand their political influence through public building. In the personality cults that grew around some of these late Republican patrons there was more than a little emulation of the great Hellenistic rulers of

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire the East, and in the type of buildings they built – temples, basilicas, porticoes – there was much that reminded one of the types and programs of Hellenistic public architecture. Even the fundamental sense of euergetism they adopted appeared to be inspired by Greek political thinking. In Rome, as P. Davies has clarified, only office holders could undertake major public projects (Davies 2017, 2–4). The city’s first major highway, the Via Appia Antica, and its first aqueduct, the Aqua Appia, were named after Appius Claudius, the censor in 312 bce; M. Aemilius Lepidus and Aemilius Paullus, aediles in 193 bce, built public porticoes. The former, censor in 179 bce, also built a basilica named after himself on the north side of the Forum Romanum (see later). Praetor Q. Caecilius Metellus celebrated a triumph for the conquest of Macadonia in 148 bce and started a temple to Jupiter Stator, reported to be the first all-marble temple in Rome, probably designed by the Greek architect Hermodorus. This temple was within a quadriporticus (four-sided colonnaded enclosure) known as the Porticus Metelli, which was replaced under Augustus with the Porticus Octaviae, named after his sister (see later). Outside Rome, the censor of 174 bce built shops around the fora of Caletia and Auximum, a temple to Jupiter at Pisanum, and an aqueduct at Potenia. Such projects underscored the urbanistic value accorded to commerce, urban infrastructure, and Jupiter as a unifying Roman deity. The state also encouraged local patronage to improve urban appearance and city life. At Alatri, 70 kilometers east of Rome, the local censor Lucius Betilienus Varus on the advice of the local senate reconstructed the city’s streets, built porticos, and laid out a forum with a market, basilica, and adjacent baths, and funded a high-pressure aqueduct that raised water almost 100 m (CIL I2 1529). In commemoration of his efforts, the city made Varus censor for a second time, exempted his son from military service, and gave him a public statue and title, acknowledgments that enhanced personal and clan status. Likewise, the civic generosity of Popidus Ampliatus of Pompeii, once a slave, virtually “bought” a position in the city council for his six-year-old son! Whatever the means and motives, in the Roman world building brought fame.

ARCHAIC CITIES IN ITALY The Italian peninsula appears to modern minds as a geographical and political unit. Such a perception was foreign to its earliest occupants who had few if any comprehensive maps and limited knowledge of peoples more than a few kilometers away. The long spine of

the Apennine Mountains, running roughly northwest to southeast through Italy, impeded transverse communications (Figures 1.2 and 1.3). During the Iron Age (c. 900–600 bce), settlements proliferated west of the Apennine ridge, stimulated by the availability of rich ores and fertile lands, as well as by the comparative ease of travel along the coast and waterways emptying into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Various groups evolved with distinct languages and traditions, including the Villanovans, Samnites, Oscans, Latins, and Sabines. They occupied simple settlements whose organic distribution of modest huts built of ephemeral materials reflected tribal organization and challenges. Many peasants led peripatetic lives, moving with the seasons from one impermanent encampment to another. By the seventh century bce, evidence of sophisticated city-making emerged: in Etruria in central Italy, and in the southern portions of the peninsula and Sicily where Greek settlements were so numerous that the region became known as Magna Graecia (“Greater Greece”). In the south, colonists established urban outposts, each marginally dependent on a mother city back in Greece, and each benefitting from the sophisticated material culture of the motherland as well as a vibrant social interaction among themselves. These operated as bases for trade, new markets, and secure sources for raw materials. Laid out at a single moment, the orthogonal (right-angled) plans of Greek colonies clarified the city-building process as an overt, conscious, and egalitarian effort, one that stood in marked contrast with the undirected evolution and irregular layouts elsewhere in Italy. Greek planners and surveyors (agrimensores) laid out strong walls, following topographic lines to provide maximum security for occupants and defined communal urban features including temples with adjacent public space set aside for public use. Both inside the walls and across the surrounding fields, the Greeks surveyed rectangular grids as seen at Megara Hyblaea (c. 728 bce), Metapontum (c. 690 bce), Locri (c. 680 bce), and Poseidonia (Paestum, c. 600 bce; see Figure 1.29) in southern Italy, and at Selinus (c. 628 bce), and Agrigento (c. 580 bce) in Sicily. Such spatial appropriation facilitated equitable distribution among settlers, and explicitly conveyed an intellectual rigor to local inhabitants. In the fifth century bce, Hippodamus of Miletus (often called the father of urban planning) conceptualized grid layouts within a social and philosophical framework, though unfortunately his own planning efforts in southern Italy have not been preserved. Responding to such reassessments, several wealthy cities in Magna Graecia reaffirmed the prominence and importance of the grid plan as a conveyor of status; both Megara Hyblaea and its colony Selinus, 13

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity resurveyed their urban environments long after their original founding and laid down costly street pavements. Furthermore, the grid plan, with its easily measurable and easily laid geometry – rightly called the primary achievement of the Greek land surveyors – was the natural product of surveying technology and colonization developed long before Hippodamus conceptualized, theorized and arguably perfected the system (see later in this chapter). In northern and central Italy, the Etruscans selfidentified as a group united by common ancestors, language, myths, complex rituals, and an advanced city-state culture (see Figure 1.3). Buoyed by mineral resources and extensive trade, they developed independent cities distinguished by impressive external walls, large religious structures facing ritually defined open areas, and relatively large populations. Etruscan cities are not easily reconstructed. Early buildings of perishable materials have left few remains, while the city plans eroded as a result of continuous occupation. Some Etruscan ideas about urban design can be extrapolated from the cities of the dead (necropoli). Chambers in early tombs reflected contemporary living spaces, with interiors carved in stone to look like huts of wood, reeds, and mud; the unordered placement of tombs emulated loose village configurations that evolved in response to both the topographical demands of hill top sites and to a preoccupation with loosely defined ritual boundaries. Archaeological work has uncovered broad, frontal Etruscan temples on low podia; along the ridgepoles of these mud-brick and wood structures animated terracotta roof sculptures danced at the juncture of city and sky. In the sixth century bce, the Etruscans sought more territory and greater trading venues by moving outward in all directions. Increased contact with Greek cities reverberated in their architectural productions. Etruscan necropoli began to display aligned, uniform facades and rectangular, ashlar stonework (Cerveteri), as well as grid layouts (Orvieto). Around 600 bce, they applied a grid to a colony at Capua near Naples, oriented to the cardinal points (Figure 1.4). Moving into the Po valley in the north, the Etruscans established a settlement at Marzabotto to protect transApennine traffic down Reno River near Bologna. Laid out at a single moment in the early fifth century bce, the plan of Marzabotto emulated Greek planning models with protective walls surrounding a grid of streets defining long blocks between parallel wide streets (Figure 1.5); measuring was based on the Attic foot, the predominant measurement unit of ancient Greece. At the central intersection the surveyors buried a stone inscribed with a cross to establish the street alignment to the cardinal points, though not all 14

structures adhered fully to the rigid plan. Unlike later Roman urban designers, they did not transform the central crossing into a major urban focus. Throughout, there was much room flexibility based on local needs and choices. A bustling city, Marzabotto offered residents jobs in industrial workshops producing terracotta and bronze objects, and such amenities as ample wells, elaborate hydraulic systems, sidewalks, stepping-stones, and early atrium-type houses (see later in this chapter). Many buildings shared walls to maximize usable space within the urban fortifications – an unfortunate and shoddy practice from the point of structural engineering but one also widely practiced in Republican Rome. In antiquity, the creation of cities was not only a military and pragmatic act, but also a religious one, as humans took care to define their sphere of earthly activities precariously poised between the heavens and the underworld of the gods. Early Romans held Etruscan religious practices in especially high regard, admiring their ability to define ritual spaces for divination and purification. They relied heavily on the disciplina etrusca, texts articulating the proper methods for founding cities, measuring space, dividing time and other undertakings. When performing divination, Etruscan priests divided the sky into four parts separated by two imagined perpendicular lines and applied the same strategy when laying out cities. If the signs were positive, planning began. Urban founders placed offerings in a pit at the city center, the mundus, also conflated with city’s center or the navel (umbilicus urbis). Next, they plowed a furrow to define the city’s extent under divine protection, and to expel unruly natural forces. This ritual line (pomerium) was inviolable; anyone who crossed it without performing special rites was put to death. Thus, the founders lifted the plow at the locations of future gates in order to provide breaks through which people could freely pass – or at least this is the narrative presented in sacred writings preserved into Roman times. Also according to those sacred texts, the proper Etruscan city followed a defined plan, with three gates and three main streets, presumably with one serving as the primary axis, though few cities actually had this ideal form, least of all Rome. This last point underlines the difference between a ritualistic ideal based on literary tradition and actual, sometimes restrictive but often creative, practice on the ground.

EARLY ROME Archaeology confirms that Rome began in the eighth century bce as a cluster of small Latin villages near a

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire point where an island facilitated crossing over the Tiber River. Settlements developed on easily protected hilltops east, with the earliest on the Palatine and Capitoline Hills, and the jutting spurs of a plateau to the east (see Figure 1.1). Between these high points, valleys carved by active streams provided easy communication routes. Modern Rome occupies the same site and topography, but almost certainly the valleys were much deeper and the hills much higher in antiquity. Communal activities gravitated to a central low-lying location slightly inland from the flood-prone river. Here villagers created an open space, or forum for

markets and other public assemblies. The various hill-top villages coalesced into a single urban unit by the eighth century bce; fragments of a city wall on the northwest corner of the Palatine date to this period. Allegedly, a king ruled the young city, and chose to reside in the Domus Regia (“Royal House”) in the central Forum (Figure 1.7). Grand aristocratic houses clustered nearby at the base of the Palatine hill. In later centuries Roman writers fabricated rich histories for the early city, identifying its founder as Romulus, the son of the war god Mars and a remote descendant of Aeneas, mythical survivor of the Trojan War. Such

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity narratives reflect the Romans’ attempts to forge an identity separate, but related, to that of the Greeks. According to a popular version, Romulus took auspices atop the Palatine Hill, with positive results. Along with his twin brother Remus, Romulus oversaw the plowing of the ritual city limit, the pomerium. When Remus sacrilegiously jumped over the sacred pomerial line, Romulus had no recourse but to kill him. The foundation day, April 21, 753 bce, became celebrated as Rome’s birthday; time was counted ab urbe condita (“from the foundation of the city”), with year “2” as our modern 752 bce. This is the official “senatorial view” of foundation promoted by Livy, Rome’s foremost historian (Livy was born in 59 bce and died in 17 ce, three years after Augustus, who was a good friend). By the late seventh century bce, urban development accelerated when the members of the Etruscan Tarquin dynasty seized power and rapidly acculturated the Romans to the artistic, technical, and commercial advancements of Etrusco-Hellenic urban life. Wielding autocratic power, they compelled their Latin subjects to labor on large public works. Among the most ambitious was a drainage project engineered to reclaim the marshy valleys between the hills. For years Latin laborers created a great drain, the Cloaca Maxima, with portions cut from the living tufa rock and other segments constructed of corbelled vaults following Etruscan building techniques (see Figure 3.2). So terrible were working conditions many Latins committed suicide rather than work in the damp, dark underground tunnels. In response, King Tarquinius Priscus (616–579 bce) crucified the bodies of the suicide victims for all to see, causing the others to return to work rather than be shamed in death or so, at least, is what Pliny wrote in the first century ce, 550 years after the event (Pliny, NH.36.107–108). Of course, there may be an element of exaggeration and drama in these stories, underscoring the need to read all literary references with a critical eye. Despite the grisly story associated with its construction, the Cloaca Maxima (still preserved as an impressive structure beneath modern Rome) brought the city great advantages. On a practical level, the draining of the valleys improved the residents’ health, facilitated transportation, and increased the usability of low-lying land. Equally important, the project overtly demonstrated the value of large, complex engineering projects for the common good requiring a central planning authority, a notion never fully embraced by the Greeks. No longer marshy (though still subject to sporadic flooding), the central meeting area, known as the Forum Romanum, was the dominant civic center of Rome and an important gateway to the city’s major temple honoring the supreme triad of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva atop the adjacent Capitoline Hill (see 16

later in this chapter). Lying at the intersection of several well-traveled urban roadways, the Forum had an irregular shape. The first unifying pavement in the forum was laid around 600 bce, further stimulating markets, trading, and meetings in the open space. Around the edges stood temples, administrative buildings, shops (tabernae), and houses (domus) of noble families. On the northern corner, the Romans ritually defined an open meeting place known as the comitium to be used for public assembly. Tradition holds that king Tullus Hostilius (ruled 673 bce–642 bce) erected a meeting hall, the Curia Hostilia, to provide shelter for his advisory council of Roman nobles. Statues and memorials proliferated in this important civic node. Much later, when reality and urban lore were indistinguishable, the Lapis Niger, a black stone, was thought to mark the burial of either King Tullus Hostilius’ ancestor or Rome’s mythical founder Romulus. Roman authors credited king Servius Tullius with initiating two significant urban improvements around the mid-sixth century bce: the establishment of four tribal administrative regions and an expanded fortification system (see Figure 1.1). The remains of a massive stone wall of tufa blocks encircling most of the city (preserved in modern Rome in several places) have been traditionally called the Servian Wall (Figure 1.8, see later in this chapter). Yet the dating of a comprehensive wall circuit is highly contested. After all, such a large undertaking must have had many phases. That under Servius may have represented the conceptualization of the city’s edges to meet administrative and military needs, with actual construction concentrated on protecting the vulnerable eastern approach. In any case, the extant remnants of this wall can be dated no earlier than the fourth century bce. Across the Esquiline plateau ancient engineers created a comprehensive stretch of fortifications over 1400 meters in length, with an external dry moat (fosse), a wall, and a wide agger, or earthen rampart. The very sight of this defensive system was thought to have compelled attackers to turn around and go home (Dion. Hal. Ant.Rom. 9.68.3–4). The urban regions established in early Rome – Suburana, Esquilana, Collina, and Palatina – echoed the Etruscan notion of quadripartite spatial divisions and tribal associations. Significantly, they excluded two prominent locales: the Capitoline and Aventine hills. The Capitoline, as the city’s religious center, may have been considered under divine, rather than municipal, oversight. The Aventine had developed its own distinct character as a place of asylum outside the pomerium. There, an early king erected a great temple to Diana in an attempt to usurp the significance of collective shrines venerated by the Latin League, a confederation

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire

figure 1.8 View of a portion of the “Servian Wall” near the Stazione Termini train station, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

of Latin-speaking settlements and tribes frequently at odds with Rome. In contrast to front-oriented Italic temples like that to Mater Matuta near the river, the Aventine structure was in the Greek peripteral style, with columns on all sides to allow easy access by league members, asylum seekers, and plebeians who gravitated to this liminal area neither inside, nor outside, the great city.

ROME IN THE ROMAN REPUBLIC During the late sixth century bce, the Etruscan allies suffered severe military losses in southern Italy. With tensions high, the late kings of Rome became increasingly despotic. Even before the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus was completed, the Latins of Rome ousted the oppressive monarchy in 509 bce. This date marks the establishment of the Republic – a constitutional government ruled by two elected consuls and the Senate composed of patricians, with limited input from popular assemblies. Throughout the early Republican period, Rome’s outside relations were multiple and complicated. The Romans continuously negotiated not only with their Etruscan neighbors but also

with many other fledgling towns scattered across central Italy. Each constituency developed individual policies and material culture within this shared environment. In the following decades, the Romans struggled to maintain independence against aggressors and access to trade routes by sea, land, and river; in the process they at times became aggressors themselves. Through alliance, bilateral treaties, sensible administrative skills, and outright conquest, the Romans extended control over neighboring cities and territories; simultaneously, they honed an efficient army and an operational structure based on citizen egalitarianism and dependent taxation. By 270 bce, the Roman Republic controlled the Italian peninsula, including the Greek colonial cities of the south, and began to expand outward; by the second century the achievement of “Latin status” and Roman citizenship had become a coveted entity. Here, we note Rome’s early ability to craft a strong, unified Republican state based on mutual defense treaties with its allies – often though not necessarily viewed to be authoritarian – in contrast to the historical inability of the Greek city states to forge any kind of effective union except under the direst circumstances. Wars against the Carthaginians in the third and second centuries 17

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity bce heightened Roman naval skill and added more territories in the west and North Africa. By 206 bce, large parts of Spain, or more accurately the Iberian Peninsula, had been subdued although, like Gaul, it was only by the time of Augustus that Roman rule was firmly established in this resourceful land where much later the first two provincial emperors, Trajan and Hadrian, and a prominent philosopher, Seneca, were born. In 191 bce, the forces from the city on the Tiber soundly defeated the great Hellenistic king Antiochos III from Syria at Thermopylae in Greece, initiating the Roman conquest of Asia. The Macedonian Wars culminated ultimately with Roman control of Illyria (western Balkans) and Greece. In 146 bce Roman forces sacked both Corinth and Carthage, bringing back to Rome great literary and art treasures, along with a proprietary familiarity with Classical and Hellenistic architecture. In 133 bce, Attalus II, the last king of the Pergamene Kingdom in Asia Minor, bequeathed his kingdom peacefully to Rome though it took another century for Roman rule to be fully established in Asia Minor. By the late second century bce the Romans justifiably referred to the Mediterranean as mare nostrum (“our sea”).

Soon after establishing the Republic, the Romans exploited architecture to assert the status and aspirations of the new state. They recast the expansive urban projects of Tarquinius Superbus as emblems of the Republic and began to enhance the Forum Romanum. Legal prohibitions ensured the central area remained free for communal activities and events, including political speeches, aristocratic funerals, gladiatorial combats, civil trials, and business. Two new temples graced the Republican Forum. Just south of the road up the Capitoline Hill, rose the Temple to the Latin war god Saturn (c. 496 bce), near the spot marking the city center (umbilicus). To the southwest near the early round Temple of Vesta rose a temple to the twins Castor and Pollux (484 bce), a cult venerated by the patrician cavalry (Figures 1.9 and 1.10). These early structures would have been central Italic in form with high podia, deep porches, and widely-spaced columns, modestly constructed sun-dried brick and wood, with terracotta ornament (see later in this chapter). By the mid-fifth century, the government acknowledged the need to preserve Rome’s urban form and functionality. The Laws of the XII Tables (c. 450 bce) restricted sumptuous construction and the dismantling

figure 1.9 Reconstruction of the Forum Romanum looking west, c. 160 bce (after Chris Johanson; © Regents of the University of California).

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Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire

figure 1.10 Reconstruction of Republican Forum looking east, Rome, ca. 160 BCE (after Chris Johanson; © Regents of the University of California).

of extant buildings Rome. Thus, Rome was not only engaged in public building and establishing a creative synthesis of Greek and Italian architectural forms, but more significantly, in bringing an urban, legal, and ethical order to its built environment. Although nominally based on shared governance, the new Republic privileged the aristocratic landowners at the expense of the poorer plebeians who included farmers, workers, and servants. Naturally conflict developed between the two social orders, the patricians and the plebeians. The struggle, led by the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus (the Gracchi), intended to bring greater privileges (mainly through major land reforms) to the lower orders; eventually it was squashed by the forces of the aristocracy. The aptly named Temple of Concord was built in 121 bce by the senator L. Opimius at the foot of the Capitoline Hill to commemorate Senate’s victory over the Gracchi and their social reformers and the reinstigation of aristocratic authority – an ironic celebration of concord or harmony – that privileged one side. The original temple was probably Ionic and had a traditional rectangular cella with columns on three sides against a blank back wall – the peripteros sine postico arrangement (Figure 1.9). It was remodeled under Augustus and Tiberius. In this reincarnation, the tight space necessitated an unusual scheme with the pronaos projecting at a right angle to the long side of the rectangular cella like a pavilion. The temple looked out over the forum toward the Comitium area. The chronology and form of physical alterations to the Comitium are hotly debated, with various alternatives proposed. Fronting the Senate House, or Curia, it

may have taken a circular shape with stairs to allow standing citizens to see and hear speakers during tribal assemblies. On the side toward the Forum rose a speakers’ platform monumentalized in 338 bce. Ancient sources record that the plebeian C. Maenius boldly advertised his military victory at Antium by adorning the podium with the metal prows (rostra) of captured ships, the genesis of the modern word “rostrum” for a speaker’s platform. Nearby, the Senate further commemorated his military achievements with a statue atop a column, an early example of the overt selfpromotion that would run rampant in ancient Rome. The column’s importance was enhanced by its role in timekeeping; each day an assistant to the consuls standing in the door of the Curia announced the final hour of the day when the sun passed to the right side of the column. AF F I R MA T I ON O F UR B A N F O R M I N T HE F A C E O F C O N Q U E S T S A N D DE FE AT S

Early in the fourth century bce, two events galvanized the ambition of the Republic, with important repercussions for urban design. In 396 bce, the Romans conquered the Etruscan city of Veii, a rich Etruscan center a mere 16 kilometers northwest of Rome. This victory ensured Rome access inland along the Tiber River. A few years later, marauding Gauls sacked Rome. Recovering rapidly from the devastation, the Romans began to conceptualize their own identity and destiny. Avidly tied to Rome’s “spirit of place” (genius loci), the Romans rejected proposals to relocate in the 19

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity more beautiful and safer environment at Veii. Some Romans called out for a major urban transformation, much as did the residents of London after the great fire of 1666. The devastated cityscape presented a tremendous opportunity to impose an orderly, urban design based on up-to-date Greek planning theories, yet the Romans resisted any major alterations following a theoretically-based system of streets on an orthogonal grid. Anxious for the city to become operational as soon as possible and respectful of property rights, the government offered incentives to promote rapid reconstruction. Livy tells us, [the people of Rome] began to rebuild the city without plan of any kind. . . . Such was their haste that they did not take care to lay out the streets since all the boundary distinctions had been lost and they were building in vacuo. This is the reason why . . . the appearance of the city resembles one that has been occupied rather than being properly planned. (5.55.1–5)

The archaeological evidence, however, does not entirely affirm a hasty rebuilding. As usual, we would be advised to read much of our ancient authors, who have their own ideological agendas, with a critical eye and when possible check the stories against other, hopefully verifiable, evidence, such as that provided by archaeology. Clearly, the imposition of a comprehensive, ordered urban plan was not of import in the early fourth century. The situation was different when Livy wrote three centuries later; by then the Romans had long suffered slurs about their city’s lack of order and beauty despite its undisputed position as ruler of the Mediterranean. The Gallic sack of 390 bce, underscored the need for improved, stronger fortifications at Rome. Over the following decades the Republic created a comprehensive and extensive defensive system that defined an urban territory of over 400 hectares, including areas outside the pomerium. Demonstrating the latest in Hellenic fortification strategies, the so-called Servian Wall rose up to ten meters, with big arched openings for catapults later added (see earlier). The massive project required a large workforce thought to have included workers from Sicily in Magna Graecia. Construction was of squared stone (opus quadratum) based on the Osco-Italic foot. The material was yellowish gray tufa from Etruscan quarries accessible after the Romans defeated Veii in 396 bce. Other Italian settlements, such as the acropolis at Alatrium to the south (Figure 1.6), had impressive stone fortifications, but none compared in size to Rome’s circuit of eleven kilometers with sixteen embellished gateways enclosing the legendary “Seven Hills of Rome” (note that those on the east – Esquiline, Viminal, Quirinal – are 20

outcroppings rather than true hills; see Figure 1.1). The complete circuit of the “Servian Wall” is uncertain, but segments are still visible such as that in front of Rome’s main train station (see Figure 1.8). Visitors and residents alike found Rome’s fortifications and infrastructure impressive. Strabo writing in the late Republic noted: “The Romans had the best foresight in those matters which the Greeks took but little account of, such as the construction of roads and aqueducts and of sewers that could wash out the filth of the city” (5.3.8). In the late fourth century bce, the censor Appius Claudius Caecus paved a strategically important extra-urban road, the Via Appia, running about 210 kilometers in a straight line between Rome and Capua to the south. In addition, he initiated Rome’s first major aqueduct, the Aqua Appia (312 bce), bringing fresh water to the bustling docks near the island crossing. The capital’s expanding network of aqueducts largely ran underground in the countryside to minimize attacks and costs. To maintain an even speed of flow ancient engineers raised the aqueduct water channels on dramatic stone arcades when crossing valleys or entering the city at a high level. The interest in architectural infrastructure, clearly admired by Strabo, indicate a sophisticated and paternalistic concern for urban environment through creative designs that were both functional and eye-catching. The Romans self-identified with engineering and military technical and logistical prowess, while simultaneously drawing heavily upon artistic forms and styles from the Hellenistic world. Not mere imitators, they soon added to the architectural typology and the classical vocabulary of the Mediterranean. Starting from the third century bce, designers in Rome recombined Greek architectural elements in new and creative ways and improvised from Greek, Etruscan, and Italic building forms to meet their unique needs, always with an eye on functionality, endurance, and self-promotion. To name one modest example of this, the decorative floors from the mid-Republic known as opus signinium are terracotta-based mortar floors impermeable to moisture and articulated by simple geometric patterns of white tesserae; though drawing some inspiration from Punic examples, these attractive floors are wholly Roman in their artless and delicate beauty. The Romans increasingly were building for, and generating inspiration to, a wider world outside the group of central Italian cities. The success of their political expansion brought on new possibilities as well as responsibilities in governance, law, art, and architecture – and religious tolerance, up to a point – which they accepted as a part of their serious outlook on life. Building for the needs of a far greater constituency with far greater horizons than the Greeks, they

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire contributed toward the realization of a hybrid, cosmopolitan urban world. After a fire cleared the north side of the Forum in 210 bce, the Romans took steps to upgrade the area into a completely civic venue. In 184 bce, the censor Marcus Porcius Cato purchased houses and shops west of the Curia, and erected the Basilica Porcia, a large multipurpose hall with porticos opening to the Forum. Subsequent basilicas included an interior nave lit by clerestory windows, and side aisles (see Figure 1.9). Some scholars characterize the basilica as a “distinctly Roman” building form; others seek external precedents. However, the simultaneous utilitarian and impressive character of the basilica may trump the significance of a specific heritage. Relatively easy to construct, large basilical halls provided much bang for the buck. The lofty interiors sheltered diverse activities including tribunals, with second stories where spectators could watch the action taking place both inside the structure and in the Forum. Like other civic building forms popularized by the Romans, the basilica evolved across the cities of central Italy – including Cosa, Ardea, and Pompeii – to meet shared needs and elevate civic activities. The lengthy external colonnades shaped and defined public space. In order for a wide variety of civic functions to take place, basilicas were typically spacious; but they could be fairly small and intimate as in the basilica at Cosa, or immense, as in the Basilica of Maxentius in Rome (see later). At Rome, the censors M. Aemilius Lepidus and M. Fulvius Nobilior erected a basilica in 179 bce (first known as the Basilica Fulvia, later as the Basilica Aemilia) southeast of the Curia in the Forum. The large structure had a shady two-storied portico about

100 m in length, with shops on the ground level; behind was an unencumbered hall with internal porticos around a broad nave, all covered by a strong woodentruss roof (Figure 1.11). With the construction of the Basilica Sempronia (169 BCE; later replaced by the Basilica Julia) on the opposite side of the central area, the Forum began to approximate a Greek Hellenistic agora with stoas defining the edges. Less refined business activities gradually relocated to other fora throughout Rome. The Forum Holitorium by the river accommodated the sale of produce, and the nearby Forum Boarium the sale of cattle, at least according to some ancient authors (Figure 1.12). A large market building (macellum) northeast of the Forum Romanum (rebuilt in 179 bce) superseded the preexisting markets for fish (Forum Piscarium) and delicacies (Forum Cuppedinis).

EXPERIMENTAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL TRENDS IN THE ARCHITECTURE OF LATE REPUBLICAN ROME In the second and first centuries bce, Rome entered a vital period of architectural patronage and experimentation stimulated by external architectural models and an influx of revenues from conquests. Structures displayed a common capital-city syndrome: persistent tension between innovation and traditionalism. A temple with a high podium evoked associations with a national Italic style, while one with low surrounding stairs signaled Greek refinement to some viewers, and Greek hedonism to others. Although some scholars

figure 1.11 Reconstruction perspective of Basilica Fulvia/Aemilia, Forum Romanum, Rome; rendered by Diane Favro (after John Burge).

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H figure 1.12 Plan of Forum Holitorium and Forum Boarium, Rome; rendered by Diane Favro.

have detected a development originating from local, central Italian models toward more “sophisticated” Greek-inspired ones, this process was never simple and linear; architectural inspiration comes from many different sources as architecture is a complex art involving exigencies of materials, structure as well as aesthetics. Materials bore meaning. Matt tufa blocks and terracotta ornament were traditional and conservative; shiny marbles were luxurious and eastern. Patrons selected styles, forms, materials, and sites to suit their particular aspirations. In the 70s bce, when the general Pompey sought honors and offices for which he was not legally eligible, he calmed concerns by erecting a temple to Hercules in the Tuscan-Italic style, with 22

broadly spaced columns (Vitr. De Arch. 3.3.5); if this temple was a major rebuilding of even an earlier temple to the same god, Pompey’s decision to retain the temple’s old-fashioned form would have been equally significant. Twenty years later as one of Rome’s most powerful men he erected his magnificent theater complex adjacent to his own house in emulation of Hellenistic dynasts. Exploiting architecture and architectural style as metaphorical devices for political messaging remained popular throughout Roman history. Following the second Carthaginian war (218–201 bce) slaves and booty drastically boosted Rome’s population, and thus its need to storehouse grain. In response, builders made the most of Roman logistical

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire skills and pragmatic building forms and techniques. Fast to build, fireproof, and relatively inexpensive, concrete (opus caementicium) rapidly came into wide use, especially in the capital city where magistrates had only a short time in any given office to complete a major project (see later; Davies 2017, 104–106). One structure exploiting concrete, the so-called Porticus Aemilia, a textbook favorite, deserves special consideration. Livy informs us that in 193 bce, the aediles L. Aemilius Lepidus and L. Aemilius Paullus initiated a large market hall along the Tiber known as the Porticus Aemilia. Within two decades the censors of 174 bce rebuilt this structure creating a gigantic, half-a-kilometer long (487 x 60 m) hall built entirely in opus caementicium (Livy 35.10.12 and 41.27.8). The building is divided into fifty vaulted rows separated by partition walls pierced by wide arches; the back side is solid except for doors and windows above, while the front facing the river some 80 meters away was originally fully open (Figure 1.13). A portion of the back wall and one of the side walls faced in opus incertum, are fairly well preserved. The name was identified based on the three letters preserved on the Marble Plan, “LIA” (“AMELIA”) although other reconstructions are possible (Davies 2017, 175–177). One of these, proposed by a new study by L. Cozzo and P. L. Tucci, challenges the old views by retooling the inscription as “NAVALIA” and identifies the building as a major shipshed for the Republican fleet of Rome (Cozzo and Tucci 2006, 175–201; Tucci 2012, 575–591; see also Gatti 1934, 123–149). At the first consideration the long building sloping toward the river, close in form to other shipsheds of the Renaissance period (in Pisa, Italy and Heraklia, Crete), supports this view. Also cited as justification for the new attribution is the fact that the closed rear wall would not facilitate the storage and distribution of goods. However, the new identification has its own serious flaws. The strongest objection to the navalia theory is raised by a specialist in ships and shipsheds on the functional grounds of distance from, and orientation toward, the river. B. Rankov observed that the chambers (and the ships within them) positioned at right angles to the Tiber “would make any launch of the long warships from them extremely difficult . . . and almost imposible if the river was in spate [“flood” which happens quite frequently in the Tiber]” (Rankov 2013, 39–41 76–101 in a collection of essays that offers a full survey of the topic: Blackman and Rankov, eds.). While this observation suggests the demise of the shipshed theory, the important and unchanging thing for us here is that regardless of its specific function (or the specific name under which it was identified), this is a colossal building whose spacious interior largely uncluttered by

columns or piers was designed for the flexible needs of industry and made possible by the early use of concrete construction. At Rome, two censors elected every five years held responsibility for new public works as well as oversight of the census. The historian Livy records that those of 174 bce were also the first to contract to have the city streets paved and flanked by sidewalks; in addition they built several bridges, stairs and paved areas for warehousing and commerce along the river, creating a grand riverine approach to Rome. They also added shady porticos to the street climbing up to the Capitoline temple, and others throughout the city (Liv. 41.27.7). Simple and quick to build in concrete or a sensible combination of concrete wedded to traditional columns, porticos helped unify Rome’s street facades, create a sense of civic dignity, while also providing pedestrians with shade, and merchants with space to display their wares protected from traffic. As well argued by J. Senseney, quadriporticos also gained in popularity, in part inspired by Hellenistic models. With four inward facing colonnades around an open rectangular courtyard with temples, fountains, or gardens (as seen with the Porticus Metelli of 146 bce or slightly later) these structures isolated new temples from the bustle in the southern Campus Martius (see Figure 2.9; Senseney 2011, 421–441). Though rarely visible, over time concrete transformed the cityscape. For example, this material facilitated the rebuilding of broad Tuscan temples in a more au courant Graeco-Italic style with tall podia, broad stairs, and narrow facades, as seen in the rebuilt Temple of Castor and Pollux (117 bce) in the Forum Romanum. Concrete construction was essential for the massive arcaded building traditionally known as the Tabularium, or the records office, erected by the consul of 78 bce Q. Lutatis Catulus, and perhaps designed by the architect Lucius Cornelius (Figures 1.14, 1.15, and Plate 2). Uniting the two saddles of the Capitoline Hill, the massive project and its trapezoidal extension of rooms toward the west and north covers approximately 3000 square meters, about half the area of the later Basilica Ulpia. In addition to access from above, a single door at the forum level and steep internal stairs provided access between Rome’s low-lying civic center and the hilltop religious center. Facing the forum, a towering wall of finely cut gray tufa ashlar (c. 15 m high) supports an open gallery with a façade featuring Doric half-columns alternating with eleven arches and crowned by a continuous entablature of white travertine (only the architrave remains). Behind the arches, tall concrete barrel and cloister vaults (eleven structural bays, each 5  5 m, total length of c. 66 m) anchored the gallery into the hillside. Some reconstructions include 23

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figure 1.13 Reconstruction of Porticus Aemilia showing fragments of Forma Urbis Romae marble map of Rome; rendered by Diane Favro.

an additional upper gallery or colonnade, but its presence is not supported by the existing evidence. The identification of the massive structure as the records office, based on an inscription found nearby but now lost, is indeed suspect. The design, or the 24

building typology it represents, with its wide, open gallery may appear unsuitable for the functions of a records office – although many of the barrel-vaulted rooms buried into the hill are definitely secure. The inscription provides clear evidence for a substructure

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire

figure 1.14 General view of the Forum Romanum, Rome, looking west toward the Tabularium, which forms a backdrop for the Temple of Saturn (left), the Column of Phocas (center), the Rostra (behind the tree) and a sliver of the Arch of Septimius Severus (right); Photo by Fikret Yegül.

and tabularium in this area, probably between the present one and the Temple of Saturn (CIL 6.1314). Following P. L. Tucci’s lead (Tucci 2005), F. Coarelli recently proposed a new interpretation for the “Tabularium” (we will retain the name but use quotations to convey uncertainty regarding the identification; Coarelli 2010; see also Davies 2017, 188–192). He argues the extant remains formed part of a scenic terrace that supported three structures: in the center, a massive octastyle peripteros sine postico podium temple dedicated to Venus Victrix, flanked by smaller temples to the Genius populi Romani and Felicitas, deities with dynastic and political significance for Sulla who is credited with starting the project in 81 bce, though he did not live to see its completion under the consul Q. L. Catulus in 78 bce (for reconstruction studies see Davies 2017). The imagined triple temples, towering over and dominating the western edge of the Forum Romanum, find their design inspiration and justification in the great terrace temples and sanctuaries of late Republican Latium, like the Temple of Hercules

Victor in Tivoli. The “Tabularium” substructure and gallery, besides supporting the temples, serve as a “covered street” (via tecta) connecting the Capitoline Hill with the Arx to the north. The proposal is dramatic and bold, while the archaeological evidence behind it is contrastingly slim and elusive; the design is for the most part pure conjecture. Quite apart from the visual, contextual, and architectonic concerns attending to this gasp-producing reconstruction, the fact that there is not a single reference to such a thundering trio of temples grossly dominating the forum is problematic. The possibility that a newer theory will emerge to replace this exciting one is almost certain. Nonetheless, neither the identification of the “Tabularium” nor its newly assigned function as a covered street and a glorified base for a mega-temple project changes the nature of our earlier discussion. Whatever name you give it, the building that rises like a rock on the west scarp of the Capitolium is an impressive representative of late Republican concrete technology and scenic design. We regret that the proposal championed by 25

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 1.15, plate 2 Interior vaulting of Tabularium gallery facing the Forum, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Tucci and Coarelli adds new, colossal, and theoretical temples to the precious urban topography of Rome at the cost of demoting the architectural meaning and essence of another structure. The “Tabularium” may 26

not have been the records office of Rome (or any records office). However, with its many vaulted galleries and rooms integrated to the venerable hill above and the equally venerable civic space below, it was a

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire deliberately planned “hillside building,” whose handsome open gallery served as an urban connector and offered one of the most impressive views of all of Rome, as it does today. Sophisticated constructions in wood also transfigured the city, though their physical remains are few. Especially notable were the bridges that replaced early ferries crossing the Tiber River allowing city residents access to both the less desirable settlements on the west banks and the hinterland beyond. These structures took ingenious forms, from the religiously sanctified wooden Pons Sublicius, built with no iron, to simple floating structures removed when attackers or floods threatened and then quickly rebuilt. The first bridge with stone piers, the Pons Aemilia (179 bce), initially had a wooden superstructure, and provided traders a more permanent crossing from the west directly into the bustling Forum Boarium. Throughout Rome, impermanent wooden structures quickly transformed streets and plazas into spectator venues. Workers erected bleachers, speakers’ platforms, and various structures for performances, parades, and ritual celebrations, then summarily dismantled them, presumably storing the timbers for reuse. For example, audiences gathered in wooden arenas to watch spectacles in the Forum Romanum, whose rectangular shape may have been the genesis of the oval (not circular) form of subsequent Roman amphitheaters (see Figure 1.9). Theaters in Republican Rome were also of wood. The Romans of course were well familiar with the form and construction of permanent stone structures for theatrical and other performances from examples in Greece and southern Italy, such as the amphitheater (100 bce) and theater (second century bce) of Pompeii (see later). At their mother city of Rome, however, they resolutely rejected permanent theatrical venues ostensibly to set an example of conservative probity, but also (as far as the authorities were concerned) to limit opportunities for gatherings of the Roman people and affirm elite control over the cityscape. Arguing that permanent theaters would promote sedition, indolence, and “Greek pleasures,” in 154 bce the leadership in Rome even ordered the demolition of a stone theater in progress (Livy Per. 48; Val.Max. 2.4.1–2). Suspect as this piece of reasoning might sound, consider even an exceptionally fair minded emperor like Trajan discouraging the formation of even the much needed fire brigade in Nicomedia on the grounds that whenever “people assemble for a common purpose . . . they soon turn into a seditious club” (Pliny, Letters 10.34). Impermanent wooden spectator buildings were less threatening and offered repeated opportunities for

individual patronage (and jobs!). At Rome, the largest temporary buildings rose in the Campus Martius (Field of Mars), a low-lying plain north of the Capitoline Hill in the curve of the river. Subject to flooding, the field had few permanent structures. In this unencumbered area soldiers practiced maneuvers, generals and their troops waited to hear if they had been awarded triumphs, assemblies gathered, and temporary structures appeared and disappeared like mushrooms. Though temporary, these works became ever more grandiose and complex as patrons competed for attention. In 52 bce, C. Scribonius Curio held performances for his father’s funeral in two wooden theaters that ingeniously rotated to form an amphitheater (Pliny HN, 36.116–120) (Figure 1.16). Other donors focused their attentions on the stage building (scaenae frons) of theaters, adding gilded statues, colorful awnings, decorations in gold, silver, ivory, glass, and even columns or colonnettes of marble, prompting one theater to be described as surpassing, “not merely those erected for a limited period but even those intended to last forever” (Pliny HN 36.114). Eventually, the Roman preoccupation with pragmatic and economical projects, along with escalating competition among donors, outweighed antiquated propriety. In 55 bce, the general Pompey constructed a permanent, free-standing stone theater in the Campus Martius near his own house, replete with a porticoed enclosure embellished with landscaping and art. However, he took the precaution of placing a temple to Venus Victrix at the top of the freestanding curved seating (cavea) (Figures 1.17 and 1.18). Known from examples outside Rome (Tivoli, Palestrina, Pietrabbondante), such a configuration allegedly justified a stone theater by presenting the seats as “stairs” up to the shrine, a conceit abandoned after the success of Pompey’s large theater. It also overtly demonstrates the incorporation of religion and cult into secular life and architecture. Spectators at Pompey’s theater watched diverse entertainments, while Venus the Victor literally looked over their shoulders. T R I UM P H S A N D M I L I T A R Y S Y M B O L I S M

Rome’s architecture and urban design were shaped by a culture of conquest. Every view in the capital city was filled with emblems of military achievements. Successful soldiers displayed captured weapons on the fronts of their houses; generals used captured booty to fund monuments and temples to the gods who had helped in battle; the state financed inscriptions and reliefs commemorating successful campaigns, and the entire population participated in magnificent celebrations of victories. In the 27

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 1.16 Reconstruction diagram of the rotating theater of Scribonius Curio, Rome; rendered by Diane Favro.

Republic, the highest honor for a Roman male citizen was to be awarded a triumph. A general who celebrated a substantive victory in a foreign war (along with other requirements) returned to Rome with his troops to petition the senate to grant a triumph. Because armed men could not cross the pomerium without dispensation, they gathered in the Campus Martius while awaiting the Senate’s decision. If proclaimed a triumphator, the general organized a magnificent procession through the city that celebrated and sanctified his bloody actions. Wagons overflowing with booty, captured slaves, paintings of battles, elaborate floats, troops, and the general atop a magnificent chariot created a spectacle that entertained and informed the populace of the capital, justifying the state’s great military expenses. It also turned the city into an arena of celebration, performance and pomp. At his triumph in 61 bce, Pompey included placards listing the fourteen nations he defeated, and wagons heaped with 75,100,000 silver coins (enough to support two million people for a year), gold statues and vessels, gems, and other valuables. As unifying, state-sanctioned celebrations, triumphs could only be held in Rome. They occurred throughout the Republic, though at irregular intervals. From the Campus Martius, the parade wound south between the Capitoline Hill and the river, through the Forum Boarium, past thousands of seated spectators in the Circus Maximus, and around the Palatine Hill to 28

enter the Forum Romanum though the path could vary somewhat (see Figure 1.1). Hundreds of people flowed into the city to watch the parade. Spectators who did not find space on temporary bleachers sought spots on the high podia of temples and the upper porticos of basilicas or looked down from the widows and balconies of housing units on upper floors. Aligned temple facades with wide stairways, such as those at the Forum Holitorium, doubled as audience venues. After passing through the Forum, the triumphator and a smaller group climbed up to the Capitoline to give thanks at the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The rising smoke from their offerings marked the beginning of a wide range of entertainments. Grand spectacles took place in theaters, circuses, and other spectator spaces throughout the city, bringing the entire city into focus as a communal environment. Aspiring politicians depleted their family fortunes and successful generals spent their captured spoils to erect self-promoting urban displays along the triumphal route. Competition was stiff. The commemorative arch, originally used simply to elevate sculptures, became inextricably associated with the triumph celebrating movement, passage and transition in real, as well as metaphorical, terms. Donors competed to create the most eye-catching, memorable structures, experimenting with new temple designs, ornaments, and opulent materials. To ensure that his triumph of 146 bce was not forgotten, Q. Metellus Macedonicus erected the Hellenistic-style Porticus

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire

figure 1.17 Plan of Theater of Pompey, Rome; rendered by Diane Favro (after Senseney).

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figure 1.18 Reconstruction engraving of Theater of Pompey with Temple of Venus Victrix, Rome; Schill (1908).

Metelli, embellished with magnificent captured artworks, including twenty-four equestrian statues by the famous Greek sculptor Lysippus, and the earliest known temple built in marble, that to Jupiter Stator designed in Ionic style with a low base and peripteral columns. Cumulatively, the structures honoring individuals provided exemplars for future generations and conveyed a powerful collective identity. BUI LD I NG DI S TRI BUT IO N A ND C ON TR OL IN R O ME

Since burials were not allowed within the pomerium, another concentration of structures promoting individuals and families occurred on the well-traveled highways leading in to Rome. Every Roman of means sought eternal recognition. Eye-catching designs, recognizable portrait sculptures, rich materials, and amenities such as gardens and sundials drew attention to funerary monuments of individuals and families. For example, in the first century bce, the patrician Cecilia Metella placed her tomb atop a highpoint on the Via Appia for maximum visibility (see Figure 3.15). The huge structure took a cylindrical form (29 m diameter), capped by an earthen mound in the manner of Etruscan tombs. The surface decorations included trophies and other symbols alluding to the military prowess of her family. Later in the first century bce, the successful freedman Vergilius Eurysaces proudly celebrated his profession as baker with an unusual tomb at the junction of two highways entering the city from the southeast through the Porta 30

Maggiore (Figure 1.19; see later). The tall trapezoidal structure of concrete faced with travertine is decorated with an inscription identifying his occupation for the literate and long narrative reliefs depicting the production of bread for those unable to read. Modern viewers postulate the round opening on the sides may represent grain-measuring containers or the open circular mouths of bread ovens. This flamboyant example of plebeian architecture contrasts with the formal restraint of a roughly contemporary tomb at the junction of two other roads entering the city to the west. The patrician Gaius Cestius erected a steep pyramid of brickfaced concrete veneered in sparkling white marble (Figure 1.20, Plate 1A). Like famous precursors in conquered Egypt, the structure displayed a purity of form, though constructed of hybrid materials at a much smaller scale (the base measures 100 Roman feet=RF or 29.6 m to a side, occupying almost 900 sq m). One inscription lists the deceased’s achievements; another carved by his heir notes that in accordance with the will of the deceased, he completed the building in 330 days (it took far longer to restore the monument, which was still in progress when this book went into press). Taking months or years to complete, architectural projects clogged the city’s streets with machinery and heavy transports. The increasing use of marble in the first century bce exacerbated the situation, as workers struggled to transport monolithic columns and other big stone pieces along Rome’s crowded streets. Most large objects moved along the relatively flat thoroughfares in the valleys punctuated by open spaces

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire

figure 1.19 Tomb of Eurysaces in front (outside) of the Porta Maggiore, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

maintained as turning points for large wagons and materials. Anyone moving off these circulations spines entered a densely populated labyrinth filled with narrow alleys, dead ends, dark tunnels, and illegal constructions blocking public ways (see later in this chapter).

The city grew exponentially in the late Republic, attracting people seeking protection and support from the wealthy Romans generals and other aspirants vying for power. By the first century bce, the old walls had long been gobbled up by urban structures, though the original gateways remained important entry points for 31

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 1.20, plate 1a View of Pyramid Tomb of Cestius, in front of the Porta Ostiense (known as Porta San Paolo), Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

taxation and other types of oversight. On the Esquiline Hill, the great fortification ditch had become a charnel pit filled with refuse and the bodies of paupers. Maeceanas, advisor to Octavius (later to become the first emperor Augustus), acquired the property and transformed it into a pleasure garden with a pleasant walkway atop the former agger (for the Auditorium of Maecenas, see below). The location of functions (and thus building types) was not regulated. Without zoning, housing of all social classes intermingled with monuments and commercial structures. A luxurious domus fronted by shops might stand next to a laundry, a middle-class, multi-unit apartment structure, and a populist bathhouse. An elite enclave developed atop the Palatine Hill, in large part because wealthy citizens with numerous slaves to carry water settled there in the days before aqueducts. Plebeians resided throughout the city but their residences were concentrated in the Subura and Aventine. Administration and safety within the four Republican regions was largely left to neighborhood units (vici) organized around streets. By the first century bce, however, the city had grown far larger than the traditional four regions and magistrates 32

had neither the power nor resources to deal with important issues of municipal care such as firefighting. Dishonest landowners and builders exploited the situation (see later in this chapter). Shoddy and substandard structures ready to collapse became public hazards and aesthetic eyesores. Around 45 bce, Julius Caesar began expansive plans to reorder the city by straightening the Tiber River and drafting laws regarding urban maintenance and traffic in Rome. In 7 bce, the first emperor Augustus subsequently established fourteen new administrative units that encompassed most of the occupied urban area and clarified magistrate responsibilities. More comprehensive attempts at regulating urban design and building codes properly belong to the Imperial period (see later).

CITIES AND ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY DURING THE REPUBLIC Ancient Latin and Etruscan cities had organized into different collectives composed of autonomous cities

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire united for mutual defense and trade. The Romans periodically allied with the Latin League, yet consistently conceptualized Rome as a capital or center city. Through the process of evocatio, they “called over” the gods of other cities to reside in Rome, as in 396 bce when the dictator Camillus, conqueror of Veii, enticed or co-opted its tutelary god Juno Regina with the promise of a bigger and better temple. Indeed, the state funded several shrines in Rome, including the Aventine Temple of Diana, specifically to draw the allegiances of members in the Latin League away from other sites. Inspired by Rome’s subsequent rise to power, some early scholars postulated that architectural and urban ideas incubated in the capital and then extended to the rest of Italy through conquest and colonies. Recent studies aided by physical evidence from excavations reveal that the reality is more complicated and nuanced, with influences moving in multiple directions. Indications are that central Italian cities played significant, and often independent, roles in shaping architecture and urban developments throughout the peninsula and in Rome itself. The Latin League dissolved by the second century bce. Thereafter, Rome’s relationship with the Latins and other ethnic groups in central Italy was mainly structured by bilateral treaties, where Rome often managed to become the dominant member. However, the so-called Latin Wars of the mid-fourth century bce, an occurrence with far-reaching historical, social and architectural consequences, deserves our special attention. During the early fourth century bce, fearing Rome’s rising expansion and dominance, the Latin and Campanian towns revolted against their one-time ally but were vanquished in a short and decisive war (340–338 bce). While some of the older Latin citystates were incorporated within the Republic, others were given limited commercial and civic rights (civitas sine suffragio = citizenship without vote). The upheaval also resulted in the establishment of a large number of Latin colonies as allies within older settlements, but many ex novo in strategically important locations for defense as well as bridgeheads for new conquests. Scholars distinguish the aftermath of the Latin Wars, circa 338–334 bce as an important period for colonization and the development of Roman urbanism, characterized by J. Sewell as “the beginning of the Roman practice of designing and realizing urban centres” (Sewell 2010, 10, 9–20; Cornell 1995, 347–352; Coarelli 1992, 35–48). During the intensification of these conflicts in Italy during the fourth century bce, the Romans along with other occupants of the peninsula increasingly had turned to urbanization as a means of control, consolidation, and development. Garrisons, fortified colonies, citizen colonies, and new settlements

at existing Italian cities housed Romans with military training, an important consideration before the establishment of a standing army. Citizen colonies, such as Cosa, were often small (some three hundred settlers and their families), located at strategic points on newly conquered territory, and modeled after and controlled by Rome. In contrast, the so-called Latin colonies (which granted their own citizenship but had to supply Rome with troops in time of need) were much larger and mainly established in underpopulated and underurbanized areas: “The primary purpose seems to have been to urbanize regions such as Samnium and the far north of Italy on suitably Romanized lines and to regenerate failing cities” (Lomas 2004, 209). In either case, these Roman cities stimulated trade, exploited resources, and promoted close ties with local peoples; equally important, they served as centralized collection points for regional taxes sent to Rome for redistribution to the military and urban masses, as well as to fund regional infrastructural projects such as roads. Colonies were politically autonomous, though occupants who served as magistrates could become Roman citizens. As at Rome, architectural patronage became a favored way to gain status in the new settlements. In the capital, only civic office holders could erect public buildings; in the colonies architectural patronage seems to have been open to all, an interesting difference. By the first century bce, triumphators erected monuments in Italian cities, and in a few cases established eponymous cities, in order to ensure allegiance and remembrance. Considering what makes a city (or at least, what makes a city safe) as they expanded in the fourth century bce, the Romans’ first response was to create “a wall.” Plato advised the Greeks that a city’s best defenses were its brave men who should meet the enemy on the frontiers and the swords of its citizens are the only true protection (Plato, Laws 778D). As shrewdly commented by R. E. Wycherley, however: “But most people . . . took the common-sense view that it was best even for brave men to have a fortified base of operations” (Wycherley 1949, 39). So did the occupants of cities in central Italy and Etruria. Early settlements that had relied initially on topographically defensible sites, broad aggers and dry moats for protection, began to erect stone fortifications with lofty ramparts and arched gates. Many are preserved, an overt affirmation of archaic Italian expertise in designing and executing complex engineering projects involving large work forces. The type of construction depended in part on the available materials. At Rome local tufas were cut into relatively homogeneous ashlar blocks; in central Italy the easily fractured limestone necessitated larger blocks as seen with the tightly fit polygonal stones at Alatri and the cyclopean blocks at 33

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity Ferentinum (see Figures 1.6, 3.13). Beyond providing protection and clear boundaries, city walls conveyed strength and projected dignity. When the Romans relocated all the occupants of Falerii Novi after a revolt in 241 bce, they provided the new city of their defeated foes with attractive and strong, stone walls and arched gates as markers of civic identity (Figure 1.21). The plans for new cities probably came from Rome and were implemented by state land surveyors. After priests conducted foundation rites, and identified the city’s ritual edge, land measurers (agrimensores) divided the urban and rural areas into taxable units for the settlers; colonists received lots in each. In antiquity, the terms cardo and decumanus defined the intersecting lines of territorial grids, but in modern times (and in most textbooks) are applied to the primary north/south, east/west streets of Roman cities respectively. At first glance, the rectangular Roman military camp (castrum) appears as an obvious inspiration for such plans, with parallel paths running from gate to gate and the commander’s headquarters and an assembly area at the central intersection (Figure 1.22). The reality may be the other way around. Grid cities had long existed in

southern Italy and Sicily (as well as further east); in the second century bce the Greek historian Polybius described the Roman castrum, “the way in which the streets are laid out and its general arrangement give it the appearance of a town” (6.31). In some instances (as in Ostia), permanent camps evolved into cities. The chicken-or-egg debates about which came first, the gridded military camp or the gridded city deflect attention from other factors. The Etruscans and Romans displayed a cultural predilection for orthogonal spatial divisions as seen in the dividing of ritual space into four quadrants. Furthermore, such configurations were easy to lay out, easy to measure and easy to manage. Soldiers could follow the same mental map regardless of camp assignments. At cities, grids facilitated taxation and provided a sense of equality and orderliness as settlers received rural and city plots roughly equal in size. Such plans were also associated with concepts of modernity and progress, no small concern for any society. Human occupation frequently eroded these advantages. The worth of a specific urban plot rose or fell in relation to various factors, including its proximity to subsequent urban amenities. Residents reacted to the rigidity of grids, blocking, or building

figure 1.21 Walls and gate of Falerii Novi; Croberto68 via Wikimedia.

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B A figure 1.22 Plan diagram of a Roman military camp (castrum); rendered by Diane Favro.

over streets to promote neighborhood cohesion as documented in Pompeii. When fortunes changed over time, one property owner might buy up his less fortunate neighbor’s lot to expand his household. The Roman cities and colonies of Italy were numerous and diverse. Below is a sampling chosen to exemplify various approaches to planning, a range of site conditions, and other significant design issues. We conclude the survey with a more detailed treatment of that most famous and well-preserved of Roman cities, Pompeii. G AB I I

The Latin town of Gabii, 18 kilometers east of Rome, was a prospering center before the days of the Roman kings, renowned for its cult to Juno worshipped in a sacred grove. It was located directly on Via Praeneste, on the southeastern slopes of an extinct volcanic lake, the Lacus Gabinus (later Lago di Castiglione), drained probably already in antiquity to provide fertile agricultural land. Gabii had excellent relations with Rome from archaic times onward, thrived through the fourth and second centuries bce, but was already in decline by the Augustan period. In the mid-second century bce, residents erected a theater-temple complex to Juno similar to those throughout Latium, with a central

podium temple of locally-quarried stone (lapis Gabinus, a gray tufa much prized in antiquity for its alleged resistance to fire), facing a semicircular staircase, or theater, for spectators attending ritual events (see Figure 2.20). Porticos fronting shops framed the temple on three sides, with a paved space punctuated with trees in regular rows of planters. Work by Nicola Terrenato and a team from the University of Michigan has recently utilized magnetometry to identify a comprehensive orthogonal plan at Gabii, skewed to follow the main street curving along the volcano’s edge. Although not yet securely dated, this regular plan configuration is rare outside of military camps, colonies, and urban extensions, though smaller-scaled early traces of regular planning have been identified at Veii, Doganella, Capua, Ardea, and Pompeii. The Gabii team recently uncovered evidence of an enormous terrace complex dominating the view on the volcanic slopes at Gabii dated to circa 300–250 bce. With retaining walls in gigantic ashlar blocks on the southeast and three levels connected by staircases cut into the rock, the complex covers half the area of a football field (60 x 35 m). The middle terrace invites a close comparison to a domus with large and small rooms and alae, arranged in quasi-symmetrical fashion around two atrium-like courtyards. The walls are in ashlar covered in painted plaster, the floors in tufa slabs and 35

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity decorative cocciopesto. The existence of a hydraulic system and a simple hypocaust connected to a praefurnium (furnace) indicates the possibility of a bath suite whose dramatically early date invites significant comparison to the first phase of the baths at Fregellae, a site some 80 kilometers southeast of Gabii, at the southern edge of Latium (see later in this chapter). Noting the close similarity of the plan to a monumental domus, the excavators have aptly interpreted this complex as a public building with political and ritual functions, perhaps, a domus publica, commonly known to be the official residence of a head priest. The hypothesis is strengthened by the nature of the upper terrace, an impressive platform bounded by polygonal masonry walls and reached by a monumental staircase. Opening to a broad and optimal field of vision, this could have a platform for augury, or an auguraculum. We agree with the Gabii team that this new discovery “represents one of the very few examples of (monumental) public architecture other than temples and fortifications known from the midRepublican period, and sheds important light on the development of Latin cities in the crucial period between (the fourth and the beginning of the second century)” (Johnston and Gallone 2015, 275). As in the acropolis walls of Alatri, the structure’s ambitious size and monumental construction counter the characterization of mid-Republican architecture as unassuming. O ST I A

Rome created an early gridded castrum close to home to protect access to the sea and the coastal salt beds near the mouth (ostium in Latin) of the Tiber River. Known today as Ostia Antica, the camp stood a mere 25 kilometers from Rome, on flat land easily reached by river barges and a highway, the Via Ostiensis, which ran through the center of the new plan (Figure 1.23, top). Given its military and commercial importance, the Ostians were considered citizens of Rome until the first century bce. The Romans devised a venerable history for the site, associating Ostia’s founding with a semi-legendary king of the seventh century bce. The archaeological evidence, however, supports a date three centuries later, in the middle of the fourth century bce. After the sack of the Gauls and coastal sorties by pirates, Rome created a series of maritime colonies. Approximately three hundred citizen colonists settled in Ostia’s rectangular garrison (c. 194  126 m), surrounded by a strong ashlar wall of tufa blocks (opus quadratum). Two main streets ran gate to gate, dividing the castrum into four quadrants, with parallel smaller streets. Subsequent development and a major reworking in the Imperial period (second century ce) obliterated most Republican architecture. There are 36

traces of atrium houses built of timber and mud-brick, probably occupied by the resident elite, most of whom were active also in the nearby capital city. From the beginning, Ostia thrived. In the second century bce, the city’s role as naval base for the Roman navy ensured development as well as a special standing. Possibly during this time the area near the intersection of the cardo and decumanus began to be developed as a civic forum (Figure 1.24). There rose an early version of a temple to the three supreme gods: Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. Emulating the cult, if not necessarily form, of the great temple to this triad atop the Capitoline Hill in Rome, such temples were dubbed Capitolia, and usually were distinctly Italic in layout, with three cellas, a deep pronaos, and broad frontal stair to climb up the podium. These shrines became hallmarks of Roman cities, standing frequently at high points commanding broad urban views. At the flat site of Ostia, the Capitolium of the Republic may have had an extra high podium (as it did when rebuilt under the emperor Hadrian with brick-faced concrete). After the conquest of North Africa in the mid-second century bce, Ostia gained further wealth as the entry point for grain to feed the hungry masses of Rome. By this time the city had long outgrown the walled castrum. The decumanus split at a fork right after the west gate of the old city; urban buildings lined this and other roads leading to Ostia (Figures 1.23 bottom). Such ad hoc development clearly indicates the Romans did not plan for future expansion of the urban grid. The local aristocracy dedicated significant buildings, including temples, along the main roads branching out in different directions. For example, an Italic-style stone temple to Hercules stood on the oblique Via della Foce moving west from the original camp; an ensemble of four small, wood and mud-brick temples fronted a plaza with porticos parallel to the Via Ostiensis. Land flanking the most important transportation route, the river, was made public and closely regulated. Responding to a series of attacks and plundering, the Ostians erected a much larger wall around the city, encompassing an area almost thirty times larger than the original settlement. Built of concrete faced with opus incertum, the wall had impressive towers and gatehouses at the three main entries; the edge along the river was not walled, though the large warehouses fronting the river may have provided a partial barrier to attack. Within Ostia’s large new circuit of fortifications, distinct neighborhoods evolved. Wealthy residents chose houses in the southwest region facing the sea, while those of less means gathered in the unorganized zone to the southeast (for Ostia’s remarkable development during the Imperial period and its well-preserved public buildings and high-rise housing, see later).

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One hundred and forty kilometers north of the capital city, the Romans established the Latin colony of Cosa 38

in 273 bce, possibly on land confiscated from the Etruscans (Figure 1.25). Approximately 300 settlers and their families settled on the site, a promontory 113 meters above the sea. A few decades later, the Via

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Aurelia connected the new city with Rome, offering the possibility of trade to the north by land as well as sea. The Punic wars stalled development. Despite the assignment of one thousand additional settlers in 197 bce, Cosa did not flourish (Livy 33.24). Residents on the hilltop site struggled to keep the city alive. Pirates sacked the city around 60 bce. Resettlement in the Augustan period and the building of large neighboring villas such as that at Settefinestre (see later) might have slowed the process down, still the “intermittent city” languished and was abandoned by the third century ce. Although not a successful colony, its well-preserved state and documentation by American archaeologists have accorded Cosa a dominant position in Roman architecture. With its circuit walls and gates, blocks of houses, early bath, and small forum accommodating a basilica, comitium, curia, temples and arch – all dominated by a sacred hill or citadel (the Arx) with Italicstyle temples – Cosa is a textbook example of a modest, but well thought-out Roman town. Excavator Frank Brown used the site to effectively portray how ritual and functional concerns interwove to make a Roman city (Brown 1980). He described the foundation ceremonies, with the mundus pit dug on Cosa’s southern citadel, and ritual plowing to define the urban

edges. Impressive stone walls enclosed an urban area of 13.25 hectares, with three main gates providing access. The polygonal stone masonry emulated construction at other central Italian sites, while the addition of strengthening with interval towers attached to the outer face indicated awareness of Hellenistic military architecture. The wall circuit exploited the hilly terrain for maximum protection. Within, a grid street plan appears arbitrarily applied to the irregular terrain; on closer inspection it reveals subtle adjustments to the landforms. Designers placed the religious focus on the eastern outcrop and the Forum on the relatively flat area in the saddle between three heights, a multicentered urbanism that pervaded early Italy. After the resettlement of Cosa in the second century bce, an estimated 248 houses began to fill in the network of streets, with plot sizes allocated according to the occupants’ status. In the early days of the colony, boundary stones defined the future streets and Forum. The civic center of Cosa lay at the junction of the main street from the northern gate and the broader processional way lead up to the Arx. A large cistern at the Forum provided settlers with water as they struggled to create a city. Two generations passed before the civic center gained 39

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity formal definition (see Figure 7.1). Gradually architectural interventions defined the rectangular forum. A large, tripartite commemorative arch of faced concrete marked the entry to this civic space (c. 170 bce), one of the earliest Roman uses of this building form along with those at Pisaurum, Potentia, and Fundi. The regularized shape of the forum may have responded to the rough configuration of the Forum Romanum in Rome, as well as to the specific spatial needs of gladiatorial events and other public events. Holes found in the open central space imply that temporary barriers may have delimited areas for communal gatherings (including voting) in the period before the construction of permanent facilities. The Comitium seems to have been circular, like those at Alba Fucens and Paestum (see later). This stepped, open-air assembly space could accommodate approximately six hundred people. Behind rose the Curia for meetings of the municipal leaders. Surprisingly, the architects used polygonal masonry for the foundations of this hall, rather than more economical mortared rubble. The CuriaComitium configuration brings to mind Italian sanctuaries with curved stepped seating fronting a rectangular structure as found at Tivoli and Gabii (see later). By the second century bce, the forum at Cosa boasted a modest basilica with tribunal, temple, porticos, tree planters, and paving (see Figure 7.1). The basilica at Cosa, a good, early example of this type of Roman building, was one of the last additions to the forum (c. 150–120 bce), fitting into the unoccupied northwest corner. A short rectangle (c. 40 by 16.5 m) which opened into the forum along its full sixcolumn frontage, the design was “simplicity itself”: an internal colonnade (6 by 4 columns carrying tufa Ionic capitals) defined a tall central “nave” lighted by a clerestory surrounded by a flat-roofed ambulatory. The roof of the nave was carried by wooden trusses spanning circa 15 meters and rising to a height of circa 10–12 meters. The back wall was articulated by a small, rectangular exedra, or alcove, which would be used, as Vitruvius tells us, as a tribunal. The form, location, and structure bespoke of stark functionality, yet stepping over the two-steps that separated the building from the forum space, the citizens of Cosa were embraced by an expanse of generously proportioned, well-lighted hall under what could be seen in the context of this modest colony to be a daring roof. It is likely that the Cosa basilica, in its Vitruvian typology, was a “standard” recommended by a central planning office in Rome, as can be seen by another late Republican basilica of comparable type at Herdonia (see Figure 7.10). The colony’s elite resided in houses flanking the three sides of the Forum, providing city dwellers with visible representatives of civic order. The Forum 40

houses were almost twice the size of other domus excavated at the site. Best studied is the large House of Diana (18  25 m), which had an atrium with a pool over a cistern, rear kitchen garden, small bath, and two large shops facing outward, a form comparable to the contemporary House of Sallust in Pompeii (see later). Based on an analysis of Greek colonial precedents, as well as the houses in the colonial settlements of Fregellae, Alba Fucens, and Paestum, Jamie Sewell suggests that the Romans utilized standardized house designs to minimize the economic and social challenges of new settlements. Climbing westward from the Forum, city dwellers entered a fortified religious enclosure, the Arx, dominating the site and commanding the spectacular view of the shoreline toward both north and south (Figures 2.4 and 2.5). Recent reassessment of the archaeological data indicates early settlers erected a temple on the site in an Etrusco-Italic style with terracotta ornament and a square plan. Residents in the second century bce replaced it with a grander structure. Rectangular in plan, with a deep porch, three cellas, the new temple was a Capitolium modeled after the great sixth century bce temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva on the Capitoline Hill in Rome (see Figures 2.1 and 2.2). While Capitolia are found in numerous Italian cities, this example is the only one in a Latin colony, perhaps indicating an attempt by the Cosans to underscore their loyalty and identification with Rome during the lengthy Punic wars. Excavations by Elizabeth Fentress have identified another Republican shrine (Temple E) on the city’s eastern promontory. The building was consciously archaizing, with a platform of large irregular blocks similar to those used in the city walls. A smaller temple to the north, possible dedicated to Mater Matuta, dates slightly earlier. While there is scant evidence for other religious buildings within the city wall, a temple to a sea god stood down by the water. Also along the coast were a lagoon, spring, natural harbor, and extensive fisheries, all sources of revenue. The Romans exploited these assets, cultivating fish, making amphora and garum (a food paste made of fermented fish guts), and transporting agricultural goods, most notably wine. Along with other coastal and riverine settlements, Cosans developed the separate port facilities in the late third to early second century bce, constructing breakwaters and piers of pozzolana - lime concrete that set underwater – whose excavations and investigations in the 1960s and 1970s by a team lead by Margaret McAnn was one of the high points of early underwater archaeology. Over time, the Cosans widened a natural crevice to regulate water entering the lagoon and developed an ingenious bucket-chain wheel system to raise spring water. Despite the growing dominance of

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire Ostia and the ravages of pirates and storms in the first century bce, Cosa’s port endured, serving a large villa complex. Ostia and Cosa display features that came to characterize Roman planned cities. In addition to being directly connected to the Roman highway system radiating outward from Rome, each colony had an orthogonal urban layout, prominently placed Capitolium, and forum. This rectangular civic space lay at the crossing of major streets flanked by the structures associated with urban life: the Curia, Comitium, basilica, and portico. Given the Roman centralization of power and influence at the capital city, it is tempting to see these urban forms as generated in the capital and distributed throughout Italy. For example, after examining the pairing of a circular Comitium and Curia at Cosa, Fregellae, and other Latin colonies, some scholars argued the combination originated in Rome, reconstructing a similar configuration in the Forum Romanum even though the remains there are fragmentary and not securely dated. In recent years, close readings of the archaeological evidence indicate that the lines of

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architectural influence were multidirectional, and occurred across Italy, with similar configurations found throughout the peninsula, including at Etruscan and Greek sites. In the mid-Republic, Rome was a prominent participant in the evolution of broad Italic trends in architecture, not an omnipotent generator of models. Rather than export specific building forms, the state fostered commonality of designs by establishing a robust communication infrastructure and promoting a shared governmental structure and way of life that resulted in similar urban physical features and configurations. At the same time, local developments exploited rich cultural exchanges to compete, and even outdo, the capital in architectural inventiveness. F R E GE L L AE

Fregellae stands as a model of a more advanced and prosperous inland Latin colony directly on the Via Latina, circa 95 kilometers southeast of Rome (Figure 1.26). Following the destruction of the earlier settlement by the Samnites, the Romans established a

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity colony of citizens in 328 bce, an incendiary act that precipitated the Second Samnite War (the Samnite Wars were a string of battles from 348 to 290 bce between the Roman Republic and the Samnite tribes powerful in the Apennine Mountains and Campagna, which ended with Rome’s domination of the entire Italian peninsula from the Po River in the north to Magna Graecia in the south). Throughout the numerous conflicts of this war in the early third century bce, Fregellae’s residents remained fiercely loyal to Rome. The site lay in the lush valley of the Liris River close to the venerated shrine of Jupiter Latiaris in the Alban Hills and the temple to the all-important healing god Asclepius on the slopes directly above the city. Its critical location promoted interaction with the diverse cultures occupying this part of Italy. As a leading and prosperous city center, Fregellae attracted immigrants from several regions. Livy recorded that in a single year (177 bce) 4000 families of Samnites and Peligni relocated there (Livy 41.8.8). After a revolt over citizenship rights broke out in 125 bce, the Romans reacted harshly in an attempt to prevent a general uprising among the Italian Allies. They razed the city and relocated citizens to Rome and allowed other survivors to rebuild nearby at the docking area on the river. The walls of Fregellae enclosed an area of approximately 80 hectares, which was bisected by a major road (or Cardo Maximus) identified as the Via Latina. The north-south highway passed directly through the long axis of the rectangular Forum (144  55 m), an arrangement that must have presented unresolved traffic issues, although similar arrangements of a Roman town or forum bisected by a major road occur elsewhere (see Philippi, later in this book). Excavations begun in the 1970s (not yet fully published), uncovered double rows of pits or post holes along the short sides of the forum. Lead excavator Filippo Coarelli postulates these were used to divide the space for voting in the same way as occurred at Rome. At the Forum’s northeastern corner are a circular Comitium conjoined with a rectangular Curia (senate house) with rooms along the east and west sides, with a surrounding U-shaped portico. These features are now re-buried. Excavated streets indicate the city had an orthogonal layout, with blocks about 67 meters in width. Along the street east of the Comitium excavators have carefully preserved a series of houses displaying the canonical plan type and axial configuration of the typical Republican domus. Traces of an aqueduct along the street affirm the availability of water, negating any need for tanks under the pools in the atria. The

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Fregellan houses provide invaluable information about Republican architecture. One domus displays an inventive decorative scheme merging the style and typology of a narrative frieze familiar from Greek examples, with historical Roman military subject matter – a painted terracotta frieze at eye level documenting the victorious efforts of Fregellan troops in Eastern campaigns (early second century bce; Figure 1.27). The residences also reveal experimentation with various building techniques, including compressed clay (pisé) walls resting on tiles. At Domus 7 it is possible to trace occupation throughout the city’s two-hundred-year lifespan, documenting gradual expansion until the last phase, when the structure underwent a radical change to accommodate repurposing as a fullonica (fullery or wool processor), perhaps in response to the immigration of Italic peoples involved with wool production. Nestled between houses is a spectacular bath complex, perhaps the most important and advanced architectural feature of the city (Figure 1.28). Dated from the late third to early second century bce, the baths at Fregellae are among the earliest known in Italy. Despite the early date, the complex is fully formed, with all the major components of a Roman bath in full operation. The plan follows what was later called the “Pompeian” row type (although the Fregellae baths are earlier!) with the major spaces and functions well differentiated. A central furnace heated water for bathing, as well as heated air to circulate under floors raised on proper hypocausts and through clay pipes in the walls. Even the vaulted roof of the caldarium was heated by a system of hanging terracotta tiles similar to the system described by Vitruvius. The building has two isolated sections (one larger, one smaller) indicating the separation of users, probably by gender. These baths predate known examples at Rome and even Campania, underscoring that the dynamism of Italian cities during the Republic was not simply attributable to the Greek dominated Campania or to the Naples region. Drawing on the rich influences of Latium, Samnium, Campania, and Magna Graecia, Fregellae appears to have been a resourceful provincial center, in some respects even more advanced than the famously conservative capital city. P A E S T UM

In the wars between Greeks and Romans in the third century bce, Greek Poseidonia south of Naples chose the wrong side. The victorious Romans claimed the city, renaming it Paestum and imposing a colonial settlement in 273 bce. In contrast to Cosa, born the same year, Paestum had a long history. Founded as a Greek colony three centuries earlier, it was conquered by the

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire

figure 1.27 Detail of interior wall decoration with terracotta reliefs, Domus 2 at Fregellae; rendered by Diane Favro.

Lucanians in the late fifth century bce. Arriving at this well-established city with its grid plan and three grand Doric temples, the Romans colonists pragmatically chose to insinuate themselves within the existing urban framework rather than undertake a traumatic reworking (Figure 1.29). They first repaired the city walls and then began to add Roman components acculturated to the local traditions, as evident in the construction of atrium houses and laying out of a forum (Figure 1. 30). The Romans imposed a prominent Italic temple (possibly to Bona Mens) on one side of the existing civic center, possibly to Bona Mens. The structure had an Italic plan with three cellas, a high podium, and deep porch. At the same time, this building boasted a Greek-influenced superstructure including a Doric entablature and

unorthodox capitals with female heads. Adjacent stood a circular stepped Comitium dated to the early years of Roman occupation. In contrast to examples in northern Republican cities, the round assembly area lay before a long building with several rooms, rather than a more identifiable senate house placed on center. The overall conceptualization of Paestum’s Forum recalls Hellenistic market places rather than Roman fora. Designers situated the buildings without regard for symmetry or the primary axes. Small post holes surrounded the entire central forum, perhaps once used to support awnings or to segregate voting groups. The addition of a portico composed of reused Doric columns, unified the large space (57  150 m) and masked the more Greek-style structures such as the gymnasium.

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Wherever highways went, architectural and urban ideas followed. After defeating an Italic alliance of tribes (led by the local Aequi) in 303 bce, Rome settled six thousand colonists at Alba Fucens (Fucentina) in the height of the Appenine Mountains in central Italy. At the crossing of major roads leading to the Adriatic and Campania, as well as the Fucine Lake, the city commanded a strategic location and 44

dominated the surrounding mountainous territory. The high position (1000 m) and relative proximity to Rome (100 kilometers) made Alba Fucens a preferred detention center for important state prisoners and other detainees. Like Cosa, the site encompassed three hills. Around the city rose massive walls and beyond them the high mountain peaks that protected as well as contained the occupants (Figure 1.31). The Romans expanded and strengthened the city’s fortifications (Figure 1.32). The well-preserved walls, originally from

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity the mid-third century bce but modified later, follow a circuit of circa 3 kilometers built of polygonal masonry and concrete faced with opus incertum. A faithful supporter of the state during the Samnite and Social Wars, Alba Fucens reaped the benefits. The city continued to flourish in the first century bce even after opposing Sulla who in response gave surrounding land to his veterans. The grid plan of Alba Fucens predated Roman occupation. During the boom years of the late second and early first centuries bce, the Romans refined and enhanced the orthogonal layout. They developed several long rectangular blocks as the city’s civic center, combining structures for governing, worship, and commerce, with baths and an adjacent theater for leisure. A large forum (142  43.5 m) spread southward from the Comitium, possibly first defined by the early colonists (Figure 1.33). Porticos probably flanked the stepped circular assembly area inscribed in a square stone base (20 m); no traces of an adjoining Curia building remain. At the opposite end of the forum rose a basilica begun in the late second century bce. The wide façade fronted a porticoed platform with regularly aligned pits, probably for

planting. The plan was geometrically precise, with the nave measuring twice the width twice of the aisles, and half that of the entire structure. The basilica’s wider central intercolumniation reinforced the alignment with the forum. Directly behind this large meeting hall was a market structure with a central, circular open space. Four of the market’s rooms impinged on the basilica; these have been identified as either a later commercial expansion or as storerooms created in the substructures or the basement of the basilica’s tribunal. Southeast of the market a small, early Temple to Hercules could not be enlarged due to religious restrictions. To compensate, Roman architects created a large fronting quadriporticus (35  75 m) with double rows of columns. Conceptually (if not literally) the long colonnaded space reinforced the dominant axis running from the Comitium, across the forum, through the basilica and market building to the temple complex, a configuration that presages the designs of later Imperial fora. On the south edge of the city, an elliptical amphitheater was created in the first century bce, pragmatically nestled into a natural slope. Along with the amphitheater of Pompeii (see later), it provides a good, simple, and early example of

figure 1.31 General view of Alba Fucens looking northeast; CaesarGJ via Wikimedia.

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Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire this basic Roman building type set in an impressive natural setting. P OM P E II

In the Last Days of Pompeii (1834), Edward BulwerLytton’s popular Victorian novel, now hardly read, the suspenseful story is set against the historic and quasi-mythic background of the doomed Campanian city. Ione, the Greek girlfriend of Glaukus, an Athenian nobleman, is admired by all for her charming ways which could magically transfer this “trite and commonplace earth” into a beautiful place – the “trite and commonplace earth” implying, presumably, the commercial setting of pre-eruption Roman Pompeii filled with newly-rich shopkeepers where Ione and Glaukus lived. When the couple miraculously escapes the sudden devastation of the town by Vesuvius, they settle, not in Rome but in magical Athens, their happy turn symbolizing the civilized superiority of Greece over Rome. While BulwerLytton had shaped his story to court and to confirm the pro-Hellenic prejudices of his Victorian audience, the belief in the presence of an all-pervading and superior Greek culture in Hellenized Campania and Pompeii romantically echoes down to our day. Yet this popular vision is now being transformed in large and small ways by the archaeological work of the last two or three decades. Pompeii holds a special place in Roman studies because of its sudden and tragic devastation when Mount Vesuvius erupted on 24 August 79 bce, burying the town and the region around it in thick layers of volcanic ash and pumice 3–5 meters deep, and in the case of Herculaneum, a city close on the southwest slopes of the mountain, in volcanic mud down to 15–18 meters. Discovery and excavation which started in the mid-eighteenth century were at first little more than a glorified form of treasure hunt mainly to benefit the art collections of the Bourbon kings of Naples (and plain looting for everyone else) until the systematic and scientific excavations started in 1860 by the brilliant Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli. Work continued in the twentieth century by his capable countrymen V. Spinazzola (1910–1923) and Amadeo Maiuri (1923–1963). What was unique, immensely exciting, and tragic was the early discovery of life interrupted on its tracks by the eruption – people and animals trapped in volcanic debris – not the usual partial and piecemeal destruction and displacement of the material context achieved over time. Generations of archaeologists and art historians have been at work sifting through, recording, evaluating, and conserving the tens of thousands of artifacts,

sculpture, and acres of wall paintings which appeared to be preserved almost intact in their architectural settings. The popularly imagined picture is not wholly correct. In what actually happened a very large portion of the population was able to escape, taking with them whatever they could carry and trying to hide the rest. Soon after the city was destroyed and for decades to come, legitimate owners of properties as well as ordinary looters returned, and dug through the buried city, opening tunnels, crudely cutting through walls and removing whatever they could. Thus, quite contrary to appearances, Pompeii is hardly a city whose remains present us with undisturbed archaeological layers and contexts. Furthermore, the city had suffered an earlier major earthquake in 62 ce, which left almost all of it in ruins. Many of the damaged buildings were still under repair and reconstruction seventeen years after the quake when the city was terminally struck. This partially explains why the recent, heroic surveys of tens of thousands of objects from dozens of houses and hundreds of rooms (now mostly in museum basements) with the goal of better illuminating the nature of domestic and public space have largely been somewhat inconclusive because what was left or stored did not necessarily belong to the space in which it was discovered. A loom in the atrium might mean that this important space of the house was at least partly women’s domain, or that the loom had been dragged there during the last, untidy reconstruction of the house. Still, these methodical explorations have been invaluable in giving us a sense of architectural contexts, as well as social and gender uses. We realize that contrary common expectations, there was a great deal of flexibility and practicality in the use of domestic space in Pompeii; spaces altered their function easily according to the season, the time of the day, and the need of the moment. Thus, unlike a Greek house (or a Victorian, or an Islamic one) where privacy and gender separation was paramount, the Roman atrium house allowed men and women (and often the slaves, too) to occupy and use the same rooms with remarkable ease. As pointed out by L. Nevett, short-term and long-term activities designed for major spaces often overlapped as the practical and messy needs of daily life trumped hard definitions of grand architectural scenarios (Nevett 2010, 116–118). Pompeii’s excellent location on the southern coast of the Bay of Naples, on a high spur of land overlooking the mouth of the Sarno River, connected by coastal and inland routes to Naples, Stabiae and other Campanian cities, largely explains its success as a regional commercial center (Figure 1.34). Evidence 49

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figure 1.34 Plan, Bay of Naples; rendered by Michael Rocchio and Diane Favro.

of agrarian communities on the lava hill reaches back to the seventh and sixth centuries bce. These were indigenous Samnite/Oscan tribes. However, contrary to earlier beliefs, recent investigations indicate no densely built, Hellenized Samnite town occupying the southwest quadrant of the present day Pompeii during the sixth and fifth centuries (Figure 1.35). The Hellenized Altstadt (Old Town) theory is largely a myth. In the words of an Italian scholar who conducted some of the cutting-edge research on the city, archaic Pompeii was “still a settlement with wide open, undeveloped spaces with occasional wooden structures and some soft lava masonry buildings” (Carafa 1997, 28). There were two monumental exceptions to this bucolic picture of archaic Pompeii: the Temple of Apollo, a large peripheral temple of the Greek type next to the market place (later forum); and the Doric temple (c. 530 bce) located southeast of the settlement on a separate high, narrow terrace, which was later called the Triangular Forum, really a sanctuary (Figure 1.36). Only the fine tufa capitals of the latter remain. The Doric temple, probably originally dedicated to Athena/Minerva and Hercules, might have been a wood and terracotta structure elevated on a podium like many central Italic temples of that period. A wooden fence and ditches surrounded the open space around the temple. After several rebuildings, the temple was redecorated in the second century bce; the area around it was furbished by altars and a colonnaded tholos sheltering a well. The elegant Doric peristyle of the sanctuary and the monumental Ionic colonnade 50

and entrance porch are the works of the Julio-Claudian period (Figure 1.37). SAMNITE PERIOD

The next long stage in Pompeii’s urban history roughly covering the period from the fourth through the second centuries bce is also one that stamped the city with a distinct architectural color and character. But, oddly, it is also the most vague, with open questions about the chronology, development, and interpretation of its architecture. Traditionally referred to as the Samnite Period, (and vaguely paralleled by wars between the Republic and the Samnite tribes for the control of central Italy; see earlier), it is represented by important but incremental changes in the shaping of the city and its public image, rather than by distinct architectural advances propelled by grand notions of Greek city planning. The crucial creation of the street grid for the whole of the city, a more orderly development of the crude and irregular pattern that was restricted to its southwestern quadrant, happened through the late third and second centuries bce. This was also the period when the new grid was gradually filled with houses (see Figure 1.35). Many residences faced the street with shops, restaurants and the ubiquitous Pompeian thermopolia (bars or fast-food stores with open marble counters for snacks and drinks); some were connected to a pleasant back garden or an inn for the convenience of travelers. Public fountains flanking, or in, the streets provided cool water

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figure 1.35 Plan of Pompeii; rendered by Michael Rocchio.

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Villa of the Mysteries Villa of Diomedes House of Sallust Forum Baths Temple of Fortuna Augusta Forum House of the Faun House of the Golden Cupids Central Baths Stabian Baths Triangular forum Large Theater Sanctuary of Isis House of Menander House of Loreius Tiburtinus Palaestra Amphitheater

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figure 1.36 Plan of Triangular Forum (“Doric Temple”), Samnite Palaestra and the theater quarter, Pompeii; rendered by Güzden Varinliog˘ lu, Diane Favro.

(Figure 1.38). The city’s irregular circuit of defense walls and gates in fine tufa and limestone ashlar were constructed during this period. However, even at the end of the city’s life in 79 ce the area within the walls had not been quite filled, leaving plots of land undeveloped, or kept as vegetable gardens. Some of the largest and wealthiest residences, such as the House of the Faun and the House of Pansa, are located in the new, regularly laid out 52

neighborhood north of the “old settlement” (southwest quadrant). These large tufa houses with their lofty atriums in the old, austere Tuscan style and strong axial layouts duly impress (Figure 1.39). The sober elegance of their street facades, imposing doorways, lightened by finely-cut, discreet ornamentation bear witness to Pompeii’s deep roots in its indigenous Samnite/Oscan past (Figure 1.40; see Figure 5.8). Despite a superficial resemblance of the larger houses

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire

figure 1.37 View of the Ionic porch of the Triangular Forum, Pompeii; photo by Wilhelm von Plüschow (c. 1895) via Wikimedia.

with sumptuous peristyles to the Hellenistic residences and palaces of eastern Mediterranean, there is really little that is Greek about their architecture. Yet, the Samnite elite who spoke Oscan at home, and preferred slap-stick Oscan comedies to Greek drama in their newly arrived Greek-style theater, were perfectly aware of the sheen and glitter of the Greek

language and culture that spread weakly over Campania, and when convenient, cultivated it. In some way they must have felt that their subscription into this distant but more advanced culture of the plains pulled them away from the lifestyle of their proud and rough mountain ancestors. Copies of Greek sculpture and paintings inspired by Greek subjects 53

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 1.38 Typical street view, Pompeii; Photo by Diane Favro.

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Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire

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figure 1.39 Plans of the House of the Faun (VI.12); House of Pansa (VI.6.1); House of the Labyrinth at Pompeii (VI.11.10); rendered by Diane Favro.

filled their houses and mirrored their desire to adopt and display this socially prestigious, but imported, culture. This prominent artistic taste might be judged in some cases as superficially acquired, but one has to be exceptionally cynical to think that such widespread exposure to the refinements of Greek culture, borrowed or not, would not have created some genuine appreciation and a genuine desire to emulate it – and for some, perhaps, even a genuine understanding of it. How can one otherwise explain the creation of a major masterpiece like the “Alexander Mosaic” (“Battle of Issus”) which occupied its own shrine-like chamber in the House of the Faun? Or the so-called Samnite Palaestra tucked behind the Large Theater and the Triangular Forum (see Figure 1.36), whose modest outlay (its running track, arranged as a simple xystus, was probably laid under the east colonnade of the latter) belies its importance as the quintessential Greek educational institution frequented by the town’s privileged youth?

Another favorite haunt of the youth and their parents would have been the newly constructed theater (c. 100 bce) mentioned earlier (see Figures 1.35 and 1.41, Plate 1B). This structure was situated at the southwest end of the town, next to the Doric Temple, on the natural slope down toward the Sarno River. A couple of generations earlier than any permanent theater in Rome (the earliest was the Theater of Pompey, c. 55 bce), the design followed the Greek type, with the great semicircular seating (cavea or auditorium) separated from the small, free-standing stage building (scaena). The connection of the cavea with the stage by a vaulted passage and the expansion of the upper cavea seating belong to the Augustan period. The large colonnaded courtyard behind the stage with its seventy-four Doric columns in tufa might have been added soon after the theater was completed and could have served to protect the spectators “when sudden rain interrupts the play” as Vitruvius usefully recommended (5.9.1) (see

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figure 1.40 Reconstruction of a typical street view of Pompeii in the Samnite period; Hugo Horn (1938).

Figures 1.36 and 1.42). But that is a lot of colonnade for a relatively low-use building, and sudden showers are not that often in the region. Its primary use could have been, as Matteo della Corte once suggested, a special gymnasium for the town’s elite, Hellenized youth (later organized as the Juventus under Augustus). Some later time in its life this ample facility appears to have been given over (perhaps partially) for the training and use of gladiators as suggested by the discovery of copious gladiatorial combat gear found in its premises. While there is much work waiting to be done in the field (not to speak of in the notebooks and store rooms of old excavations), all indicators point to the second century bce as the period when the urban development of Pompeii took a distinct and sometimes monumental form – and continued through the decades when Pompeii became a Roman colony and was eventually folded into the empire. Nowhere is the record of this civic, institutional and architectural advancement more cogently expressed than in the

56

forum of Pompeii, the focus of its public life and public ambitions (Figure 1.43). L. Ball and J. J. Dobbins, who have been conducting an intense study of the forum since 1997 (“Pompeii Forum Project”) recommend caution: even in the second century bce the architectural outlook of the forum was “relatively slight” and there was no built up urban center (Ball and Dobbins 2013, 464). At the end of the second century, the oblong forum clearing was neither paved nor its boundaries firmed up by colonnades (thus still keeping its one-time “village green” memory). However, the enclosure wall of the precinct of Apollo (which had replaced the old archaic temple) defined its western side, and its eastern side retained the alignment of a row of shops (tabernae) and atrium houses. If an earlier, Samnite version of the Capitolium (state temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva) existed around 120–100 bce, it disappeared later to make room for the massive structure built during the Sullan period dominating axially the north end of the forum.

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire

figure 1.41, plate 1b View of the Large Theater and palaestra (partial at right) at Pompeii; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

T HE S U L L AN CO L O NY

Pompeii backed the wrong side during the Social Wars of 90–88 bce, when Rome fought its rebellious Italian allies and after some serious setbacks, won; the city was besieged by Roman forces led by the general Sulla and surrendered. No severe punishment ensued except its loss of nominal independence. In 80 bce Pompeii was made a Roman colony with the resounding name Colonia Cornelia Veneria Pompeianorum, echoing both Sulla’s clan name Cornelia, and his alleged link to Venus, the mythic progenitor of Roman people. It was settled by a large contingent of Sulla’s veterans, possibly as many as three to four thousand. Hence started a new period which saw the Samnite town fold into the Republic’s cultural and political life as Latin gradually replaced Oscan and the Roman foot replaced the Oscan foot as the standard of measurement. The old Samnite aristocracy, the owners of the fine tufa houses with grim entrances must have lost some of their social privileges, but not their prosperity. Soon gaining the coveted Roman citizenship, they enjoyed both wealth and even greater privileges. Pompeii, located at the crossroads of sea and land, had always supported

mixed, multi-ethnic communities of traders and merchants and could easily take the rising power of Rome in its stride, adapting to its benefits and burdens. Romanization in Campania, just as Hellenization had been, was a practical and relative concept. Nonetheless, change was in the air and nothing shows this datable, measurable change better than the accelerated pace of establishing new Roman institutions and buildings to house and express them. Foremost in the new order of business was the forum that assumed a formal look with the addition of a three-sided colonnade defining its southern side (“Portico of Popidus” as designated by an inscription in Latin), as well as three administrative offices at its south end and a Comitium for assembly at the southeast corner (Figure 1.44). More ambitious and visible was the building (or, rebuilding) of the Capitolium. Raised on a tall podium whose simple, handsome tufa profile is still impressive; the massive temple with its wide porch and six Corinthian columns properly belongs to the central Italian type. It forcefully dominates the space. Set against the distinctive profile of Mount Vesuvius behind it, the Capitolium defines Pompeii’s forum (see Figure 1.56). Equally distinctive

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 1.42 Detail of palaestra colonnade behind the Large Theater, Pompeii; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire

figure 1.43 Aerial view of the Forum, Pompeii; Map data: Google, DigitalGlobe © 2017.

and ambitious in shaping civic authority and presence was Pompeii’s basilica, probably started very early in the life of the colony if not somewhat before that, circa 120 bce, as earlier scholarship maintains. In either case, it is one of the oldest Roman basilicas built (Figure 1.45). Located at the southwest corner of the forum and entered from its short side by way of a columnar porch, the basilica is a long, rectangular building measuring 68 meters by 26 meters (c. 300  88 RF). The central nave is surrounded by aisles on four sides; monumental columns rise over 10 meters supporting a gallery over the aisles and above a

massive, single roof with no clerestory. The columns and their engaged counterparts on the sidewalls are constructed in specially molded wedge-shaped bricks veneered in white stucco, a practical, old-fashioned touch. There is a two-story high tribunal at the west end displaying a wide, low pediment carried by Corinthian columns rising on a podium. The entrance from the short side with a tribunal at the end of the long axis is atypical in standard Roman basilica design (Vitruvius firmly recommends long side entrances, as his own basilica at Fanum had, and as many early basilicas such as those at Cosa and Alba Fucens 59

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figure 1.44 Plan of Forum in the first century CE, Pompeii; rendered by Diane Favro.

figure 1.45 General view of the Basilica from the forum, Pompeii; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

indicate); however, the narrow frontage available at the Pompeii forum shows how flexible such theoretical rules and recommendations were in their application. The size, design, and details of Pompeii’s basilica reveal a provincial sense of classicism and formalism 60

appropriate for the premier administrative and judicial building of a newly minted “Roman” city, which was probably anxious to take its official duties with selfconscious seriousness. The east side of the forum appears to have been little changed with its motley of

Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire shop fronts hiding the older Samnite houses behind them. An early version of the macellum, market building, without the distinctive central tholos of its later phase, might have occupied the northeast corner of the forum. T HE O D E U M A N D T HE A M P HI T H E A T E R

The Roman presence and taste in the city was established early on by two major projects serving recreational and sportive purposes. The first was an odeum (referred to as the “small theater” or as the theatrum tectum/“covered theater” in the inscription) next to the large theater (see Figures 1.36 and 1.45). Seating some twelve hundred to fifteen hundred spectators, it was mainly used for concerts and music, as well as civic assemblies like a Greek bouleterion. Its traditionally designed curved seats were confined into a box measuring c 30  28 meters; timber trusses made possible the daring span of 26 meters, eliminating the need for internal supports. Concrete was used for vaulted internal passages and for exterior walls with opus incertum facing. The odeum’s fine design and decoration – elegant curved steps terminating the cavea accentuated by telemone figures carved in tufa – indicate its importance as a component of the newly fashioned

entertainment center, a gift to the new colony by two Roman magistrates, Quinctius Valgus and Marcus Porcius (Figure 1.47). By the end of the first century bce, the main theater was enlarged by increasing the seating capacity along the upper cavea and encircling it with a vaulted passage that connected the building with the Triangular Forum and the Samnite Palaestra. These major renovations were paid by Marcus Holconius Rufus, three-times duumvir, the descendent of an old family, which made its fortune as wine merchants; Rufus inscribed his name on a marble seat reserved for him on the desirable sixth row of the theater. Described by its inscription as a spectacula, or a “viewing area,” the amphitheater of Pompeii was another massive entertainment facility dedicated to gladiatorial combat, an activity that would have naturally appealed to the tastes of the newly settled exsoldiers. Its capacity (twenty to twenty-two thousand spectators) far exceeded the town’s needs and was clearly intended to also serve the cities and communities of the whole region. The dedicatory inscription (c. 80–70 bce) identifies the donors as Quinctus Valgus and Marcus Porcius, the two magistrates whose generosity to the odeum has already been mentioned,

figure 1.46 General view of the Odeum, Pompeii; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 1.47 Detail of curved seating, Odeum, Pompeii, viewed from the entrance; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire and emphasizes the distinctive meaning of this gift honoring the colony and its privileged colonists. Pushed to the southeast corner of the city, the amphitheater is an experimental structure and the earliest of its kind in the Roman world (see Figures 1.35, 1.48, and 1.49). The typical activities of an amphitheater, like gladiatorial combat and wild animal shows or hunts (venationes), previously took place at ad hoc locations such as the forum or the circus, which did not offer the best conditions for the games or the spectators. Rome’s first permanent amphitheater dates no earlier than 29 bce. The marginal location of the amphitheater in Pompeii allowed easy access to the crowds coming from the neighboring cities, but also offered the structural advantage of using a section of the city wall for support. Further advantage was gained by sinking part of the amphitheater (c. 138  102 m) into the ground thus resting the lower tiers of seats on natural earth embankments. The cavea is divided into three zones, upper, middle, and lower (summa cavea, media cavea, and

ima cavea, respectively) separated by parapet walls and divided into wedge-shaped sections (cunei) by stairs. The upper portions of the cavea are supported by a concrete peripheral wall 2.2 meters high, strengthened on the outside by shallow barrel vaults. Six exterior stairs, four of them in pairs, provided the direct means of access to the upper level seats (Figure 1.50). In addition, four vaulted tunnels led directly from the exterior to a vaulted interior ring corridor and an open sunken passage between the lowest and middle cavea seats (Figure 1.51). Two of these long tunnels are connected to the major northwest and southeast gates opening into the arena on its long axis. These internal tunnels and the ring tunnel (ambulationes) provide a relatively easy access to most of the middle and lower seats but unlike the amphitheaters of later periods, they do not create a complete and efficient network of circulation. Subterranean facilities for gladiators and wild beasts typical of the fully developed imperial era amphitheater are also absent, not because venationes (animal hunts) had not yet been introduced in

figure 1.48 Aerial view of the amphitheater and Great Palaestra, Pompeii; Google, DigitalGlobe © 2017.

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figure 1.49 General view of interior of the amphitheater, Pompeii, with Vesuvius in the distance; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 1.50 Exterior view of the amphitheater with stairs, Pompeii; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Pompeii at this point in time, but rather because the structural and architectural refinements of the amphitheater had not yet been worked out. In contrast, refinements dealing with social hierarchies had. Assuring the class divisions of spectators, the lowest tier of 64

seats well separated from the rest by an annular sunken corridor and parapet walls, was undoubtedly reserved for magistrates, prominent citizens, and possibly for the veteran colonists; the uppermost seats were for women and slaves. Pompeii’s auditorium and

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figure 1.51 Lower level plan of amphitheater, Pompeii, showing vaulted interior corridors; rendered by Alex Maymind.

its combative and competitive entertainments appear to have been well liked and popular. A fight that erupted during a game in 59 ce between the townsfolk and the visiting Nucerians spilled out well beyond the arena into the Great Palaestra west of the building and became the subject of a well-known painting. Decorating the house of a former gladiator, the spirited depiction presented in partial bird’s-eye view, kindled a sense of immediacy and reality that underscores the crucial importance this institution and building played in the colonial life and culture of the city. P OM P E IA N B A TH S

Pompeii stands at the source and crossroads of another quintessentially Roman recreational (and hygienic) institution – the public baths, or balneae. One of the earliest examples of the type, the Stabian Baths, situated east of the forum at the corner of Via Stabia and Via dell’Abbondanza, began its life in the late fourth century bce with a Greek-style row of hip-baths in unheated dark chambers warmed by braziers and supplied with water from a deep well by buckets (Figures 1.35, 1.52, and 1.53). This setup was replaced in the late second century bce by a larger building with separate men’s and women’s sections heated by a proper hypocaust

(floor raised on small pillars under which hot air and gasses could circulate). This is one of the earliest applications of the superior hypocaust heating system (“floor heating”) although it is preceded by the baths at Fregellae, a Latin colony in Latium, southeast of Rome (Figure 1.28). The latter boasted hypocaustheated floors, a heated pool, and partially heated walls and vaults, and dated from the early part of the second century bce (see earlier). The Stabian Baths were renovated in the Sullan period (c. 80 bce) by the addition of a circular, domed laconicum (sweat chamber), which was later transformed into a frigidarium by adding a circular cold pool in the middle of the chamber. The rudimentary courtyard of the Samnite building was replaced by a proper palaestra encircled by a three-sided colonnade with a large outdoor swimming pool (natatio) on the west side, underscoring the social and sportive importance of exercise as a part of the bathing agenda (Figure 1.54). During the Augustan era, these and all Pompeian baths received running water from the aqueduct that supplied the town. The design of the Stabian Baths with its row of parallel, functionally related and barrel-vaulted rooms (apodyterium-tepidarium-caldarium-frigidarium) satisfies structural efficacy and reflects the proper order or usage in Roman baths, a progression from the unheated to heated areas and return in the reverse 65

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figure 1.52 Plan of the Stabian Baths, Pompeii; rendered by Fikret Yegül (after Eschebach).

figure 1.53 Restored perspective of Stabian Baths, Pompeii; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Eschebach).

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Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire order. This arrangement represents the most common and rational bath plan known as the “single-axis row type;” it is composed of a number of parallel, rectangular, barrel-vaulted spaces placed next to a colonnaded courtyard, or palaestra. Once established in Fregellae and Pompeii, the type and its numerous variants remained popular in the West and the East well into the Byzantine era. Pompeii provides us with several examples of the row-type baths, such as the Forum Baths located north of the forum and dated by an inscription to 80 bce, clearly a bath that responded in some haste to the newly swelling needs of the veterans. Like the Stabian Baths, the Forum Baths has separate men’s and women’s sections with shared heating and water supply services between them. The wide apse of the men’s caldarium housing a labrum (a basin around which the bathers could stand) is probably a later refinement; the windows cut in the barrel vault are awkward and provide scant illumination to dispel the atrabilious atmosphere (Figure 1.55). Even as the last decades of the Republic were drawing to a close, the design and technology of baths were undergoing major changes. Aqueducts supplied copious running water to public baths preferentially. Baths began to use water not only for washing, or functional purpose, but for extravagant displays, featuring pools, fountains, and cascades for visual enjoyment; the most elaborate and luxurious aquatic displays became characteristic of the great Imperial thermae of the later years of the empire (admired by Seneca when he exclaimed: “quantum aquarum per gradus cum fragore labentium!” “What masses of water falling, crashing down in cascades!” Letters 86.7). The Suburban Baths of Pompeii, located just outside the Porta Marina and dated to the beginning of the first century ce, are a good example of the new design: a single set of larger bathing rooms with an indoor swimming pool placed next to a small palaestra. The caldarium features a wide, projecting apse with large windows, confirming the emphasis on well-lighted interiors. The clearest statement of the new, rationally conceived row-type plan is provided by the Central Baths in Pompeii, whose orderly arrangement of parallel vaulted halls next to the palaestra created a unified frontage with a row of windows separated by brick half-columns (Figure 1.56). They were still unfinished at the final destruction of the city. A U G U S T AN AN D J U L I O- C LA U DI AN P OM P E II

In one sense, the Augustan architectural and urbanistic achievements in Pompeii were a natural continuation

of the work started during the Sullan period; both shared the same goals and served the same physical and symbolic needs of the new colony. In another sense, they brought fresh vision and impetus in expanding the ideas and projects that underscored the ideologies of the empire. There is no doubt that the most visible of these developments were centered in the forum. But, let us first consider a few special projects outside of it. One that impacted the life of the whole city was the aqueduct of early Augustan date that brought running water to the growing number of public baths and numerous public fountains distributed across the city. These urban water sources with simple stone basins and carved spigots have become civic icons (see Figure 1.38). The aqueduct was a branch of the larger line serving the fleet at Misenium, the naval harbor at the west end of the Bay of Naples. It entered the city at the Vesuvian Gate where the main collecting tank, castellum aquae, was located. Considering that Rome by that date had five or six major aqueducts (the first was Aqua Appia, 312 bce), one wonders why it took so long for Pompeii to enjoy piped water – and, realize, with a healthy dosage of realism, that despite its growing wealth and fancy houses, Pompeii was at heart a provincial Samnite town and aqueduct supplied water was a privilege, or even a luxury, only sophisticated cities enjoyed. If the Augustan aqueduct served the city’s long overdue water needs, the building of the Temple of Fortuna Augustus at the visible corner of the two main streets north of the forum served the double political goals of pleasing and honoring the state and its new emperor (see Figure 1.35). It was erected early in Augustus’ imperial career (c. 20–10 bce) by Marcus Tullius, a one-time duumvir and a leading citizen, on his own land and with his own money, significantly extending the visibility of the emerging “cult of emperor” from its usual locus in the forum to the streets (Figure 1.57). The temple, raised on a podium supporting four tall Corinthian columns, with a deep porch, wide cella articulated by a shallow apse and side niches for statuary, exploited the typical Italian emphasis on height and frontality, but its lower platform holding the altar and projecting well into the public space like a street stage, is an unusual and effective feature. Even if tight land conditions were responsible for this, the joining of the street with the sanctuary was a good design touch. Although the temple had undergone restorations after the earthquake of 62 ce, the lavish use of white marble and fine ornament, part of the original building, indicate the influence of Rome on early imperial Pompeii. 67

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figure 1.54 View of the palaestra in the Stabian Baths, Pompeii, looking northwest; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 1.55 View of men’s caldarium with labrum; windows cut into the vault and semidome, Forum Baths, Pompeii; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 1.56 Exterior of Central Baths, Pompeii, with windows and half columns; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

T HE E A R L Y I M P E R I A L F O R U M

Starting with the reign of Augustus and continuing into the decades of his Julio-Claudian followers, the forum of Pompeii achieved the appearance of a cohesive and defined civic space by the addition peripheral colonnades (especially the west side in front of the precinct of Apollo) and a fine paving in travertine (see Figures 1.43, 1.44, and 1.58). The sense of imperial presence was enhanced by the placement of commemorative monuments honoring the imperial princes and local heroes in the central area of Pompeii’s Forum, equestrian statues in front of and flanking the steps of the Capitolium, and portrait and sculpture displays inside the porticos as depicted in a wall painting from the house (or paedia) of Julia Felix (Oliveti 2013; Figure 1.59). At the north end of the forum a pair of triumphal arches served as civic gates, giving a sense of formal entrance to the forum and setting off the great temple dramatically. By far the greatest changes in the forum were made on the east side. The cozy-looking row of shops and old atrium houses behind them were razed. At the south end, behind a monumental Doric portico, a wide marble doorway gave access to a large

peristyle building with a double-story interior colonnade which terminated on the far side by a central apsidal exedra flanked by smaller apses – Eumachia’s complex (Figure 1.60). The central space was probably planted as an “urban garden” surrounded by galleries of statuary. A three-sided, vaulted cryptoporticus ran behind this colonnade. Recorded by an inscription on the side entrance from the Via dell’Abbondanza, the complex was dedicated by the priestess Eumachia, the patroness of the powerful corporation of wool-makers and wool merchants (fullones) to Concordia Augusta and Pietas. Since the cult statue of Concordia found in the building displays a marked resemblance to Livia, Augustus’ wife, the allusion to the empress and the popular Augustan themes of harmony, peace, and prosperity are justified. It is likely that Eumachia knew the empress and was inspired by her lavish gift of the Porticus Livia in Rome (c. 7 bce), also dedicated to Concordia Augusta. If so, Eumachia’s marble-veneered building in Pompeii, smaller but more elaborately conceived, serving complex honorific, cultic, as well as practical functions related to the wool guild surpassed its larger model in the capital. A late Augustan addition on the east side, directly north of the Eumachia Building, is the precinct for 69

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figure 1.57 Temple of Augusta Fortuna, Pompeii: reconstruction by W. Weichardt (1907), above and contemporary view, below; Photo by Diane Favro.

the imperial cult or cult of Augustus, formerly known as the Temple of Vespasian (Figure 1.61). Still under repair and reconstruction at the time of the catastrophe, the rectangular enclosure has no internal colonnade; instead its walls are articulated by shallow aediculae with alternating triangular and segmental pediments separated by brick pilasters. At the far end, elevated on a podium and approached by side steps, is a small temple with four frontal columns, probably dedicated to the genius of Augustus, as indicated by its dedicatory inscription on a marble architrave by the priestess Mammia, sacerdotes publica. A handsome marble altar in front of the shrine depicts the sacrifice of a bull in front of a cult temple in low relief. Another building dedicated to the imperial cult and probably conflated with the worship of the Lares, the city’s protecting deities, was located just 70

north of the Augustan shrine. Entered from the forum through a prominently composed façade of eight columns, the main space is nearly a square (19.9  18.2 m) dominated at the far end by a broad and deep apse to display statuary framed inside a niche (Figure 1.62). Deep rectangular exedrae, smaller niches, recesses, and podiums provide a sense of dynamism to the side walls. Displaying a marble paved floor and rich marble veneered walls terminated by a strong, undulating cornice, the central space was probably open to the sky. In view of the spatially articulated design, quite unmatched in Pompeii, we agree with Filippo Coarelli’s suggestion that this cult enclosure was probably a Neronian project, perhaps originating from a Roman workshop (Coarelli 1976, 122). The building was still in ruins and left unrepaired (its marbles severely looted) at the time of the eruption.

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figure 1.58 General view of the forum, Pompeii looking toward the Capitolium with Vesuvius in the distance; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 1.59 Reconstruction view of the Forum north end with Capitolium, Pompeii, by W. Weichardt (1907).

Yet another latecomer to the Pompeian forum was the market building, or the macellum, occupying a relatively unobtrusive location at the northeast corner also accessible easily from the main street

north of it (see Figures 1.35 and 1.44). The present building, a large rectangular enclosure with a columnar, circular pavilion in the middle surrounded by internal and external shops, must be a post-62 ce 71

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Portico facing forum Entrance Statue of Concordia Augusta Passage to Via Abbondanza Statue bases

figure 1.60 Plan of the Eumachia Complex in the forum at Pompeii; rendered by Youssef Maguid.

figure 1.61 View of the precinct of the Cult of Augustus, also known as the “Temple of Vespasian”(left), Pompeii; Photo by Fikret Yegül; reconstruction of the same by Weichardt (1897, right).

construction. The main entrance from the forum was preceded by a columnar portico and a row of shops which mask the slightly divergent orientation of the macellum – most likely a leftover from an earlier, simpler market building. As in the other complexes occupying 72

the east side of the forum, the center position of the far end of the macellum, too, was sanctified by an aedicular structure associated with the imperial cult, a podium inside a recessed chamber approached by frontal steps. Partial remains of a statue indicate that

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figure 1.62 Plan and structural diagram of the Imperial Cult Hall (“Lararium”) at Pompeii; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after J. J. Dobbins 1997).

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity it was occupied by the seated image of an emperor, like “Jupiter on his throne.” The middle chamber was flanked by rooms that probably served as market offices. Statues of tutelary deities of commerce, other members of the imperial house and high ranking local officials connected to the market must have accompanied the imperial image in the central chamber. With its characteristic central tholos (compare to other market buildings such as the one in Lepcis Magna; see later), the market in Pompeii represents a relatively simple and early example of a widely known type that goes back to the macellum in Morgantina, Sicily, dated to the second century bce. And it might have served as a real, or memory model, for the more elaborately designed and better-preserved macellum of nearby Pozzuoli, probably started soon after Pompeii ended its life. The inclusion of the imperial cult in one architectural context or another in almost all of the complexes in the forum, in addition to the free standing imperial images under its porticoes, is a telling reminder of Pompeii’s special position as a latecomer into the political fold of the Roman state and thus its extra sensitivity to promote the state cult; it also shows the remarkable pertinacity and flexibility of the protean cult in popular and civic contexts. Perhaps, this was one acceptable, traditional way the former Samnite (and one-time rebellious) town could display its redemptive political piety. Another was the architectural and visual prominence of its “streets of tombs” outside its gates – Vesuvian, Nucerian, Herculanean. Although these had started centuries back, the growing size, variety, and creativity of these sepulchral monuments as altars, exedrae, tricilinia, towers, and miniature temples lining the street leading to a gate impress the visitor even now (Figure 1.63). In Pompeii, as in any Italian city, they were designed to display perhaps the personal piety, but certainly also the wealth and social status of its leading citizens. As succinctly observed by Paul Zanker: “Travelers through Italy could make comparisons and assess the consequences of a city even before they entered it; they could also learn the identity of the most prominent local households . . .” (Zanker 2001, 76). T H E L A S T Y E A R S O F P O M P E II

Pompeii must have looked like an untidy construction site in the seventeen years between the earthquake and its final curtain call in 79 ce. Yet, as much as we can tell from our incomplete archaeological record, there was randomness to what was being rebuilt and repaired and what was not, and to what degree and in what manner. New houses were being constructed, older 74

ones being rebuilt and renovated, and all seemed to be undergoing redecoration. Prominent examples include the House of the Menander, the House of Vetii, and the miniature villa known as the House of Loretius Tiburtinus with its extensive garden and sumptuous water display (see later). The quality of the newly introduced so-called fourth style in wall painting was often compromised in proportion to its popularity. Leaving behind its centuries old Hellenized Samnite past, Pompeii was becoming a newly rich town enjoying its affordable luxuries and populist tastes. It is interesting that the Roman state which typically sent out massive measures of help to its distant provinces struck by natural disasters (such as western Asia Minor after the earthquake of 17 ce) seems to have done little to alleviate the ravages of the earthquake suffered by towns and communities in its Italian backyard. Pompeians were largely left to their own devices and commercial tastes when rebuilding their devastated city. Having given priority to their residences, this situation might explain the somewhat unorganized, piecemeal fashion in which public buildings and institutions were being returned to life: while some seem to have been finely restored at the time of the eruption, others were limping along; some were hardly touched, lying in ruins. Scholars have noted that contrary to expectations, none of the major, municipal temples of the city, even the Capitolium, received priority attention. Yet, a small, privately funded shrine to a foreign cult with a small, devoted following – the Temple and Sanctuary of Isis behind the Large Theater and the Triangular Forum – was rebuilt immediately after the earthquake (see Figure 1.36). The unusual architecture of this temple and its precinct deserves a moment’s notice, all the more so because public architecture in Pompeii (perhaps, with the exception of the amphitheater) is conservative and traditional. The same is true for building technology which, despite Campania’s well-known contributions to the development of opus caementicium, retained a preference for trabeated structures and traditional materials. Hemmed inside a walled and porticoed enclosure (23  20 m, 8 x 7 columns), the Temple of Isis has a shallow cella and broad porch with four Corinthian columns. The podium is ascended by steps rising only between the widelyspaced, central pair of columns (Figure 1.64; see also Figure 1.36). The construction, including the columns of the precinct, is in brick finished in stucco; the columns and the capitals of the temple are in Nucerian tufa. Flanking the cella and expanding the porticoes like wings is a pair of small

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figure 1.63 Reconstruction of the “Street of Tombs,” Pompeii, looking southeast toward the Porto Ercolano; rendered by Marie Saldaña.

pedimented pavilions with arched niches; the effect would have been like miniature, independent aediculae dominated by, but not integrated into, the composition created under the main pediment. Located on the southeast exterior corner of the temple complex, facing directly the precinct entrance, is a small freestanding shrine, the purgatorium, serving the purification rituals of the Isis cult (Figure 1.65). The façade of this structure is simple and starkly distinguished: four pilasters with Corinthian capitals carry a pediment broken by an arch – an early form of the so-called Syrian pediment (frontone siriaco) in the West recalling the oriental nature and origins of the cult. It is also a rare example of an architectural motif that finds many complex and sophisticated variations in twodimensional form in second and fourth style paintings common in the city. The cult of Isis, originated in Egypt, was established, or at least popularized in Pompeii, by the large infusion of the veteran soldiers of Sulla. The present complex is a rebuilding of an earlier one, probably from the last decades before the establishment of the colony, c 100–80 bce. The cult was intensely personal, emphasizing beliefs in a

compassionate goddess promising salvation and eternal life through purification and redemption. Closely knit, it was a cult generally favored by soldiers, slaves, working class, and women. Although the cheaper, practical construction of the precinct reflects the modest nature of the cult and its followers, the lavish use of fine detailing, stucco ornamentation, and paintings belies this notion of modesty. In fact, the complex and its decoration was made possible by the wealthy freedman N. Popidus Ampliatus, whose generosity honored his six-year-old son and aimed to provide him a position in the city council and the elite society that had eluded his once-slave father. One last question – or, a set of related questions – remains. Following the fantasy of historical reconstruction, one can ask what Pompeii would have looked like in the later centuries of the empire if Vesuvius had not done its grim and ghastly job. Would it have continued to rise with the empire’s rising fortunes, and grow as a larger and wealthier version of itself? Having outlived its formative years in the elegant shadow of Greek culture, would it have succumbed to lackluster provincialism fostered by a society of newly rich merchants and 75

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figure 1.64 Plan and reconstruction of the Temple and Precinct of Isis, Pompeii; rendered by Diane Favro.

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figure 1.65 View of the Purgatorium (with “arched pediment”) in the Sanctuary of Isis, Purgatorium, Pompeii; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

shopkeepers, occupying the “trite and commonplace earth” of beautiful Ione and noble Glaukus? Its once famous river harbor eclipsed by the new maritime centers, would it have reinvented itself as a kind of second-rank, second-ring community of aristocrats who could not build at Baiae, but built and enjoyed the affordable luxuries at home and its suburbs? Or simply become a dormitory for the honest middle and working-class populations that serviced and managed the Naples Bay estates of the Roman elite? Speculation is intriguing but futile. We should, perhaps, ask our readers to engage in a fresh historical fantasy and consider a sequel to Bulwer-Lytton’s Last Days of Pompeii, in which the city, like the lovers Ione and Glaukus, miraculously escapes its doom and forges a new destiny – the subject of a modern bestseller whose time has come. REFERENCES

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Urban Design and Architecture in Rome and Italy during the Republic and the Early Empire Gentili, G. (ed.). 2008. Giulio Cesare. L’uomo, le imprese, il mito. Milan: Silvana Editorale. Giuliani, C. F. and P. Verduchi 1993. “Basilica Iulia” LTUR 1: 1, 177–178. Grant, M. 1974. Cities of Vesuvius. Pompeii and Herculaneum. London: Spring Books. Grimal, P. 1983. Roman Cities, rev. G. M. Woloch. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Hermansen, G. 1981. Ostia: Aspects of Roman City Life. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press. Hesberg von, H. 2008. “Die Hierarchie der Räume. Strassen und Plätze in Städten und Militarlagern zur Zeit der römischen Republik.” In D. Mertens, ed. Stadtverkehr in der antiken Welt. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 71–86. Holloway, R. R. 1996. The Archaeology of Early Rome and Latium. New edition. London: Routledge. Hopkins, J. N. 2014. “The Creation of the Forum and the Making of Monumental Rome.” In E. C. Robinson, ed. Papers on Italian Urbanism in the First Millennium B.C. (JRA Supplement), 29–61. Humphrey, J. H. 1986. Roman Circuses: Arenas for Chariot Racing. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jacobs II, P. W. and D. A. Conlin. 2014. Campus Martius: The Field of Mars in the Life of Ancient Rome. New York: Cambridge University Press. Johnston, A., N. Terrenato and A. Gallone. 2015. “A Monumental Mid-Republican Public Building at Gabii.” In American Institute of Archaeology, 116th Annual Meeting Abstracts. New Orleans: AIA Publications. Keay, S, et al. 2000. “Falerii Novi: A Survey of the Walled Area.” PBSR 68: 1–93. Keay, S., M. Millett, L. Paroli and K. Strutt. 2005. Portus. An Archaeological Survey of the Port of Imperial Rome (Archaeological Monographs of the British School at Rome, 15) London: British School at Rome. Keay, S. and L. Paroli. 2011. Portus and Its Hinterland: Recent Archaeological Research (Archaeological Monographs of the British School at Rome, 18). London : British School at Rome. Kuttner, A. L. 2010. “Roman Art during the Republic.” In H. I. Flower, ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 294–321. Laurence, R. 1995. “The Organization of Space in Pompeii.” In T. T. Cornell and K. Lomas, eds. Urban Society in Roman Italy. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 63–78. 2008. “City Traffic and the Archaeology of Roman Streets from Pompeii to Rome.” In D. Mertens, ed. Stadtverkehr in der antiken Welt. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 87–106. 2012. Review of “The Formation of Roman Urbanism 338–200 B.C.: Between Contemporary Foreign Influence and Roman Tradition by Jamie Sewell.” www .ajaonline.org/bookreviews [accessed May 23, 2012]. AJA 116.2. Laurence, R. and D. J. Newsome, eds. 2011. Rome, Ostia, Pompeii: Movement and Space. Corby: Oxford University Press. Laurence, R. and G. Sears, eds. 2011. The City in the Roman West, c. 250 BC–c. AD 250. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lomas, K. 2004. “Italy during the Roman Republic, 338–31 B.C.” In H. I. Flower, ed. Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 199–224. Mau, A. 1907, rep. 1982. Pompeii: Its Life and Art, trans. F. W. Kelsey. New York: Macmillan. McCann, A. M., J. Bourgeois, E. Gazda, et al. 1987. The Roman Port and Fishery of Cosa. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Meiggs, R. 1973. Roman Ostia. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mouritsen, H. 2004. “Pits and Politics: Interpreting Colonial Fora in Republican Italy.” PBSR 72: 37–67. Nappo, S., ed. 1998. Pompeii: A Guide to the Ancient City. New York: Barnes and Noble. Nevett, L. 1997. “Perceptions of Domestic Space in Roman Italy.” In B. Rawson and P. Weaver, eds. The Roman Family in Italy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 281–298. 2010. Domestic Space in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Noy, D. 2000. Foreigners at Rome. Citizens and Strangers. London: Duckworth. Nünnerich-Asmus, A. 1994. Basilika und Portikus: Die Architektur der Säulenhallen als Ausdruck gewandelter Urbanität in später Republik und früher Kaiserzeit. Cologne: Böhlau. Olivito, R. 2013. Il foro nell’atrio: Immagini di architetture, scene di vita e di mercato nel fregio dai praedia di Iulia Felix (Pompei, II, 4, 3). Bari: Edipuglia. Owens, E. J. 1992. The City in the Greek and Roman World. London: Routledge. Patterson, J. R. 2006. “Rome and Italy.” In N. Rosenstein and R. Morstein-Marx, eds. A Companion to the Roman Republic. Oxford: Blackwell, 606–624. 1992. “The City of Rome: From Republic to Empire.” JRS 82: 186–215. Perkins, J. B. W. 1955. “Early Roman Towns in Italy.” The Town Planning Review 26(3): 126–154. Quilici, L. and S. Q. Gigli. 1999. Città e monumenti nell’Italia antica. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider. Rankov, B. 2013. “Ships and Shipsheds.” In D. Blackman, B. Rankov, et al., eds. Shipsheds of the Ancient Mediterranean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 76–101. Richardson Jr., L. 1988. Pompeii: An Architectural History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Rickman, G. 1971. Roman Granaries and Store Buildings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Robinson, E. C., ed. 2014. Papers on Italian Urbanism in the First Millennium B.C. (JRA Supplement 97). Robinson, O. F. 2003. Ancient Rome: City Planning and Administration. New York: Routledge. Rossignani, M. P. 1995. “Foro e basilica a Luni.” In M. M. Roberti, ed. “Forum et basilica” in Aquileia e nella Cisalpina romana. Udine: Arti grafiche friulane, 443–466. Royo, M. 2013. “Omnis Casareo cedit labor Amphitheatro, unum pro cunctis fama loquetur opus (Mart., 1.7–8).” In G. Smith and J. Gadeyne, eds. Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 15–42. Rosenstein, N. and R. Morstein-Marx. 2010. A Companion to the Roman Republic. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Rykwert, J. 1988. The Idea of a Town: The Anthropology of Urban Form in Rome, Italy and the Ancient World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity Senseney, J. 2011. “Adrift toward Empire: The Lost Porticus Octaviae in Rome and the Origins of the Imperial Fora.” JSAH 70.4: 421–41. Sestieri, A. M. B. 1992. The Iron Age Community of Osteria dell’Osa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sewell, J. 2010. The Formation of Roman Urbanism, 338–200 B.C.: Between Contemporary Foreign Influence and Roman Tradition (JRA Supplement 79). 2013. “New Observations on the Planning of Fora in the Latin Colonies during the Mid-Republic.” In C. P. Dickenson and O. M. van Nijf, eds. Public Space in the Post-Classical City (Caeculus 7), 37–75. Small, A. 1996. “The Shrine of the Imperial Family in the Macellum at Pompeii.” In A. Small, ed. Subject and Ruler. The Cult of the Ruling Power in Classical Antiquity (JRA Supplement 17): 115–136. Smith, C. J. 1996. Early Rome and Latium: Economy and Society, c. 1000 to 500 B.C. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Stambaugh, J. E. 1988. The Ancient Roman City. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Stamper, J. W. 2014. “Urban Sanctuaries: The Early Republic to Augustus.” In R. B. Ulrich and C. K. Quenemoen. eds. A Companion to Roman Architecture. Chichester: WileyBlackwell, 207–227. Stek, T. D. 2010. Cult Places and Cultural Change in Republican Italy: A Contextual Approach to Religious Aspects of Rural Society after the Roman Conquest. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 2013. “Material Culture, Italic Identities and the Romanization of Italy.” In J. D. Evans, ed. A Companion to the Archaeology of the Roman Republic. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 337–353. Stöger, H. 2011. Rethinking Ostia: A spatial Enquiry into the Urban Society of Rome’s Imperial Port-Town. Leiden: Leiden University Press. Swift, E. 2009. Style and Function in Roman Decoration. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Torelli, M. 2010. “The Topography and Archaeology of Republican Rome.” In N. Rosenstein and R. Morstein-Marx, eds. A Companion to the Roman Republic. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 81–101. Toynbee, A. J. 1965. Hannibal’s Legacy. London: Oxford University Press.

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Turfa, J. M., ed. 2013. The Etruscan World. London: Routledge. Tucci, P. L. 2012. “La favolosa storia della Porticus Aemilia.” ArchCl 63: 575–91. Ulrich, R. B. 2013. Roman Woodworking. New Haven: Yale University Press. Van Nes, A. 2011. “Measuring Spatial Visibility: Adjacency, Permeability, and Degrees of Street Life in Pompeii.” In R. Laurence and D. J. Newsome, eds. Rome, Ostia, Pompeii. New York: Oxford University Press, 100–17. Wallace-Hadrill, A. 1988. “The Social Structure of the Roman House.” PBSR 56: 43–97. 1994. Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2013. “Hellenistic Pompeii: between Oscan, Greek, Roman and Punic.” In J. R. W. Prag and J. C. Quinn, eds. The Hellenistic West: Rethinking the Ancient Mediterranean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 35–43. Ward-Perkins, J. B. 1955. “Early Roman Towns in Italy.” The Town Planning Review 26(3): 126–154. Ward-Perkins, J. B. and A. Claridge, eds. 1978. Pompeii, A.D 79. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts. Watkin, D. 2009. The Roman Forum. London: Profile. Welch, K. 1994. “The Roman Arena in Late-Republican Italy: A New Interpretation.” JRA 7: 59–80. 2010. “Art and Architecture in the Roman Republic.” In N. Rosenstein and R. Morstein-Marx, eds. A Companion to the Roman Republic. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 496–542. Williamson, C. 2005. The Laws of the Roman People: Public Law in the Expansion and Decline of the Roman Republic. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Wisemann, T. P. 2004. The Myths of Rome. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Zanker, P. 1995, rev. 2001. Pompeii: Public and Private Life, trans. D. L. Schneider. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2000. “The City as Symbol: Rome and the Creation of an Urban Image.” In E. Fentress and S. Alcock, eds. Romanization and the City: Creation, Transformations, and Failures (JRA Supplement 38): 25–41.

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Creating and dedicating temples to the gods was always a pious act in ancient society; it was often a moral and civic duty, and almost always a shrewd and popular political expedient. Archaeological remains provide ample evidence the building of many Republican-period temples in and outside of Rome. Many more that have disappeared without leaving any physical trace are known from inscriptions and ancient literary sources. Temples – either as single structures, or as a part of a group of other religious buildings in a sanctuary – were the most common of all architectural types in the Roman world. But, who built them and who paid for them? Often, military leaders during a campaign vowed a temple to an appropriate deity (such as Mars, the god of war, but sometimes even to a deity worshipped by their enemies) in an attempt to appease the gods and win their sympathy and support. It was a politically astute decision for a victorious general to dispose of a significant part of the war spoils (de manubiis) by founding a temple instead of distributing it to the soldiers or giving it to the Senate, because it favored no one side and also provided enduring payback by continuously promoting the donors and their families. Civic leaders would also vow temples to commemorate important events in the life of the Republic. For example, the Temple of Concord was erected in Rome of the fourth century bce (and rebuilt in 121 bce) to mark the return of harmony after a period of strife among political factions. Elected officials paid for these projects either from state funds authorized by the Senate or out of their own pockets in a symbol of generosity. At Rome, temple building was restricted to elected magistrates in order to curb undue political rivalry and personal

competition through public architecture (Davies 2017, 2–4). In the provinces sponsorship of projects was not fettered. Public-minded leading families erected and maintained public projects across generations. Some of the great sanctuaries in central Italy could not have been possible without this competitive display of munificence and pride. At Rome, the right to vow a temple in the name of the Roman people, called votum, was held by higherranking magistrates, generals, and the senior members of priestly colleges (augurs and pontiffs). The magistrate’s first duty in founding a temple was locatio, finding a suitable location for the edifice, marking its boundaries, and summoning an augur to perform the rites to define an area as sacred. The culminating act after the temple was built was dedicatio, the dedication of the temple to a deity in a solemn religious and legal ceremony. Although many temples in Rome are located on visually commanding sites and display a contextual and historic relationship to the city and to each other, it seems that such sophisticated planning was not always observed. Finding an appropriate site to locate a temple in a crowded city was very difficult. Magistrates and civic leaders often spent considerable sums of their own money to acquire land. More than any other factor, however, the existence of earlier cult activity in an area determined its historic suitability as a sacred area (area sacra). Such religious precincts in congested urban settings sometimes contained several small temples and altars, close together and sharing the same orientation (e.g., Area Sacra of Largo Argentina or Area Sacra of Forum Holitorium, both in Rome; see later in this chapter). 81

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER CAPITOLINUS The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome, generally referred to as the Capitoline Temple or the Capitolium (because of the name of the hill on which it was located), is the largest and the most important temple from the early Republic, and one whose architectural form remains a subject of controversy (Figure 2.1). Dedicated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Juno, and Minerva, the traditional triad of deities who protected the Roman state, the temple stood at the end point of the long triumphal procession in which victorious generals or emperors sacrificed and dedicated the spoils of their campaigns. In addition to these triumphs, the temple was the starting and ending point for many religious processions, celebrations, and games, as well as military campaigns. Although it burned down and was rebuilt several times – under Sulla around 80 bce, and the emperors Vespasian and Domitian – each time the plan deliberately followed the original scheme. As observed by Dionysus of Halicarnassus, a firstcentury bce historian, Sulla’s temple “differed from the ancient structure in nothing but the opulence of

its decoration” (Dion.Hal. 4.61.3–4). Sulla allegedly replaced the original columns with marble Corinthian columns brought from the Temple of Zeus Olympos in Athens. Although many scholars believe that Sulla might have brought the smaller, interior columns, not the colossal exterior ones, considering that the exterior columns are made of individual drums, each weighing no more than 5–6 tons, transporting them would not have been uncommonly difficult. While the reuse of stones from a major temple in Athens cannot be verified, the structure was certainly embellished with new marble decoration thus bringing the venerable building in line with contemporary Hellenistic taste. However, the exterior appearance of the original Capitoline Temple – its tall podium, frontal steps, deep porch, very widely spaced columns, and broad profile – resulted in an image distinctly different from the Greek (or classical) standards of temple architecture. These features came to symbolize Italic or Tuscan characteristics and were seen as based on local traditions and qualities in the eyes of Republican leaders who sought to preserve the old manners and customs as moral imperatives. The Capitoline Temple in many ways summarized much of the past attitudes of temple

figure 2.1 Historical reconstruction of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, Rome, by G. Gatteschi (1909); American Academy in Rome – Photographic Archive (Gatteschi collection 4).

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Temple Architecture of Republican Rome and Italy building by the Etruscans and provided a cogent projection for its development under the Romans. In its special setting, sheer size and daring structure, it is also a unique building, not simply a model or a “stage” in a line of development, but a “touchstone” that affected later Roman architecture. The great Capitoline Temple commanded the forum and the whole city from its elevated position. It was a colossal structure rising up on a platform measuring 54  74 meters, with only six frontal columns, approached by steep, wide frontal stairs. The triple cellas housed the images of the three deities (Figure 2.2). Dedicated by the first consuls of the

Republic in 509 bce, it may very well have been under construction since the 580s. The building and its superb terracotta ornaments were considered the crowning achievement of Etruscan planners, architects, and sculptors working in Rome under the last king, Tarquinius Superbus. Ancient sources record that the terracotta image of Jupiter in a chariot set on the peak of the temple’s pediment was made by the master sculptor from the Etruscan city of Veii; the original chariot was replaced by a bronze version in 296 bce (Livy 10.23.12). Although many authors such as Livy, Pliny the Elder, Dionysus of Halicarnassus, and Vitruvius, all writing approximately half a millennium after the completion of the building, expressed wonder and admiration about the temple’s size and grandeur, our incomplete understanding of its architecture is primarily based on the remains of its massive tufa-block foundation walls unearthed under the Palazzo dei Conservatori of the Capitoline Museum (Figure 2.3). A major part of these walls, some eight meters thick and over ten to twelve meters high, constitute one of the most arresting exhibits in any museum; they also provide eye-opening evidence to the kind of impressive megalithic ashlar construction of which archaic builders of Rome (and Central Italy) were capable. The complete lack of information about the temple’s superstructure has led to considerable historic controversies regarding its reconstruction. One of the most careful studies was undertaken by Einar Gjerstad in the 1950s. Gjerstad considered the alignment and thickness of the grid of tufa foundation walls as support for the stone walls of the triple cella, and posited a colossal structure of 54 x 61 meters (c 180  210 RF) rising over a larger platform. The position of the lateral foundation walls allows reconstruction of three rows of six columns in front and six columns along the sides with none at the rear following the typical peripteros sine postico arrangement in which

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figure 2.2 Restored hypothetical plan and elevation based on remaining foundations of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, Rome; rendered by Diane Favro (after Somella).

figure 2.3 Foundations of the Capitoline Temple preserved under the Capitoline Museum, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity lateral projections of the cella back wall form “wings” (alae). The columns must have been in stone in order to carry the very heavy weight of the enormous terracotta roof (in smaller Tuscan temples, columns as well as the carrying members of the entablature and roof were in wood). The temple’s overall proportions were almost square, close to the 5:6 width-to-length ratio prescribed by Vitruvius (De Arch. 4.7). Writing some 450 years after the construction of this temple, Vitruvius’ description of the ideal Tuscan temple might have been based on this famed early structure. Recent archaeological work (1998–2000) by Anna Mura Sommella provides up-to-date and cogent field evidence that supports Gjerstad’s reconstruction in its main lines. Her proposed scheme, however, is even a little larger or deeper because the chambers added behind the cella increase the temple’s reconstructed footprint to the full 54  74 meters. Although the sheer size of this Capitolium gives one pause (it is three to four times the size of any Tuscan temple in Italy before or after its construction, larger and twice as high as the Parthenon in Athens, larger than the Temple of Mars Ultor in Rome), there were some archaic Ionic temples comparable to or even larger in size, such as the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus or the Temple of Hera in Samos. The argument for the specific contacts with eastern Mediterranean is also supported and strengthened by the similarity of the temple’s terracotta ornament (particularly some of its unique details) to those found only in Asia Minor (Hopkins 2012, 122). Rome’s Capitolium was clearly a self-conscious effort inspired by contacts with the larger Mediterranean world while signalling the ascendancy of the fledgling city by the Tiber as a new and increasingly formidable center of political power (Davies 2006 and 2017, 19–21). The problem of reconstruction relates not to the temple’s large footprint but to its enormous columnar spans. The center intercolumniation measures a daunting 12 meters (although the “clear span” of the architrave/ lintel can be reduced to 10.5 meters, still large when compared to the approximately 8.50-meter spans of the Ionic behemoths in Ephesus and Samos) and appears nearly impossible to cross by wooden beam or lintel (although doubled beams of hardwood, like the doubled stone architraves of the larger temples, can be considered). Noting the unprecedented size of the temple as impractical, and the columnar span as insurmountable, J. Stamper proposed an alternative restoration for a smaller temple, sitting on a smaller upper podium (c. 34  38 m [c. 115  130 RF], about one-third smaller than the larger model but still twice as large as any known Tuscan temple), rising over large lower platforms connected to each other by stairs – an arrangement not uncommon in later large Republican temples. This 84

“small temple” model gives an interaxial central span of 7.40 meters (and a clear span of c. 6.80 meters), still large but far more practical (Stamper 2005, 19–33; 2014, 208–213). However, a plain lintel, even a doubled one, is not the only way to span between supports: a simple timber truss (such as the “railroad truss’” instead of an A-frame with massive king-posts) can safely span 10- to 12-meter distances. As J. N. Hopkins, an enthusiastic champion of the Gjerstad/Mura Sommella “large temple” alternative points out, by the sixth century bce spans approaching twelve meters were in use in central Italy and Magna Graecia (Hopkins 2010, 15–33; for a fuller consideration of the structural problems and possibilities, Hopkins 2016, 97–122). Still, there is a difference between what technology can do and what technology sensibly and efficiently, might do. Putting any kind of truss over and across the open interstices of a colonnade (rather than a series of them across the thick, stable walls of a hall), carrying a very heavy terracotta entablature and a pediment, may be a doable but somewhat illogical engineering feat. Much as our sympathies lie with Stamper’s “small temple” model, there are factual problems that need to be considered. Some of the walls and columns of the proposed reconstruction fall not directly on the foundation walls but on the gaps between them, which makes little structural sense (see Figure 2.2). As Hopkins in his strong and singular polemic against Stamper’s small temple proposal rightly points out, “Because of the foundations form intersecting walls and not a solid platform, any reconstruction must align walls and columns in the superstructure with the foundation walls with the foundation walls below” (Hopkins 2012, 115). The Gjerstad/Mura Sommella scheme does this. Given the limited archaeological evidence that we have, it would be advisable to accept that the Etrusco-Roman builders were equal to the technical challenges of a truly colossal structure and ready to appreciate some of its challenging, even illogical, ways. True architecture, when it transcends mere practicality of numbers and becomes immeasurable, is often not shackled by easy logic. A final word may be in order when viewing this important temple as a monument and assessing its monumentality – overlapping, imprecise concepts that have recently attracted considerable interest among scholars of ancient architecture. While a “monument” is often perceived as a significant and meaningful achievement of a people or culture, the definition of “monumentality” is less clear. The immediate notion most people associate with monumentality is size and grandiosity; but we know that sheer bigness of things does not describe them; some of the most monumentally perceived bronze images by the master Swiss sculptor Alberto Giocometti

Temple Architecture of Republican Rome and Italy are a mere eight to ten inches tall. A monument need not be monumental. One could say that monumentality is a quality imbued in the memorable, noticeable, durable, powerful, proud, and ultimately heroic aspects of objects or deeds. In this sense, the Capitoline Temple was a monument and was monumental, not just for its large size and dramatic setting that enhanced the size but also for its symbolic meaning for Romans as the abode of the immortal gods who protected and legitimized their state, empowered its leaders and citizens, and projected this grandeur and sanctity into the future. We also can see that the Capitoline Temple began its life as an Etruscan building, but as an icon it became quintessentially Roman. Because of this structure’s tremendous influence, temples to the state cult honoring Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva in other cities became known as “Capitoline temples.”

CAPITOLIUM OF COSA

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The better-preserved Capitolium of Cosa, Rome’s colony of veterans some 90 miles north on the coastal Via Aurelia, gives us a good idea of a fairly conservative mid-second-century bce Italic temple outside Rome, exhibiting the traditional arrangement and proportions recommended by Vitruvius 150 years later. Rising on the summit of the Arx, the sacred enclosure that occupied the highest part of the peninsular hilltop

site, and facing southeast, the temple could be seen like a beacon by sailors at sea (Figures 2.4 and 2.5; see also Figure 1.25). The cella was a perfect square and had a shallow porch, about two-fifths of its depth (31  22 meters overall). Following the precise language of its celebrated excavator, Frank Brown, “[T]he overall length was. . . derived from the diagonal of the cella, and the overall height of the gable over the four columns on the façade was equal, including its finial, to the width” (Brown 1980, 47). Like the Capitolium of Rome, the cella was divided into three chambers honoring Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva; frontal stairs and four frontal columns of solid gray tufa were other salient features of the design. The cella walls were constructed in small sandstone slabs and probably were once covered in stucco, and they still stand to a height of 6 meters. A heavy sockle of ashlar anchors it to the ground. Partly responding to the sloping site but also partly to enhance the sense of verticality, the temple was elevated on a massive base of double podia. The broad gables accentuated by the widely projecting beam ends, colorful, filigreed terracotta ornament, and statuary must have given the upper structure a light and airy sense of contrast to the heavy base and columns. In its compact plan, imposing siting, and some of its self-consciously old-fashioned details, the model for Jupiter’s temple at Cosa seems to have been the venerable Capitolium of the mother city. Flanked by a pair of smaller temples and outlined against the open

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figure 2.4 Reconstruction perspective and plan of the Capitoline Temple on the Arx at Cosa; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after Brown).

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figure 2.5 General view of the Capitoline Temple, Cosa, looking northwest; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

horizon, the uphill approach to Cosa’s Arx must have created a sense of awe for the great sky god who protected the colony and merged its destiny with that of its formidable founder.

THE TEMPLES OF THE AREA SACRA OF ST. OMOBONO IN ROME Very little now remains of the dozens of early and middle Republican temples that once adorned ancient Rome. Many exist in name only in sources, inscriptions, or in tantalizing fragments in some deep basement under a modern or medieval structure. Belonging to this last category, one of the earliest structures that we can see in Rome is a small archaic temple dating from approximately 580–560 bce, the scanty remnants of which in peperino tufa lie partially under the Church of St. Omobono. Based on the round profiling of the temple’s stone podium, and remains of its terracotta roof ornament now housed in the Capitoline Museum, it was identified as the “earliest known temple of the Tuscan order of architecture” (Winter 2012, 62–63). Located on the flood plain between river ports, the Pons Aemilius, and the steep southern spur of the Capitoline Hill, and connected by a road to the Forum Romanum, the Sacred Area of St. Omobono (as it is commonly called) was a convenient part of the 86

business and market hub of early Rome. A fire that took place in about 500 bce devastated the area. In the early fifth century bce, the level was raised by about 6 meters and a pair of identical temples erected that shared the same podium faced south. Dedicated to the nurturing and protecting deities of Mater Matuta (east) and Fortuna (west), these large temples (cellas 20  29 meters [70  100 RF]) were built in cappellaccio and pepperino tufas from local sources. Although following the basic Etrusco-Roman configuration, their plans are unusual in having long side walls (like extended alae) framing the single cellas with two columns in antis (Figure 2.6). The rear of the structures fronted a major street (Vicus Iugarius) connecting the Forum Boarium with the Forum Romanum; visitors entered the precinct through a large door in the surrounding wall, passed along a space between the two structures before turning around to face the facades. The temples were rebuilt after a major fire in 213 bce. Situated in busy market places, many of these temples and the cults that they represented were not associated with arcane and distant religious liturgies but with the everyday life, hopes, aspirations, and prejudices of ordinary Romans. Mater Matuta, goddess of dawn, childbirth, and (with a little bit of help from the neighboring goddess of fortune) new beginnings, was celebrated by married women praying for their growing children. Let us follow Stamper’s narrative on the subject:

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figure 2.6 Plan and elevation of the Republican temples in the St. Omobono sacred area (Mater Matuta, left; Fortuna, right), Rome; rendered by Diane Favro (after Stamper).

“[On her feast day, the Matralia] the goddess received toasted cakes . . . and a slave woman was ceremoniously led into the temple and driven out again, recounting the legend that the deity’s Greek counterpart Ino, had a slave who was having an affair with her husband, Athamas . . . and distributing tasted seed-corn (that) would not grow. Mater Matuta thus hated slave women, and the ritual enactment of driving the slave from the temple was an appeasement of her prejudice” (Stamper 2005, 43).

This simple reenactment showcased familiar human actions and responses, strengthening attachment to the goddess by Rome’s freeborn residents working, shopping, and gossiping in the nearby Forum Holitorium.

LARGO ARGENTINA TEMPLES AND THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER STATOR Better preserved and easier to see is a group of four small Republican temples in the Largo di Torre Argentina (aka Largo Argentina), a sacred precinct in the southern Campus Martius. Neatly aligned in a row facing an open area to the east, all of these temples show distinct Italic characteristics: high podiums, deep porches, and frontal approaches with steps (Figures 2.7 and 2.8). The tight

grouping and emphasized elevation created by the moreor-less aligned façades (even more pronounced in the Forum Holitorium temples; see later in this chapter) may be an intentional architectural touch, but as already mentioned it is equally likely to be the result of the scarcity of land in the city or religious dictates. Their main construction material is tufa with a veneer of white stucco, although in later reconstructions travertine bases and capitals were introduced as design highlights. Two of the temples – Temple A and Temple C (first and third from north) – seem to have been built around 250–300 bce judging by the simple moldings of their deeply buried tufa podiums and terracotta ornaments. Temple A, probably dedicated to Juturna, a water deity, on the occasion of a naval triumph, was later rebuilt as a peripteros (a temple with a colonnade surrounding the cella). Temple C, the oldest, might have been dedicated to Feronia, an Etruscan and Sabine goddess specially honored by Roman women. This temple retained its original single cella with projecting wings (alae) at the back and columns in the front and along the sides. This arrangement, fairly common among Republican temples, is the Tuscan type described by Vitruvius as ambulatio sine postico (“a portico without a rear portion,” 3.2.3). One well-known example is the original phase of the temple of Jupiter Stator (in a colonnaded enclosure known as the Porticus Metelli, but later the Porticus Octaviae) founded in 146 bce, and reported to be the first temple in Rome to be built entirely of marble (Figure 2.9). Temple B in Largo Argentina, dating from around 100 bce, was the latest, possibly erected by Q. Lutatius Catulus after a victory in 101 bce and dedicated to Fortuna Huiusce Diei (“The Fortune of This Day.”) Although circular with its small cella surrounded by eighteen Corinthian columns, the temple retained its Italic flavor by having a definite “front” with a pedimented porch and steps up to the cella door. The podium was enlarged ca. 50 bce.

THE TEMPLES OF THE FORUM HOLITARIUM The three temples of Forum Holitorium, nominally Rome’s vegetable market, were located on the flat land immediately east of the Theater of Marcellus (well north of the cattle market or Forum Boarium but close to the St. Omobono temples, see Figure 1.11). Their restored plan with very tight spacing and precise front alignment is striking (Figure 2.10). The history of this area sacra dates to the early or midthird century bce. All three temples display late Republican characteristics with Tuscan plans and varying degrees of Greek influence. The earliest, the 87

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figure 2.7 General view of the temples in the Sacred Precinct of Largo Argentina, Rome, looking south; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

northern temple, is attributed to Janus, an old and paternal god associated with the city of Rome (although identifications still shift between the three buildings). The temple was Ionic and distinguished by its alae and sine postico arrangement. Behind the hexastyle façade was a three-column-deep porch and wide pronaos. The Temple of Spes, or Hope, on the south was smallest of the three, originally dedicated within a decade of the Temple of Janus. The present temple, raised on a podium, had a peripteral colonnade around the cella, closer in spirit to Greek models than the northern one. Janus’ temple was restored under Tiberius in 17 ce and under Antoninus Pius in the midsecond century ce. Six of its monolithic columns, with Tuscan capitals and travertine entablature (from its north side), are built into the wall of the church of St. Nicolo, a picturesque reminder of Rome’s layered history and heritage. The temple in the middle, linked to Juno Sospita, is dated to the early second century bce, but was rebuilt in 90 bce. Like its southern neighbor, it was peripteral (6  11 meters), Ionic, and displayed a pronaos porch almost identical in design to that of the Temple of Janus. Across from the three 88

temples the east side of the sacred precinct was defined by what appears to be a “late republican-era market arcade” of engaged Tuscan columns alternating with arches, “a motif that prefigured the Colosseum and related to the (façade of the) ‘Tabularium’” (Stamper 2005, 59).

FORUM BOARIUM TEMPLES IN ROME AND THE TEMPLE OF VESTA AT TIVOLI Two well-preserved temples in the Forum Boarium, identified traditionally as the ancient cattle market of Rome by the Tiber, illustrate even better than the Forum Holitorium shrines the manner and the degree of influence exerted by Greek architecture (Figure 2.11; see Figure 1.12). The Temple of Portunus (formerly known as the Temple of Fortuna Virilis) is a small prismatic structure from circa 100 bce, which was originally inside a colonnaded enclosure, now entirely gone (the original temple dated earlier, perhaps from the early third century bce). It

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figure 2.8 Plan of the Sacred Precinct of Largo Argentina, Rome (Temples A, B, C, and D); rendered by Diane Favro (after Torelli).

displays a high podium, broad flight of frontal steps, and a prostyle porch with six Ionic columns, four in front and two on the sides (Figure 2.12). In addition to these porch columns in the round, engaged columns run along the side and the back walls of the cella creating the impression of a regular Greek peripteral temple – an arrangement also called pseudo-peripteros. The podium is concrete faced with travertine, a finer material than local tufas; the porch columns and all bases and capitals are also made of travertine. The cella walls with their half-columns are built of tufa but finely covered in stucco in imitation of marble. Surprisingly, so were the travertine porch columns; the Romans preferred faux-marble in stucco to real travertine. A finely cut and finished travertine surface, with its beige-cream hues and characteristic pocked texture, appeals to modern architectural taste sometimes better than marble; in blocks of hand-split veneer, it is the material of choice for architect Richard Meier’s half-billion-dollar Getty Center in Los Angeles. The bases and the Ionic capitals of the Portunus temple are classical in style and proportion; so are the plain, high entablature and the elegant pediment. Although lighter and more slender in

proportions, the sharp-edged geometry and the compact massing of this temple create a sense of monumentality not inferior to many of the larger Italic temples with their heavy timber roofs and terracotta ornament. The Temple of Portunus represents a certain moment in late Republican Rome when an Etruscan ground plan was amalgamated with the columnar order and ornament of a Greek temple. The front porch, surrounded by six towering columns and the tall cella door, even now gives a sense of open, expanding space – as does the broad, deep, boxy cella – often associated with Roman architecture. In the eyes of a purist steeped in Italic or Classical traditions, this temple (and a few others like it), may have appeared as an anomaly – yet, its sophisticated blending of diverse elements and its exquisite proportions resulted in a harmonious aesthetic synthesis that deserves recognition. The second temple in Forum Boarium is a round temple (tholos) dedicated to Hercules Victor and built a generation or so later than the first shrine, c. 80 bce (see Figure 2.11). It shows a fuller and more direct acceptance of Greek traditions in temple building both in terms of its overall plan as well as the stylistic details 89

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figure 2.9 Plan of the Porticus Metelli, with earlier and later versions of the Temple of Jupiter Stator (on right), Rome, c. 146 bce (original phase); rendered by Diane Favro (after Senseney).

of its ornament. There is no podium: the columns conspicuously rise on a marble stylobate of three steps, allowing approach from all directions as is typical in Greek temple design (Figure 2.13). The use of marble from the Pentellic quarries in Greece also suggests that an architect or master mason from Greece or Asia Minor might have been responsible for the building. It also affirms the special care and attention lavished on this tholos. Tall and slender marble columns surround a circular cella constructed of marble ashlar blocks. The lofty Corinthian capitals are well crafted and conservative in appearance (Figure 2.14). Each is composed of two horizontal pieces, a convention found in other examples. This construction technique may have been chosen because it was easier and cheaper to find and transport 90

smaller pieces of marble without flaws; the blocking out of the top and bottom parts of a tall capital separately might have been convenient during the construction process and saved marble at the same time. In other round temples, the Romans appear to have been more interested in interpreting the typical Greek tholos in terms of Italic precepts of design, emphasizing axiality and frontality. Temple B in Largo Argentina (see earlier) and the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli (ancient Tibur) east of Rome are both round structures contemporary to, or even later than, the round temple by the Tiber (Figures 2.15–2.17; see also Figures 2.7 and 2.8). Both were built with high podiums approached by a flight of steps opposite the main doors to their cellas. The sense of directionality must have been further

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figure 2.10 Plan of the Temples of Janus, Juno Sospita, and Spes at the Forum Holitorium, Rome; rendered by Rui Xiong (after Stamper).

emphasized in Temple B as the plan suggests the presence of a small projecting porch with a pediment. The Temple of Vesta in Tivoli is situated dramatically at the edge of a ravine intersecting the city. The cella wall is concrete faced with opus incertum, no doubt originally finished in stucco. Rising over the podium are eighteen fluted columns carrying ornate Corinthian capitals and a frieze decorated with ox heads and garlands. The columns, capitals, entablature, as well as the cella door and windows are in travertine. Proportions are robust and wholesome, the ornament vigorous and assured, conveying rustic simplicity against the ravine in a way preferable to carving in marble. It is, perhaps, fitting that even an important provincial temple boasting a handsomely carved Hellenizing ornament was built in modest materials when marble was making an increasingly frequent and desired appearance in the architecture of the

capital. In contrast provincial Tivoli was (and still is) famous for the abundance and quality of its travertine and would have naturally nurtured the best craftsmen in that medium; its quarries provided the stone used extensively in the modern Getty Center.

THE HELLENIZATION OF ROMAN TEMPLES Hellenistic influences on the Tuscan temple were manifested mainly by the acceptance of the classical orders and classical proportions: Greek columns, capitals, and ornament in stone instead of the low and strongly projecting wooden gables displaying archaizing ornament in terracotta. The tall, vertical proportions of these classically inspired temples set them apart from their 91

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figure 2.11: View of the Forum Boarium with the temples of Portunus (back) and Hercules Victor (“round temple,” front), Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

old-fashioned counterparts perceived to be Tuscan. Although in the last two centuries of the Republic, paralleling the expansion into southern and eastern Mediterranean, the Romans were provided with the opportunity to know and appreciate the classical style firsthand, it would be a mistake to assume that the knowledge of and growing taste in Hellenism in art and culture resulted in direct imitation of these models or followed a simple and linear development leading from Etruscan to Greek. There were deliberate attempts at archaizing and retrogressive choices in art and architecture for religious, political, or simply emotional reasons. It was not so much “development” but a natural process of multifaceted change. Conservatism was an ingrained Republican trait. Advance was staged with caution. Often, as in the case of the many rebuildings of the Capitolium of Rome, even when contemporary taste dictated the use of the Greek orders on the exterior, the traditional Italic features of the plan were consciously, proudly, and somewhat incongruously retained. 92

Or, as in the Temple of Jupiter Stator built in 146 bce, in the Porticus Metellus in Rome, the original plan, a Greek peripteros of six by eleven columns, appears to have been changed to an Italic one during its Augustan rebuilding (see Figure 2.9 showing the 146 bce) phase. The resulting scheme, as preserved on the early-thirdcentury Marble Plan of Rome (Forma Urbis Romae), is highly anachronistic: it shows a narrow, elongated cella with projecting alae, columns in front and along the sides, but none at the back; in other words, it represents the plan described by Vitruvius as the ambulatio sine postico type of an earlier era. The resulting temple was a creative amalgam of different tastes, looking back as well as forward, like the double-headed god Janus. Even in the choice and application of the classical orders there were moments of indecision and awkwardness. The early-first-century bce Temple of Hercules at Cori, located on the summit of the hilltop Latin colony, is an academically correct, but uninspired, exercise in the popular, Hellenized podium-temple

Temple Architecture of Republican Rome and Italy

figure 2.12: Front view of the Temple of Portunus, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

type (Figure 2.18). The well-preserved tetrastyle temple is supported by an upper terrace faced in large, polygonal masonry. The core construction of the upper podium and the projecting lower terrace was of solid

opus caementicium; the columns are supported on individual block foundations. The podium, the frontal steps (now gone), and the front porch (which is deeper than the cella behind it) underscore the building’s Italic 93

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figure 2.13 Detail, lower half of columns, Temple of Hercules Victor, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 2.14 Detail of Corinthian capital, Temple of Hercules Victor, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

characteristics and contrast with the somewhat weak facade of exceptionally slender Doric columns with faceted rather than fluted lower shafts, insignificant looking capitals, and a light entablature with a frieze lining up three trigliphs to each intercolumnation. The sides and the back wall of the temple are articulated by shallow pilasters (“pseudo-peripteral”) recalling the more robust half-columns of the nearly contemporary Temple of Portunus in the Forum Boarium at Rome (see Figure 2.12). Such attenuated proportions and reduced details in the Doric order might have been in keeping with late Hellenistic practice in centers such as Pergamon and Delos, but in the context of an Italian temple with its extra height atop its podium, they appear ambiguous and unsubstantial. Yet, there is a definite charm in the slender columns, delicate pilasters, and the airy porch of the temple, the latter opening like a viewing pavilion towards the beautiful hills and the Pontine plain below – the transparency of the building complimenting the dramatic setting. In a similar way, the curious hybrid order concocted for the second phase of the so-called Tempio della Pace or Italic temple, circa 100 bce, in the forum of Paestum (Posedonia, an ancient Greek colony) is instructive in its creative unorthodoxy. The temple’s south-facing single cella rises on a high podium, alae

with lateral columns, a tetrastyle porch and frontal steps follow the Tuscan model that would not have been unfamiliar to Vitruvius (Figure 2.19; see Figure 1.30), though being conservative, he might have approved neither of the complex and scenic arrangement of the frontal steps with multiple landings incorporating the temple altar, nor the complexity introduced in the creative use of the orders. The upper structure of the Paestum temple displays a combination of a Doric entablature with unusual capitals, which mix Corinthian leafage below with Ionicinspired volutes flanking sculptured heads above. The juxtaposition of an Italic plan with Hellenic ornament may reflect the hybrid tastes of a Greek colony turned into a Roman municipium. As in Pompeii, such cavalier experimentation with the classical orders – with very unclassical results – may be refreshing, and affirms the amount of freedom that was available to the Hellenized Republican architect. It also shows, of course, that this freedom could result in ambiguous choices. The temple architecture of the Republic did not develop along a simple straight line from Etruscan to Greek; rather, it followed a widely available variety of models and motifs developed from native central Italian, Etruscan, and Greek sources. It moved forth, looked back, took an unexpected leap forward, and sometimes,

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figure 2.15 General view of the Temple of Vesta at ravine edge, Tivoli; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

sideways. While the influence of Greek and Hellenistic sources (and Hellenized Italic solutions) may be said to dominate toward the end of the Republic, the overall architectural culture of Rome and Italy

encouraged broadly based borrowing and blending of motifs. A codified and canonical acceptance of classicism, Roman style, did not occur until the early days of the Imperial era. 95

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figure 2.16 Detail of entablature and Corinthian capital, Temple of Vesta, Tivoli; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

THEATER-TEMPLES AND LATE REPUBLICAN SANCTUARIES A group of temples, loosely referred in scholarly literature as “theater-temples,” and their more extensive representations in large suburban sanctuaries deserve special attention among Republican period religious architecture. The type can be described simply as the placement of curved seating like the cavea of a Greek theater below the façade of a temple, the ensemble almost always in axial relationship. The scenographic potential of such a configuration, especially when viewed from below, the temple façade rising monumentally above the great curved cavea of the theater, is unquestionable. The mid-second-century bce Temple of Juno in Gabii, a Latin colony twelve miles east of Rome, is a good example where the temple and the theater are joined in a single architectural organism (Figure 2.20). The temple was placed in the middle of a rectangular terrace surrounded on three sides by a portico with shops; the fourth side opened as a grand half-circle of steps, or a theater, dominated by the axially-aligned temple. Here, as in other applications of the type, the exact use of the “theater” as a spectacle space for 96

the cult is unknown. The architectural placement of the two, especially in examples such as the Sanctuary of Fortuna at Palestrina (see later in this chapter) makes it certain that the theater was used in certain culminating rituals, or the epiphany of the cult. The arrangement was repeated on the hillside complex at Pietrabbondante, a Samnite sanctuary in Isernia province, among the highlands of the Appenines, possibly the headquarters of the Samnite League (Figures 2.21 and 2.22). The tetrastyle podium temple (c. 24  35 m) was flanked by porticos and linked to the theater below. Datable to the end of the second century bce, the temple-theater of Pietrabbondante probably saw dual cultic and civic use and served as a religious, administrative, and legal center for the Samnite community. The arrangement recalls the Theater of Pompey (c. 55 bce) in Rome. Although later than Gabii and Pietrabbondante, as the first all stone, permanent theater in the capital, Pompey’s structure naturally became an influential model (see Figures 1.17–1.18). Its deep cavea rose up to the hexastyle façade of the Temple of Venus, the rising seats of the theater, visually forming the temple’s front stairs. The effect must have been monumental. According to Tertullian, an early third century ce source, Pompey himself

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figure 2.17 Reconstruction of the Temple of Vesta terrace, Tivoli; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after Giuliani).

described his theater as “a temple under which we have placed steps for viewing,” clearly evoking the model of the theater-temples and emphasizing the religious character of the theater in a Republican city which distrusted institutions of public entertainment – a political caution that would change in the imperial period (Spect. 10.5). Among the most remarkable architectural achievements of the late Republic one could isolate three

sanctuaries in Latium constructed within less than a century (c. 120–50 bce). As in all sanctuaries, these religious precincts housed a number of structures, such as temples, altars, theaters, porticos, and fountains, arranged in meaningful spatial and functional relationship to one another. Each of these sanctuaries is a splendid experiment in group design; each is an ensemble inspired by the topographical and historical 97

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figure 2.18 General view of the Temple of Hercules, Cori; Photo by Diane Favro.

characteristics of the site and the ritual of usage, and molded into complex architectonic wholes. Each is also an example in the confident and creative use of Roman concrete, the most progressive building technology of its day. The last two to be discussed, in Tivoli and Palestrina, also demonstrate the most elaborate and sophisticated examples of the temple-theater type. TE MP LE OF J UP ITE R ANX UR, TER RACI NA

High up on the rocky headland above Terracina (ancient Tarracina), the terrace of the Temple of Jupiter Anxur 98

(or Venus Obsequens) commands attention from the Via Appia Antica, the ancient coastal road from Rome to south (Figure 2.23). The great rectangular terrace was built around 80 bce, directly below the castrum of the old Roman colony (Figure 2.24). The terrace is structurally and visually articulated by an imposing arcaded facade, a series of twelve simple barrel vaults connect at right angles to an interior barrel-vaulted corridor and arches defining a telescoping enfilade (Figures 2.25 and 2.26). Exploiting the opportunity to express the structure by the use of a series of barrel vaults instead of a solid mass of concrete is noteworthy, although solid

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figure 2.19 Hypothetical reconstructed façade elevation of the Forum Temple (so-called Tempio della Pace), Paestum; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after Krauss and Herbig).

concrete for a terrace the size of Terracina’s would have been structurally ill-advised given the dangers of massive settling and cracking due to lack of compartmentalization and flexibility. As with the massive piers of an aqueduct, or a bridge, classical orders have no place here; the only ornamentation of the terrace are the severely simple limestone moldings marking the springing of the vaults, the mosaic-like texture of opus incertum facing concrete, and the masonry block construction that accentuates the arches and the corners of the structure. Today, only the concrete core of the high temple podium remains. A short portico positioned behind the temple must have offered comfort to the weary pilgrims who climbed up to the sanctuary on foot to pay homage to the resident deity who has also been identified as Venus Osequens rather than Jupiter Anxur (see Figure 2.24; Coarelli 1987, 122-25). The temple’s oblique orientation might have been a response to the traditional requirements of an old cult, but the uneven, diagonal division of the terrace top also enhances the dynamic relationship between the

elements sharing this space, as seen also with the scenic design of the upper terraces at Hellenistic Pergamon. It was here, on this elevated and defined sacred ground before the Terracina temple and its altar, facing the expanding vista of the sea embracing the sky, that the soaring presence of the deity must have been awesome and imminent. T E M P L E O F H E R CU L E S V I C T O R , TI VO L I

Built around 50 bce, a generation or so after the Temple of Jupiter Anxur but more elaborate in its layout, is the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor in Tivoli. A U-shaped, two-storied portico framed a large, rectangular terrace (Figure 2.27). The Italic-type cult temple (rebuilt during the late first century ce), dominates the central axis of the composition and projects out from the backdrop of the long portico, facing the open side of the terrace and the view toward Rome. On the main axis, and immediately below the temple’s stairs, is a theater of semicircular steps curving around 99

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figure 2.20 Restored perspective and plan of the Sanctuary of Juno at Gabii; rendered by Diane Favro (after).

figure 2.21 Axonometric reconstruction of the theater-temple sanctuary at Pietrabbondante; rendered by Youssef Maguid.

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figure 2.22 View from the temple terrace at Pietrabbondante across the theater to the distant countryside; Photo by Diane Favro.

figure 2.23 General view from the Via Appia Antica up to the terrace of the so-called Sanctuary of Jupiter Anxur, Terracina; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 2.24 Axonometric reconstruction of the Sanctuary of Jupiter Anxur at Terracina; rendered by Marie Saldaña.

figure 2.25 Terrace podium of the Temple of Jupiter Anxur, Terracina; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

the orchestra, reached by a pair of symmetrical ramps. Here, below the rising columns of the temple, performances related to the cult must have taken place. The broad terrace, the porticos, the ramps, and the theater were carried by a substructure of concrete vaults, similar to the substructures of the Anxur terrace, 102

but more complex in design and execution, and larger in scale (Figures 2.28 and 2.29). So sturdy was the concrete support structure that the Via Tiburtina, the main highway from Rome, ran under the terrace through an 8.5-meter-wide tunnel, referred to as the Via Tecta, or the covered street. Numerous barrel-

Temple Architecture of Republican Rome and Italy

figure 2.26 Detail of terrace substructure with arches enfilade, Terracina; Photo: antonioa89 via Wikimedia.

vaulted chambers thought to be shops, opened into this roadway and constituted, perhaps, the first underground “shopping center” of antiquity; this tunnel also may have served as a funnel point for the assessment of taxes on goods being transported to Rome (see Figure 2.29). The steep north side of the terrace facing the Anio river gorge is raised on a basement of tall ashlar buttresses over which stands a row of arches separated by half-columns carrying a wall entablature (see Figure 2.28). This impressive facade of functional concrete vaults and decorative engaged columns in opus incertum is only partially preserved, but its monumentality is forcefully conveyed in an engraving by the eighteenth-century architect Piranesi. The design of the Sanctuary of Hercules at Tivoli represents a strictly symmetrical and monumental ordering of architectural elements around a powerful axis. Bracketed between the arms of the embracing portico, the components of the ensemble enhance the sense of order and frontality. Formal and axial presentation of an architectural group as a broadly arraigned architectural type has its origins in Hellenistic architecture as, for example, in the design of temple and enclosed funerary precincts in Greece and Asia Minor. A closer and more monumental example in its setting is the celebrated Sanctuary of Asclepios at Kos, a grand, multiple-terraced composition of interrelated terraces, linked to each other by stairs and ramps. Although not strictly axial on paper, the complex feels axial in its reallife perception and experience (see Figure 2.30). S A NC T U AR Y OF F O R T U N A A T P R A E N E S T E P AL E ST R IN A

The third, possibly the earliest, of these sanctuaries is the center for the cult of Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste (modern Palestrina). We reserved its discussion to the end of this chapter because it is also the most striking in design, boldest in structural innovation, and the most complex in programmatic breadth. Its grandiose but disciplined composition is universally admired by

students of architectural history. As one scholar claimed, in its masterful “manipulation of surface, of light and shade, of counterthrust, views, unitary plan, of space both full and empty,” the design is the most seminal architectural complex in the whole Roman world (MacKendrick 1960, 137). Previously thought to date from circa 80 bce, and associated with Sulla’s rebuilding efforts at Praeneste as a expiatory gesture after sacking the town in 82 bce, research by Italian scholars compels us to revise this date by one-half century or so, to circa 120 bce. Around this time the city’s residents were also developing a civic space at the base of the hill, including construction of a large basilica with a splendid terracotta processional frieze and proud donor portrait, as well as an adjacent hall with the famous Nilotic mosaic originally viewed covered in a sheen of water. Long before the building of any structures, the venerable shrine of Fortuna existed on this location, possibly centered about a sacred cave and a pit into which were cast the inscribed lots that predicted the future. The oracular nature of the cult must have ensured its popularity, attracting large numbers of pilgrims to visit the miracle-working shrine. The sanctuary straddles in six or seven terraces, the steep hill which rises behind the town on the plain, just above the forum (Figures 2.31 and 2.32). The levels are linked to each other by covered porticoes, arcades, stairs, and ramps arranged about a powerful central axis leading up to the semicircular hollow of a theater. A small but tall circular temple (tholos) crowns the entire symmetrical layout. The terraces are partially built into the slope and supported by a series of concrete vaulted structures faced in a handsomely wrought opus incertum (Figure 2.33). Contrasting against the broad, silvery-gray expanse of this texture, are the plain, travertine highlights of architectural ornament, trim and moldings, and columns, displaying one of the finest examples of the new functionalist aesthetics of the late Republic. A 100-meter-long terrace supported by a bold polygonal masonry wall forms the base line of the complex (III). A pair of roofed ramps like the two sides of an isosceles triangle connects this terrace to the one above it whose backwall is formed by an Ionic colonnade. The outward side of the ramps facing the view was solid wall; on the inward side, a Doric colonnade faced the hill, and a narrow corridor of light. The distinguishing features of Terrace IV are the two hemicycles on either side of a monumental staircase with semicircular concrete barrel vaults articulated by square coffers (Figures 2.34 and 2.35; Plate 3A). No doubt these coffers, and perhaps the inner walls of the hemicycles, would have been stuccoed and decorated with painted ornament. The level above is a long and narrow terrace (V) with a back wall articulated by the familiar decorative motif of arches separated by engaged columns – perhaps the earliest use of this 103

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 2.27 Reconstruction perspective of the Sanctuary of Hercules, Tivoli; rendered by Diane Favro (after Giuliani).

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50 m

figure 2.28 Reconstructed side elevation of the Sanctuary of Hercules showing vaulted substructures, Tivoli; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after Giuliani).

resourceful arrangement in Roman architecture. The uppermost terrace (VI) is truly a plaza, defined by the arms of a wide U-shaped double colonnade opening to the view. A cryptoporticus, or a barrel-vaulted corridor partially carved into the hillside, runs behind the arcaded frontage. Symmetrically placed on either side of the cryptoporticus are fountains inside arched niches. 104

Reached by a freestanding central flight of stairs, bold and monumental like a sculpture in space, the plaza expands toward the hill into the broad theatrical area, and the curving arms of a colonnade above it (Figure 2.35). Crowning the composition is the circular open temple, the home of Fortuna’s cult image (today built into a Renaissance palace that houses a museum).

Temple Architecture of Republican Rome and Italy

figure 2.29 Tunnel (or via tecta) allowing the Via Tiburtina under the terrace of the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor, Tivoli; courtesy of John Pinto.

A physical description of the architectural and structural features of the Sanctuary of Fortuna at Palestrina, however informative, is insufficient. Such a complex, like a city, represents the creation of a comprehensive and integrated designed environment, and also like a city, needs to be experienced in order to be fully appreciated. Pilgrims visiting Fortuna’s sanctuary started their quest at the bottom of the hill (see Figure 2.32). Climbing the stairs at the ends of the terrace with the polygonal retaining wall (II and III), they were confronted by colonnaded fountain-houses and the entrances to the ramps. Here was a chance to refresh the body and fortify the spirit, quench one’s thirst, and perform the necessary ablutions before sacred ground was gained. The initiation must have been a unique and memorable experience: a long climb up the dimly lighted, covered ramp following on the hill side a ribbon of brightness perceived through the screen of a leaning colonnade. At the top of the ramp, the panting visitors were thrust into the open sunlight. Huddled on a small landing at the apex of the triangle formed by the ramps, they faced the breathtaking view of the plain braided by a chain of distant hills toward Tivoli, Gabii, and Rome.

This was the first of many carefully designed vantage points, contrasting the confinement of a narrow terrace with the boundless energy of the horizon beyond. Turning toward the hill, with no warning, visitors faced the most powerful and awesome prospect of the sanctuary: three flights of a stairway joined to its nexus in a single visual arrow rose before them like an irrefutable argument, and connected them, to the hollow of the theater, and the shining dome of Fortuna’s tholos (see Figure 2.35). If this symbolized a stairway to heaven, the metaphor for wish-fulfillment could not have been more artfully conceived and forcefully executed. The pull of this stairway to the beckoning small dome was so relentless that it must have hurt the believer as she/he stood for a moment between the ramps making choices. Yet, choices had to be made, ascent continued, ritual satisfied. The orderly climb had to be broken at appropriate stations for religious observance: prayers offered, wine poured, sacrifices made, charms cast, ablutions renewed – even curses considered. The deep niches behind the colonnaded or arcaded backwalls of terraces IV and V might have contained shops and stalls for guilds, weavers, silversmiths, garland-makers, glass105

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 2.30 Reconstruction perspective of the Sanctuary of Asclepios at Kos; rendered by Youssef Maguid.

figure 2.31 General view of the Sanctuary of Fortuna Virilis, Praeneste; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

blowers – businesses with financial interest in Lady Luck. The inclusion of a certain amount of commercial activity in a sanctuary evidently was not viewed as inappropriate; ancient religion permeated every aspect of an individual’s life in ways more intimate and thorough than what most of us are accustomed today. 106

Visitors could buy souvenirs to take home to remember their pilgrimage. More importantly, they could buy suitable votive offerings for the goddess – silver objects, urns, statuettes – for ancient deities appreciated receiving gifts and responded to mortals’ wishes more willingly if their prayers were accompanied by such tokens

Temple Architecture of Republican Rome and Italy

A Forum B Civic Basilica C Tholos of Fortuna

C

VI

V B

IV

III

A N

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figure 2.32 Axonometric reconstruction of the Sanctuary of Fortuna Virilis at Praeneste; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Fasolo and Giulliani).

of substance, or so the mortals believed. We might add, in agreement with our colleague G. Metraux, that these great late Republican temples with pilgrimage aspects also served the important sociopolitical goal of,

“promoting popular religion in the face of elite scepticism, like the establishment of the conservative cult of Venus Verticordia (for conservative Roman matrons and their daughters-in-law)” (personal correspondence). 107

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 2.33 View of the terrace with hemicycles at the Sanctuary of Fortuna Virilis at Praeneste; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

The last terrace (VI) was a place for gathering, resting, and waiting – an airy plaza whose generous colonnades and barrel-vaulted cryptoporticus offered shelter for the weary pilgrims. Across the breadth of the open terrace and under the cover of the roofs, the faithful, having traveled from far and wide, mixed and mingled, exchanged stories, shared miseries and hopes. When it was time at last to climb the last stairway and gather in the hollow of the theater, the motley crowd had become a unified body of believers. This protected arena, carved into the heart of the mountain and shadowed by the curving arms of the upper colonnade, under the watchful eyes of the goddess in her tholos above, was probably used for performances and mysteries associated with the rites of the cult. One would like to presume that at the right moment, the priestess of the goddess appeared dramatically at the top of the curved steps between the widely-spaced columns of the center and spoke firmly, but elusively, for the oracle of Fortuna, the first-born child of Jupiter. In all of these three sanctuaries – Terracina, Tibur, Praeneste – design was determined by the disciplined, purposeful human movement through space. Like a carefully choreographed ballet, this movement progressed toward its visual and emotional goals in orderly repetitions of kinetic dialectics: opening and closing, gathering and dispersing, climbing and resting, praying and expecting – rhythmic repetitions of the ritual of 108

action were laced with rhythmic repetitions of the ritual of form. The ultimate inspiration for design was derived from the nature of landscape setting and enhanced and exploited the drama of topography in the drama of design. It has often been pointed that the compositional principles of these sanctuaries had their origins in a number of Hellenistic schemes displaying a multitude of terraces, such as the previously mentioned Sanctuary of Asclepius on the island of Kos, or the precinct of the Temple of Athena crowning the Acropolis of Lindos, in Rhodes. At Kos (c. 150–100 bce) the sanctuary is arranged on three slightly askew ascending terraces: the uppermost contains the major peripteral Temple of Asclepius within a three-sided portico (see Figure 2.30). At Lindos (c. 300–200 bce), a succession of porticoed terraces connected to each other by axially-disposed grand stairways lead up to the small temple hidden off-axis behind the columns of its propylaea. A good example closer to Rome is the mid-second-century bce precinct of the Temple of Apollo off the forum in Pompeii, though not in the creation of a multi-layered and multi-leveled architectural environment (see earlier). Here, a peripteral temple elevated on a podium is tightly enveloped by the encircling colonnade. The presentation of the temple façade, privileged by its height and deep front porch as the centerpiece of the peripteral composition,

Temple Architecture of Republican Rome and Italy

figure 2.34, plate 3a View of the east hemicycle and detail of the opus caementicium annular barrel vault with coffers at the Sanctuary of Fortuna Virilis, Praeneste; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 2.35 Axial stairs at the Sanctuary of Fortuna Virilis, Praeneste; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity heightens the sense of architectural drama. As eloquently expressed by Frank Brown, “The architects of Hellenistic Rome drew [the enveloping colonnade] tightly about the temple space to second the frontal facade by cloistering the sacred proceedings and by accompanying them with the rhythmic iteration of its columns,” a lesson well appreciated by the architect of the Sanctuary of Hercules at Tivoli (Brown 1961, 20). Clearly the Hellenistic complexes represent building groups related to each other and to their topographical settings in scenographic arrangements, and show a clear taste for dramatic vistas. Unlike the late Republican sanctuaries of Italy, each was not the product of a single architectural conception of synchronic design; they were projects that developed over time. Furthermore, neither of these complexes is strictly axial and symmetrical, nor do they really emphasize and exploit their axiality as a powerful element of design as their Roman counterparts do. “The unknown architect-genius who planned Palestrina probably knew the Greek sanctuary at Kos; he was certainly in touch with the main movement of mind in his age. But the final impression of this dynamic, utterly functional, axially symmetric complex is not Greek but Roman,” observed Paul MacKendrick (MacKendrick 1960, 157). Closer models for the kind of design joining temples with theaters in a highly formalized and sophisticated relationship, as we see them at Tivoli and Palestrina, must be more comfortably associated with the broadly diffused Italic tradition of theater-temple complexes such as those at Cagliari on Sardinia, Pietrabbondante, and Gabii (see earlier). At Gabii, dated to the mid-second century bce, the hexastyle Corinthian temple with alae is in the center of a large rectangular enclosure, surrounded on the back and the sides by a U-shaped colonnade. Directly in front of the temple, positioned on the central axis, are the monumental semicircular stairs of the theater (see Figure 2.20). It is tempting to go a step further and consider that the expertise of the Roman architect and engineer was becoming increasingly influential in the wider later Hellenistic world. The notion that the growing Roman presence in the eastern Mediterranean during the third and second centuries bce was a critical factor in the emergence of a sense of order and formality in Hellenistic architecture itself should not be ignored. Perhaps Kos is more Roman than Tivoli or Praeneste are Greek. REFERENCES

Adam, J.-P. 1994. Le Temple de Portunus au Forum Boarium (Collection de L’École Franҫaise de Rome, 199). Rome: École Francaise de Rome. Almagro-Gorbea, M., ed. 1982. El santuario de Juno en Gabii. Rome: Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueología.

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Andren, A. 1959–60. “Origine e formazione dell’architettura templare etrusco-italica.” RPAA 32: 21–59. Barton, I. M. 1989. “Religious Buildings.” In I. M. Barton, ed. Roman Public Buildings. Exeter: University of Exeter, 67–96. Boyd, M. J. 1953. “The Porticoes of Metellus and Octavia and Their Two Temples.” PBSR 21: 152–159. Brown, F. E. 1960. The Temples of the Arx (Cosa II). Rome: American Academy in Rome. 1980. Cosa: The Making of a Roman Town. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Burton, P. 1996. “The Summoning of the Magna Mater to Rome (205 B.C.).” Historia 45: 36–63. Castagnoli, F. 1955. “Peripteros sine postico.” RömMitt 62: 139–143. 1966–67. “Sul tempio ‘italico.’” RömMitt 73–74: 10-14. 1979. “Il culto della Mater Matuta e della Fortuna nel Foro Boario,” StRom 27: 145–152. 1984. “Il tempio romano: questioni di terminogia e tipologia.” PBSR 52: 3–20. Champeaux, J. 1987. Les transformations de Fortuna sous la République. Rome: École Française de Rome. Coarelli, F. 1965–1967. “Il tempio de Bellona.” BullComm 80: 37–72. 1968. “L’identificazione dell’Area sacra dell’Argentina.” Palatino 12: 365–373. 1977. “Public Building in Rome between the Second Punic War and Sulla.” PBSR 45: 1–19. 1981. “Topografia e stora.” In F. Coarelli, L. Kajanto, U. Hälvä-Nyberg, and M. Steinby, eds. L’area sacra di Largo Argentina I. Rome: Poliglotta Vaticana, 9–80. 1987. I santuari del Lazio in età repubblicana. Rome: La Nuova Italia scientifica. 1988. Il Foro Boario dalle origini alle fine della repubblica. Rome: Quasar. 1997. Il Campo Marzio dalle origini alle fine della Repubblica. Rome: Quasar. Colonna, G. 1984. “I templi di Lazio fino al V secolo compresso.” Arch.Laziale 6: 396–411. Cressedi, G. 1984. “Il Foro Boario e il Velabro.” BullComm 89: 249–296. Crozzoli, L. A. 1981. “I tre templi del Foro Olitorio.” Memorie, Atti della Pontificia Accademia romana di archeologia. Serie III, 13.1: 7–136. Davies, P. 2006. “Exploring the International Arena: The Tarquins' Aspirations for the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.” In C. Mattusch, A. Donohue, and A. Brauer, eds. Common Ground: Proceedings of the XVIth International Congress of Classical Archaeology. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 186–189. 2013. “The archaeology of mid-Republican Rome: The emergence of a Mediterranean capital.” In J. D. Evans, ed. A Companion to the Archaeology of the Roman Republic. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 441–458. 2014. “Rome and Her Neighbors: Greek Building Practices in Republican Rome.” In R. B. Ulrich and C. K. Quenomoen, eds. A Companion to Roman Architecture. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 27–44. 2017. Architecture and Politics in Republican Rome. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Temple Architecture of Republican Rome and Italy D’Alessio, A. 2011. “Spazio, funzioni e paesaggio nei santuari a terrazze Italici di età tardo-repubblicana. Note per un approccio sistemico al linguaggio di una grande architettura.” In E. La Rocca and A. D’Alessio, eds. Tradizione e Innovazione (Studi Miscellanei 35), 51–86. Delbrück, R. 1907–1912. Hellenistische Bauten in Latium. Strassburg: Trübner. Fasolo, F. and G. Gullini. 1953. Il Santuario della Fortuna Primigenia a Palestrina. 2 vols. Rome: Università di Roma. Giuliani, C. F. 1970. Tibur I. (Forma Italiae I.6). Florence: Olschki. Gjerstad. E. 1953–73. Early Rome, I-IV. Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup. Gros, P. 1978. Architecture et société à Rome et en Italie centro-méridionale aux deux derniers siècles de la République (Coll. Latomus 156). Brussels: Latomus. Gruen, E. S. 1992. Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hanson, J. A. 1959. Roman Theater-Temples. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hopkins, J. 2010. “The Colossal Temple of Jupiter Optimus in Archaic Rome.” In C. Camporeale, H. Dessales, and A. Pizzo, eds. Arqueologίa de la Construcciόn II. Los Procesos Constructivos en el Mundo Romano: Italia y Provincias Orientales (Anejos de Archivo Español de Arquelogίa LVII). Madrid-Merida: CSIC, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas: 15–33. 2012. “The Capitoline Temple and the Effects of Monumentality on Roman Temple Design.” In M. L. Thomas and G. E. Meyers, eds. Monumentality in Etruscan and Early Roman Architecture, Ideology and Innovation. Austin: University of Texas Press, 111–38. 2016. The Genesis of Roman Architecture. New Haven: Yale University Press. Jocelyn, H. D. 1966. “The Roman Nobility and the Religion of the Republican State.” Journal of Religious History 4: 89–104. Lauter, H. 1979. “Bemerkungen zur späthellenistischen Baukunst in Mittelitalien.” JDAI 94: 390–459. Lehmann, P. W. 1954. “The Setting of Hellenistic Temples.” JSAH 13.4: 15–20. MacKendrick, P. 1960. The Mute Stones Speak. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Merz, J. M. 2001. Die Heiligtum der Fortuna in Palestrina und die Architektur der Neuzeit (Römische Forschungen der Bibliotheca Hertziana, 29). Munich: Hirmer. Meyers, G. E. 2012. In M. L. Thomas and G. E. Gretchen, eds. Monumentality on Etruscan and Early Roman Architecture, Ideology and Innovation. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1–20. Morgan, M. G. 1971. “The Portico of Metellus: A Reconsideration.” Hermes 99: 480–505. Mura Sommella, A. 2000. “Le recenti scoperte sul Campidoglio e la fondazione del tempio Giove Capitolino.” RendPontAc 70: 57–79. 2002. “‘La grande Roma dei Tarquini’: Alterne vicende di una felice intuizione.” In F. Roscetti, L. Lanzetta

and L. Canatore, eds. Il classico nella Roma contemporanea. Mito, modelli, memoria, II. Rome: Istituto Nazionali di Studi Romani, 303–323. 2009. “Il tempio di Giove Capitolino: Una nuova proposta di lettura.” In G.M. Della Fina, ed. Gli etruschi e Roma: Fasi monarchica e alto-repubblicana, Annali della Fondazione per il Museo “Claudio Faina” 16. Orvieto: Quasar, 333–372. Orlin, E. M. 1997. Temples, Religion and Politics in the Roman Republic. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Rakob, F., W. D. Heilmeyer, W. Niemann, and P. Gianfrotta. 1973. Der Rundtempel am Tiber in Rom. Mainz: Von Zabern. Richardson Jr., L. 1976. “The Evolution of the Porticus Octaviae.” AJA 80: 57–64. Ruggiero, I. 1987. “Il tempio di Portuno nel Foro Boario.” BStArt 80 (n.s. 30): 16–22. Shipley, F. W. 1931. “A Chronology of the Building Operations in Rome from the Death of Caesar to the Death of Augustus.” MAAR 9: 7–60. Stambaugh, J. E. 1978. “The Functions of Roman Temples.” ANRW 16.1: 554–608. Stamper, J. W. 2005. The Architecture of Roman Temples. Cambridge: Cambridge. University Press. 2014. “Urban Sanctuaries: The Early Republic to Augustus.” In R. B . Ulrich and C. K. Quenemoen, eds. A Companion to Roman Architecture. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 207–227. Viscogliosi, A. 2000. “Porticus Metelli.” In LTUR, 4: 130–132. 2000. “Iuno Regina, Aedes in Campo, ad Circum Flaminium.” In LTUR, 3: 126–128. 2000. “Porticus Octaviae.” In LTUR, 4: 139–145. Ward-Perkins, J. B. and D. Strong. 1960. “The Round Temple in the Forum Boarium.” PBSR 28: 7–30. Weigel, R. D. 1982–83. “The Duplication of Temples of Juno Regina in Rome.” AncSoc 14: 179–192. Weisman, T. P. 1981. “The Temple of Victory on the Palatine.” AntJourn 61: 35–52. Welch, K. 2010. “Art and Architecture in the Roman Republic.” In N. Rosenstein and R. Morstein-Marx, eds. A Companion to the Roman Republic. Oxford: WileyBlackwell, 496–542. Winter, N. 2012. “Monumentalization of the Etruscan Round Mouldings in Sixth-Century bce Central Italy.” In M. L. Thomas and G. E. Gretchen, eds. Monumentality in Companion to Roman Architecture.” Austin: University of Texas Press, 61–81. Ziolkowski, A. 1986. “Les Temples A et C du Largo Argentina: Quelques considerations.” MEFRA 98: 618–629. 1988. “Mummius’ Temple of Hercules Victor and the Round Temple on the Tiber.” Phoenix 42: 309–333. 1992. The Temples of Mid-Republcan Rome and their Historical and Topographical Context. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

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3

TECHNOLOGY OF BUILDING -

“Just compare the vast array of indispensable structures carrying so much water with the idle pyramids [of the Egyptians], or the famous but useless monuments of the Greeks!” (De Aq.1.16). With these enthusiastic words, Sextus Julius Frontinus, the water commissioner of Rome in the early second century, provides poetic endorsement to the widely held view that Romans had far more interest in solving the practical needs of its citizens than creating aesthetically pleasing, but functionally useless, artistic monuments (Figure 3.1, Plate 3B). Frontinus’ mild boasting about the impressive network of aqueducts which supplied the city of Rome, and many others, with plenty of fresh, safe running water is misleading, but justifiable. It is misleading because the Romans, throughout their history appreciated material luxury when they could get it, and they created much art and architecture that aimed to be beautiful, but remained useless. It is also misleading because the Greeks, when necessary, were perfectly capable of major works of utilitarian nature – witness the spectacular circuits of masonry defence walls around their cities. It is justifiable because the Romans also retained a core of interest in providing a basic standard of public services and amenities for the benefit of the people and an exceptional talent for organizing their human and material resources toward that end. This last characteristic of the Romans, an appreciation of technical skills expressed through architecture and planning, sets them apart from many other ancient societies. Romans certainly displayed a keen interest in technical projects and an ability to apply their practical knowledge in solving problems of engineering and architecture, but insofar as a “skill” implies an acquired ability, they also had the good fortune to have their 112

central Italian neighbors, especially the Etruscans who lived just north of the Tiber, as mentors and models in their early history. When the rulers of Etruscan origin had their sway over Rome during the century or so preceding the Republic, they undertook major engineering projects, such as draining the swampy valleys on which much of early Rome was built, and providing the city with its first civic and hygienic infrastructure. Although ancient sources inform us that the “Great Sewer” of Rome, known as the Cloaca Maxima, was started by the Etruscan monarch Tarquinius Priscus and continued under appalling hardship and work conditions, as reported by Pliny the Elder some 550 years later (see earlier; Pliny NH 36.197–108; Livy I.55–56), much of this impressive project appears to be the work of the late Republic. It started at the Esquiline Hill, ran down through the Forum Romanum, the Velabrum, and emptied into the Tiber by the Forum Boarium, where it can be seen today (Figure 3.2). Although it originally was a wide open ditch, it was later covered by an impressive vaulted canal in peperino (and even later was repaired in brick and brickfaced concrete), wide enough for a wagon loaded with hay to pass through as ancient sources with admiration reported. The basic standard of Roman public services and amenities included paved roads and bridges, functioning drainage and sewage systems, copious sources for fresh water through the building of dams, canals, and aqueducts, as well as visually appealing fountain structures as civic monuments terminating these elaborate water supply systems. In such an urban matrix, institutions of religion, law, literary and artistic culture, commerce, and recreation – temples, theaters, basilicas, libraries, markets, baths, circuses, and amphitheaters – flourished and provided a sense of shared values and

Technology of Building

figure 3.1; plate 3b Oil painting of aqueducts outside Rome: Römische Aquädukte: Die Wasserversorgung im alten Rom (1914) by Michael Zeno Diemer; © Deutsches Museum, Munich, Archive, BN31047.

aqueducts that supplied fresh water to them did not. They were expressly an urban phenomenon. Before we start a survey of these institutions that best represent the achievements of Roman building technology, and before we review the actual building materials and methods of construction that made this technology possible, a discussion of the profession of architecture and the Roman architect may be in order.

figure 3.2 Cloaca Maxima, Rome; Photo: Chris 73 via Wikimedia.

experiences. As Roman law defined and protected the rights and privileges of its citizens, Roman planning and architectural technology ensured an urban world (as the Romans understood it), a standard of civic amenities, the stamp of Romanitas, from Syria to Scotland (witness, for example, Roman legal decisions protecting urban residents’ right to light). We should, however, proceed with the caveat that perhaps a very large sector of this world, some of the urban portion, but mainly the rural, agrarian, did not fully enjoy these amenties, from fora to fountains. Public baths might have permeated even the remotest towns, but the famed

ROMAN ARCHITECTS AND THE ARCHITECTURAL PROFESSION The Latin architectus is a close equivalent of the modern definition of an architect. Like his counterparts today, the Roman architect, too, possessed a fair degree of knowledge and training in civil engineering, although his primary responsibility was the design of buildings. Much of our information about the architectural profession and building technology in Roman antiquity comes from Vitruvius, a military architect who lived in the second half of the first century bce and wrote a book on architecture, De Architectura, almost miraculously preserved in its totality. In it Vitruvius recommends a very broad education for the architect, including a full range of liberal arts as well as the 113

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity mastery of technical and practical subjects. It is doubtful if this idealized and somewhat unrealistic program was ever fully followed in real life. It appears that a few tracks existed for a young man who wished to go into architecture and civil engineering: apprenticeship with an established architect or builder leading to private career; military training involving mainly technical and engineering projects; and training through imperial service. Of course, there must have been considerable overlap and mobility between these roughly outlined career directions. But, all three tracks emphasized professional, hands-on training rather than the academic education as (ideally) recommended by Vitruvius. The position of an architect in Roman society was a respected and honorable one, but like so many trades and service professions it was also a fairly humble one, considered to be unsuitable for the upper classes. As to be expected, there were some derogatory comments about architects (usually by disgruntled clients), such as the famous quip of Martial that if one’s son were slow of wit, “make him an auctioneer or architect” (Spect. 5.56). Practitioners were typically foreigners, mainly educated Greek slaves or freedmen. Outstanding members of the profession could be connected to wealthy aristocratic families (Cicero had several who had designed his many villas), or even rise to enjoy imperial favors working as the chief architect for major public commissions. Considering the enormous output of building under the Empire, we know the names and personalities of relatively few architects (although there are numerous tombstones identifying participants in the profession). There was Hermodorus of Salamis, a Greek architect who lived in the capital around the mid-second century bce and designed Rome’s first marble temple, that to Jupiter Stator in the Porticus Metelli. There was Cossutius, a Roman citizen, who lived in Athens and worked for the Hellenistic king Antiochus IV (and probably also undertook projects in Antioch, the king’s north Syrian capital); he is best known for completing the long unfinished temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens in the second century bce. No doubt Cossutius was a thorough professional who could work both in Greek and Roman modes of building. There was the previously mentioned Vitruvius, the military architect, engineer, theoretician, and author who lived during the late Republic, and who we shall discuss separately later. Severus and Celer were the architects of the emperor Nero, responsible for his palace, the Golden House (Domus Aurea), a trendsetting design that changed the course of Roman architecture (see later). Rabirius was Domitian’s chief architect who realized the great palace complex for the emperor on the Palatine hill in Rome and probably overlapped 114

with Apollodorus of Damascus, the talented and versatile architect of Trajan. Apollodorus was a Greek from the East, who designed spectacular wooden bridges to aid the emperor’s military campaigns, as well as the forum, basilica, and markets along with the colossal baths (thermae) bearing Trajan’s name and, possibly, had a role in the making of Hadrian’s Pantheon. From Asia Minor there was also Dionysius, honored by a statue by the city of Patara, for putting an audacious timber roof over their odeum (HadrianicAntonine) and identified as one “who came from winerich Tmolos” – or, simply, from Sardis. This still leaves many world-class monuments unaccounted for. Who were the architects of Augustus’ ambitious building program in Rome and the provinces, especially his forum and his mausoleum? Who designed the Colosseum? Who created the remarkable buildings of Hadrian during the first half of the second century ce – the amazing villa complex at Tivoli, or the great Pantheon in Rome – unless the multitalented emperor himself was the architect? The elderly Apollodorus might have been responsible for some of them, but not many (see later in this chapter). This should not surprise us: in the Roman world, unlike the Greek, the artist’s personality was subsumed under the patron’s name, position, and wealth. The cult of the artist as a creative genius was still in the future. Thus, we have Michelangelo’s dome of Saint Peter’s in Rome, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in New York and Frank Gehry’s in Bilbao, Spain but the emperors’ baths (Baths of Caracalla or Diocletian). The relative invisibility of the Roman architect may also be an indication of the nature of building arts in the empire as a collective enterprise requiring the input and services of a great many professional agents, specialists in various building technologies, designers and builders, none more important than the other. An architect and his team with a conventional knowledge of geometry could easily survey the land or establish the layout or the outline of a building and its repeating structural elements – piers, columns, buttresses. Fast and reliable field methods, such as triangulation, the tracing out of a rightangled triangle with 3–4–5 sides, or the division of basic geometric shapes into equal parts, could be achieved by simple tools: measuring sticks, plumb bobs, triangles, spirit levels, chains, and ropes. The depiction of these familiar tools of the trade on funerary and other monuments helps us to identify architects’ and builders’ tombs, and provide simple but lively depictions of construction sites (Figures 3.3 and 3.4). The remarkable fact is how little these practices and tools have changed in traditional

Technology of Building

figure 3.3 Mosaic of an architect with his assistants and associated tools; the wreath probably held the name of his patron; Bardo Museum, Tunis.

construction even now. For larger projects or urban layouts, collaboration with professional technicians, such as land surveyors, mensores, or agrimensores (measurers of land), might be required. Surveying of large

urban tracks was undertaken with the help of a special instrument called a groma, which was basically a cross piece mounted on a vertical rod. Four plumb bob lines suspended from the cross bars allowed easy, 115

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figure 3.4 Marble relief from Terracina showing an architect holding a roll of drawings, depicted three times (next to seated patron on far right, standing by stone carver in center, and on the far left): courtesy of the Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme inv. 231008.

and remarkably accurate, sighting for right-angular lines. Yet, some of these tested and tried, rough-andready, field methods might have been inspired by a higher plane of theoretical and philosophical discourse focused on the shaping of an ordered world. As J. Senseney reminds us, even the trajectory vision of space through the sightline of the groma, in one sense, represents Euclid’s graphic ideai (or “idea”) of architectural essence: “In this way, the surveyor projects the architect’s vision onto the plane of earth, imparting a spatial framework for built work’s imitation of the architect’s idea before a stone is even laid” (Senseney 2014, 155). Roman architects preferred to use simple, whole number modules in Roman feet (RF) or their multiples or fractions. Since slightly different standards of Roman feet were used in different parts of the empire, we need to know the local measurement unit in order to convert them into digital modules (for comparative purposes a Roman foot was about 0.296 m). The practical methods in use rendered a remarkable degree of accuracy but it would be a mistake to hold that Roman buildings sought to elevate metrology (the science of measurement) into a fine art resulting in three-digit precision to create complex proportional relationships. In fact, even some of the most important public monuments often reveal surprising inaccuracies, which were corrected by simple, practical field methods, and occasional disasters which, well, stayed as disasters (see later). Just as today’s builders and craftsmen, Roman builders occasionally made mistakes and devised delightful on-the-job techniques to correct them. Construction is an approximating art in any society. 116

Vitruvius makes it clear that architects used plans (ichnographia), elevations (orthographia), and colored or shaded perspectives (scaenographia) (De Arch. 1.2.2). For complicated buildings they must have had working models for laborers in the field and presentation models for their clients. These drawings and models, rendered in impermanent materials, have perished. Some small architectural models were made in terracotta or stone, apparently for cultic rather than building purposes (Azara 1997). Drafting tools have been found in excavations, or are proudly depicted as “tools of the trade” on architects’ tombstones. There is a mosaic plan of a bath, now in the Caelian Antiquarium in Rome, with many curvilinear rooms (typical of Roman baths); pools are shown in blue; doors, windows, and proper wall thicknesses are indicated, and the simplified dimensions of each space given in Roman numerals (Figure 3.5). This is, of course, only a representation; the real working plan, probably drawn on parchment, must have been more precise and informative. The city of Rome had a remarkably accurate and detailed plan incised on marble plaques, dating from the early third century ce, called the “Marble Plan” (or Forma Urbis Romae), showing streets, houses, baths, shops, and many identifiable and “labeled” monuments (Figure 3.6). The scale varied, with more important buildings being shown slightly larger. Exhibited inside one of the major libraries of the city in the Forum of Vespasian (Temple of Peace; see later), it must have been a propaganda piece based on real drawings and cadastral maps kept in city offices.

Technology of Building extreme raked light provided by a mirror), were normally intended to be erased after the construction was finished or hidden under later blocks. Probably most ancient buildings had them but few remain. A set of lines drawn on the pavement along the right bank of the Tiber in Rome (in front of the Mausoleum of Augustus) has been shown to be a “field sketch” tracing in full scale the slope and main decorative divisions of the pediment and one of the capitals of the Pantheon! This was obviously the dock where the massive marble blocks of the Pantheon’s porch were brought up the river, unloaded, roughly shaped, and laid out in a field mock-up before being transported some 700 meters to the job site for fine tooling and assemblage (Haselberger 1994, 279–308). The Greek builders of the gigantic Temple of Apollo in Didyma, Asia Minor (c. 300–250 bce), left a set of fine lines on the white marble walls of the building depicting details of construction at full and reduced scales, including complex renderings of the slight vertical curvature of its columns (called entasis). No doubt Roman architects followed this tradition. figure 3.5 Fragment of a bath plan in mosaic with room measurements in Roman numerals; rendered by Diane Favro.

ARCHITECTS, CONTRACTORS, AND THE BUILDING TRADE

We do not know how exactly the design of a building or its ornamental parts were transferred from an architect’s drawing to actual construction in the field. For the most part repetitive tasks, such as the carving of fluting on a column was done on site (after the rough, unfluted shafts were in place) following horizontal and vertical setting lines and concentric circles that denote the edge of fillets and flutes, though exceptions exist where flute carving was on individual drums while on the ground. Often, the master mason himself carved a limited section of an ornament as a template to be imitated. In contrast to modern practice where every detail is drawn on paper, the Roman practice was sometimes not based on scale drawings; as expressed by P. Rockwell, “the architect’s design (was) translated into direct instructions for the individual mason or carver . . . by setting-out lines and working closely with the material” (Rockwell 1987, 68). There is interesting evidence going back to Greek precedents of actually drawing full-scale profiles of architectural elements – such as details of ornament, moldings, capitals, or proportional layouts of column shafts – directly on a convenient marble or stone surface of the building under construction. These incised lines, now only very faintly preserved (and some only visible under

Our image of the Roman architect, as emerging from Vitruvius’ somewhat idealized portrayal, was a thorough professional who was capable of not only the strictly technical aspects of design, site work, and cost analysis, but one who was also responsible in choosing and providing materials, hiring workmen, and supervising the overall project operation as well as day-to-day progress of construction. No doubt in a complex and culturally diverse society as the one Rome commanded, a great variety of local models existed. A clear differentiation between an architect (designer) and engineer (technical specialist), as we understand it, did not quite exist in the ancient world. But architects, in general, could also be involved in the actual contracting of a building, or its parts (subcontracting). Or, they could work for a contractor (redemptor, conductor) who might own a larger construction firm and employ a team of architects and building specialists, and perhaps even transport services. A funerary relief from the tomb monument of the Haterii family depicts a massive crane, replete with its elaborate set of ropes and tackle, activated by slaves (Figure 3.7). Another panel shows in charming detail construction highlights, including the Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheater) in Rome, and testifies to the rising fortunes of this 117

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

sP atr ic Vic u

Atrium Houses

ius

Porticoed Precinct

N

figure 3.6 Fragments from the Forma Urbis Romae marble map of Rome showing atrium-type houses, shops, and a colonnaded precinct or garden; rendered by Diane Favro.

successful family firm of builders and contractors, circa 100–120 ce. Given the Roman interest in legal procedures, the contracting of a job between a private contractor/ architect and another private party, or a public representative, was a serious and binding procedure. A building contract specified in great detail the duties and responsibilities of each party, the costs and prices agreed on, and penalties incurred if either party failed to meet its obligations. Based on our knowledge of a few contracts (or similar ones provided as “legal models,” such as Cato’s description of 118

how to contract the construction of farm buildings; On Agriculture 14.1–5), the specifications of architectural elements, the type and quality of materials and workmanship are described with admirable clarity and completeness. It is logical to assume that building trade in the profit-conscious private sector responded to the expanding and shrinking needs of the market. Even the larger contractors probably kept no permanent work gangs, except for a few skilled technicians. Unskilled labor, especially the free urban poor, could be hired or laid off according to seasonal needs of

Technology of Building

figure 3.7 Relief from the tomb of the Haterii family on the Via Appia Antica, Rome, showing a building crane in operation; © Gregoriano Profano Museo, Vaticano.

construction as it is true today in much of the developing world. Large imperial commissions, such as fora, basilicas and theaters, obviously swelled the numbers of employed, and affected the entire

building industry, from the importers of fine marble (much of it coming from state-owned quarries) to those who excavated and prepared a site. The emperor and the imperial family were the top clients. 119

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity Next were the high-ranking public administrators and magistrates, such as consuls, censors, and duumvirs. Because these officials were mainly using public money (taxes, fees, and so on) to underwrite large public projects, which were not only deemed necessary but also tended to increase their popularity and thus enhance their political futures, the purity of their motives and their building choices often came under attack. More idealistic were the large gifts by the wealthy as a show of moral and ethical responsibility and good citizenship. In fact, citizens who occupied high public positions were expected to make contributions toward building projects or other social welfare upon assuming office and throughout their tenure rather than draw a salary from it. This unique and beneficial system, known as summa honoraria, was responsible for much of public architectural building in antiquity in the West as well as the East. In Italy, a man like the Younger Pliny (active c. 100–120 ce), who gave his native town Comum (Como) 500,000 sesterces (roughly $800,000 today) for the construction and decoration of public baths, represents the epitome of public munificence. In distant Bulla Regia (in modern Tunisia), Julia Memmia, the daughter of the aristocratic Memmii family, was honored by a statue of herself placed at the entrance of the large public baths she had given to her hometown. Such public mindedness, riveted to public memory by impressive buildings bearing inscriptions, benefited the people and served to perpetuate the name and fame of the donor family, and rarely the architect himself as Dionysius from Sardis (see earlier) – we would have called it a win-win situation. The question has often been raised if there was a centrally or imperially controlled architecture office comparable to the state waterworks office, which we know was thriving under Frontinus, its famed administrator (curator aquarium) under Trajan. A water commission for Rome had already been established under Agrippa at the end of the first century bce and employed a permanent gang of 240 or so slaves. By the beginning of the second century ce, when Frontinus was in command, this office had grown to be a formidable bureaucratic system with a work force of hydraulic specialists (measurers, pipe makers, water levelers, reservoir keepers, plasterers, etc.) as well as full-time engineers and architects. We have no direct evidence for the existence of a similar centralized building office, nor any particular name, like Frontinus, as a chief administrator, curator, or praefectus. Yet, the sheer volume and complexity of building during most of the empire and the Roman penchant for organization, makes the notion an attractive one. Architects, such as Rabirius or Apollodorus, who were responsible 120

not for one building, but vast imperial building programs, must have overseen centralized offices with many architects under their supervision, but more importantly, each in his position as the chief architect, must have enjoyed a personal and privileged relationship with the emperor. We do know that senatorial commissions (including bureaucrats, architects, and planners) could be formed and dispatched to the provinces in times of need, such as the commission headed by Marcus Ateius sent to Sardis (Turkey), under emperor Tiberius to oversee relief measures and undertake major planning and rebuilding decisions as a result of the earthquake of 17 ce that devastated parts of Asia Minor (Tacitus, Ann. 2.47). Conversely, architects from the provinces could be summoned to the capital for special projects and pursue successful careers there. Flexibility and mobility, enjoyed by all professions in Roman society, appear not to have been denied to architects and architecture. In any case, with or without an overseeing central office, the unique authority and contribution of the Roman architect on the jobsite was his supervisory role: a methodical and timely ordering of the complex business of building; the procurement and coordination of materials and the workforce into a smooth and efficient process – not unlike the elaborate hierarchies perfected by the Roman military organization (Favro 2011).

V ITR UV IUS

Vitruvius, architect and civil engineer, wrote De Architectura (Ten Books on Architecture) toward the end of his life, probably between 30–26 bce. The book carries a dedication to Augustus (Octavian assumed the title Augustus in 27 bce) with the wistful hope of winning the young emperor’s favor, possibly even receiving an architectural commission, which he believed he deserved. De Architectura is the only, and widely respected and used, treatise on Greek and Roman architecture that has come down to our day in its entirety. Rediscovered in the Renaissance, and continuously printed since then, its importance as a source of information in its own era and historically over time cannot be overestimated. Vitruvius must have joined the army as a young man by 60–58 bce and remained in Julius Caesar’s service until the dictator’s death in 44 bce. He continued to serve under Octavian as a specialist in artillery until the early days of the empire, circa 31–28 bce when he retired on a generous pension from Augustus. Vitruvius probably came from a middle class Italian family; he does not inform us about his background

Technology of Building except expressing his gratitude to his family for providing him with a good education. We cannot verify what kind of education he had, but it is hardly likely that it was the elaborate, idealistic liberal arts education he recommends for an architect: A man who is to follow the architectural profession . . . should be a man of letters, a skilled draftsman, a mathematician, familiar with scientific thought, a diligent student of philosophy, acquainted with music, not ignorant of medicine, learned in law, and familiar with astronomy and the theory of heavens. (De Arch. 1.1.3)

Perhaps all one can say is that Vitruvius wished to elevate the social position of the architect by emphasizing the need for a well-rounded education that balanced practical and professional knowledge in crafts with history and theory. Having gained pragmatic and technical training in the army, he might have educated himself in the liberal arts. De Architectura appears to be partly based on Greek building manuals and treatises, known to him but now lost (he proudly names many), and partly on his own fieldwork and observations. In the course of his long military career he must have traveled in Cisalpine Gaul, Greece, and probably Asia Minor and Egypt. In these places he would have seen the impressive master works of Greek and Hellenistic art and architecture, such as architect Hermogenes’ temple of Artemis in Magnesia-on-the-Meander (Turkey), which he describes in detail. Vitruvius’ treatise, like his recommendations on the architect’s education, is a curious mixture of broad, theoretical concerns on architecture and planning, with practical and detailed information on building technology. The “books” (really long chapters) deal with a variety of practical and theoretical matters: how to choose healthy sites for founding cities; how to lay out streets in relation to winds; types and proportions of temples, Greek as well as Etruscan; the nature and origins of the Greek columnar orders; building types such as the theater, the gymnasium and the baths as well as information on the materials and methods of construction: how to prepare and mix mortars; how to slake lime; where to find the best sand; how to make waterproof mortar; and how to mix pigments for wall painting. The last two books are more technical in nature, delving into the theory and practice of sundials and water clocks, siege machines and ballistae, and other mechanical inventions of the Greeks, probably taken from Hellenistic scientific treatises and attesting to the close association of architecture with military engineering. There is also a historical and geographical

side to Vitruvius’ discourse; he is sensitive to and interested in showing the differences between Greek and Italian architectural traditions. His description of the typical Etruscan or central Italian temple design, and its influence on the later “Roman” temples, is largely substantiated by archaeological evidence. Useful, indeed unique, as it is (especially the excellent, detailed technical descriptions), one should be careful not to accept the terminology and prescriptions of De Architectura uncritically and apply them across the breadth of Greek and Roman architecture regardless of time, place, and intention. The authority of this rich and eclectic manual over classical buildings should largely be restricted to the last few decades of the Republic, the times Vitruvius knew; we cannot interpret Roman Imperial architecture solely or even primarily from the vantage point of this one architect or his renowned text. Vitruvius’ tastes and interests are basically cautious and conservative. He was more interested in providing a link with the classical tradition as represented by what he considered to be the quiet, good taste of Greek and Hellenistic architecture, the masterpieces and mentors of the past, than focusing on the remarkable architectural developments of his own times. For example, he knew well the technical advantages of Roman concrete, but did not contemplate the great potential of this revolutionary medium in shaping Roman architecture. He did not mention some of the major concrete buildings of his time, which we judge to be outstanding, such as the “Tabularium” in Rome or the Sanctuary of Fortuna at Praeneste (Palestrina). In all fairness to Vitruvius, however, the great architectural developments of Roman architecture that fairly changed the way future generations conceived space and structure, lay in the future. Finally, Vitruvius appears to be writing as a disillusioned and embittered man. At the end of a long and hard-working career, just as Julius Caesar and Augustus were embellishing Rome’s built environment, he was apparently not given any major architectural commissions. De Architectura is in a way the bitter fruit of his desire to be recognized and awarded a major building project – though the strategy did not work (Yegül 1990, 11–17). This is a pity, in a way, because although Vitruvius does nowhere give the impression of being a great architect, he was a competent and conscientious one, as judged by the clear and detailed description of a basilica he designed and built at the Roman colony city of Fanum (Fano). Even though the real building has not been discovered, the described one appears to be a perfectly good one – and the only civic building Vitruvius built as far as we know (Figure 3.8). 121

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figure 3.8 Hypothetical reconstruction of Vitruvius’s basilica at Fanum (Fano) with timber truss roof; rendered by Diane Favro (after H. L. Warren).

MATERIALS AND METHODS OF CONSTRUCTION The very nature of the architectural technology and aesthetics of a region is dictated to a high degree by the easily available building materials. Construction is a functional art. Exigencies of economy and convenience determine the materials and predominant styles of building. Over time, these functional determinants may even create aesthetic preferences and traditional ways of doing things that become typical to one geographical area and gradually influence others. There is much room for change through the crossfertilization of ideas, and exchange of resources, between regions and countries. New needs and new technologies work together to foster progressive modes of architecture that leap across cultural and geographic boundaries. At its height in the second century, the Roman Empire covered a vast domain, extending across the Mediterranean Sea (which the Romans complacently called mare nostrum, “our sea”) from northwest Europe all the way to North Africa, Egypt, and the Arabian Peninsula. Therefore, any comprehensive study of Roman architecture, planning, and engineering should 122

include the impressive variety of material resources and traditions represented in this vast realm. However, because the story begins with the city of Rome and its steady expansion across peninsular Italy and beyond, our review, too, will begin by considering the natural resources and developing building technologies of Rome and central Italy (especially Latium and Campania). Moreover, as the capital of the fastgrowing republic, Rome often dictated, and always influenced and inspired, the architectural development under its vast stewardship – often by way of the military. Further and detailed discussion on materials and methods of construction will be offered in sections that deal with individual provinces. T IM B ER

The most common, versatile, but archaeologically the most elusive building material, is wood. Few timber construction elements have actually survived from antiquity, but there is no question that the Romans used timber extensively in framing, stairs, floor and roof beams and trusses. Decorative use of wood must have been also widespread as attested by the accidental preservation of wooden architectural ornament, veneer,

Technology of Building and furniture from Herculaneum and Pompeii, cities buried by the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius in 79 ce. Besides the considerable written evidence on trees, timber industry, and the use of wood in building (especially Vitruvius De Arch. 2.9–20; Pliny NH 12–17), the physical remains of beam holes, or markings for trusses in walls, or wood grain imprinted on wet mortar (and rarely, and only under special conditions, the real thing), remind us how prevalent timber was in floor and roof construction. We tend to overlook wood, maintaining an exaggerated, although justifiably impressive, view of mighty masonry vaults and domes as a primary characteristic of Roman architecture (Ulrich 2017). Antiquity seems to have had no great problems with timber supply for construction. Counties in the Mediterranean basin, but especially Italy, Turkey, and Lebanon with their coastal or inland mountains were sufficiently well forested to meet Roman world’s demand for timber. Ancient authors who mention these forests as impenetrable and foreboding were not exaggerating, as anyone who has seen the tall, firstgrowth, fir forests covering the steep slopes of the Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey can attest. Woods suitable for construction were typically oak, beech, elm, poplar, and varieties of pine. Hardwoods, good for structural and decorative uses, such as oak, chestnut and walnut; or rarer woods such as cedar, citrus, ebony, and cypress were traded over long distances and imported into Italy. Although the building industry preferred to use local woods for the obvious reasons of convenience and economy, occasional needs for tall and large timbers, such as the 35-foot-long beams (or elements of trusses) for the famous Capitoline Temple in Rome, were met by importing fir from the great Alpine forests in northern Italy (see later). Pliny describes the sensation created in the capital by “what is believed to have been the largest tree ever seen in Rome,” which was specially brought from the Alps during the reign of emperor Tiberius to build a bridge: “It was a log of larch, 120-feet long and of a uniform thickness of two feet, from which one could guess the incredible height of the [full] tree.” (NH 16.76.200–01) (since the larix decidua, a conifer native to central Europe, can grow some 140–150 feet tall, with an average thickness of c. 3–3.5 feet diameter, Pliny’s story sounds quite plausable). We know that a special docking area and a porticus, or warehouse, for timber merchants in Rome existed along the Tiber River, south of the Aventine Hill – comparable to the docks reserved for merchants dealing in building stones (see later). Timber industry was owned and operated privately. Dealers in construction wood probably stockpiled for the general needs of the industry, although obviously they could deliver special orders, such as the

larch beam described by Pliny, for special projects. In addition, wood was in demand for cranes, lifting towers, and other equipment, as well as scaffolding for all types of construction. The superior tensile strength of wood (its ability to stretch or flex) makes it an ideal material for use as beams or lintels to span large distances. Stone, or marble are immensely strong in compression (the ability to carry direct weight as with columns and piers) but have low tensile strengths. The maximum span for a stone beam can hardly exceed 9–10 meters, beyond which the stone breaks under its own weight. Timber floors or roof beams of 6–8 meters were common in the Roman world (sometimes doubled for greater effectiveness), especially in domestic construction. The truss, using a triangular arrangement of connected pieces that achieved a rigid, unified construction, was a far stronger system than simple “bearing beams,” and could span far greater distances. The probable use of simple timber truss systems in spanning the formidable 10.5-meter span of the Capitoline temple in Rome is one famous example (see earlier). Although the engineering superiority of the truss was known from the late Hellenistic period onwards, it was really the Etruscans and Romans who developed and exploited the system in roofing or spanning columns. As concrete technology evolved the Romans exploited large quantities of wood for the formwork and framing of their immense masonry vaults and domes. Even after the widespread use of concrete vaulting during the empire, it was not unusual for many large and important state halls, temples, and basilicas to be covered by wooden trusses with ambitious spans, such as the hypothetical roof of Vitruvius’ basilica at Fanum (see Figure 3.8). The timber trusses of the all-marble Basilica Ulpia in Trajan’s Forum leapt across 24 meters (c 80 feet); Hadrian’s Temple of Venus and Roma employed trusses of 22.7 meters (75 feet) span; the width of the early-fourth-century Basilica at Trier reached a daring 26 meters (c 87 RF), this last, probably pushing the limits of wood construction for roofing an interior. Equally impressive, but typical, were the timber-trussed bridges that spanned great widths, such as the one Apollodorus built over the Danube, sketchily depicted on the Column of Trajan (see Figure 3.32). Simpler structures might have enjoyed the rustic taste for open beams and trusses; however, it is safe to assume that unlike the open trusswork of many Early Christian basilicas, the trusses of important halls or temples were hidden from view by handsomely painted decorative coffering, also in wood with stucco ornament. We often forget that from the most modest to the most the monumental, masonry vaults, and domes owed their existence to timberwork, because the heavy, 123

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity to this proper half-timber work; see later), dating to late-first century bce (Figure 3.10). A cheaper, poorer version of timber-frame construction (though not as shoddy as Vitruvius’ version) employs wooden wattle (basketwork construction of slats or thin branches) woven into the compartments of the frame, often covered with clay daub and plastered over (Figure 3.11). One imagines extensive use of this highly combustible wattle-and-daub work in the poorer neighborhoods of Rome or other large cities, which were constantly threatened by dangers of fire and collapse. Listen to Vitruvius’ woeful comments:

figure 3.9 Diagram of timber formwork for concrete foundations; rendered by Marie Saldaña. (after Lugli).

wet concrete had to be poured into a sturdy wooden formwork carried by scaffolding. When concrete set and attained sufficient strength, the woodwork was removed and stored for reuse in another construction. Simpler underground formwork for concrete foundations was often left in place, and simply rotted away, now typically revealing the impressions of horizontal planks and the vertical cavities for the vanished wooden uprights (Figure 3.9). The need for wooden centering for traditional, radially-coursed, arches and vaults in cut stone or brick, or mixed brick and rubble construction, common in Asia Minor and the East, was no different. None of this wood, of course, remains. The intricacies of the formwork and scaffolding, and the impressive heights at which they were built and sustained (heights of 25–30 meters were normal, 45–48 meters possible) should remind us of the remarkable skills and daring of the Roman woodworker and carpenter whose achievement often passes unnoticed (see hypothetical framework and scaffolding for Pantheon’s dome, later in this chapter). Wood was used, at least in Italy and Asia Minor, in combination with rubble stone or mudbrick in timberframe construction. In this technique, also known as half-timber, walls are constructed by a frame of vertical, horizontal and diagonal elements of wood while the spaces between are in-filled with stone and ordinarily stuccoed over. Half-timber houses, which had the advantage of being relatively fireproof and somewhat flexible in earthquakes, must have been a common sight in most Roman cities as well as in the country. A good example of a timber-frame house, the so-called House of Opus Craticium at Herculaneum (although Vitruvius’ disparaging description of opus craticium as a shoddy “wattle-and-daub” construction hardly applies 124

as for the wattle-and-daub, I wish that it had never been invented. The more it saves in time and gains in space [compared to thick masonry walls], the greater and the more general is the disaster it may cause; for it is made to catch fire, like torches. It seems far better, therefore, to spend more on the walls of burnt brick, than save with such ‘wattling’ and be in danger” (De Arch. 2.8.20).

The storage of wood must have been a major consideration in large cities such as Rome. In addition to its use as a material exploited for permanent buildings and for scaffolding and formwork, wood was also much in demand for temporary structures. Relatively lightweight, generally reusable, and low in cost, it was the go-to material for event architecture such as theaters and bleachers. Given the great demands for this material, it is tempting to suggest that the so-called Porticus Aemilia, with dry, large, readily-accessible spaces by the river, was used as a warehouse for wood needed in building. B R I C K AN D T I L E

Kiln-baked brick, later coctus (to be differentiated from sun-dried brick, or later crudes, Vitruvius, De Arch. 1.5.8), did not come into wide usage in Rome and Italy until late in the reign of Augustus, circa early first century ce. One of the earliest documented uses of kiln-baked brick is from the Tomb of Caecilia Metella, on the Via Appia Antica outside Rome, dating to circa 40–30 bce (see Figure 3.15). No doubt there must have been occasional earlier uses of kiln-baked brick, or its “semibaked,” in-between varieties, since the technique of “baking” terracotta, especially for ornament and roof tiles and floor tiles (tegulae) was well known and used since Rome’s legendary founding in the eighth century bce. Considering the substantial structural and decorative advantages of the durable, kiln-baked variety of brick over the softer, friable, sun-dried brick (adobe or mudbrick), this relatively late date is surprising.

Technology of Building

figure 3.10 Half–timber construction at the House of Opus Craticium, Herculaneum; Photo by Diane Favro.

Mudbrick, or sun-dried brick, however, was cheap and easy to manufacture. Adaptable to all kinds of soils but made best with clay mixed with straw to add a measure of tensile strength, sun-dried brick was from the earliest times, and still is, a commonly used building material across the Mediterranean. Vitruvius reserves a long section in his De Architectura (2.3.1–2) to describe the manufacture of mudbrick and defends it as a perfectly good material not to be ignored because of its humble appearance. After pointedly informing his readers that the great monarchs at Sardis and Halicarnassus (both in Asia Minor) had palaces built of mudbrick which were still standing in his time after many centuries Vitruvius observes: “Since such very powerful kings . . . [although they were rich enough to build in stone or even marble], have not disdained walls built of mudbrick, I think that one ought not reject buildings made of mudbrick, provided that they are properly topped.” (De Arch. 2.8.16). Vitruvius’ last comment is important: indeed, mudbrick, which easily crumbles and washes away when exposed to the elements, can be a durable

A

B

WATTLE AND DAUBE PANELLING

C

SQUARED TIMBER FRAMING A Mud plaster B Wattling C Wrought timber framing

figure 3.11 Diagrams showing two types of wattle-and-daub wall construction; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Wright).

building material if constructed properly and protected. The rule-of-thumb about sun-dried brick is this: walls should be built over stone foundations and not allowed to come in contact with the wet ground; 125

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity they should be stuccoed and whitewashed; and their tops should be covered with slate or tile to protect them against rain or snow. Still, solid mudbrick walls cannot be built very high: two, or at the most, three stories high if of half-timber, and even then, they need to be very thick. This last, the need for excessively thick walls, was brought up next by Vitruvius as a serious urbanistic concern for Rome. He quite sensibly observed that the problem of housing the masses in a fast-growing city like Rome could only be solved by building up, making multistory dwellings. However, mudbrick is not a suitable material for tall buildings because the walls, if they are to support more than just one story, cannot be less than two or three bricks thick (two or three feet), which would take up too much of the precious ground space in a city. Moreover, there was a law in Rome that stipulated walls abutting on public property could not be over one-and-a-half feet thick. Vitruvius conceded that in order to build the needed multistory structures, and stay within the laws’ limitation, kilnbaked bricks, which are stronger, should be used: “In these tall structures reared with piers of stone, walls of kiln-baked brick, and partitions of rubblework, and provided with floor after floor, the upper stories can be partitioned off into rooms to a great advantage [presumably, allowing many families to share the same floor]” (De Arch. 2.7.17). The Rome of aging Vitruvius, and of Augustus, must have indeed been a city in flux and transition as the congested old Republican neighborhoods of mudbrick and half-timber were being replaced with newer, safer, multistory dwellings in brick-faced concrete (opus testaceum). As frequently observed by modern scholars, when Augustus exaggeratedly said he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble (Suetonius, Aug. 28) he was basically right but probably he was also, “thinking as much of opus testaceum as he was of unbaked brick” (Sear 1983, 75; Favro 2016). Starting from the time of Emperor Tiberius (ruled 14–22 ce), the choice of fine kiln-baked brick as a facing for various forms of mortared rubble and concrete construction dominated the architecture of Rome and its port city Ostia and continued unabated through the Imperial era (see later). At the height of the empire under Trajan and Hadrian, brick production in Italy reached record heights. Bricks and brickwork of this period are also remarkable for their high quality and precise workmanship, although the notable longevity of brick excellence continues well into the late Roman era (see later). Brick, however, is a material more sparingly used in the provinces where various types of masonry – mortared rubble; small, squared blocks; or even fine ashlar, sometimes mixed 126

with brick – seems to have been the norm (loosely referred to as opus mixtum, see later). The particular building traditions of eastern and western provinces, mainly dictated by the availability of local materials, will be discussed in greater detail in the successive chapters. Making bricks is recognized to be the first, perhaps the most important, industrial production in antiquity. During the early imperial period, brick industry was privately owned and operated. After Hadrian, brickyards increasingly came into the ownership of emperors, and the industry eventually became an imperial monopoly, comparable to the state-owned great marble quarries (see later). Considering the enormous demand for brick in Italy, especially to supply the public building programs of the emperors, a centrally controlled system might have increased the efficiency of production and supply; it might also have provided the imperial government with a steady and substantial source of revenue. Brick (later) and tile (tegula) production in Rome and Italy adopted certain standardized sizes. The principal sizes as mentioned by Vitruvius are: bessales, a small brick two-thirds of a Roman foot square (c. 19.8 cm); sesquipedales, a tile one-and-a-half-foot square (c. 44.4 cm); bipedales, a large tile two feet square (c. 59.2 cm). The larger sizes referred to as tile or tegula, were produced and used as bricks in the construction of walls and floors and should be differentiated from terracotta roof tiles. The “pan tile” was flat, usually rectangular, with raised edges or flanges to receive the “cover tile.” During the late Republic and the early Empire, these finely baked roof tiles were broken into suitable sizes and incorporated into wall construction quite regularly. The proper bricks or tiles (without flanges), by contrast, could be scored and cut into small squares and triangles, thereby increasing versatility. Special round (or pie shaped) bricks were produced to make columns, apart from their use as pilae for hypocausts. Clearly, it would be an oversimplification to assume that brick sizes and thicknesses followed the main “Vitruvian” types too closely. Standardization should be taken only loosely in Roman brick production. With thousands of local brickyards across Italy and the provinces, bricks came in a great variety of sizes and shapes, and defied simple, academic, classification. Organized and more or less standardized, brick production in Italy may have been instrumental in adopting the custom of stamping bricks. Brick stamps changed size and shape over time and carried considerable information in condensed form about the ownership and identification of the clay field, the brickyard, and the names of the consuls during the year the brick

Technology of Building was produced. The study of brick stamps is an important subfield in Roman studies because the information contained in the stamp can help the historian to date the building in which the brick was used (especially if the names of the consuls were included as we have a fairly complete list of consulship years). However, even such a valuable chronological tool has its limits: first there were large gaps during the Imperial period when brick stamps were not used; second, bricks could be (and actually were expected to be) stockpiled for years, even decades, before they were deployed; and third, bricks, like any construction material, might be reused. The reuse or recycling of old bricks, even broken ones, made economic sense and was quite common throughout the empire. Thus, a building that included some datable brick stamps in its fabric could actually be constructed much later than the strict date given by the stamp. Brick stamps provide valuable information about the organization of Italian brick industry. There were two main entities in the brick business: first, the primary source, or the clay field, which was privately or publicly owned. Second, the brickyards, which were the manufacturing plants that contained the kilns where the bricks were shaped, dried over a long period of time, and finally baked and stockpiled. The dominus (or domina, if the owner was a woman as was not infrequently the case) were the owners of the estate which contained the clay field, and sometimes also the brickyard. As wealthy landowners, the domini, men and women, often belonged to aristocracy. The officinator was the manufacturer of the brick responsible for the actual production at the brickyard. He might have gotten his job as a contractor, and could use a headman or kiln technician, to supervise the daily operation. At any rate, the officinatores did not own the brickyard; they usually came from the lower levels of Roman society. It can be surmised that the contractor, or the officinator, would have supplied bricks directly to large jobs (especially, to the sites of major public projects), or he might have supplied bricks to middle merchants who stockpiled bricks in or near cities. The changing fortunes of Roman building industry must have directly affected the fortunes of the brickyards and the large numbers of people who worked in the production and transportation of brick. In Greece and Asia Minor brick production seems to have remained in private hands, operated by small, local businesses. We have no way of identifying these brickyards, or their owners, because bricks from the eastern provinces do not carry stamps or other useful identifying or dating marks. Also, unlike the Italian practice, brick production in the provinces never attempted even a loose standard of brick sizes and

types. Square and rectangular shapes (and rarely triangular bricks) were used; sizes varied a great deal from city to city and from valley to valley although there is a general tendency for brick thicknesses to increase over time, as it is true for Italy (see opus testaceum). Regardless of the origin of the brickyard, local or Imperial, Roman brick technicians were masters of their art. We appreciated this fully in our attempts to duplicate hand-made bricks for a model Roman bath built in Sardis, Turkey, in 1998, for the NOVA (WGBH) television series (see www.pbs.org/wgbh/ nova/lostempires/roman). Despite our best efforts to dry our bricks properly, almost all of our large sizes (49  49 cm) cracked in the kiln. We should have paid more attention to Vitruvius who clearly states that “bricks will be most serviceable if made two years before using; because they can not dry thoroughly in less time” (De Arch. 2.3.2). In our modern haste we had tried to bake them only after three or four weeks of drying! ST O NE A N D S T O N E C ON S T R U C T I O N

In central Italy and Campania, the most common building stone was tufa, a soft volcanic stone easy to cut and shape. Existing in many local varieties with different names, tufa was quarried extensively during the Republican period, and used in large, permanent, construction such as city walls, gates, temples, basilicas, houses and villas, as well as strictly utilitarian projects such as sewers and drains. In the Roman awareness and appreciation of the characteristics and qualities of different building materials, harder stones (and to a lesser degree kiln-fired bricks) that resist weather conditions well, occupied a favored position. Various forms of volcanic tuffs (tufa) which existed in abundance in central Italy and near Rome and were easy to quarry, cut and use, were naturally widely employed in building from the earliest days of the Republic; however, some authors recommended caution against their low density and low bearing resistance. Frontinus warned against their use in the construction of the tall pillars of aqueducts (De Aq., 122.2). Columella writing in the middle of the first century CE, thought that tufas, once they have been dug and exposed to air “became soft and friable due to the alternating effects of rain, hail and summer heat” (De Re Rustica 3.11.7). This is true as expressed by Columella. However, volcanic tuffs that are softer and pliable when freshly quarried become harder with time and could be useful as long as they are not exposed to elements, such as on a walkway; they are perfectly serviceable in a wall if they are protected by stucco. Nonetheless, the point is well taken that Romans had an awareness of the 127

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity structural qualities of building materials and used them in construction according to (what they believed to be) a rational order. One of the earliest tufa to be used was cappelaccio, a greenish-grey soft stone quarried in Rome between the seventh and fifth centuries bce. As the city expanded its territory, cappellaccio was replaced by tufas of higher quality such as Grotto Oscura, mustard-beige in color, used until the end of the second century bce and peperino. The last, received its modern name from its dark grey color (ancient name lapis Albanus = Alban stone), was particularly popular from the second century bce into the Empire. Its hardness and fire-resistant properties made it an excellent choice for a variety of structural uses including the massive “firewall” that protected the Forum of Augustus from outlying neighborhoods (see later). Far more attractive and durable was travertine, a sedimentary limestone quarried in massive quantities nearby at Tivoli. Travertine is distinguished by its white/beige/creamy color and finely pitted, decorative texture. Harder than tufas, it was appreciated for its structural ability to carry heavy loads and resist wear; it could be polished to a fine finish. Throughout Roman history it was used as a popular, and cheaper, alternative to marble. Even after the development of brickfaced concrete, travertine retained its time-honored position in making walls, terraces, gates, and bridges and was used in combination with concrete (as a facing, or in-fill) in foundations, piers and buttresses, and door thresholds. Its most extensive and most celebrated use was at the Colosseum in Rome. Nonetheless, occasionally, in an effort to improve its surface look, even travertine could receive a coat of stucco mixed with marble dust to imitate the color, smooth surface, and richness of marble. Two major methods of stonework, especially apparent in wall construction, were polygonal masonry and ashlar masonry. In polygonal masonry, as the name implies, polygonal blocks (or blocks that are not squared) are fitted tightly without forming regular rows; the effect could be decorative and attractive. In ashlar (also known as opus quadratum), squared or rectangular blocks are arranged in horizontal rows with staggered joints. Either type exists in various states of refinement, from rough to extremely smooth; sometimes types overlap. They were used in walls as solid construction or as facing for a core of rubble or concrete (for wall facing, see later in this chapter). From the sixth century bce onward, Rome’s neighbors, mainly the Etruscans in central and northern Italy, and the Greeks in the south utilized both types. The Greeks, especially, were the masters of opus quadratum. The quality of Greek ashlar work, especially in marble, 128

reached the level of a fine art during the high classical period (fifth century bce), and continued into the Hellenistic era. During the early and high Empire (Augustan through Hadrian), some of the best Roman ashlar masonry was deliberately modelled on examples from Greece and Asia Minor. Roman polygonal and quasi-polygonal masonry can best be seen in the defense walls and terraces of central Italian colonies, such as the walls and gates curving around the acropolis of Norba (fourth century bce); the walls and the distinctively corbelled gate at Arpinum (305 bce); the massive terraces of the acropolis at Alatrium (third century bce); and the beautifully-jointed masonry of the lower terrace of the Sanctuary of Fortuna at Praeneste (mid-second century bce) (Figure 3.12; see Figure 1.6). An early application of opus quadratum is found with the defense walls of Rome known as the Servian Wall, built around 378 bce as a response to the invasion of the city by Gallic tribes in 390 bce (see Figure 1.8). The massive fortification, built of uniformly shaped and coursed Grotto Oscura tufa blocks, runs a circuit of 11 kilometers around Rome. Along flat stretches of the land an agger and fossa (a defensive system consisting of artificial earth mounds and ditches) accompanies the wall to increase its effectiveness (see earlier). Ashlar work, with varying degrees of refinement, made its appearance concurrently, or slightly later, than polygonal; in some cases it is hard to distinguish the two modes of construction with absolute clarity. In Ferentium, the limestone walls of the acropolis, and its massive projecting bastion, display a mixed construction of rough and smooth polygonal work overlaid by stretches of ashlar and nearashlar (Figure 3.13; see also Figure 3.12). In the second century bce, simplified arched gates with plain cutstone voussoirs were added to the medley of construction. Arched city gates with more sophisticated design and detailing appear in the ashlar fortifications of Falerii Novi (c. 241 bce), and the so-called Porta Augusta (or Porta Romana) at Perugia (second century bce), which has a second “relieving arch,” surmounting the main portal (see Figures 1.21 and 3.14). There is no question that such technically advanced and visually refined construction owes much to Greek and Hellenistic expertise as dramatically illustrated by the fourthcentury bce ashlar fortifications and the double-arched Porta Rosa of Velia, a Greek city in Campania. Yet, Roman stonework was not a slavish imitation of earlier practices. It is in the scope and nature of late Republican ashlar construction that the unique and practical Roman approach toward materials and methods were revealed. The impressive, arched, ashlar façade of the “Tabularium” overlooking the Roman Forum is anchored into the rising Capitoline Hill by a

Technology of Building

figure 3.12 Masonry of the lower terrace wall at the Sanctuary of Fortuna, Praeneste; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

system of complex concrete vaults (c. 80 bce) (see Figures 1.14 and 1.15, Plate 2). The smooth, travertine ashlar construction of the Tomb of Caecilia Metella recalls Greek work, but it is only a facing that hides a massive concrete core tied to the ashlar surface by a system of travertine studs, or beams (Figure 3.15). A similar construction can also be seen in the Trophy of the Alps (Tropheum Alpeum) outside St. Tropez, in French Riviera, a handsome commemorative monument of the early Augustan period (see Figures 7.25 and 7.26). The Romans realized the superb structural and aesthetic advantages of building stones already exploited by their Etruscan and Greek neighbors, but they went beyond their traditional methods by recognizing new potentials in stone and assigning it new tasks. M A R B L E A N D OT H E R L U X U R Y S T O N E S

Marble, the material par excellence for its visual attractiveness and its structural strength, was of course, also the most expensive building stone. Essentially a hard limestone with a fine crystalline structure, marble exists in endless varieties and hardness in nature, from pure

whites, to whites suffused with subtly running veins, to colored marbles with spectacular patterns, veins, and dazzling hues. Marble can be sliced into relatively thin plaques for veneer and can receive a very high degree of polish (about 2.0–4.0 cm thick in Roman usage, down to c. 0.04 cm, with fiberglass backing, in modern usage). As a structural material, marble was used much like a fine limestone, such as travertine, in solid construction for the most prized buildings, but more commonly, as a facing for construction in cheaper stones or concrete. By the time Rome received its first all-marble structure in 146 bce, the Temple of Jupiter Stator, most major temples and public buildings of Greece and Asia Minor had routinely been built of solid marble (or, near solid marble) for many centuries. By the end of the second century bce, the circular Corinthian Temple of Hercules in the Forum Boarium near the Tiber in Rome had marble columns and a cella veneered in thick marble imported from Greece (although some of the later column replacements are in Luna, or Italian marble; see Figures 2.11, 2.13). Sulla, the Republican dictator, reportedly brought columns from 129

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 3.13 Detail of ashlar wall construction at the west acropolis gate bastion, Ferentium; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

130

Technology of Building

figure 3.14 Ashlar wall construction with “relieving arch” over the portal of the Porta Augusta (Porta Romana), Perugia; Photo: Gdallorto via Wikimedia.

the Temple of Zeus Olympos in Athens (c. 80 bce) for the reconstruction of the Capitoline Temple in Rome, though these may not have been the colossal columns of the exterior. Even after these tentative introductions, the widespread use of marble in Rome had a relatively slow start with the opening of the Luna quarries (modern Carrara) in northern Italy in 48 bce and picking up under Augustus in the early Empire. By the first century ce, large singular pieces of marble and granite proliferated, most notably as columns. These monolithic uprights were structurally strong; in addition, their quarrying at distant sites and transport to, and through, the capital city underscored Roman engineering bravura and expansive reach. It would be interesting to ask why it took the Romans so long to accept and exploit such an excellent material for building and decoration. A significant part

of the answer may be the high cost of marble due to its absence anywhere near Rome, and its relative scarcity in Italy (at least before the exploitation of the Luna quarries) – a country rich in volcanic stones and limestone varieties. In Greece and Asia Minor, almost every town and territory has its own local sources or quarries of marble. Transportation of building stones over long distances, especially by land, was a difficult and expensive undertaking in antiquity. More importantly, Romans of the Republic wilfully rejected marble (even when they could afford it) and on symbolic and ideological grounds criticized the superrich who boasted of using marble. The Romans liked to cultivate the fictional virtues of an austere and parsimonious lifestyle that recalled Rome’s early history and its self-effacing heroes. There might have been some truth in this, but on the whole, it was a form of political 131

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figure 3.15 View of the Tomb of Caecilia Metella, Via Appia Antica, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

grandstanding since many of these self-styled, stoic, “Republican” aristocrats were very wealthy individuals with luxurious (and even sophisticated, pro-Greek) tastes. In fact, the evidence for the steady acceptance of marble architecture during late Republican Rome is almost entirely literary, and most of it is refers to 132

domestic contexts. This literature is largely a critique of the taste for marble affected by the newly rich. Lucius Crassus, a fabulously wealthy businessman and a one-time consul, used columns of Greek marble in the atrium of his house during the first quarter of the first century bce (Pliny, NH 17.6 and 36.45).

Technology of Building

figure 3.16 General view of Chemtou quarries (produces giallo antico), Tunisia; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

M. Lepidus imported the rare and luxurious yellow Numidian marble later known as giallo antico, to be used as lintels in his house (Pliny, NH 36.49; see later), and M. Aemilius Scaurus is reported to have imported no less than 360 marble columns for the decoration of his personal, temporary theater in 58 bce, and then reused some of these to ornament his own house (Pliny, NH 36.5). The widespread use and acceptance of marble in public buildings started with Augustus. During the first three centuries of the empire not only was the production at major Italian quarries, such as Luna, increased but a great variety of white and colored marbles were imported into Rome from the Aegean islands, Greece, Asia Minor, and North Africa. Prized among the whites for their purity, transparency and subtle, warm hues were Pentellic and Parian from Greece. The hugely prolific Proconnesus quarries in the Sea of Marmara, Turkey, which produced a duller white marble with bluish veins was good for general architectural use. Among the imported colored marbles popular in Rome and Italy were cipollino (from the island of Euboea, Greece), resembling a sliced onion with light and dark green veins; rosso antico (Peloponnese, Greece), solid, dark red-purple; portosanta (Chios),

complex coloring with pink, purple, and yellow-gray particles; Africano (Teos, Turkey), complex coloring with black, dark red, and green particles; pavanozetto and other breccias (Phyrigia, western Turkey), purple, pink, red veins on white or light creamy-yellow; giallo antico (Chemtou, Numidia in modern Tunisia), richly saturated shades of yellow and yellow-ocher (Figure 3.16). Some of the quarries producing the prized marbles were at least partly owned by the imperial house as indicated by inscriptions or marks delineated on their production, and names including a greenish stone called “Augustean” (Pliny, NH 36.11) In addition to the colored marbles, there were other hard and highly prized building stones. Porphyry, a hard, dark purple igneous stone with gleaming white specks, came primarily from Egypt (and some from near Troy, Turkey). The elite symbolism of the color purple made porphyry special to the imperial family; its use was especially popular in the late Roman period. Another variety of porphyry was serpentine (dark green with lighter green specks) quarried near Sparta in Greece. The hard, uniform, composition of porphyry, serpentine, and giallo antico – and their high cost – made them particularly suitable for use as in very thin plaques for wall revetment (veneer), and in cut-stone 133

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity floor or wall inlays called opus sectile. For hardness, durability, and surface polish the red and gray granites from Egypt had no equal. Long used and admired by the ancient Egyptians in making sculpture and building obelisks, granites of all varieties were highly treasured for their structural strength and their mirror-smooth decorative beauty. So keen was the demand for building stones during the high empire that a vast and well-organized trade in marble and decorative stones flourished in the Mediterranean. It appears that the importation and distribution of marble and the ownership of marble quarries came largely under state supervision. Such a system, like the state ownership of large brickyards, may have increased efficiencies in production and transportation, lowered prices, and still provided the imperial government with a steady source of revenue – all practical aims and means at which the Romans excelled. Because transportation costs by water were only a fraction of those over land, much of this international trade from the major quarries of Greece and Asia Minor was by sea on ships and barges. Ground transportation, although achieved by ingenious technical means, was kept to a minimum, probably affecting mainly small, privately owned, local quarries supplying local needs. Central controlled and industrialized production of marble also fostered highly rational quarrying methods, and a certain amount of standardization and prefabrication of architectural and structural elements. We have considerable evidence that many of the stock elements of classical architecture, such as column shafts, were cut and shaped roughly in standardized sizes (e.g., 16–20–24–40 Roman feet) at the quarry and either shipped directly to a job site, or to stockpiling centers (like modern warehouses) where they could be purchased by local agents and offered to trade. The nearly-finished state of the marble pieces protected them against chips and breaks during transportation; the finer finishing (such as the fluting of the column shafts and detailing of capitals) was almost always done on the job site. The large marble supply of Rome, brought mainly from Luna but later from many other Mediterranean ports, first came to Portus-Ostia, the capital’s harbor. It was then shipped up the Tiber in special barges to emporia along the river. During Augustus’ reign, a special wharf was built for the delivery and warehousing of all building stones near the Pons Aelius on the Campus Martius. This area on the river bank, cluttered with the workshops of masons and sculptors, became a busy production center for marble industry. The bustle and commotion accompanied by the slow transportation of a huge, imported marble column from this wharf through the narrow streets of Rome is described 134

by Tibullus, an Augustan poet: “His fancy turns to foreign marbles and through the quaking city his column is carried by a thousand sturdy teams [of oxen]” (2.3.43–44). Like many before him, Tibullus used such a picturesque scene to comment critically on the building mania engulfing the city, and in his opinion, the crass upstarts who found pleasure in the conspicuous consumption of luxury materials – compared, naturally, to his own subtle and educated tastes (and mock modesty), which delights in the ownership, we are told, of delicate and expensive Greek pottery from Samos or Cuma! O P U S C A E M E N T I C I U M A ND TH E A E S T H E T I C S O F R O M A N CO N C R E T E

Roman concrete, described as opus caementicium by Vitruvius, is more a method of building than a material, unless it could be thought of as “artificial stone” composed of a chemically bonded mixture of materials. The importance of opus caementicium in the creation of a new mode of architectural thinking and space making cannot be overstated. How did this technology, rooted in utilitarian projects, especially harborworks, help create an architecture of majestic colonnades subsumed by soaring vaulted volumes, and forge a bridge between Greece and Rome? Let’s begin with a description. Roman concrete is a synthetic building material composed of an aggregate, a binding agent, and water. The aggregate (caementa) is a filler, such as coarse gravel, chunks of stone or broken bricks or tile. The binding agent is a substance that starts a chemical reaction when mixed with water, creating a bond with the aggregate, and forming a mortar. It sets or solidifies as it dries. Many materials, even mud, can be binding agents, and can be used to make mortars (especially mud mixed with some straw to give it greater tensile strength). Historically, slaked lime, mixed with sand, has been used as a binding agent in making a strong mortar. Vitruvius recommends three parts of sand to one part of lime (De Arch. 2.5.1). Therefore, a loose definition of opus caementicium is a construction of rubble stones laid (or mixed) with lime mortar. In modern usage this is commonly called “mortared rubble.” As pointed out by many scholars and engineers, it was the strength of the mortar, and the manner in which it was mixed with aggregate, that gave Roman concrete its unique properties. Mortared rubble construction and its many regional varieties are by far the most common type of Roman construction (see later). The Roman contribution to this widely known, basic structural concoction was the addition as the primary binding agent of a volcanic dust (composed

Technology of Building of mainly silica and alum) known in modern times as pozzolona. This special dust, or sand, found readily in central Italy and Campania, especially in the volcanic region near Puteoli in the Bay of Naples, was appropriately named in Latin pulvis puteolanus. As early as the third and second centuries bce, the Romans were quick to realize that pozzolona formed an exceptionally strong and fast bond with the aggregate, and created an almost indestructibly solid mass (its compression strength is calculated to be five to eight times greater than that of lime mortar; Feretti 1997, 70). Furthermore, this special mixture could set fast and strong under water and thus was a perfect choice for harbor and port installations. Recent research has revealed that sea water interacted with the volcanic ingredients in Roman concrete to produce the crystal tobermorite that fused the components into a material stronger and more durable than modern concrete. The ability of concrete to set under water, which accounts for its earliest uses, was well known to Vitruvius, who attributed this useful and remarkable quality to the presence of pulvis Puteolanis in the mortar: There is a kind of mortar which from natural causes produces astonishing results. It is found in the neighborhood of Baiae and in the country . . . about Mount Vesuvius. This substance, when mixed with lime and rubble, not only lends strength to buildings of other kinds, but even when piers are constructed in the sea, they set under water. (De Arch. 2.6.1)

In most parts of the Roman world, where volcanic sands could not be found, lime or gypsum was used as binding agent and produced local, and somewhat weaker, forms of concrete. However, equally important as pozzolona for determining the strength of opus caementicium is the nature of the mixture, that is the richness, homogeneity, and cohesiveness of the mortaraggregate composition. If too little mortar is used, or if the aggregate is not encased evenly in a rich matrix of mortar, the quality of concrete suffers (see later). Up to a point, modern concrete can be compared to Roman concrete. The binding agent in modern concrete is cement, or “Portland cement,” a technical specification. Cement is manufactured artificially in factories using natural, earth substances (heating them to very high temperatures and pulverizing them to dust). Cement mortar is mixed with fine sand and different grades of gravel as aggregate, and water – this is the basic mixture inside the rotating drums of concrete trucks you see on the road today. Modern concrete construction often incorporates steel bars to build up tensile strength (like stone, concrete is fairly

weak in tension, that is, stretching or flexing); this type is technically “reinforced-” or “ferro-concrete.” The Romans did not use metal-reinforced concrete (although they did use, occasionally, iron bars to give tensile strength to stone lintels); they enhanced bonding by adding crushed tiles, or brick chips into lime or mortar. In certain occasions, they also tried to reduce the mass or weight of concrete by using light weight aggregates such as volcanic pebbles (pumice) instead of the heavier sands, or even incorporating empty amphora jars into the fabric. Light weight concrete was particularly suitable in building the critical upper stretches of vaults and domes. Unlike modern concrete, which is a viscous mass that is poured into a formwork, Roman concrete was not “poured” in building walls. The two faces of the wall were first built up to a few courses high in a facing material of limestone, tufa, or brick; then wet concrete was more properly laid rather than poured as the core, alternating a layer of aggregate (caementa) with one of mortar. The layering of the caementa can be best seen in the exposed core of Hadrian’s Mausoleum in Rome (see Figure 6.66). The process was repeated as core and facing rose together without the need for formwork. Fast-drying pozzolona mortar made the construction easier since work hardly needed to stop to allow for the setting of the mixture. This resulted in a smooth and fast operation possible. The speed of construction was determined by the coordination among the masons who laid the wall, those who prepared the concrete mortar mix on the ground, and the workmen who hauled it up the scaffolding to the wall. Only curved roof elements, such as vaults and domes required elaborate formwork in wood. Foundations were ordinarily laid into foundation trenches dug into the earth or or laid between wooden shuttering which served to secure the sides of the trench rather than hold the foundation itself, since underground construction needed no facing (see Figure 3.9). In addition to virtually eliminating the need for time-consuming and expensive formwork, the “facing” of concrete provided a visually satisfactory surface hiding the roughness and unsightliness of the medium. Ordinarily, the facing of stone or brick would be veneered in a more refined material such as stucco or marble. A painting from the tomb of Trebius Justus on the Via Latina, Rome, narrates all the important phases of building a brick-faced concrete wall with considerable clarity (Figure 3.17). We observe that the wall has been built to a height of 3 meters or more. A simple scaffolding made of wooden posts and partially supported by the wall carries one of the masons. The other, trowel in hand, is on the other side; the scaffolding appears to surround the construction. A workman is 135

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figure 3.17 Building a brick-faced, concrete wall depicted on a painting from the Tomb of Trebius Justus, Via Latina, Rome; Wilpert (1913).

carrying bricks in a basket; another, on a ladder, brings mortar in a shallow wooden trough (easy to scoop out of ); the third, on the ground, is mixing mortar with a hoe. A fine reconstruction drawing by J.-P. Adam delineates this process for the modern eye (Figure 3.18). The coordination of the work effort appears remarkable. Indeed, logistical skill (largely honed in military activities) was essential to Roman architectural achievements. The advantages of opus caementicium over traditional methods of ashlar, post-and-beam construction can be summarized as follows: (a) it was exceptionally strong and could span great distances when shaped into arches, vaults, and domes; (b) it did not require special skilled labor, as did the cutting and shaping of hard stones, therefore was cheaper; (c) it was much faster to construct compared to laboriously cut ashlar masonry; (d) it was safer because concrete-vaulted roofing is fireproof, unlike the wooden-beamed roofs of traditional systems, and thus particularly suitable for multi-story, urban mass housing projects; (e) it could set under water making it especially useful in sub-aqua constructions like harbors (see later); and (f ) it had 136

great flexibility in molding space since concrete could be laid into a formwork and took the shape of its container. Thus, with the use of opus caementicium complex and irregular spatial units could be covered serving not only functional expediency but also realizing the aesthetic and plastic vision of the architect, mason, and carpenter. This last property of concrete, its inherent plasticity, combined with great strength, gave it the potential to revolutionize Roman architecture through the structural and visual manipulation of arches, vaults, and domes. It is pointless to look for hard dates for the origins of and significant advances in Roman concrete technology. All we can say is that progress was slow, pragmatic, and incremental; it was based on the accumulation of experience. In subaqua constructions, ports and harbors, it was used as early as the fourth century bce. One of its earliest land uses with opus incertum facing appears to be the early-second-century bce warehouse structure along the Tiber known as the Porticus Aemilia (Figure 1.13). Later in the same century the medium appeared in great terraced sanctuaries and elite residences (Mogetta 2015). During the first

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1 Foundation trench 2 Mixing mortar 3 Scaffolding anchored into the rising wall 4 Mortar and stones being hauled

figure 3.18 Construction process of building a concrete wall; drawing courtesy of J.-P. Adam.

century bce it expanded into urban public buildings at Rome as magistrates capitalized upon the lower cost and shorter time involved with concrete construction which allowed impressive projects to be completed during their short terms in office (Davies 2017). Although slow to develop, by the middle of the first century ce, the possibilities of concrete architecture were fully realized. In the course of a mere three score years, between the Domus Aurea of Nero and Hadrian’s Pantheon, the Romans created a dynamic architecture of daring spans and endless, soaring spaces, that owed little to the traditional, mainly Greek, methods of traebated construction. The aesthetics of the finite, prismatic, box were being replaced by those of curvilinear and interlocking continuities of space. The Romans achieved not simply a change in structural technology but also a change in structural and architectural thinking about masses, volumes, and spaces that revolutionized the course of Western architecture.

FA CI N GS FO R C O N CR E TE : O P U S I NC E R T U M , OP US RET ICULATU M, A N D O T H E R S

Although from a structural point of view, it is the heavy core of Roman concrete that counts, it is the more obvious, and visually engaging, facing that helps us to identify and date concrete types. Vitruvius, writing toward the end of the first century bce, classifies and names, two types of facing, the oldfashioned, but structurally more reliable, opus incertum, an irregular mosaic of fist sized tufa blocks; and the relatively newer opus reticulatum, a network of regularized, diagonally arranged, square-based pyramidal tufa blocks, whose pointed ends were firmly embedded in the core concrete, a configuration criticized by Vitruvius as “graceful but more likely to crack” (Figure 3.19). There is considerable chronological overlap between these two modes; the latest archaeological findings suggest that opus incertum was well known by 200–180 bce, if not before. The previously mentioned 137

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opus incertum

opus testaceum

opus reticulatum

opus mixtum

figure 3.19 Porticus Aemilia wall showing opus incertum (top); diagram of typical factings for Roman concrete (bottom); rendered by Diane Favro.

warehouse along the Tiber known as the Porticus Aemilia and admired for its rational, utilitarian design, is one of the textbook examples of the early use of concrete with opus incertum facing, although its 138

traditional early-second-century bce dating, as well as its purpose, have been recently questioned (see earlier). By the end of the second century bce, a transitory style displaying a less uniform distributed diagonal pattern,

Technology of Building is first seen in Rome, and appropriately named by modern scholars opus quasi-reticulatum (quasi, meaning nearly). Perhaps, the earliest recorded uses of true opus reticulatum is from the Theater of Pompey in Rome (c. 60–55 bce), followed by a great many other structures in Rome, Ostia, and the rest of Roman Italy during the late Republic and early Empire. What seems certain is that the late Republic was a period of continuous experimentation with concrete, improving its structural quality, drying time and facing type. By the early first century ce, opus reticulatum lost popularity to facings of kiln-baked brick called opus testaceum, yet a form of opus reticulatum construction (“reticulate”), mixed with brick, returned to Italy in the second century ce, notably in Hadrianic and Antonine buildings (c. 120–160 ce), such as the imperial villa complex at Tivoli, and the suburban villa of the Sette Bassi outside Rome. One senses the emergence of a revivalist taste already in the high empire. In the popular opus testaceum of Rome and Italy, triangular bricks with their long diagonal sides facing outwards were used. This practice economized on brick and increased a wall’s strength by allowing the semiliquid concrete core to form a closer bond with the facing. Often, the triangular bricks were the brokenoff pieces from larger square bricks scored to facilitate the process. The styles of concrete facing outlined earlier are somewhat simplified. We must add to them the most commonly used system of “mixed construction,” conveniently named opus mixtum. Although even the earliest forms of opus incertum incorporated a certain amount of small block construction in tufa (looking like quoins at wall ends and corners), the term in its narrow definition refers to a combination of reticulate work in tufa and brick appearing around the beginning of first century ce. In actuality, all forms of construction are “mixed;” the Romans, with their keen sense for the practical, freely mixed different materials for facing – tufa reticulate work, regular brick, ashlar (opus quadratum), and small, squared stone-block construction. A variation of mixed construction that became quite common during the late Imperial era was small, squared-blocks of stone alternating with bands of brick, loosely referred to as opus vittatum. A good example of this manner can be seen in the long walls of the ambulatory of the Circus and Villa of Maxentius outside Rome (c. 306 ce), where one can also see very clearly the whole terracotta pots incorporated into the wall at the springing level of the ambulatory vault (Figure 3.20). This method was intended to lighten the mass of concrete without losing strength; pottery (pignatte), like pot-bellied amphora or terracotta tubes, functions like an eggshell, capable of withstanding great loads and stress.

Once established, however, brick-faced concrete was destined for success. It became the characteristic construction type of Italy during the imperial era, reaching its height in volume and quality under Nero, Trajan and Hadrian – as witnessed by scores of red brick façades from Trajan’s Markets in Rome to the block after block of residential high-rises of Ostia that dominate our image of Roman architecture. BRICK AND BRICK-FACED CONCRETE V A U L T S A N D VA U L T I N G R I B S

Brick-faced concrete was the predominant method by which Romans built large scale vaulted structures, especially in Rome, Italy and most of the western provinces. In Asia Minor and the East, solid brick vaults were the accepted structural method. Realized through the mastery of wooden centering and formwork, brick facing for concrete vaults was applied in several different styles (Figure 3.21). In simpler systems, already in place by the Republic, as in the terrace structures of the Sanctuary of Fortuna in Praeneste (c. 120 bce; see earlier), concrete barrel vaults and annular vaults with coffers were created by laying masses of caementa directly behind the incertum facing (see Figures 2.33 and 2.34, Plate 3A). By the early Empire, radial brick coursing was the preferred facing for concrete vaulting systems, such as the oblique, conical barrel vaults of the Augustan Theater of Marcellus in Rome (see later), or its obvious uses in the Flavian Palace on the Palatine. Often, even the core concrete was articulated by letting bands or ribs of brick into it. As observed by L. Lancaster, “the Roman interest in controlling the forces within the vault structures [or] . . . reinforcing the vault at particular points . . . is demonstrated by the development of vaulting ribs” (Lancaster 2008, 271–272). Different rib formations existed: large bricks (bipedales) could be arranged in rows, or a lattice-like framework was created whose cellular compartments were filled in concrete (see Figure 3.21 B, C). The structural advantages of ribs, that is the reinforcing of the vault at particular points, is a much-debated topic. It is clear that ribs were intended to be structural elements even though they did not act as continuous bearing elements transferring the forces to the foundations in the manner of Gothic-era stone ribs. It is more likely that such compartmentalization of the concrete mass helped to distribute the weight more evenly and provided overall stiffness during the initial period of the drying and setting of wet, heavy concrete. The Pantheon in Rome demonstrates the most complex and effective system of “ribs” in the form of a series of brick “relieving vaults” circumambulating the circular building (whose ends, as “blind arches,” 139

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figure 3.20 Opus vittatum, typical late Roman mixed construction with small squared blocks alternating with brick bands, shown here at the Circus of Maxentius, Rome, with terracotta pots integrated to lighten the vault; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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A

B

A B C D E

C

Solid radial brick ribbing Ladder ribbing Lattice ribbing Pitched mud brick vault Vaulting with edge-to-edge bricks (pitched) at crown

D

E

figure 3.21 Diagram of brick vault construction types, rendered by Marie Saldaña.

can be seen on the exterior) and the lower parts of the dome (see Figure 6.57). The mixed employment of ribs in the concrete barrel vaults and cross vaults of the Palatine substructures (as well as their larger applications in the Baths of Caracalla in Rome) has been graphically monumentalized by the nineteenth-century architect A. Choisy (Figure 3.22). Many of the late Roman domes, such as the Mausoleum of Maxentius on the Via Appia, the tomb called Tor Pignattura on the Via Nomentana outside Rome, the so-called Temple of Minerva Medica, and the many domed units of the Baths of Diocletian, employed a variety of rib patterns (see later Figure 12.60). Other variations of brick, or brick-faced concrete barrel vaults include the incorporation of a segment of radially laid bricks edge-to-edge along the crown of a vault; or a variation of this where all bricks are laid edge-to-edge and leaning against an end wall – the so-called pitched brick construction – which obviates the need for wooden centering or formwork (see Figure 3.21D). This type of Roman construction may have served as an inspiration for Brunelleschi’s creative brick solution for the design of the majestic dome of Florence’s cathedral in the fifteenth century. A special aspect of our fascination with opus testaceum is the way the brick facades are articulated by a decorative, but also seemingly dynamic, system of arches – flat, segmental, semicircular – over doors, windows, or niches, singly or in vertically-tiered

combinations; or, in the series of blind arches incised into the solid surface of the brick, but spanning no void (Figure 3.23 left and right). These arches, today seen without their decorative veneer of stucco or marble, create a powerful image of structural expediency by displaying the apparent act of carrying and distributing loads but, unlike the solid arches/vaults of the Pantheon, they are actually surface features, no different than the rest of the brick facing of the wall, hiding a core of concrete mass behind (significantly different from the way brick is used in Asia Minor; see later). They might have been functional and structurally “active” during the initial stages of the construction providing a stable support for the core when the concrete was still wet, but they became a part of the monolithic mass once the concrete set and solidified. What is more important than knowing whether these elements are really functional or not is our appreciation of the Roman sensibility that assumed they were functional or, represented function. It is hard not to be affected by the structural logic and clarity of these arcaded configurations rising in interdependent multiples up brick walls and into the curved surfaces of vaults and domes. DE CO R AT IV E VE NE ER S

All of these different forms of construction, in Rome or in the provinces, were ordinarily intended to be covered, veneered, or incrusted, by a decorative material. For walls, the surface material was frequently 141

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figure 3.22 Reconstruction study of brick ribbed vaults on the Palatine by A. Choisy (1873).

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figure 3.23 Examples of different types of brick relieving arches from Ostia; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

stucco (often interchangeably named with plaster), molded, patterned, and painted. Sometimes skilled artisans imitated a veneer of expensive marble blocks, even adding marble dust to the mix to add luminosity. In exceptionally fine buildings, budget allowing, real marble (or porphyry or serpentine) revetment was used as a luxury material. Upper-end productions even decoratively applied the classical orders to wall surface in the form of pilasters or half-columns. Revetment plaques were attached to walls by metal pins or clamps; the space between the plaque and the wall face was filled with a fine mortar backing of lime, sand, and finely crushed bricks. One can appreciate the vast area Romans could cover with one-inch thick sheets of marble rather than using solid blocks, as Greeks would have preferred to do (a typical solid block of marble 1.0  0.60  0.60 meters, would cover 0.60 square meters of surface on a wall in a Greek building, but the same block when cut by the Romans into one-inch thick plaques would cover 14.4 square meters, or roughly twenty-four times the area)! The inner surfaces of vaults and domes (intrados) would be plastered and left plain or painted; or they could be decorated in low relief and paint, often dividing the curved surface into geometric compartments enhancing the structural lines of the vault. Some vaults and domes were molded with deep coffers (geometric recesses square, oblong, hexagonal, or lozenge in shape). In addition to creating a strong visual impact

and illusion of depth, coffering helped the structure by lightening the mass of concrete. An alternate way of decorating the interior of vaults and domes was incrustation in mosaic. Plain, or decorated with colored stone and glass tesserae (squares of mosaic), and dramatically lit, mosaic interiors enhanced the sense of illusion and richness. Mosaics became increasingly popular in late Roman usage and were passed on to the Early Christian and Byzantine decorative vocabulary. Mosaic was often the material of choice also for floors in plain black-and-white patterns, or more elaborate faux carpets laid out with endlessly creative combinations of geometric, plant, and figural motifs. Because of its relative delicacy due to the innumerable individual joints, mosaics were preferably used on interiors. Plain white marble pavings were popular during the Imperial period. More ambitious were pavings of colored marble or stone, cut into small, intricate, geometric patterns – an exceptionally handsome technique known as opus sectile. A simple and austere paving technique, typical of the Republican period, had chips of stone, terracotta, or marble laid in a regular, or irregular, pattern in a smooth, buffred, finely finished concrete. This method, or a variation of it, is opus signinum with finely crushed brick and tiles mixed in the mortar and used as a waterproof mortar for lining roofs, pools, and cisterns (De Arch. 8.6.14–15). 143

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity UT I L IT AR IAN A E ST H E T IC

Roman craftsmen were exceptionally skillful in using materials decoratively and applying one material over another as veneer – or, imitating an expensive material with a cheaper one. Yet, we have substantial evidence showing that they were also interested in showcasing the polychromatic effects of natural materials without covering them up with plaster, marble, or mosaic. Starting with the Augustan period, especially in mixed constructions utilizing different tufas, limestones, travertine and brick, the Romans sought to integrate structure with surface ornament exploiting the variety of the color, tone and texture of natural materials. Opus reticulatum, and opus mixtum, with their strong panels of horizontals and diagonals appeal to our modern eyes as naturally decorative. No doubt the Romans felt the same way, though some scholars might disagree. A wall in Ostia displays the decorative effects of opus mixtum in black and white tufa blocks and bands of red brick. Another, from a tomb of the early Empire, also in Ostia, uses two-toned bricks, stone, marble and

terracotta, all making a handsome, polychromatic composition framed by a brick arch. The well-known second century memorial monument of Annia Regilla, the aristocratic Roman wife of the wealthy Greek statesman Herodes Atticus, contrasts the coloristic effect of two-toned bricks, red and cream buff (Plate 11A). Located on Atticus’ large estate between the Via Appia Antica and Via Latina outside Rome, and designed like a miniature temple with pilasters, sculpted pilaster capitals and molded-brick entablatures, the handsome monument demonstrates the extent high-quality, often custom-manufactured, brick came to be used as a surface material in its own right (Figures 3.24 and 3.25). These structures, unadorned by conventional forms of applied decoration, signal the creation of a new utilitarian aesthetic in Roman architecture paralleling developments in concrete technology. Key to the understanding of this approach to decoration and ornament are the functional brick-faced concrete buildings of the empire, especially in Rome and Ostia – high-rise tenements, commercial buildings, warehouses, and markets – but also a religious building such as the

figure 3.24 Heroon or cenotaph to Annia Regilla between Via Appia and Via Latina, Rome; by Own Work /Wikimedia Commons.

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Technology of Building warehouse and business headquarters of the Epagathian brothers (Horrea Epagathiana) (see Figures 3.26 and 5.22). Both structures display their richly hued red brick surfaces unadorned, except for the light accents of a modest, but carefully planned, travertine keystone, a balcony console, a tightly drawn and lightly projecting string course, and a coping trim terminating a parapet wall. The distinctive gateway of the Horrea Epagathiana, announcing its subdued dignity with its brick pediment and molded brick Corinthian capitals, illustrates the seemingly effortless and creative fusing of utilitarian charm and classical presence, of which the Romans, at their best, were complete masters.

CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES IN THE PROVINCES

figure 3.25 Detail of the cornice from the heroon/cenotaph to Annia Regilla, Rome; Photo by Diane Favro.

small, mid-first-century precinct of the Imperial cult (“Temple of Vespasian”) in the forum of Pompeii. The taut, tenuous elegance of its classical façade in brick is fulfilled in the bold hemicycle of Trajan’s Markets in Rome. In the Markets, two-toned bricks, red and yellow, are highlighted by discrete decorative elements in white travertine all visible without the veneer of stucco or marble (see Figures 6.45 and 6.46). In the great, curved facade of architect Apollodoros’ masterpiece, classicism itself received a new interpretation and impetus as its stock elements – pediments, broken-pediments, pilasters, and pilaster capitals – were translated into subtle surface designs of molded brick. We see the continuation of this trend in the early-third-century (Severan) Amphitheatrum Castrense, a small, private arena attached to an imperial villa at the eastern edges of Rome (see Figure 12.4). The great expanse of yellow, red, and brown brick of the outer wall is articulated by repeating frames of halfcolumns and relieving arches complete with a molded entablature and Corinthian half-capitals. Ostia’s position and steady growth as the burgeoning port city of Rome during the high Empire are underlined by a great variety of utilitarian and semiutilitarian buildings, almost all in brick-faced concrete. Among the finest and best-preserved representatives of the functional approach to aesthetics are a multistory apartment complex called the House of Diana and the

Brick was the special material of Roman Italy. No doubt this was partly due to the availability of good clay but mainly to spectacular advances in industrialized production which made kiln-baked brick a readily, widely, and relatively cheaply available building material. Large-scale building constructions, often subsidized by the state, provided a convenient market for brick, whose industrial scale production had largely come into imperial hands by the second century ce. The East, especially Greece and Asia Minor, used brick sparingly; they retained their time-honored traditions of fine ashlar masonry, by itself, or in combination with other, cheaper construction techniques. One of these was a form of mortared rubble, and its many local variants. Starting in the second century ce, bands of brick (or, tiles) of roughly three to four courses were let into rubble walls at every 1.0–1.40 meters or so – probably a device for leveling off construction at the end of each work shift and preventing uneven settlement and cracks (see later). Syria and Transjordan relied heavily on stone block construction, some of it ashlar, exploiting the natural beauty of local sandstones (as in Petra), limestones (as in Palmyra), or hard, dark volcanic basalts (as in Bostra). North Africa, especially the western regions and Numidia, developed a highly ingenious structural frame, or cage construction, composed of stone uprights and horizontals, filled in with rubble, small stone-blocks, or brick, distinguished as opus Africanus. Western European provinces, especially Gaul and Spain, favored a local form of opus caemenicium, basically a mortared rubble construction with a distinctive facing of small, squared blocks of stone, conventionally named petit appareil. Further discussion of these structural methods and specialties will be offered in chapters on individual provinces and regions. 145

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figure 3.26 Pedimented main door of the Horrea Epagathiana, Ostia, polychromatic brick construction; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

146

Technology of Building SOME ENGINEERING PROJECTS Among the great many projects subsumed under major categories of engineering – such as, roads and bridges, water supply and drainage, harbors and canals, terraces and support structures – a few of these, individually, or as a group, merit a separate discussion here although some may be brought back in the following chapters. LA ND TR AV EL, R OA D S , A ND TU NN ELS

During the time of Augustus, a marble column shaft with gilt-bronze plates was placed in the Forum Romanum marking the symbolic terminus for roads from the major cities of Italy (actually, the distances to these cities were measured from the various gates of Rome). The Golden Milestone (Milliarum Aureum, as this marker was called) announced the position of Rome as the center to which all roads must lead, and from which all roads must start. The Romans believed that land you could not reach was land you did not own; at the height of the empire they had created an impressive network of land routes connecting cities, countries, and regions around their Mediterranean. Some two dozen or so major or minor roads spread out like the spokes of a wheel from Rome and connected the capital to Italy, and the rest of Europe, England, Spain, North Africa, Asia Minor, and Syria. Naturally, there were many secondary and minor connecting roads within this network of major highways. The road culture of the Romans was as much an amenity ensuring safe and relatively comfortable land travel and trade, as a political and military necessity for the effective functioning of a centralized administrative system. This vast, all-weather, network ensured the fast movement of troops, Imperial officials, and mail. It provided for a reliable and effective commercial link between cities and regions. Above all, along with the sea routes, it created the image, in symbol and in fact, of a civilized world in which the freedom of travel was one of the many privileges to be enjoyed by individuals. Roads existed in pre-Roman Italy of course, as they did elsewhere in the Mediterranean – a special example to point was the great Royal Road of the Persian kings connecting Susa to Sardis (and on to Ephesus on the Aegean coast), all of its twenty-seven hundred kilometers crossed in a mere seven days by mail carriers. Herodotus’ admiring assessment of these tireless couriers of the Persian Royal Road (Herodotus 52–54. 8. 98) – which could well apply for their Roman counterparts – is inscribed on the James Farley Post Office in New York: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift

competition of their appointed rounds” – and has become the creed of US Postal Service. Closer at home, the gravel-topped Etruscan tracks formed the basis for major Roman roads. Some, like the Via Salaria, or the “Salt Road,” must have been in existence from prehistoric times, connecting the salt pans located on the Tiber’s mouth with inland territories. The Via Appia Antica, the first of the major consular roads, was established in 312 bce, and linked Rome with Campania and the south (Figure 3.28). It was repaired, repaved, and improved many times. An extension by Trajan crossed the Apennines to Brindisi on the Adriatic Sea, an achievement marked by an impressive commemorative arch rising before travelers as they approached Beneventum. The Via Flaminia, undertaken by Gaius Flaminius, the public roads commissioner in 220 bce, led northeast to Fano; the Via Aemilia, in 190 bce and Via Aurelia in 144 bce, provided connections to northern and northwestern colonies. A large number of early Roman roads in and outside of Italy were laid out with military and strategic concerns, mainly connecting colonies with Rome or other local capitals and securing a safe passage patrolled by guards. Normally, these roads (and the many bridges they crossed) were planned by army engineers and built by army labor, although during the Empire many important roads were also given out to private contractors. While these roads lost their military significance as the frontier expanded and became major commercial arteries, those in the outlying regions of the Empire, the limes (border lines), and those connecting oases in North Africa, retained their strategic value. To extend roads and road services to greater masses, and to improve their technical standards, were always significant concerns in the political and social programs of the Republic and its leaders. The Lex Sempronia Viaria, a road initiative law passed in 132 bce through the efforts of the famous reformer Gaius Gracchus, is exemplary of just such a populist measure. What were the Roman roads like and how were they built? Plutarch, a second-century bce source, perhaps responding to the program started with the Lex Sempronia Viaria, described them as “a vision of smoothness and beauty” (Gaius Gracchus, 7). The unified appearance and function of roads remained potent. Nearly seven centuries later, Byzantine historian Procopius admired the great Appian Way for much the same reasons: “Appius Claudius laid together stones smoothed, leveled, and shaped at the corners, without mortar . . . to form such a compact and cohesive whole that anyone who saw them did not believe that they were separate stones side by side but an unbroken surface” (Procop, Goth. 5.14.8). 147

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figure 3.27 The old “upper road” of the Via Appia at Terracina in a watercolor by Carlo Labruzzi (c. 1795).

Even today, along its better-preserved stretches, one can see and admire the tightly packed basalt paving of major roads such as the Via Appia or Via Flaminia (see Figure 3.28). The large, almost polygonal, paving stones were packed in flint chips and gravel, over a well-pounded roadbed of earth, clay, and sand. The road was cambered in the middle for effective drainage and flanked by large curbstones. Compacted earthen shoulders increased the effective width, and possibly, made travel easier since Roman carts and carriages did not have springs and draught animals were normally not shod. The width of the carriageway of Via Appia varies between 2.3 and 3.0 meters (7.5–10 RF), wide enough for traffic in two directions. The Via Flaminia, leading north, averaged circa 4.0–4.2 meters wide with circa 2.0 meter “sidewalks.” Other roads vary in size, from mountain passes where the width drops down to circa 2 meters (6.5 RF) to easy, flat stretches near large cities, with widths reaching nearly 7 meters (18–22 RF). The construction of the Via Appia and Via Flaminia is typical of the other major roads of the Empire and represents a high technical standard. The majority of the network, however, did not have the tightly fitted hard stone paving and curb stones. The secondary and tertiary roads consisted of well-packed gravel/flint surfaces over lighter, flexible beddings of earth, clay, and sand, or in 148

4.2 m

4.1 m 3.0 m

3.1 m

5.2 m

figure 3.28 Typical sections of the Via Flaminia over different geographies, rendered by Diane Favro.

some cases, a simple rubble packing compacted in thin, lime mortar. With proper maintenance, and frequent resurfacing (which often proved to be a financial burden for the local communities responsible for these minor

Technology of Building achievements of the Romans in organizing labor and materials: How many gangs are at work together! Some cut down the forest and strip the mountain sides, some shape beams and boulders with iron tools; others with sand and tufa [chips] pack the stones together; some drain pools and [cut canals] to lead streams and rivulets away” (Silvae 4.3.40–58). figure 3.29 Construction diagram of the Via Mansuerisca, Belgium, built on a timber framework as a causeway; rendered by Marie Saldaña and W. Ashley Coon.

connections) this kind of light paving could be perfectly serviceable. As to be expected, Roman roads display an almost infinite variety; but their construction was always guided by the importance of the road, the nature of the terrain it crossed, and the type of easily and cheaply available local materials. In northern Syria, stretches of the Trajanic road between Antioch and Aleppo were paved in large, rectangular limestone blocks, directly packed into the hard, desert floor. In crossing wetlands and lowlands, raising the road on a causeway or on a bedding of wooden piles, was not unusual. In a special case, a section of the Via Mansuerisca in Belgium was built over heavy tree-trunk foundations secured to the ground by vertical stakes; over this a heavy wooden frame supported a subfloor of flat, limestone pavers topped by a “metalling” of tightly packed gravel (Figure 3.29). In southern Turkey near Limyra Roman designers built a low-lying causeway with twenty-six segmental, rather than rounded, brick arches extending 360 meters supporting a roadway paved in irregular limestone slabs. Road construction is seldom a subject that inspires poetic expression, but we are lucky to have one by Statius, a Roman poet who lived in the second half of the first century ce. His surprisingly factual description in verse commemorated construction of the Via Domitiana, an important connector to the Via Appia completed in 94 ce, near Puteoli in Campania: First comes the task of preparing the ditches and making the borders of the road, and excavate the ground deep; then filling that up with other material, and make foundations for the road’s arched crown lest the soil sink and a treacherous bed provide an unstable surface for the heavy paving stones; then secure the roadway with cobbles, closely packed, set on either side with frequent wedges.

The passage that follows is unique in its dramatic (and poetic) acknowledgment of the skill in undertaking the complex process of building and constructing a road; however, it could be easily be perceived as a testimonial to all great technical and engineering

Across the empire commemorative arches, such as that at Rimini, spanned great viae, celebrating the effort, expertise, and cost of roadbuilding. Cutting hills, filling valleys, building causeways, opening canals, and digging tunnels were among the technical challenges confronting Roman road engineers. In an attempt to improve the old, curving, mountain-climbing course of the Via Appia at Terracina, Trajan’s engineers cut off a mountainside of solid rock to create a coastal route. Their pride in their work is apparent in the large Roman numerals incised at every ten feet on the rock surface: the full height is marked at a dizzying CXXVI – 126 Roman feet! In the Italian Alps near Aosta (by modern Donnas in the Val d’Aosta), Augustan engineers, possibly under the leadership of Agrippa, shaved away a 200-meter long face of rock to create a roadway complete with artificial ruts to ensure safe passage to vehicles; they left a portion of the living rock in the form of an arch to commemorate their achievement (Figure 3.30, Plate 4). The same indefatigable Agrippa seems to have been responsible for building a number of very long tunnels, or underground highways in the equally difficult terrain around the Bay of Naples and Puteoli. These roads, carved into the semisoft volcanic tufa, primarily served strategic purposes (the Roman fleet was based at Misenum in the Bay of Naples) and must have been planned and executed by military engineers. The tunnel called the Crypta Neapolitana, linking Naples with the important port of Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli), was 705 meters (2600 feet) long and 4.6 meters (17 feet) wide. Two obliquely cut shafts, each an individual achievement in tunneling, must have partially alleviated the serious problem of providing light and air. A tunnel of comparable technical challenge and complexity at the other end of the Empire is at Seleucia Pieria (Samandag˘ ), the port of Antioch-on-the-Orontes. Started under Vespasian and Titus but not finished for a hundred years, a tunnel and open canal combination of dizzying depth was cut into hard rock for a length of 1.4 kilometers, in order to divert a local stream and prevent the flooding of the port. Although the engineers and workmen were equal to the technical challenges, tunneled roads were avoided as much as possible because they were difficult to build and uncomfortable to use. A passage in 149

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figure 3.30, plate 4 Road cut through mountain rock for the Via delle Gallie, Donnaz in Val d’Aosta, Italy; Photo: Lysippos via Wikimedia.

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Seneca, who lived in the first half of the first-century ce, vividly depicts the discomforts of traveling through the underground section of the Naples-Pozzuoli road, despite its air shafts:

annoying in the open road, what will it be like there, where it whirls about itself and trapped without an air hole falls back on those who have raised it (Epistles: To Lucilius, 6.5).

Nothing is longer than that tunnel, nothing is darker than those torches which do not allow us to see among the shadows. . . . Even if there were light the dust would hide it, and if the dust is

An Italian scholar comments wistfully that probably the dust cloud only happened during the “rush hours”! Even without such contrary and unusual conditions, land travel in antiquity was considered a hard

Technology of Building

figure 3.31 A segment of a Roman road chart, the Peutinger Table, Medieval copy of ancient map; Drawing: G. Findlay (1849) via Wikimedia.

undertaking and avoided as much as possible. Yet at least the primary roads seem to have been well patrolled and kept open year round, except for some of the high mountain passes. By the time of Augustus, the immense network necessitated the creation of special magistrates, called curatores viarum, charged with the control and supervision of roads. Road “maps” or road guides called itinerari were available. These, like modern travel guides, fully informed the traveler about the distance between the cities, and other amenities available along the road. The most famous of these guide-maps is the Peutinger Table, a medieval copy of a third-century itinerarium, now lost; a linear chart measuring 6.4 meters long and 1 foot high, it documents the roads from Britain to the Euphrates in Mesopotamia, recording in six different colors and using symbols and notifications, the distances between stops, rivers, bridges, harbors, mountains, taverns, inns, military posts, some temples, baths, and water sources (Figure 3.31). It is an amazing example of its kind for the amount of detailed and practical information provided the traveler. With such sensible guidance, organization, and roadside assistance the ordinary traveler in a light carriage could expect to average 30–50 miles (50–80 km) daily; the Imperial post, changing fresh horses at special stops (mutationes), like the old Pony Express, could cover 100–160 miles (160–260 km) a day! Still, travel was serious business, and a measure of

divine help, such the kind that could be given by Rediculus, the god of the return journey, could not be ignored. Perhaps, by honoring the god, and sacrificing at the altars of Fortuna Redux and Lares Viales (the cult of the Protector of Roads), clustered at city gates and flung along road sides, and of course, keeping an up-to-date copy of the trusty itinerarium tucked under his arm, the Roman traveler could feel a bit more comfortable and safe. B R I D G E S AN D V IA D U C T S

Roads require bridges to cross waterways and leap across gorges. Undoubtedly, many timber bridges must have perished without leaving an archaeological trace. The Pons Subiacus, the rope-and-wood suspension bridge over the Tiber, crossing the river at Insula Tiberina (Tiber Island), known through literary references, was an important landmark from the earliest days of the Republic, and was repeatedly rebuilt. Capable military engineers crossed rivers on wooden, collapsible, pontoon bridges, or boat bridges. One such master who left ample literary and visual record of his achievement was Apollodorus of Damascus, Trajan’s architect-engineer, whose long bridge across the Danube was immortalized in various sculptural illustrations on Trajan’s Column in Rome. The bridge is shown with massive stone piers carrying complex, trussed timber arches (Figure 3.32). 151

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figure 3.32 Reconstruction of Apollodorus’ bridge over the Danube River inspired by the representation on Trajan’s Column; rendered by Alex Maymind.

figure 3.33 Puente Romana, bridge over the Guadiana River, near Mérida, Spain; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Dio Cassius (a historian and senator who lived in the early second century) describes the bridge having twenty stone piers with 170-foot spans (Histories 68.13). This may be an exaggeration: scholars suggest that spans were calculated at midpoints of thick piers, which could reduce the clear spans to a reasonable, but still impressive width of about 100–105 RF (compare to the 88 RF or 26-meter timber truss span of the “Basilica” in Trier, one of the largest known interior spans). The total length of the bridge would be some 2300 RF 152

or so (c 600 m), making it one of the longest ever built by the Romans. Dio’s enthusiastic admiration of this bridge as an achievement surpassing all others by Trajan is justifiable. Apollodorus, its creator, must have been also rightly proud since he wrote a small book about it (now lost) – something he did not do for the great forum and basilica in Rome he designed for the emperor. Apollodorus’ long and multi-span bridge crossing the wide and low bed of the Danube can be compared to the Puente Romana over the Guadiana near Mérida, in Spain

Technology of Building

figure 3.34 General view of the Augustan bridge on the Via Flaminia, Narni, Italy; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

(Figure 3.33). This bridge stretched over the sandy plain of the river in some sixty-two spans none of which exceeded 46 RF (14 m); most are 20–32 RF. The total length is calculated conservatively at 2518 RF (c 750 m.). With so much mass relative to its openings, it was almost a viaduct. A viaduct is a roadway artificially raised with earth, or masonry embankments, crossing a valley or a low land, with or without openings. An outstanding, early work of viaduct engineering is that on the Via Appia near Ariccia in Campania, built in the second century bce. The embankment walls, over a length of 750 RF and not exceeding 42 RF in height, were built in handsomely coursed headers and stretchers of limestone. Several arches served to drain storm water. The function of the singular, tall, dramatic, brick arch, known as the “Arco Felice” over the Via Domitiana between Cuma and Puteoli, is less certain. Clearly the arches strengthen the retaining walls of the road cut made through a mountain. A. Maiuri, the prominent Italian archaeologist, postulated that the Arco Felice was a viaduct to secure communication between the high parts of the hill. If so, one can think of a viaductbridge combination serving the two road systems at different heights – like a modern highway interchanges. The massive piers and arches of masonry Roman bridges are ordinarily built with cores of concrete faced

in blocks of ashlar, or in the smaller instances, in irregular blocks of rubble. The arches (really, vaults) are formed in solid stone, using traditional voussoir construction backed by a mass of mortared rubble. The use of brick in bridge construction is rare because even kiln-baked brick would erode against the constant flow and turbulence of water. The study of Roman bridge construction is important because some of the earliest and boldest uses in concrete technology involved bridges and aqueducts. Such utilitarian structures pioneered developments that influenced vaulted architecture itself in the cities. Or, to put it bluntly, without the mastery of the 104-foot span of Augustan Ponte d’Augusto at Narnia (Narni in central Italy) with its powerful core of concrete, there could have been no 143-foot span Hadrianic Pantheon in Rome (Figures 3.34 and 3.35; see in this chapter). No less than ten stone bridges crossed the Tiber in Rome; substantial remains of five can still be seen. The earliest is Pons Aemilius, downstream from the Tiber Island, originally built in 179 bce by the censors M. Fulvius Nobilor and M. Aemilius Lepidus. Although rebuilt and much restored in later times, one remaining span, locally known as Ponte Rotto (“broken bridge”), displays a sturdy vault of 153

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figure 3.35 Detail of the bridge at Narni, Italy, ribbed arch; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 3.36 Severan bridge near Kahta (Arsamea), Turkey; Photo: Bernard Gagnon via Wikimedia.

travertine-faced concrete. Storm arches (arched openings) placed in the piers over the pointed abutments are purely functional, to allow for extra water to flow during the flooding of the river. Best known, and still used, is the Pons Sant’Angelo, or the ancient Pons Aelius, built by Hadrian, linking the city with his mausoleum immediately on the right bank of the river. It has seven spans, the three longer central arches cross the river, each with a clear span of 58.5 RF (c 17.5 m) (see Figure 6.64). The Ponte d’Augusto, the bridge that carries Via Flaminia over the Nara River at Narni, mentioned above, is preserved in one majestic arch which spans 62.5 feet (c. 19 m) at a height of 97.5 feet (c. 29.5 m) above the water (see Figures 3.34 and 3.35). Built around 27 bce, this bridge originally had three piers and four arches, the main arch reaching a span of 32 meters (104 feet). Built in finely cut ashlar, the cores of the piers are entirely in concrete. The north abutment of the third pier has an interesting ribbed-vault construction. The true structural purpose of the travertine ribs is hard to predict; they may have been designed to increase the stiffness of the structure and provide greater lateral stability to the 52-meters-long, 8-meters-wide road surface of the bridge. Although the Romans had mastered the art of constructing in concrete under water (thanks to

pozzolona), laying foundations of bridge piers in rivers, especially those waterways that were deep and fast-moving, was a chore that they tried to avoid. One way of doing this was to increase the number of arches and build them at irregular, differing spans in order to take advantage of the riverbed terrain for the easiest and firmest footings (which sometimes resulted in slightly differing orientations for different spans). Another took the opposite strategy, increasing the width of the span in order to leap across the river in one great arch, without having to put piers in water. Illustrating the second method is the Severan bridge near ancient Arsameia of the ancient Commegene Kingdom in southeastern Turkey (Figures 3.36 and 3.37). The bridge is situated at the mouth of the deep gorge where the Cendere Çayi torrent eases out into the Kahta plain. The single, unadorned, majestic arch spanning circa 33.7 meters (111.2-feet), bends over the turbulent waters with power and grace. The span is possibly the largest ever achieved by the Romans in close competition with that of the Ponte St. Martin, an Augustan bridge in the Alpine valleys of northern Italy, near Aosta. It helps to place things in perspective to remember that these pieces of competent military and local engineering in the Empire’s remote frontiers achieved spans not significantly short of the greatest vaults of the capital’s imperial baths and basilicas. 155

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figure 3.37 Detail of the Kahta bridge main arch, Turkey; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

More modest in size is the bridge carrying the narrow road connecting the wealthy coastal centers of Pamphylia with the mountaintop city of Selge, and the inner Pisidian highlands over the formidable gorge of the Eurymedon River (Aksu) in southern Turkey (Figure 3.38; see later in this chapter). To this day, it provides the only vehicular access to a whole region in the wilds of the Tauros Mountains. Built of local mountain shale, the narrow, single sturdy arch leaps over the swift Eurymedon at a dizzying height – a testimonial to the spirit of service of unknown local administrators and benefactors and to the technical competence of nameless engineers. At least one bridge, at the other end of the Mediterranean from Kahta or the Eurymedon, but in an equally remote corner, gives voice to the normally silent testimonial of a builder’s pride. The Trajanic bridge at Alcántara in central Spain (largely rebuilt in 1860), crosses the deep and quiet waters of the Tagus in six arches of granite at a height of 46 meters (three meters higher than the Pantheon’s dome!); the widest central span is 28.8 meters (95 feet) and the total length reaches 191 meters (630 feet) (Figure 3.39, Plate 5A). An elegant commemorative arch dedicated to the emperor crowns the middle of the bridge. Facing the structure from the rocky rise of the southern bank, and protecting it and the traveler, is a small votive temple 156

figure 3.38 Bridge over the Euromedon River and gorge, Selge, Turkey; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Technology of Building

figure 3.39, plate 5a Bridge over River Tagus at Alcántara, Spain; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

(Figure 3.40). An inscription over the doorway and under the pediment gives the name of the emperor and also that of the builder (possibly the construction engineer), one C. Julius Lacer, and simply states: “I have built a bridge which will remain forever.” Lacer’s small temple even today watches over his and his emperor’s magnificent achievement with proud detachment. The impact of the bridge in its remote setting on the viewer is impossible to exaggerate. Photographs cannot do justice to the sense of awe, authority, and permanence evoked by this monument that is equaled, in our opinion, only by great Pantheon in Rome, still two decades in the future. W A TE R SU P P L Y S Y ST EM S : C IS TE R N S A ND A QU ED U CT S

Historically, communities have relied on tapping and preserving natural sources for their water needs. Supplying great quantities of water, cascading down into the copious basins of city fountains, such as the famous Trevi Fountain in Rome, was a luxury few states could afford before the Roman era. Saving rainwater in rooftop reservoirs and cisterns was the more common method of providing water for communities who did not enjoy an adequate and safe supply on or near where

they lived, such as a natural spring, a fresh water stream, or underground water accessed by wells. Before the more sophisticated, hygienic, and convenient “running water” supplies were made available by conduits and aqueducts, many Roman cities were served by simple and effective systems of wells, cisterns, and tanks, or simple pipelines and small “aqueducts” bringing water from nearby springs. In fact, across the Roman domain stretching from the dry Mediterranean coastal regions to the semidesert inlands of Africa and the East, cities and city culture thrived long before the coming of the monumental aqueduct system typical of the high Empire, or in the case of the latter, long before the coming of the Romans. Yet, much as we visualize this remarkable aqueduct system as being typical of the Empire and the well-being of its citizens, we should keep in mind that the vast suburban countryside was only rarely served by aqueducts; outside the cities, agrarian settlements and villages continued to rely on cisterns and wells – and a fair dose of their own ingenuity in water conservation measures. Nonetheless, the increased output of running water supplied by dams and irrigation systems increased agricultural production substantially. Along with the great baths, fountains, and public pools, the aqueducts were not simply a utilitarian exigency but also an urban luxury 157

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figure 3.40 Votive temple built by the architect-builder C. Julius Lacer, at the south end of Alcántara Bridge, Spain; Photo by Diane Favro.

intended to symbolize the standard of city life made possible by the Roman order. In Pompeii, prior to the construction of the city’s aqueduct at the end of the first century bce, individual water tanks (often under the impluvium basin located in the atrium of a house under the roof opening) served the modest water needs of the household. Larger houses, or villas, depended on more extensive cisterns. 158

The Villa Jovis, Emperor Tiberius’ retreat high up on the rocky eastern end of the fresh-water-starved island of Capri, was virtually designed around a courtyard supported by a vast network of concrete vaulted cisterns (see later in this chapter; see Figure 5.42). In Cosa, the Republican colony north of Rome, communal cisterns served whole neighborhoods. The need to save every drop of water was even more urgent in

Technology of Building desert and semidesert settlements. Still, it is amazing that even such cities struggled to retain the accustomed Roman cultural and recreational facilities, including high-impact water users such as public baths and fountains. Tiddis, a small North African city perched on an arid, clayey hillside near Constantine (Algeria), boasted a fair sized public cistern serving parts of the city and its baths. The Stabian Baths in Pompeii first depended on extensive underground cisterns. When the baths were enlarged in the early second century bce, the increased water needs were met by installing a large treadmill (5.4 m in diameter) operated by slaves to raise water from a deep well to a large roof reservoir. At the edge of the desert, in Dura Europos, eastern Syria, the city’s baths were fed by a system of regular waterwheels (possibly connected to siphons and pumps) that raised the water from the Euphrates over successive terraces. Similar systems used at Arsinoe on the Nile, and Antioch-on-the-Orontes, and the still turning “norias” of Hama, their Byzantine and Ayyubid successors, testify to the ingenuity of traditional technology and local engineers in serving the water needs of Roman cities. Often, the capacity of public cisterns was supplemented by aqueducts or a special line from an aqueduct. Thus, large cisterns could become the terminus of several aqueducts. One of the most impressive and immense cisterns ever created in the Roman world is at Misenum, near Puteoli in the Bay of Naples supplied by the Aqua Augusta (Serino Aqueduct). Built under Augustus, the Aqua Augusta was the greatest aqueduct system ever built, serving eight cities in Campania (including Pompeii and Herculaneum) with water brought from a source 96 kilometers away. The cistern, locally known as the “Piscina Mirabile,” was designed to supply the naval fleet; it has over fifty square bays of soaring concrete vaults (some 11.2 m, or 37 ft tall), and an estimated capacity of 12,600 cubic meters, though for structural reasons it may never have been entirely filled (Figure 3.41). While not intended to be seen and experienced, it is a dramatic space surpassed in grandeur and size only by the great fourth-century cistern locally known as the Yerebatan Sarayi (“submerged palace” in Turkish) in Istanbul/Constantinople. This gigantic structure (c.138  66 m, 80,000 cu m) had 336 columns carrying brick vaults and was supplied by several aqueducts. R OM E’ S A Q U E D U C T S

By far the most reliable method of water supply was fresh, running water brought by an aqueduct. Early in their history the Romans, and before them the Greeks, developed highly effective systems of

bringing water to their cities in conduits from sources many kilometers away. The conduits were either open channels (sometimes carved into the natural bedrock, or along the face a cliff ), or more commonly, pipes made of terracotta, lead, or less commonly, stone. The system relied on gravity with the water source higher than the city served. A gentle slope (only two or three feet to the mile) was sufficient for a smooth flow. The familiar images of Roman aqueducts as tall rows of arches carrying conduits, or channels, was only true in crossing low plains, valleys, and river beds (see Figure 3.1). Impressive as these are, they constituted only a small portion of a water line that could be 50–60 kilometers long (the Aqua Augusta bringing water to eight cities in the Bay of Naples was 96 kilometers long, and 140 kilometers with all its branches). Rome’s earliest aqueducts, the Aqua Appia built in 312 bce by the censor Appius Claudius, and the Aqua Anio Vetus of 272 bce, were almost entirely underground. By the beginning of the second-century bce, the capital was served by nine aqueducts supplying an estimated total of one-million cubic meters of water daily equalling nearly three hundred gallons per person per day! The double city gate known as the Porta Maggiore in Rome carries two aqueducts, the Aqua Claudia (38–52 ce), and Aqua Nova (35–49 ce), over two major roads, the Via Labicana and Via Praenestina. The superimposing, or piggybacking, of two conduits over one another is ingenious and makes good engineering sense. The gate itself, a handsome display of travertine rustication in a disjointed mixture of a triumphal arch and a city gate, is in essence a bridge carrying these two aqueducts (see later in this chapter, see Figure 4.31). The water needs of the provinces were not neglected. From the late Republican times onward, the cities of North Africa, Greece, and Asia Minor benefited from Rome’s generous policy of water supply. The Romans could be justifiably proud of their aqueducts, a useful undertaking serving the multitudes in a real, functional way, in contrast to, as Frontinus perceived it, “the beautiful but idle monuments of Greece or Egypt” (Aq 1.16). Even though the far greater portion of an aqueduct would have been a brick and concrete conduit, or simple underground pipeline, the spectacular remains of the part above ground, stretching across the remote corners of the vast empire on tall, majestic arches tell the story of Roman urbanization and building technology more eloquently than do the more popular accounts of Rome’s military and political prowess. Apart from the actual remains themselves, we have the great good fortune to possess a contemporary 159

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figure 3.41 Piscina Mirabile cistern at Misenium (Bacoli), Italy; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

160

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head 18 m

water tower

delivery to house head 6m

figure 3.42 Diagram of urban water distribution: rendered by Anthony Caldwell (after Hodge).

written source illustrating clearly and in detail the great technological knowledge and administrative organization behind this impressive system of water supply and distribution. Our information comes from an earlysecond century treatise, De Aquis (The Aqueducts of Rome), written by Frontinus himself, Rome’s water commissioner under Trajan. Three times a consul, proconsul of Asia, and a successful governor of Britain Frontinus represented the best tradition of the responsible and competent public official of the high Empire. One can understand his pride over the beneficial effects of his reforms that “improved the health of the city as a result of the increase in the number of works, reservoirs, fountains and collecting tanks (castellum aquae)” (Aq. 1.88). Once water was brought into a city it was first channeled to large tanks where the unwanted sediment could settle; next it was piped to special neighborhood distribution tanks or towers (castella). Rome was served by a total of 247 castella. Frontinus specified three clearly separated groups of water consumers. The first group included the emperor and those amenities he assigned special privileges (comprising about 17.1 percent of the water). The second group consisted of public users who used and enjoyed water sources at military and official establishments, public baths and fountains (about 44.3 percent). The third was private users including owners of industries and residences (about 38.6 percent). The more privileged functions, such as the imperial uses, baths and fountains were served directly from the tanks by pipes tapped near the bottom, while private users were served by pipes higher up which ran out first and produced less pressure (called “head”) (Figure 3.42). Writing some 140 years earlier, Vitruvius’ description of the order and hierarchy of water distribution is broadly similar to that of Frontinus, but more theoretical and generalizing (De Arch. 8.6.1–2). Settling tanks and distribution tanks found in Pompeii and Nîmes bear out the basic logic of the operation in its general

lines if not in its details. Good examples of water towers, and functional public fountains can be seen in the streets and squares of Pompeii and Herculaneum (see, also the water tower at Aspendos, Figures 3.53 and 3.54). One of the best preserved and monumental examples of a Roman aqueduct is the Pont du Gard built by Agrippa around 20 bce. This aqueduct brought water to ancient Nemasus (Nîmes in southern France) from a source 49–50 kilometers away. The three tiered arches of the massive stone structure cross the valley of River Gardon and measure 266 meters long and circa 48 meters (160 ft) high, the tallest of all Roman aqueducts (Figures 3.43 and 3.44). Many aqueducts also served as bridges, though in this case the roadway and pier extensions were added in the eighteenth century. Water ran at a very low gradient of 1:3000 (or, a fall of 17 meters in the total 50 kilometers the length; or less than 9 centimeters over the whole length of the aqueduct crossing the River Gardon) in a closed conduit on the uppermost level supported by the smaller arches (Figure 3.45), with three of the small, top arches over each of the middle level ones except for the wider middle span which has four. The simple rhythm of massive and unornamented stone structure evokes a sense of power and austere elegance befitting its utilitarian purpose. Equally impressive in its grandeur is the Segovia aqueduct in central Spain (Figures 3.46 and 3.47). It is tentatively dated in the first century ce. The tall, two-tiered piers and arches, some 788 meters long, cross a deep valley and enter the town at a height of 29.7 meters. The structure is constructed entirely in roughly hewn solid granite blocks, but appears slender and almost lacelike, because of the exceptional height of its first story piers. These are articulated into segments by simple horizontal moldings, the sole concession to ornament. The effect of such a soaring structural screen, a splendid row of 118 arches against the small, boxy houses of the modern 161

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figure 3.43 Pont du Gard, Nîmes, general view; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 3.44 Detail of Pont du Gard arches, Nîmes, France; PJMarriott via Wikimedia.

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figure 3.45 Detail view of the conduit. Pont du Gard, Nîmes; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

town, is theatrical and surrealistic. A similar sense of theatricality can be felt in the vertical accents of Los Milagros aqueduct (meaning “the miracles” in Spanish) bringing water to Mérida (ancient Augusta Emerita). Rising in triple level arches to a height of 23.6 meters, this “miraculous” aqueduct is also the longest in Roman Spain (Figures 3.48 and 3.49). Unlike the Segovia aqueduct, however, it is constructed in small, squared blocks of stone alternating with bands of brick, and all brick arches, over a core of mortared rubble – the whole creating a colorful and decorative effect. Thanks to the generosity of one of its wealthy citizens, C. Sextilius Pollio, Ephesus, a metropolitan city in Asia Minor, received its first aqueduct about the same time as Nîmes (around 14 ce), making it possible to support the dozen or so major baths and ornamental fountains the city was to build over the next two centuries. Pollio’s fine aqueduct carried an inscription honoring him at the point where it crossed over the ancient highway. The classically composed, but austere, arches are constructed in finely dressed ashlar typical of much Roman construction in Asia Minor. The blocks

hide the core of mortared rubble (Figure 3.50). The spans of the second story arches are exactly one-half of those of the first story, with every other upper story pier resting precisely midpoint over the keystone of the large arch below. The Ephesian aqueduct is admittedly less grand than the Pont du Gard, and less powerful than the soaring, granite piers at Segovia, but it was just as effective in bringing the benefits of the Imperial system to the city. Due to their enormous cost (comparable to roads), private builders of aqueducts, like Pollio of Ephesus, were very rare. In making handsome donations to one’s homeland psychological factors were important. Aqueducts, the greater part of their length running as underground pipes, or their familiar arches crossing a remote valley that few would ever see, were unglamorous or invisible. Like the great roads, most aqueducts were built with imperial money, or through community funds administered by local governors. One must remember that Pollio’s fine aqueduct was conveniently crossed by a major highway leading to Ephesus from the south, and thus like a billboard displayed handsomely the generosity of its benefactor. When a popular civic amenity, such as a public bath, became the sole and visible user of an aqueduct, private munificence could be counted upon. The water problem at the large Hadrianic Baths at Lepcis Magna, in North Africa, which was inadequately served by wells and cisterns, was finally solved by a small aqueduct paid by a wealthy citizen. The pride of the donor is expressed in a tersely worded inscription in Latin: “Quintus Servilius Candidus searched for water, found a rich source, raised it, and brought it by an aqueduct, at his own expense (IRT, 357).” In the wealthy decades of Pax Romana, even remote cities in the provinces could boast of an effective and healthy water supply system. Among the dozens we have chosen two examples from Asia Minor to illustrate the heroic proportions of these undertakings. The idea behind these functional monuments was similar; variations in design were generated by local materials and building traditions. The aqueduct at distant Alinda in Caria (southwest Turkey) is constructed in heavy, rusticated blocks of ashlar (Figure 3.51). That which brought water to Anazarbos in Cilicia used a more economical mixed construction close to Roman concrete, the mortared rubble core is faced with small, squared blocks above and sturdy ashlar piers below (not illustrated). An aqueduct was mainly a utilitarian concern, but especially at its point of origin or delivery it could be designed as a showy and elegant water monument. The famous city of Carthage in Numidia (Tunisia) was 163

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figure 3.46 View of Segovia Aqueduct, Spain; Photo: Zarateman via Wikimedia Commons.

supplied by a major aqueduct by the middle of the second century (see later in this chapter). Water was brought on tall arches from a source in the mountainous hinterland some 52 kilometers to the south. It originated in the rising slopes of Mount Zaghouan as an impressive elevated terrace surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped colonnade, hiding a large cistern (see Figures 8.70–8.72). Thus, the cistern was not simply a functional water tank, but an elegant plaza with a spectacular view, a true nymphaeum dedicated to the nymphs – female deities protecting natural springs and water sources. The progress of water from the heights of the rocky mountain down to the busy port city seems to have been documented visually and celebrated. SI P H O NS AN D I N V E R T E D S I P HO N SY S TE MS

All of the aqueducts reviewed earlier in this chapter are examples of open gravity systems where water is carried in a conduit under normal atmospheric pressure (the channel was normally covered by stone 164

slabs to keep water clean) down grade from the source. Another commonly used system applied the principle known as the inverted siphon, conducting the water in an enclosed pipe down a valley from the source and up the other side to the place of delivery since water rises to its height, or very close to it. The principle was well known to the Greeks and brilliantly applied to difficult sites such as Pergamon, where the water was conducted to the 340-meter-high citadel from a mountain spring only 39 meters higher. In the process it crossed two valleys separated by a high saddle. The Romans replaced the part of this closed system which lay in the valleys, with an open aqueduct, thereby reducing the total pressure, or the head, resulting from the height differential between the source and the point of delivery. In Italy, around 100 bce, the acropolis of Alatri in Latium was served by an inverted siphon crossing a valley 98.5 meters deep. In southern Gaul, near Lyons, a number of siphons of heavy lead piping traversed valleys as deep as 120 meters (such as the Beaunant siphon of the Lyon-Gier aqueduct; Figure 3.52), successfully demonstrating the advantages of the closed siphon over the

Technology of Building

figure 3.47 Detail of the aqueduct arches at Segovia, Spain; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

open, arched, bridge-aqueduct system, where building arcades much higher than the 48 meters achieved at Pont du Gard would have been daunting, and ultimately, structurally impossible. In the third-century aqueduct that supplied the hilltop city Aspendos in Pamphylia (southern Turkey), water was brought from a high mountain source under pressure in a closed and sealed stone pipeline, creating an inverted siphon (Figures 3.53 and 3.54). Notably, this closed pipeline was raised on an arcaded aqueduct for over half-a-mile in order to diminish the height differential in the valley and thus reduce the excessive head that would have developed if the pipe had been allowed to follow the natural ground line. Still, to further relieve the excessive pressures built up in such a close system, three “pressure towers” were incorporated in the stretch of the aqueduct arcade. Similar compromise systems, combining arcaded aqueducts with closed siphons, are seen in other sites across the Mediterranean – from the small, mountain-top Oenoanda in Lycia (southwest Turkey) to Arles in Gaul (France). The water supply of the Roman colony of Lindum (Lincoln, England) was brought by a closed pipe from a spring, which was then raised by means of a mechanical pump to the limestone ridge on which the city was located.

figure 3.48 General view of “Los Milagros” Aqueduct near Mérida, Spain; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 3.49 Detail of pier and arch of “Los Milagros” Aqueduct near Mérida; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 3.50 Aqueduct of C. Sextius Pollio, near Ephesus, Turkey; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Hydraulic engineering was among the more exacting of ancient technologies. Even in Asia Minor, heir to a long tradition in Greek arts and sciences, finding an expert in building an aqueduct might have required special effort. When the Younger Pliny was the special governor in Bithynia (northwest Turkey) under Trajan, he asked the emperor to send a hydraulic expert to revive the two aqueducts that had been started by the city of Nicomedia but could not be finished. Trajan pointedly recommended asking for a specialist from the governor of inner Moesia (in the Balkans south of the Danube River) as it was the province with an army base closest to Bithynia (Pliny, Letters 10.37). Although substantial regional differences do exist, there appears to have been a high degree of standardized professional and technical skill available for the building and operation of aqueducts, probably supplied by military engineers. DAMS AND RESERVOIRS

Aqueducts – whether constructed as simple pipelines or monumental, arcaded bridges – were just one of the ways of providing the water needed by a community,

usually an urban center. In order to tap the larger resources of a vast geographical and climatic terrain and to provide water for agricultural and industrial needs, ingenious and traditionally proven methods, such as cisterns, water-lifting wheels, dams, pumps, and siphons were all employed. Rural and agricultural needs were met by effective management of underground or surface waters, terracing, and the creation of cross-walls or simple earth dams across slopes and valley bottoms. In the arid climate of North Africa, many present-day oases, such as the one near Gabes in Tunisia, were connected by a hydraulic communications network (a venerable “oasis culture”) dating from the pre-Roman era, although some were developed by local engineers in Roman times. An ancient dam and a sluice gate built with blocks of sandstone at Gabes clearly improved the precious desert source and created a large and pleasant pond of water. According to Pliny, farmers in the area received allotments of time for water use rather than specific amounts (NH 18.51). One of the best preserved and impressive operations in taming a torrential and uneven waterway was the dam built across the wide beautiful valley of river Rhyndacus near the city of Aezane in Asia Minor. 167

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figure 3.51 Close view of arches, Aqueduct near Alinda, Turkey; Photo by Diane Favro.

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figure 3.52 Diagram of the siphon system, Beaunant aqueduct, Lyon, France; rendered by Rui Xiong (after Adam).

The remains of this colossal dam, curving against the current, and built of large ashlar blocks, can be seen some six miles southwest of the ancient town, within sight of the cave sanctuary sacred from time immemorial to the Anatolian goddess Meter Steunene. The Aezane dam was built during the Imperial era and served also as a viaduct carrying the Roman highway across the valley. At several points along its great arc, small arched openings allowed drainage and regulation of water for agricultural use. The original collecting basin, or the reservoir, behind the dam is now submerged under the much larger irrigation dam built in the 1980s. Over fifty large or small dams dating from 168

the Roman era have been identified in Spain. One of the most impressive, the Cornalvo dam 12 kilometers from Mérida, was built in the early second century ce and supplied the city as well as the agricultural country around it (Figure 3.55). Collecting the waters of the Albarragas River, the earth fill of the dam is supported by a 220-meter-long retaining wall of stone and concrete rising 18 meters above the water’s surface. Just as the network of Roman roads and bridges, Roman dams, too, often served as viable models for their modern counterparts. Another major Roman dam subsequently built over by a modern one is the Homs dam in Syria, built by army engineers during the reign of

Technology of Building

figure 3.53 General view of the aqueduct and water tower, Aspendos, Turkey; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Diocletian, around 284 ce. Lake Homs, a colossal 15.5 square miles (or nearly 10,000 acres), was the largest artificial lake in antiquity and served both the rural and urban needs of the region. Founded on a natural bed of basalt, it was built of basalt blocks over a core of heavy rubble and mortar. The hydraulics scheme at Khan al-Makkoura, between Damascus and Palmyra, is another remarkable instance of water source management created as a part of the military reorganization of Syria under Diocletian. This complex integrates two small wadi-dams, roughly half of a mile from each other, cut into the arid, chalky bed of a torrential creek, with a long, artificial canal laid along the valley bed carrying water from the upper dam to the lower one (Figure 3.56). Three interconnected, square, irrigation tanks are made along the course of the canal. At its lower end, the canal is linked by a short overflow channel to the reservoir of the lower dam. Earth embankments along the canal sides protect the fragile system against wind erosion and silting. The castrum (military camp), surrounded by a small arable agricultural belt, is situated midway along the waterway, near the irrigation tanks. The valley dams, each no more than 50–55 meters long, are constructed in limestone blocks, arranged in more or less regular courses, and mortared with hydraulic cement on the inside. The dam reservoirs, the canal,

the irrigation tanks, the overflow channel, and the garrison form an interconnected, integrated, and selfsufficient micro-ecological system sensitively exploiting the natural potential of the desert site and sustaining life. S H O W I N G W A T E R I N T HE C I T Y

Besides devising these large-scale management efforts that provided water for drinking, bathing, and agriculture, while also protecting the land against floods and silting, Roman planners also exploited water as a decorative and socially meaningful element of urban design. Many Roman cities had pools, fountains, artificial lakes, and urban canals that were integrated into the city’s overall circulation, transportation and recreation systems. Many important Roman centers in Europe and the East – such as London (Londinum), Paris (Lutetia), Trier (Augusta Trevorum), Verona, Ephesus, Phaselis, and Caesarea to name a few – took advantage of their locations on the sea or a river. Many harbor cities depended on waterborne commerce for their livelihood. Rome, in addition to its major port in Ostia, boasted extensive river trade, river ports and warehouses along the Tiber. But, like many other waterfront cities, it also enjoyed the river for recreation. During the time of Augustus and the aedileship 169

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figure 3.54 Aspendos aqueduct water tower; G. Niemann in Lanckoronski (1892) with additions by rendered by Diane Favro.

of his lieutenant Agrippa (33 bce), an artificial urban lake called the Stagnum, and a wide canal named Euripus, were created as a park-like development of the Campus Martius (Field of Mars), the large, flat region of the city next to the Tiber. Both the lake and the canal were supplied with fresh water by the Aqua Virgo aqueduct. Although the exact layout of “Agrippa’s Gardens” is not known, they were probably planned with rows of trees along the canals, shady promenades interrupted by fountains, exedrae, and rows of statues. Nothing of this famous waterway remains, except colorful descriptions in ancient literature as a popular and fashionable playground for the gilded youth of Rome. According to the historian Tacitus, the emperor Nero (54–68 ce) had a large pleasure barge on the Stagnum. As smaller boats towed this floating fun house, the woods and pleasure pavilions around the lake would glitter with lights and echo with music and songs (Annals 15.37). The long urban canal with its cooling cascades forming the backbone of the colonnaded avenue in Pamphilian Perge offered a similar form of enjoyment 170

and might have (more modestly) enlivened the street life in this distant southern Anatolian city known for its hot summers (see Figures 10.21, 10.46 and 10.47). Also in Asia Minor, Antioch-in-Pisidia, Aezane, and Pessinus took advantage of their locations by integrating riverfronts, pools, and canals in to urban life. Representations of river cities and harbor cities on coins, sculptural reliefs, and paintings are fairly common, though difficult to identify. The latest is a partially preserved wall painting discovered in 1997 inside the cryptoporticus of Trajan’s Thermae in Rome portraying a river city of some significance with walls, towers, temples, colonnades, and a covered bridge (like the Ponte Vecchio in Florence), intriguingly similar to images of Roman and medieval Verona (La Rocca 2001). H AR B OR S: P U T E O L I , O ST I A , P O R T U S , C AE S AR E A

A much better-known wall painting from Stabiae is believed to depict the harbor at Puteoli (Pozzuoli), or a similar Campanian port, with a fair degree of accuracy

Technology of Building

figure 3.55 Cornalvo Dam, near Mérida, Spain; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

(Figure 3.57). An arcaded mole supporting several commemorative columns and a “harbor monument” with a triton, projects from the right side. On the lower left, the entrance to the harbor, a massive rock shaped like a bridge, supports a lighthouse, and below, an elegant terrace; fishermen are fishing; small boats are entering the harbor. In the inner harbor several large ships are lying on anchor or at berth. Behind the ships is a plaza with streets, columnar monuments, and a triumphal arch, and a large, colonnaded precinct. A wide, colonnaded avenue lined with elegant, pedimented structures – like temples – and terminating with an arched gate, leads to the arcaded mole. Crammed with both utilitarian and decorative structures, and bristling with activity, this is a fascinating glimpse into the physical setting and life of a Roman port city. Actual remains of harbor structures are often limited to partly submerged piers on moles, such as the line of piers at Puteoli itself, dateable around 200 bce; or the 84-meter-long (275 ft) mole at Ampurias in Spain; or the moles of the Claudian harbor at Ostia, dating around 40–60 ce. These have a typical construction of large blocks of opus quadratum facing a heavy concrete core, much in the manner recommended by Vitruvius. The unique property of pozzolona mortar to set under water constitutes Vitruvius’ central argument for the advantages of opus caementicium as a

building material (De Arch. 2.6.1, see earlier). Elsewhere in his useful manual Vitruvius describes in detail the proper way to construct harbor works and moles under water using the cofferdam method: Whenever conditions permit, cofferdams (“caissons”) of proper proportions are to be built of oak piles with tie beams between them. These are to be driven down into the water and fixed firmly in place. The bottom inside, under water, must be leveled, dredged, and supplied with a platform of small beams. The space is then filled with stones (caementae) and mortar composed of pulvis Puteolanus [opus caementicium] (De Arch. 5.12.3).

Vitruvius must have actually seen the early-secondcentury bce harbor of Puteoli, the earliest major harbor serving Rome that was composed of a series of concrete piers connected by arches, much in the manner shown in the harbor painting. The harbor started by Claudius at the mouth of the Tiber, at Portus, some 3 kilometers north of Ostia, was intended to serve as the new sea terminus for the growing needs of Rome, especially its wheat supply coming from Sicily and North Africa (Figure 3.58). Remains of concrete core material with massive travertine blocks near Rome’s Fiumicino Airport identify the pair of curving moles that extended out to create a 171

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figure 3.56 Restoration study of the water management system at Khan al-Makkoura, Syria; rendered by Anthony Caldwell.

wide, artificial basin. A lighthouse (pharos), marking the entrance, was situated in the middle, or at the end of, one of the long moles (Figure 3.59). We do not know much about the lighthouse itself, although it must have followed the ancient model established by the Pharos, the famed Hellenistic lighthouse of Alexandria: a tall, square masonry tower surmounted by diminishing hexagonal and cylindrical sections in three or four stages. The extraordinary foundation 172

structure and the circumstances of the Ostia lighthouse, however, are worth telling. As recorded in ancient literature, and partly borne out by archaeology, the underwater foundation of this lighthouse was the hull of a colossal ship, filled with concrete, and sunk under water – an instant cofferdam. This immense ship, found by archaeologists in 1965, was originally built to carry an obelisk from Heliopolis in Egypt to Rome; it measured circa 103.5  20 meters

Technology of Building

figure 3.57 View of a harbor city, wall painting from Stabiae; Photo: public domain via Wikimedia.

(340  65 feet, longer than a soccer field), with six decks and some seven hundred men to operate it (Pliny, NH 10.202)! Situated along the open, relatively inhospitable coastline, the Claudian harbor of Portus did not provide sufficient shelter from storms. In 62 ce, some two hundred vessels inside the harbor were destroyed in a tempest (Tacitus, Annals 15.18.3). The emperor Nero developed an alternative option, initiating a project for an artificial inland canal connecting the capital with Lake Avernus, near the naturally safe Puteoli harbour, though the scheme was never fully realized. It was Trajan and his engineers who achieved a new and substantially improved harbor at Ostia (Figure 3.58). They created an enormous hexagonal basin, 700 meters in diameter with a travertine embankment with marked berths for ships. It was connected on the west side to

the Claudian, or what became the “outer harbor.” The basin was surrounded by barrel-vaulted warehouses, baths, possibly a shipyard served by an aqueduct, two temples, a so-called palace, and a colossal statue of Trajan himself. A deep artificial canal linked the hexagonal basin with the Tiber to provide passage for the smaller river boats operating between Rome and Ostia. Originally, a thriving center of harbor facilities, Portus became an independent city during the third and fourth centuries and survived as a small village into the Middle Ages, long after Ostia became malarial and was abandoned. One of antiquity’s great harbors for its immense size, extensive facilities, and innovative technology was King Herod’s royal harbor at Caesarea, called the Sebastos. Like that of Italy near Ostia, the Phoenician coast is straight and dangerous, without natural shelters. Herod, the king of Judea under Augustus, was 173

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figure 3.58 Plan of the Claudian and Trajanic harbors at Portus and Ostia; rendered by Diane Favro.

eager to develop close commercial and political ties with Roman Italy; therefore, the construction of a safe harbor was a necessity, though a great technical challenge. Josephus, a historian writing during the second half of the first century ce, described Herod’s harbor as a gigantic basin protected from the north and south by the curving arms of a pair of moles, each 200 feet wide, and built as a combination of a breakwater and a fortified seawall (Ant 15.334–338). The mouth of the harbor, open to the calmer seas on the north, was marked by a pair of concrete pillars, or towers, each carrying a triple columnar monument forming a triumphal entry into the inner basin. Josephus also mentions wide, curving quays and promenades on land, 174

rows of vaulted chambers (probably warehouses), and a tall tower, which was probably the lighthouse, a maritime necessity and a symbol of prestige, inspired by the famous Pharos of Alexandria, some 300 miles away. Much of what is mentioned by Josephus has been substantiated by the investigations of the first joint archaeological expedition working at Caesarea on land and under water since 1970s. Besides the use of large, locally quarried sandstone blocks, the breakwater, stretching out several hundred meters into the sea, were constructed in massive blocks of concrete, apparently “cast-in-place,” under water. This work must have been achieved using highly innovative procedures; the excavators suggest massive wooden

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figure 3.59 Reconstruction study of the Ostia lighthouse in the harbor of Caligula, built upon the hull of a large ship (filled with concrete and sunk); rendered by Rui Xiong and Diane Favro (after O. Testaguzza).

formworks, made on land or in shallow water, floated to position, fixed on the smoothed seabed, and filled with hydraulic concrete, probably lowered down in place in large baskets. These prefabricated caissons appear to be a practical variation of the coffering method described by Vitruvius and mentioned earlier (De Arch. 5.12.3) (Figure 3.60). There is also a very high likelihood that pozzolona, the special volcanic dust that gave Roman concrete its unique property to set under water, had been specially brought from Italy for the construction of the Caesarea harbor. This astounding proposal is backed by considerable scientific evidence. Hydraulic concrete, as routinely prescribed by Vitruvius for all piers and moles, had been in use in central Italian harbors (Puteoli, Terracina, Cosa) for at least a century before Herod started his Sebastos in the last quarter of the first century bce. This and other technical details of the harbor, suggest that Herod imported not only materials and technology, but also engineers from Italy to create a royal harbor adapting to local traditions and up-to-date Italian models. This would be in keeping with the ambitious client-king’s professed political admiration of Roman culture and technology, and his close friendship with Marcus Agrippa, who must have been aware of the early uses and advantages of hydraulic concrete in harbor

projects. The king had even used opus reticulatum in the construction of his winter palace at Jericho, a method of facing concrete symbolic of Italian work and seldom used in the eastern Mediterranean (see later). The handsome reconstruction drawing of Sebastos reproduced here echoes the simple arrangement of the Campanian harbor fresco (see Figure 3.57), but it goes beyond the fresco to underscore that the making of a harbor in Roman antiquity was a complex and colossal undertaking, illustrating the complete interdependence of architecture and engineering in the creation of an artificial environment integrated into nature. TERRACES AND SUBSTRUCTURES

One of the most effective and impressive ways concrete technology served the needs of Roman architects and engineers was the construction of massive terraced platforms to create flat open spaces – as one would need for a plaza, or a forum – or to support single buildings or groups of buildings. This kind of site preparation could take the form of individual foundations or underpinnings for buildings, or solid retaining walls back filled against the slope of a hill. Or it could be treated as a complex of interconnected vaulted chambers making one or more building platforms. 175

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figure 3.60 Reconstruction of workers lowering caissons of concrete/mortar into formwork at Herod’s harbor, Caeserea-Sebastos, Israel; © Robert J. Teringo, National Geographic Creative.

In some cases, a raised platform was created by building a grid of walls and filling the spaces between in blocks of stone and rubble. These methods all represented what we could call a traditional, passive system of support by their sheer mass, and were often the logical solution for a hilly site. But they could also form an exciting and dramatic architectural settings in themselves. Terraces and retaining walls, often built of solid and intricately joined masonry, were common in Greek and Hellenistic architecture. The planning of the Hellenistic capital Pergamon in Asia Minor, with its impressive acropolis-top location, was largely dependent on the artistic merits of a composition of multiple rising terraces. Romans, too, could build effectively and expressively in the traditional manner with solid, back-filled masonry, judged by the vast fortifications of their numerous Republican colonies and ally cities in central Italy. The long circuit of the acropolis terrace walls of Ardea (c. 300 bce), the impeccably detailed polygonal work of the Alatri acropolis terrace (c. 300–200 bce), the ashlar walls and round arched gates of the newly established Falerii Novi (241–200 bce), and the mixed polygonal and ashlar construction of the acropolis of Ferentium (c. 150–100 bce) (see 176

Figures 1.6, 3.13), are only a few examples selected from a much longer list. However, it is in the creation of concrete vaulted support systems that the Romans achieved their distinctive ability to exploit the functional and expressive potential of hilly sites. Roman terraces were not merely back-filled, solid, retaining walls; they often formed a structural armature of multiple functional vaulted spaces that could be used as shops, offices, or storage space. The remains of these almost indestructible concrete substructures and long cryptoporticos continue to impress us today even though the buildings they supported, and dramatically presented, are often gone. One of the earliest applications of a vaulted substructure system – a spacious, functional basement – is the imposing bastion on the western side of the acropolis of Ferentium dating to the second half of the second-century bce (Figure 3.61; see also Figure 3.13). Rising over rock foundations encased in large blocks of irregularly shaped polygonal masonry, the upper stretches of the tall bastion are continued in more or less opus quadratum, with small, arched windows above. These bring light into a U-shaped, barrel-vaulted corridor (cryptoporticus) enveloping a pair of shorter

Technology of Building

figure 3.61 Axonometric reconstruction of the vaulted chambers in the west acropolis bastion, Ferentium, Italy; rendered by Rui Xiong (after A. Bartoli).

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity barrel vaults. The construction is a combination of concrete and ashlar (one might call it “ashlar-lined” concrete): the vaults and interior walls supporting them are in opus incertum-faced concrete; these are buttressed on the outside by sturdy ashlar walls. Supported by the interior vaults, and rising over the bastion, was a masonry structure, possibly a temple. A number of sanctuaries from the Republican period in central Italy provide well- preserved and dramatic examples of terraces supported by even more complex vaulting arrangements than that at Ferentium. These are the terraces of the Sanctuary of Jupiter Anxur in Terracina (c. 80 bce) rising over the lofty headland, visible clearly from the Via Appia Antica (see Figures 2.23 and 2.25); the terrace of the Temple of Hercules Victor in Tivoli (c. 50 bce; see Figures 2.27 and 2.28); and the multiple terraces and ramps building up the entire hillside of the Sanctuary of Fortuna Primegenia at Praeneste (Palestrina, c. 120 bce; see Figures 2.32 and 2.33). At Terracina and Tivoli distinct and functional terrace platforms composed of interconnected, open, concrete barrel vaults provide support for the temple and the sanctuary precinct; at Praeneste the sanctuary itself is formed by a series of interlinked colonnaded terraces, ramps, stairs and exedras. The circular shrine (tholos) of the goddess Fortuna culminated the scenography of the composition, but it is only a relatively minor element of the sanctuary whole, and structurally independent of it. Behind the familiar elements of classicism, such as the rows of columns or half-columns alternating with arches, seen both at Praeneste and Tivoli, is a sturdy core of concrete retaining walls and barrelvaulted buttresses holding the hill. At Terracina, a simple stone molding at the springing of the arches provides the sole ornamental relief to the severe outlook of the terrace, an early example of the kind of utilitarian aesthetic destined for popular applications. In all three, the concrete core is faced by a fine opus incertum, articulated and strengthened at the corners by limestone quoins. The Via Tiburtina, the main inland highway from Rome, ran under the massive terrace of the Temple of Hercules at Tivoli (see Figures 2.27 and 2.29). The wide roadway, covered by a barrel vault, was entirely integrated into the vaulted, concrete, substructure of the terrace; some of these vaulted chambers are believed to have been shops – making a convenient underground shopping street. Some fifty years later under Augustus this interesting idea of a “covered mall” might have inspired the artificial plaza terrace created in front of the Temple of Magna Mater and the Temple of Victoria next to the house of Augustus on the Palatine in Rome (see Figure 4.15). Although 178

both of these temples predate Tivoli and had some sort of stone podiums, the Augustan rebuilding (c. 3 ce) created a tufa-paved plaza in front, and an artificially raised, vaulted terrace covering a portion of the paved road (Clivus Victoriae) that ran below the large Corinthian Temple of Magna Mater. The area in front of the temples, including the broad flight of steps rising up to its tall podium, had always served as a suitable stage for the cult festivals and theatrical performances in honor of the goddess. The Palatine Hill in Rome, rising between the Forum Romanum and the valley of Circus Maximus, was an area favored by temples and aristocratic residences (see Figures 6.21 and 6.23–24). The Emperor Tiberius had a palace along the northern side of the hill, enlarged and extended by his successors, preserved today only in its tall, vaulted, basement corridors. Domitian and his architect Rabirius built a stately palace known as Domus Flavia and Domus Augustana. Rabirius’ multilevel masterpiece created in the last quarter of the first century ce necessitated even a more elaborate system of vaulted substructures. In the following centuries, under Septimius Severus and Maxentius the entire perimeter of the hill was wrapped in a girdle of brick-faced concrete (see Figure 6.24). Today, most of the upper structures and marble facades are gone, the breathtaking view of the soaring vaults of the Palatine, especially from the south, the Circus Maximus side, reminds us that the work of the Roman emperor and architect in preparing a site for building was half the effort of the total project. Even on relatively flat ground large civic structures, such as temples and baths, benefited from being raised on terraces because they looked more imposing. This was clearly the case for Hadrian’s Temple of Venus and Roma in Rome. Located at the east end of the Forum Romanum and overlooking the valley of the Colosseum, its vaulted substructures conveniently providing storage for the stage sets and mechanical equipment for the great amphitheater (see Figure 6.51). Ancient critics pointed out that the design would have been more effective if the platform was raised even higher (see later). In Ephesus, Asia Minor, a tall terrace shaped by two stories of generously proportioned vaulted chambers supported a large temple dedicated to the Flavian family (see Figure 10.15); the vaulted galleries could have been used as a shopping center just like the covered street under the temple of Hercules in Tivoli. Located on flat land near the sea, the colossal Antonine Baths in Carthage (Tunisia) were lifted wholly above ground on a vast substructure of cross and barrel vaults carried by elephantine piers. But the primary reason in this case was functional; unable to dig deep because of the high-water table next to the

Technology of Building sea, this pseudo-basement contained all of the services necessary for the operation of a large bath. Unexplored, overgrown, and intriguing, possibly the most ambitious undertaking for shaping topography for a human-made environment was, surprisingly, not in Italy but in Asia Minor. In Nysa, a small Carian city in the Meander valley, Roman engineers connected the two sides of a deep, plunging gorge, not only with bridges but also with multitiered vaulted substructures that supported a stadium circa 200 meters long and a spacious civic plaza at the head of the ravine (see Figures 10.107, 10.108, and Plate 24B). These are now visible only as collapsed masses of rubble and mortar. It is possible that, like the basement of a large bath complex, the substructures of this layered and suspended city might have housed an entire network of useful urban infrastructures, such as storm drains, canals, sewage lines, ramps, and stairs, perhaps even an underground shopping mall, with an oddly Piranesian and futuristic cast to it. Perhaps, Nysa is a quiet witness to the question asked at the beginning of the chapter: Did the Romans have a “knack” for technical projects in the service of architecture and urban planning? Was there truly a Roman “genius” for planning and executing complex engineering undertakings? Considering the wide geographical spread of innovative designs and technologies, and their great variety, a simple knack theory will not hold; the secret may be that the Romans across their empire were able to encourage and establish a system of education and training that that took on technological problems with courage and confidence, even though mistakes were not uncommon. And, those with knowledge and expertise must have been admired and given a chance. Who then was responsible in Nysa for the urbanistic concept and technical ingenuity so brilliantly and daringly disposed? We may never know who, an Italian or a local, but certainly a master, much like the remarkable Anthemius of Tralles, a sixthcentury Roman architect who came from Tralles, a town less than 20 kilometers from Nysa, and together with his colleague Isidorus of Miletus, created one of the architectural masterpieces of all time, the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

ERRARE HUMANUM EST As just discussed, Roman mastery of building construction, manifested especially by large engineering projects is indubitable. There were, however, many Roman projects that were not successful, buildings that collapsed, foundations that settled, walls that cracked, aqueducts that failed – and every type of

contract that ran notoriously over budget. In order to curb any uncritical enthusiasm in the infallibility of the Roman technological “genius” and to demonstrate that there were many examples that were less than perfect, and others downright scandalous, we evoke in this section of our book the title of an exhibition on the same subject that took place in Zurich in 1994: Errare humanum est, or “to err is human” (Flutsch 1994). Both Roman building methods and those who applied them (surveyors, engineers, architects, and supervisors) were at times vulnerable to natural and manmade errors (iniuriae, uitia); often these imperfections in design and execution were perpetrated by cheating builders for greater profit. The subject has been widely documented in ancient literature and covered in modern scholarship mainly by J. P. Oleson and H. Dessales; it is summarized by the latter along the following lines: (a) errors in planning; (b) errors in workmanship; (c) inexperience, incompetence, and sheer dishonesty in construction – or any combinations of these three factors (Dessales 2012, 471–477; Oleson 2011, 9–27). We begin with Rome. Life in the capital, unless one was living on a wealthy estate or a suburban villa, was difficult and dangerous due to excessive crowding, shoddy construction and constant threat of fire that claimed property and lives. Since the city grew with little order or building supervision, fear of collapse and conflagration of whole neighborhoods was real at least until the time of Augustus (but more properly until the widespread use of concrete after the Great Fire of 64 ce; see later). Built in cheap, flammable, and perishable materials such as mudbrick, wood, wattle-and-daub, and thatch, little remains of this type of urban housing that seems to have been – as humorously told by contemporary writers such as Juvenal – “balanced on slender structural props because that is how the landlord holds buildings from falling down. Once he covers a gaping ancient crack, he tells [his tenants] to sleep securely in ruins ready to collapse” (Sat. 3.190–196). Not only were these shoddy, tottering many-storied tenements a constant source of worry for the people, but their collapse was often encouraged by unscrupulous profiteers who bought these condemned properties cheap, kicked out their poor tenants, and developed the land. Crassus, a legendary and rapacious tycoon of the late Republic had put together an army of demolition experts, builders, architects, and workers, five hundred strong, in order to follow disasters in Rome: “He would buy houses on fire and those threatened nearby at a trifling price by forcing their terrified and helpless owners” (Plut. Crass. 2.4–5). Substandard construction, insufficient enforcement of what building regulations that did exist, and lack of proper maintenance affected all aspects of 179

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity urban life. Frontinus, a capable administrator of Rome’s deteriorating water system (curator aquarum) under Trajan reported on the gross lack of competence and discipline among the gangs of maintenance workers for the aqueducts. These so-called experts were “regularly diverted by favoritism or by the negligence of their foreman. . . . I resolved to bring some discipline . . . by writing down the day before what each gang was to do (on the next day)” (Aq. 2.116–17). Nor was ordinary life in the narrow, congested streets of Rome, a city that seemed to be under constant construction, any more orderly. Juvenal’s humorous description of Rome’s bustling and noisy street traffic – which memorably begins with “You have to be very rich to get sleep in Rome” (quite true also today) – is naturally exaggerated, but effective in painting a colorful image of an everyday scene: I hurry along, the great massed crowds crush from behind. One pokes me with his elbow, another by a massive beam. . . . A huge fir-log comes tottering on a wagon, another one carries a whole pine tree, wobbling and threatening above the people. If the axle with its load of Ligurian marble blocks collapses and pours its mountain of rock on the masses, what will be left of their bodies? (Sat. 3.244–260)

These urban disasters would have been, to a large extent, endemic to any overcrowded metropolis. Rome, with its population of over a million, was a special case that underlined the worse that could happen through ignorance, incompetence, dishonesty and greed. But, since our primary evidence is from literary sources, we have to be cautious and critical in our reading and take some of these satirical tales of urban woe laced with colorful metaphors, with a grain of salt. Over time, the city’s many attempts to place greater control on public life and safety, to create mechanisms for neighborhood supervision, to write building codes, to encourage new, fire-resistant construction, and curb dishonest public servants, is a testimony both to the dire need that existed to bring some semblance of order to urban chaos and the willingness to take action. In Rome and the provinces, serious construction problems are often associated with new and important buildings. The great Thermae of Caracalla is shown to have suffered from blatant errors in the alignments of its walls and irregularities of its massive foundations (De Laine 1997, 67). According to a fifth-century source, the large bath building the emperor Septimius Severus built in Rome was rendered unusable because the “aqueduct serving it collapsed immediately after its completion” (SHA Sev. 19.5). This is nonsense: it is hardly credible that a large bath structure – a complex 180

and expensive kind of building – would remain inoperable because a connected aqueduct (most probably a branch line) had failed: when aqueducts failed, they were promptly repaired. Pliny the Younger was sent out to Bithynia in Asia Minor as special envoy and representative of Trajan to investigate a series of faulty and irregular construction projects and the criminal misconduct of their technical and administrative staff. He reported on the huge sums of money wasted on an unfinished aqueduct in Nicomedia; gross planning, construction and siting errors in the design and construction of theater at Nicaea and the baths at Claudiopolis (Pliny, Ep.Tra., 10.39.4; 10.39.5). In these cases, Pliny’s request for Trajan to send an architect from Rome to inspect and correct these faulty projects was famously refused by the conscientious emperor on the grounds that skilled architects could be found locally and reminded his envoy that indeed “they usually come to us from Greece” (Ep. Tra. 10.40). Technical knowledge to make proper structural provision for loads imposed on carrying members, walls, piers and foundations is underlined in Pliny’s reasons for the collapse of a bath-gymnasium also at Nicaea: “Moreover, the architect . . . affirms that the walls, although 22 foot in width, cannot support the loads placed on them, because the rubble core has no facing of brick (Pliny, Ep.Tra. 10.39.4). Pliny the Younger, not being a construction expert, and having no knowledge of the brick construction methods in Asia Minor, seems to have muddled the issue of “brick facing.” In Asia Minor, unlike Italy, brick was rarely used as a facing; it was traditionally used in courses of solid construction (see later). Such solid brick reinforcement, in bands of several courses, or in larger solid stretches alternating with mortared rubble was, perhaps, what the Nicaean baths lacked (although the 22-foot-thick walls, even for the largest baths, is an exaggeration). Failure to provide proper foundations typically plagued large structures such as theaters, amphitheaters, and aqueducts carrying heavy loads on exceptionally tall piers and widely spaced arches. Tacitus reports that weak foundations and a loosely framed wooden superstructure were responsible for the catastrophic collapse of the amphitheater at Fidenae (Fidene, outside Rome) leading to the injury and death of some twenty thousand people (Tac., Ann. 4.62.2; Suet., Tib. 40; may be also an exaggeration). In wellknown earthquake zones across the Mediterranean, additional structural methods were employed to stabilize the ground and strengthen the foundations, such as the elaborate substructures of major Roman roads. The mid-second-century Roman design of the

Technology of Building peripheral columns of the Temple of Artemis at Sardis (in Turkey) encased large individual ashlar block foundations in heavy mortared rubble to stabilize them against landslides affecting the area – perhaps, with some knowledge of the sinking foundations of the nearly contemporary theater at Nicaea, which had prompted Trajan’s attention and investigations (Pliny, Ep. Tra. 10.39.5). The construction misfortunes of the aqueduct that supplied water to Saldae (Bougie) in Algeria painstakingly documented by an inscription is too good to ignore: not only had the superstructure of piers and arches failed partially, but the digging of the underground tunnel that supplied the water met problems upon the retirement of Nonius Datus, the senior architect who had conducted the initial survey. In the course of the construction, inexperienced technicians who took over were incapable of following the “blueprints”. The two teams of diggers that started the 425-meter-long tunnel on either side of a mountain deviated from the straight line and failed to meet in the middle. Nonius, in order to clear his name from this show of ineptitude, as he tells us, had to come back from retirement, bringing a second copy of his original survey which he had wisely kept, and set the tunnel and the aqueduct right, as he explicitly proclaimed in a long and (somewhat) self-congratulating inscription put on public display (CIL 8.2728; ILS 5795). One should, however, refrain from too glib a judgment on similar problems; without the use of modern surveying tools (such as GPS, or even an electronic theodolite with trigonometric functions), it would have been an exceptionally tricky job to align with precision the two ends of a narrow water tunnel (basically a conduit) one-half kilometer long through a massive mountain. Expecting that the two legs of the “Gateway to the West,” a 192-meter-high, stainless steel arch in Saint Louis, Missouri, designed by E. Saarinen and H. Bandel, would surely not meet, every phase of its construction in 1963–1965 was chronicled in film: the two ends of the inverse catenary arch, the highest manmade monument in the Western hemisphere, met with millimeter precison. Halfway around the Roman world from Saldae, the engineers of the aqueduct stretching over a valley in Olba, Rough Cilicia (Turkey) were taking no chances: the handsome structure displays a remarkably solid ashlar construction, especially at each end of its hefty arcade (and some openings filled in later for good measure!), and has little resemblance to the tall, airy aqueducts we see at Zaghouan in Tunisia, and Segovia in Spain – nor to the Gateway to the West. The construction of extensive irrigation canals, dams, and harbors, where the designers had to contend not only with the massive scope of the undertaking, but also with

immense and unpredictable forces of nature, was one of the most difficult construction projects. When Pliny asked for specialized surveyors and architects from Trajan in order to connect a lake in Nicomedia with the sea, some 20 meters lower, the thoughtful emperor who had earlier balked at sending architects for an ordinary building project (and considering the ordinary architects of Asia perfectly capable) was willing to supply specialists from Italy provided that “there is an accurate survey (of the project) . . . or else the lake might be completely drained once it is given an outlet to the sea.” Fully realizing the exceptional technical nature of the assignment, he added: “. . . I will send you someone who has experience in this sort of work” (Ep. Tra. 10.42). This worthy and wellconceived project, however, was not realized. Harbors had the perennial problem of silting or, due to poor site choice, of providing inadequate protection from exceptional storms. As mentioned earlier, Rome’s sea harbor at Portus built by Claudius included a vast basin, sea walls, protective moles, and a lighthouse did not prevent two hundred ships from sinking when hit by a sudden storm (Tacitus, Ann. 15.18.3). Still, the project was a qualified success until Trajan built the much larger hexagonal harbor offering better protection. The great harbor of King Herod the Great in Caeserea circa 25 bce, possibly supervised by Italian engineers, is rightly described by J. Oleson as a “technological tour de force.” It had enormous breakwaters, extensive sea walls constructed in massive stone blocks, complex floating and underwater caissons, many towers, a massive lighthouse, and a fine temple to Augustus, and no doubt one to a benign and protecting harbor god (Josephus, Jewish War, 1.408–414). Yet ignorance of the behavior of sand and the Pleistocene clays beneath it made the harbor less than a success: At some point in the second half of the first century A.D., a seismic jolt, or simply the weight of the enormous structure, liquefied the supporting sediments beneath the heavy breakwaters and they gracefully but irresistibly sank below sea level. The elegant harbor facilities were transformed into navigational liabilities and ships began to pile in the artificial reef. (Oleson 2011, 21)

Often, problems started neither with faulty structural design nor imponderable natural forces, nor proper construction methods, but with plain cheating for financial gain. Pliny the Elder is unequivocal about the failure of many buildings with mortar-and-rubble walls Rome: “[the] fraudulent habit of (dishonest contractors) economizing on lime so that the stones are not held together by solid mortar” (Pliny NH 36. 54.176). In fact, “sand without lime” (harena sine calce) 181

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity became an ancient architectural metaphor for all substandard, shoddy practices. Pliny’s observation is fully illustrated in the three-meter thick mortared-rubble walls of the Imperial Bath-Gymnasium at Sardis where not only the quantity of lime mortar was kept at a minimum (lime is expensive, field stones are not), but aggregate was unevenly mixed, displaying pockets chock-full-of stones with hardly any mortar matrix between them. Yegül, who published this building in 1986, suggested that this faulty, but fairly widespread, construction habit could explain to a large extent the alleged structural weakness of mortared rubble work of Asia Minor, rather than just the fact that Asia Minor lacked the special, volcanic pozzolona to make the proper concrete of central Italy (Yegül, 1992, 254; Yegül 1986, 123–124, n. 15). We do not know if the contractor in Sardis was held responsible before the law, nor do we know if any Imperial investigators like Pliny brought the greedy contractors to justice, but Roman law had provisions against such fraudulent practices and dishonest builders – and occasionally went after them as demonstrated by the elaborate investigations of problematic Bithynian buildings by Pliny under Trajan. Reasonable exceptions to the law may confirm its fairness: in the Digest (a compilation of Roman civil law under Justinian in the sixth century ce) no faults or legal consequences are attributed to builders whose structures suffer natural disasters such as earthquake collapse, although precautions against seismic damage are recommended when possible (Dig 12.2.59 and 19.2.37). In one particular instance, the jurist Labeo viewed that if a water channel built by a contractor was subsequently ruined by subsidence before the work was approved, the risk was the contractor’s. However, an opposite legal opinion far more sensible, was immediately offered by Paulus, another jurist: “If this occurred due to a fault in the earth, the lessor will bear the risk. But, if it happened due to a fault in the construction, the loss will be the contractor’s” (Digest, Probabilities 19.2.62). There was even a sensible notion how long a building, especially a mortar-based one, could be expected to last against the combined and inevitable effects of aging (vetustas); Vitruvius referred to the natural life span of walls as no more than eighty years, as computed by Vitruvius in reference to the natural life span of walls: Experts called to assess party walls based their evaluations . . . on what (these walls) cost originally (and) deducted one-eightieth for each year that has elapsed since they only valued . . . what was left of them when the sum was deducted from the total; (hence), they demonstrate that their durability could nor exceed eighty years. (De Arch. 2.8.8).

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It is interesting that Vitruvius considered brick walls stronger than these rubble-and-mortar walls, even ageless, because brick construction was not subject to temporal limits (De Arch. 2.8.9). In sum, the Romans built a lot; they undertook difficult projects that sometimes failed due to natural or human error or greed, thereby providing rich material for satirical narration and exaggeration. Some of these errors led to corrections and future improvements. A civilization that refrains from taking risks – such as cutting through one-half a kilometer through rock in order to bring fresh water to its cities – would be saved from making mistakes and forgo the pleasures of success and the benefactions of water. S HO V E L I NG , W R E CK I N G , P L A NN I N G , BUILDING

An important part of Roman construction often overlooked or mistaken as random pillaging is deconstruction: the controlled and orderly demolishing of old or damaged buildings for reuse. There is hardly a major Roman (or before them Greek) building that did not incorporate some construction material carefully extracted from an earlier structure – marble blocks, columns, capitals, bricks, even loose rubble. The economic viability of deconstruction has been analyzed by scholars who estimate that under optimum conditions, for a metropolis like Rome, the cost of secondhand or recycled materials costs as much as 70–80 percent less than new ones. However, geography must have been an important factor in determining the market viability of “careful demolition and reuse” (Barker 2010, 126–142). The value of salvaged materials in smaller, landlocked locations would have been far less as the demand for local reuse was limited and transportation to places with greater market opportunities costly. Finally, it is a mistake to imagine the ancient Roman city as a finished and pristine collection of buildings at any particular time. In an insightful article written over a century ago, F. S. Dunn reminded us of the too clean and lifeless appearances of typical paper restorations of Roman cities (such restorations just coming of age in his time), underscoring the messy vitality of endless building activity and reconstructions in real cities (Dunn 1915, 318–322). Rome, or any prosperous city under the empire, must have looked like and sounded like a massive jobsite: networks of scaffoldings and cranes; piles of building materials; the constant din and clamor of moving, heaving, and lifting; the rhythmic rattle and clatter of carving, shaping, scraping – all this reflecting the city’s proud image of itself, like Carl Sandburg’s Chicago, “amid the toil of piling job after

Technology of Building job . . . shoveling, wrecking, planning, building, breaking, rebuiling . . .” (Sandberg 1914). No city, then as now, was without unfinished buildings or ruins. Yet, large urban ruins and unfinished projects could be experienced as an informative and meaningful form of urban expression – not in the sense of the romantic vision of ruins popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – but as a symptom of the impure and heterogeneous vitality of the unfinished city and the corrosive power of time signaling the need for rebuilding and finishing (vetustate corruptum restituit). Some of these concerns, not restricted to the ancient world but to all architecture, have been taken up with a certain sense of wit and poetry by R. Harbison, who observes that “ruins [of a city] are ideal: the perceiver’s attitudes count so heavily that one is tempted to say ruins are a way of seeing” (Harbison 1992, 99). One, indeed, imagines that the citizens of a lively Roman city – wrecking, planning, building – would have seen the noisy process as progress. A finished building was certainly a cause for pride and celebration; one under construction or waiting for construction could be a cause for perpetual pride and celebration connecting the past to the future. We now resume our chronological and thematic survey of architecture and urbanism, starting at the beginning of the Empire with Rome during the age of Julius Caesar, Augustus, and the Julio-Claudian emperors. REFERENCES

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Malacrino, C. G. 2010. Constructing the Ancient World, trans. J. Hyams. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum. Mark, R. 1990. Light, Wind, and Structure. The Mystery of the Master Builders. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Marta, R. 1986. Tecnica Costruttiva Romana. Rome: Edizioni Kappa. McWhirr, A., ed. 1979. Roman Brick and Tile: Studies in Manufacture, Distribution, and Use in the Western Empire (BAR 68). Oxford: BAR. Meiggs, R. 1982. Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mogetta, M. 2015. “A New Date for Concrete in Rome.” JRS 105 (November): 1–40. O’Connor, C. 1993. Roman Bridges. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oleson, J. P. 2008. Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oleson, J. P. and G. Branton. 1992. “The Technology of King Herod’s Harbor.” In R. L. Vann, ed. Caesarea Papers (JRA Supplement 5), 49–67. Oleson, J. P. 2011. “Harena sine calce: Building Disasters, Incompetent Architects, and Construction Fraud in Ancient Rome.” In A. Ringbom and R. L. Hohlfelder, et al., eds. Building Roma Aeterna: Current Research on Roman Mortar and Concrete. (Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum, 128). Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 9–27. Packer, J. E. 1969. “Roman Imperial Building (31 B.C.– A.D. 138).” In C. Roebuck, ed. The Muses at Work. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 36–59. Pellicioni, G. 1986. Le Cupole Romane. Rome: Paleani Editrice. Pensabene, P. 2013. I marmi nella Roma antica. Rome: Carocci Editore. Portella, I. D. 2004. The Appian Way: From Its Foundation to the Middle Ages. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum. Rockwell, P. 1986–87. “Carving Instructions on the Temple of Vespasian.” Rend. Pont. 60: 53–69. Rook, T. 2013. Roman Building Techniques. Stroud: Amberley. Rowland, I. G. 2014. “Vitruvius and His Influence.” In R. B. Ulrich and C. K. Quenemoen, eds. A Companion to Roman Architecture. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 412–425. Russo, F. and F. Russo. 2007. Pompeii. La tecnologia dimenticata. Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche e Artistiche. Sandburg, C. 1914. “Chicago,” Poetry Magazine 3.6 March: 191–192. Senseney, J. R. 2014. “Plans, Measurement Systems, and Surveying: The Roman Technology of Pre-Building.” In R. B. Ulrich and C. K. Quenemoen, eds. A Companion to Roman Architecture. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 140–156. Sitwell, N. H. 1981. Roman Roads of Europe. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Staccioli, R. A. 2003. Roads of the Romans. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum. Sterpos, D. and F. Castagnoli. 1970. The Roman Road in Italy, trans. F. Sear (Quaderni di Autostrade, Int: 5–7), Rome: Auostrade S.p.A. Taylor, R. 2000. Public Needs and Private Pleasures. Water Distribution and Urban Development of Ancient Rome. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

Technology of Building 2003. Roman Builders. A Study in Architectural Process. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2014. “Labor Force and Execution.” In R. B. Ulrich and C. K. Quenemoen, eds. A Companion to Roman Architecture. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 140–156. Torelli, M. 1980. “Innovazioni nelle tecniche edilizie romane tra il I sec. aC e il I sec. dC.” In E. Lo Cascio, ed. Tecnologia, Economia, e Societá nel Mondo Romano. Como: Banca Popolare, 139–161.

Ulrich, R. B. 2007. Roman Woodworking. New Haven: Yale University Press. Ulrich, R. B. and C. K. Quenemoen, eds. 2014. A Companion to Roman Architecture. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Von Hagen, V. W. 1967. The Roads that Led to Rome. Cleveland, OH: World Publishing. White, K. D. 1984. Greek and Roman Technology. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Wright, G. R. H. 2000. Ancient Building Technology, 3 vols. Leiden: Brill.

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War can be fought on many fronts simultaneously, using weapons on the battlefield and great buildings in cities to attain and project controlling power. In the first century bce, the Republic was challenged and almost brought down by massive pressures for long overdue social and land reforms ignored in order to contain the expanding privileges of the aristocracy; internal and external revolts; and the constantly shifting alliances and rivalries among the talented but ruthless leaders jockeying for power. Facing crises, the state accorded these individual strong men extraordinary powers as war time consuls and generals, a circumscribed practice that enflamed ambition and eventually turned many into dictators with their coterie of supporters and fellow travelers. Few survived the autocratic positions created by their ambitions. In this volatile world, architecture could be used as a weapon of choice to project power and influence. Successful generals advertised their achievements abroad through splendid triumphal ceremonies in Rome and equally splendid buildings that were partially paid for with captured spoils and covered with propagandistic inscriptions and artwork. Each sought to outdo the other, creating a competitive escalation in size, grandeur, and material opulence of buildings. In the mid-first century bce, Julius Caesar allegedly spent 60 million sesterces (five times the annual budget for a military legion, around $1 million today) to purchase land to create a new forum dedicated to Venus, his family’s revered ancestor (see later). In the following decades, members of his powerful clan (gens Julia) united through marriage with the equally prestigious Claudian family. The Julio-Claudian dynasty – Julius Caesar and the five emperors who followed him – promoted the transformation of the Roman Republic into an 186

imperial state and Rome into a world city, expertly exploiting architecture as a means to compel, facilitate, and justify a new Roman identity.

JULIUS CAESAR: THE ENEMY OF THE REPUBLIC, THE FATHER OF THE PEOPLE In the first half of the first century bce, the Roman Senate endowed Marius, Sulla, and later Pompey (“the Great”), powerful and popular generals, with exceptional privileges to deal with military emergencies. Each after his successful return home reverted to a form of autocratic rule or plain dictatorship. The showdown came in 49 bce when Julius Caesar, a young noble and conqueror of Gaul, and once Pompey’s close ally, was challenged by the latter, both contenders for the leadership of the Roman state. Caesar responded by crossing the metaphorical line drawn in the sand, the famous Rubicon River, and entered Italy, and eventually defeated Pompey at Pharsalos (in northern Greece). Caesar and his battle-hardened legions spent the next three years in the East to settle military affairs while the commander also enjoyed some quality time in Alexandria with Cleopatra, the last coregent and Ptolemaic queen of Egypt. Responding to negative gossip about this dalliance, Caesar returned to Rome triumphant, and clearly dictatorial, albeit popular and seemly benevolent. Although declared as the “Father of the People” by the Senate, a smaller group dedicated to uphold the founding tenets of the Republic considered him an “enemy of the Republic” and plotted his murder on the Ides of March 44 bce. The conspiring group of Republicans was led by C. Cassius and

Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome M. Brutus, the latter the dictator’s young friend and protégé; the tragic event furnished Caesar his last memorable line as he looked at his noble assassin, “You, too, Brutus?” (Et tu, Brute?), covered himself decorously, sank down to the marble floor, and died.

required (Pliny, Letters, 6.33). Looking outward, occupants had ideal views of the goings on in the Forum, such as haranguing speeches or gladiatorial games. Consumed by a fire in 12 bce, the Julian building’s structure is hard to know, though the rebuilding by by Augustus (Caesar’s immediate successor) followed the same plan. Notably, it had cruciform piers of brick connected by arches with vaulted double ambulatories, but the center space was timber roofed (Figure 4.3). Its arcaded façade repeated a structural and decorative scheme well known in Republican buildings such as the “Tabularium” rising against the west side of the Forum, and the Theater of Marcellus, which had been started by Caesar but was completed by Augustus circa 19 bce. In an attempt to justify his title as the Pater Patria (“father of his country”), and to counter the damaging image as the usurper of the Republic, Caesar planned major transformations of the city that included, in addition to the Theater of Marcellus (see later), the straightening of a part of the Tiber River, and the creation of an enormous permanent voting precinct, called the Saepta Julia in the middle of the largely undeveloped Campus Martius (“Field of Mars”), the public land inside the great bend of the river traditionally set aside for military exercises (see Figure 6.5). Famous for its one mile of colonnades in white marble, the Saepta was an expansive rectangular quadriporticus enclosure (310  44 m), completed, like many of Caesar’s works, by Augustus. Taking advantage of a fire that occurred in 52 bce, Caesar’s more visible architectural achievements

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Julius Caesar rose to prominence amid a strong field of contenders. Although initially he lacked funds, he borrowed money or wielded military forces to undertake notable building projects. When fighting the Germanic tribes in the north, he ordered the Roman troops to construct a gigantic bridge across the Rhine River; completed in a mere ten days, the audacity of the undertaking routed the enemy. At Rome, Caesar used the funds from his northern campaign to construct a commanding basilica along the southern side of the Forum Romanum. The Basilica Julia, dedicated in 46 bce when it was still not completely finished, replaced the earlier Basilica Sempronia. It was a two-storied, multi-use building covering almost 5,000 square meters (49  103 m), about the size of a football field (Figures 4.1 and 4.2; see also 1.9 and 1.10). The structure opened to the Forum on three sides through rows of columns; on its solid back to the south a row of offices faced into the basilica. Along the main façade a few steps enticed people to enter through a double portico surrounding a high roofed central space. From the upper galleries spectators watched various activities including court proceedings when the central space was portioned off into separate areas as when ius s tar ivu en Cl Arg

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figure 4.1 Plan of the western half of the Forum Romanum, Rome; rendered by Diane Favro and Marie Saldaña.

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figure 4.2 General view of the Forum Romanum looking east, with Basilica Julia (center-right); Photo by Diane Favro.

centered on the ordering and extending of the Forum Romanum toward north/northwest. This work included the relocation of the assembly space, the Comitium, and the erection of the old Senate House (Curia) in the tall, boxy form still retained today after many rebuildings (see Figure 4.1). Also rebuilt and relocated was the speaker’s platform, the rostra, which had a curved, stepped back side leading up to an imposing platform with a straight front. It faced south/southeast toward the open public space defined by the Basilica Julia and the Curia. The name “rostra” came from the bronze prows of ships captured as trophies in the naval victory at Antium (c. 338 bce) presumably affixed on the marble-clad façade of the concrete-core platform. This was a specifically Roman arrangement for an orator’s platform, probably conceived to create a commanding setting for Caesar’s public harangues – and to connect Caesar to the distant but important memory of the Republican victory. The platform was subsequently enlarged and extended some 30 RF toward the Forum space under Augustus. Caesar’s most memorable civic showpiece in Rome was the development of a new precinct north of the 188

Forum Romanum for the Temple of Venus Genetrix, mother of the Trojan hero Aeneas, the founder and protector of the Julian family, clearly an effort to legitimize the dictator through divine association (Figures 4.4 and 4.5). The project was disruptive and costly. The clearing of the area displaced thousands of city dwellers living near the forum; Cicero records that Caesar spent 60 million sesterces out of his own pocket to acquire this land (Ad. Att., 4.16). Touted initially merely as an expansion space for public activities, the Forum Julium, or Forum of Caesar, as it came to be known, included offices built into the slope of the Capitoline Hill and was directly accessible from the old forum by way of the newly rebuilt Curia. Yet, Caesar’s complex was distinctly different from the old forum composed of a celebrated, but untidy, accretive collection of buildings associated with Republican activities and historical memories. Caesar’s new forum boasted a hermetic, stand-alone, tidy, and axial design honoring and legitimizing one man and both his human and legendary ancestry. The Forum Julium was a long, narrow rectangular enclosure with double colonnades on three sides (see

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figure 4.3 Rear ambulatory of the Basilica Julia, Rome, with brick piers and arches; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Figures 4.4 and 4.5). The primary entrance on the short, south side placed the visitor on axis with the dominating temple raised on a tall podium reached by steps on the sides rather than the front. The high

platform functioned as a rostra for speakers (therefore, this type of temple is known as a “rostrate temple”) with eight tightly-spaced Corinthian columns in front and nine along the sides, none at the rear. The back of 189

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the cella was carved into an apse, a relatively innovative feature. The columns and their entablature in white Luna (Carrara) marble (a very early use of stone from this famous quarry) were entirely restored under Trajan, then partly under Diocletian. The early Trajanic ornament, especially the frieze decorated with delicate acanthus scrolls, dolphins, and sea shells stands out today among the finest created in Roman architecture (Figure 4.6). A row of shops with tufa walls and concrete barrel vaults were built behind the southwest portico, their irregular back walls fading against the Capitoline 190

Hill to serve as a retaining wall; several stairs connected the forum and the shops to the Clivus Argentarius, a street mainly of bankers skirting the hill (see Figure 4.1). In the early second century the upper levels of these shops opening onto the clivus were rebuilt and a luxurious semicircular public latrine with heated floor added. Recent excavations revealed that the original forum before its renovation in 29 bce was shorter and probably intended to have a single colonnade on the south side. In the early fourth century, the same side was redesigned as a great hall with a rich marble floor.

Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome

figure 4.5 General view of the Forum of Julius Caesar with the Temple of Venus Genetrix, looking west; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

The original enclosure, accessible but separated from the old forum and the Curia, dominated by its temple and possibly also an equestrian statue of Julius Caesar, was a place dedicated to public and civic functions where Caesar, under the watchful eyes of Venus, could enjoy a ruler’s authority. As such, the focused architectural and political image projected by this new axial arrangement proved so effective that it served as the basic model for many Imperial fora to come in Rome. For typological forerunners, we could turn to numerous quadriporticus enclosures for religious, cultic, and civic functions in the Greek East, such as those found in Priene, Miletus, and Pergamon. One could add to this list, significantly, contemporary colonnaded rectangular complexes including the Kaisereion in Alexandria, described by Philo, the early-first-century ce philosopher and writer, as a monumental porticoed enclosure, “with club rooms, libraries, shrine . . .” erected in honor of Caesar in 48 bce (Legatione ad Gaium 22. 150). The basic composition may derive from colonnaded Hellenistic enclosures familiar to Caesar from his long stay in Alexandria. The Kaiserion, in turn, became the source of influence for a number of porticus buildings in Rome,

including the Forum of Caesar, Saepta Julia, Porticus Divorum, even the Forum Pacis (Yegül 1982, 19). The architectural dreams of Caesar for Rome and the Romans, in view of his tragic death within two years of his residency at the capital, proved in some ways inconclusive, but in others enduring and eventually permanent. Less enduring was the theatrical display erected for the celebration of Caesar’s triumphal entry into the city in 46 bce, when he presented a dream spun in gossamer silk, erecting an awning for spectators running from his house in the Forum Romanum up to the Capitoline, a display that drew more public attention than the performing gladiators, and probably more than his dreams of brick and stone. OCTAVIAN’S RISE TO POWER Caesar’s death did not produce the results its fierce avengers had hoped. The murder provoked public revulsion against the assassins, and a surge of sympathy for the deceased dictator. Civil wars consumed the following decade as Caesar’s young grandnephew and heir Octavian, his comrade Marcus Antonius (Mark 191

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figure 4.6 Detail of the entablature of the Temple of Venus Genetrix in the Forum of Julius Caesar, Trajanic reconstruction; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Anthony), and other contenders competed for power, forming shifting alliances. In 42 bce Anthony, with the help of Octavian, defeated Cassius and Brutus at Philippi in northern Greece. For a while the two victors enjoyed public approval and shared the fruits of their success. Octavian was in charge of Italy and Spain, while Anthony took Gaul, Egypt and the East, where like Caesar he was captivated not only by the waning Ptolemaic power, but by the expansive charms of 192

Cleopatra – a form of surrender not appreciated in Rome where the appropriation of Egyptian ways was considered heresy. Octavian, or rather his friend and admiral (later son-in-law) Marcus Agrippa defeated the joint forces of the Egyptian queen and Anthony in the sea battle of Actium in 31 bce. The subsequent suicides of Anthony and Cleopatra left the field open to Caesar’s ambitious and calculating nephew, now thirty-two years old. Celebrated with a lavish triumph

Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome in Rome, the Actium victory was carefully couched as over Egypt rather than over another Roman. With dispatch the great historical state on the Nile River was transformed into a Roman province, thus strengthening Rome’s self-definition as a world power controlling the entire Mediterranean. In 27 bce, the state awarded Octavian the title “Augustus,” implying the acceptance of his divinely inspired authority to rule – a turning point in Roman history signifying the passage from the Republic to the Empire. As noted by J. J. Pollitt, for over a century “Rome had been involved in almost incessant warfare. The institutions of the Republic had lost all efficiency, and there is no doubt that Octavian could have imposed upon the Romans, at least for a time, any form of government he chose, including a military dictatorship” (Pollitt 1996, 99). His preference for a system that in all appearances was a complex form of constitutional principate proved wise and enduring. Learning from his adopted-uncle’s experiences, he couched power in terms of Republican traditions and institutions, defining himself as primus inter pares (“first among equals”) rather than as a king or a dictator and continuing to accord the Senate high esteem. Augustus and his chosen representatives retained, by the consent of the Senate and its institutions, all executive power and the imperium to rule (the title imperator means “he who has the power to command” and is the source for our word “emperor”). In 12 bce, he also assumed the office of the Pontifex Maximus, the religious head of the state. Although he was high priest and “august” (venerable), Rome’s leader professed to like the title of princeps, or the “first citizen.” No doubt much of this verbal play was political fiction, and a shrewd one as it served him well when all previous overt and militarybased efforts at one-man rule before him had stumbled. The historical moment and context in which his policies were introduced should also be credited for Augustus’ success. After nearly a century of warfare and instability, the Roman people were ready to accept a charming young prince who promised them piety, peace, and prosperity. Throughout his long life and rule – he died in 14 ce – the primacy of this message and the respectful way it was pushed never wavered. One of the most meaningful and beautiful monuments dedicated to him by the Senate in 9 bce was indeed the Ara Pacis Augustae (the “Altar of Augustan Peace”). Justly claimed for the classical beauty of its carved and painted marble ornament and sculptured reliefs as for the subtlety of its political message, the Ara Pacis is one of the most admired works of Roman art now enshrined in a modern museum-cum-exhibition hall designed by the American architect Richard Meier. Literary monuments more durable than stone, created

under his rule and patronage, also emphasized the theme of peace and prosperity and sought to legitimize Augustus’ fictional position as a divinely ordained leader of his people: poems of Horace, the Georgics of Vergil, but most famously his Aeneid, created a founding legend for the Roman state and placed the new leader in the center of Rome’s sacred destiny. Augustus desired to be succeeded by a member of his own family (the Julian line); to that end he conferred his favor upon successive members of the clan: Marcellus, Gaius, Lucius, Drusus. Each of these princes died young, some under questionable circumstances. Upon Augustus’ death in 14 ce, the office went to Tiberius, the last one standing; he was son of Augustus’ wife Livia from an earlier marriage and a representative of the Claudian line of the dynasty. After his death, the Senate deified Augustus as Divus Augustus, thereby starting a cult of emperor worship, or the Imperial cult, as a quasi-political state religion. Respectful of tradition, sensitive to precedent and above all deferent to the authority of the Senate, Augustus terminated the Republic by exploiting the very values that had sustained it. His long political life had been shaped by the turbulent times he lived in, but his powerful message of piety, peace and prosperity was also transformative. No such eminence as a shaper of time could be attributed to his Julio-Claudian successors, except, perhaps in matters of architecture and planning, to Nero, the cruel last member of the dynasty.

AUGUSTUS AND THE CREATION OF A CAPITAL When Octavian returned to Rome in 44 bce after the death of Caesar, he found a city demoralized by decades of civil conflict and shoddy from neglect. Unemployed people from near and far filled every public space; ramshackle structures held from falling by crude braces blocked street traffic. The old Forum did provide a sense of a historical center, but the city at large extended haphazardly beyond the early Republican walls to blanket the hills, valleys, and high plateaus west of the Tiber River. Octavian might have agreed with the poet Suetonius (active in the late first century ce) that Rome “was not adorned as the renown of our empire demanded” (SHA Augustus, 28), but he also knew that changing the image of an entire city was a mammoth undertaking requiring great resources, public persuasion, and much time. Through the force of his character, wise administration, astute leadership, and most importantly continuous and focused motivation, he was able to overcome these 193

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity odds and left behind a city that well represented the renown of the Empire and provided a model capable of future emulation and improvement. Augustus’ extensive building activities in Rome can be reviewed under two major headings: (a) the large number of unfinished buildings inherited from Julius Caesar which he dutifully completed, and others from earlier times which had grown old and damaged which he renovated or rebuilt; and (b) new projects he started and built. To these we must add extensive and much needed improvements of the city’s infrastructure, utilitarian projects such as bridges, aqueducts, sewers, water and flood control, and streets – much of which was instigated and carried through by his trusted friend and comrade Agrippa, who married his daughter Julia. Given Augustus’ dynastic claims, the completion of Caesarian projects must be viewed as a pious obligation (see earlier). Some of these, such as the Basilica Julia that burned down in 12 bce, had to be rebuilt completely; other large undertakings included the completion of Forum of Caesar, which had been started by Caesar in 51 bce and dedicated when still incomplete in 46 bce. The same can be said for the Saepta – the colossal, marble-clad voting precinct in Campus Martius – and the Porticus Metelli (a temple enclosure originally dedicated by Metellus Macedonius, the “conqueror of Macedonia”) which was restored with a new gate and redesign of Jupiter Stator in c. 20 bce and renamed the Porticus Octaviae in honor of Ausgutus’ sister (the present entry is largely Severan) (see earlier Figure 2.9). Augustus was also responsible for the construction of the Theater of Marcellus, a portion of whose curved travertine façade survives at the south edge of Campus Martius, next to the river (Figure 4.7 left and right). Dedicated in 13 bce in honor of his nephew, this was

Rome’s second stone theater capable of holding some eighteen to twenty thousand spectators. Little remains of the stage, or the portico behind it. Raised on flat ground, the three tiers of seats are carried by a system of radial piers and annular corridors connected by concrete vaults, a structural configuration that allows a fast and efficient system of human traffic and circulation, prefiguring the Colosseum some ninety years in the future. The piers are in travertine and tufa; the radial walls are a combination of travertine and brickfaced concrete. The exterior arches alternate with decorative half-columns, Doric below and Ionic above; a third order, perhaps of Corinthian pilasters, must have articulated the attic. This facade system, well-known from terrace facades of the great Republican sanctuaries, as at Tivoli and Palestrina, and to a large extent the “Tabularium” in Rome (regardless of its hypothetical function, found its best known expression also in the Colosseum (see earlier and Figures 1.14, 2.28). Augustus’ strong ties to the Republic were underscored by his lavish attention to the Forum Romanum, continuing the interests of his great uncle. On the north/northwest side of the Forum, across from the Basilica Julia, he undertook the complete rebuilding of Basilica Aemilia (started by L. Aemilius Paulus in 55 bce and finished in 34 bce by his son, also known as the Basilica Paulli) after an earlier basilica was damaged in the fire of 12 bce (see Figure 4.1). The design, structure, and ornamentation of the new building were straightforward and conservative: an elongated central hall surrounded on all sides by colonnaded aisles in two stories supporting galleries, a simple post-andbeam structure with no arches or vaults. The order was Ionic below and Corinthian above with lavish use of white and colored marbles, the latter mainly

figure 4.7 General view and detail of the Theater of Marcellus, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome imported from Greece and Asia Minor – an early instance of international marble trade. This luxury might have triggered Pliny’s admiration of the basilica among the “three most beautiful buildings” of his day (NH 36. 101–2). More ambitious was the arcuated porticus structure in two stories in front of the basilica, but structurally separated from it. A row of shops inside this portico were known as Tabernae Novae whose façade facing the Curia with Doric half-columns is preserved in a drawing by the Renaissance artist Giuliano da Sangallo (Figures 4.8 and 4.9). This portion of the building was dedicated in 2 bce in honor of Augustus’ grandsons Gaius and Lucius Caesar, the likely Julian heirs to follow Augustus (hence the name “Porticus of Gaius and Lucius”). An alternative restoration for a single-story portico with a roof terrace reached by stairs at each end of the building creates a handsome platform for viewing the Forum and allows clerestory lighting for the basilica behind. The completion of the long, nearly parallel facades of the Basilica Julia and Basilica Aemilia (the latter continued westward by the tall, boxy front of the Curia) created a well-defined, slightly trapezoidal central space

for the Forum delimited on the west side by the high platform of the newly enlarged Rostra (see Figure 4.1). Behind the Rostra, on the sloping ground of the Capitoline Hill rose the monumental facades of old temples, the Temple of Saturn, sideways on the left, the Temple of Concord directly facing the forum, and the handsome arcaded façade of the “Tabularium” rising on its solid basement as a backdrop for all – a scenic arrangement that became visually richer with the later additions of the Temple of Vespasian next to that of Concord, and the massive Arch of Septimius Severus on the lower ground, next to the Rostra (Figure 4.10, Plate 11B). Originally dating to the early fifth century bce, the Temple of Saturn – a family-oriented, festive male deity whose annual celebration of gift-giving merged into the Christmas tradition – was restored in 42–30 bce. Its prominent present form, with six granite columns and segmented arches over the architrave, is a reconstruction from the second half of the fourth century, a powerful reminder of the longevity of some forms of paganism in Rome Figure 4.11 left and right). The tall podium of tufa blocks facing a concrete core contained a vaulted basement for the public treasury. Most of the

figure 4.8 Basilica Aemilia northwest end (facing the Curia), Rome, drawing by Giuliano da Sangallo, c.1480.

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figure 4.10, plate 11b Forum Romanum, Rome, general view looking west; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

remaining ornament is composed of spolia, or is late work, including the Ionic capitals with four-sided volutes and thick, rope ornament, memorable for their crudely creative charm. The Temple of Concord, 196

which was built and dedicated by Tiberius (whose name is on the architrave) replaced an Italic peripteros sine postico (columns on the sides but not at the back). It had an unusual design. The boxy six-column

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figure 4.11 General interior view and detail of Ionic order, Temple of Saturn, Forum Romanum, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Corinthian porch projected in front of the long side of a large, rectangular cella (43.5  22.7 m), which gives paper restorations of the building a curious neoclassical look, admittedly a modern judgment (Figure 4.12; see also Figure 4.1). The desire to create a spacious cella at a tight location (where a conventional in-depth cella would not fit) must have been the reason for the unusual plan. It is reported that on certain occasions the Senate met inside the temple whose associations with the theme of Imperial concord, peace, and security furnished appropriate metaphors for such occasions. Another Forum temple fully rebuilt under Augustus and dedicated in 6 ce by Tiberius under his name was the Temple of Castor and Pollux, a peripteros with 8  11 columns and a deep pronaos (Figure 4.13, see also 4.1). Easily recognized today by its three standing Corinthian columns rising tall on a tufa and marblefaced concrete podium (14.8 m = 50 RF), the temple is located immediately east of the Basilica Julia. Its front aligned with the basilica’s façade, facing north; the visual line would have been particularly emphasized by the original temple podium fashioned as a high speaker’s podium with stairs rising along the sides. The cult of Castor and Pollux, the twin “horse-trainer” heroes associated with youthful vigor and victory, came from Greece but became popular in Italy during the

Republic. With its rich but dignified ornament composed of a plain architrave, dentils, and a cornice displaying well-articulated modillions with scrolls, the temple of Castor and Pollux, like the near contemporary Temple of Mars Ultor (see later in this chapter) became a standard for the Roman Corinthian order – and a model of correct classicism for the post-Classical era, as exemplified by the beautiful detail drawing by Andrea Palladio (Figure 4.14). Located at the east end of the Forum between the Basilica Aemilia and the front of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, facing west, the Temple of Deified Julius Caesar further enclosed the Forum’s central space (see Figure 4.9). Octavian dedicated the temple in 29 bce to mark the place where Caesar’s body lay in state as Mark Anthony delivered a rousing funerary oration before the dictator’s body was cremated. Subsequently, the Cult of Divus Julius was created, the first time a mortal hero or ruler was “deified” (after death) in the West, though the practice was fairly common in the Hellenistic East. Little is known about the temple proper except that it was probably a Corinthian prostyle with six frontal, very closely spaced columns on a podium that must have enhanced the temple’s sense of monumentality. Little remains of the ornament although the simplicity of what remains of the 197

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figure 4.12 Restored elevation of the Temple of Concord, Rome, by Henri G. Marceau, FAAR (1925); Yegül Collection.

entablature is in marked contrast to the richness of the later Augustan Corinthian order. Nonetheless, this temple provides one of the earliest uses of corner modillions on Roman temple architecture. The podium is high and square (c. 30  27 m) and projects far into the Forum space, its front rising some 4 meters like a wall, except for the interesting and unusual feature of a central semicircular exedra cut into its mass housing a round altar, probably a topographical signifier of Caesar’s cremation spot and apotheosis. The use of the high platform as a kind of private rostra decorated with the ships’ prows from Actium, facing the great public Rostra decorated with the same from an earlier naval victory (the battle of Antium, 338 bce, see earlier), is possible but debated. Nonetheless, the balancing of a monument ushering in the Empire with another that glorified the Republic, must have been obvious and appealing to the Roman mind. A similar iconographic paradigm might have been exploited in the two successive, and highly controversial, arches Augustus built immediately south of the 198

Temple of Divus Julius, fitting snugly between it and the Temple of Castor, and creating effectively a formal “entrance” to the Forum. The first of these dating from 29 bce appears to have been a simple single arch linked to the Actium victory of 31 bce. The second built in 19 bce replacing the first, celebrated Augustus’ Parthian victory awarded for the return of Roman army standards which had been shamefully lost by M. Crassus in 53 bce; significantly, this feat was achieved through diplomatic pressure (not battle). This second arch was a far more elaborate and uncommon structure composed of three openings, a tall central arch flanked by a pair of pedimented aediculae, each surmounted by a separate attic and statues (see Figure 4.9). The disjointed composition of overlapping elements, juxtaposed scales, and ambiguous relationships is a good example of the kind of experimental classicism, which colors some of Augustan-era architecture. If the marble plaques found nearby inscribed with the names of the Roman consuls (Fasti Consulares) dating to the beginning of the Republic actually came

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figure 4.13 Temple of Castor and Pollux in the Forum Romanum, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 4.14 Reconstruction of the Corinthian order, Temple of Castor and Pollux, by Andrea Palladio; The Four Books of Architecture, Book 4, plate 48 (English edition by Isaac Ware 1738).

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Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome from this arch, one could argue for another symbolic effort tying the past to the present, balancing the memory of the glorious deeds of the Republic with the auspicious promises of the Empire. In his Res Gestae, a comprehensive list of the deeds he accomplished (thus more than a “will and testament,” as it is often called), Augustus, with no hint of modesty, informs the reader of his political successes and his lavish building program, including the rebuilding of no less than eighty-two temples in a single year. The number seems to be inflated, unless the restorations were minor, indeed. But, in addition to the temples in the Forum Romanum discussed earlier, Augustus built two notable prostyle Corinthian temples on either side of his own house atop the southwest side of the Palatine. Each stood on an

imposing, multilevel concrete terrace due to the sharp drop of the hill. Northwest of his residence Augustus extensively rebuilt the temple to the Anatolian goddess Magna Mater-Cybele standing at a slight angle to the adjacent Temple of Victoria (Figure 4.15). Both buildings dated originally from the middle years of the Republic and had been burned and restored many times previously. The Augustan temple to Magna Mater-Cybele housed an image of the goddess brought to Rome from Pessinus in Phyrigia (Asia Minor), sustaining Rome’s mythical associations with the Trojan War and Aeneas (also associated with Asia Minor). Not much remains of the upper structure, but the project’s primary interest to us is its engineering boldness and prowess in the form of a massive artificial terrace composed of multilevel concrete vaults

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figure 4.15 Axonometric reconstruction of the temples of Magna Mater and of Victoria and adjoining terrace, Palatine Hill, Rome; rendered by Alex Maymind (after Pensabene and Carandini).

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity rising some 16 meters upon which the temple and its podium rested – and through which a whole street, tentatively identified as the Clivus Victoriae, passed as a kind of “covered road” or via tecta (see earlier). East of his house Augustus constructed the magnificent, new Temple of Apollo (38–28 bce) reflecting his special reverence toward the Greek god who ensured his victory at the Battle of Actium early in his career. Constructed in white Italian (Luna) marble with six Corinthian columns (50 RF tall) defining a deep porch, and a square cella possibly with engaged columns on the sides and the back, this appears to have been a typically Roman style temple. The spacious interior of the cella was like a museum, housing a rich array of Greek statues of the classical period in accordance with Augustus’ well-known philhellenic tastes. To the south, Apollo’s complex extended over grounded and artificial terraces accommodating a courtyard, or

garden, and a large, richly decorated peristyle including fifty statues of the Danaids (“The Porticus of the Danaids”), the murderous daughters of the mythical Danaus. On the east flank of the peristyle were the Latin and Greek libraries of Apollo. In the impressive setting of the Apollo complex, Augustus met official guests and foreign ambassadors. To the west of the Temple of Apollo and architecturally linked in some fashion was the residence identified as the House of Augustus (Figure 4.16). This area of the Palatine had become a wealthy aristocratic neighborhood well before Octavian bought the property of the orator Quintus Hortensius around 40 bce (associated with the structure formerly called the “House of Livia”). He soon acquired other nearby plots, extending his residence to the south. The main part of the expanded house, which is fairly well preserved, is composed of a dozen or so parallel rooms opening into a

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figure 4.16 Reconstruction plans of the House of Augustus (gray), and the later Augustan construction of the Temple of Apollo and Porticus of the Danaids (black), Palatine Hill, Rome; rendered by Diane Favro (after Carandini).

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Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome courtyard. The interiors are decorated in very fine Second-Style wall paintings (c. 50–40 bce) with perspectives of breathtaking precision, vibrant colors, and delicacy. The house and adjacent Apollo complex underwent numerous alterations and expansions during Augustus’ long life, although the extent and sequencing of changes are hotly debated. Was the enclave meant to resemble a magnificent Hellenistic palace, an expanded Roman sanctuary, or a bustling bureaucratic enclave? In totality, this development might well have been more formally conceived than we imagine, though the monumental layout reconstructed by Andrea Carandini (2012) represents a highly idealized (and contested) version of reality (see Jonathan Hall [2014] for a historiography of the residence). In comparison to the later palaces erected on the Palatine by the emperors Tiberius, Nero, and Domitian on the Palatine, the final form of Augustus’ residence appears modest. Covering about 1400 square meters (about ten times the size of what passes as a spacious city dwelling today), the house of the first emperor was definitively not small, but still was no larger or more lavishly built than others occupied by Rome’s elite. Augustus might have even aimed to set an example of restraint to curb the growing domestic extravagance in Rome by selecting a relatively austere exterior for his “town house” that belied the superb decoration of the interior. And of course he had many other opportunities for residential display. Like most wealthy Romans, Augustus and his wife Livia owned several houses in Rome as well as country villas. The best known of the latter was the luxurious suburban Primaporta villa (Ad Gallinus Albas), north of the city, arranged on several terraces overlooking the view toward the Tiber valley. Its superb frescoes depicting a lush garden, probably from a large summer triclinium, restored and installed on the top floor of the Museo Nazionale in Rome, are among the most accomplished examples of Roman landscape gardening as well as illusionistic painting. T HE F O R U M O F A U G U S T U S

During the battle of Philippi in 42 bce, Octavian pledged a temple to Mars Ultor (“the Avenger”) and subsequently advertised his promise with depictions of the yet unbuilt structure on coins. Land had to be found; funds were scarce and construction went slowly. Augustus, in fact, could not fulfill his vow until 2 bce when the temple was completed as the centerpiece of his forum (although even at that date some work in the complex remain unfinished). Placed directly northeast of the Forum of Julius Caesar, its long axis at right angle to the former, the Forum of Augustus was a large

rectangular enclosure (c. 54  70 m). The Corinthian colonnades that defined its lengthy sides expanded into a pair of wide, semicircular exedras; recent excavations found the stump remains of what could be an additional exedra subsequently obliterated by later construction, giving rise to pure speculation that with its hypothetical twin, the forum might have been articulated by two pairs of exedra rather than one, a reconstruction, we believe, not fully supportable by the nature of the evidence (Figures 4.17–4.19, Plate 7A; see also Figure 6.37). The attic above these colonnades was articulated by rows of caryatids modeled after those of the Erechtheion on the Athenian Acropolis; they alternated with busts of deities inside shield-like roundels (Figure 4.20). Mars’ temple, an imposing Corinthian structure raised on a podium and approached by a cascade of steep stairs in front, projected into the main marble-paved space (Figure 4.21 and 4.22; also see also Figures 4.18 and 4.19, Plate 7B). The concrete-core podium was veneered in thick plaques of Italian marble. At the end of the north portico was a special cult room, the “Hall of the Colossus,” which housed a 14-meter-high colossal statue of Augustus (see Figure 4.17). The walls of the hall displayed exquisite ornament in marble as well as painted ornament of luxurious hanging textiles in blues, reds, and golds (Figure 4.23). Surrounded by high walls around and dominated by its tall, axial temple, the self-contained precinct was similar in form and content to the adjacent Forum of Caesar. Octavian might have initially conceived the complex as an homage to his deified father (Caesar had adopted Octavian at his death, so his great-uncle also became his father, thus he could rightly claim to be the “son of a god” or divus filius!), linking the two spaces architecturally and iconographically: the god Mars honored in Augustus’ forum was the ancestor of the Romans and the avenger of Caesar’s murder; Venus revered in Caesar’s forum was both the consort of Mars and the mother of Aeneas, the Trojan ancestor of the Romans. Architecture underlined this complex mutual dependency: a visitor moving from one forum to another recognized their powerful formal similarity and hermetic distinctiveness. The strong axiality and the apparent regularity of the Forum of Augustus, aided by the monumental design of the Corinthian temple on a high podium, with eight tightly placed frontal columns and eight along the sides (but none at the back), followed the Italian tradition (Figure 4.22 top and bottom). The towering fluted columns of Luna marble are 17.78 meters high, including base and capital (see earlier). Although a careful study of the plan reveals the lack of absolute symmetry, the flanking porticoes hide this. 203

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figure 4.17 Plan of the Forum of Augustus, Rome; rendered by Diane Favro and Marie Saldaña.

The irregularities may have been caused by Augustus’ inability to purchase all land he needed, although considering how much of this old and crowded neighborhood known as Subura he did obtain, displace and demolish (an ancient “eminent domain” project), he probably got what he wanted. Behind the temple rose a 30-meter-high gray tufa wall once veneered in marble (see Figure 4.18). This towering “fire wall” protected the forum from likely disturbances and frequent fires known to plague this poor neighborhood; simultaneously, it isolated the impressive Augustan space from noise and uncurated city views. The Forum of Augustus was a prestige monument clearly intended to impress by its monumentality, charm by its luxury, and educate by its content, delivering its message of dynastic legitimacy in the refined, eclectic language of art that merged Italic sensibilities with those of classical Greece. But it also fulfilled a real need by providing a much needed space for official functions and ceremonies appropriate for a new empire, such as court hearings in the exedras, receptions of dignitaries, displays of military trophies, and even meetings of the Senate to ponder matters of war and peace in the temple’s wide cella under the watchful 204

eyes of Mars, who occupied the apse flanked by Venus and Divine Julius. Marbles from Italy and abroad were used lavishly to create a rich, polychromatic effect: the lucid, white Luna of the temple podium and the monumental columns contrasted with the multicolors of the portico; paving and walls mixed vibrant giallo antico, cipollino, pavanazzetto, brescias, and Africano. Especially the temple – compared to the other important Augustan projects in the city such as the Temple of Apollo Sossianus (near the Theater of Marcellus) and the Temple of Castor and Pollux in the Forum Romanum – illustrates the innovative process through which the Corinthian order achieved its classic Roman form (see Figures 4.13, 4.14 and 4.22 top). A comparison of the capitals and entablatures between the temples named earlier shows differences and similarities in their decorative elements, such as the shape of the acanthus leaves, the treatment of the frieze, and the delicate scroll modelling of the modillions. The contrast achieved by the subtle simplicity and disciplined richness in the Temple of Mars – the hallmark of the Roman Corinthian – reveals the influence of Greek Attic classicism. The informed and deliberate singling of Attic classicism of Greece as inspiration to Augustan

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figure 4.18 General view of the Forum of Augustus, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 4.19, plate 7a Reconstruction perspective of the Forum of Augustus with Temple of Mars Ultor, looking northeast, by Inklink; Archive of the Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali, Imperial Fora, courtesy of Eugenio La Rocca.

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figure 4.20 Detail of attic with caryatids, Forum of Augustus, displayed in the Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Rome was no doubt due to the unassailable artistic and cultural authority of this region and period harnessed to bolster the dynastic and political authority sought by Octavian-Augustus. The previously mentioned caryatids of the forum attic (see Figure 4.20), or the beautifully modeled Pegasus pilaster capitals from the interior of the temple closely copying those of the Inner Propylaea at Eleusis, are cases to the point – the latter in our opinion surpass the originals in quality and liveliness of carving. Yet, Augustan temple architecture in Rome, in devising plans and adopting ornament, was also widely experimental and eclectic, oscillating between Italian and Greek-Hellenistic traditions, and sometimes, as in the Forum of Augustus, achieving a sense of subtle tension by subordinating the delicacy of Greek ornament to the robust massing, axiality, and ordering lines of the overall design (see also Figure 4.23). The rich sculptural program of Augustus’ forum, integrated to architectural form, sought to enhance themes of Imperial authority and dynastic continuity through a carefully choreographed presentation of images (see Figure 4.19, Plate 7A). Sculpted depictions of Aeneas and members of the gens Julia stood freestanding or nestled in rectangular niches between halfcolumns inside the left (northwest) portico and exedra; on the opposing right side, were Romulus and the leaders and heroes of the Republic – together these displays explicitly represented Augustus’ dual ancestry. From the heights of the temple pediment, Mars flanked by Venus, Fortuna, Romulus and Roma looked down to the forum center at Augustus on horseback (or in a chariot) proudly identified as Pater Patriae (“Father of his country”). In its rich and meaningful integration of architecture, ornament, sculpture, and painting in a self-contained whole, the Forum of 206

If the dynastic implications of the Forum of Augustus are projected through a synthesis of Greco-Roman sensibilities, the Mausoleum represents Augustus’ preference for Italic funerary models, such as we see in typical Etruscan tumuli, or closer at home, the almost contemporary example provided by the Tomb of Caecilia Metella on the Via Appia Antica (see Figure 3.15). Placed inside a public garden in the north Campus Martius – perpetuating the common linkage of a tomb and garden in Roman funerary custom – Augustus’ tomb was a gigantic tumulus raised on a lower 12-meter-high circular wall of marble and travertine veneer crowned by a Doric frieze (Figure 6.6). Although the opus reticulatum faced concrete outer walls of the monument are fairly well preserved without their facings, subsequent and ruinous uses the structure (a medieval castle, a bull ring, and an early-twentieth-century opera house) make reconstruction of the upper parts difficult. A description by Strabo (“a great mound near the river on a lofty foundation of white marble, thickly covered with evergreen trees . . . above [which] stands a bronze image of Augustus Caesar” Geog. 5.3.8) aids hypothetical reconstruction efforts, generally showing a conical mound (89 m = c. 300 RF in diameter) interrupted by several tiers of circular walls, with the prominent uppermost cylinder (100 RF in diameter) supporting the heroic standing statue of Augustus reaching a height of circa 45 meters, about one half of its width (Figures 4.24 and 4.25). In this form, the monument was equaled but studiously not surpassed in width by Hadrian’s similar rotunda tomb on the opposite side of the river, though the later tomb might have been higher (see later). Inside Augustus’ tomb there are five concentric walls tied to each other by series of radial and curved connectors, the spaces between filled with earth. The entrance passage led to several interconnected annular corridors (probably used for the rite of circumambulation), and to a circular chamber with wall niches for urns in the heart of the structure. A pair of Egyptian obelisks rose at the south flanks of the mound, along with separate bronze plaques by the entry inscribed with Augustus’ Res Gestae touting the emperor’s achievements. To the east of the mausoleum was the Ustrinum of Augustus’ family, a fenced enclosure marking the location of cremations. Some 150 meters to the south on a straight line an obelisk 21.79 meters in height towered over a travertine plaza. Long identified as the “Horologium Augusti,” a gigantic sundial with the obelisk

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figure 4.21 Temple of Mars Ultor in the Forum of Augustus, Rome, general view of east side columns; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 4.22 Temple of Mars Ultor: details of Corinthian capitals (top) and podium (bottom); Photos by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 4.23 Hall of the Colossus, Forum of Augustus: west wall (top), detail of decorative marble palmette band (bottom); Photos by Fikret Yegül.

as its gnomon (the vertical “needle” or pointer of a sundial) whose shadow marked the hours of the day, months, and the signs of the Zodiac as it touched inlaid bronze lines on a travertine plaza, the structure has been undergoing intense scrutiny with possible identification as a solar meridian line designed to indicate the sun’s progress through the day and the year (Haselberger 2014). Regardless of its function, the sightline created by the stone needle directed the

viewer’s gaze to Ara Pacis Augustae and other Augustan buildings in the central Campus Martius, including the façade of Agrippa’s Pantheon, probably a circular building similar to the one standing today in size and orientation, though only partially roofed (see later). Opposite the Horologium, next to the Via Flaminia (today’s Via del Corso) was the small but conspicuous marble enclosure of Ara Pacis Augustae, the elaborately wrought altar dedicated to “Augustan 209

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Mausoleum of Augustus c 90 m diameter

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Le Carceri Vecchie Tomb c 20 m diameter

Mausoleum of Hadrian c 87m side square base c 64 m diameter drum

figure 4.24 Reconstruction of the Mausoleum of Augustus, Rome, with plan comparisons; rendered by Ric Abramson and Diane Favro.

peace.” Whereas the two long exterior sculptural friezes of the monument depict Augustus’ family and the senators in a realistic, ritual procession, the individual panels on the east and west sides represent mythological origins of Rome, connecting the past and the present, myth and reality. An influential but now contested study by E. Buchner (1982) posits that the shadow of the obelisk pointed toward the Ara Pacis on September 23, Augustus’ birthday, while B. Frischer and J. Fillwalk more recently argue for the importance of the sun rising over the obelisk on October 9, festival day of the Temple of Apollo, Augustus’ divine patron (Figure 4.26). As Haselberger shows in a new volume of essays devoted to the problem of the spatial extent, design, and meaning of the Horologium, the obelisk-gnomon’s constantly moving shadow (enhanced by a golden finial globe) pointed toward the Ara Pacis at winter equinox, although never in the precise way as Buchner and others had thought (Haselberger 2015, esp. 15–38). The monumental scheme (today generally identified as a meridian marker) was clearly an effort to correct and establish a new Roman 210

calendar, yet adding further layers of metaphorical meaning to the myth of Augustan peace and its cosmic determinants. Beyond that it is hard to say with our very sketchy state of archaeological knowledge, especially when the very nature of the problem – the design of a mathematical and astronomical contraption – implies a matching level of scientific knowledge that we lack, simple as that, so we come up with theories. To introduce a degree of wry humor to this very serious and highly controversial industry of modern scholarship is the certainty that within a generation or so after its construction, “the wondrous function” this pseudoscientific contraption failed and could no longer show proper time (Pliny, NH 36.71–73)! The Augustan Horologium was possibly replaced by an equally flawed Flavian version, and returned to be, not an accurate time piece which it probably never was, but a much admired “iconographic hallmark of Campus Martius,” thus achieving a more accessible function whose truth was not trapped in a (naturally) imprecise 70-foot-long shadow (Haselberger 2015, 18) – or, in the vibrant, endless, and sometimes self-serving modern debates.

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A figure 4.25 Plan and section, Mausoleum of Augustus, Rome; rendered by Anthony Caldwell and Diane Favro.

Augustus, or his architects, had created not just a monumental tumulus tomb and a coy timepiece whose impressive size alone could have made a statement about the aspirations and confidences of the young Principate, but placed them in an urban landscape of

integrated and interrelated monuments. The funerary plaza, its elegant abstract design like a façade interposed between the earth and the sky, counted time and promised timelessness, and celebrated “a sense of endurance beyond human frailty” (Favro 1996, 118). 211

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Ancient writers allude to Augustus’ famous declaration: “I found Rome a city of mudbrick, I leave you a city of marble!” (Dio Cassius, 56.30; Suetonius, Augustus 28). There is some truth, but also considerable confusion in these immodest words. Lavish use of marble to signify wealth and power was not unknown in the late Republic. Witness Marcus Scaurus’ temporary theater in Rome with its three-story scaene of 360 marble columns, some of which he removed to decorate his house (Pliny, N.H., 36.4.8). However, Augustus’ megaprojects, such as the Forum of Augustus and Temple of Apollo, represent a more extensive use of marble and a higher magnitude of luxury. An outsider could navigate the “Augustan” city simply by the enhanced familiarity of the magnificence of materials and the size of projects. A recent digital study of Augustan Rome identified at least some 376 projects that involved marble as a building (or decorative) material to a greater or lesser degree, as well as kilometers of porticoes probably partially of the sparking material (Favro 2016). Augustan marble projects often took decades to complete, clogging the streets with slow wagons transporting heavy marble blocks, and filling the air with marble dust rising from carving at building sites reinforcing the notion of a “marble city.” Superlatives abound in contemporary descriptions of atypical projects. The Diribitorium (a rectangular structure for counting votes in Campus Martius) was “the largest building under a single roof

ever constructed” (Dio Cassius 55.8; see Figure 4.29); the Naumachia Augusti was the largest artificial pool for marine spectacles (Res Gestae 23); in many Augustan interiors “pavements rose from the floor to vaulted ceilings (uninterrupted) and they were made of glass (mosaic)” (Pliny, NH, 35.189). There is little question that the extraordinary increase in the use of marble adorning Rome was true. However, there must also be a metaphorical meaning to the Suetonius’ “city of mudbrick – city of marble” parable. The “mudbrick” Augustus inherited probably covered all manners of poor, substandard shoddy construction common in Rome. Any Augustan improvement on the quality of the urban fabric, on structural systems, in orderly planning, in building codes, and materials – including the actual and prodigious use of marble and other fine stones – was probably subsumed by the admiring expression of a “city of marble.” With hindsight overlooking Rome’s expansive hegemony during the following centuries, Dio Cassius argued that Augustus, “was not referring literally to the state of the buildings, but to the strength of the empire” (56.30). Overcrowded and unorderly, Rome needed urban landscaping. The funerary gardens around Augustus’ Mausoleum in northern Campus Martius were open to the public. So were the extensive gardens, parkland, pools, canals, and walkways created around the Baths of Agrippa, a structure that can possibly count as the first in the series of imperial thermae of the capital (Figures 4.27, 6.6 and 6.55). Altered and rebuilt many times after its destruction in fire in 80 ce, some

figure 4.26 Reconstruction of the Horologium of Augustus and the Ara Pacis, Rome, according to E. Buchner (1982).

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Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome elements of the scheme are known to us from representations on the Forma Urbis, chance remains including half of an imposing brick domed hall known as the “Arco della Ciambella,” and Renaissance drawings. Included among the major elements of Agrippa’s building program in the southern Campus Martius were an artificial lake called the Stagnum, and an open canal, the Euripus, connecting the lake with the Tiber. These were supplied by fresh water by the Aqua Virgo, another Agrippan project of 19 bce. According to Pliny, Agrippa adorned the quarter with three hundred statues including the Apoxymenos of Lysippus placed in front of his thermae. These open-air water features must have been ideally suited to serve the dual needs of bathing and exercise, as the area was known to the Roman as the “laconian gymnasium.” But, along with the idealistic youth engaged in athletic exercises a la Grec, the watery parkland became a popular playground for the newly-rich aristocracy by the time of Nero (54–68 ce). Far larger in size and populist in function was the Naumachia Augusti, the gigantic artificial basin (c. 533  355 m) dug along the right bank of Tiber covering much of the land on the floodplain inside the great loop of the river in what is now the heartland of Trastevere (Taylor 2000, 175–200). Used for lavish naval spectacles and battles, the basin could hold thirty large battle-ships or more, and was still functional during the time of Trajan, although it was filled and barely visible by the beginning of the third century (Dio Cassius, 55.10.7). Supplied by the Aqua Alsietina and connected by a navigable canal (and probably sluice gates and weirs) to the Tiber, the Naumachia probably provided a more admirable service for the city than mere military entertainment: as with the smaller Stagnum, it was an effective runoff catchment for the perennial and disastrous flooding of the river – whose banks were not protected by the high walls we see today until the nineteenth century. More restricted must have been the wondrous gardens on the eastern spur of the Esquiline Hill laid out atop a fortification ditch formerly filled with trash and rotting corpses. Here Augustus’ cultured friend the rich Maecenas created a luxury estate replete with a “heated swimming pool” and auditorium-triclinium (Horace, Satires 1.8). Excavated in 1874, the latter is a fine rectangular hall of generous proportions terminating in a wide apse with seven concentric steps (c. 25  11 m). The long walls are articulated by deep rectangular niches decorated with fine impressionistic garden scenes as if one were looking out windows to the garden beyond. The short side opposite the apse, now walled solid, must have had a wide opening toward terraces covered with fragrant real plantings.

Fountains and other water displays (possibly cascades down a part of the apsidal steps) created a very attractive place for dinner parties, where the owner along with philosophers and poets reclined on couches – perhaps, once in a while joined by the Princeps himself – and whittled away an evening in cultured conversation. Even if this land was not always open to the public, the proliferation of private gardens during this period enriched the city’s appearance, forming a loose green belt around the city. AG RI PPA A S AE DI LE

In addition to his own efforts to replace and rebuild the city’s neglected architectural heritage, and to adorn it with new prestige monuments, Augustus encouraged others to follow his lead as a patriotic responsibility. Often these projects aimed at improving the functioning of the growing capital and were unglamorous. In 33 bce, Agrippa assumed the relatively lowly position of aedile, a municipal official who had the responsibility for the cura urbis, the care of the city. He repaired sewers, built walls along the Tiber to discourage flooding, established new warehouses (horrae) on the river’s banks to increase the city’s commercial viability, and put a new bridge across it, the Pons Agrippae, to improve Rome’s famously horrendous traffic. Constructed of an inferior type of tufa this bridge, however, failed early and disappeared without leaving a mark. More successful were Agrippa’s efforts in repairing the city’s aqueduct system, adding two new lines, the Aqua Julia in 33 bce and the Aqua Virgo serving his baths in 19 bce. According to Dio, these interventions doubled Rome’s water supply (Dio Cassius 49.43). Nor were Agrippa’s prodigious energies restricted to Rome: he is credited with building the Aqua Augusta, one of the largest aqueducts ever designed bringing water to eight cities in the Bay of Naples (see earlier); or, further afield, providing critical help and leadership in the construction of King Herod’s harbor at Caesarea in Judea, and possibly encouraging the development of downtown Antioch-on-the Orontes, including its famed main street (see later). Apart from these purely utilitarian projects Agrippa changed the recreational landscape of the capital. In addition to his extensive gardens, baths, pools, and gymnastic grounds, he built the Pantheon in 27–25 bce, the centerpiece of his activities in the central Campus Martius rising north of his baths and sharing the same north-south orientation. Although his name is conspicuously retained on the architrave of its illustrious Trajanic-Hadrianic successor, little is known about the original Pantheon, or Agrippa’s Pantheon, or its Domitianic successor (which burned 213

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity down in 80 ce), because they were entirely demolished to make room for the present one. However, excavations undertaken in 1996–1997 provided some insights. A rectangular porch, or podium with the same northern orientation and projecting beyond the Hadrianic porch also carried eight (possibly ten)

frontal columns (Figure 4.28). The podium 2.25 meters high above the original pavement was reached by two separate stairs located at the ends. The height and the size of the columns and whether they created a monumental “temple front” similar to the present one, or a low, “veranda-type” entrance porch is unknown. The

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figure 4.27 Restored plan of the Baths of Agrippa, Rome, based on the Forma Urbis marble plan; rendered by Fikret Yegül and Diane Favro.

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Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome “cella” was a colossal circular enclosure 43.7 meters in interior diameter, corresponding nearly exactly to the diameter of Hadrian’s Pantheon (cf. 43.8 m). A colossal timber roof with a conical profile as sometimes suggested would have been a marvel of timber engineering and trusswork, but structurally challenging (in fact, we believe, impossible) and aesthetically awkward, although no more so, one presumes, than the famous wooden roof of the Diribitorium, its neighbor. Still unlikely. The marble paving of this enclosure, some 2.15 meters below the pavement of the Hadrianic building, slopes from center to periphery, suggesting that the enclosure was open to the sky. We would join earlier suggestions for an annular portico circumscribing the interior with the center open to the sky – comparable to the arrangement of the “Island Villa” of Hadrian’s great Villa in Tivoli (see below) – with a diameter equal to that of its illustrious domed successor. This notable project fits well within the familiar orbit of the religious and civic enclosures in the central Campus Martius, and particularly with Augustus’ own dynastic zone, its circularity resonating with that of the Mausoleum to the north (Loerke 1982, 40–55; La Rocca 1999, 280–283; Broucke 2009, 27–28). Recently, an enigmatic building of elliptical shape in Deva Victrix (Chester), a Flavian military fortress on the cold and distant Irish Sea, reclaimed renewed scholarly attention as an interesting comparison to the kind of building the Agrippan Pantheon might have been (Figure 4.29). This is a large elliptical enclosure encased in a reactangular structure with a set of tabernae on one side and a bath of the row type on the other. The ellipse, whose long axis is c 40 meters long, is composed of twelve radiating chambers opening into a monumental columnar central portico open to the sky. The building’s “religious character” and unusual, open design inspired ideas that it could have been a sort of an open-air sanctuary – a templum like Agrippa’s Pantheon – of the Olympian gods and Augustus, and whether Agrippa’s project, comparable in size, design and function “could have taken a similar form: not a simple annular ring but a series of monumental ‘chapels’ that faced a porticoed colonnade . . . open to the sky” (La Rocca 2015a, 39–41; 2015b, 67). R OM E : A M E G AC I T Y A ND TH E T H E A T E R OF THE WORLD

To call Rome a megacity would be an understatement. Its population must have reached 1.0–1.2 million by the early first century ce, a city probably some six to eight times larger than any other metropolis of the time, including Alexandria, Carthage, and Ephesus. Growing incrementally beyond its Republican walls, Rome had

no confining edge. Dionysus of Halicarnassus, a late first century bce historian, commented: “If anyone wishes to estimate the size of Rome . . . he will necessarily be misled for want of a definite clue by which to determine up to what point it is still the city and where it ceases to be one . . . giving the beholder the impression of a city stretching out to indefinitely” (Ant.Rom. 4.13.4–5). Therefore, to impose a semblance of civic order and control to such a city was as important as, although less popular than, adorning it with showy monuments. But, that was a challenge Augustus accepted. To provide an effective framework for municipal administration he divided the capital into fourteen regions or districts (regions and vici) each with annually elected magistrates. He also organized special troops to combat fires (Suetonius, Augustus 3; Strabo, 5.3.8). New structures built in durable materials and restrictions on building heights (60 RF) aimed to reduce Rome’s ever-present fire hazard. These regulations and codes which formed the basis of the far more comprehensive regulations effected under Nero must have helped but, judging by the devastating fires of 64 and 80 ce, could not solve the problem (see later). By the time of Augustus’ death in 14 ce, Rome had become the capital of an empire that was largely at peace within – a city whose circuit (spatium) was the circuit of the world, a city whose presence in the realm of the mind was as extensive and effective as its presence in reality (Ovid, Fasti 2.683–684). The potency of the Augustan urban image was empowered by being a part of a comprehensive social, cultural, religious, and political program. Parallel developments in literature, art, and social reforms reinforced and enriched the meaning of urban intervention. Poetry touting a new golden age (though commissioned and choreographed by Augustus himself ) found material expression in sparkling materials, new buildings, and expanding public spaces. If this was propaganda, it was an effective one that resonated in the lives of all residents. After decades of divisiveness, Rome’s residents must have felt reassured by the unity of thought and the new sense of identity pervading Rome and expressed through its art and architecture. All levels of society had opportunities to participate in the care and protection of the eternal city – and some were even able to comprehend the ideals of Augustan dreams. On many levels Augustan Rome became the theater of the world, a theatrum mundi where all important decisions and events occurred. The material world of the city became enmeshed and enhanced by a world of communal ritual. In addition to new theaters and arenas, virtually all urban projects were designed to be stages for public performances. Communal experiences drew together all participants, and the diverse environments 215

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figure 4.28 Hypothetical reconstruction of the Agrippan Pantheon, Rome; rendered by Diane Favro (after Heene).

of Rome. Celebrations on the same day linked buildings scattered across the cityscape; parades wending through the city streets kinetically tied various projects along selected pathways. Seneca wrote, “Come, look at this crowd, which all the buildings of the city can scarcely house: the majority of them have left behind their birthplaces. From their towns and colonies, indeed from the whole world, they have come together” (De tranquillitate animi, 2). Augustus himself never stopped playing to the audiences of his world city. On his deathbed the pater 216

Urbis and pater patriae quoted a line by the playwright Menander: “Since well I’ve played my part, all clap your hands / And from the stage dismiss me with applause” (Suetonius, Augustus 99).

TIBERIUS AND CALIGULA Augustus got all the applause he wished for and more, yet he left behind a stage that was difficult to fill. Given his

Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome remarkable presence over half-a-century in the limelight, and the profusion of buildings and infrastructure facilities he completed for Rome, for a while at least, there was no need to do so. Many of his projects remained landmarks for centuries and inspired imitations not only in Rome, but across Rome’s growing Empire. Architectural activity in Rome during Tiberius’ tenure as emperor (ruled 14–37 ce) can be described as modest. Following custom, he finished buildings Augustus had only started (and also following custom, modestly inscribed Augustus’ name on them), and renovated those which had suffered damage, such as the Temple of Concord and the Temple of Castor and Pollux. More ambitious must have been the project to overhaul the upper order of Basilica Aemilia in 22 ce (see Figures 4.1, 4.8, 4.9, and 1.11). A morally pressing undertaking was the building of a temple to Deified Augustus, which had been decreed by the Senate in 14 ce but took so long that it was dedicated by only by Caligula in 37 ce. The temple has long disappeared; however, it is believed that it was located in an area known as the Graecostadium behind Basilica Julia, where the young Octavian had his first residence before moving up to the Palatine. A coin of Caligula identifies it as an Ionic hexastyle structure. In a sharp break from Augustan domestic modesty, real or pretended, Tiberius started a very large residence, the Domus Tiberiana, occupying the flat zone (c. 120  180 m) on the northwest quarter of the Palatine (see Figure 6.21). This area was entirely razed and covered by the Farnese Gardens in the sixteenth century, obliterating all evidence except some foundations and subterranean vaults in concrete faced with opus reticulatum. A rather conventional assembly of rooms around internal courtyards with pools are all that can be surmised of the architecture of this residence. The Castra Praetoria, or the barracks Tiberius built for the Praetorian Guard (Imperial Guard) was huge in area (430  371 m), located northeast, just outside the city but close enough to be incorporated into the third century Aurelian defenses around Rome (see Figure 6.6). Following the traditional castrum plan, the rectangle was divided into four quadrants by crossing streets terminating in gateways. Only the lower portions of the Tiberian wall in fine brick-faced concrete are preserved up to the string course at circa 2.9 meters, representing one of the earliest major applications of the brick medium. The establishment of such a massive and visible military presence so close to (and soon to be in) Rome might have been due to the unhealthy influence of Sejanus, the powerful and ambitious commander of the Guard, on the sickly and insecure emperor; the structure started Rome, in the words of

J. B. Ward-Perkins, “down the slippery slope that led to open autocracy” – although not reached for another two hundred years or so (Ward-Perkins 1981, 46). Growing more suspicious and paranoid after the death of his son Drusus in 22 ce, Tiberius begun to spend less and less time in the capital, retiring to the elaborate villas he had built, beginning with that in Sperlunga, on the northern Campanian coast (see Figures 5.44 and 5.45). He ultimately retired to Villa Jovis on the dizzying heights of the Island of Capri with spectacular views of the Gulf of Naples and Vesuvius (see Figure 5.43). Both of these villas are characterized by skillful exploitation of their dramatic sites. Upon his death, Gaius, the younger son of Agrippina (the daughter of Agrippa and Julia, Augustus’ daughter), who enjoyed the strange affection of Tiberius and the Praetorian Guard, was confirmed emperor. Gaius Caesar, better known for his childhood nickname Caligula (“little boot”) had a short and unstable rule (ruled 37–41 ce) characterized by cruelty, megalomania, and eventual insanity. Losing the support of those closest to him, he was assassinated by the Praetorian Guard in 41 ce. Some of his earlier projects were routine enough: finishing the Temple of Deified Augustus, extending the Domus Tiberiana northwards toward the Forum Romanum, and undertaking a Sanctuary of Isis and Serapis in the Campus Martius possibly reflecting his interests in mystery and eastern religions (Figure 4.30). The sanctuary, located east of the Saepta Julia, is shown on the Forma Urbis as two separate enclosures: a broad, semicircular exedra attached to a rectangular portico, although it is impossible to know if this interesting and bold curvilinear arrangement reflects the original building or a later one. Another substantial project must have been the “Circus of Gaius” in the Vatican area, finished by Nero. In 1586, the moving of the obelisk from the spina of this circus about 1 kilometer to the center of Saint Peter’s Piazza overseen by the architect Dominico Fontana became the engineering feat of the century. Strangely, the sea transport over 2200 kilometers was mentioned in Roman chronicles, but the routine erection in the circus did not merit a single line! The specially built ship that brought the 327-ton behemoth was filled with concrete and sunk in the port of Ostia to provide foundations for the Claudian lighthouse (see Figure 3.59). Caligula is also credited with a growing number of projects reflecting his unbuilt or unbuildable megalomaniac fantasies, like cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth; establishing a city on an Alpine mountaintop (note Vitruvius’ story about the fictional architect Dinocrates who proposed to do a similar thing to attract the attention of Alexander the Great in De Arch. 2. Introduction, 1–4); and 217

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity building a bridge between the Palatine and the Capitoline Hills, ostensibly to be close to his “consort” Jupiter Capitolinus. The attempt to connect the Forum with the enlarged Domus Tiberiana by stairs, converting the cella of the Temple of Castor and Pollux into a vestibule where he would stand between the statues of his divine “brothers,” must have been the result of a similar irrational yearning for grandeur. Caligula’s well-known interest in extending imperial properties, villas and gardens “around the whole city” (Pliny, NH 36.111) through purchase or exploitation might be judged greedy, but no more than what

others in possession of power and wealth did before or after him. More interesting and significant in terms of unfamiliar forms of architecture were the mega-ships he built and enjoyed as floating pleasure palaces: “enormous vessels with multi-colored sails, decks studded with ivory and gems, with ample space for porticoes, dining rooms, heated baths, and even places for growing vines and fruit trees. Reclining in these ships all day long . . . he would sail along the Campanian shores amid dancing and singing” (Suetonius, Gaius Caligula, 37.2–3). Caligula’s galleys appear, if true, enticingly similar to descriptions by Athenaeus (a late-second-

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figure 4.30 Fragments of the Severan Forma Urbis marble map showing the sanctuary of Isis and Serapis (Serapaeum), Porticus Divorum, Diribitorium, and other buildings; rendered by Diane Favro.

century ce antiquarian from Egypt) of the enormous pleasure boats of Ptolemy IV (ruled c. 221–205 bce) and the tyrant Hieron II of Syracuse (ruled c. 265–215 bce). These Hellenistic barges also fitted out with every luxury for entertainment and repose must have been familiar lore during Caligula’s time, and could have fired his desire to emulate and surpass them. The discovery in the 1930s of two gigantic pleasure vessels at the bottom of Lake Nemi (c. 24 m wide, 73 m long, probably of Claudian date), their decks paved in marble and mosaic, with heated living quarters and baths with running water, burnished and polished bronze hardware details of superb craftsmanship (now on exhibit in Museo Nazionale, Rome), suggest that references to such naval extravaganzas might have

been based on fact. It also reveals the admirable technological prowess and artistic excellence of the JulioClaudian period.

CLAUDIUS, AN UNUSUAL EMPEROR Suetonius’ sentiment when he declared, “there was nothing which (Claudius) loved so much as building what others felt could not possibly be built” expresses well the bold and showy nature of Claudius’ architectural interests (Gaius Caligula 37. 2–3). Pliny’s marvelous description of the aqueduct known as the Anio Novus completed by Claudius upon his accession in 41 ce is more precise: 219

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity the Anio Novus came into Rome from [as far as] the fortieth milestone at such a height that all of the hills of the city were supplied with water. . . . Now if one were to reckon the plentiful amount of water in public buildings, baths, pools, canals, private houses, gardens, suburban villas, and consider the distance traveled by water the arches raised to support it, the mountains which had to be tunneled through . . . one would have to admit that there is no work more worthy of admiration . . . (Pliny, NH, 36.122–125)

The other aqueduct he finished was the Aqua Claudia. Another enormously difficult hydraulic undertaking, originally conceived by Julius Caesar, was the draining of the Fucine Lake into the River Livri; this work took eleven years to complete and involved four miles of tunneling through solid rock, though it was only partially successful. Claudius also built the much-needed commercial harbor for Rome in Portus (near Ostia) later extended and much improved by the huge hexagonal harbor of Trajan. Since the two projects were programmatically and architecturally truly integrated we will discuss them together. CLA UD I AN AN D T RA JA NI C H AR BO R S AT P O RTU S

In the mid-first century ce, the huge ships bringing grain to the city had no safe anchorage at Ostia, near the mouth of the Tiber. Therefore, almost all of the food supplies on which the burgeoning capital depended, especially those from Alexandia, came to the Puteoli harbor in the Bay of Naples and were either shipped to Ostia in smaller vessels or transported to Rome overland. Claudius addressed the problem in 42 ce with a costly harbor (anecdotally, when Claudius asked his engineers the cost of the project, they simply said, “Sire, you do not want to hear about it;” Dio Cassius 60.11). The work was finished by Nero and continued to give reasonably successful service until it was extended, although not superceded, by the much larger Trajanic harbor with a hexagonal basin (see earlier Figure 3.58). To provide safer and easier access from sea, the location of Claudius’ harbor is not directly on the mouth of the Tiber River in Ostia, but some 3 kilometers north, where large tracts of land were probably available. Separated from the great river, there was the problem of direct access to Rome, which was partially solved by the construction of two wide canals north and south of the harbor basin connecting to the river; these canals were also essential in preventing flooding by the river at Ostia. The great basin of the outer harbor was created by building a pair of enormous moles of concrete enclosing some two 220

hundred acres of water. In the middle, probably on an artificial island, was the famous lighthouse whose underwater foundations were devised by sinking the enormous ship that had brought from Egypt the obelisk that marked the spina of the Vatican hippodrome (Suetonius, Claudius, 20.3) (see Figure 3.59). Along the southeast side was the entrance to the inner harbor known as Darsena (“docks”), which allowed a safe berthing area for a relatively small number of ships. It is likely that most of the offloading from larger seagoing ships to smaller vessels and barges was done in the basin; they would then enter the canals connecting with the Tiber and sail onward to Rome. Alternatively, they would sail down to Ostia where some port facilities existed at the river’s mouth. The story that two hundred ships perished in a storm inside the Claudian harbor may have been exaggerated, but it underlines the supposition that at least the great outer harbor basin was not entirely safe. The Darsena was planned like a miniature town with regular, orthogonal streets, some storage facilities, and a very large courtyard type building (the so-called Foro Olitario), possibly a horrea (warehouse) or some administrative structure. A long colonnade, the Porticus Claudius (famously using “rusticated” column shafts; see later), formed a lengthy extension, partially protecting the western entrance into the inner harbor. The harbor was continually used into the first century ce, although the Puteoli harbor continued to provide service as the terminus of the Alexandrian grain fleet. In later years, the substantial increase in state-controlled procurement and shipment of grain and its storage, plus the limited measure of convenience offered by the Claudian harbor provided the rationale for Trajan’s larger, safer and functionally better harbor. Famous for its immense hexagonal basin (the only ancient harbor using this unusual form, and perceivable as a hexagon only in aerial views), the Trajanic harbor encloses circa 33 hectares of water (now a lake); each side is 358 meters long, some 700 meters across, and had a capacity of about 250–300 quayside moorings. It can be seen as an eastward (landside) extension of the Claudian harbor with the Darsena providing a safe entrance into the great artificial basin. The inner harbor not only offered a significantly increased capacity for berthing but also for storage (c. 92,000 sq m) and administrative facilities, the latter probably in the Darsena, close to the entrance. The addition of a commodious side canal connecting the basin with the Tiber must have increased the convenience and efficiency, since the goods offloaded to smaller vessels had direct access to the Tiber. Along this new canal ran the major road from Rome to Portus, the Via Portuensis, along which were warehouses, mausolea, perhaps some residences, and a Temple of Portunus. A branch

Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome aqueduct running along this east-west land corridor brought fresh water to the large port. By the middle or end of the second century, Portus, with its extensive commercial and maritime facilities, and increasing population, was Rome’s proper harbor, fully independent of Ostia, which it had outstripped in capacity and importance. Explored since the nineteenth century by Italian archaeologists such as L. Canina, R. Lanciani, and I. Gismondi, and in the twentieth century by G. Calza, G. Lugli, and O. Testaguzza among others, the area enjoyed only very sparse archaeological work. No doubt there is much in Portus and environs that is difficult or impossible to recover due to centuries of natural or manmade changes in topography, heavy plowing, and modern development, especially the area north of the basin, which is now covered by the Fiumicino/Leonardo da Vinci Airport of Rome. These and other technical difficulties hampered the extraordinary efforts of the joint survey venture of three British universities under the leadership of Simon Keay (Portus Project, 1997–2004). Despite some limitations, the valuable explorations utilizing geophysical mapping (especially magnetometry), field walking, and aerial photography confirmed much of our historical knowledge of these major harbors and added much new material besides (Keay, Millett, Paroli, and Strutt 2005). Renewed archaeological work by the same British team since 2007, promises to further clarify some of the remaining uncertainties. We know that at least four of the six sides of the enormous hexagon were lined with warehouses mainly, though not solely, of the corridor type, instead of the courtyard ones typical in Ostia or found on the Severan Marble Plan of Rome. These are long, backto-back structures composed of hundreds of parallel rooms with barrel vaults fronted by arcaded porticoes, although probably not the grand marble colonnades some popular restorations fancy. Constructed in brickfaced concrete (some in opus reticulatum or also opus mixtum), they are strictly utilitarian buildings as attested by the conspicuous lack of architectural ornament and decorative material found. The remarkable Porticus of Claudius, with its rusticated columns is an exception (see later). Structurally simple and effective, relatively easy to build due to the repetitious and reusable characteristic of modular concrete construction, directly and easily accessible for the goods to be brought in and offering relatively flexible storage space, the “magazines” around the vast basin are masterfully composed. The repetitious, compartmented arrangement, like the drawers of an endless cabinet (composed of some one thousand to fourteen hundred units, most circa 5  16 meters, and with 2- to 2.25-meter-wide

doorways, but the units vary) might have had temporary and moveable internal divisions – also like the interior of a drawer – to allow for some of the goods to be removed on demand while others remained. The major construction must belong to the Trajanic period; however, the completion of some of the magazines belonged to the Antonine, some even Severan eras. Although vast overall, the composition of additive units makes the scale seem fractured and functional, not monumental – a characteristic that borrows from the Porticus Aemilia and the contemporary Markets of Trajan. Apollodorus, Trajan’s master architect and military engineer who built the Markets and the great bridge across the Danube, must have been aware of this great contemporary public project. Although we have no evidence, he may even have been responsible for the formative ideas that generated its design (see later). Curiously, in this city for workers and sailors (with a population of probably four to five thousand by the mid-second century), few structures can be identified as residential; there are certainly no multistory tenements comparable to Ostia. The historically named “Palazzo Imperiale,” located at the southern tip of the northwest side of the hexagon with a frontage on the basin as well as the sea, enjoyed a certain amount of validation as a result of the recent excavations (2007–2009). Although a clear architectural plan may never emerge to clinch identification as a palace or maritime villa, it is a new Trajanic construction whose design is clearly different from any typical warehouse arrangement. The much higher quality of decorative material found there underlines this difference. In the words of S. Keay, with which we concur, even if this might not have been the emperor’s residence, “The wealth and sophistication of the décor suggests that it must have been used by an important official, possibly the procurator annonae Ostiae” (Keay, Earl, and Felici 2011, 86). The excavators’ identification of a long rectangular building immediately east of the so-called palace as the navalia, or a shipyard, seems to be less controversial. An imposing rectangular structure with at least ten parallel concrete barrel vaulted bays each with an impressive 12-meterwide opening and 58 meters deep, and accessible both from the Trajanic and Claudian basins, would excellently fulfill the definition of a navalia structurally and functionally – and show how a proper navalia should be and indicate why the hypothesis for the identification of the Porticus Aemilia as navalia is flawed (see earlier). With hundreds of ships going in and out of the harbor every day, an imperial facility for drydocking, refitting and repair seems essential. There were of course, other symbols of Imperial power associated with the harbor: the iconic Pharos (lighthouse) at the outer harbor; a large temple within a rectangular 221

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity temenos identified as the Temple of Liber PaterBacchus directly opposite the sea entrance to the hexagon in the middle of the east side; and probably a colossal statue of Trajan near the temple. These were powerful icons; however, the projection of power must have been apparent in the sheer immensity of this complex and the heroic proportion of the labor exhibited there daily, obviating the need for an immediate Imperial presence. The combined harbors and their extensive architectural facilities were destroyed in the sixth century by the Byzantines in their efforts to control Rome and Italy, and to make the use of the harbor impossible for the invading Ostrogoths.

P O R T A MA G G I O R E

The significant architectural projects of Caligula presented a challenge to his uncle and successor. The elderly Claudius was a retiring, scholarly gentleman of imperfect health, who is said to have accepted the emperorship foisted upon him by the Praetorian Guard with reluctance, plenty of suspicion, and undisguised fear. Claudius was considered by many of his contemporaries as somewhat of an imbecile because he

stuttered, had intellectual interests, and perhaps displayed an unorthodox humor that must have baffled his conventionally dull peers. He proved to be an able administrator, conscientious leader, and for a stutterer, a fine orator – rhetoric being a very useful skill in a politician then as now. It was during Claudius’ reign (41–54 ce) that Britain was conquered, and Thrace and Mauretania (the latter, Morocco and part of Algeria) established as Roman provinces. Unfortunate in his choice of wives – first the licentious Messalina, then the ambitious Agrippina the Younger – he died in 54 ce, poisoned, some said by the latter in order to assure succession for her son Nero. From an architectural point of view, the most significant monument of Claudian date, and perhaps one of the most noteworthy in all of Roman architecture, is the arch-gate known as the Porta Maggiore carrying the double aqueducts, the Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus, over the Via Labicana and Via Praeneste. A double arch with an exceptionally high “attic” (really the two water channels on top of each other), it displays three inscriptions with dedications to Claudius, Vespasian, and Titus in archaizing Latin. With the building of the Aurelian walls, the aqueduct arch became a proper city gate (Figure 4.31). A cross

figure 4.31 General view of the Porta Maggiore, Rome, exterior, carrying the Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus aqueducts; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome between a commemorative arch (celebrating a triumph of engineering replete with an attic inscription) and a civic gate, the Porta Maggiore has a handsome travertine façade of slightly odd and disjointed composition. The proportions (c. 30  20 m), offer an excellent exercise in composing a geometry of six perfect 10meter squares, two in height and three in breadth – for whatever that kind of exercise is worth. A pair of tall arches is separated by aediculae with pediments, their Corinthian half-columns elevated on podiums (Figure 4.32 right, Plate 7B). The arches, whose plain tops are level with the tops of the pediments without any columnar articulation to define them (such as being circumscribed inside their own larger pedimented aediculae, a common classical motif ), look a little airy and weak – as if they had been punched out of the broad masonry surface, not built into it. The compositional complexity and incongruity of Porta Maggiore brings to mind the Parthian Arch of Augustus in the Forum Romanum, or the Tiberian arch at Orange (Arausia, see Figure 7.41), or the Hadrianic arch in Athens, all displaying similar complexity of parts and whole. But, what makes the Porta Maggiore a unique monument in Roman architecture goes beyond complexities and contradictions in composition: it is a monument which effectively exploits a stylistic contrast between heavy rustication and fine finish in masonry (see Figure 4.32 left, right). The attic,

capitals, entablature, and pediments are finished smooth; the lower parts of the structure – its massive piers, halfcolumns, and the voussoirs of its arches – are left intentionally rough and unfinished. To enhance the contrast as a deliberate “manner” or style, the thin joints between the coarsely hewn individual drums of the halfcolumns and the uppermost “neck” of the shafts are smoothly polished, as if a slick sheath of metal was driven through a stack of boulders. Such artistic games of “mannerism,” a willful deviance from the accepted norms, are well known in the works of Renaissance architects, such as Michelozzo and Giulio Romano, but above all in some details of Michelangelo, the undisputed master of the creatively unconventional. The existence of several other structures of Claudian date displaying a similar mannered rustication in and around Rome confirms that the style was a deliberate choice of the emperor. In Ostia/Portus harbor, there are porticoes of rusticated columns. In Rome, Claudian restorations of the Aqua Virgo show a heavily rusticated travertine arch contrasting with smooth details in an appropriately dramatic rendering by Piranesi (Figure 4.33). A roughly hewn façade of travertine piers and half-columns alternating with brick arches, partially visible on the Via di S. Maria de’ Calderari in Rome, is believed to belong to a Claudian porticus for the distribution of public grain rations (possibly the Porticus Minucia Frumentaria). A far more monumental

figure 4.32, plate 7b Details of the Porta Maggiore; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity example of Claudian rustication is the support terrace for the Temple of Deified Claudius (“Claudianum”), situated atop the Caelian Hill, a project that began under Nero and was completed by Vespasian. Although nothing remains of the temple itself, two tiers of the massive support structure are visible in the convent next to the Church of Santa Giovanni e Paolo (Figure 4.34).

The contrast created by the strongly rusticated travertine piers and pilasters against the smooth joints and finely finished details of the entablature, and the boldly projecting keystones like blocks of a boulder that just overcame the masons, is clearly a deliberate exercise in architectural mannerism that would have made Giulio Romano proud. Although started by Nero soon after

figure 4.33 Engraving of the Aqua Virgo aqueduct with elaborated archway, Rome; Giovanni Battista Piranesi [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (1756).

figure 4.34 Detail of the rusticated terrace structure of the Temple of Deified Claudius, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

224

Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome Claudius’ death, the masonry of the terrace is unlike the typical smooth Neronian surfaces. Several explanations are possible. The platform could have been started by Claudius for a different temple, but conveniently adjusted to honor him after his sudden death. Or, perhaps more likely, it could have been the work of his architects applying the style under a new master they knew and liked – a transitional project. Could Claudius, along with Nero, perhaps Domitian, and certainly Hadrian, be credited for encouraging new and creative directions in – or creative deviations from – Roman architecture? Creative deviations from the norms of traditional classicism have always been a concern in Roman architecture, finding its full expression in the architecture of the high and late Empire. Nonetheless, the new Claudian approach was so much at odds with the tenets of familiar and correct classicism that its impact on architecture, though short lived, deserves exploration. For a society comfortable with the sober and the conventional, the novelty Claudius introduced must have been jarring, disruptive, even scandalous – Vitruvius, had he been then around, would not have tolerated it. Yet, mannerism in art and architecture is a phenomenon that engages the mind as much as the eye. Given the antiquarian interests of an emperor who reputedly invented and tried to introduce three new letters into the Latin alphabet, there is little wonder why the old-fashioned stone architecture of the orders was given a shake and a new intellectual twist – maybe something like Claudius’ erudite, unorthodox humor. Still, one would have liked to know what the public, or its arbiters of taste, thought of it. More interestingly, what would Claudius, the academic, have said if he were asked why he introduced such an unconventional form of rustication into the vocabulary of classical architecture – probably, he would have answered, “Why not?” NERO AND THE “ARCHITECTURAL REVOLUTION” Although many may judge “Claudian rustication” as a creative departure from the classical norms of architecture of its day, its scope was limited and its impact on the future of Roman architecture no more than an interesting footnote – perhaps, no more than that of the three new letters the erudite emperor proposed for the Latin language that never caught on. The same cannot be said concerning the fundamental transformations effected in the making of and thinking about architecture during the reign of L. Domitius Ahenobarbus Nero (ruled 54–68 ce), the last of the JulioClaudian emperors. These changes on the whole were so significant and pervasive that some scholars, with reason, have dubbed it the “Roman architectural

revolution.” Yet, while the creative powers of this movement took shape under Nero, the new architecture characterized by an expressive use of concrete technology in the service of architecture, the creation of new forms and dynamic interior spaces had been a developing trend from the Augustan age onward. Nero, Agrippina’s son by an earlier marriage, became emperor when he was seventeen. The responsibilities of an empire for a teenager, even with the best guidance, could be daunting. The young prince was lucky to have reasonably good guidance and education in the persons of his ambitious and domineering mother, his tutor the philosopher Seneca, and Burrus, the Praetorian Prefect. Suspicious by nature, artistic by desire, and increasingly despotic by choice, Nero’s early years are judged to be fair. The events took a bad turn after the murder of his mother in 59 ce, followed by the forced retirement of his best counselor, Seneca. Nero’s artistic and literary ambitions, far outreaching his talents, gave him an opportunity for delusional grandiosity and escape from the realities of life. His public declamations, singing, musical performances, and chariot racing gave others, especially the new, unscrupulous prefect Tigellinus, chances to exploit both the public purse and public confidences. Mass murders followed. Nero’s cruelty lost him the support of the Senate and the aristocracy – who simply feared him. The working classes, who generally liked him because of his generosity and lavish programs of mass entertainment (in which he sometimes took center stage), had cause to turn away following the Great Fire of Rome in 64 ce. By his last year as emperor, several leading army commanders and the Praetorian Guard had abandoned him. The Senate condemned him to death, and Nero escaped execution by a forced suicide. History’s report card on Nero is bleak, mainly because history depends on ancient historians to create its narratives. In Nero’s case, the sources are almost always negative because they disliked and feared him. A critical reading of history and a full consideration of the evidence, at least on some particular subjects, compel us to view Nero and his world more objectively. Quite apart from the transformative advances made in concrete technology and architecture, the arts in general thrived under Nero. He was a generous, versatile, and to his beneficiaries, an inspiring patron. As evident from many examples in Pompeii and Herculaneum, the fourth style painting, mastered by his court painter Famulus, flourished under his rule. The artistry of Famulus’ work is somewhat dismissively and unfairly observed to be “imprisoned” in Nero’s palace, the Domus Aurea in Rome, without mentioning its creativity and superb quality (Pliny NH 35.120). When a “colossal portrait of (Nero) 120 feet high . . . painted 225

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity on linen” is singled out among the remarkable works from the period, it is simply described as “a lunacy in painting” (Pliny NH 35.51–52). The thriving work in sculpture, marbles, mosaic, and decorative arts is often mentioned merely to underscore its ruinous cost. There is no question that public funds were depleted by Nero’s profligate spending, but such spending whether on private palaces, or public works in Rome or the provinces (especially in the Bay of Naples where he was briskly rebuilding after the earthquake of 63 ce), created an economic boom, even though it might have been the kind of boom founded on borrowed money and borrowed time. Nero completed the Circus of Caligula in the Vatican (also known as the Circus of Nero) and built the Pons Neronianus bridge to reach it. A large market building, the Macellum Magnum, somewhere near the Caelian Hill, and now vanished, appears on coins as a two-story columnar enclosure with a columnar central pavilion. His primary contribution to public hygiene and recreation was the thermae bearing his name,

described by Suetonius ambiguously as “thermis atque gymnasio ” something like “gymnasium-baths” (Suetonius, Nero, 12). A recent thesis posits that the possible remains of a large rectangular portico near the baths might have been the gymnasium. On the other hand, the word “gymnasium” (γΰμυάσιου) was often used interchangeably with “thermae” among the pro-Greek literati, such as Tacitus, to mean the same institution. However, for Martial, who was on the whole free of such intellectual baggage, it was definitely a thermae, or baths, and definitely a delightful one: “What is so bad as Nero; what is so good as his thermae?” he asked, a sentiment we can extend to explain much Nero’s dual nature, an atrocious autocrat who contributed much for the advancement of arts, architecture and city planning (Martial, 7.37; Tacitus, Annals 14.47; Dio Cassius, 62.21). Located in Campus Martius, near the aging Baths of Agrippa, it is hard to know if the large, symmetrically composed complex shown in plans by Palladio and Antonio da Sangallo actually represents the Neronian bath building (Figure 4.35). On these

figure 4.35 Plan of the Thermae of Nero, Rome, based on Palladio and Krencker (1929).

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Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome plans, the complex is centered on a strong axis created by a projecting caldarium, cross-vaulted frigidarium, and a large, open-air natatio flanked by dual, internalized palaestrae – an arrangement that defines the “imperial thermae” type. The discovery of considerable Neronian material in excavations in the area suggests that the basic design and strong symmetry belonged to the original scheme even though some of the elements might not have been organized as tightly and elaborately as the present plan. The complex went under extensive renovations under Alexander Severus (ruled 222–235 ce) and received the official title Thermae Alexandrianae.

T HE G RE AT FIR E AN D TH E D OM US AU R E A

J. B. Ward-Perkins, writing half-a-century ago, observed that two circumstances during Nero’s reign resulted in “. . .a turning point in the history of Roman architecture” (Ward-Perkins 1970, 1981, 56). The first of these was an accidental event, the Great Fire of 64 ce that consumed nearly half of Rome. The second was providential; after decades of experimentation the advanced state of concrete technology was primed to take on the large scale architectural opportunities created by the fire. Together these circumstances resulted in revolutionary building designs as evident most notably in Nero’s palaces, especially that called the Domus Aurea, or the Golden House. We can add that the fire also created the opportunity, or the sheer exigency, to rebuild the Rome in a new way through the establishment of comprehensive, well thought out, public-minded building regulations, and a “building science” aimed at creating a safer and healthier metropolis, goals that are to be valued as much as any architectural revolution. In order to start the story, we must go back to a time before the Great Fire when the young Nero had begun a new palace for himself known as the Domus Transitoria. We know little about this palace except that it seems to have been a decentralized complex, more like a series of structures for different purposes extending in piecemeal in a slightly connected way from Tiberius’ imperial residence on the Palatine (to which Nero added a substantial cryptoporticus). From there the palace spread across the saddle of the Oppian to the Esquiline Hill, where the Imperial family had properties centered on the estate known as the Gardens of Maecenas (see later). Judged by the two pieces of this disjointed palace (among other pieces that might belong to it) – one under the triclinium of Domitian’s Flavian Palace on the Palatine, the other below the hill under Hadrian’s Temple of Venus and Roma – the

reach of Nero’s residential ambitions must have been enormous. The first is a fountain court or a private triclinium of jewel-like elegance. A small colonnaded pavilion with a raised marble floor flanked by vaulted suites of rooms faces the wide apse of a fountain wall pierced by niches of water cascades (Figure 4.36). In front of a shallow basin, and set against the curved backdrop, are diminutive columns of multicolored marbles, inlaid precious stones, and polished bronze capitals projecting and receding like a miniature stage wall. Everywhere the precious and colorful stone veneers, rich stuccos, and paintings bespeak of prestige and privilege, with a whiff of foreign luxury, perhaps a memory of late Hellenistic Ptolemaic opulence from Egypt – all perfectly suitable tropes for the young emperor’s artistic tastes. The second remaining part of this early palace phase is a different matter. A domed rotunda rises at the intersection of two barrel-vaulted corridors. No doors impede movement or the continuity of space. No detailed decorative flourishes distract the eye. The corridors are separated from the rotunda by columnar screens, partly hiding the marble-lined pools behind them (Figure 4.37). The centralized composition, the complex and intersecting curvatures of circular walls, arches, and the prominent dome, offer a foretaste of the robust spatial harmonies and continuities of the Domus Aurea. The great fire started in the Circus Maximus area, leapt up to the Palatine, and spread across the city destroying half of Rome in six days, including the Domus Transitoria. Tacitus, who provides an evenhanded account of the disaster, reports on the effective relief measures the emperor took to help the people, also adding that according to some rumors Nero himself had caused the conflagration. The fire cleared the once-densely populated neighborhoods between the Palatine, Esquiline, and the Caelian hills, overall an area covering some three hundred acres (see Figure 1.1). This clearance gave Nero the opportunity to create a new country-style estate of immense size and variety in the heart of Rome. Tacitus’ critical account of how Nero exploited the opportunity runs, “Nero, all the same, made use of the ruin of his country and built a palace where gems and gold were scarcely as much a cause for wonder as fields and pools and woods for solitude, and open spaces and vistas;” much to our benefit, he names the architects (or engineers) of this wondrous (and notorious) project: Severus and Celer (Tacitus, Annals, 15. 38–43). Unlike the Tiberian palace on the Palatine, which was a grand peristyle structure following, in a general way, Hellenistic palace models, Nero’s Domus Aurea drew inspiration from country estates, as if a villa had 227

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figure 4.36 Reconstruction of the Fountain Court and Triclinium under the Domus Flavia, Palatine, Rome, possibly a part of Domus Transitoria; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Ward-Perkins).

come to town. Many of its parts spread across the valley of the (later) Colosseum and surrounding hills (Figures 4.38 and 4.39). The lowest area, the watershed for several small streams, was the Stagnum Neronis, hypothetically reconstructed as a vast rectangular basin surrounded by porticos (c. 250 x 200 m), and even more hypothetically fitted at its west end with an elegant tholos, or a light dining pavilion (cenatio rotundo) inspired by the description of Varro’s aviary. On the west side, the Stagnum was joined axially to another rectangular quadriporticus only slightly smaller 228

(c. 180  95 m), that served as the formal “vestibule” for the complex. The east end of the Sacra Via was straightened and lined with a stately arcade creating, in effect, a processional way no less than a thousand-feet (c. 350 m) long linking the Forum Romanum to the Domus Aurea. In the center of the vestibule enclosure was the gilt-bronze Colossus of Nero, a statue reported to be 120 RF (c. 36 m) tall (Pliny, NH, 34.36). After Nero’s death the statue was re-dedicated to Helios, the Sun God; later Hadrian’s skillful architect-engineer Decrianus moved it in standing position to the nearby

Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome

figure 4.37 Axonometric reconstruction of the rotunda and barrel-vaulted galleries under the Temple of Venus and Roma, possibly part of the Domus Transitoria; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after MacDonald).

Temple of Venus and Roma with the help of twentyfour elephants (SHA, Hadrian, 19.9–13). One must admit that this highly formalized and axial layout of the Sacra Via, vestibule, and Stagnum (contrary to a more irregular configuration of the parts and their relationships) is based on relatively thin archaeological evidence, and our description offered earlier, and the dangerously seductive digital restorations that accompany it, may be ingenious, but still remain hypothetical. To the southeast of the Stagnum rose the great quadrangular terrace of the Temple of Deified Claudius, its multitiered and rusticated vaults (see above) hugging the periphery of the Caelian Hill, and its east façade, some 180 meters long, developed as a monumental, twostory fountain with series of tall niches, still visible on site. To the northeast, rising on several terraces on the gentler lower slopes of the Esquiline Hill, facing south is the only substantially preserved part, the residential wing of Domus Aurea (Figure 4.40). The low valley bottom between these hard-edged rectilinear precincts, must have been developed informally and naturally as gardens, waterways, fountains, and woods to fit the somewhat pastoral description of Suetonius: “[the Domus Aurea]

had a pool (stagnum) which resembled the sea and was surrounded by buildings which give the impression of cities; besides this there were rural areas varied with ploughed fields, vineyards, pastures, and woodlands, all filled with all types of domestic animals and wild beasts” (Suetonius, Nero 31). This description recalls so vividly Tacitus’ account of Agrippa’s aquatic park in the Campus Martius and the reveling high society in Nero’s days sailing in pleasure boats as “the groves surrounded by buildings and houses around the stagnum began to echo with songs and glitter with lights,” that one wonders if the sources were following a formulaic literary trope (Tacitus, Annals 15.37). Yet, Suetonius’ description, especially of the “ploughed fields, vineyards, pastures . . . filled with domestic animals, etc. . . .” creates a specific landscape vision that would have been familiar for any number of suburban villas owned by gentlemen farmers. TH E ESQ UI LIN E WI NG AN D T HE O C TA GO N

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figure 4.38 Plan of the Palatine, Domus Aurea, and the Gardens of Maecenas during the time of Nero; rendered by Diane Favro (after D. Bruno, G. Fatucci, D. Filippi and F. Fraioli).

done,” wrote A. Boethius nearly sixty years ago in his perceptive essay on the subject (Boethius 1960, 94). Thanks, indeed, to the fundamental work of mainly Italian scholars in the last two decades or so we know a lot more about the residential “Esquiline wing” of the Domus Aurea than before. Still, the archaeological nature of this useful work and the new hypothetical reconstructions, have not greatly changed our overall understanding and assessment of this critical building as it had long ago been articulated in historical publications by C. C. Van Essen, A. Boethius, J. B. WardPerkins, and W. L. MacDonald. Banking on the south-facing brow of the hill, the residential wing of the Domus Aurea stretches circa 230

250–260 meters and is composed of some 145 rooms (including corridors and connecting spaces) arranged for the most part in a row and screened in front by a colonnaded portico (See Figure 4.40). It is unlikely that there was a full upper story, except in some parts, namely the part set back, possibly, as a kind of belvedere above the so-called Octagon. There were, however, several long terraces toward the south connecting the residence with the fields and woods at the bottom of the valley. Some of these terraces, arranged as long ambulatio and xysti, incorporated storage and service units in their vaulted substructures. Altogether, the appearance of this wing must have been quite like the typical Italian portico villas common along the sunny coastlands of

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figure 4.39 Digital reconstruction of the Domus Aurea, looking east; Progetto Katatexilux (2011).

Campania, such as the Villa Arianna outside Stabiae, or their representations in paintings. The center of Esquiline wing is occupied by a wide pentagonal court (c. 95 m across) opening south; another one, its east side truncated, has been reconstructed at the east end of the composition based on good archaeological evidence. To the west of the pentagonal court is a row of oblong, barrel-vaulted rooms, arranged back-to-back, the back row opening into a rectangular peristyle court whose north side is pushed against the hill as a long cryptoporticus. Between the two pentagonal courts is a centrally planned octagonal suite of rooms, unique in their design and disposition. The plan of the Esquiline wing follows an overall sense of symmetry, but not a strict one; especially where the angled walls of the pentagonal courts and octagonal zone join others, symmetry is compromised, and awkward spaces emerge. There are internal symmetries and balanced formal sequences within groups, accentuating the center with a larger, taller room, or one articulated by an apse. The west wing, with its orderly range of rooms grouped around a peristyle

court, appears more conventional, but even there, the telescoping vision created by rooms enfilade, the changing directions and connections of semi-domed apses and rectangular, vaulted recesses, bespeak of an overarching spatial concern dictating design. A careful study of the building by L. Ball, based on detailed observation of brickwork, suggests that the “west block” may belong to an earlier, pre-fire phase (Ball 1994, 2003); indeed, it could have been one of the widely-flung elements of Domus Transitoria, but without the benefit of excavations these valuable observations must remain hypothetical. The entire structure is made in brick-faced concrete, somewhat inferior in quality than future brickwork under the Flavians or Trajan. This structural work was covered by polychromatic marble veneer, mosaics, and stucco of superb workmanship; or, with painted decoration in late third or fourth style, some probably the work of the famous Fabullus, who painted only a few hours a day and only in his toga (or so we are told). Representative of the exceptional opulence of the interior – and admired particularly by Raphael and other Renaissance artists – 231

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figure 4.40 Plan and axonometric reconstruction of the Esquiline wing of the Domus Aurea; rendered by Diane Favro (after Fraioli 2007 and Beste).

was the central unit of the west pentagon, called the “Room of the Golden Vault,” decorated with gild stucco panels and exquisite reliefs, or (as illustrated here) one of the side rooms of the Octagonal suite where painting enhances dynamic structural geometry of the space (Figure 4.41, Plate 6; see later in this chapter). Another special group was formed around 232

the large hall on the east side of the peristyle with pool, its ends screened by airy colonnades, its back opening into a smaller vaulted chamber backing into the hillside and arranged as a grotto-nymphaeum. A visitor to the Esquiline wing today (partially open to visitors after extensive structural renovations) would be disappointed by the dark and damp rooms with stark brick

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figure 4.41 plate 6 Digital reconstruction of a side room in the Octagonal suite, Domus Aurea; Progetto Katatexilux (2011).

walls since almost all of this rich and colorful decoration was robbed and removed when the entire structure was filled with earth and built over by Trajan’s thermae, its great foundations cutting through Nero’s rooms. But where the vaults rise and soar in semidarkness, and are crossed by others like sky bridges, bereft of the familiar verticals and horizontals of classical architecture, a kind of powerful Piranesian vision emerges (Figure 4.42). Still, if parts of the Esquiline wing have been characterized by the orthogonal geometry of parallel and interconnected vaulted rooms, we would have declared its architects successful in creating a bold but conventional structural order and interesting spatial sequences. But with the Octagonal suite Severus and Celer proved more than mere technical and artistic competence, they proved that they had an architectural vision based on new concepts of spatial and structural unity and integrity.

The central Octagon, with a diameter of 13 meters, is covered by a dome which springs from the flat sides of the octagon, and merges roughly halfway up above the crease lines of the flat sides into a spherical dome (Figure 4.43). A large circular opening in the middle of the dome, or “oculus,” whose 6-meter diameter is nearly half of the room’s width, brings light and air (and occasional rain) into the room. The three southern sides of the Octagon, where its sole entrance is located, open to the front terrace and the portico; the other five sides connect through wide doors of square proportions to peripheral rooms, each room interior carved by an orderly sequence of recessed spaces. The two symmetrical rooms on the east-west axis are rectangular, expanding into deep barrelvaulted niches in the back; the two on the northeast and northwest diagonal axes are cross-shaped, the middle cross-vaulted space expanding into three barrel-vaulted recesses. The barrel vaulted rectangular room terminating 233

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figure 4.42 Interior corridor inside the Esquiline wing of the Domus Aurea; Photo by Diane Favro.

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figure 4.43 Schematic plan and analytical sectional study of the Octagon Suite, Domus Aurea; rendered by Alex Maymind.

the main north-south axis of the Octagon is articulated by a rectangular niche housing a water-chute in the middle of its curved back wall, the water conducted down from a pool-reservoir on the hill behind the building.

These subservient spaces radiate from the center and are interconnected by doors through triangular passageways – the inevitable outcome of a tight diagonal geometry of the complex – that also buttress the octagonal dome at its 235

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figure 4.44 Interior view of the Octagon, Domus Aurea; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

corners. The dome, only 10 meters high, rises exactly to the height of, but not above, the peripheral rooms. This low configuration allows individual clerestory windows behind the extrados of the dome to admit light into each 236

of the peripheral chambers in addition to the general borrowed light these rooms receive from the central space illuminated by its huge oculus (Figures 4.44 and 4.45; see also Figure 4.41 and Plate 6).

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figure 4.45 View from the Octagon into peripheral rooms, Domus Aurea; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

In contrast to most conventional lighting systems where the illumination of a space is achieved by punching windows somewhat randomly into a wall, the Octagon and its subservient spaces display a structure that creates its light – or integrates light and structure in one indivisible system. The eight-sided geometry circumscribing the rotunda, the peripheral units and their vaults, are locked horizontally and vertically into a

whole, a multifaceted carbuncle rotating in space in universal symmetry. Although deceptively simple and logical to analyze on paper, the structural and spatial complexity of such a system commends its architects’ powers of visualization, especially at a time when (glibly put) digital modeling did not exist. The morphology of Nero’s Octagon reveals more than just a skillful exercise in three-dimensional thinking though; it displays the 237

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity creation of novel forms defining independently and interdependently interlocked spaces and creates a clear hierarchy of “served and serving spaces,” to borrow a phrase from the late American architect Louis I. Kahn, whose own perceptions of these spatial matters were honed during his 1950–1951 stay at the American Academy in Rome. Structural hierarchies are paralleled by visual and experiential hierarchies. The center, privileged by its dome and circle of light, expands into a ring of peripheral units, and each of these peripheral units becomes a minor space hub expanding into dependent ones. The clarity of the order is underscored by the single fountain room on the main axis, water cascading noisily down the deep sloping niche on its back wall, a momentarily privileged visual and aural anchor in a dynamic, rotating composition (see Figures 4.44 and 4.45, and also Figure 4.43). Oblique views from the center peer into the subservient spaces where angled walls and diagonally congruent vaults and arches reveal complex visual harmonies. Telescoping geometries of space, like a hall of mirrors, embrace the observer in a circle of light, rotating and setting free the objective certainties of structure, and replacing them with a more subjective and deceptive sense of order.

CENATIO ROTUNDA: ROTATING DINING ROOM All this, of course, reveals nothing about the function of the Octagon group. The simple answer is we do not know. The placement of a room inside a building (the analysis of a plan) often reveals its use, but Nero’s octagonal group is a self-contained entity: the Octagon core and its peripheral elements are not accessible from the spaces around them, except the southern front where the group generously opens to the south portico, terrace, and beyond. Therefore, the Octagon is really a place to go to, not go through. With the hindsight of historically comparable spaces, one could imagine that this was a triclinium-nymphaeum combination, a pleasurable dining and entertainment suite overlooking beautiful country views of all those woods and ponds by day and lit by torches and starlight at night. Suetonius offers some seductive possibilities in describing the luxurious excesses of Domus Aurea: “There were dining rooms whose ceilings were equipped with rotating ivory panels so that flowers could be strewn, and pipes so that perfume could be sprayed on guests below . . .” (Nero, 31.2). If dining rooms fitted with such flimsy gadgetry existed in the Domus Aurea, we should be confident that the Octagon was not it. The next sentence, however, is more promising: “The main dining room was a rotunda (praecipua cenationum rotunda) 238

which rotated day and night like the heavens.” This phrase, or its modern interpretation, lets loose all manners of possibilities for linking a cenatio rotunda with distant and imperfectly understood passages in ancient literature referring to circular banqueting rooms and domes with symbolic allusions to heavens. While a literary tradition of royal entertainment in luxury pavilions is familiar in Hellenistic and eastern contexts, any direct influence for a “rotating dining room” should be sought on Italian soil, particularly among the popular follies for celestial observation in Republican period country villas. One, which belonged to Varro, a scholar and antiquarian of the first century bce, was a combination of a rotunda and an aviary, where morning and evening stars circulated, and the time of the day and the direction of the eight winds were shown by means of mechanical gadgets (De re rustica 3.5). Given the almost childlike fascination of the ancients in self-propelled mechanical devices (and their ability to design and produce some very sophisticated astronomical instruments and playful automata), it is not so remarkable that Suetonius might be right, and that the vast grounds of the Domus Aurea indeed possessed some circular pavilion intended for dining, entertainment, or observation – any or all – with moveable ceiling or dome panels upon which the movements of the celestial bodies were projected giving the impression of the stars rotating and even possessing the hardware to occasionally douse Nero’s admiring guests below with perfumes and rose petals. The discovery in 2009–2010 at the northeast corner of the Palatine, in the area called Vigna Barberini, of the foundations for a very unusual circular structure of Neronian date starts a new hare. Sixteen meters in diameter, composed of a central round pillar of brick-faced concrete (4 m diameter), and eight hefty radiating arches in two tiers connecting the pillar to a thick circumferential wall, the mystery structure rekindled arguments for a rotating pavilion, even a cenatio rotunda. The structure comprises the foundation, perhaps the lower service level of a hypothetical pavilion, everything above ground having been razed during the Flavian rebuilding of this 16-meter-high terrace (Figure 4.46). The presence of several round holes on the flat upper surfaces of the radial arches (the placement of the holes are irregular, their interiors carved into the rubble and mortar of the concrete, quite rough) occasioned the proposal for a domed pavilion whose entire floor and upper structure (not just the dome or “dome panels”) could have turned on metal or wood bearings, smoothed by tar or resin, creating the sort of macchina that could have been devised by the cleverness of Severus and Celer. Such a proposal or its

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excavated area in dotted lines figure 4.46 Excavation plan and reconstruction section diagram of the ‘Cenatio Rotunda’ associated with the Domus Aurea; rendered by Diane Favro (after Villedieu).

various hypothetical alternatives appear as admirable efforts to explain this structure by our cleverness in making a mechanical contraption work (and a problematic literary text redeemed) rather than what evidence absolutely warrants. Whether this was one of the “rotating pavilions” of the Domus Aurea as reported variously in our sources, or simply a superbly placed tower suite commanding exceptional views of the Colosseum valley and the Esquiline Hill – a belvedere perhaps belonging to Nero’s pre-fire building activities on the Palatine – is less important than its extraordinary architectural configuration (Tomei 2011, 131; Villedieu 2011, 10–20; Carandini and Bruno 2012, I.239). The desire to fulfill Suetonius’ cenatio rotunda on the ground, or to elucidate an enigmatic archaeological feature by the help of an uncooperative literary description, is a powerful one. This temptation is evident in the latest efforts to recreate the Octagon with a hypothetical upper-story canopy and a rotating mechanism to move dome panels by means of wheels and ball bearings (and cooperating slaves) around the rim of the oculus. However much it might have pleased Nero and his giddily delighted guests, we find this kind of “rotating the heavens” an unlikely and uneasy proposition (Carandini, Bruno, and Fraioli 2011, 136–59). Indeed, the stars, the moon, and the sun did “revolve” ceaselessly around the open “eye” of the Octagon as could be enjoyed on a clear starry night – and on occasion rain did fall into it – because Severus

and Celer created an architecture that needed no creaking ball bearings to do that. R E V O L U T I O N O R E V OL U T I O N

Inherited wisdom accepts that Nero’s Domus Aurea, especially the Octagon, represents a beginning in Roman architecture referred to as the “architectural revolution.” In underscoring the importance of the design of this group, for which we can find no credible parallels or prototypes, we can do no better than quote J. B. Ward-Perkins that, “it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the whole subsequent history of European architecture hangs upon this historic event” (WardPerkins 1956, 219; MacDonald 1965, 41). Yet, we also know that notwithstanding the uniqueness of this design, its structural and spatial components in simpler forms were being experimented with in the decades before Nero. The slow road that saw the transformation of concrete technology from an engineering concern of harbors and warehouses to one of space and architecture had long been traversed. Nero’s architects learned from and built upon the achievements of others; this is normal. Unlike a revolution in the political sense where what has gone before is conspicuously overthrown, or at least aimed at being overthrown, and replaced by the new, in the arts, sciences and humanities revolution is more like evolution. Decades of experiments (many unsuccessful) at one 239

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity particular moment and perhaps with one transformative spark, blossom into something wholly new, or even unique. As we observed before, the overall planning of Domus Aurea with its grounds, parks, woods, waterways, and pools – and a long porticoed residence wing poised to take advantage of the exceptional setting – belongs in the general category of wealthy suburban villas starting during the Republic. Yet, this is also a very general or superficial view. Nowhere among these traditional villas are rooms so varied, or so dependent upon the formal geometry of polygonal, multifaceted, and reflexive forms and orientations. Nowhere do the interiors of these villas express the spatial vitality of the fractured, curved, and vaulted geometry of interrelated hierarchies and seamless continuities as in the Domus Aurea. Likewise, although the dome of the Octagon can be related to some Republican era domes, such as the dome of the so-called Temple of Mercury (part of a bath) in Baiae in the Bay of Naples, there is little to compare except concrete technology, a vaguely centralized plan, and the dramatic play of light with the use of an oculus (Figure 4.47). Nowhere in the early rotundas is the domical ensemble subsumed by the larger geometry of polygonal groups of independent but indivisible parts, like the human body with outstretched arms and

legs, the Vitruvian man in his box, defining the perfect circle of centrality, that ultimately symbolized Nero’s new architecture referencing human reach – some would say the ultimate irony in reference to its autocratic, inhuman patron. Whether we call this a revolution, or a development that reached its creative moment, the design morphology and architectural principles which were put in place in the Domus Aurea and its Octagon continued to be imitated and emulated for decades and centuries to come. Within fifteen years of Nero’s death, they can be found with reassuring clarity and variety in the great palace Domitian built on the Palatine and followed with creative iterations through Hadrian into Late Antiquity.

NERO AND URBS NOVA Viewed from where we stand, the Domus Aurea and the contribution of Severus and Celer, its architects, is an important event, as discussed at some length above. But was it a great event to its master, contemporary writers, and critics, and, above all, the people of Rome? Probably not as much as we think. Nero was obviously pleased by the vast prospects of the new palace;

figure 4.47 Interior of concrete dome with oculus, so-called Temple of Mercury (a bath hall), Baiae, in the Bay of Naples; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome appreciated the lavish decoration of the interiors, artwork, and paintings; and was probably giddy with pleasure at the clever gadgetry, rotating roofs, and all. He must have been serious when he expressed his approval of the finished residence when, according to Suetonius, he uttered: “At last, I am beginning to live like a human being” (Nero, 31). Still, given the originality of the small bits we know about the Domus Transitoria, one likes to think that Nero, the esthete, was aware of the exceptional talent of his architects, and in a vague way, the exceptional novelty of the building they had created for him. It is unlikely, though, that the critics of the Domus Aurea perceived anything “revolutionary” about the architecture of the Octagon. That was left to future architects and specialists. Contemporary or near contemporary references to the Domus Aurea are pointedly unarchitectural. However, they are devastatingly critical of the luxury of the interiors and censorious of its architects for having the audacity to create through architecture, “what even nature denied and amuse themselves with the resources of an emperor” (Tacitus, Annals 15.42). For the people of Rome, who were generally pleased with Nero, the new palace, which took up a very large portion from the heart of their city, especially at the expense of its original denizens who lost their homes, became a symbol of oppression, not the beginning of a new way of looking at architecture. We will end this chapter by focusing on a seemingly small event, a direct outcome of the Great Fire like the Domus Aurea itself, but aimed at benefiting people not an autocrat, an undertaking probably more important in shaping Rome and providing its citizens a healthier and safer city. The fire offered those in authority the chance to rebuild the city following an orderly system, and to instigate a new set of building rules and codes. This was an effort that had been started by Augustus and Agrippa and reestablished under Nero in a fundamental and comprehensive way. It was also a civic undertaking that reflects on Nero as a concerned and able administrator, the author of an Urbs Nova, the New Rome, an image often blurred by the overcritical and sensational press the emperor normally received. Once the fire started taking its full and tragic toll, the first order of business was to provide people effective relief measures – a standard by which all administrators of all ages under similar circumstances are judged. According to the detailed and reasonably objective account provided by Tacitus (himself no admirer of Nero or the monarchial system), Nero did not do badly: to house and feed the multitude he opened up the Campus Martius and its large and sheltering quadriporticus buildings, such as the

Diribitorium, Saepta Julia, and Agrippa’s Pantheon. He also made his own estates around the city available. And, he reduced the price of grain (Tacitus, Annals 15.39–43). Then came the task of rebuilding the devastated city which Tacitus points out was not to be built indiscriminately without any conception of order (as it had been after the Gallic Fire of 390 bce), but with measured rows of streets, broad thoroughfares, and clearings to avoid congestion. A limit was set (or reestablished) on building heights at 70 RF. Steps taken to promote the clearing of debris and preparing firedamaged neighborhoods for new construction were speedy and efficient: Nero designated the marshy land outside Ostia for the reception of the debris and arranged for ships which carried grain up the Tiber to return laden with rubble. He established a deadline by which new tenements were required to be completed and gave rewards to those who were able to stay within this timetable, or even better it. Some of these measures, such as the height limit, were simple rules for fire protection and public safety; others were positive reinforcement aimed at improving the physical appearance of Rome, and some attempted to do both. For example, Nero called for broad, measured streets along with porticos (or arcades) to protect building fronts, their flat roofs convenient to fight fires, and also offer shelter from sun or rain – an urbanistic motif familiar in many Italian cities, a direct extension from antiquity by way of medieval practice. Nero set so much stock in their efficacy that he even “promised that he would pay for the construction of these porticoes” (Tacitus, Annals 15.43; Suetonius, Nero 16). Some rules aimed to tighten already existing ones that had grown lax or corrupt over time, such as the appointment of guards to ensure that people would not illegally drain off water from pipelines which had been intended to fight fires, or the requirement that everyone keep a reserve water tank in the accessible common courtyard of their dwellings. Rules made about the nature, materials and methods of construction are of particular importance to the student of Roman architecture. Tacitus’ passage reads: “The buildings themselves up to a specified height were to be solid, un-timbered (sine trabibus) structures of Gabine or Alban stone, that particular stone being impervious to fire. . . . And there were to be no common walls [between buildings], each structure was to be supported by its own walls” (Annals 15.43). Tacitus’ terminology sine trabibus translated as “un-timbered” (and emphasized by us) could, of course, refer to the desire to reduce flammable timber framing in masonry construction, especially floors and roofs – or, it could also refer to whole upper floors or penthouses made of shabby wood and 241

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity unlawfully perched on top of buildings. These ramshackle structures all too frequently thrown up by unscrupulous contractors to maximize their profits, and adjacent buildings sharing the same single wall (an extremely dangerous and irresponsible practice, inconceivable in modern construction) were known to be among the primary causes of fire, structural collapse, and life loss in the city, dangers obviously not entirely curbed by the Augustan building codes. But, Tacitus could have also meant, for the purpose of increasing safety, “woodless,” that is columnless, vaulted, concrete structures (columns often meant wooded beams and wooden roofs above) impervious to fire. Suetonius, in a different passage, remarks that Nero “devised a new form of building in Rome” [our emphasis] (Nero 16.1), strengthening the assumption that the new code required, or encouraged, vaulted, concrete buildings, though neither author specifically mentioned opus caementicium. The multistory apartment buildings typical in second-century Ostia with their handsome brick façades, and little masonry balconies (maeniae), and ground floor shops and restaurants, must have been presaged in Neronian Rome. Nero’s contribution to Roman architecture, revolutionary or not, should not be conceived only in reference to the Domus Aurea and its Octagon (themselves almost entirely sine trabibus, structures), but also in his more modest but more human vision to make Rome a safer, healthier, and a more “modern” looking capital. REFERENCES

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Carnabuci, E. and L. Braccalenti. 2011. “Nuove ipotesi per una rilettura del settore meridionale del Foro Augusto.” BullComm 112: 35–65. Coarelli, F. 1985. Il Foro Romano, Periodo repubblicano e augusteo. Rome: Quasar. 1988. “Die Stadtplanung von Caesar bis Augustus.” In M. Hofter, ed. Kaiser Augustus und die verlorene Republik. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern: 68–80. 2012. Palatium. Il Palatino dalle origine all’impero. Rome: Quasar. Elsner, J. 1994. “Constructing Decadence: The Representation of Nero as Imperial Builder.” In J. Elsner and J. Masters, eds. Reflections of Nero: Culture, History, and Representation. London: Duckworth, 112–129. Fantham, E. 1997. “Images of the City: Propertius’ New-Old Rome.” In T. Habinek and A. Schiesaro, eds. The Roman Cultural Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 122–135. Favro, D. 1992. “Pater urbis: Augustus as City Father of Rome.” JSAH 51: 61–84. 1993. “Reading the Augustan City.” In P. Holliday, ed. Narrative and Event in Ancient Art. New York: Cambridge University Press, 230–257. 1996. The Urban Image of Augustan Rome. New York: Cambridge University Press. Fulford, F. 2005. “The ‘Elliptical Building’: Evidence of a Special Role for Chester.” JRA 18: 685–689. Freyberger, K. S., et al. 2007. “Neue Forschungen zur Basilica Aemilia auf dem Forum Romanum.” RömMitt. 113: 493–552. Frischer, B. and J. Fillwalk. 2014. “New Digital Simulation Studies on the Obelisk, Meridian, and Ara Pacis of Augustus,” in L. Haselberger, ed. The Horologium of Augustus: Debate and Context (JRA Supplement 99): 77–90. Ganzert, J. 2000. Im Allerheiligsten des Augustusforums. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. Goimard, J., ed. 1967. Rome au temps d’Auguste. Paris: Hachette. Gros. P. 1976. Aula Templa: Recherches sur l’architecture religieuse de Rome à l’époque d’Auguste. Rome: École française de Rome. Haselberger, L. 1994. “Ein Giebelriss der Vorhalle des Pantheon. Die Werkrisse vor dem Augustusmausoleum,” RömMitt. 101, 279–308. 2002. Mapping Augustan Rome. Digital Augustan Rome. http://digitalaugustanrome.org/ [accessed February 1, 2013]. 2007. Urbem adornare: die Stadt Rom und ihre Gestaltumwandlung unter Augustus = Rome’s urban metamorphosis under Augustus, trans. A. Thein. (JRA Supplement 64). 2014. “A Debate on the Horologium of Augustus and Clarifications.” In L. Haselberger, ed. The Horologium of Augustus: Debate and Context (JRA Supplement 99): 15–38. Haselberger L. and P. Auber, eds. 2014. The Horologium of Augustus: Debate and Context. (JRA Supplement, 99). Haselberger, L. and J. Humphrey, eds. 2006. Imaging Ancient Rome. Documentation, Visualization, Imagination (JRA Supplement 61). Hekster, O. and J. Rich. 2006. “Octavian and the Thunderbolt: The Temple of Apollo Palatinus and Roman Traditions of Temple Building.” CQ 56.1: 149–168.

Julio-Claudian Architecture in Rome Hofter, M., ed. 1988. Kaiser Augustus und die verlorene Republik. Mainz: Philpp von Zabern. Howe, T. N. 2005. “Vitruvian Critical Eclecticism and Roman Innovation.” MAAR 50: 41–65. Jenkyns, R. 2013. God, Space, & City in the Roman Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Krencker, D. et al. 1929. Die trierer Kaiserthermen. Augsburg: Dr. Benno Filser Verlag. La Rocca, E., ed. 2013. Augusto. Milan: Electa. 1999. “Pantheon (Fase Pre-Adrianea).” LTUR: 280–83. 2014. “Augustus’ Solar Meridian and the Augustan Urban Program in the Northern Campus Martius: Attempt at a Holistic View.” In L. Haselberger and P. Auber, eds. The Horologium of Augustus: Debate and Context. (JRA Supplement, 99): 121–165. 2015a. Il Pantheon di Agrippa. Rome: Scienze e Lettere. 2015b. “Agrippa’s Pantheon and Its Origin” In T. A. Marder and M. W. Jones, eds. The Pantheon from Antiquity to the Present. New York: Cambridge University Press: 49–78. Laurence, R. D. and J. Newsome, eds. 2011. Rome, Ostia, Pompeii: Movement and Space. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Loerke, W. C. 1982. “Georges Chédanne and the Pantheon: A Beaux-Arts Contribution to the History of Roman Architecture,” Modulus 4: 40–55. Lott, J. B. 2004. The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome. New York: Cambridge University Press. MacDonald, W. L. 1985. “Empire Imagery in Augustan Architecture.” In R. Winkes, ed. The Age of Augustus. Providence, RI: Center for Old World Archaeology and Art, 137–148. Marabottini, A., B. Origo and E. Creg. 1973. Theatrum Marcelli: “El Quliseo de’Saveli.” Rome: Edizioni dell’Elefante. Mason, D. J. P. 2000. Excavations at Chester, The Elliptical Building: An Image of the Roman World? – Excavations in 1939 and 1963–1969. Chester Archaeology and Survey Report 12. Chester: Chester City Council. Quenemoen, C. K. 2006. “The Portico of the Danaids: A New Reconstruction,” AJA 110: 229–250. Rehak, P. 2006. Imperium and Cosmos: Augustus and the Northern Campus Martius. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Reitz, B. 2012. “Tantae molis erat: On Valuing Roman Imperial Architecture.” In I. Sluiter and R. M. Rosen, eds. Aesthetic Value in Classical Antiquity. Leuven: Brill, 315–344.

Segala E. and I. Sciortino. 2003, rpt Domus Aurea. Rome: Electa. Stambaugh, J. E. 1988. The Ancient Roman City. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Thomas, E. 1997. “The Architectural History of the Pantheon in Rome from Agrippa to Septimius Severus via Hadrian.” In B. Fehr, C. Hocker, et al., eds. New Approaches in Classical Architecture and Related Fields. Hephaistos 15: 163–186. Thomas, M. L., I. E. M. Edlund-Berry and G. E. Meyers. 2012. Monumentality in Etruscan and Early Roman Architecture: Ideology and Innovation. Austin: University of Texas Press. Thornton, M. K. and R. L. Thornton. 1989. Julio-Claudian Building Programs: A Quantitative Study in Political Management. Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci. Tomei, M. A. 2011. “Nerone sul Palatino.” In M. A. Tomei and R. Rea, eds. Nerone Milan: Electa, 118–35. Tomei, M. A and R. Rea, eds. 2011. Nerone, Milan: Electa. Tortorici, E. 1990. “L’attività edilizia di Agrippa a Roma.” In A. Ceresa-Castaldo, ed. Il bimillenario di Agrippa. Genoa: Università di Genova, 19–55. Villedieu, F. 2011. “La ‘Coenatio rotunda’ Neroniana e altre vestigia nel sito della Vigna Barberini al Palatino.” Boll. d’Arte 12: 1–28. Viscogliosi, A. 1996. Il tempio di Apollo ‘in Circo’ e la formazione del linguaggio architettonico augusteo. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. von Hesberg, H. 2009. “La cittá di Augusto.” In H. von Hesberg and P. Zanker, eds. Storia dell’ architettura Italiana. Architettura romana, I grandi monumenti di Roma. Rome: Electa, 66–77. Walker, S. 2000. “The Moral Museum: Augustus and the City of Rome.” In J. Coulston and H. Dodge, eds. Ancient Rome: The Archaeology of the Eternal City. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 61–75. Wallace-Hadrill, A. 1993. Augustan Rome. London: Bristol Classical. Warden, P. G. 1981. “The Domus Aurea Reconsidered.” JSAH 40.4: 271–278. Zanker, P. 1984. Il foro di Augusto. Rome: Palombi Editori. 1987. “Drei Stadtbilder aus dem augusteischen Rom.” In C. Pietri, ed. L’Urbs: Espace urbain et histoire, Ier siècle av. J.-C.-IIIe siècle ap. J.-C. Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 475–489. 1988. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Zink S. 2008. “Reconstructing the Palatine Temple of Apollo: A Case Study in Early Augustan Temple Design.” JRA 21: 47–63.

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RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE -

A small hut constructed of poles, mud, and thatch was lovingly maintained for centuries atop the Palatine Hill in Rome (Figure 5.1). The structure memorialized the original residence of Romulus, Rome’s mythical founder. By the late Republic, the humble hut nestled amid upper-class family residences embellished with imported sculpture, colorful wall paintings, and lush plantings, explicitly affirmed both the Romans’ humble beginnings and how far they had progressed. Research and data on Roman housing and house types are extensive. For the capital city texts preserve information about the use and status associated with various forms of domestic architecture. Particularly useful is the marble plan where whole streets of atrium-type houses as well as multistoried tenements are shown on some fragments (see Figure 3.6). Official lists catalog the types and numbers of residences. As the population of Rome exploded, the more desirable single-family domus courtyard house competed with high-rise insulae climbing the hillsides as well as with row houses and live/work units lining the streets in the flatlands. However, despite exceptions, archaeological evidence for residential architecture in Rome is fragmentary and incomplete. The story of Roman domestic architecture is largely told through the examples from around the Bay of Naples in Campania, preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 ce, which were long thought to have fossilized the building forms, ornaments, objects, and actions of a moment in time. The extant remains are invaluable and poignant, but also problematic. The data is only deceptively complete; much information has been lost, including the configuration of collapsed upper floors. In the earliest explorations 244

of the ancient cities in the Bay of Naples, attention focused on the eye-catching courtyard houses of middle to upper class residents, with little concern for less well-appointed housing forms. The Campanian single-family domus, centered around a multipurpose space open to the sky – called the atrium – became interpreted as the quintessential Roman form that defined “Romanness” across time and space. The reality, of course, was far more complex. Researchers today acknowledge a broad range of Roman residential building forms. Two important influences shaped Roman housing designs: the strong pre-Roman traditions of each unique region (such as the Punic house layouts incorporated into the Roman houses of North Africa), and the lingering peristyle house type emulated by examples in Greece and Asia Minor which largely shared similar climates. Equally important, and in essence subsumed into the creation of these two types, were the climatic and material resources that defined regional building traditions. Influences often blurred through contact with not only the capital city, but also with other provinces as evident with the weakening of atrium configurations in northern Italy. After all, the atrium that defined these desirable single-family houses known to us mostly from Campania, was not the only game in town, or rather in the empire. To take one example, simple country residences, or larger farm houses, loosely following a type known as the “hall type,” or the “porticus-with-pavilions” (some incorporating functional work yards) show such wide variety of application that narrowly defined regional and chronological distinctions often prove false (see later in this chapter). The quest for a single model of “the Roman

Residential Architecture environments with Roman eyes and walk through the rooms in Roman sandals, yet always acknowledging what we don’t know far outstrips what we do know. Of all forms of building, housing or residential architecture is intensely and intimately shaped by the city and in turn and shapes it. The challenges of living in the great megalopolis of Rome with its venerable history, demanding topography, high density of occupation, threatening neighbors, and multicultural population were multiple and unique; these challenging conditions helped to forge a strong social cohesion and enduring options for domestic architecture. Although not as intense in its impact as Rome, all settlements shaped the lives and identities of their residents and their residences in larger or smaller ways. The forms of housing that characterized Roman lives across the great Empire – the city house (domus or the atrium-house), the row house, the high-rise tenement, the urban villa, the suburban villa, farm house, and of course palaces and Imperial residences – all found their early expression at the capital city and were likewise reflected in other cities.

figure 5.1 Hypothetical reconstruction of Romulus’ Hut, c. 600 bce C. Archaic House No.3, c. 500 bce; rendered by Diane Favro.

house” or “the Roman villa” is futile, but the study of domestic architecture with certain broadly recognizable features and types throughout Roman history and territory is as lively, diverse, and individual as its subject of examination. In the last twenty years researchers have shifted from iconographic and artistic analyses toward social evaluation, considering how status, gender, occupation, education, wealth, and ethnicity simultaneously determined how residents used domestic spaces. In sum, much depended on who the residents were and how they chose to live. Careful analysis of diverse archaeological finds has revealed that the names often given to Roman spaces by early discoverers (“kitchen,” “girl’s bedroom,” “study,” “public space,” etc.) were based on modern ideas, not ancient realities. Such erroneous naming has, over time, become embedded in the record and is difficult to overcome. Assumptions about household composition are also tricky. Despite the best efforts of many scholars, we still are unsure about the number of people (including the nuclear family, servants, slaves, and relatives) who lived in a typical house, and their daily routines at different places, times, and conditions. Drawing on sociological statistics, physical remains, texts, digital simulations, and other resources, today’s researchers attempt to see ancient domestic

THE URBAN DOMUS: THE ATRIUM HOUSE According to Livy, at the founding of Rome Romulus opened up the city to “crowds of all sorts desirous of change” (1.8). Looking back from the second half of the first century bce, Livy identified the amalgamation of diverse peoples and the site of Rome as generative strengths for the yet-to-come Roman state, reinforced by collectively fashioned ways of living with visible manifestations of each resident’s place in society. Archaeologist Carandini in his controversial description of Rome’ early history argues that Romulus was a man, not a myth, who “might” have lived in a simple residence (Domus Regia, Figure 1.7), which directly evolved into an atrium house in the archaic period like the one uncovered on the Palatine Hill (Figure 5.2: Carandini 2011). House design promulgated a way of life and the distinctiveness of Roman culture far more than with the contemporary cultures of Greece or Etruria. Along with carried insignia and distinctive clothing, the private house organized around an atrium or courtyard, generally referred to as domus, became an overt sign of status and a promulgator of mores. The majority of evidence on Roman atrium houses comes from the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and others in Campania where the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 ce and the subsequent falling ash, pumice, and lava buried entire houses under collapsed roofs preserving traces of the structures as well as their

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objects and occupants for centuries (see earlier). In fact, the field of archaeology evolved in step with the uncovering of these environments which have traditionally and colorfully been referred to as “time capsules.” Panicking residents left in hurry, leaving behind objects representing daily life were found almost untouched (vases, tools, sculptures, written scrolls), along with imprints of organic materials (wooden shutters, bread, plant roots). This popular characterization is lately refuted by some researchers, including Mary Beard in her book Pompeii, where she rightly pointed out (as we, too, have done, see above) that these Vesuviuan cities were for the most part cleared out before the final eruption, or soon after as owners, or others, returned to claim their belongings, or to loot others’. This is for the most part true, however, in a relative sense. Compared to hundreds of archaeological sites where long and continuous occupation makes earlier layers and earlier periods of occupation unavailable or undistinguishable, Pompeii and Herculaneum are archaeologists’ dream sites as “time capsules” even if we exaggerate a bit. Unaltered by postantique

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modifications, the Campanian houses provide a unique window into the evolution of the atrium house form, from simple early examples (House of Pansa in Pompeii, see Figure 1.39) similar to the archaic houses unearthed by Carandini (Figure 5.2), to the more luxuriously transformed examples that appeared in the second century bce when elite competitiveness, a growing middle class, and tempting eastern influences prompted residential upgrades, such as the House of Ariadne with its fine paintings and the House of the Faun, both in Pompeii (see Figures 5.7–5.9). When studying the Roman domus, three major differences between antiquity and today should be kept in mind. First, the occupants were not a nuclear family, but an expansive household, or rather a “houseful,” including the male head of the family (paterfamilias), and his immediate kin members, along with servants, slaves, and visiting freedmen, tenants, and various dependents. The paterfamilias controlled every aspect of the occupants’ lives including legal, financial, religious, and political. Second, the house was not, as today, perceived as a safe, nurturing refuge separate from work

Residential Architecture and public life. Romans of wealth and status exploited their houses as sites for conducting family, clan and client relationships through rituals, daily use, and entertaining. The house was an important site of work, extending beyond the political and patronal responsibilities of the owner to contain distinct business activities, shops, and even small industries. To the extent that the architectural identity of the domus merged with the social and political identity of its owner, its typology, quality, and luxury was expected to be appropriate to the proprietor's position, and to confirm it, affirm it, and enhance it – concerns not entirely lacking in modern home ownership. Third, spaces in the Roman domus were not assigned to specific uses in the manner of the modern house. A single room might be used for entertaining, work, leisure, or sleeping depending on the time of day, the season and the gender and status of the user. Notably, recent research has distinguished different axes of operation during the day, with men occupying certain places at certain times and women at others, while pathways for servants remained along the spatial fringe. In that sense, the Roman house never aimed to achieve the kind of almost total segregation of gender and function we see in the traditional Islamic house. In the first century bce, Cicero wrote, “a man’s dignity may be enhanced by the house he lives in, but not wholly secured by it; the owner should bring honor to his house, not the house to its owner” (Off.1.39). With the advent of the Imperial period, the social identity of the state coincided with that of an individual and, by extension, his house. The first emperor Augustus purchased a domus atop the Palatine Hill amid other residences of the Roman elite. The partial remains reveal a series of suites on two levels opening on a peristyle (see above and below). Although elaborately decorated with beautiful wall paintings, the structure lacked extensive marble ornament, the most overt expression of luxury in house design of the first century bce. Contemporary writers called his house modest. Augustus himself stressed the significance of its neighbors. Nearby stood the hut of Romulus and a direct connection led to the residence of the princeps’ patron god, Apollo, along with a shrine of Vesta. Within this domus, Augustus stood not only as paterfamilias of the Julio-Claudians, but also as pater patriae (father of his country). Abandoning Augustus’ mock-modest claim to be “first among equals,” subsequent emperors cast off the pretence of reserve in the form, size, and magnificence of their residences. Tiberius created a grand structure overlooking the Forum, initiating the

trend for ever-greater Imperial palaces atop the Palatine Hill, yet in a display of false modesty, the Roman emperors resolutely referred to their abodes as domus. THE ROMAN DAY AND THE AT RIU M H O US E

During the Republican era the atrium house proliferated in central Italy and beyond; some of the most complete examples are preserved for us in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and surrounding towns and estates around the once verdant foothills of Vesuvius. Notable early examples have been recently unearthed at Rome. Excavations uncovered upper-class houses of the atrium arrangement on the northern slopes of the Palatine Hill near the Forum in Rome, dated to the sixth century bce. With timber frame walls supported by foundations of tufa blocks, these houses had shops and tavernas along their street fronts and were accessed through a narrow corridor or vestibule called fauces (literally “throat” in Latin) leading along a symmetrical axis into the atrium as in an archaic house on the Palatine (Figure 5.2). Although decades of research have shown that there is no clear “textbook example” of the atrium house, examples such as the House of Sallust (Figures 5.3 and 5.4) or the House of the Surgeon, both in Pompeii, indicate that by the second century bce, the atrium type of domus, notwithstanding some differences of size, complexity, and luxury, had become the standard residence of middle- and upper-class Romans. Thus, a generalized description of the atrium and its basic functions ensconced in the routine of the Roman day is useful. The atrium, which gives its name to the type, was a spacious and centralized collecting space with a high sloping roof open to the sky thorough a square or rectangular opening (see Figures 5.3 and 5.4). Called a compluvium, this skylight was initially conceived as an exit for smoke rising from hearths or portable braziers. It simultaneously facilitated water collection. Rainwater flowed down the fourway sloping roof and filled a basin or shallow pool below, called the impluvium, and from there to an underground cistern. This was clearly a very effective arrangement in a hot and dry climate before cities received ample water from aqueducts. Entry into the house and the atrium from the street by way of the dark and narrow fauces established the primary axis of the plan. The contrast of the entrance passage with the lofty atrium with its deep, overhanging roof spanning a large space, sometimes

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figure 5.3 House of Sallust, Pompeii; top: plan of early phase, bottom: plan and section of late phase; rendered by Güzden Varinlioglu.

with an upper story gallery, was palpable and intentionally dignified. Vitruvius categorized Roman domus types by the roof structure of the atrium. At the House of Sallust the atrium is of the preferred “Tuscan type,” exploiting Etruscan timber construction with hefty wooden 248

beams spanning clear across the broad room (9  14.5 m) without any internal support (see Figure 5.4). Once admitted into the atrium visitors saw the symmetrically arranged doorways along the sides of the atrium giving access small, multipurpose rooms, or cubicula. In most houses, the cubiculae supported a full

Residential Architecture

figure 5.4 Axial view of atrium at House of Sallust, Pompeii, looking toward the tablinum and garden behind; Photo by Diane Favro.

second story of rooms, or at least, a functional mezzanine above (thus, two levels of rooms equalled the height of the central atrium). In the dim light, they might have noticed the walls painted in the strongly colored first-style (“marble-imitation style”). Toward the back and sides, taller openings expanded the central space into alae, or wings. However, the visitors’ attention was relentlessly drawn to the long axis established by a tall, impressive room, the tablinum. Originally thought to be the owner’s bedroom isolated with curtains or moveable panels, the tablinum gained its architectural and social stature over time becoming the primary place of reception in the daily salutatio ritual. Much of Roman communal life was structured along social hierarchies where a richer, more powerful person (or a familiy) acted as a patron (patronus) for a social inferior client (cliens), dispersing favors, settling disputes, maintaining concord, and overseeing family relationships and informal business. It may be imagined that at the break of the day (the Roman workday normally started and ended much earlier than ours in order to take maximum advantage of daylight), the master of the house stood in his toga in front of his tablinum framed by the dazzling light coming from a large window opening into a courtyard or interior garden behind him. Facing the entrance, he accepted morning greetings, “salutations” from his clients as

they poured in from the street into the atrium. Visitors moved around the atrium basin viewing paintings, sculpture and other domestic displays curated no doubt to impress. More important, however, was the family shrine (lararium), usually located in the wings (alae in Latin) flanking the tablinum, as well as displays of wax masks of famous ancestors, war spoils captured in battle and other military trophies affirmed the elevated position of the family by showcasing its ancestral history and piety. Thus, the architectural significance, centrality in fact and in metaphor, of the atrium was underscored through its ritual function as a reception area and public stage for presenting a highly curated image of the residing family. Ancient authors emphasize the theatrical and political nature of this space, which could hold up to several hundred guests at a single event in larger houses such as Palatine House 1 in Rome or the House of the Faun in Pompeii (see later). Livy recorded that when the Gauls sacked Rome in 386 bce, patricians garbed in full ceremonial dress awaited death standing like statues in their atria (plural of atrium) opposite the open doors to the street (5.41.7–8). Little wonder that almost through the Republican period the atrium house contiunued as a historically prestigious type of dwelling, its familiar architectural format and deceptive exterior simplicity reflecting notions of conservatism, patrician austerity, 249

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity and achievement, as well as viewer manipulation. On house exteriors, owners made overt, individual, and competitive distinctions of wealth and class through the quality of the construction, architectural ornament, and displays of symbolic objects such as wreaths and military spoils; on the interior of houses the wealth of furnishings and artwork contained further clarified the stature of the patronus and his wife who held a high social position as the matronus of the house. After the morning greeting, the male family members went to the forum to conduct further business (negotium). They devoted the afternoon mostly to leisure (otium), including lengthy visits to public baths – a sportive, recreational, and social activity. The men returned in the evening to join their wives for the most important social event culminating the day, the evening meal (cena) regularly taken with company. A leisurely meal with the guests reclining on dining couches allowed the family cook to display his skills, and the paterfamilias to socialize, network, and affirm his status through food, tableware, conversation, and residential setting. The House of Sallust in Pompeii presents an individualistic, yet representative, picture of the forms and functions of a Roman domus (see Figures 5.3 and 5.4). In the third century bce, the freestanding structure (c. 670 sq m including shops) stood atop solid tufa foundation blocks, surrounded by open land. The owner rented out shops along the street façade, maintaining the two flanking the entry for his use as evident from the direct access to the house interior. The contrast between the dark, narrow entranceway, the fauces, and the next space, the atrium, was palpable. There the ceiling rose over 15 meters above the floor; light dramatically poured into the cavern-like space through the rectangular opening in the ceiling. With strong timber beams carrying the roof across the broad room without the support of columns (c. 9  14.5 m), the atrium of the House of Sallust represents the preferred Tuscan configuration. In the earliest phases of the House of Sallust the rear wall of the tablinum probably terminated in a solid wall pierced only by a small window opening to the large kitchen garden (hortus) surrounding the house. As fortunes improved, subsequent owners enlarged and enhanced the structure. They embellished the tablinum by elevating the floor slightly and adding giant pilasters to frame and set the space off from the rest of the atrium and create a more imposing setting for the salutatio. In addition, they extended the visual axis by opening a large window to the transformed garden space beyond. Ornamental plantings, faux porticos, wall paintings, sculptures, and new rooms filled the area around the house. Renovations to existing rooms took advantage of the 250

expanded design. For example, the room north (left) of the tablinum was reoriented to open toward the rear porticoed garden, becoming an attractive dining room or triclinium, so named after the favored layout with three couches for reclining guests. In the southern corner of the property, a separate ensemble of rooms evolved accessed from the atrium, with a large dining room looking out at another partial peristyle and surrounding cubicula (small rooms put to different uses). By the first century ce, the proprietors further altered the house to increase revenues. When Vesuvius erupted, the west side of the establishment included a large bakery with milling facilities, a cookshop, and rooms on an expanded second floor implying use as an inn. At Herculaneum, the House of the Samnites likewise underwent numerous alterations; the large garden was sold and replaced with a separate house, and the gallery colonnade of the atrium was closed to create a separate upstairs unit, a clear elaboration of the simple and austere early atrium idea (Figure 5.5). Owners took pride in renovation work. To celebrate the restoration of their house at Nikopolis in the late third century, they laid a mosaic inscription reading, “May the fortune of the house be prosperous, and prosperous too the restorer

figure 5.5 Atrium with blind colonnade on the second floor, House of the Samnite, Herculaneum; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Residential Architecture of the house. Man(ios) Antoninos with his [wife] Theosegos.” Acting as a kind of counterbalance to the formality of the dimly but theatrically lit, austere atrium, the back garden space surrounded by colonnades forming a peristyle, became the bright center of private life and a staple of Roman residential design during the second century bce. No doubt the taste for the peristyle went apace with the rapidly increasing Greek cultural influence on Rome and Italy during the late Republic. The landscaped courtyard with trabeated porticos on one or more sides was largely derived from attractive Hellenistic Greek public and residential colonnades and gardens filled with artwork and water features. Elite Romans readily adopted the form. Yet, the peristyle was also a natural, almost an inevitable extension of the atrium as an architectural counterpart in form and function; no direct graft from Hellenistic east was necessary. Both the atrium and peristyle ideally had a crisp rectangular shape and well-designed light effects. In the atrium strategic light sources pierced the dominant dark shadows; conversely, in the large landscaped peristyles light dominated, enlivening and softening the uniform, permeable screen of columns with ever-changing patterns of shade and sunlight. Peristyles often planted or surrounded by garden scene paintings provided appealing and quasisecluded private spaces for daily life, and also signalled sophistication, implying the owners participated in such refined activities as the contemplative stroll (ambulatio) and learned discourse. The large open space of the urban domus in and of itself was a symbol of status, like the pocket gardens of New York residences. In addition, the extensive use of columns signified the owner’s distinction. Pliny charted the rapid proliferation of marble columns for residential use at Rome beginning in the first century bce, escalating from six modest shafts at the house of L. Crassus, to the hundreds found at later residences (NH 36.2, 24). At Pompeii (and other sites), house owners who could not afford such extravagances simulated the appearance of marble by covering brick columns with stucco mixed with marble dust. The ever-increasing size and opulence of Roman urban houses, and the social mobility possible for some, is aptly captured in the Satyricon written in the first century ce. The author Petronius has a “newly-rich” freedman describe his Campanian residence, As you know, it was a tiny place; now it is a mansion. It has four dining-rooms, twenty bedrooms, two marble colonnades, an upstairs dining room, a bedroom where I sleep myself, this viper’s boudoir, an excellent room for the porter; there is plenty of spare room for guests. (77)

Although large (over fifty rooms), the imagined house was not exceptional when compared to such Pompeiian residences as the House of the Faun (see Figure 5.7) or the House of Pansa. Such extravagances, however, were not always possible in cramped urban environments. When space (or cost) precluded the addition of a peristyle to an existing structure, architects exploited various design strategies to give the appearance of symmetry and large size. At the House of Sallust, the owner created the illusion of a grand peristyle courtyard, opening a large window at the rear of the tablinum to provide a clear view of a slightly elevated ornamental garden packed into the limited space behind the residence. Paintings in the second or fourth styles covering all walls was another effective way to enhance depth and size. Even in small spaces the wall could be “opened” into pleasant landscapes, lush garden scenes, semireligious idyllic panoramas or architectural fantasies. In the later phase of the House of Sallust, paintings on the back garden wall increased the illusion that viewers inside the domus were looking into a large peristyle garden. The finest and most evocative of these fictive “garden rooms” is without doubt from Livia and Augustus’ Primaporta villa just north of Rome (see earlier). Dateable to the last phase of Pompeii, circa 50–79 ce, a more sophisticated visual plan in design is evident at the House of Menander (Figure 5.6). There the designer masked the asymmetrical placement of a grand peristyle in relation to the atrium by establishing a directed sightline through a break in the garden wall to a roughly rectangular exedra at the rear of the peristyle colonnade and enhancing the appearance of depth by altering the spacing of columns, making those by the tablinum wider than those fronting the exedra. The same care and sophistication in creating painted illusions and controlled sightlines was at work in the interior design and decoration of dining rooms. Every house of stature had several triclinia (dining rooms). The host selected the appropriate one for each meal, carefully considering the season, decorations, and views to entertain and impress the particular guests. In many, mosaic floor patterns and painted ceiling treatments programmed the placement of dining couches. Architects ensured that the host and his most privileged guest had the premier views, strategically placing statues, orienting paintings, and adjusting column spacing to privilege their sightlines. At the House of the Menander, the important diners reclining head to head in the rear left corner of the triclinium looked through a broad opening made by omitting columns

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figure 5.6 Plan and section of the House of Menander, Pompeii; rendered by Güzden Varinlioglu and Diane Favro (after Gros).

in the peristyle colonnade, across the open landscaped area toward the lararium corner; those dining in the southwest oecus (Greek name for a garden dining pavilion) flanking the tablinum looked towards images of painted columns and pine trees in the corner lararium. Images in such painted scenes on walls and ceilings, as well as floor mosaics, often had multiple perspectives to accommodate the changing viewing angles of guests as they moved into and through spaces. For Roman architects and patrons, the experience of the spaces, not the drawing board symmetry of the plans, determined residential design. We have many examples where the basic components and sequences of a domus were achieved without orthogonal regularity, in part responding to the irregularity of city streets or to sequential alterations over time, indicating that the textbook model of a symmetrical layout was not as important to the Romans as we think. In fact, the 252

slight shifts off-axis of doors, windows, and other openings actually enhanced the depth and layering of spaces. A syncopated sequence of low-to-high ceilings, dark-to-light spaces, splashing fountains and quiet rooms punctuated movement through the Roman house, all shaped by daily ritual. At the large and opulent House of the Faun in Pompeii (Figure 5.7) excavators uncovered a rich decorative program. Encompassing around 3,000 square meters, this residence occupied an entire city block, or insula. It dates primarily to the early second century bce, when the city experienced its first major architectural and artistic development under Samnite influence. With two atriums (or atria if you want to use the Latin form of the plural), two peristyles, and two suites, the house offered numerous opportunities for display. An impressively large external doorway (c. 4 m high) flanked by tall Tuscan pilasters in grim local tufa led into a vestibule and a sloping fauces floor embellished

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figure 5.7 Plan of the House of the Faun, Pompeii; rendered by Güzden Varinlioglu and Diane Favro.

with colorful pictorial mosaics (Figure 5.8; also see earlier); the walls of the entry boasted first style paintings and miniaturized, three-dimensional stage façades. In the grand atrium space dark slate flooring contrasted

with the white limestone edging the impluvium pool lined with colorful marbles in an intricate diamond pattern. A broad window in the tablinum opened into the beautiful Ionic peristyle, almost directly on axis 253

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figure 5.8 Entrance door flanked by Tuscan pilasters, House of the Faun on the Via della Fortuna, Pompeii; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

with a large exedra fronted by two columns where approaching guests feasted their eyes on an artistic showpiece (Figure 5.9). The exedra’s floor was inlaid with an exquisite mosaic reproduction of a famous Hellenistic painting showing Alexander the Great in battle (“Battle of Issus”). Probably the work of a Greek artist, this piece overtly proclaimed the occupants’ sophistication and education – although its peculiar cultural context and architectural setting make the experience a wholly Roman one. Oriented toward the peristyle to maximize legibility by all visitors, the costly artwork was probably the subject of many a conversation, even though wear on the surface indicates it was repeatedly walked over. At the back of this dining space another window may have afforded a view into the next, even-larger peristyle with forty-four Doric columns defining a rectangular space covering about one third of the entire residential property. Despite their grim elegance these grand houses owned by the local aristocracy bespeak of their owners’ growing taste for Greek art and luxuria while remaining Roman – one could compare such phenomena to the passionate interest in European art by some of America’s leading financial tycoons of the late nineteenth century, such as 254

J. P. Morgan, who remained at core staunchly and patriotically American. The eastern suite at the House of the Faun was less well appointed than that on the west (see Figure 5.7). Entry by a separate street entrance led to a small tetrastyle atrium (with four columns supporting the compluvium roof ). The surrounding cubicula were smaller and darker than those on the western suite of the domus and had less furniture. A hall led directly to the kitchen, a simple affair with a water basin as was typical in Roman houses. A furnace provided heat for the hypocaust of the adjacent small bath and run-off water from both spaces flushed an adjacent latrine. It appears that the residents of the eastern suite of the House of the Faun had a lesser status than those on the west, as evident even from in the lack of care in creating sophisticated visual axes and privileged views. On the western side of the mansion the sightline passed from the dark fauces, across the shimmering impluvium, through the shadowy tablinum and two garden peristyles to terminate at the embellished exedra in the distant property wall. On the east, the view from the entry terminated grimly at the rear wall of the atrium. Without solid evidence, scholars debate whether the

Residential Architecture

figure 5.9 View of the Ionic peristyle, with glimpses of the grand Doric peristyle behind looking north, House of the Faun, Pompeii; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

occupants of this portion of the House of the Faun were “poor cousins,” dependent clients, or domestic servants. The latter seems unlikely. Numerous slaves and servants lived in Roman houses; moving along dark corridors and on the peripheries of rooms throughout the entire domus they were ever present. They had no rooms of their own. At the House of Menander, the servants slept in underground chambers; in other houses they occupied peripheral storage rooms, small chambers on the upper floors, or simply the floor outside the master’s bedroom. With the establishment of an Imperial system, patricians found their power eroding and along with it the need for carefully staged public displays in the atria of their homes. As networking became a more private affair, the highly adaptable, brightly lit, and more sequestered peristyle siphoned off activities and expenditures. Increasingly, atriums shrank in size, transforming the once all-important courtyard into a relatively dark circulation hall. In the House of the Golden Cupids in Pompeii (830 sq m), visitors looked over a small impluvium on axis with the tablinum, but soon had their attention drawn toward a magnificent, sun filled peristyle visible through a corner doorway (Figure 5.10). Moving in to the

colonnaded space, they found the family shrine (lararium) now relocated from the atrium to a shady northern peristyle wing. A quick glance revealed a clear hierarchical emphasis, in notable contrast to the uniformity of earlier peristyles. On the western side, the columns were taller, a configuration known as a Rhodian peristyle. Even more startling, a stagelike façade with flat Corinthian pilasters accenting the doorway and a lofty gabled entablature indicated the location of an important space, the oecus. Usually behind the colonnade of a peristyle, at the House of the Golden Cupids the oecus instead pushed forward assertively to establish a new dominant axis with a long pool. The thwarting of expectations and theatrical treatment of familiar forms within a landscaped setting echoed similar design strategies in contemporary Roman villas. Yet, even when the textbook model of a centrally and symmetrically disposed atrium was replaced by one that was off-axis, asymmetrical, and irregular, this internalized volume retained the appearance of centrality and prominence – which may explain why the atrium even in vestigal form was almost always retained as the organizing space of the traditional Roman domus. 255

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figure 5.10 Axonometric reconstruction drawing and plan of the House of the Golden Cupids, Pompeii; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Gros).

By the first century bce, Roman homeowners underscored their taste for leisured living by incorporating features of elite Roman villas into their urban residences. At the House of Loreius Tiburtinus (also known as the House of Octavius Quartio) in Pompeii, guests could enjoy a multitude of sensory experiences that emulated those found in luxury country estates (Figure 5.11). Passing through the relatively dark atrium, they entered a charming, highly decorated small peristyle opening to a view of an expansive back garden (c. 1,800 sq m). A long east/west upper canal stocked with fish ran its entire length partially sheltered by a pergola with leafy vines; at one end was an oecus, at the other an unroofed dining hall with two couches (a type that can be described as a biclinium as opposed to triclinium with three couches!). At the middle was a temple-like pergola above a fountain, a delicious setting for summer dining. The large central triclinium looked through the pergola to the larger, lower garden. From the upper fountain water cascaded down into an even longer north/south canal punctuated midway with another fountain, pavilions, and sculptures. Although the distant mountains could be seen hovering over the verdant landscape beyond the 256

rear wall of the garden, the immediate view was domesticated by wooden fencing and trellises. The overall effect was of a grand terraced country estate compressed within an urban block. Other Roman urban homeowners exploited the expansive sea views possible at the edges of Campanian cities where they indulged in maritime villa dreams. Built over the city walls at Herculaneum, the House of the Stags and the House of the Mosaic Atrium situated next to each other on top of a high terrace boasted wide open frontage and belvederes with spectacular views out to the sea (Figure 5.12 and 5.13). To forestall the chill of sea breezes but not light, the proprietor of the large House of the Mosaic Atrium (1,200 sq m) installed glass-filled windows in the ambulatory. Leaping some 1,200 kilometers to the east, the Roman prowess at terracing and exploitation of viewing opportunities is also evident at Ephesus in Asia Minor where a series of houses of two to three floors in height cascaded down the hill, the roof of one residence often serving as the terrace of the one above (see later), providing views of the mountains and, in most cases, the great sea port (Figures 10.118 and 10.120).

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figure 5.11 Plan and axonometric reconstruction, House of Loreius Tiburtinus, Pompeii; rendered by Güzden Varinlioglu.

THE DOMUS IN THE PROVINCES The housing configurations that evolved in Italy spread rapidly to the provinces. Examples of atriums and peristyle houses from across the Roman world demonstrate the great variety possible within the framework of this architectural form. The domus came in all sizes. The House of the Silver Bust at Vaison-la-Romaine (Vasio Vocontiorum) in southern Gaul was over twenty times larger than the average small atrium house at Pompeii (see later). Ever flexible, the Roman house expanded or contracted to serve the needs and status of the owner, and the demands of the context. Wealthy owners might include baths, reception rooms, viewing terraces, additional atria and peristyles, and extensive gardens; when circumstances prompted a need for revenue, a paterfamilias could sell off a portion of the domus, create additional rental units, or incorporate industries. Although layouts might change over time, place, and economic opportunities, the Roman domus always maintained a clearly articulated hierarchy of reception spaces that reinforced Roman social rituals. At faraway Munigua in the mountains of southern Spain, House 1 (c. 530 sq m) from the first century ce included a tetrastyle atrium (Figure 5.14). As with

houses in Italy, a symmetrical viewing axis directed the eye from the street entry to a big reception room. Two variations are worth noting with this example. Vestibule rooms replaced the narrow fauces; broad and tall, these passage spaces no longer contrasted dramatically with the atrium. The only large room on the relatively small lot, the reception space on axis with the entry was almost the exact same size as the atrium. From inside, guests looked through a tripartite opening to the columns and a light-filled area beneath the expansive compluvium whose opening was proportionally over twice (about 16 percent of the roof area) as large as that in the House of the Faun (about 6 percent). Taken as a whole, this configuration blurred architectural distinctions between tablinum/triclinium/oecus, and between atrium/peristyle. By the first century ce, the peristyle house was pervasive throughout the Roman Empire. When a veteran colony was established at Timgad in modern Algeria in 100 ce, even the smallest houses (400 sq m) had peristyles (see Figure 8.12). The dominance of the configuration in elite residences was logical given its pre-Roman penetration under Greek influence and the popularity of peristyle layouts in Italy at the time of Rome’s expansion and solidification of territorial 257

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figure 5.12 View of the House of the Mosaic Atrium (left) and House of the Stags (right) atop seaside terrace, Herculaneum; Photo by Diane Favro.

holdings. In the provinces, the internalized, crisply defined colonnaded peristyle with landscaping promoted relaxed networking between elite Romans and locals, mediating the atrium’s patron/client formality that might have been considered more oppressive. At the House of the Silver Bust, Vasion-la-Romaine, guests passed under a unifying portico along the street, then through a wide vestibule into a colonnaded space that equivocated in size and function between atrium and peristyle, a duality that has resulted in variant labeling by modern scholars (Figure 5.15). Beyond, a corridor led to a Rhodian peristyle with a pool on one side. In the second century ce, the House of the Skeletons (945 sq m) at Conimbriga, Portugal, likewise conflated the atrium and peristyle. Entering visitors saw the triclinium through a screen of eighteen closely-spaced columns enclosing a landscaped area with pool and fountain. In all houses, owner individuality must be taken into consideration. Despite the first-century vogue for peristyle houses, some proprietors preferred to maintain the atrium configuration even in a rudimentary form, perhaps in response to ancient descriptions, knowledge of extant examples in Italy, or simply personal conservatism. The House of the Dolphin at Vasion la Romaine began as a large villa with a Greek-inspired peristyle court; in the Flavian period a proprietor decided to emulate the venerated, if out of fashion, early form of the domus. He 258

added a tetrastyle atrium with the compluvium supported on four columns (tetrastyle atrium) on axis with a tablinum conflated with a triclinium. (Figure 5.16). The sequencing and forms of spaces implied the nostalgic endurance of traditional Roman daily rituals such as the meeting of clients in the atrium, even though by this date many social norms had long since changed (such as the conflation of tablinum with triclinium), with both semipublic and private activities occurring in the more relaxed atmosphere of the peristyle. Water features abounded in elite Roman urban residences, as occupants throughout the Roman world simulated the leisure world of the villas in their urban residences. The owner of the House of the Ocean Gods at Saint-Romain-en-Gal (Vienne), like that of the House of Loreius Tiburtinus in Pompeii, created a miniature villa environment with multiple peristyles, diverse levels, splashing fountains, u-shaped pools, and garden pavilions (Figure 5.17). In many ways the lifestyle promoted by peristyles and multiple pools was similar to that stimulated by Roman baths. Wealthy house owners added private bathing suites as a pleasurable means to further enhance their status. An owner of the House of the Silver Bust did not simply add a few heated rooms to his mansion; he purchased an entire adjacent public bath complex (see Figure 5.15). Opening access doors at the rear of his property, he

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figure 5.13 Plan of the House of the Mosaic Atrium (left) and House of the Stags (right) atop seaside terrace, Herculaneum; rendered by Güzden Varinlioglu.

readily incorporated the large exercise area (palaestra) and pool of the baths as a second residential peristyle, expanding his mansion to cover a staggeringly large area of more than 5,000 square meters. His solution was exceptional. Most Roman domestic baths, even in wealthy houses, were modest in size and scope. While the examples cited from Gaul included sprawling courtyards surrounding large gardens, those in the fortified cities in North Africa responded to local conditions with tightly constricted spaces. In the second century, Volubilis (Morocco) received a new, walled residential quarter with large houses lining a main porticoed boulevard and parallel streets. Within this restricted area, wealthy oil merchants erected regularized houses tightly organized around central peristyles. At the House of Venus (c. 1100 sq m, the size of

ten modern city apartments) the street entrance, vestibule, and a central peristyle court with a formally laid out pool facing a monumental triclinium were all along a single, powerful axis (Figure 5.18). Reached from the peristyle is a more private zone (southwest) composed of a secondary court, smaller dining rooms, and a sumptuous water court whose pool and fountains must have been a delightful response to Africa’s hot summers. Accessed from the central peristyle, but also from the street, the northwest quadrant of the house is entirely occupied by a finely designed bath suite, larger and more elaborate than a typical domestic bath. Other house designs addressed the specific climatic and urban conditions of North Africa. A group of houses partially underground in Bulla Regia (Tunisia) are distinguished by the most dramatic and picturesque methods of 259

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity protection against the summer heat (and considerable winter chill common in the hilly region). In the House of the Hunt (second century ce) the wealthy owners united several properties to create a large mansion (c. 2,000 sq m). The usual dining room, peristyle, cubicula, and a small bath were located on the ground level with a small upper floor of rooms (Figures 5.19 and 5.20). The residents occupied these mosaic-covered spaces during the cooler months. In the scorching heat of summer, the family retreated below ground where a

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figure 5.16 Plan and axonometric of the House of the Dolphin, Vaison-la-Romaine; rendered by Güzden Varinlioglu and Diane Favro (after Gros).

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figure 5.18 Plan of the House of the Venus Mosaic, Volubilis; rendered by Güzden Varinlioglu (after Ward Perkins).

parallel suite of rooms (141 sq m) surrounded the peristyle five meters lower than the first floor, with air circulating through pipes and airshafts. The design, however, addressed more than climatic concerns. Because local building techniques precluded multiple upper stories, the addition of subterranean rooms offered owners a viable alternative for residential expansion. In northern Syria and the Hauran the availability of ample stone and skilled masons resulted in

distinctly different solutions to house design. Construction was boastfully tectonic, with forceful stone post and lintel forms supporting several floors. In the wealthier residences of Banaqfur, Serdjilla, and Umm el-Jemal, two stories of porticos and deep courtyards convey Roman pretension, even if the interior layout did not incorporate the hierarchical spaces and sequences found in most Roman domus (see later, also Figures 11.83, 11.84). At the other end of the Empire in Britain, round houses, even for the elite, continued to be constructed in wattle and daub, thatch, and timber well in to the second century ce. Peristyle houses appeared slowly in this remote province, usually in locales where Roman settlers provided the associated social context and building expertise. At Venta Silurum (Caerwent), military officers and ambitious local merchants alike built houses with stone foundations and emphasized their Romanitas through the hierarchical distribution of reception spaces, and decorative schemes; in some instances, they commissioned wall paintings nostalgically depicting plants from the warmer climes of the Mediterranean. By the second century ce, the expanded use of concrete construction in Italy brought changes to the Roman courtyard house. At the luxurious House of the Muses at Ostia (749 sq m), the peristyle morphed 261

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figure 5.19 Plan of the House of the Hunt, Bulla Regia; rendered by Güzden Varinlioglu and Diane Favro (after Gros).

from a visually light architecture of trabeated columns into heavier appearing brick-faced concrete arcades (Figure 5.21). The strong structure supported several upper floors whose height reduced the light to the ground floor. The court’s form and mosaic decoration, however, reinforced the appropriate social cues regarding use and residential layout. As expected, a large tablinum/triclinium opened into the court, its special status marked by an elaborate mosaic, groin vault, and tripartite opening aligned with the peristyle arcade. 262

MULTIUNIT/MULTISTORY HOUSING The poet Martial boasted that people envied him as a well-known author, popular guest, recipient of special rights, good friend, and the owner of a small house in Rome (Epigrams 9.97). Like the American dream of having a detached single-family home with a white picket fence, the Roman dream of a domus with atrium and peristyle was only realized with substantial effort. Elite houses were costly. Not only

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figure 5.20 View of lower level peristyle, Bulla Regia; Photo by Diane Favro.

were the decorations and furnishings expensive, but houses with courtyards and only one or two floors were extravagant in major Roman cities with soaring real estate prices. In most urban environments, the majority of residents lived in modest, multiunit rentals in the upper floors of multistory structures. Researchers have in recent years turned their attention from houses of pretension to these more common, less richly appointed domiciles. The poor crowded together in dark rooms on the upper floors of tenements or slept on wood-floored mezzanines in shops (tabernae). Middle-class city dwellers with aspirations sought apartments that imitated the basic architectural design components of elite residences. Clear spatial hierarchies conveyed by the height and size of rooms, visual axes centered on reception rooms opening to well-lit circulation spaces, and illusionistic wall paintings all echoed the formats and decorations of the domus, if at a modest scale. Instead of gardens, renters in large apartments cultivated planter boxes that provided color, but as Martial noted could not accommodate the length of a single cucumber (11.18).

One effective way of maximizing space in a crowded city and affordable housing for middle- and working-class residents was to build upward – that is, multistory tenement housing, a concept and solution still with us. Especially in Rome and the nearby port of Ostia, high density and inflated real estate values prompted creative vertical solutions. Late Republican laws restricting wall thicknesses encouraged the use of brick-faced concrete and vaulting which could support several upper floors. With improvements in Roman concrete technology, especially from the Neronian period onward, structures with four, five, and perhaps more stories became possible. The bustling port of Ostia boasted especially large examples, with multifunction, multiunit commercial/residential units sheltering as many as three to four hundred occupants, the forerunners of the great residential complexes of today, such as the architect Le Corbusier’s modernist development called the Unite d’Habitation (1948–1950) in Marseilles with 337 apartment units, shopping mall, and medical and sporting facilities – an architectural and social effort to provide no-nonsense, low-cost housing for post–Second World War cities. Roman 263

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figure 5.21 Plan of the House of the Muses, Ostia; rendered by Güzden Varinlioglu (after Gros).

high-rise residences are generally called insulae, meaning “islands,” a name associated with city blocks that were surrounded when the streets filled with water. The Romans applied the term both to multiple-occupancy structures within an urban block and to single lodging units. According to the fourth-century Regionary Catalogues, Rome had 44,171 insulae and 1782 domus. The multistory House of Diana at Ostia of early Antonine date reveals a common configuration and size (footprint of over 400 sq m; see Figures 5.22 and 5.23). The multiuse, multiunit structure occupied a corner lot and stood a few steps above the sidewalks fronting two sides. Private stairs led from the street to rentals on the floors above. On the exterior, the crisply aligned and specially profiled bricks, and the use of polychromy and thin mortar lines created a clean, orderly pattern in the sunlight (as still evident with the extant remains), following the assumption of scholars, including us, that the façade was not covered in stucco. A narrow balcony projection (maenianum), typical of most high 264

rises in Ostia, provided a breathing space for the tenants and visual interest to the façade, as well as protecting shoppers from trash thrown from the windows above. Shops occupied all the valuable commercial space along the street; each had a mezzanine lit by a small window which could be used for storage and living. Behind was a central court with a cistern, the space surrounded by an arcade supported on hefty piers rather than colonnades, a configuration typical for this type of dwelling. Rising four or five stories (only three remain), the thick brick-faced concrete walls only allowed sunlight to reach the ground level court for a few hours of the day, although a playful ornamental pool probably livened up the space. Behind the arcades were isolated rental units and a large communal latrine. The building underwent numerous transformations between construction in the early second century ce and abandonment by the fifth century. Some of the lower apartments had high quality third-style wall paintings comparable to those decorating domus.

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figure 5.23 Reconstruction of the Insula of Diana, Ostia, by I. Gismondi (in Calza, 1923).

A nuclear family might occupy the spacious apartment on the lower floor of an insula with direct access to the court. These ground floor units were pricey. The higher one climbed in a Roman apartment building, the smaller and cheaper the apartments, with the poorest renters residing on the uppermost floors where they had to carry water up and refuse down steep stairs. Inscriptions confirm that rooms in apartments were often partitioned and sublet, decreasing privacy, but increasing revenues. Roman investors acknowledged the high profits (around 50 percent) to be made in urban real estate at major cities, though admitted that risks were high. Unscrupulous, greedy property owners sought to maximize rental space with little concern for tenant safety. They erected tottering structures that flaunted laws restricting building heights, and used cheap, flammable materials and ramshackle 266

construction techniques. The rhetorician Seneca in the early Imperial period wrote: “although residences have been designed for use and shelter, they are now a danger not a protection” (Controversiae 2.1.11). Fires frequently consumed insulae; shoddy construction by unscrupulous proprietors led to building collapses injuring residents and damaging adjoining buildings. Archaeological evidence as well as literary and judicial testimony indicate that at the end of the Republic, the megacity Rome lacked forceful building codes or zoning laws. Julius Caesar, later Augustus and Nero in the early decades of the Empire, tried to impose a certain number of regulations to insure a degree of order and safety, including restricting building heights to around 70 RF, yet the repeated passage of similar restrictions by later emperors indicates a lack of enforcement. Tall and shoddily built insulae were not

Residential Architecture only more likely to collapse in an earthquake but cast shadows on neighboring atrium houses, leading to servitudes and other private legal agreements to guarantee access to light. Unfortunately, low-class renters had little recourse when a structure owned by a wealthy and influential citizen collapsed, unless they had an even more influential patron to make a case on their behalf. The orator Cicero showed little concern when a shaky urban structure he owned prompted tenants and mice alike to flee (Ad Att. 14.9). After the major conflagration of 64 ce in Rome, Nero instituted more comprehensive and effective laws requiring insulae to be built in fire resistant materials, with front porticoes to provide readily access to fire fighters, a design solution that also benefitted thieves (see earlier). Like the domus, apartment units came in all sizes, from single rooms, to crowded multifamily spaces, to luxury units. Yet, constrained by structural demands and concerns for economy, both high- and low-rise residential buildings usually had the same general plan on all floors with only slight variation of internal division. At times the same plan was repeated in back-to-back units, much like the system popular with developers today. More costly units were organized around a long central room or medianum that operated in many of the same ways as an internal atrium, accommodating various domestic activities and access to other rooms. Dining and reception occurred in large, decorated rooms at either end of the medianum, usually with access to some light, a valuable commodity in Roman apartment buildings. Few insulae occupied by beleaguered, less-affluent renters remain standing. The small two-story House of the Opus Craticium at Herculaneum, which had only two (maybe two-andhalf ) apartments, a spacious central reception area, and a pleasant balcony (a “townhouse”), represented the upper end in shared accommodations (Figure 5.24; see also Figure 3.10 for exterior). At Ostia, a shrewd developer laid out a grand residential complex known as the Garden Apartments around 120 ce for a more affluent clientele (Figure 5.25). Buffered from urban noise by external shops along the streets, this well-conceived luxury residential complex had units opening on to a large garden court, with two freestanding structures in the center. At ground level were four medianum-type apartments (220 sq m, or c. 2,200 sq ft, each) all following the same basic footprint, and so arranged to allow units to be joined if the tenants desired. Archaeologists estimate three upper floors rose above to a height of about 18 meters, with running water reaching even the upper levels, an exceptional luxury. If wealthy renters were not available, landlords would rent out units or floors to middle men who would then sublet to others.

Roman cities did not have residential zoning. Certain urban areas developed their own character, such as the Palatine Hill in Rome that became an enclave of the senatorial class. In general, domus, apartment buildings, public monuments, temples, shops, markets, and industrial complexes mixed in a single neighborhood where people of all classes responded to the bells announcing the opening of local baths. The filtering of public activities into the Roman house was complimented by the reverse seepage of private actions into what we would consider the public domain. Much of what today takes place in the private house – from cooking to bathing to visiting to leisure activities – occurred in the broader public realm of the Roman city. This was especially true for the poorer residents of high-rise tenements. Given their dark and cramped interiors, they naturally conducted as many activities as possible in sunny and airy, and often well-decorated, public venues. The taste for strolling in the streets and plazas in the cool of the evening, the beloved passeggiata of modern Romans, is undoubtedly the historical legacy of ancient and medieval cities. Strolling through public quadriporticos such as the Porticus Liviae in Rome admiring the plantings, water features, and artworks, less affluent city dwellers enjoyed the same pleasures offered in a private peristyle. Public baths with their luxurious interiors, also offered an escape from the dusty streets and cramped residences, and a place to meet with friends and business associates; they were also known to be the best place to finagle a dinner invitation, perhaps while sitting in a communal latrine. In addition, periodic communal meals, like the grand banquet on twenty-two thousand dining couches allegedly given by Julius Caesar for all the residents of Rome, further served to domesticate the public realm. The conflation of residential and public activities and spaces united all urban occupants as participants in a singular way of life.

RESIDING IN THE COUNTRY: THE WORKING VILLA The simple, pure life in the countryside was a selfdefining trope for the Romans. In the Republican period and beyond, they equated agrarian life with simplicity, honesty, hard work, and high moral values. Relocation in the city brought complexity and distanced one from these virtues as evidenced in Horace’s story in the first century bce of the country mouse who was appalled by the hedonism and dangers of the city, and happily returned to his simple life in the country (Sat 2). Although the opposition between the countryside and the city, between rus et urbs, was overstated, the 267

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figure 5.24 House in Opus Craticium, Herculaneum; rendered by Güzden Varinlioglu and Diane Favro (after Gros).

Romans tenaciously, and sometimes artificially, maintained ties with the country long after they had moved to cities. Across the Empire, the urban domus adapted spatial configurations from rural farms, whereas the country villas in turn borrowed much from sophisticated urban dwellings. Central to the Roman aristocracy’s relationship to their country estates and villas were the concepts of work (negotium) and leisure (otium) in Roman culture. Work encompassing a hard engagement of business and politics in cities – especially in the megacity Rome – required (and deserved) the opportunity for rest, recreation, and mental peace. Broadly put, the city was for negotium; the 268

country for otium. That is part of the reason why the leaders of the Republic and later the Empire owned not only one, but many country villas, valued them, and looked forward to visit as an escape from the city. But leisure in the country did not mean mere idleness and superficial pleasure. Once in the country the owners would supervise their crops and other revenue-generating enterprises, engage in reading and writing, exercise, purify their psyches, and prepare for the next dreaded, but necessary, bout of urban experience. The term villa in Roman usage always had a precise legal meaning, encompassing a building in the country and its land (ager) that together constituted an estate

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figure 5.25 Plan of the Garden Apartments; rendered by Güzden Varinlioglu (after Gros).

(fundus). The physical and architectural meaning of the word was less precise. The definition applied equally to a small, modest residence occupied by a tenant farmer, or to a large, luxury property used sparingly by an aristocratic absentee landlord. Thus, the Roman villa was by nature a functional farm establishment, which became over time and usage more and more luxurious country residences of the upper class, although, naturally, small farm complexes existed continuously. Writing on agriculture in the first century ce Columella recommended that the scale of the primary farm buildings should be based on the total area of the farmland, and structures should be designed with three distinct types or parts; the main residence or villa urbana for the use by the landowner and resembling a city domus with dining areas, baths, and promenades oriented according to seasonal use; the farmhouse, or villa rustica for the workers (including slaves) and livestock with a large hall for communal activities and numerous work spaces; and the storage area or villa fructaria with ample space for farm tools and products (Rust.1.6.1–11; 18–24). Early working farms were simple affairs. In areas dependent on a combination of husbandry and tree crops, farmhouses evolved with a main rectangular residential block fronted by a courtyard

with flanking roofed spaces to shelter animals, tools, and produce (for a version of this basic arrangement variably known as the “porticus villa,” or “corridor villa,” etc., see later). The Via Gabina Villa (site 11) near the Via Praenestina about 15 kilometers east of Rome, reveals a typical evolution in architectural form and use. It began as a simple cluster of farm sheds (Figure 5.26). In the Republican phase of the third to second century bce, the site became a fully functioning working farm producing olives, grapes, and mixed grain. The main structure built of opus quadratum in reddish tufa had a large communal hall with several residential multipurpose rooms (cubicula) opening at the back, possibly with an attic for storing and drying crops. As agricultural demands increased with the expansion of Rome’s armies and acquisitions, the pragmatics of farm design were leavened with aesthetic embellishments. Over time the owners of the Via Gabina Villa paid for the interior walls of the residential rooms to be decorated with first Pompeian style wall paintings simulating costly ashlar stonework. Two projecting wings defined the front farm courtyard. A tower rose at the end of the east wing, probably serving as dovecote, drying room, and watch tower when dangers threatened (Figure 5.26). 269

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figure 5.26 Plans of the building phases of the Villa Gabina near the Via Praenestina; rendered by Diane Favro.

As the owners of this villa became more gentrified in the first century bce, they used the estate as much for leisure and entertainment as for agricultural production. Much of the renovations were in opus caementicium. The interior farm hall became an appealing circulation vestibule ornamented with wall paintings and mosaics; the farm garden morphed easily into a decorative environment. The large farm court (c. 184 sq m) was reduced to form a domestic courtyard room or atrium (29 sq m) that directly emulated those of urban residences, complete with a central pool and a reception hall leading to the more private areas beyond. By the first century ce, the Via Gabina villa rustica had become a luxury estate including a bath complex and elaborate garden façade overlooking a large swimming pool (piscina). The farm garden became an oasis for relaxation and contemplation; rooms were erected above the wings, and the external façade received a handsome doorway embellished with columns and a pediment. The needs and aspirations as well as the outward symbols of 270

gentility displayed by the masters of Via Gabina Villa and other comparable gentrified villas recall those of the country gentlemen of northern Italy for whom Palladio designed villas in the sixteenth century. In the second century CE the owners of the Gabina villa increasingly maximized agricultural production, renovating some of the residential spaces to accommodate various industries including a press for olive oil. In western Gaul local owners maintained the local pre-Roman tradition of small, scattered buildings. At the Villa du Magny at Port-sur-Saône in northeastern France during the Imperial period, aligned farm pavilions connected by walls defined an agricultural enclosure of 11 hectares (Figure 5.27). The design emphasized the owner’s wealth, status, and control over labor, while simultaneously protected the zones of production and cultivation. The design of this, as other villas, raises important questions about how much plans can tell us about how occupants used residential spaces. Archaeological evidence from the Villa du Magny indicates the individual pavilions served many purposes, being used for workers’ housing, small craft workshops, storage, and drying spaces. At this site, the rationalized planning of serialized out-buildings and the exploitation of unifying architectural proportions and grand scale, readily conveyed the owners’ participation in the commercial and cultural activity of the larger ancient world. Goods and influences flowed in both directions along the Saône River that led from the villa to the Rhône, and thus to the Mediterranean. We know little about the lives, allegiances, and relationships of the unprivileged, working people of these villas or the small landowners who found it hard to compete with the expansive holdings of the affluent and stay on their land. The military expansion of Rome during the late Republic and early Empire, drained much of the male labor in the countryside. At the same time, conquests further changed the labor market as thousands of slaves entered Italy as war booty. Wealthy Romans exploited the situation, creating large private estates (many composed of small, noncontiguous parcels), known as latifundia. As the precursors of today’s agribusiness, latifundia were largely self-sustaining, producing cash crops transported to markets across the Mediterranean. Thus, wheat grown in Sicily, North Africa, and Spain fed the hungry unemployed citizen peasants who flocked to Rome, where they could receive a free dole. In the second quarter of the first century bce, a wealthy family (perhaps the Sestii) erected an opulent country residence near Cosa north of Rome. Known as Settefinestre (Seven Windows) the double courtyard villa occupied a dominating position (Figures 5.28 and 5.29). Partly cut into a hilltop, the complex expanded

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figure 5.27 Reconstruction plan of the Imperial Villa du Magny at Port-sur-Saône; rendered by Diane Favro (after Gros).

to the northwest in the first century ce with a garden terrace supported on large barrel vaults forming a cryptoporticus used for both storage and shady strolls. Here a workforce of about fifty-two produced a diversified range of products, including oil, wine, fruit, cheese, and terracotta vessels for shipping. Visitors entering the complex from the south first passed through a large farm court surrounded by multipurpose rooms whose usage changed with seasonal needs. The small cells on the southwest side resemble the barracks of soldiers and have been tentatively identified as slaves’ quarters, yet the evidence is inconclusive. It is generally very difficult to identify what constitutes a slave dwelling or a slave room, though small, simple rooms around a courtyard, as we have at Settefinestre, are often taken as slave habitations in modern scholarship. The socially negligible status of slaves is here, as elsewhere, reflected by their architectural invisibility; G. Métraux felicitously observed, “Slaves were built into domestic space by being built out of it” (Métraux 2002,

395). According to A. Marzano these rooms at Settefinestre served as storage areas, although given the remarkable flexibility of functions typical of ancient architecture, there is no reason why they could not have served both (Marzano 2007, 129–134). Production activities such as milling and pressing clustered along the southwest side of the residential block in contiguous and separate structures, including an elaborate bath suite northeast of the residence next to the garden terrace. To the west, positioned at an angle rose a massive granary, and next on the southeast, the pigsty, an impressive, wellorganized and relatively hygienic courtyard building. It boasted twenty-seven separate rooms with concrete floors and a trough in each, animal amenities that naturally compel comparison with the human-occupied rooms of the estate forecourt. The experimentation with alternative cash crops in the late first century bce at Settefinestre coincided with a significant refurbishment of the main residential block located directly north of the farm courtyard and entered 271

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N figure 5.28 Plan of the Villa of Settefinestre, near Cosa; rendered by Diane Favro (after Gros).

from it. Roughly square in plan (150 RF per side) and encompassing 2,000 square meters, this part of the villa emulated the layouts common in urban houses. A long deliberate sightline ran from the narrow entry hall, over the atrium pond, across the peristyle, and through the gallery to the countryside beyond. Conversely, travelers moving along the road to Saturnia saw the walls of the lower garden with evenly spaced rounded towers sheltering dovecotes, a regional model found at two other Cosan villas (see Figure 5.29). Viewed from a distance, the stone walls and turrets projected the appearance of a city, underscoring the large scale of the estate. Once inside the villa, visitors encountered a decorative program that rivaled those of Campanian residences replete with mosaics and wall paintings in the second style. Whether periodically occupied by an absentee owner from Rome, or by a highly regarded estate manager, the residence block offered refined living, where luxury and leisure (otium) curtailed mundane thoughts about the bustling working farm just out of sight (and hopefully 272

smells). The exceptionally close relationship between the residence and the farm is noteworthy. In front of the rooms and tricliniums that opened outward ran trabeated galleries for strolling while enjoying the view of the walled gardens, the surrounding estate, the mountains, and the sea beyond. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the lavish expenditures on the residential parts of the villa, the owner’s fortunes began to decline; the building was abandoned by around the 160s. In many ways the Settefinestre complex followed the blueprints for farming and agricultural buildings described by Roman agronomists such as Varro who listed the ideal room orientations and sequencing for a working villa. Yet, Varro would not have appreciated its opulent amenities. Writing at the end of the Republic he still cherished the imagined early days of Roman existence when simplicity and efficiency shaped the architecture of Roman rural estates. Pliny the Younger in the first century ce wrote letters describing his seaside and mountain villas in different terms.

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figure 5.29 Perspective reconstruction of the Villa of Settefinestre; rendered by Marie Saldana.

figure 5.30, plate 8a Mosaic representation of a villa with end towers, Tabarka, Tunisia (Bardo Museum).

He minimized the agricultural importance of the villas, instead valuing country life for its tranquility that offered opportunities to read, think, and discuss philosophy without distractions; he famously included a room in his villa at Lake Como that admitted neither sound nor light, thus allowing him to focus his mental processes. Such posturing was contrived. Both Varro’s bucolic conceptualization of the villa, and Pliny’s contemplative one, faded rapidly as a mania for luxury villa retreats swept through Roman society.

P O R TI CU S V IL L A WI TH EN D T OW E R S

One of the most eye-catching images of a country estate comes from a mosaic found in a fourth-century ce villa in Tabarka, Tunisia (Bardo Museum). In simple, toy-like formation the mosaic shows a long, arcaded gallery articulated at both ends by towers behind what appears to be domes or a vaulted front wing (Figure 5.30, Plate 8A). The image has been restored as a farm complex with a modest farmyard 273

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity between two wings, an arched entrance from one side, surrounded by vegetation, fruit trees, ducks and geese. Well remembered for its iconic simplicity, it depicts a quintessentially North African working villa whose architecture responds to climatic conditions with airy upper story arcades and to the security concerns of late antiquity with sturdy watch towers. A similar but more elaborate mosaic from Carthage represents the luxurious estate of Dominus Julius and his wife arranged in three tiers with charming vignettes depicting the labors and joys of agricultural pursuits (not illustrated). In the center, dominating the composition is the villa, its open second-story arcade rising over a massive ashlar wall axially accentuated by a monumental door. The ends of the wide façade are fortified by towers behind which can be seen the multiple domes of the villa baths. These attractive villascapes are only a few examples from a far larger category that varies from basic houses of peasant farmers to the ostentatious villa urbana of country gentry represented by hundreds of examples from North Africa, Gaul, northern Europe, and England. Variably and loosely described as the “hall-type,” “corridor villa,” “porticoed villa,” or “villa with porticoed façade,” it is a group demonstrating exceptional flexibility. Observing its wide geographical, chronological, and morphological diversity, P. Gros aptly warns his readers against easy and superficial typologies, although, like us, no doubt for reasons of convenience, reserves a subsection of his comprehensive L’architecture romaine (vol. 2) to a good review of this protean “type” (Gros 2006, 2, 322–341). In its basic form, the hall-type or the corridor villa (as opposed to the “courtyard villa”) can be described as a “house with a simple portico along its front, usually open on its outer side with a lean-to roof” (Collingwood 1930, 121–123). Perhaps, the type goes back to the simple house or palace type known as “bit-hilani” (meaning “house of pillars” in Akkadian) of early Iron Age Anatolia, such as the “palace” at Larisa, in western Turkey. In Europe, the simpler farm buildings of the corridor plan might predate the Roman occupation. The fundamental model was excavated in 1928 in Mayen in Rheineland (western Germany): a central rectangular hall (15  9 m) with a columnar façade stretches between a pair of solid, square, masonry towers with no internal divisions (Figure 5.31). In some examples the central hall might have been used by humans and animals indiscriminately, but the addition of a columnar façade, a visual pleasure, signified the segregation of functions. The use of the taller end pavilions or “towers” remains vague. In the developed examples with interior divisions, the sturdy boxes were clearly used as living and sleeping quarters, like the keep of a medieval castle; those 274

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figure 5.31 Plan and elevation of a villa at Mayen in Rhineland; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Gros).

without any interior articulation might have served agricultural functions, such as dovecotes, storage, drying of farm produce, meats and curing hides. At Stahl and Blankenheim, also in the Rheineland, the core hall is articulated by secondary rooms while the strongly projecting end “towers” create a prominent façade and forecourt (Figure 5.32). The latter, axially accentuated by a monumental hall and a U-shaped portico reached by symmetrically disposed stairs, is in every way a country villa. Another textbook example of the corridor villa is from Köln-Müngersdorf dated circa 90–100 ce, displaying a barnlike, basilica-like main hall with untidily drawn internal divisions answering utilitarian needs. The irregularity of these spaces is hidden behind a façade articulated by a winged portico and anchored by a pair of square end blocks. The grandest of these German farmsteads is the second- to third-century ce Villa at Nennig on the Moselle River, whose 150-meter-long, two-story, colonnaded façade, solid end towers, elaborate projecting wings, and rich floor mosaics identify it as a country seat of power and significance (Figure 5.33). Yet, while an immense distance of complexity and sophistication separates Nennig from Mayen, the main lines of the underlying architectural composition are basically the same. In England, too, the second century phase of the Villa at Gadebridge Park (Hertfordshire) transformed its simpler porticus-and-tower façade formation into a courtyard type by turning the central block backward into a U-shaped farmyard (Figure 5.34).

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figure 5.32 Plan and elevation of a villa at Blankenheim, Rhineland; rendered by Diane Favro (after Gros).

Other simpler variants extending from the mid-first to the fourth centuries ce and described by J. Percival as the basic “corridor-type” with end towers can be seen at the villa in Lockleys (Hertfordshire), or the farm house at Frocester Court (Gloucestershire) (Percival 1976, 91–105). An important point here is the realization that the basic hall-type or porticus-type formulations do not necessarily represent a chronological development from simpler toward more elaborate architectural and sociological forms, though some of the most basic, stripped versions of the type tend to predate the Romans. The variations result from need or opportunity, or both – simpler and more complex types can exist together. There is, however, a clear social and aesthetic dimension in the choice of particular plans and the creation

of visually pleasing, formally composed and sometimes imposing facades hiding more mundane farm functions. Our examples mainly come from the European provinces, with a few (on mosaics) from North Africa. J. T. Smith, who has undertaken a detailed analysis and classification of the group with thousands of examples, does not include any from Italy and Greece, though he observes that “. . . (Italy) will certainly be enlightening when more villas are properly dug” (Smith 1997, 3). Although a formally composed porticus villa with double end towers – of the Tabarka type – is rare or nonexistent in Italy, the combination of farm houses and villas with towers, turrets, and belvederes is not. The Villa Contrada Mirabile near Lilybaeum in western Sicily probably represents a “three-sided peristyle” with two end towers. With one end tower of the 275

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figure 5.33 Plan and elevation of a villa at Nennig on the Moselle River; rendered by Diane Favro (after Gros).

façade is preserved, it is easy to restore it as a double tower façade with a courtyard behind comparable to the mosaic villa of Dominus Julius from Carthage, a site that produced real examples of this type. Curiously, this is the type of Greek house known to Vitruvius probably from Magna Graecia, and described by him, rather than the full peristyle with four corner towers typical of the eastern Mediterranean (De Arch. 6.7). In tracing the elements of villa architecture in that mixture of African and Hellenistic elements brought to Italian soil, E. Fentress underlines the “connectivity between the Punic and Sicilian (agrarian) elites, a connectivity that would eventually result in the sort of fusion between the two” as witnessed in the plan of the Lilybaeum villa with its distinctive towers (Fentress 2013, 176; 1998, 37). Although the archaeological record is not clear about such farmsteads with towers in peninsular Italy, they must have existed and resembled the grim, castlelike villa of Scipio Africanus with “towers (that) buttressed the house on both sides,” described by Seneca, or the villas of leaders like Gaius Marius, Gnaeus Pompey and Julius Caesar located on mountain-tops, like soldiers; these were, in every aspect “non villas esse, sed castra ” “not villas [pleasure estates], they were military camps” (Seneca Ep 86.4; 51.11). 276

A difference should be observed between corner or end towers that establish a formal composition and their free representations in Pompeian paintings and sacro-idyllic landscapes as informal, airy belvederes. Even now, country estates in Italy and Sicily display towers or belvederes (for utilitarian, pleasure, even security reasons) picturesquely attached to, or freestanding among, farm buildings and umbrella pines.

THE LUXURY ESTATE By the early Empire, the Roman elite increasingly relied on their rural estates to convey personal wealth, connections, urban pretensions, and identity. Everyone had to have a villa or, better yet, several. Cicero, a man of modest wealth, owned at least seven in his lifetime. In one documented example, a villa in Tusculum changed hands at least five times in fifty years. Extravagant villas not only provided the proprietors hours and months of enjoyment, they also satisfied traditional notions that agrarian pursuits and country land were the only respectable investments. To be a successful farmer was an elite ideal. Despite the unrelenting emphasis on presentation and status in villa designs,

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figure 5.34 Axonometric reconstruction of a villa at Gadebridge Park, Hertfordshire; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Gros).

we should not forget that even the most opulent maintained some type of production – from staples as olive oil and wine, to luxury items including flowers, exotic fish, peacocks, and oysters. Relatively near to all the important capital city of Rome, yet far enough away to minimize criticism for conspicuous consumption, the Bay of Naples became a preferred site for absolute indulgence by the super-rich. Nowhere else in the Roman world were elite villas so numerous, so opulent, and so dense. During the summer season the wealthy sailed south from Rome or (less common) formed great caravans of luxury carriages with silken curtains, trailed by servants and dependent clients. At their seaside estates they revelled in the cool sea breezes, but always with an eye to improve their fortunes by cementing political affiliations. The major business of the Campanian villas was power. When the young Octavian (later Augustus) rushed back from Greece after learning he had been made heir to Julius Caesar, he went

first to the Bay of Naples, not Rome, to garner support. The opulent private residences with multiple dining rooms for every season, libraries, steamy bath complexes, fish ponds, multiple viewing terraces, gardens and porticos replete with extensive art collections and lavish furnishings were not just privileged settings for contemplation but also for political networking. Architects gave special consideration to layered views and lighting. During the day, the sunlit courtyards drew attention, while occupants of the shadowy surrounding rooms conferred in semi-privacy while watching strollers move through the peristyles. Ancient authors describe deluxe villas by type, though the terminology was not always consistently applied. A villa suburbana stood within easy range of a major urban power center. A villa rustica nestled in the hinterland and was overseen by a manager and visited occasionally; ideally it should generate revenues that could help pay for ostentatious estates by the water. The 277

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figure 5.35 Wall painting of maritime villas from the House of M. Lucretius Fronto, Pompeii; American Academy in Rome – Fototeca Unione.

villa maritima hugged the coast and was filled during the summer season, as charmingly illustrated in paintings (Figure 5.35). Estates proliferated along the western coast of Italy from the second century bce onward and by the first century ce lined kilometer after kilometer of shoreline in Italy, North Africa, Dalmatia, and Spain. Most elite travelers approached maritime villas from the water. Embellished with towers and rising on multiple levels above massive retaining walls, coastal villas appeared collectively as cities and thus discouraged attacks by pirates, a long and serious threat during the Republic. Some even provided effective staging areas for military campaigns. For example, the large fish farm (piscina) at the Villa of Torre Astura (on the coast south of Rome) covered 15,000 square meters, growing large enough to provision an entire fleet. Regardless of the type and opulence of the villa, the colonnade or the portico was an essential and identifying component, imparting a gracious and stately exterior image as well as defining open-air enclosures within. The trabeated spaces used in villas can be summarized in three types: the quadriporticus or peristyle courtyard enclosure; the colonnaded façade wrap where rows of columns mask and shade the building and provide a protected frontal area to sit or walk; and the ambulatio, a long colonnaded wing extending along a landscape feature such as a ridge offering a pleasant prospect for strolling, enjoying views, or seclusion; often the latter terminated with a belvedere or roofed 278

pavilion. Of course, this is not a scientific classification of villas, but rather a loose description of their identifying characteristics; some villas combined all of these features in grand assemblages. The eruption of Vesuvius enshrined numerous villas in mud and ash, preserving not only the architectural form but also invaluable data on villa life. Just outside the city of Herculaneum, the sumptuous Villa of the Papyri was first explored in the mid-eighteenth century when excavators dug down through meters of hardened lava, crawling through toxic tunnels to explore the remains. The carefully mapped results revealed a villa of over 20,000 square meters, running over 250 meters parallel to the sea (Figure 5.36). The villa’s name comes from the sensational discovery of eighteen hundred papyrus scrolls in the library of the owner, possibly Lucius Calpurinius Piso Caesonius, the father-in-law of Julius Caesar. Scholars have determined the majority are Greek texts relating to Epicureanism and anticipate further excavations will uncover a Latin library. The sophisticated villa owner was an avid art as well as papyrus collector, filling his sumptuous residence with valuable sculptures, the majority in bronze, with busts of philosophers and statesmen, and statues of racers and animals, but few representations of gods. The disaster of 79 ce allows us to identify the original locations of the pieces strategically placed amid carefully manicured peristyle gardens, reflected in cool pools, and fronting shady internal colonnades.

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figure 5.36 Plan of the Villa of the Papyri, Herculaneum, showing hypothetical ramps up from the sea; projected meters above sea level [masl] are indicated on the right; rendered by Diane Favro.

Refined second style paintings covered most of the excavated walls with only a few examples of more modern fourth style works, possibly a reflection of the owner’s conservatism. Several porticoed internal courtyards generated the overall design of the Villa of the Papyri. Excavations have not clarified the approach from the land; in any event, this entry was secondary. Elite guests usually arrived by boat. Moving up at least four levels of ramps and stairways, they formally entered through a shady external portico on the peristyle level. After they passed through a wide vestibule that replaced the narrow fauces of urban houses, visitors arrived at the atrium with a square pool. On axis beyond lay a sunny, square peristyle court (c. 900 sq m) with Ionic columns screening a large tablinum (c. 100 sq m) and lararium. Visitors who turned toward the east discovered yet another court with a library and other rooms filled with rich furnishings, paintings, and mosaics, as well as a grand reception hall at a lower level. West of the main atrium axis the architect of a second phase laid out a 100-meter-long peristyle enclosing a formal garden with an axial pool paralleling the coast. In order to modulate visitor reactions and maintain the interiority of the peristyle, the grand colonnade did not open to the sea. Instead, small windows carefully framed sea views emulating a sequence of small panel paintings hung on the wall. To the west a path led to a distant circular belvedere. Throughout the vertically and horizontally sprawling complex the creators carefully programmed the sightlines, sounds, smells, textures, and other experiences. An approximation of the

sequencing and richness of sensorial features in a Roman villa can be had from a visit to the Getty Villa Malibu Museum (opened in 1974) whose form, decoration, and coastal siting was inspired by the Villa of the Papyri (Figure 5.37). The Maritime Villa at Oplontis (aka Villa Poppea) at Torre Annunziata on the Bay of Naples suffered damage after the earthquake of 62 ce, necessitating major renovations still underway when Mount Vesuvius erupted. By that time, the mansion probably belonged to the emperor Nero and his wife Poppea. Elaborate mosaics and frescoes covered elite and working areas alike, including examples of second, third, and fourth style wall paintings. In Room 15, the whole expanse of the wall was transformed by an oblique view of a monumental two-storied colonnade enclosure enlivened with theatrical masks, peacocks, a tripod, and rich colors, as if offering a glimpse of yet another courtyard within the sprawling villa estate (Figure 5.38, Plate 8B). The permeability of viewing from real to painted must have enchanted viewers. When shoreline real estate became difficult to acquire, elite owners constructed villas on elevated outcroppings to acquire expansive views, if not direct contact, with the water. On the hill overlooking the Bay of Naples privileged owners created a dense neighborhood of luxury villas at Stabiae. Rich owners bought and sold, furbished and refurbished their residences in an unrelenting competition, creating a “neighborhood” of villas, an oxymoron if ever there was one. Hovering on the cliff edge, the large Villa of San Marco (11,000 sq m) was among the most impressive among many. 279

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figure 5.37 View of the grand peristyle with pool at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, based on the Villa of the Papyri; Photo by Diane Favro.

figure 5.38, plate 8b Room 15 of the Villa at Oplontis with painted monumental colonnades in two stories; © Paul Bardagjy. Courtesy the Oplontis Project.

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All along the shores of the Mediterranean, extroverted villa colonnades signaled leisure, wealth, and lack of fear of either natural or human threats. Possibly as early as the third century bce, the Villa of the Mysteries (5,600 sq m) just outside Pompeii, had porticoes on three sides (Figure 5.39). Standing a mere 400 meters outside Pompeii, this suburban structure was of the compact platform type also seen at Settefinestre, with the western block and narrow surrounding garden supported by a concrete vaulted cryptoporticus. The exterior portico shaded the western rooms looking out to the sea, including a large oecus or triclinum on the southwest painted on all four walls with an elaborate ritual scene, possibly representing Dionysiac mysteries (hence giving the modern name the villa). For people looking at the western exterior, the façade-wrapped portico clearly identified the structure as a villa, not an urban domus. Guests entering the residence had this distinction reinforced by the axial sequence running from the street, through a porticoed court (or peristyle), and then to the atrium, a rural configuration that transposed the sequential ordering of spaces found in the urban domus (Vitr. De Arch. 6.5.3). This reversal has been subtly interpreted as a way of introducing a sophisticated sense of ambiguity between town and country, the dwelling of each type vaguely reminding one of the other. In the first century ce, the owner removed part of the portico to make way for an attractive projecting exedra that recalled the garden pavilions of larger estates; there are some signs of yet more changes in the villa effected after the earthquake of 62 ce when the features of suburban luxury were mildly mixed and compromised by elements of a working farm; these might have been due to the short-term financial ups and downs that were typical in Pompeii of the transitory period between the earthquake and the final calamity. In the cooler climes of southern Britain, a number of internalized peristyle villas appeared in the second half of the first century ce, possibly erected by immigrant Italian craftsmen familiar with the type. At Fisbourne in the area of Sussex a granary depot for provisioning Roman troops morphed into successive residences. By the late first century ce, it formed a great villa for a local chieftain (possibly the pro-Roman king Cogidubnus) who tried to introduce Roman ways to his people through architecture (Figure 5.40). Occupying an area of ten acres (or c. 20,000 sq m), the huge complex was defined by its vast interior peristylegarden (c. 105  85 m) with formal planting including clipped hedges and lush topiary. Visitors entered from the east through a grand entrance hall with a

pedimented hexastyle façade. A processional sequence calculated to impress followed the main axis of the villa and terminated in an apsed space also embellished with a pedimented front, probably the audience hall for the king in his active years as well as in his retirement. The north and a part of the east wing contained suites or rooms arranged around small peristyle courts, each recalling the rough configuration of a domus. In the northeast corner there was a columnar basilica and in the southeast a fairly elaborate bath. The upper walls are gone, but the opulent polychrome mosaic floors provide an invaluable, but imperfect, testimony to the refined, classical taste of the patron and builders in this remote northern province at almost the same time Domitian was busy erecting his sumptuous Palatine residence in Rome. If the enclosed, internalized peristyle layout of Fishbourne represents one approach to villa design, the sumptuous villas that evolved early on the Adriatic with their long colonnades embracing the coastline and relating them to their natural setting, represent another. The villa known as Val Catena on Brijuni Island (Croatia) was a productive estate in the late first century ce (Figure 5.41). Comprised of many loosely attached parts, the layout of the villa stretched along the shores of a deep inlet forming the Verige Bay transforming the raw potential of its unique site into a comprehensive union of nature and architecture. Inspired by Hellenistic villas and palaces, a pair of residential peristyles stood on the southern shore unified by a grand, u-shaped colonnade and sea-terrace. It is postulated that the owner’s family occupied the west peristyle (villa urbana) set on several terraces, while the farm administrators and workers took the peristyle on the east (villa rustica). The importance of the land approach was minimized. A small entry on the west wound up a flight of dark, narrow stairs and burst into the sunlit peristyle of the western block. However, as in the Bay of Naples, most visitors probably used the more dramatic approach by sea. At the head of the deep inlet, connecting the main residence to the development along the north shore was a large, apsidal Doric portico and a curved terrace which featured three small temples, probably intended as architectural follies, to create a precious paysage. The real architectural “playground” was the irregular and inventive elements of the villa stretched along the north shore, looking south. A porticoed ambulatio, some 140 m. long, faced the residence across the bay. Baths, a library, a palaestra, several shrines were scenographically placed along the water. Of particular interest was an exedral unit articulated by a projecting apsidal dining pavilion in the center, balanced on the east by a bath suite and on the west, by a large peristyle court, perhaps a palaestra. 281

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figure 5.39 Plans of original and final phases of the Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii; rendered by Güzden Varinlioglu.

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walled gardens, and projecting piers integrated the beauty of nature and the luxury of the manmade into an experience of privileged living – all served by an immense cistern with many barrel-vaulted chambers. Val Catena must have appeared much like the maritime

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figure 5.40 Reconstruction axonometric and plan of the villa at Fishbourne, England; rendered by Marie Saldaña and Diane Favro (after Gros).

villascapes gracing the walls of many a Campanian house, only bigger and better. In North Africa during the second century ce, rich naval traders built numerous villas to the east and west

of Lepcis Magna, seeking to develop both prestige and mooring sites after attempts to improve the city’s harbor failed. One such residence, the Villa dell’Odeon at Silin, rose above an artificial harbor cut into the 283

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figure 5.41 Reconstructed plan and view of the Villa Val Catena on Verige Bay, Brijuni Island, Dalmatia; rendered by Marie Saldana and Diane Favro (after Dvorzak).

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Residential Architecture stone (Figure 5.42). The 20-meter-long main villa block protected an inland garden from salt-laden breezes; toward the sea, a fronting colonnade framed by semioctagonal pavilions lay open to expansive views and fresh northern winds. Unable to incorporate plantings on this side, the designer exploited hard surface landscaping, using a rock mass near the water’s edge as a focal point defining the building’s central axis. Curved stairs formed a theatrical interface between the porticoed residence, the natural sculpture, and the sea, in effect staging nature for the enjoyment of sophisticated provincial nabobs.

IMPERIAL ESTATES Octavian (Augustus) purchased the entire island of Capri with its numerous villas, each with different views and climates. Capri was attractive as much for its beauty as for its protective isolation. Tiberius, Augustus’ successor, retired to the island in 27 ce; there he moved from one villa to another while continuing to run the empire. The largest, the Villa Jovis, covered over 7,000 square meters on top of an isolated high crag at the island’s eastern edge with dizzying views of the sea 300 meters below, but with no direct access by water. Atop a large cistern, a showpiece of concrete technology, the designers laid out a grand peristyle court surrounded by various rooms and a bath suite. A wide hall led to a semicircular loggia with broad external views of the shore, and smaller rooms angled to present more curated views (Figure 5.43). Although Tiberius’ foes characterized the villa as a locus of aberrant behavior, it stood as an overt testimony to Roman architectural and structural ingenuity. The Villa Jovis offered a positive symphony of ambivalence, with open and covered, internalized and externalized, manmade and natural spaces. Defying nature on a dry island, a complicated hydraulic system collected ample fresh rainwater to sustain the gardens, baths, and occupants of the isolated site. Engineers cut away the living rock and poured concrete vaults to support terraces and floors rising over 40 meters across eight levels. Tiberius occupied a highly secure suite on the northern edge of the villa reached by a single access descending over 20 meters to a long ambulatio-terrace with a pair of rectangular exedrae with seats that fronted a magnificent vaulted dining area and other rooms. A proliferation of other Imperial residences across Capri revealed both a concern with security, and a desire to provide a diversity of residential-scale settings and a strong tie with nature.

The ability to command an enormous workforce allowed emperors to undertake larger and larger manipulations of the natural environment. At Sperlonga, situated on the shore about halfway between Rome and the Bay of Naples, Tiberius acquired a maritime villa laid out in the late Republican period. There he extensively reworked a cave on the sea to create a scenographic setting for villa dining (Figures 5.44 and 5.45). Workers deepened the sea pools, added concrete walls and floors, attached roof-panels embellished with mosaics and stucco, paved a platform with polychrome marbles, cut seats in the living rock, walled a circular pond with a diameter of about 38 meters, and fashioned an artificial island with a triclinium area and fishpond. In the transformed “natural” setting, gigantic white marble statues in a theatrical Hellenistic style represented scenes from the Odyssey, most famously the blinding of the Cyclops Polyphemos and Scylla’s attack on Ulysses’ men. The result was a complete escapist environment, uniting architecture, sculpture, and remodeled landscape – and a creative, idiosyncratic design that cannot be expected to fit into any set villa type. A similarly evocative nyphaeum-triclinium hall today lies underwater at Punta dell’Epitaffio near Baiae, possibly part of a seaside villa owned by the emperor Claudius (Figure 5.46). One imagines that visitors originally sailed into the rectangular room through a canal “gliding noiselessly” through a wide brick arch on the east as “eerie reflections from the water played across the shimmering mosaic surfaces,” while they admired dynastic images of Claudius’s family situated in rectangular niches along the sides (Yegül 1996, 159). At the west end, a deep semidomed apse with a stone floor emulating a cave embraced another sculptural group showing the Homeric story of the Blinding of the Cyclops and a fountain. A canal along the walls along with the apse and central pool in white marble with splashing spigots exploited the theatricality of water. Dining couches on three sides of the pool created a setting much like the fountain house-dining alcove described by Pliny in his Tuscan villa. Clearly Roman dining was theater. Pliny wrote of an impressive array of dishes and appetizers arranged on the marble edge of a pool; condiments and sauces would, in Pliny’s words, “float about in vessels shaped like birds or little boats,” while shellfish and oysters would be ready to be pulled up at the end of fine threads. These lessons were not lost to Hadrian when he created the scenic nymphaeum triclinium at the head of the “Canopus” canal in his famous villa at Tivoli (see below). In the Julio-Claudian period, patrons increasingly distinguished their country estates by reshaping the

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figure 5.42 Plan and reconstruction of the Villa dell’Odeon, Silin, Libya; rendered by Diane Favro (after Salza Prini Ricotti).

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figure 5.44 Plan of the imperial villa of Tiberius at Sperlonga; rendered by Marie Saldaña and Diane Favro.

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figure 5.45 Reconstruction of the island triclinium and cave of the imperial villa at Sperlonga; rendered by Marie Saldaña.

overall environments through massive engineering projects. When road access from Naples to his sumptuous villa proved too time consuming in the late first century bce, the wealthy equestrian Vedius Pollio carved a private tunnel 770 meters long through the hill of Posillipo. But it was the emperors with their vast resources and well-trained state workers who undertook the most extravagant engineering projects. Suetonius wrote that Tiberius’ successor Caligula: built villas and country houses with utter disregard of expense, caring for nothing so much as to do what men said was impossible. So he built moles out into the deep and stormy sea, tunnelled rocks of hardest flint, built up plains to the height of mountains and razed mountains to the level of the plain; all with incredible dispatch, since the penalty for delay was death. (Suet. Calig.37)

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More interesting and significant in terms of unfamiliar forms of architecture were the mega-ships or barges Caligula (see above) and Claudius built and enjoyed as enormous floating villas. The emperor Nero too sought to undertake the impossible. He put state engineers to work to transform a site in the Apennine Mountains east of Tivoli. They erected three dams, with the largest a stunning 42 meters in height, to create an artificial lake, transforming his inland property into a shoreline residence, the Villa Sublaqueum (“under the lake” now known as the Villa of Subiaco). With equal gusto he or his capable architect/engineers Severus and Celer, proposed a 200-kilometer canal between Avernus and Ostia for pleasure sailing as well as commercial transport, though it was never built. During the Flavian period, relative peace, expanded trade, and improving economic conditions stimulated escalating displays of luxury villas and their manicured

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figure 5.46 Plans of the Bay of Baiae and the Nymphaeum-tricinium Hall at Punta dell’Epitaffio; rendered by Fikret Yegül.

gardens. The emperors, as expected, led the frenzy of villa ownership. Flavis Josephus, a contemporary of Domitian, observed that every emperor was ambitious to outdo his predecessors in establishing royal residences in the country that became new centers of power. Just as in the famous examples of Louis XIV running France from his luxurious country estate at Versailles, the villa of Tiberius in Capri, or of Hadrian in Tivoli, became the administrative hub of the Empire for long periods of time. Domitian’s Villa Urbana on the southwestern shores of Lake Albano must have been a similar get-away for the emperor where he could enjoy not just the tranquility (otium) of it, but the potential of its political power as well. Only a few hours away from Rome (c. 20 km), in the pleasant countryside of the Alban hills, the main part of Domitian’s villa was arranged on several elongated terraces hugging the crown of the hills overlooking on the south, down the gentle slope of rustic landscape toward Via Appia; on the north, the view took in the deep blue waters of the crater lake. The southeast end of this linear terrace extending nearly 1 kilometer, appears to have been built up as the residence proper; the north middle terrace, secluded by the rise of the hills’ brow on the north (c. 350  80 m), was probably

a vast pleasure garden similar in concept if not in form to the “stadium” of the emperor’s palace on the Palatine in Rome (see later). On the north end of the terrace, a small, private theater accommodating four to five hundred spectators was built against the rising hill. Judged by its superbly ornate polychrome marble furnishings, sculpture, and stucco ornament, it must have been strictly intended for the use of the emperor, his guests and friends, a place where they could in a semblance of equality, watch if not Greek tragedies, then popular stage performances, contests, and ritual celebrations connected with the games in honor of Domitian’s patron deity Minerva. Recent investigations of the double colonnade above the curved seating (summa cavea) revealed a remarkable arrangement of exedras along the curved back wall, decorated by small columns framing a series of fountains. Better preserved, and instantly impressive is the monumental cryptoporticus opening through windows toward a smaller, lower terrace on the south, and connecting the theater, and the main access way from the road, with the Imperial residence (see Figure 6.34). Some 300 meters long, 7.5 meters wide, and 10 meters high and built entirely in brick-faced concrete, this largest cryptoporticus of the Roman world, must have been more than a

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figure 5.47 Plan and hypothetical massing model of the palace villa at Lixus, Morocco; rendered by Diane Favro (after Mar).

cool and quiet tunnel for solitude. With walls veneered in costly imported marble panels between red pilasters, the long structures of its barrel-vaulted ceiling decorated with deeply set coffers (1001 in number), it was meant to overwhelm. The east end of the cryptoporticus connected to the residence by a flight of monumental stairs. As pointed out by H. von Hesberg, one could imagine Domitian and his imperial retinue standing at the top of the stairs under the decorative crown of the vault as if in a salutatio ceremony, receiving his guests approaching from the west end of the long and dramatically lit tunnel – an excellent way of invoking the powers of otium (see sketch plans in von Hesberg 2006, 221–244). Extravagant villas and their associated extravagant lifestyle came to represent the ambitions of the wealthy classes and Imperial authority across the Mediterranean. A villa complex at the city of Lixus (Morocco) on the Atlantic coast provides a revealing example. After the Romans annexed Mauretania in 43 bce, the so-called temple quarter of Lixus underwent significant alterations. Gradually, a palace-like residence of approximately 7,000 square meters took

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shape, liberally borrowing the sophisticated design features of contemporary luxury villas of the early Julio-Claudian period such as those at Stabiae, Capri, and Baiae (Figure 5.47; see earlier). In addition to expert hydraulic systems, a 40-meter-long portico, and costly mosaics, the complex displayed a dynamic interplay of components. A peristyle court atop a cistern contrasted rectilinear spaces with curves and countercurves; large reception and dining halls directly interacted with surrounding viewing porticoes and exedras. These features projected a calculated ambivalence, blurring the lines between villa/house/palace, semipublic/private, indoors/outdoors, and urban/ suburban while unifying the whole through symmetrical layouts and calculated views. This complex probably belonged to a courtier under Juba II, the ruler of Mauretania. He and his contemporaries in Ptolemais, Cyrene, and Jericho, sought to create impressive and pretentious imitations of the luxurious peristyle villas of Italy. In the case of King Herod of Judea, a client of Augustus and Agrippa, his many and remarkably creative villas and palaces on land and sea even surpassed those of his mentors in Italy (see later). For these

Residential Architecture provincial potentates, the villa did not signal the simple leisure of otium and removal from the city as did that of Domitian ruling from his Lake Albano estate outside of Rome; rather, the configuration itself signaled power regardless of location. A wider variety of houses, villas, and palaces will be discussed in the chapters that follow. REFERENCES

Adam, J.-P. and H. Hôte. 2012. La maison romaine. Arles: Éditions Honoré Clair. Agache, R. 1990. “Die gallo-römische Villa in den grossen Ebenen Nordfrankreichs.” In F. Reutti, ed. Die römische Villa (Wege der Forschungen 182). Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft: 270–312. Allison, P. 2004. Pompeian Households: An Analysis of Material Culture (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, Press Monograph 42). Aranegui, C. and R. Mar. 2009. “Lixus (Morocco): From a Mauretanian Sanctuary to an Augustan Palace.” PBSR 77: 29–64. Barton, I. M. 1996. Roman Domestic Buildings. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Beck, H. 2009. “From Poplicola to Augustus: Senatorial Houses in Roman Political Culture.” Phoenix, 63(3/4): 361–384. Becker, J. A. 2013. “Villas and Agriculture in Republican Italy.” In J. D. Evans, ed. A Companion to the Archaeology of the Roman Republic. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell: 309–322. Begović, D. V. and I. D. Schrunk. 2004. Roman Villas in Istria and Dalmatia, Part III: Maritime Villas. Pril. Inst. arheol. Zagrebu 21: 65–90. Bek, L. 1980. Towards Paradise on Earth: Modern Space Conception in Architecture, A Creation of Renaissance Humanism. AnalRom Supplementum 9. Benefiel, R. R. 2010. “Dialogues of Ancient Graffiti in the House of Maius Castricius in Pompeii.” AJA 114.1: 59–101. Bergmann, B. 1994. “The Roman House as Memory Theater: The House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii.” Art Bull 76(2): 225–256. Bodel, J. 1997. “Monumental Villas and Villa Monuments.” JRA 10: 5–35. Bon, S. E. and R. Jones. 1997. Sequence and Space in Pompeii. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Brandt, J. R. 2004. “Movements and Views: Some Observations on the Organization of Space in Roman Domestic Architecture from the Late Republic to Early Medieval Times.” Acta ad archaeologiam et Atrium Historiam Pertinentia, 18:11–53. Carandini, A. 2010. Le case del potere nell’antica Roma. Rome: Laterza. 2011. Rome: Day One, trans. S. Sartarelli. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Carandini, A. and R. M. Filippi. 1985. Settefinestre: Una villa schiavistica nell’Etruria romana. Modena: Panini.

Cifani, G. 2008. Architettura romana arcaica: Edilizia e società tra Monarchia e Repubblica. Rome: L' Erma di Bretschneider. Clarke, J. R. 1991. The Houses of Roman Italy, 100 B.C.– A.D. 250: Ritual, Space, and Decoration. Berkeley: University of California Press. The Oplontis Project. http://oplontisproject.org/ [accessed February 9, 2013]. 2014. “Domus/Single Family House.” In R. B. Ulrich and C. K. Quenemoen, eds. A Companion to Roman Architecture. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 342–362. Collingwood, R. G. 1930. The Archaeology of Roman Britain. London: Methuen. Cunliffe, B. 1999. Fishbourne: A Roman Palace and Its Garden. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. Daniels, R. 1995. “Punic Influence in the Domestic Architecture of Roman Volubilis (Morocco).” OJA 14.1: 79–95. De Franceschini, M. 1998. Le ville romane della X Regio (Venetia e Histria): Catalogo e carta acheologica dell’insediamento romano nel territorio, dall’età republicana al tardo impero. Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider. 2005. Villas at Agro Romano. Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider. Du Prey, P. de la R. 1994. Villas of Pliny from Antiquity to Posterity. Chicago: University of Chicago. Dwyer, E. 2001. “The Unified Plan of the House of the Faun.” JSAH 60.3: 328–343. Ellis, S. P. 2000. Roman Housing. London: Duckworth. Fentress, E. 1998. “The House of the Sicilian Greeks.” In A. Frazer, ed. The Roman Villa. Villa Urbana. Philadelphia: The University Museum, 29–42. 2013. “Strangers in the City: Elite Communication in the Hellenistic Central Mediterranean.” In J. R. W. Prag and J. C. Quinn, eds. The Hellenistic West. Rethinking the Ancient Mediterranean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 157–178. Ferdière, A. et al. 2010. “Les grandes villae ‘à pavillons multiples alignés’ dans les provinces des Gaules et des Germanies: Répartition, origine et fonctions.” RevArchAEst 59.2: 357–446. Frazer, A., ed. 1998. Roman Villa: Villa Urbana (First Williams Symposium on Classical Architecture, April 21–22, 1990). Philadelphia: The University Museum. Gazda, E. and J. R. Clarke, eds. 2016. Leisure and Luxury in the Age of Nero: The Villas of Oplontis near Pompeii. Kelsey Museum Publication 14. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Geertman, H. 1984. “Geometriae aritmetica in alcune case ad atrio pompeiane.” BABesch 59: 31–52. George, M. 1997. The Roman Domestic Architecture of Northern Italy. BAR International Series 670. Oxford: Archaeopress. Ghisleni, M., K. Vaccaro and K. Bowes. 2011. “Excavating the Roman peasant: Excavations at Pievina.” PBSR 79. ghisleni_et_al_pbsr.pdf [Accessed February 10, 2013]. Grahame, M. 2000. Reading Space: Social Interaction and Identity in the Houses of Roman Pompeii: A Syntactical Approach to the Analysis and Interpretation of Built Space. BAR International Series 886. Oxford: Archaeopress.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity Gros, P. L’architecture romaine 2: Maison, Palais, villas et tombeaux. Paris: Picard. Guilhembet, J.-P., M. Lloris, et al. 1996. La maison urbaine d’époque romaine en Gaule narbonnaise et dans les provinces voisines. Documents d’Archéologie Vauclusienne 6. Vaucluse: Service d'Archéologie du Conseil général de Vaucluse. Hales, S. 2003. The Roman House and Social Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hartnett, J. 2008. “Si quis hic sederit: Streetside Benches and Urban Society in Pompeii.” AJA 112.1: 91–119. Hauschild, T. and E. Haussmann. 1991. “Casas romanas de Munigua.” In La casa urbana hispanorromana, Ponencias y comunicaciones: Coloquio en Zaragoza 1988. Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 329–335. Hermansen, G. 1970. “The Medianum and the Roman Apartment.” Phoenix, 24.4: 342–347. 1973. “Domus and Insula in the City of Rome.” ClMediaev Diss., 9: 333–341. Hölkeskamp, K.-J. 2004. “Under Roman Roofs: Family, House, and Household.” In H. I. Flower, ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 113–138. Kavas, K. 2012. “A Critical Review of the Roman Atrium House: Reading the Material Evidence on ‘Atrium.’” METU JFA, 2: 143–155. Knapp, R. 2011. Invisible Romans, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lafon, X. 2001. Villa Maritima: Recherches sur les villas littorales de l’Italie romaine: IIIe siècle av. J.C.-IIIe siècle ap. J.-C. BÉFAR 307. Rome: École française de Rome. Lang, U. Villa Domitian Reconstructions. http://vis.unikoeln.de/villadomitian.html?&L=1 [Accessed February 22, 2013]. Laurence, R. and A. Wallace-Hadrill, eds. 1997. Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond. (JRA Supplement 22.) Lavan, L., L. Özgenel, and A. C. Sarantis, eds. 2007. Housing in Late Antiquity: From Palaces to Shops. Leiden: Brill. Lugli, G. 1922. La villa di Domiziano sui colli Albani, Rome: Maglione et Strini. Marzano, A. 2007. Roman Villas in Central Italy: A Social and Economic History. Leiden: Brill. Marzano, A. and G.P.R. Métraux, eds. 2018. The Roman Villa in the Mediterranean Basin: Late Republic to Late Antiquity. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press. Matijašić, R. 1982. “Roman Rural Architecture in the Territory of Colonia Iulia Pola.” AJA 86.1: 53–64. Mazzoleni, D., U. Pappalardo, and L. Romano. 2005. Domus: Wall Painting in the Roman House. Los Angeles: Paul Getty Museum. McKay, A. G. 1998. Houses, Villas, and Palaces in the Roman World. Baltimore: Thames and Hudson. Métraux, G. P. R. 1999. “Ancient Housing: ‘Oikos’ and ‘Domus,’ in Greece and Rome.” JSAH 5.3: 392–405. 2002. “Reviews of Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond by R. Laurence and A. Wallace-Hadrill; and Edilizia a private e società pompeiana fra III eI secolo a. C., by F. Pesando.” Phoenix 56: 394–399.

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2014. “Some Other Literary Villas of Roman Antiquity besides Pliny’s.” In M. M. Reeve, ed. Tributes to Pierre du Prey. Architecture and Classical Tradition, from Pliny to Posterity. London: Harvey Miller: 27–40. Mielsch, H. 1987. Die römische Villa: Architektur und Lebensform. Munich: C.H. Beck. Nevett, L. C. 2010. Domestic Space in Classical Antiquity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Oelmann, F. 1928. “Romische Villen im Rheinland.” ArchAnzeiger 43: 228–250. Owens, E. J. 1996. “Residential Districts.” In I. M. Barton, ed. Roman Domestic Buildings. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 7–32. Palmieri, L. 2004. “La provincia d’Africa dal l al VI secolo d.C. Analisi dei modelli insediativi presenti sul territorio.” Acme 57.3: 81–116. Pellecuer, C. “Villa, villae en Gaule romaine. Villa-Loupian en Languedoc.” www.villa.culture.fr/. [accessed February 8, 2016]. Percival, J. 1976. The Roman Villa. London: B.T. Batsford. 1996. “Houses in the Country.” In I. M. Barton, ed. Roman Domestic Buildings. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 65–90. Perring, D. 2002. The Roman House in Britain. London: Routledge. Pesando, F. 1997. Domus: Edilizia privata e società pompeiana fra III e I secolo a.C. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. Pirson, F. 1999. Mietwohnungen in Pompeji und Herkulaneum (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Studien zur antiken Stadt, 5). Munich: Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil. Reeder, J. C. 2001. The Villa of Livia Ad Gallinas Albas. Providence, RI: Brown University Press. Reutti, F. 1990. Die römische Villa (Wege der Forschung 182). Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Richardson Jr., L. 1988. Pompeii: An Architectural History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Richmond, I. 1969. “The Plans of Roman Villas in Britain.” In A. L. F. Rivet, ed. The Roman Villa in Britain. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 49–70. Roller, M. B. 2010. “Demolished Houses, Monumentality, and Memory in Roman Culture.” ClAnt 29.1: 117–180. Roymans, N. and T. Derks. 2012. Villa Landscapes in the Roman North: Economy, Culture and Lifestyles (Amsterdam Archaeological Studies 17). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Salza Prina Ricotti, E. 1970. Le ville marittime di Silin (Leptis Magna). RendPontAcc 43: 135–163. Schoonhoven, A. V. 1999. “Residences for the Rich?” BABESCH 74: 219–246. 2006. Metrology and Meaning in Pompeii: The Urban Arrangement of Regio VI. Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider. Sfameni, C. 2006. Villa residenziali nell’Italia tardoantico. Bari: Edipuglia. Smith, J. T. 2011. Roman Villas: A Study in Social Structure. London: Routledge. Smith, N. A. F. 1970. “The Roman Dams of Subiaco.” Technology and Culture, 11.1: 58–68. Storey, G. R. 2002. “Regionaries-Type Insulae 2: Architectural/Residential Units at Rome.” AJA 106.3: 411–444.

Residential Architecture 2004. “The Meaning of “Insula” in Roman Residential Terminology.” MAAR 49: 47–84. Veyne, P. and Y. Thebert, eds. 1998. “Private Life and Domestic Architecture in Roman Africa.” In A History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. von Hesberg, H. von. 2006. “Il potere dell’otium: la villa di Domiziano a Castel Gandolfo.” ArchCl, 57: 221–244. Wallace-Hadrill, A. 1996. Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1998. “The Villa as a Cultural Symbol.” In A. Frazer, ed. The Roman Villa. Villa Urbana. Philadelphia: The University Museum, 43–54.

Widrig, W. M. 2009. The Via Gabina Villas: Sites 10, 11, and 13. Houston: Rice University Press. Widrig, W. M. and P. Oliver-Smith. 2002. Via Gabina Villas. http://viagabina.rice.edu/index.html [accessed July 4, 2013]. Yegül, F. 1996. “The Thermo-Mineral Complex at Baiae and De Balneis Puteolanis.” The Art Bulletin 78.1: 137–161. Zarmakoupi, M. 2014a. Designing for Luxury Arts in the Bay of Naples. Villas and Landscapes (c. 100 BCE–79CE). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2014b. “Private Villas: Italy and the Provinces.” In A Companion to Roman Architecture, eds. R. B. Ulrich and C. K. Quenomoen. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 363–380.

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IMPERIAL ARCHITECTURE IN ROME FROM THE FLAVIANS THROUGH THE ANTONINES

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THE FLAVIANS The end of Julio-Claudian rule, marked by the violent death of Nero and followed by a year of turmoil and civil war, was uncommonly like its turbulent beginning. In a little over a year, four emperors ascended to the throne, mainly through overt military support. Three of the contenders – Galba, Otho, and Vitellus – ruled only a matter of months before they were dethroned and murdered by legions favoring their own leader for the top job. The fourth, Vespasian, the commander of the army in Palestine, was proclaimed emperor by his troops in 69 ce. At the age of sixty, a seasoned and popular soldier, he was able to bring order and normalcy after a period of struggle, and gained the support of the Senate, the army, and the people. Followed by his two sons, Titus and Domitian, Vespasian established the Flavian dynasty that ruled Rome and her expanding empire until 96 ce, a little over one-quarter of a century. There is much in Vespasian’s background that accounts for his political success and explains the brisk architectural program he set in motion. To a certain extent, the military victory through which he established peace, dynastic unity, and legitimacy, can be compared to that of Augustus at the beginning of the Principate. Unlike Augustus and the Julio-Claudian princes, who represented the blue-blood aristocracy of the capital, Vespasian came from central Italian stock and was always proud of his humble, country origins. His deadpan jokes and self-effacing humor, rare in any Roman bigwig, made him popular especially among the working classes. His straightforward presence, reflected in his efficient and parsimonious administration, appeared to be just the right remedy 294

after the flamboyant personalities and ruinous spending of the latter Julio-Claudians brought to a head by Nero. For an emperor who had a reputation for being tight-fisted, Vespasian actually initiated a building program more extensive than has been generally acknowledged. This was also a program with a wellthought-out political message and practical logic in the choice of structures to be restored or built new. The internal war of 69 ce had caused much damage in the capital. Nero’s infatuations and gross misrule, becoming increasingly offensive during his last years, had eroded public confidence in the system. Like Augustus, Vespasian was touted as the emperor of restitution of both the physical and moral fabric of the old Roman society. His top architectural priority, the reconstruction of the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter, which had been burned during the war, was an obvious choice. The emperor inaugurated the project allegedly by carrying the first basket of debris on his back to clear the site. Equally symbolic in the public eye, as well as in the assessment of his senatorial peers, was the restoration of the “Tabularium,” the so-called state archives building (wherever the actual building might have been), and the recreation of some three thousand ancient bronze tablets that recorded important episodes in the history of Rome. According to Suetonius, a contemporary historian, Vespasian searched very hard to find copies of these priceless inscriptions whose originals had been lost in the fire (Vespasian, 8.5.9). Less glamorous, but typical of the practical-minded emperor, was the massive effort at repairing and rebuilding the city’s neglected infrastructure that was in sore need of an overhaul after the ravages of the war

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines and the Great Fire of 64 ce – repaving streets, rebuilding bridges, sewers, waterways, and granaries, in a sense continuing the Urbs Roma project Nero had started. To undertake such a vast and costly array of projects Vespasian enlisted the help and expertise of the army, again a logical and shrewd decision. He stimulated private initiatives by encouraging private expenditures, allowing citizens to take over and build upon land neglected by the original owners. Rome was reclaimed, rebuilt, and expanded. As if to underline the solid reality of the work achieved, the official and sacred boundary of the city (the pomerium) was extended in 75 ce for the first time since Claudius. Association with Claudius and the more deserving members of the Julio-Claudian family must have been in Vespasian’s mind when he decided to complete the Temple of Deified Claudius which had been started by Nero but left unfinished and was possibly even partially dismantled. The scheme consisted of a cult temple raised over a massive terrace structure dominating the Caelian hill, recalling in its broad outline the arrangement of the late Republican Sanctuary of Jupiter Anxur at Terracina (see earlier; see Figures 4.38 and 4.39). Of the Temple of Deified Claudius itself nothing remains. According to the Marble Plan, it had a rather conventional design, with a deep porch of six frontal columns facing west toward the Palatine. The raised terrace, a concrete structure measuring 180  200 meters, was backfilled against the hill, but mainly built up as a series of interconnected vaulted chambers and corridors. The east side, visible today, is a high concrete wall articulated by a row of alternating semicircular and rectangular niches arranged symmetrically about a central exedra. These niches, and the multiple terrace and stair structure on the steep north side, appear to have been reshaped by Nero to create a scenic façade of cascading fountains, a fitting backdrop for his Domus Aurea and its watery parklands. Equally intriguing is what remains of the west façade of the temple platform that shows a doublestoried frame of rusticated travertine arches separated by elaborately carved Tuscan pilasters. The exaggerated rustication contrasts the roughly-hewn, bulging blocks against the smoothly finished and sharply edged elements, such as the entablature and the neatly cut pilaster joints. Comparison with the mannered rustication, characteristic of Claudian masonry, such as the Porta Maggiore and the columns of the Porticus of Claudius at Portus, is inevitable (see Figures 4.32, 4.34). Even if this bold façade, framing what appears to be a row of vaulted shops behind, is mainly Vespasianic, it must have been done in a deliberate and delightfully self-conscious imitation of that most interesting phase of Claudian architecture, or even directly followed some surviving elements of the original design.

FORUM OF PEACE – TEMPLUM PACIS

Two major events, both ending in military victories, initiate Vespasian’s rule and establish peace as an overarching theme. The first, already mentioned, is the end of the internal war that brought the Flavian dynasty to power in 69 ce; the second is the swift but brutal victory over the Jewish uprising in Jerusalem achieved in 71 ce by Titus, Vespasian’s older son, who had been given command of the army by his father. Roman coins of that year celebrate peace. In the same year it was decided to build an arch in honor of Titus’ triumph on the Sacra Via, at the east end of the Forum (see Figure 6.17). Also, a new forum dedicated to Peace – named the Templum Pacis, or the Forum Pacis – was dedicated in 75 ce. This was a broad, squarish enclosure (c. 110  105 m) located at the east end of the Forum of Augustus and separated from it by a street leading up to the busy Subura district (Figures 6.1 and 6.2). The reconstruction on paper is the result of painstaking efforts of topographical inference based largely on fragments of the Marble Plan, but more recently informed by new excavations. Vespasian’s forum was paved partially in marble, but with the center was left of clay and planted as a formal garden with rows of trees or shrubs, as well as parallel canals (Figure 6.3). It was defined on three sides by a colonnade of red Egyptian granite. The columns on the fourth (north), the street side, were larger, lined close against the interior wall, creating instead of the usual, broad, shady portico, an articulated wall of rhythmic undulations. Only the east side of the enclosure was built up: in the center was the temple proper, a rectangular hall with a shallow apse on the back wall housing the image of the goddess “Pax.” This space was flanked by a pair of rectangular halls with colonnaded fronts. One or two of these flanking rooms were libraries. During the Severan age the famous Marble Plan of Rome (Forma Urbis Romae) was displayed on the south wall of the south hall (Figure 6.4). Also displayed in the complex were masterpieces of Greek painting and sculpture (some brought from Nero’s Golden House) as well as trophies from recent military victories, including the Ark of the Covenant (Pliny, NH 12.94; 34.84; 35.102–103; 36.27). Unlike a typical Roman temple set inside a precinct like a forum, the shrine or Temple of Peace (Templum Pacis) was not raised on a podium and pushed into the space of the enclosure (as with the Temple of Mars Ultor in the Forum of Augustus, see earlier). Contained behind a common colonnaded frontage, the temple’s importance was signified by its axial position and slightly projecting, possibly taller, façade of six columns carrying a pediment. The traditional, 295

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classicizing architecture of the precinct and its fine marble ornament were widely admired. According to Pliny, a contemporary writer, this precinct ranked among the “most beautiful” buildings in Rome along with the Basilica Aemilia and the Forum of Augustus (Pliny, NH 36.101–102). Vespasian’s Forum of Peace can be broadly defined as a “quadriporticus,” meaning an enclosure colonnaded inside on all four sides. The origins of this type go back to the Hellenistic architecture of the Mediterranean. Public buildings of the quadriporticus, or in common parlance the “courtyard type,” were introduced to Rome during the late Republican and early Julio-Claudian eras. More narrowly, one could relate the Templum Pacis to certain cult buildings and gymnasia of Ptolemaic Egypt, Hellenistic Asia Minor, and Classical Greece where clear axiality and formal relationship of parts to one another, the emphasis of one side of the composition over others, and the presence of a subtly prominent central element flanked by symmetrical subsidiary units, appear to be important architectural characteristics. Yet, a slightly pro-Italian vantage could allow us to see the native 296

component of such morphologies. Perhaps, these characteristics were deliberately chosen over others because they were sympathetic to the deeply rooted Italian propensity for axial emphasis. At any rate, the quadriporticus enclosure with its subtly emphasized temple façade is a unique and strangely troubling building for its time and place, straddling the line between Hellenistic East and the Roman West. Still, it makes us ponder why Vespasian, who by all accounts tried to underscore his Italian, country roots, allowed his architect to design a building that looks like a cult center or a gymnasium from a foreign capital like Alexandria or Pergamon – rather than follow the well-established models of Imperial fora dominated by podium temples. The traditional and quiet setting of Vespasian’s forum, with its libraries, possible lecture halls, porticoes, and exedras for the safekeeping and display of art – under the appropriate connection to Pax (Peace) and hence culture – suggests the program of an academy, or the Roman equivalent of a center for arts and culture. Indeed, Vespasian, who taxed public toilets in order to secure additional income for the state, and who liked to

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identify with the working classes rather than urban aristocracy, was also uncommonly generous in supporting the arts, artists, and scholars. He is on the record for being the first to establish regular salaries for teachers of Greek and Latin rhetoric, as well as awarding prizes to poets, musicians, and artists (Suetonius, Vesp. 18–19). Perhaps, the answer for the question posed above is self-explanatory: Vespasian did not want to create an “imperial forum” but a quiet center – an academy – for teachers, writers, and philosophers, following the architectural model established in the East. T HE C O L O SS E UM A N D I TS P R E DE CE S SO R S

Seen in this light, the creation of a templum for the arts of peace across the street from its Augustan neighbor, dedicated to and dominated by an avenging God of

War, may be a fitting choice for this man whom we see alternately and together as a formidable field general and a kindly, avuncular emperor. Therefore, it would have been entirely in character for Vespasian to realize the growing populist need in the capital for a permanent establishment also serving, as it were, the arts of war and personal combat, and act upon the fulfillment of this need in characteristically effective way. In fact, in size, scope, and historic importance the Flavian Amphitheater, aptly known as the Colosseum (due to its proximity to the Colossus of Nero, not because it was very big) surpassed all items in the Flavian building agenda. The biggest and best of some nearly two hundred amphitheaters in the Roman world, the Colosseum was built over the artificial lake of Nero’s Golden House, situated in the low ground between the Palatine, Caelian, and Esquiline hills (Figures 6.5 297

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figure 6.3 Reconstruction of the Forum of Peace with the Templum Pacis, by Inklink; Archive of the Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali, Imperial Fora, courtesy of Eugenio La Rocca

and 6.6). The site choice made sense technically and politically. An already excavated great hole (Stagnum Neronis) with a well-drained, soft but stable clay bottom meant enormous savings in time and expense in preparing the foundations of the behemoth structure (see Figures 4.38 and 4.39). Creating a center for public entertainment by obliterating a part of Nero’s private world of luxury could be seen as a politically charged corrective measure. In effect, the shrewd emperor was returning to the people the land taken from them by his despotic predecessor. An amphitheater is an arena basically intended for gladiatorial combat (the word simply means a theater, or a viewing place, in the round). Such bloody spectacles go back to Rome’s early history and might have been introduced into the capital through Etruscan influence, by way of Campania. Originally, they were a part of funerary games, known as munera, conceived seriously as gifts to the gods and a duty honoring the departed. Their enormous popularity may have effected a gradual change in the nature of the gladitorial munera from a private religious gesture to great public shows. The considerable political potential in sponsoring such shows was not lost on Roman 298

politicians whose aspirations for power were fueled by the public’s insatiable desire to be entertained by more lavish, more varied, and it must be admitted, bloodier spectacles. Soon, in addition to the various forms of combats between mere gladiators (often pitting pairs wearing different types of armor, carrying different types of weapons), wild beast shows and combat (venationes) became popular. By the end of the Republic it was expected that magistrates (the holders of public office) would organize and pay for arena games as a part of their civic responsibility. Although rooted in Italian tradition as a form of mass entertainment and a vehicle for political propaganda, the arena gained remarkable popularity in the provinces. Because of its martial nature, its appeal was particularly strong in the colonies and veteran’s communities in the western half of the empire. Since the religious and political structure of the games closely paralleled those in Rome, the provincial elite, especially in the East, assumed their power base and civic identity by association with both the paraphernalia and ideology of the games current in the capital. In one significant way, however, the East displayed a different take on this subject: with a few notable

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figure 6.4 Reconstruction of the south hall, Forum of Peace, with display of the Forma Urbis marble map of Rome; rendered by Diane Favro and Dean Abernathy.

exceptions, such as in Pergamon, the amphitheater, as an architectural form, never took root in Greece and Asia Minor where the gladiatorial shows in reduced form occurred in convenient public places, theaters, and stadiums reorganized for this purpose. Even in Rome and Italy, before amphitheaters became their proper venue, these games took place in appropriate public open-air spaces where a makeshift arena with wooden seats would be constructed. In Rome, in addition to the flat Campus Martius, the Forum Romanum, sanctified by its religious and aristocratic associations, was the most desirable location for the games. Still during the early Imperial period, long after the construction of Rome’s first stone amphitheater in 29 bce by Statilius Taurus (one of Augustus’ victorious generals), the open area between the Basilica Aemilia and Basilica Julia at the western end of the Forum was used for staging gladiatorial combats. For this purpose, temporary wooden seating was built for the games (see Figure 1.9). Given the

advantages of the oval form in viewing spectator events, and the skill of Roman carpenters in creating complex wooden structures, it is likely that some of these temporary structures were elliptical (or approximating an ellipse with angles), mimicking or even anticipating the shape of typical stone arenas. The first stone amphitheater known to us is in Pompeii, dated roughly 80 bce, discussed in Chapter 5. In arguing for the advantages of an elliptical arena over a circular one, K. Welch observes that the visually dynamic shape of the oval or the ellipse would have allowed the fighters to be seen and admired from all sides continuously and, “provided the ‘commanding’ axes the Roman elite required when they were seated in public . . . and, they themselves would become the natural focus of the entire audience when combats were not taking place” (Welch 2007, 50). It is curious that Rome, because it was inherently a conservative city or because its administrators feared that a permanent structure devoted to rowdy mass entertainment might encourage unwanted 299

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figure 6.5 Colosseum (Amphitheatrum Flavium), Rome, aerial view from the east; American Academy in Rome – Fototeca Unione (Fototeca Unione 4370)

political demonstrations, or both, lagged behind many provincial towns, like Capua and others in Campania, in building permanent amphitheaters (see Figures 7.57 and 7.58). When Vespasian decided to tackle the formidable job of building the Colosseum, Rome’s only arena of significance was a temporary structure built by Nero in the Campus Martius; the capital’s need for a major, permanent amphitheater was long overdue. The Colosseum is an elliptical structure roughly 188  156 meters and 48.5 meters high (Figures 6.5, 6.7 and 6.8). It is estimated to have a spectator capacity of forty-five thousand to fifty thousand. The enormous weight of the building rests on a ring-shaped concrete foundation cut into the subsoil to a depth of 9–12 meters. The exterior is divided into four monumental tiers of travertine blocks joined by metal clamps with little or no mortar. The first three levels follow the wellestablished decorative framework of arches alternating with engaged columns, Tuscan, Ionic, and Corinthian, respectively (Figures 6.9 and 6.10). The fourth, or top, level is arranged as a tall, blank travertine wall articulated with Corinthian pilasters. Square windows placed at every other bay alternated with now gone decorative,

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gilt-bronze shields. Projecting brackets, two-thirds up the height of the top story and conspicuous around the building’s circumference, probably supported tall, wooden posts for the rigging of an enormous canvas awning, called the velarium, that protected the spectators from the sun. So complicated must have been the rolling and unrolling of this huge awning (at least, that is what we think) that a detachment of professional sailors from the Roman navy were permanently stationed near by to undertake this task. The structural system of the Colosseum is simpler than it looks on paper in plans and sections. It is organized on the principle of a series of radiating walls (a total of eighty of them!) connected to each other by sloping, concrete barrel vaults (Figure 6.11). The walls are composed of travertine piers filled in at their lower levels by small blocks of tufa masonry, above in brickfaced concrete sections. Continuing the outward line of the radiating walls are two rows of piers forming on the building’s perimeter, a double ring of barrel-vaulted corridors (Figure 6.12). These corridors provide a broad concourse for circulation and serve, at the same time, as a structural girdle against outward thrust of the

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figure 6.6 Plan of Rome, Imperial era, Rome; rendered by Marie Saldaña and Diane Favro.

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marble seating supported on the extrados of the sloping vaults. The construction process of this enormous structure also reveals a clear organization in the division of labor and handling of materials. In order to speed up construction, first the travertine piers were constructed all the way up to their finished height then

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the concrete infill sections of the radial walls were put in place. Finally, the walls and piers were joined by brick and concrete vaulting, creating an intricately linked, and stable, structural skeleton (Figure 6.13). It is believed that the building was divided into four quadrants to allow for four separate gangs to work

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines

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simultaneously (and perhaps in competition with each other). By virtue of its plan, standardized construction devised for one radial segment could be applied all around in orderly and serialized succession thus saving time and money. There are, however, noticeable differences in the quality of work among the quadrants. Corresponding to the first three exterior levels are three tiers of marble seats; the fourth level (summum maenianum), raised over a 5-meter wall and expressed on the outside with pilasters contained wooden seats (Figure 6.14; see also Figures 6.7 and 6.8). A colonnaded gallery encircled the whole structure and crowned the interior. There might have been wooden steps for standing room to accommodate additional spectators inside the colonnade. The top gallery corresponded, more or less, with the top, attic, level of the exterior. The spaces between the radiating walls were filled stairs, ramps, and lateral passageways providing easy access to the vast

interior that was divided up into may wedge-shaped sections of seating. These stairs and ramps served different levels of seating independently so that the traffic for the upper galleries did not mix with that for the lower. Spectators with tickets on which the gate, level, wedge, and seat numbers were indicated would be directed to their seats with relative ease and speed. Conversely, after the show, the crowds eager to leave (and potentially rowdy) could be dispersed rapidly and safely, using the full peripheral exit system leading to seventy-six numbered gates, or vomitaria spewing out the spectators. It is believed that the twolower orders (which really constitute some 80 percent of the building’s mass) were finished and dedicated before Vespasian’s death in 79. A year later Titus inaugurated the building. The third and the fourth levels, as well as the intricate network of subterranean service corridors and rooms under the arena floor, must have been

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figure 6.9 Exterior view of Colosseum west side; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 6.10 Columnar orders of the Colosseum: Tuscan order of lower level (left); Ionic and Corinthian orders of second and third levels (right); Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 6.11 Analytical cutaway structural study of Colosseum by J. Guadet (1875).

completed under Domitian. Modern studies of this veritable basement city reveal an ingenious technology for caging and handling wild animals and moving elaborate scenery. By virtue of a multilevel system of interlinked cells, corridors, ramps, and mechanical elevators, dozens of animals could be hoisted up to upper levels and manipulated through trap doors to make sudden and simultaneous appearances in the arena. The floor over the subterranean chambers was made of heavy planks covered with a thick layer of sand which absorbs blood well. Parts of this arena floor, designed as hinged wooden platforms, carried large assemblages of scenery and could be lifted to provide appropriate theatrical backdrops for the spectacles. Similar systems for manipulating animals and scenery were used in the nearly contemporary amphitheater at Puteoli in Campania. Because there were no light- or air-shafts into the basement, one could imagine the gloom (lit by hundreds of oil lamps), soot, heat, airlessness, smells, and noise of this nether world as the shrieks and roars of the hundreds of wild beasts mixed with those of wounded or dying gladiators.

Although some ancient authors allude to the practice, it is difficult to imagine how the Colosseum, and other amphitheaters whose arenas were cut up by subterranean spaces, could be flooded to create large, artificial pools for the enactment of naumachia, or mock seabattles. These aquatic engagements seem to have been as popular with Roman audiences in Italy as the bloody gladiatorial games. We know from Dio Cassius (66.25) and Martial (De Spect. 24) that besides gladiatorial combat and wild beast hunts, sea-battles were a part of Titus’ one-hundred-day inauguration program of the Colosseum. It is possible that this was at the formal initiation and consecration of the project before the basement structures were built, but more likely that, as Suetonius mentions (Titus 7.3), the aquatic games were held in the old Naumachia, one which had been excavated by Augustus near the Tiber (see Figure 6.5). We remain sceptical that the finished Colosseum could be, or ever was, flooded with water. There is no question that the Colosseum is an exceptional achievement; it represents a solid feat of planning and structural engineering, a rare integration 305

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figure 6.12 Second story ambulatory of the Colosseum, ashlar piers and concrete vaults; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 6.13 Typical structural system of the Colosseum showing mixed construction; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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of architecture and technology. With its fine proportions and gracefully superimposed engaged orders, it is also a building that attained an expressive balance between functional simplicity and urban elegance. Yet, as noted earlier, the Colosseum is not a building of great originality. It does not represent the progressive trends in Roman architecture that a structure such as Nero’s Golden House does. Its famous façade, an effective formulaic combination of arches and engaged columns in superimposed rows, had been well established in late Republican buildings such as the terrace of the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor in Tivoli, or the “Tabularium” in the Forum Romanum, as well as the theaters of Pompey (c. 55 bce) and Marcellus (c. 19 bce) in Rome (see earlier; Figure 4.7). These two theaters, the Colosseum’s closest and most illustrious predecessors in Rome, and a number of other smaller theaters and amphitheaters in Italy had already provided some 100–120 years earlier the clear models for the structural solution so successfully adopted by the Flavian Amphitheater. In sum, the importance of the Colosseum is not in its novelty, but in its being the largest and most perfectly developed example of a line following an architectural typology – which, in turn, influenced almost every amphitheater built after it.

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines

figure 6.14 Interior view of Colosseum with structural armature of the subterranean level in center of arena, looking west; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

The Colosseum belongs to a category of amphitheaters whose cavea containing the seats are raised artificially on vaulted structures as opposed to those created by digging a hollow in the ground. Intermediary types, partially dug out and partially built up, as in Pompeii, also exist. Amphitheaters with seating supported on earth embankments are naturally far easier and far cheaper to build. Yet, those that are artificially raised on flat ground provide better and more direct access to all parts and levels of the cavea because they can accommodate a system of independent stairs, ramps, and gangways connected to peripheral exits. Therefore, they solve the problem of traffic and crowd control more effectively than their earth-supported counterparts. The latter, even with many stairs dividing the cavea into seating wedges, create traffic bottlenecks at points where they narrow down to a few main exits – often at the ends of the long axes, as in the amphitheater of Pompeii (see Figures 1.49 and 1.50). The control of potentially unruly crowds, the arena mob, was a serious concern that dictated planning choices. Despite its technical challenges and high costs, almost all major, urban amphitheaters in the Roman world employed the artificially raised system. It is estimated that the Colosseum’s fifty-thousand-odd spectators

could be emptied within a matter of minutes – awesome to imagine (we can do the math: with seventy-six exits, each would have a burden of emptying out about seven hundred people, less than the number in the auditorium where Yegül used to teach survey classes in his university). The record speaks for itself: during its four centuries of use, we know of no riots in Rome’s flagship amphitheater. Despite its populist image, seating in an amphitheater was not a truly egalitarian affair but was arranged on broadly based hierarchies (see Figure 6.8). In the Colosseum, different social classes occupied sections of seating in diminishing importance from the ringside-out: the emperor and his retinue occupied a special box in the center front; then came the senators and nobles, seated on the podium (pulvinar) encircling the arena; above and beyond the pulvinar, sat the commoners, the plebs. Women were relegated to seats in the uppermost gallery. This formalized order of seating, however, must have been observed with considerable flexibility in practice. One can hardly imagine that the wife or daughter of a senator would take being banished to the rafters kindly. Then there is Ovid, the late-first century bce poet, who in his Arts of Love (Artis Amartoriae), gives useful advise on how to pick up a girl in the 307

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity circus, or the arena, by asking to look at her program (I.165–167), or by eagerly brushing the hem of her tunic (I.150–152), all made easy because these were places where one could, in fact had to, sit very close to a lady (“Sit next to your lady, none will prevent you; sit side by side as closely as you can . . . by the conditions of space your girl must be touched.” I.138–142). Privilege in Roman society was as much an affair of family and class as gender. The arena, with its lavish spectacles and bloody games, was unquestionably an important organ of the state to keep urban masses entertained and appeased – and, perhaps, served the public policy aptly tagged as “bread and circuses” (Juvenal, Satires 10.78–81). Yet, it was something more than a populist measure, or a particularly aberrant and loathsome form of mass entertainment. It was an institution that reflected the social and political structure of the state and served its ideology. Like the great public baths, the arena was an institution of Romanization. Brutal as the games and gladiatorial combat might be, they were, as mentioned earlier, also rooted in the religious and military customs of Rome’s distant past and grounded in Roman life and identity. Buffeted by extravagant and exotic spectacles, the program and the entity of the games were distinctly different from the Greek gymnastic contests. The arena provided Roman society – from the pleb to the emperor – a theatrical opportunity to see and to be seen and fulfilled its need for self- expression and selfrealization. “The real purpose behind the creation of an amphitheater,” mused the German poet Goethe, who visited the great amphitheater of Verona in 1786, is to impress the people united as a single body by their own presence . . . and to achieve consciousness of their own self. . . . By making the oval crater of the amphitheater as plain as possible, the architect’s art made the people its sole decoration (Letter from Verona, September 16).

For the nobility, patronage of and attendance at the games signified an association with the military image and virtues of the death-defying gladiator – and offered a vicarious return to the traditional values espoused by the ruling class. For the emperor, it was an invaluable opportunity to present his own spectacle, to display of his public persona. A modern student of “arena studies” recreates the emperor’s entrance into the Colosseum and his greeting of the people: Tradition prescribed the greeting, the entire audience rising, waving handkerchiefs, applauding ‘like a thunder in a storm’ . . . Amid the acclamations, he mounted

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the podium to return the people’s greetings. They shouted back their wishes for a long life, a happy reign, and in this atmosphere of surcharged good-will, the Emperor ordered the show to start (Pierson 1973, 12).

The people sometimes must have also shouted their views on the emperor’s rule and desires from it. As places of public assembly, the theater and amphitheater were proper locations for acclamatio, a serious and widely observed socio-political mechanism that gave the populace a chance to express its opinions and reach its leaders – a privilege not available to many societies now. The emperor, conversely, could use the amphitheater as a popular institution to reach his subjects, and legitimize his rule, and improve his “approval rating.”

T IT U S : A P U B L I C B A T H

As he smoothly succeeded to the throne in 79 ce, Titus, Vespasian’s elder son and regent, had little worry about his approval rating (ruled 79–81 ce). A successful army commander, who shared his father’s Judaean triumph, Titus was well liked. “His charming ways,” observed Suetonius, his contemporary, “made him an object of universal love and adoration” (Titus, 1). His popularity must have been enhanced even further in 80 ce, when he presided over the inauguration and the festive opening ceremonies of the Colosseum and the bath complex next to it. The exuberant one-hundredday event was celebrated by the poet Martial in a special book of poems called the “Spectacles” (de Spectaculis). Titus’ felicitous, but all too short reign came to an end by his untimely death in 81 ce. It was marred by only two disasters: the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 ce, which devastated Pompeii and the neighboring towns, and the fire of 80 ce in Rome which destroyed many buildings, including the Baths of Agrippa and the newly reconstructed Capitoline temple. The Baths known by Titus’ name occupied the high ground on the southwest edge of the Oppian Hill, immediately north of the Colosseum (see Figure 6.6). A double flight of monumental stairs terminating in an arcaded brick portico with square piers connected the baths with the open space in front of the Colosseum. According to Suetonius, the baths were constructed in great haste and dedicated with the Colosseum in 80 ce (Titus, 7.3). Although they are less than one-quarter the size of the later Imperial baths, it is difficult to believe that they could be built in just one year. It is probable that they were begun during Vespasian’s last years in line with his policy of obliterating Nero’s pleasure estate and returning it to the people.

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Barely a generation after its construction, the Baths of Titus were eclipsed by the much grander Baths of Trajan, the latter located on higher ground northeast of the Oppian Hill. The plan of Titus’ baths, known to us from a drawing by the sixteenth-century architect and antiquarian Andrea Palladio is a good example of the so–called small imperial type (Figure 6.15). The main, north–south axis of the building was marked by two great rectangular halls, the caldarium facing south, and the frigidarium, facing north; there was no natatio. The caldarium projected out of the

building block and had cross-vaulted outer bays connected by a narrower, barrel-vaulted, central one. The skillful combination of cross-vaults and barrel-vaults (all brick-faced concrete, of course) was repeated in the frigidarium. Here, the square central bay of the great hall was covered by a 23-meter span cross vault, with barrelvaulted side bays. The frigidarium was flanked by a pair of rectangular courts surrounded by an arcade carried by square piers, at least as far as Palladio’s plan indicates. These courts are comparable to interior exercise halls, or the palaestrae found in most imperial baths although

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity their small size here might have made them suitable as roofed changing rooms, or apodyteria. The entire south side of the baths was raised over the Colosseum valley by a large terrace, probably an exercise yard planted as a garden. This terrace was connected to the plaza below by the massive, doubleflight stairs, mentioned above. Strengthening the civic flavor of the ensemble was the addition under Domitian of the Ludus Magnus, a gladiatorial training school directly facing the plaza, east of the Colosseum and the baths. This building, known to us partially by excavations and partially from the Marble Plan, was a large rectangular block, two or three stories high, enveloping an oval arena for housing and training gladiators, with direct underground access to the Colosseum. The hard-edged blocks of the Ludus and monumental stairs linking structures at different levels contrasting with the sweeping curve of the Colosseum created an urban setting which mush have been alive with jostling crowds of fighters, trainers, soldiers, sailors, and their admirers – quite the social antidote to its appearance and use under Nero. D OM I T I A N A N D H I S A R C HI T E CT R A B I R I U S

Posterity’s report card on Domitian is generally unfavorable. This “bad” younger son of Vespasian, like Nero before him, was remembered for his increasingly despotic rule. During the last three or four years of his relatively long reign (ruled 81–96 ce) his tyrannical behavior and arrogant personality resulted in an assassination plot in which even his own wife was involved. And like Nero, he too, suffered damnatio memoriae. Yet, Domitian was also an unbending moralist, an exacting administrator, and an effective ruler. Completing his father’s and brother’s projects, and adding many new ones of his own, he built profusely. According to an ancient source, he had a mania for building (Plutarch, Publicola 15.5). His lavish building program in Rome and abroad culminated in the creation of a magnificent Imperial palace on the Palatine Hill destined to be the primary residence of emperors for the next three hundred years. And all this expenditure, unlike Nero’s reckless spending, did not seem to break the bank, because as tersely observed by a scholar of Roman history, “Domitian spent a great deal because with his attention to collect taxes, he could afford to do so” (Garzetti, 284). Perhaps, more to his credit than the sheer volume of buildings was Domitian’s ability to recognize architectural talent, specifically that of Rabirius, his chief architect and one of the most creative names in Roman architecture, and give him the chance to build. Based 310

on the artistic quality and civic significance of Domitian’s vast building program, our report card on this emperor is more positive. When Domitian became emperor in 81 ce, he immediately assumed the responsibility for repairing and restoring a very large number of buildings damaged by the fires of 64 and 80, and the Civil War of 69 ce. The great Capitoline temple, which had been rebuilt only recently, was one; numerous religious and civic structures in Campus Martius, like the Baths of Agrippa, and the great porticoed enclosure called Saepta Julia, were among the many others. Another impending unfinished business was completing the projects started by his father and brother. In this category we can name the attic story of the Colosseum, the Baths of Titus, and the Temple of Deified Vespasian at the west end of the Forum squeezed between the Temples of Saturn and Concord and pushed against the imposing façade of the “Tabularium” and the dramatic rise of the Capitoline Hill (Figure 6.16; see also Figure 4.1). This was, at the first sight, a traditional Roman temple: Corinthian, pseudoperipteral, hexastyle, with a broad front porch. Untraditional was the positioning of the front steps between the front columns (instead of being in front of the podium, although this unusual architectural practice seems to have been already introduced between the columns of the Temple of Castor in the late second century bce), a creative touch responding to site restrictions. The cornice, among the most ornate and beautiful, was distinguished with a frieze decorated by sacrificial and priestly objects (pieces of the entablature can be seen today inside the “Tabularium”). The Arch of Titus, commemorating Titus’ victory in Jerusalem, located at the top of the Sacra Via, at the east end of the Forum, was mainly a Domitianic project. It is a single-opening arch built of imported Pentellic marble over a core of concrete (Figure 6.17). The simple, austere elegance of the arch contrasts effectively with the deeply carved, rich, architectural ornament, the strongly projecting cornice with modillions, and the magnificent keystone carved with the figure of a captive (Figure 6.18). Engaged frontal and corner columns carry Composite capitals, one of the earliest uses of this type combining Ionic volutes with Corinthian foliage. The tall attic displays a beautifully designed inscription dedicating the arch to the deceased and deified Princeps. Titus actually appears in one of the two illusionistic sculptured panels inside the archway as a triumphator in a quadriga. The Arch of Titus is the classic example of the Roman single arch whose design is informed by a long line of Augustan and Julio-Claudian arches in Rome and northern Italy and, in turn, inspired the sober

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines

figure 6.16 Reconstruction of the Temple of Saturn (left), and Temple of Deified Vespasian (rear) in the Forum Romanum, with stairs between the columns, looking west; Experiential Technologies Center, © Regents of the University of California.

monumentality of the Arch of Trajan at Ancona (see Figure 7.39). Another Flavian dynastic monument whose program seems to have subsumed the themes and rituals of deification and triumph might have been the Templum Divorum, also known as the Porticus Divorum. Built by Domitian in central the Campus Martius on land cleared after the fire of 80 ce, this enigmatic building is known to us only through fragments of the Marble Plan. The Divorum was an elongated rectangular enclosure colonnaded on three sides; it was entered on the short north side through a triple arch forming a “triumphal gate” (see Figure 4.30). Focused on the main axis at the far end of the precinct was a large altar, probably dedicated to Mars. Flanking the entrance gate, and seemingly projecting from the side porticoes, were a pair of small, tetrastyle/prostyle temples dedicated to Vespasian and Titus. Since these cult temples facing each other were crowded at one end of the enclosure, the center appears disturbingly empty, although it might have been filled by rows of trees. One would have liked to know if it had occurred to Domitian, or his architect, that the addition of a third, larger temple in the center

of the precinct, facing the triumphal entrance – to be fittingly dedicated to deified Domitian in good time – could have improved the design by completing its formal and ideological, and dynastic unity. Unfortunately for Domitian, this never happened because the emperor, who liked being addressed as dominus et deus (“master and god”) in his lifetime, was denied the privilege of deification by the Senate upon his death. The open center of the Porticus Divorum remained unfilled. He might have enjoyed, however, the use of the Divorum as a ritual gathering place to start and stage, what some historians would claim, his less than deserved triumphal processions. The Porticus Divorum shares certain similarities with the Forum of Peace (Templum Pacis; see Figures 6.1–6.3). Both are quadriporticus buildings. Yet, the simplicity of the Divorum is deceptive. It shows none of the static harmony of Vespasian’s precinct that we associate with traditional classicism. Domitian’s dynastic complex, even making allowances for our incomplete knowledge of it, pulsates with a kind of architectural energy rare among simple, balanced, classical precincts. It contains elements of surprise and playfulness. We see the same sense of playfulness and

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figure 6.17 Arch of Titus, Rome, east face; Photo by Diane Favro.

inventiveness in the design of the Forum Transitorium, another Domitianic project better preserved and known than the Divorum. The Forum Transitorium – also called, somewhat unfairly, the Forum of Nerva because it was dedicated

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by the emperor Nerva in 97 ce, only a year after Domitian’s assassination – was originally intended as a monument to celebrate Domitian’s triumphs. This, the fourth among the Imperial fora, was literally created out of a narrow passageway hemmed by the

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines

figure 6.18 Detail of entablature and keystone of the Arch of Titus; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

fora of Julius Caesar and Augustus on the northwest, and the Templum Pacis on the northeast, with the Forum Romanum to the south and southwest (see Figures 6.1 and 6.2). The long passageway (c. 45  150 m) was in fact a street called the Argiletum linking the Forum Romanum with the Subura district to the north under which runs a major stretch of the Cloaca Maxima. Despite the transitory character of this unlikely space giving access to all others around it (well reflected in its alternative name), the Forum Transitorium was a self-contained and unified architectural entity, not a mere passageway or vestibule. The precinct was defined along the sides by rows of slender, Corinthian columns in Phrygian marble, standing in front of the long walls and united to them above by an entablature and a tall attic which projected forward over the columns and receded like bays between them (Figures 6.19, Plate 9A, and 6.20). A pair of these columns with their entablature is still preserved. The carving is deeply cut and rich, even

fussy, considered typical of late Flavian ornament. The preserved part of the sculptured frieze on the southern wall depicts the arts and crafts of weaving, spinning, dyeing under the patronage of Minerva, the goddess who was honored in this forum as Domitian’s personal favorite. There is also a section depicting a triumphant Minerva in armor, and the divine punishment of Arachne who had foolishly challenged the goddess – a moralizing theme with “no other extant representations . . . in ancient art,” as aptly observed by E. D’Ambra (D’Ambra 1993, 48). The short ends of the forum were slightly bowed. Projecting from the middle of the northeast side – opposite what might have been the main entrance from the Forum Romanum – was the Temple of Minerva, a prostyle, hexastyle structure on a podium whose frontal Corinthian columns of Phyrigian marble were still standing until the sixteenth century (they were pulled down in 1506 to build the monumental Aqua Paola

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figure 6.19, plate 9a Reconstruction of the Forum Transitorium with the Temple of Minerva, Rome, by Inklink; Archive of the Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali, Imperial Fora, courtesy of Eugenio La Rocca

fountain on the Janiculum Hill). The cella, with an apsidal end and interior colonnades, backed directly into the right hand (southeast) exedra of the Forum of Augustus. This apparent awkwardness was concealed from view by bringing the curved backwalls of the forum in alignment with the front of the cella. Through a pair of arcaded doors on this curved wall, flanking the temple façade, one would have looked into vaguely defined and seemingly continuous spaces beyond. On the left was the receding curve of the great exedra, a dead-end space; on the right, down a passageway, was a similarly curved wall with openings. This is identified as the back wall of the Porticus Apsidata, a horseshoe shaped, colonnaded porch providing an elegant entrance to the Forum Transitorium from the Subura (see Figure 6.2). On both sides, the ambiguity of curving, backlighted space recalled a stageset trick. In earlier restorations, it was believed that a four-way arch, the shrine of the deity known as Janus Quadrifons, stood somewhere in the middle of the forum space, looking over, as Martial implies, the four fora (Epigrams 10.28). Janus was a god with two or four faces signifying beginnings and presiding over passageways through space and time, an association quite appropriate with this forum’s multidirectional orientation. Yet, like the fora of Julius Caesar and Augustus, the Forum Transitorium was clearly intended to be experienced as a single-directional space. Maximum visual impact would have been achieved from the south 314

(Forum Romanum entrance), down the long axis, facing the tall, projecting, elevated porch of the temple with imposing front steps, its cella hidden from view by the curved back walls of the enclosure. But, this is where similarity to typical Imperial fora ended. First of all, the architect of the Forum Transitorium had to contend with the totally uncanonical proportions of this “left over,” corridor-like space. There was no room to build the conventional side porticoes or grand exedras; instead, a monumental columnar order partly engaged to the walls was used. Further, tightly drawn columnar rows, carrying seemingly unending bands of projecting and receding entablatures, created an illusion of serialized and repetitive space, a tunnel of mirrors. Space, thus defined by undulations and modifications, was affirmed and abstracted. Connections to reality were further obscured by introducing the wellknown theatrical motif of back-stage, back-lit visual screens: beyond the arched doors, and partly hidden by them, an ambiguous space enveloped the temple. The creation of half-hidden precincts defined by decorative columnar rows and theatrical entrance elements, were familiar experiments in Roman wall paintings, especially of the second and fourth styles. The Forum Transitorium, and to a lesser extent the Porticus Divorum, provide us a real-life application of this world of illusion and play where appearances surpass the limitations of reality. The unknown architect(s) of

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines

figure 6.20 Side colonnade entablature with Arachne frieze, Forum Transitorium, Rome; Photo: Mikhail Malykh via Wikimedia.

these complexes was not only able to surpass problems presented by difficult sites and programs but also used these restrictions as a source of inspiration to achieve novel and uncommon solutions. There is one good candidate for such a master: Rabirius, Domitian’s chief architect, and the author of his Imperial residence on the Palatine Hill – the Palatium.

DOMUS PALATINA OR THE FLAVIAN PALACE Rabirius’ association with the palace complex Domitian built on the Palatine is spelled out in an epigram by Martial. The poet names him as the architect who built

the palace “with miraculous art” (Epigrams 7.56). Analysis of brick stamps confirm that the core complex, including its separate vestibule group in the Forum Romanum, were entirely Domitianic in date, and as a recognizable architectural group, mainly finished by 92 ce, although there were earlier structures as well as significant additions and modifications in later years. Eager to erase the memory of Nero’s lavish lifestyle in the Domus Aurea, Vespasian lived comparatively modestly in a large house in the Gardens of Sallust on the Pincian Hill. The idea of an independent palace might have been a part of his architectural “to do” list, and to that end might have started some terracing and ground work on the central Palatine hill. The second generation could afford to be less frugal. Titus seems 315

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figure 6.21 Plan of the Palatine Hill, Rome, Imperial era; rendered by Diane Favro.

to have preferred the Domus Tiberiana, a muchrenovated Julio-Claudian palace of the traditional peristyle-with-a-pool-in-the-center sort located on the northwestern part of the Palatine, known as the 316

Germalus. Domitian’s decision to create a new Imperial palace for himself, instead of adding on to and restoring the Domus Tiberiana, indicates the full scope of his dynastic ambitions (Figure 6.21). It also

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines represents a return to the Neronian absolutist idea that the leader of a world empire deserved to be housed in a majesty worthy of his almost limitless power. Domitian could claim an identity of power from powerful architecture even if in the end his exaggerated claims to be perceived as “Master and God” were misplaced, misunderstood, and ultimately disastrous. We know very little about the architecture of the Domus Tiberiana except for its northern front, overlooking the Forum Romanum, where a series of tall, vaulted substructures support the lofty terrace of the residence complex above. This portion was developed in the course of the first century ce under successive emperors as new, vaulted additions obliterated the earlier façade and pushed the new one forward toward the Forum. Substantial work seems to have been done under Caligula who also created a formal entry from the Forum. Suetonius reports that the delusional emperor converted the Temple of Castor and Pollux into a vestibule for his palace, and was in the habit of inviting worship, standing between the legendary horsemen brothers (Caligula 22). Although the great terrace of the palace, later occupied by the sixteenth-century Farnese Gardens is unavailable for investigations, it appears that the Domus Tiberiana was a loose agglomeration of small courts and buildings around a large central peristyle courtyard. It may have owed very little to actual Tiberian construction as Dio Cassius pointedly claimed that the emperor built no new buildings in Rome (57.10, 1.3). Under Nero there was considerable building on the Palatine, mainly his Domus Transitorium, which was consumed by fire in 64 and later built over by the Flavian Palace (see Figures 4.36–4.38). The great Neronian cryptoporticus that defines the eastern side of Domus Tiberiana may have been a postfire effort to link various structures on the hilltop (Figure 6.22). Thus, the Domus Tiberiana, a name not in use before Flavian times, might have been a loose term signifying the “Old Palace” as opposed to the “New Palace” of Domitian, the Domus Palatina, or simply the Palatium. The new palace occupied the central and the southern part of the Palatine. Rising some 40 meters (132 ft) above the Circus Maximus in a succession of massive brick-and-concrete vaults, and straddling the southern and southeastern slopes of the hill, the view of the palace substructures is seldom equaled in Roman architecture for the majesty of siting (Figures 6.21, 6.23, and 6.24; see also Figures 6.6 and 12.37). The palace can be conceived of as a block, roughly 200  200 meters, arranged around four peristyle courtyards in two main levels (Figure 6.25). The upper, corresponding to the

figure 6.22 Neronian cryptoporticus on the eastern side of the Domus Tiberiana, Palatine, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

level of the hilltop, was the official, or the public palace, and may be referred to as Domus Flavia (not an ancient designation). This part constituted the northwestern and central portions of the block. The southwestern block called the Domus Augustana, facing the Circus Maximus on one side, is arranged in two levels and seems to have been intended for quasi-private functions, such as banqueting and entertainment of friends, activities that still subsumed the public face of the emperor though probably less ceremonial in nature. On the southeast, at the lower level, is a long sunken garden called the “stadium” due to its shape (see later). Substantial extensions to the south and east, including a large pool complex, were further developed during the Severan and the Maxentian periods (from the end of the second to the beginning of the fourth century) as thermal establishments. Of these, not much more than the massive corner of a vaulted hall and their concrete substructures remain (see Figures 6.21 and 6.23). The primary approach to the palace appears to have been from the north/northeast along two streets leading up from the Forum and converging on an open plaza, the Area Palatina Figure 6.25, AP), north of the 317

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figure 6.23 General view of the Flavian Palace from the south with the Circus Maximus in foreground; Photo by Diane Favro.

palace. One of these streets, climbing up from the eastern end of the Forum, by way of the Arch of Titus, was the Clivus Palatinus. The other, the Clivus Victoriae, mentioned above, skirted along the northern substructures of Domus Tiberiana (see Figure 6.21) . Altered and amplified by Nero, Domitian, and Hadrian, the daring vaults bordering on and crossing over the Clivus Victoriae are among the most impressive testimonials to the magnificent elegance of Roman concrete technology. At the Forum level Domitian added a massive vestibule group composed of a tall, rectangular hall, the vestibule proper (whose walls are still standing to a height of 23.5 m); next to it stood another hall (now the Church of Santa Maria Antiqua), probably a guard station. These were connected to a triple ramp structure (recently restored) that climbed up to the Clivus Victoriae, and provided a steep, but direct, probably private, but spatially magnificent entrance to the palace (Figure 6.26). The northern front of the palace, overlooking the Area Palatina, was raised on a terrace and colonnaded, creating an impressive platform for the emperor’s public appearances. D OM U S F L A V I A

The key elements of Domus Flavia are arranged around a rectangular, colonnaded courtyard (50  55 m) with a central pool in the form of an octagonal maze within an oblong, shallow basin (30  24 m) (see Figure 6.25). The northeast wing of the peristyle 318

is occupied by three enormous rectangular halls: an apsidal basilica on the west (A); a grand throne room, or Aula Regia, in the middle (B); and a smaller oblong hall believed to have been a lararium, or a shrine dedicated to household deities, on the east (C). The basilica, presumably intended for legal and administrative proceedings presided over by the emperor, had two rows of interior columns culminating in a wide, semidomed apse at the south end. It was probably roofed by a barrel vault, as evidenced by the extraordinary thickness of its walls and the addition of buttresses inside the interior corners and along the exterior of its long western wall – typical engineering precautions (“retrofitting” we might have called) against structural failure in a masonry vaulting system. The Aula Regia, the reception or throne hall (c. 31  32 m), must have been one of the grandest of ceremonial halls in all Roman architecture. The thick, brickfaced concrete walls (thickness varies 2–4.3 m) were molded into a series of shallow niches each housing an aedicula framed by fluted columns carrying pediments; colossal statues of deities were displayed under these temple-fronts. A monumental colonnade in two stories carried entablatures, projecting and receding against the molded wall surface, recalling the roughly contemporary undulating colonnades of the Forum Transitorium. In such a rich, all-marble baroque setting, the allpowerful emperor who fancied kinship with the gods, sat enthroned in the center of the wide southern apse. Surrounded by the images of his immortal ancestors,

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines

figure 6.24 Typical detail of brick-faced concrete vaulted substructures of the Flavian Palace; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 6.25 Plan of the Flavian Palace (upper and lower levels), Palatine Hill, Rome; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after MacDonald).

and facing the entrance, he received visitors, dignitaries, and ambassadors from foreign powers. The dazzling, reflected light from the multicolored, marble floor and walls, the apsidal framing of the throne, must have enhanced the drama of the royal presentation. One imagines that this grand hall was roofed by a mighty, coffered, barrel vault, as implied somewhat vaguely by Statius, a contemporary court poet who might have been present in a court ceremony. Statius alludes to a vast realm of countless columns where vision soared into the great expanse of the ceiling as if it were the golden vault of the sky (Silvae 4.2). Such celestial symbolism in architecture often refers to coffered vaults painted with gilt stars. Yet, scholars are divided about the roofing of the Aula Regia. The predominant argument is that the relatively thin walls and the great 30.30-meter span would have made a masonry roof impractical, if not impossible; therefore, a wooden-truss roof with flat, wooden, gilded coffers would have been easier to build (Basilica Ulpia, 24 m, and “Basilica” at Trier, 26 m, are among other large Roman buildings with

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the largest indoor timber trusses) – and wooden coffers could still satisfy Statius’ poetic allusions. We opt for a vaulted concrete roof not only for the general architectural appropriateness of the imagery and vague literary allusions but also for hard, structural reasons: the walls have wide, spreading foundations; this structural form serves to decrease the effective span. Multiple-stepping interior corner buttresses are tell-tale evidence for vaulting – such corner buttressing is strictly a masonry engineering detail. Above all, as every structural engineer knows, the molded “waffle” construction of the walls (like corrugated cardboard) increases the effective load bearing thickness of these walls to over 4 meters, not the 2-meter thickness measured at the thinnest part of the wall (as the shallow niches or recessions are connected by barrel vaults above, the effective wall thickness at the springing of the vault is the larger figure). Another great hall, the triclinium (G), or the official or ceremonial banqueting hall that occupies the entire south wing of the peristyle, must have been covered in wood (Figure 6.27). Its planar walls, less

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines than 2 meters thick, and the 29-meter span would have precluded a masonry roof. The triclinium complex is composed of three spatially and visually interpenetrating units (see Figure 6.25, F-G-F). The central hall (G), probably the Cenatio Iovis triclinium mentioned in a late Roman source (SHA, Pertinax 11.6), faces the peristyle through a colonnade of six huge columns of Egyptian granite; it is separated from the flanking fountain courts (F-F) by screen walls with large windows. Axiality is emphasized by the wide central apse, which probably marked the position of the Jove-like, banqueting emperor. Reclining on dining couches, the ruler and his guests could look through the half-open walls and colonnades into the side courts, those partly open to the sky. Fountains played against their curved and niched back walls and in oval pools with oval islands rising in elaborate tiers, molded and cut into hard and soft scalloped shapes – a delicate sense of playfulness that represents a willful variation of the architect’s “grand style” displayed in the massive halls across the peristyle. Tinted with the reflection off the pools, fountains, and plants, indirect light flooded through the screen walls and raked across the shiny, multicolored marble floor of the triclinium. In cold, autumnal evenings, when chilly drops of water from the fountains sparkled in the last daylight, this raised floor was warmed by a hypocaust system similar to those used in Roman baths. The experience of dining in Roman society, men and women together – with food and drink enjoyed over many hours of conversation, poetry, music, and dance – was enhanced by the power of architecture that aimed at titillating multiple and contradicting sensory pleasures: sight and sound, light and dark, hot and cold. Not only the gentle curves and sharp edges of design in physical objects, but the entire setting for life and ritual here was a creative and masterful exercise in the fully-blown Flavian baroque. Separating the northern halls and the triclinium complex south of them is a large peristyle courtyard articulated by an octagonal maze pool (see Figure 6.25, D). Forming the eastern extension of this court and the Domus Flavia are a pair of adjacent peristyle courtyards (J and K), which are architecturally less distinctive than the part just described. This is partly due to the absence of any monumental units in this sector, and partly because of the poor state of preservation of the two peristyles. The northern peristyle (J) appears to have featured an entrance structure, or “vestibule” facing the Area Palatina (see Figure 6.21, AP). This could have been the primary, ceremonial entrance court for the entire complex, welcoming, registering, and holding visitors. The central peristyle

(K), situated directly to the southwest of J, marks the crossing of the main north–south and east–west axes of the palace. It is a central and transitional space giving access to the primary public and private zones. A large but shallow pool with scalloped edges filled the center of this peristyle; a miniature island shrine dedicated to Minerva, Domitian’s protector, must have furnished a measure of rustic relief to the austere, colonnaded grandeur of this “crossroads” place distinguished by the gentle curve of its apsidal colonnade. The northwestern peristyle (D) with the octagonal maze pool, and the central one (K), identical in size and disposition, were freely linked by a passage unit (H). The southeast wing of peristyle K, a rectangular hall with columnar, apsidal ends (M), gave access to the upper level of the stadium. Much like an elevated loggia, it linked the tightly composed upper official quarters with the expanding vista of a lush, sunken garden (S). Mirroring the intricate, curvilinear geometries of this wing is the west wing (E) of the peristyle D, which furnished a secondary, northwest entrance, or “visitor’s center,” to Domus Flavia. This is where, as famously phrased by W. L. MacDonald, “Rabirius let his compass swing freely” (MacDonald 1965, 54). A central octagon with four doors and four semicircular niches is flanked by a pair of back-to-back, fourway, half circles joined together like a threedimensional puzzle. The rooms are visually linked through internal windows, but direct movement from one to another is intentionally blocked, requiring circumventions. Consideration of a specific function to this architectural exercise in willful creativity that again belies Rabirius’ nextdoor “grand style”, is almost irrelevant; this is an exercise in pure geometry. Small in scale and somewhat peripheral to the overall scheme, the west wing of the Domus Flavia stands out among the most creative experiments in Roman architectural shape composition. DO M US AU GU S TA NA

The same passion for experimenting with novel formal and spatial geometries pervades the design of the upper and lower levels of Domus Augustana, the quasi-private palace, so much so that, its architectural similarities to the vaulted intricacies achieved by Severus and Celer in certain parts of Domus Aurea (see earlier), inspired a colleague to suggest that this whole wing might be dated to the Neronian period (Wulf-Rheidt 2012, 9) (Figures 6.25 and 6.28). We find no hard evidence either in spatial quality or in construction details to support this hypothesis. A

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figure 6.26 Domitianic ramp linking the Forum Romanum to the Flavian Palace; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

chain of small rooms, some nineteen or twenty of them, interlocked and held together by tight, internal symmetries, describe the relatively well-preserved upper level (see Figure 6.25). These intricately vaulted spaces arranged 322

symmetrically about the northeast/southwest axis, are related to each other by virtue of their basic morphology. Here, there are none of the long rows of room opening into colonnaded corridors – an almost ubiquitous

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figure 6.27 Reconstruction of the triclinium with fountain courts, Domus Flavia; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Claridge).

arrangement of Roman villa architecture, also employed in Nero’s Golden House. The Domus Augustana eschews the “porticoed wing” arrangement in favor of room clusters which might have developed in stages and sequences (which explains some of the unbonded walls, a fairly common practice in Roman architecture), but certainly presents an integrated design process in conception and construction. To emphasize how Rabirius was able to treat architectural form as a dynamic,

sculptural entity, we can look at the pair of very small octagonal rooms buried in the variegated grouping of spaces (see Figure 6.25, room ‘10’). Probably highlighted and dramatized by light flooding in from circular openings in the centers of their small domes (oculi, singular oculus), the space of these miniscule octagons was exploded by double tiers of deep niches carved into each interior facet, alternating semicircular and rectangular (Figure 6.29). 323

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity Yet, the complexity of the upper level of the Domus Augustana is misleading: a clear and powerful order underlies the apparent intricacies of design. In the central block (just southwest of peristyle K), the composition was conceived in three major northeast/ southwest (vertical as one faces the plan) spatial sequences. These axially ordered sequence of rooms were terminated in exedras or niches. To continue the movement southwest from the semicircular, semidomed middle vestibule “1,” through room “2,” into its formal extension, the beautifully shaped room “3,” one had to go out into secondary or serving rooms providing lateral connection (rooms “4–4”). This architectural sidestep also allowed maximum privacy to the primary rooms. Symmetrically disposed on either side of this central sequence, are the sequences created by rooms “5–6–7,” which are also aided by secondary, lateral spaces for functional continuity. Despite such complexities, the relationship between the primary and secondary, served and serving, spaces are spelled out with great clarity of interdependence. Architectural hierarchies are created and movement controlled through variations in room shape, height, forms of vaulting, and articulation of surface. Vistas are deliberately closed (as discussed earlier), or opened, as in the lateral, northwest/southeast row of rooms “8–5–1–5–8–9” through the enfilade openings of five doorways. Some of these formal and structural devices by which this dynamic and expressive architecture was, indeed, realized had been pioneered already in the Golden House. Rabirius was inspired by and might even have worked under his older colleague Severus in that epoch-making project. If so, a quarter century later, he was able to benefit from his earlier experience, and the advances in concrete technology, and command a bolder, more sophisticated vocabulary of design. Thus, the elegant design can be associated less with the elderly Severus working on the Palatine Hill, and more with the young Rabirius down at the Domus Aurea!). Responding to the steep drop of the hill toward the Circus Maximus, Rabirius created a lower level to the Domus Augustana some 11 meters (c. 33 ft) below the upper level (see Figures 6.25, 6.28, and 6.31). The two floors are physically connected by a stairway wrapping around a long, rectangular pool, open to the sky, with a low apsidal end adorned with fountains (Figure 6.28d). Tall arcades, washed by overhead light, rise to their full height, adding to the sense of drama (Figure 6.30). As in all great stairs, the northwest staircase of Domus Augustana celebrates the act of ascending and descending; it generates a soaring, positive, bold space, not a dark, cubbyhole

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stairwell tucked away into a conveniently obscure corner of the building like an embarrassing excuse. But the real formal and visual connector between the upper and lower levels of Domus Augustana is the sunken court known as the “Pelta Court,” which was probably originally a single story high, later surrounded by double-story arcades (Figure 6.28, N). The center of this sunken courtyard was almost entirely filled by a rectangular pool with raised “islands” of richly articulated, back-to-back, semicircular segments – hard-edged, abstract shapes resembling an ancient shield known as “pelta.” Recent investigations indicate that Rabirius’ scheme contained only the lower level of the courtyard: the upper level on the southwest side (Figure 6.25 Q-PQ) and the “pelta pool,” were additions of the Trajanic-Hadrianic periods (Wulf-Rheidt 2015, 9). In the original scheme a simple, tall wall terminated the southwest end of the sunken court blocking visual connection toward the Circus Maximus; the wide, elegant exedra with its central imperial loggia (P) and double apsidal pavilons (Q-Q) opening toward the the great view below was probably a Hadrianic improvement. Unlike the upper level peristyles then, the original scheme of the Pelta Court was a deep, roofless, room, “turning its back to Circus Maximus.” In the fully realized scheme, when the sunken court was surrounded by tall arcades, their long, distorted shadows must have animated the deep space like a Del Chirico painting or a Barragan plaza. In this world of internalized architectural abstractions, the arcuated openings of the defining walls were mirrored by the pelta arcuations of the pool-plaza and the pool itself was a façade looking at the sky. The group of rooms occupying the northwest side of the Pelta Court is centered on a large, rectangular, vaulted hall (Figure 6.28b) that projects into the portico. This room may have been intended for the personal use of the suspicious emperor (public or private) as it is securely isolated by peripheral corridors and service units. Its use as a kind of semiformal dining room is suggested in a specialized, hypothetical study of the location and distribution of dining couches (and the system of service circulation) of the Domus Augustana (Sojc and Winterling 2009, 294–301, figs. 6, 7). Behind it, and along the sides, are a pair of symmetrically disposed pool rooms (Figure 6.28c), each open to the sky but like the northeast staircase, enveloped by a screen wall of arches through which one could enjoy a constantly changing range of internal vistas (also convenient for visual supervision). Such sophisticated creations, with multilayered spatial sequences, internal vistas, and pool

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figure 6.30 Two views of the arcaded stairway connecting upper and lower levels of the Domus Augustana; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 6.31 View of upper and lower levels of the Domus Augustana with the “Pelta Court,” looking northeast; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

and fountain rooms, were favored and experimented with widely in contemporary villa architecture as we see with the oecus east wall of the lavish Julio-Claudian villa at Oplontis discussed earlier. 326

The design of the northeast side of the Pelta Court (lower level) is equally imaginative (see Figures 6.28 and 6.31); a cross-vaulted, central square hall (Figure 6.28e) is flanked by a symmetrical pair

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines of octagonal rooms roofed by segmental domical vaults (f–f ). Each unit is expanded by alternating, semicircular/semidomed and rectangular/barrelvaulted niches. Some of the niches are further articulated by smaller ones, thus creating a hierarchial and diminishing order of volumetric succession and visual focus. At the back, giving service to these major rooms, is a straight series of nine rooms, the central five of which are connected in a straight line of four doors. The geometry of the plan (like the geometry of the northwest wing of Domus Flavia peristyle court, Figure 6.25 E) can be appreciated by itself as if it were an exercise in graphic design, or pattern making in three dimensions. But it is the plastic continuities of space, curved, edged, molded, layered, and stretched – in contrast to centralized, self-contained unities – that give this architecture its unique character. Again, one must note the spatial similarities to some spatial units of the Domus Aurea and its Octagon. The side, facing the Circus Maximus below, once terminated by a wall, was redesigned as a magnificent, bowed exedra, draped with a colonnaded portico in one or two stories (Figure 6.25 R). Facing southwest, these porticoes would have made ideal promenades on winter afternoons. On the upper level, perched high at the edge of the hill, were a pair of identical apsidal pavilions about the central loggia (see Figure 6.25, Q–Q). Focused on tiny, semicircular gardens with pools, these were probably conceived as elegant summer rooms, or paviliions (diaetae). They offered no long views of the outside, but turned inward, serving as places for retreat and contemplation. Recalling some of the intricate, inventive, introverted features of Hadian’s Villa in Tivoli, they support the view that these creative exercises might be linked to Hadrian or the early Antonines and as such would be fully in sympathy with the subtle sensitivities of spatial dialectics of Rabirius’ design. A large, rectangular room or loggia between them, placed directly on the main north–south axis of Domus Augustana and the curved external façade, opened to a spectacular view, and might have accommodated larger groups (Figure 6.25 P). An identical rectangular room below this one gave direct access to the Pelta Court (see Figure 6.28 a); it might have been a vestibule for the lower level of the Domus Augustana linking the palace with the southwest quarter of the Palatine, particularly the so-called Paedagogium (perhaps, a training school for palace functionaries), the Greek and Latin libraries, and the precincts of the great temples of Apollo and Magna Mater (see Figure 6.21).

T H E G A R D E N - S T A D I UM

The third primary component of Domitian’s palace was the Stadium, an elongated sunken garden (c. 160  50 m) stretching along the southeastern edge of the complex (see Figures 6.25S and 6.32). A portico, originally single story but expanded into a double-story arrangement, ran along the two long sides and the bowed, south end. The vaulted, lower story portico was an arcade of engaged brick piers veneered in marble; the upper level seems to have been colonnaded (Figure 6.33). The long southeast side is still dominated by a large semicircular exedra, its massive, coffered half-dome rising over the edge of the stadium in a tour de force of concrete technology (see Figure 6.25T). This was probably the Imperial box, suggesting that the Stadium, like the private palaestras of luxury villas, could be used for exercise and in-house display of athletic competitions and minor spectacles – a favorite aristocratic pastime since the days of Augustus. The Stadium was accessible directly from the lower level of the Domus Augustana by a long corridor. Adorned with fountains and formal planting, this shady, secluded paradise foreshadows similar constructions of Hadrian in his Villa at Tivoli; and like them, it counts among the most attractive garden retreats created for the pleasure of a ruler. Although the extent and the boundaries of the public and private zones of the palace are largely unknown (and what is “private” and what is “public” in an emperor’s palace or official residence was not as sharply designated and rigid as we sometimes think), there must have been considerable fluidity and overlap between them (see Figure 6.25). The Domus Flavia proper, with its huge public halls grouped around the western peristyle (with its labyrinth pool, D), was clearly the public and ceremonial realm where state functions were met. So was the first, or the northeast peristyle (J), with its hypothetical gate-vestibule leading into peristyle K with its Domitianic islandtemple, strictly on axis. This middle peristyle, however, also represents a transitional zone between more public and more private spaces. The nature of the upper level of the Domus Augustana is intriguing (southeast of middle peristyle K). Through the enfilade row of rooms opening into the middle peristyle, it was directly accessible from the bona fide public zone (see Figure 6.25, rooms “8–5–1–5–8”). Others, mainly comprising the southwest extensions of these and looking down into the Pelta Court, appear more isolated, or spaces the emperor could have entertained his guests in a more informal, “private” manner (see earlier). This may have been the wing where public and private overlapped; where the official and bureaucratic

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figure 6.32 Reconstruction study of the Garden Stadium of the Flavian Palace (Huelsen, 1926).

functions concerning the relations between the Imperial family and their formal or informal guests and visitors were coordinated and monitored. The wings occupying the northwest and southeast sides of the upper Pelta Court (now largely gone), and the entire lower level of Domus Augustana, might have been conceived as a more private domain of the Imperial family. Contrary to some opinions that the “emperor had no private life” (a catchy, attention-grabbing idea), Roman emperors did have private lives, which they knew, prized and protected, though the nature of privacy in context of the culture they belonged was surely very different from ours. There is truth in R. Mar’s observation that for absolute privacy, Vespasian had his Gardens of Sallust, Domitian had his villa complex on Lake Albano and Hadrian, of course, his Villa at Tivoli (Mar 2009, 252). Still, it would be counterproductive to argue that Domitian’s womenfolk and children had no place in the great palace and its myriad of private and public functions. The overall layout of the palace and its various levels reflect the subtle overlap and orderly transition of its functions from public/state/ceremonial to private/family/ 328

informal, moving from the upper levels of the west and north to the lower levels of the east and south but without a sense of hard segregation.

THE LESSON OF THE FLAVIAN PALACE: RABIRIUS’ GENIUS The Flavian Palace, the Palatium (Domus Palatina, meaning the entire complex) was a successful building on several accounts. It satisfied the functional requirements of its unusual and complicated program well. Unconcerned about the primacy of an overarching and unifying architectural image, the complex evolved over time but still with a distinct architectural parti, grouped around several interlinked courtyards on different levels. It was neither a blocklike complex with rigidly symmetrical axes nor a belvedere villa with rows of rooms and exedras stretching along a hilltop but contained elements from both. The fractured masses of the building hugged the southern and eastern eminence of the Palatine and sent majestic roots of concrete arches

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figure 6.33 Detail of brick arcade, lower level of the Garden Stadium, Palatine; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

down the south and southeastern slopes of the hill. Viewed from this side only, the great palace presented an impressive elevation – a power façade – rising high over the valley of the Circus Maximus (see Figures 6.23 and 12.37). Although deceptively traditional in the disposition of its larger architectural components, the complex ushered in a novel approach to the design of Imperial residences and created an expressive and monumental setting as well as a set of meaningful symbols for the despotic master for whom it was fashioned. Until Rabirius shaped the eastern part of the Palatine as a Palatium for Domitian, there was no established model in Roman architectural practice for an official Imperial residence, or a “palace,” as we understand it. Augustus was self-consciously proud to be living in a relatively (and somewhat deceptively) modest townhouse on the fashionable Palatine Hill (see earlier). His Julio-Claudian successors built over the years what appears to be a villa-palace combination whose somewhat rambling elements were grouped around several large and traditional peristyle courtyards and gardens. Occupying most of the western spur of the Palatine as an overgrown peristyle villa in the Hellenistic mode, only the northern extension of the Domus Tiberiana, overlooking the Forum, seems to have been developed under Caligula as an imposing block, perhaps capable of projecting a ‘palace’ image.

We know very little about the layout of Nero’s sprawling Domus Transitoria, which was destroyed by fire in 64 ce, then buried under the Flavian palace. What we know of the succeeding Imperial residence, Nero’s Domus Aurea, or the Golden House, is a long wing, composed of a row of rooms stretching across the eastern extension of the Esquiline Hill. Revolutionary in the conception and ordering of some of its elements and groups, the overall design with its linear, colonnaded façade expanded by deep recesses and occasional courtyards rising on several terraces, even the Domus Aurea followed largely the best traditions of Roman country villas (see earlier). The suburban villa in its two basic forms, one with spreading porticoes straddling hilltops or seaside and the other with a relatively compact form having its functions arranged around a large, colonnaded courtyard – or a combination of these – provided the customary models for the country residences of the rich. In the city, luxurious and elaborate variations of the atrium/peristyle town house or mansion were common. Domitian himself had inherited, and probably with Rabirius’ help, greatly enlarged and improved, a suburban estate at Albano-Castelgondolfo. Built on successive terraces overlooking Lake Albano and the distant sea, this extensive country estate included, besides an unexplored residential block, gardens, porticos, baths, nymphaea, a theater, and a stupendous cryptoporticus whose 300-meter length, and skylighted, deeply coffered, concrete barrel vault never fails to astound modern visitors who are privileged to acquire the special permission required to see the estate (Figure 6.34; see earlier). The Flavian Palace with four peristyle courts and a porticoed “garden-stadium,” incorporated some of these traditional elements and motifs of the “villa,” but in the main, it deviated from these models. It was not a country villa, nor was it, like the Domus Tiberiana, a peristyle palace of the Hellenistic type with a wide-open enclosure, or several garden courts, surrounded by low-roofed wings. With its ambitious building complex, Rabirius re-invented, or rather redefined the “peristyle” in the new context of Roman palace architecture. In the Flavian Palace the peristyles furnish a formal structure to the complex, but they do not dominate it. What has been created is a powerful assemblage of masses, each defined and described by a landscaped courtyard, but integrated into a many-layered architectonic whole. Each peristyle and its dependencies display a distinct and characteristic design pertinent to their function, usage and message, while merging these functions and messages through skillful manipulations of 329

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figure 6.34 Cryptoporticus of Domitian’s Villa at Albano; by Guganij via Wikimedia.

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Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines overlapping levels and layout. Wrapped by tall blocks, the courtyards are tightly organized, vertical, open-air rooms that form, like the deeply sunken Pelta Court of the Domus Augustana, an inseparable part of the four walls surrounding them. Even the garden-stadium, with its tall porticoes raised on brick piers and probably lush vegetation inside, must have had the appearance of a vast, roofless basilica rather than an open garden. Likewise, the courtyard of the Domus Flavia (Figure 6.26 D), which today appears rather low, spacious and unstructured around its labyrinth pool, would have looked like a well-articulated spatial cube when the great halls closing around reached heights of 30–40 meters. Internally and externally, the predominant experience of the new palace was urban and vertical. Yet, there was more. Beyond the garden stadium raised on tall vaulted substructures and extending south and east for some 100 meters or more, Rabirius created a kind of “water court” composed of a large rectilinear pool surrounded by rooms and colonnades and facing the view through a “screen wall” or double colonnade – a lofty belvedere aptly described by Wulf-Rheidt (who conducted new investigations in the complex; see below) as “. . . lofty rooms that allowed for a view over large water areas, and, with their concluding colonnades [reflected airly over large watery sheen] – as in the Domus Aurea – were reminiscent of landscape architecture” (Wulf-Rheidt, 2015, 12). This is also the wing that was later developed under Septimius Severus and Maxentius with the additions of thermae but it is clear that Rabirius’ concept of the Flavian Palace included a kind of a bastion-belvedere, an architectural luxury item inspired by the urban villa (see Figure 12.27). It is significant that a great many of the literary metaphors used to describe the great palace Rabirius conceived and raised with “wondrous art” allude to the dome of the heavens, the high starry skies, and mountains raised on top of each other, as in the effusive and exaggerated language used by Statius and Martial. Statius calls the palace a huge and august building, one whose massiveness and height rivals mountains. To the poet, the interior expanse of one of its great halls is wider than the plains, where space defies vision as the eye, hopelessly trying to reach the summit, fools one into thinking that it was the very ceiling of the sky (Silvae 4.2.18–31). Also emphasizing the element of height, Martial unfavorably compares the pyramids to Rabirius’ great Palatine halls and invites the emperor to laugh at such works of the Egyptians. He declares that the palace is equal to all Seven Hills of Rome put together, its peak piercing the heavens and reaching the realm of Jupiter among the stars (Epigrams 8.36). If a new interpretation of the peristyle-palace experienced through the massing of volumes and the emphasis on height is one of the defining

characteristics of Rabirius’ masterpiece, its powerful, curvilinear geometry, a clear follower of Severus’ experiments in the Golden House, is another. Rabirius not only built an august and luxurious residence for a ruler whose claims to grandiosity, power and even immortality, were served by the grandeur of its architecture, he also devised and developed a language of architectural forms through which such demands and delusions were underscored and symbolized. Scholars agree on the potency of Rabirius’ apsidal and curvilinear interiors in creating the appropriate architectural context for the expression of political absolutism. As commonly viewed, the apses of Domitian’s palace served to “isolate the space of the emperor” from the general space occupied by ordinary people and help to establish his image as a ruler with infinite power (Zanker, 2004, 86–99; 2009, 62–7). According to W. L. MacDonald, the unbroken curvilinear continuities exploited by Rabirius in the great vaulted and semi-domed interiors of the palace frame the emperor and define his position at the center of a new geometry of authority; this is geometry distinct from the familiar shapes associated with everyday secular buildings. Whether he was holding court in the great state halls, or presiding over an official dinner in the triclinium, or watching an in-house performance with a few friends in his Garden Stadium, or moving inside the quasiintimate suite of rooms of the Domus Augustana, or outlined against the seemingly endless frames of enfilade doorways, Domitian appeared to be always framed and circumscribed by an architectural geometry that placed him in focus at the center of a metaphysical universe, as Jupiter was in his real, cosmic one (Figure 6.35). So capable was the Flavian palace in fulfilling the ordinary functions of commodity, comfort, and delight, and so effective were its architectural metaphors in expressing the political and dynastic implications of sovereignty, that it remained the official home of the Roman emperors for many centuries to come who also changed it, developed it, extended its reach and message. One must not forget, however, that the same palatial symbols and metaphors, that were developed over time, and used with such powerful innuendo by Nero and Domitian in their imperial residences, were able to express a wide variety of functions and meanings other than those for which they were made and continued to enjoy an architectural life of their own. One last point needs to be made. There is no question that the investigations in the Flavian Palace in the last two decades under the auspices of the Brandenburg Technical University of Cottbus and the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin, spearheaded by A. Hoffmann, U. Wulf-Rheidt, N. Sojc, 331

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figure 6.35 Series of rooms with doors enfilade, upper level of Domus Augustana; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

and others have produced invaluable alternative results increasing or challenging our knowledge of this important complex by showing that several features of the palace long believed to be part of its original design were indeed later modifications, extensions and enlargements undertaken mainly during the TrajanicHadrianic era. This is good to know; but, not surprising as there hardly is a major building from antiquity, which did not incorporate certain (and often substantial and commendable) changes and modifications. Yet, 332

the architectural character of the greater Flavian Palace can hardly be defined as a conglomeration of parts achieved over time with a “more differentiated building style than was previously thought” (Wulf-Rheidt, 2015, 12), a view that denies Rabirius a commanding and integrated vision as architect, or the palace a unified and integrated presence as architecture. The significance and the novelty of these new finds and the new scholarly hypotheses surrounding them are worthy and stimulating even as they appear somewhat

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines exaggerated and exude a whiff of “kill the father syndrome.” Some of these changes were anticipated in the original design. Others, which were not, underlined the continuity with the past connecting Neronian architecture with the Antonine. However, it is important to point out that these studies that produced a steady stream of articles and essays are not based on hard and clinching archaeological evidence, no major new excavations, no new paradigm-changing discovery of brick-stamps, coins, inscriptions, masons marks, or context-building ceramics – but mainly “architectural analyses and investigations” of brick-type and brickwork (which we believe displays the same character and technical details from Domus Flavia to both levels of Domus Augustana) and observation of “spatial character.” One admits how difficult a job it must be to tackle such a massive, complex, and much-altered building and one concedes that this multipronged study involving many scholars has not been concluded – although many reports, some overlapping and even contradictory, are available. The new overview submits that the major palace, including the Domus Flavia, much of what is known as the Domus Augustana, the Garden Stadium, and a portion of the southeast extension (what later became Severan additions) with a remarkable pool-complex, was Flavian – and hence attributable to Rabirius. It was at the lower level of Domus Augustana that major changes were made. It appears that the spectacular opening of the sunken court toward the Circus Maximus, the great, scenic exedra, and the Pelta design of the pool itself were Trajanic-Hadrianic modifications. In Rabirius’ scheme the sunken court of Domus Augustana was closed off from Circus Maximus side by a wall. There is no question that the new exedra and the upper level rooms and suites associated to it were glorious; however, what it replaced – an introverted room without a view that “turned its back” to the Circus Maximus but looked at the sky – was no less powerful and thought-provoking. Rabirius’ set of variegated, vaulted rooms composing the lower level of Domus Augustana (Figure 6.28, f-e-f ) would have been sufficient to establish his position as a master of opus caementicium architecture even though the original inspiration was handed down by Nero’s architectural “revolution.” In some studies, these rooms are reconstructed without a second story, the upper level of the Domus Augustana coming just short of covering them. This has, of course, the great advantage of allowing openings in the domical vaults of the octagonal rooms that would clearly enhance the lighting and dramatic impact of the spaces. Yet, studying the interconnected nature of the upper level rooms, their individualistic, particularized relationships (like a 3D jigsaw puzzle)

and the lack of any obvious building breaks (nonbonding walls do not count), and construction methods and details in brick-faced concrete, we imagine that the entire upper level was, structurally and architecturally an integrated whole. This may still be inconclusive: our views are ready to change if hard archaeological evidence emerges in the future. In fact, the design Rabirius conceived and left behind is in its entirety, an integrated and unified whole that fully defined and cast its shadow across future amendments. Once we view Rabirius’ project architecturally (rather than archaeologically, piecemeal in its parts, “phases” and “differentiated styles”), we can appreciate the formative power and lasting imprint of its parti. Consequently, we can offer a broader appreciation of Roman architecture defined by the remarkably creative period extending from Nero to Hadrian. We suggest that it would be misplaced to view the creations, contributions, idiosyncrasies, and relationships of this architecture as expressed through the competing works of Severus and Celer, Rabirius, Apollodorus (and Hadrian) as sharply defined and individuallycredited and differentiated achievements (was Rabirius responsible for Trajan’s Forum? or Apollodorus the real name behind Hadrian’s Pantheon?), but as belonging to an intertwined and interdependent artistic continuum in which the masters might have been less rivals than collaborators (pace Hadrian!) whose roles in creating a single, spectacular vision of Roman architecture was as universal as the architecture they collectively produced.

TRAJAN AND APOLLODORUS The violent end of Domitian could have led to a year of horror like that following Nero’s forced suicide. However, quick action forestalled any threats to peace in Rome and Italy; the Senate named as emperor M. Cocceius Nerva, a much-respected senior member among their own ranks. Nerva’s secure position with the aristocracy and his widespread reputation for virtue and moderation, found its necessary counterpart with the acquisition of military support when in 97 ce he named as coregent M. Ulpius Traianus, the governor of Upper Germany and a popular general. This was probably the most auspicious executive decision in the short reign of the elderly emperor whose death in 98 ce was followed by the eventless accession of Trajan, who enjoyed the full support of the both Senate and the army. Born in Italica, in Spain, to an Italo-Hispanic family from middle-level aristocracy, Trajan was the first provincial to become emperor, and the first whose 333

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity choice for the top job was entirely based on personal excellence rather than dynastic succession. With him started a period of merit-based adoptions resulting in peace and prosperity (or “equilibrium” as characterized by some colleagues) lasting nearly a century. Trajan’s military background and forceful personality, tempered by a deep sense of duty and honesty, earned him universal respect as the “best of leaders,” optimus princeps. His reign (98–117 ce) was remembered, in the judgement of future historians, as an era of happiness – tempora felices. Fully consonant with the notion of a happy era under Trajan was the interest in raising the standards of civil services by providing better roads and bridges, safer harbors and ports, and new sources of water. Although ordinarily eclipsed by the more glamorous and better known Trajanic monuments in Rome, such as his Forum and the Basilica Ulpia, or the great thermae bearing his name, it was the hundreds of small and large utilitarian projects that made the difference in improving the quality of life and prosperity of the people throughout Italy and its domains. The services of Frontinus, the senatorial-rank water commissioner of Rome under Trajan, who was charged with improving the water supply of the capital, reflect the sense of public responsibility shouldered by Trajan’s administration, as do the extensive new installations of lead pipes for the city (the health dangers of this metal being unknown) and the building of a major new aqueduct, the Aqua Traiana. The large numbers of milestones of Trajanic date found in Italy and the provinces, and the hundreds of miles of new roads linking distant cities and garrisons, underline the emperor’s serious road and communications policy. Justly celebrated is his extension of the Via Appia, regina viarum (“the queen of the consular roads”), from Beneventum in the Apennines to Brindisi, the port for the eastern Mediterranean. To commemorate this new extension linking Italy coast to coast dubbed the Via Traiana, a handsome triumphal arch was erected in Beneventum in 117 ce. The rich sculptural decoration of the arch honors Trajan’s social services in Italy and the provinces. One particular panel, named the alimentaria, shows a memorable composition of grateful colonists with their children (some holding their parents hands, others carried on their shoulders) brought before Trajan, whose welfare program generated funds for orphans from the interest income of state loans provided for small businesses. In Brindisi, the harbor terminus of the new road was marked by a double-column monument, symbolizing a kind of gateway opening to the East. More dramatic was a part of the old Via Appia at Terracina: in order to provide a straighter and wider road, Trajan’s 334

engineers cut away the sheer rock of the coastal mountains for a depth of 126 RF (see earlier). Another great engineering achievement in central Spain is the previously discussed bridge over the deep granite gorge of the Tagus River at Alcantara whose architect felt free and confident to dedicate a shrine to himself at one end of the bridge; rising to a height of 46 meters, it is the maximum recorded among Roman bridges (see Figure 3.39, Plate 5A). Not far from Alcantara is the 775meter-long bridge which crosses the river Guadiana over sixty-two arches forming the decumanus maximus of the Augustan colony Emerita (modern Merida) (see Figure 3.33). Although this handsome work, a model for low water crossing, was designed by Agrippa’s engineers, it was renovated and largely rebuilt under Trajan. The creation of a new harbor at Portus, circa 3 kilometers north of Ostia can be seen as a bold response to the long and painful problem of providing a safe and reliable port for the capital whose evergrowing population relied heavily on grain imports from Sicily and North Africa. The Claudian harbor with its long moles and famous lighthouse finished under Nero proved to be only a partial answer to the problem because it was not sufficiently protected (see Figure 3.58). Unable, or unwilling, to come up to Ostia, the large ships of the Alexandrian grain fleet still put in at Puteoli, a better harbor in the Bay of Naples, but far from Rome. The problem of transporting Rome’s wheat supply from Puteoli, by way of land, was daunting. An inland canal from Lake Avernus to Rome was conceived by Nero but proved impractical to build. Trajan’s engineers and architects created a new harbour near Rome, a large hexagonal inner basin, some 700 meters across, with safe berths for large ships. The hexagon opened inland from the outer, Claudian harbor and was connected to the Tiber, and hence to Rome, by an artificial canal, the fossa Traiana. All around the hexagon, there were warehouses, navalia, temples and possibly a luxurious residence and even a “palace” that might have been used by emperors during their seafaring departures and arrivals. Of particular interest were the docks for marble shipment; from these special docks blocks were transported on river barges to Rome’s marble working district, the Marmorata, below the Aventine, where white and colored marbles and building stones imported from quarries across the Mediterranean, could be handled (see earlier for a fuller discussion). Quite apart from the physical magnitude and excellence of the harborworks at Portus (which might have involved Apollodorus to a lesser or greater degree, as we suggested earlier), one admires the business-like clarity with which Trajan and his advisers tackled the

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines problem of safe harbors not only for Rome, but for Italy as a part of a coordinated policy aimed at maintaining the stability and prosperity of the peninsula. The harbor at Portus was one of the many built or improved in Italy under his reign. Others include Terracina, Centumcella (modern Civitavecchia), Brindisium (Brindisi), and Ancona, the last forming the terminus of the Via Traiana on the Adriatic coast. At Ancona, the new port was commemorated by a superbly positioned, tall commemorative arch of sober, classicizing elegance (see Figure 7.39). We do not know of a particular harbor monument at Portus besides the Claudian lighthouse, which had already become a beloved symbol of the port; or the usual dedicatory statues of harbor deities and commemorative arches (a few can be seen in a marble relief from the Severan period). Perhaps, the sheer power of 320 hectares of water tamed and contained within the hard-edged, travertine borders of the great basin was itself considered a monument to Trajan’s achievement. An important part of any emperor’s urbanistic agenda was the completion of projects started by his predecessor and deemed worthy. “Good” emperors often chose to retain their predecessors’ names on the dedication as an act of piety and modesty – an act itself charged with political calculations. Also important was the chore of continuous repair and maintenance of Rome’s aging buildings, especially those ravaged by the frequent fires, floods, and collapses in the capital. Although ultimately lacking the grandeur and political clout of new projects, the intelligent public and its critics often appreciated the value of these restorations as Pliny, in his laudatory speeches honoring Trajan, admired the emperor’s preservation efforts in Rome, “checking ruin, banishing neglect, and saving great edifices from destruction . . .” (Panegyricus 49.8). Trajan, indeed, was credited with the rebuilding of the Temple of Venus Genetrix in the Forum of Julius Caesar, now highly visible with its three monumental columns re-erected in the 1930s; see Figure 4.6). The richly carved entablature of the temple is impressive and may serve as a continuation of the rich and elaborate style associated with Flavian architectural ornament. Since this area was damaged by the fire of 80 ce, it is likely that repairs were begun under Domitian, but completed by Trajan, who inaugurated this structure in the first of the Imperial fora along with his own new, and last, imperial forum in 113 ce. Another major public project undergoing continuous rebuilding and improvement since the days of Titus was the great Circus Maximus. Trajan seems to have restored the Domitianic Imperial box as a more open and accessible element and increased the seating capacity along the sides by adding five thousand seats. Pliny judged these

improvements as indicative of the emperor’s democratic leanings and admired them as fitting for a nation “which has conquered the world.” (Panegyricus 51.5; ILS 286). Rabirius was Domitian’s chief architect. It appears that one Apollodorus of Damascus occupied this important position under Trajan. Viewing the two men’s careers, we see that there was some overlap. Apollodorus (who must have been born around 50–60 ce), could have worked in the 80s and early 90s as an apprentice under Rabirius, or at least known well the great buildings being raised in the Forum and on the Palatine. He, or his family, was from Damascus, the chief city of Syria, and he may have received his early training in building trade there; but we are not sure of how his eastern background affected his later career. There is no question that as a young man he could have received the best professional training in architecture in the East, although his artistic personality and his architecture must have been shaped by the unique historic developments of Roman architecture in the capital since the time of Nero. Our knowledge of Apollodorus is based on a straightforward passage by the historian Dio Cassius, who refers to him as “the architect who built various creations of Trajan in Rome – the forum, the odeum and the gymnasium” (69.4.1). The context and setting for this passage is important. While Trajan was consulting with his chief architect about certain problems concerning his buildings, Hadrian, then the young prince and an aspiring amateur architect, interrupted to ask advice about a scheme of his own, apparently some kind of segmented, gourd-like dome. Apollodorus, with considerable lack of sympathy and foresight, told him “Go away and draw your pumpkins. You know nothing about these things!” Dio Cassius goes on to report that Hadrian remembered this slight, and when he became emperor, first sent Apollodorus into exile, then had him put to death. Despite the anecdotal nature of this account, Apollodorus’ closeness to Trajan, and his position as the chief architect of the great Trajanic urban projects in Rome, appears unequivocal. Equally significant is the actual meeting of an aging emperor, his architect, and the young future emperor all in one room discussing design! However competitive and strained the relations between Apollodorus and the young Hadrian were to develop, the setting allows a certain amount of overlap, a direct or indirect input of Apollodorus on early Hadrianic architecture (see later in this chapter). The historian Procopius, who lived in the sixth century under emperor Justinian, confirms Apollodorus’ official position as the “master architectus ” of the period in reference to the famous military bridge he built over the 335

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity Danube (see Figure 3.32). This bridge is described in detail by Dio Cassius and admired as “one of the achievements that show the magnitude of Trajan’s designs . . .” (68.13). It follows that Apollodorus accompanied Trajan and the army during the two Dacian campaigns (101–103 ce and 105–107 ce) and contributed considerably and critically to the war effort as the chief army engineer/architect. That may explain Trajan’s respect for the man to whom he entrusted his urban showpiece projects upon his return to Rome. T H E R M A E O F TR A J A N

Straddling the realm between an urban “showpiece” and a utilitarian project serving mass interest are the Thermae of Trajan (referred to as a “gymnasium” by Dio Cassius) located on the Oppian Hill to the northeast of the Baths of Titus (see Figure 6.15). Trajan’s bath complex (about six times larger than its predecessor) was built partially on land freed after a fire in 104 ce destroyed much of what remained of Nero’s Golden House, its deep foundations cutting into the rooms of the Esquiline wing of the palace. The Baths of Titus and Nero both were oriented north–south; Apollodorus turned his baths southwest by 36–degrees in order to give the row of heated halls maximum exposure to the sun. The complex, built entirely of brick-faced concrete and decorated in marble, covered a very large area, the rectangular precinct measuring circa 240  330 meters, with the bath block, circa 140  190 meters, attached to the northeast side of the precinct. As confirmed by brick stamps, the gigantic complex must have been built in record time between 104 and 109, opening two days before the dedication of the Aqua Traiana which supplied water to the baths. The Thermae of Trajan brought the architectural development of Imperial thermae to maturation. Besides the monumental scale, and the daring concrete, vaulted construction that established new standards for future Imperial thermae, a number of design innovations of key importance set Apollodorus’ creation apart from the earlier Imperial establishments with symmetrical layouts. The first key concept was the placement of the frigidarium at the center of the bath block where it established a powerful cross-axis. The significance of a central, majestic hall at the spatial crossroads of the composition was emphasized by the introduction of cross vaults in all three bays of this hall. Projecting from the main building block, as in earlier Imperial thermae, the caldarium, too, assumed a clear and imposing structure by using the same system of triple cross vaults in series. A second design innovation was the integration of double palaestras into the 336

body of the bath block by positioning them on either side of the frigidarium, or “internalizing” these exercise courtyards. A third was the introduction of a large, open-air swimming pool, the natatio, on the same axis as the caldarium and the frigidarium. Finally, came the creation of an elaborate precinct – an outer girdle of secondary elements serving social, cultural, and decorative functions and enveloping the bath block on four sides including apodyteria, exercise rooms, lecture rooms, libraries, colonnades, and decorative fountains. The open space between the peripheral establishments and the bath block was treated as a garden with tree lined promenades and exercise grounds. Looking at the remains of the Thermae of Trajan, exedra L on the southwest and exedra B on the southeast (now destroyed) are interpreted as libraries (Figure 6.36; see Figure 6.15). According to Piranesi, the semidome of the brick-faced concrete structure was decorated with hexagonal coffers. The preserved interior wall of this exedra is articulated with superimposed rectangular niches in two stories, apparently to contain wooden cabinets for book scrolls. The northeast exedra D (and its northwest pendant N) was also semidomed and niched. They are believed to have been monumental fountains, or nymphaea, forming elegant terminations for the garden on either side of the bath block. The huge semicircular exedra in the center of the southwest side could have housed seats to serve as an arena for multipurpose use such as athletics, or theatrical and musical performances. With the Thermae of Trajan, elements of hygienic, recreational, quasi-intellectual, and ceremonial concerns were fully integrated into the program of the Imperial thermae. T HE F OR U M O F T R A J A N A ND BASILICA ULPIA

The Forum of Trajan was the last and the most magnificent of the series of marble Imperial fora in Rome, and like those previously built, was a monument of lofty ideological and political aspirations as well as a major center for judicial, administrative, and ceremonial functions (Figure 6.37; see also Figure 6.2). Its theme, purpose, and message proclaimed through a rich sculptural program, decoration, and inscriptions was to commemorate the double military victory over the Dacians and celebrate this victory in the person of the Roman army and its great commander-in-chief, Trajan himself. It was dedicated in 112/113 ce, but Hadrian added the last major and culminating element of the ensemble, the Temple of Deified Trajan and Plotina. Work on the forum, including the great hemicycle of the Markets (located on the rising slope of the

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figure 6.36 Exedra “L,” Thermae of Trajan, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 6.37 Plan of Imperial Fora and Markets of Trajan, Rome; rendered by Marie Saldaña and Diane Favro (after Meneghini and Packer).

Quirinale, see later in this chapter), which formed a separate but integral part of the overall complex, was begun in 104 ce as evidenced by the brickstamps, all Trajanic in date (see Figure 6.2). However, the idea of creating a vast public zone of state functions by expanding the land between the Capitoline and the Esquiline (a space roughly 300  190 m was cleared and leveled) must have been conceived as early as Julius

Caesar. It is likely that Domitian, in fact, started some of the large-scale site work on the land that was to become Trajan’s Forum as a part of his restoration and reorganization of the Forum of Caesar neighboring Trajan’s complex on the southwest. This view is supported by the discovery of a few Domitianic brickstamps outside the western enclosure wall of the forum. Knowledge of such preparatory site work 337

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity handed down over centuries might have been what prompted Aurelius Victor, a late-fifth-century writer, to allude to the Forum of Trajan as a Domitianic undertaking (de Caesaribus 13.5). The complex was conceived as a grand assemblage incorporating the forum-plaza proper, a huge basilica occupying its northern side, a pair of identical libraries separated by a courtyard surrounding a monumental, commemorative column, and the precinct of the Temple of Deified Trajan and Plotina (Figures 6.38 and 6.39, Plate 9B, see Figure 6.2). These elements develop in successive stages along the main north–south axis of the composition while two pairs of exedrae, like those of the adjacent Forum of Augustus, expand the space and establish distinct cross axes. The design of the Forum of Augustus must have provided an immediate and primary source for Apollodorus, but there are also significant differences between the two schemes (see Figure 6.37). In the Forum of Augustus, the main temple projects into the plaza and dominates this open space physically and visually. In Trajan’s Forum, the broad, colonnaded façade of Basilica Ulpia separates the forum plaza from the temple that is relegated to its own precinct behind the basilica. This particular feature, and especially the sequential, three-part division of the forum into an open square, a basilica, and a temple, has been compared to

the traditional plan of the principia, or the central administration quarters of a Roman military camp (castrum) with its central square, basilica, and sacellum where the legionary standards and military archives were kept – and further justified by pointing to Trajan’s affinity to military life. But at the scale and scope represented by this forum in the heart of the capital, looking for a source in the restricting and distant world of a frontier camp seems inappropriate. Quite apart from the immediate models available in Rome, the peculiar relationship between the forum and basilica can be readily found among the many fora and agora in the West as well as in the East. Furthermore, despite his well-publicized sympathy for and close knowledge of military life, Trajan, the soldier-emperor, knew well where to draw the line between the army and the city. Still, the existence of conscious or accidental conflation of civilian and military models behind the architectural conception of the Forum of Trajan would have only fortified the power of its image and made its message more accessible. The main entrance to the forum appears to have been from the middle of an angled south wall by way of a small, square peristyle courtyard connecting it to the Forum of Augustus, strictly on the long symmetry axis of the composition (see Figure 6.39, Plate 9B). Upon entering, the visitor’s gaze would have been

figure 6.38 View of the Forum of Trajan with columns of the Basilica Ulpia (foreground) and Trajan’s decorated monumental column; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 6.39, plate 9b Reconstructed perspective of the Forum of Trajan looking toward the Basilica Ulpia; original landscaping would have been in containers rather than in the ground as shown; courtesy of James Packer and Gilbert Gorski.

arrested by a monumental image of Trajan, on horseback near to the doorway. Beyond the equestrian, on the far, north side of the forum rose the large mass of the Basilica Ulpia, its broad façade articulated by three projecting, columnar gates with tall attics carrying standing statues of proud Dacian prisoners. Above them, over each gate opening were gilt-bronze chariots, mirroring the one that crowned the forum’s main gate. Displayed high up, between the Dacians, was a monumental battle frieze (over 3 m high and 18 m long) glorifying the valor of the commander-in-chief. Pieces of this frieze, cut up into panels, have been incorporated into the Arch of Constantine in Rome, as were some of the Dacian figures. The sides of the plaza were bounded by Corinthian colonnades of gray granite whose attics were decorated with large shields bearing heads alternating with statues of standing Dacians, clearly inspired by the shields and caryatids of the Forum of Augustus. Inscriptions incorporated into the attics all around announcing ex manibus, or “from war spoils,” proclaim that the forum and all that marble and bronze display was paid by the proceeds of war. Undoubtedly war spoils and profit must have helped, but like much of Trajan’s vast and vastly expensive public programs, the great forum and market complex in Rome was made possible by the empirewide increase in production and improved management of resources achieved under the emperor’s able administration.

Despite the rich and multicolored decorative sculpture surrounding the forum plaza, or the strong visual accents created by the triumphal chariot groups atop the various gate structures, and the imposing equestrian statue, there is little doubt that the most lasting impression of this space was the impact of its sheer vastness and openness. Girdled by its tall colonnades, and paved in hard, gleaming marble, the open area of the forum (some 120  90 m, as large as two soccer fields side by side) must have been impressive, but perhaps, also somewhat overpowering, unless it was softened by some kind of planting as suggested by recent archaeological probes. Another powerful visual accent which must have established a sense of anchor and direction in experiencing this complex, but highly formalized, architectural ensemble was the great column, whose top, surmounted by a statue of Trajan, would have been visible above the massive gilt-bronze roof of the basilica. However, as the visitor moved into the great plaza, closer to the basilica, the optimus princeps gradually disappeared from view. The Basilica Ulpia, named after Trajan’s family, was the largest of the columnar, wooden roofed, basilical halls ever built in Rome (see Figure 6.37). The main rectangular hall, excluding the apses, was 59  120 meters, about twice as long as broad; the apses brought the total length to 170 meters. Two rows of columns defining double ambulatories wrapped around an oblong central nave, 25  88 meters (85  330 RF), 339

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity giving us a clear nave span of circa 24 meters, one of the larger in antiquity, but perfectly possible to cross with a series of timber trusses. A second-story gallery, as recommended by Vitruvius for basilicas (De Arch. 5.1.5 and 5.1.6), would be logical to expect, although we do not know the specifics or the total height of the original scheme (see below for reconstruction alternatives). Like the typical Christian basilica of the later centuries, the central nave undoubtedly rose above the aisles and flooded the building with ample light coming through clerestory windows. The nave columns of the first story, many still preserved on site, are in grey Egyptian granite and carried Corinthian capitals of white marble (Figure 6.40; see also Figure 6.38). They were surmounted by columns of cipollino with Ionic capitals on the second story. The nave frieze, depicting Victories sacrificing bulls, is counted among the finest examples of Roman architectural ornament. The vast expanse of the floor was paved in a bold geometric pattern of alternating squares and circles in giallo antico and pavonazetto, separated by bands of africano. Highly polished, its handsome design must have mirrored a great field of gilded coffers covering the flat wooden ceiling, and added to the luxurious, coloristic effect of the interiors. The end apses were separated from the main space by a screen of columns, and unlike the apse of a

Christian basilica (which is well integrated into the main hall), they were distinct spatial entities serving specific functions – probably as tribunals. The east apse, identified as the Atrium Libertatis on the Marble Plan, might have served sometime in the long history of the building, as a place for the liberation (manumission) of slaves. Pilasters and niches decorated their curved interior walls, with square niches and projecting columns in the center marking the basilica’s long axis. Like the hemicycles of the forum plaza, the basilica apses must have been covered by wooden roofs carried by radiating trusses. Among the scores of historically significant attempts to restore the Basilica Ulpia two studies, both based on rigorous analysis of the remains, are worthy of note. In the 1980s, C. M. Amici proposed a threestory scheme with a tall clerestory over a colonnaded second-story gallery, the nave reaching a height of 35 meters (Figure 6.41). The colonnades of the double aisles were connected by shallow barrel vaults of lightweight concrete. Amici’s restoration allowed for generous roof terraces at the first and second story levels, convenient for viewing the Column of Trajan. More than a decade later, J. Packer proposed a two-story scheme in which the second-story columns directly support the trussed, wooden roof at a more manageable height of 25 meters, exactly the width of the nave

figure 6.40 Reconstruction of the Basilica Ulpia interior; courtesy of James Packer and Gilbert Gorski.

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figure 6.41 Cross-section of the Basilica Ulpia in short direction; rendered by Diane Favro (after Amici).

(as handsomely illustrated in the reconstruction drawings, Figure 6.39, Plate 9B and 6.40). The columns open to the roof terrace; there is no true gallery. Packer’s proposal has the advantage of offering a better view of Trajan’s Column because of the lower height of the basilica and open colonnade of the upper order. There are also problems. First, an Imperial basilica without a proper gallery, and fully open upper colonnade, may not be unheard of, but it is rare and unusual. Second, the massive timber roof covering an expanse of 2,200 square meters, ending with heavy masonry pediments, carried on a relatively small second story columns without lateral bracing and corner piers (or even compounded corner columns), presents the kind of structural weakness a master bridge-building architect, like Apollodorus, would not have been likely to create. What could we suggest as an alternative solution? One might consider a three-story elevation with a traditional second-story gallery and a low clerestory, reaching a height of about 30 meters (or an even 100 RF). In the end, Amici’s, Packer’s and our proposals are hypotheses: the same evidence may be interpreted differently despite the best efforts of the well-trained specialists and scholars. We may never learn how the Basilica Ulpia really looked.

THE LIBRARIES OF THE FORUM AND THE C O LUM N O F TR AJ AN

Leaving the main hall of the basilica through a pair of doors, one entered into a relatively small, colonnaded courtyard flanked by the Greek and Latin sections of the Ulpian library, famous in antiquity for its collection of rare books and archival material including Caesar’s autobiography and Trajan’s commentaries on

the Dacian Wars. In the center of this relatively small courtyard rose the Column. The libraries were a pair of rectangular halls (20.1  27.1 m), built entirely in brickfaced concrete, veneered in lush marble, and probably roofed by barrel vaults reaching 15 meters (Figure 6.42, Plate 10; see Figure 6.37). They must have been illuminated by large, thermal windows (semicircular in shape, so named due to use in bathing complexes). The long, side walls were lined by rectangular niches in two stories containing the wooden cabinets (armoria) for book scrolls – an arrangement typical of Roman libraries. Two-story colonnades of fluted pavanezzetto columns with Corinthian capitals ran along the side walls, in front of the book niches, terminated at the end walls by tall, projecting aediculae accented by their bright yellow columns of giallo antico. These aediculae probably housed statues of Trajan and Minerva (Athena), the latter was the goddess of wisdom and the traditional tutelary deity of libraries. Stairs located outside, at the backs of the libraries, and reached from the basilica, gave access to the interior gallery, and possibly to roof terraces from where it would have been easier to view the detailed rendering of the column’s spiral relief. The Column of Trajan, rising in the middle of the “library court” has an overall height of 39 meters including its tall base; the sculpted shaft measures exactly 100 RF (see Figures 6.2 and 6.38). The tall base or podium is carved with sculptured reliefs of trophy arms. An inscription on the podium proclaims that the column marks the height of earth that was removed to make room for it. Yet, the discovery of earlier structures and a street below the foundations of its plinth suggests that the area that was cut down was not where the column now stands but somewhere else. This could only be the hillside of the Quirinal, north of the forum that was developed with many terraces and levels as the Markets of Trajan. The shaft of the column is decorated by a spiral low relief, 200 meters long, representing, in the manner of a war movie, a historical narrative of the two Dacian campaigns. Continuing up the shaft in twenty-three turns, the relief is a dramatized visual recording of the war, which glorifies the army and its valiant commander, winning a decisive victory against a formidable enemy. Built entirely in Luna marble, each drum, exquisitely fitted to the next one, weighs 40 tons. Inside, there is a spiral stairway leading to a balcony above its uniquely designed “Doric” capital. This could have been a viewing platform – at least for the privileged – with an impressive prospect of the Imperial fora, the Forum Romanum and the great Capitoline Temple across the valley on the Palatine Hill, almost at eye level. Surmounting the column was a colossal bronze image of the emperor presiding over his forum 341

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figure 6.42, plate 10 Reconstruction of the western library of the Forum of Trajan; courtesy of James Packer and Gilbert Gorski.

(now replaced by Saint Peter). The column podium is important because it contains a small tomb chamber carved in solid marble, which was intended to house the ashes of Trajan and his family. Thus, in addition to being a symbol of victory, and a key architectural landmark of the forum, Trajan’s column is also an unusual funerary monument. As such, it must have 342

required special religious dispensation to be allowed within the city’s sacred boundary (pomerium). Raising tall columns to commemorate people and events was common, but Trajan’s Column is unique for its size, the outstanding quality of its carving, and its form; it is the first known example to include a spiral relief as a part of its decoration and message. Similar columns

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines were later copied by the Column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome, and the columns of Constantine, of Theodosius, and of Arkadius, all in Constantinople. Also significant is the huge marble base of the shaft that is decorated with, or rather shaped as, a laurel victory wreath, a clear allusion to the victory theme of the forum and the first known use of this resourceful iconographic motif. It is commonly believed that the Temple of Deified Trajan lay behind, to the north of the library court, in an area entirely covered under buildings for the last several centuries. Although the temple was probably built, and certainly finished and dedicated under Hadrian, the overall character of its design as a highly formalized terminating element of the whole makes it logical to assume that it was an integral part of Apollodorus’ grand scheme. Based on elusive evidence, scholars have proposed a large, octastyle Corinthian temple raised on a podium, projecting from the curved back wall of a colonnaded enclosure. Thus the temple, with its high pediment, would face the forum, and establish the main axis of the composition conceptually, if not physically, since the visual line between the entrance, equestrian, the Column, and the temple was broken by the broad mass of the basilica. However, what we actually know about the temple and its precinct is based on a few early excavations and chance finds, and several clear, but generalizing, coin views. There is a minimalistic tendency among some archaeologists to reconstruct the complex without a temple, which we do not favor. The actual discovery of several lengths of gray granite column shaft (one discovered recently in the excavations under the Palazzo Valentini, a Renaissance palace roughly occupying the presumed location for the temple) and a white marble Corinthian capital, which belonged to the front porch of the temple, strengthens the existence of the temple and provides a sober testimony to the enormous size and nature of the building if not the precise location and details. The shaft, a monolithic piece, has a diameter of circa 2 meters and must have weighed about 120 tons; the shaft can be reconstructed at a height of 14.72 meters (total height of the order with base, capital and entablature, c. 21.65 m). This is virtually the same size as the columnar order of the Temple of Mars Ultor, which may have served as a model for Trajan’s temple though its columns are not monolithic. Regardless of a number of uncertainties concerning some elements of its design, the overall plan organization of the Forum of Trajan is simple and clear. The scheme follows precedents and achieves its effect by its harmonious sequence of spaces, fine proportions, overt classicism, exceptionally high quality of materials and ornament, and above all, by the clarity and loftiness of

its message. The forum was conceived as a public stage to display the wealth and power of the Roman state, and through its well-choreographed images, celebrate the victory of the Roman army and its heroic leader, Trajan. When the Emperor Constantius, arriving from Constantinople in 357 ce, saw the Forum of Trajan it was still considered as one of the finest public spaces in the capital. Ammianus Marcellinus provides an anecdotal but memorable description of the event: When [Constantius] came to the Forum of Trajan . . . he stopped short in his tracks astonished, while his mind tried to grasp the gigantic complex, which cannot be described by words and could never be attempted by mortal men. He abandoned all hope of ever constructing anything of this sort but said that he only wanted to copy, and was able to do so, Trajan’s horse which was situated in the middle of the open court of the forum, and which carried the emperor himself. Ormisda, the [Persian] royal envoy, happened to be standing nearby . . . and responded: “Before you do that, O Emperor, you should give command, if you are able, to have a stable built just like this one. For the horse which you intend to make would thus have as much room to move around as this horse which we see here!” (Amm. Marc. 16.10.15–16)

THE MARKETS OF TRAJAN

Notwithstanding Ormisda’s witticism about the Forum of Trajan as a gilded stable, it is an oddly exciting thought that a prestige monument which expressed the highest ideals of the Roman state should be linked in conception, planning, and execution to a utilitarian market complex, what one might call an entire commercial district, occupying the hillside to the east and northeast of the forum. Although we have no direct ancient references to the Markets of Trajan, there is little question that they were a part of Apollodorus’ greater design and constructed during the same period as the forum as shown by the allTrajanic brickstamps covering 104–110 ce. They probably represent the effort to enlarge and enhance an already existing shopping quarter that was torn down in making room for the forum, while simultaneously functioning as a retaining wall. Taking their cue from the east exedra of the forum, the Markets expand out from this geometric hub in broad, concentric series of terraces hugging the Quirinal slopes (Figures 6.43 and 6.44; see also Figures 6.2 and 6.37). Here, and in the area north of the east apse of the Basilica Ulpia, some 160–180 shops were grouped on three major levels. These groups were: the hemicycle and its two semicircular halls (lower, 343

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figure 6.43 General view of the hemicycle of the Markets of Trajan; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

forum level); the street known in medieval times as Via Biberatica (“pepper road” or “pepper alley,” not a frivolous association knowing how important the Eastern pepper trade was in that period) and the multistory buildings and shops along it (middle level); and a rectangular, three-story block, the Market Hall (Aula dei Mercati), occupying the upper level of the Quirinal. These shops, interlocked in organic, irregular rows and clusters, were connected to each other by numerous stairs and streets but had no direct communication with the Forum of Trajan. No columns at all were used. The Markets represent the cutting edge of Roman structural engineering. The entire complex is cast in brick-faced concrete, perhaps, the only material capable of buttressing the hillside. Apart from the repeated uses of the simple barrel vault to cover a series of rectangular chambers – the typical taberna/shop unit – the Markets were the proving ground for various experiments in vaulting. The great variety of complex and irregular spaces created in fitting the rooms to the hillside were covered by a great variety of complex and irregular concrete vaults with intersecting, parabolic, and multiple-curved planes. As expressed succinctly by W. L. MacDonald: “To build early in the second century more than two hundred rooms, some of them quite large, without requiring the use of a single 344

structural column was a revolutionary act” (MacDonald 1965, 92). Indeed. The handsome brick façade of the great hemicycle of the Markets, now a very conspicuous element of Rome, was never fully visible in antiquity. It was closed off by the high peperino east wall of Trajan’s Forum, separated from it by a basalt-paved street following the outer curve of the forum exedra (Figures 6.44 and 6.45). After all, the world of the all-marble forum and the all-brick market were quite different. Hence, the façade was seen only at an oblique angle, its curving brick surface and architectural features, revealed slowly and in raking light. The ground floor shops have simple, squared travertine doorways surmounted by square windows illuminating interior balconies, or mezzanines. The arched windows of the second story illuminating an annular barrel-vaulted corridor inside are separated by thin, brick pilasters with simple bases and capitals in travertine. They carry a continuous entablature and a two-tone brick decorative order of alternating broken, segmental, and triangular pediments making a series of linked aediculae (Figure 6.46). The handsomely classicizing façade of the Market hemicycle displaying a discreet combination of unstuccoed brickwork, highlighted by travertine accents, is one of the best examples in Rome of the kind of utilitarian and understated approach to classicism

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figure 6.44 Axonometric reconstruction of Trajan’s Markets with Via Biberatica and Market Hall; © 2018 Bernard M. Boyle

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figure 6.45 Curved street level view of the hemicyle of Trajan’s Markets; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 6.46 Detail of brick ornament of the hemicyle façade, Trajan’s Markets; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

probably first created as a response to economic restrictions in functional buildings, but later appreciated for its own aesthetic qualities (see earlier). The top floor, now largely gone, was a curving ambulatory with a fine view of the forum and the Column; the shops at this level opened out to Via Biberatica at the back. The ends of the great hemicycle were anchored by a pair of semicircular, semidomed halls receiving light through large windows cut into the thick end walls (Figures 6.44 and 6.47). Outlined sharply against the bright sky, and dramatized by the somber contrast of the great arc of the half-dome (at 20 m, nearly one-half the diameter of the Pantheon), the larger (northern) of these halls is one of the most impressive, though little known, interiors in Roman architecture sufficient to evoke, as commented by one of our students, “a religious feeling.” The Via Biberatica, its dark, basalt paving accentuated by pale, travertine sidewalks, was the main shopping street of the Markets (see Figure 6.44; see also Figure 6.37). It is in an astonishingly good state of preservation. Curved and angled, it climbs between shops and three and four-story commercial blocks, their sturdy, red-

brown brick façades articulated by sharply cut square windows, segmental and semicircular blind arches, and small balconies carried on travertine brackets. Some of these units, especially the interconnected upper level suites, might have been used as administrative and records offices for the Markets. or even for the Imperial fora themselves, and/or they might have served as centers for administering the state-sponsored food program at Rome, the annona, which amounted to about one-half-million tons of grain yearly. T H E M A R K E T HA L L

The covered Market Hall (Aula dei Mercati), occupying the northwest end of Via Biberatica, is a sharply defined prismatic block (Figure 6.48; see also Figures 6.37 and 6.44). The plan is trapezoidal, although the asymmetry is not conspicuous to the visitor, with the wedge-shaped eastern extension pushing against the rising ground. The main hall is arranged in two rows of six barrel-vaulted rooms in two stories, across from a tall, cross-vaulted central space (28  9.80 m). This space is covered by a soaring canopy of 347

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figure 6.47 Interior of the western semidomed hall with monumental windows in the hemicyle of Trajan’s Market; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 6.48 Exterior views of the Market Hall, west façade, Trajan’s Markets; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

six cross-vaults springing over heavy travertine brackets projecting from the massive brick-concrete piers that continue without a seam the brick wall surfaces below (Figure 6.49). There are no columns, no capitals, no classical moldings, and no applied ornaments. Structure and superb brick masonry, animated by light, appear to have been the ornament for the Market Hall. Light pours into the voluminous interior from the thermal windows at the ends of the hall, and indirectly from a series of “skylights” created above the upper galleries and linked by a row of transverse arches buttressing the central cross vaults. As in the Octagon of Nero’s Golden House, light and structure are merged into a single process of design. Reaching a height of 11 meters at the intrados, the central hall resembles a stripped-down version of the cross-vaulted frigidarium of Roman thermae. The Market Hall can also be seen as a fully developed form of the earlier, simpler, darker, barrelvaulted, concrete market hall type that appeared in some of the central Italian towns such as Ferentium (Figure 6.50) and Tivoli during the Republic. It is also distinct from the far more common Roman market complex, or macellum, the square or rectangular peristyle courtyard with or without a central pavilion – variations abound as seen in Pompeii, Pozzuoli, Timgad, Lepcis Magna, and Perge. In that type of traditional market precinct, the visitors’ views and perceptions of

their surrounds are open and immediate, turned inward and contained by the surrounding enclosure of shops and colonnades. The Markets of Trajan presents a very different experience. Here, Apollodorus conceived an entire commercial city district molded into a hill with an elaborate communications system, offering a range of serialized visual and physical sequences. Exploration is necessary. Even today it is fascinating to explore Trajan’s Markets as a setting for connections and choices – to climb up and down stairs, to walk on cobbled streets, to curve along half-concealed vaulted corridors – and to perceive the great variety of shapes, colors, and textures revealed in motion. So compelling is the lure of these changing, unfolding, framed and choreographed “views” of the complex that the actual units of architecture – the hemicycle, the semi-domed room, the shop row – appear as architectural stations serving an endless need for transition, except, perhaps, the great Market Hall, where the sense of permanence and arrival is hard to ignore. The various elements and clusters of the Markets of Trajan constitute a tightly organized group. They relate to each other not through the principles of classical design, but in a kinetic, organic, and contextual way. That is why, although the Trajan’s Forum and Markets were parts of a single design conception, they represent very different modes and directions in Roman architecture. The forum, with its balanced, static composition, rich materials, and beautiful 349

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figure 6.49 Interior of the Market Hall, Trajan’s Markets, after restoration in 2007; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

ornament, is the child of columnar classicism at its most refined. It served the functions and celebrated the ideals of the state. The Markets, on the other hand, served a social and utilitarian program. Their brick350

faced concrete architecture followed the best traditions of the new, vaulted style of the empire championed in the works of Severus and Rabirius. To change the mode of design to fit function and context and to create

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figure 6.50 Republican Market Hall at Ferentium; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

the right image – “suitability or appropriateness,” as Vitruvius would have it – was not unusual in Roman art and architecture. But, what was the proper image suitable for a Roman market, the dark and sturdy vaulted halls of the Republic, or the airy, pavilioned peristyles borrowed from Greece? With his bold and inventive forms, functional spaces, and discreet use of classical ornament, Apollodorus actually redefined the context for the architecture he wished to do and was encouraged to do by the privileged potentials of the site that was given to him. The brand of balanced utilitarianism and classicism he created for the Markets makes a valid statement of suitability for its purpose just as the columnar marble elegance of the forum does for its.

HADRIAN: AN ARCHITECT EMPEROR? One would have thought Hadrian lucky to inherit a “chief designer” of Apollodorus’ talent and experience when he assumed the purple upon Trajan’s death in 117 ce. Indeed, Apollodorus’ involvement in the architecture of the capital probably naturally did not end abruptly. He might have had a hand in some of the early Hadrianic projects, and he certainly continued to work on unfinished buildings such as the Temple of Deified Trajan, which was consecrated sometime before 128 ce. The Scriptores Historiae Augustae (a fourth century compilation of emperors’ biographies) even mentions that Hadrian undertook “with the help of the architect Apollodorus” the making of a colossal statue of Luna (the Moon) as a companion piece for Nero’s Colossus, which had been transformed into Sol (the Sun) (SHA, Hadrian 19.12–13). Nonetheless, Apollodorus probably did not keep his privileged and exalted position as the head architect for long under Hadrian. His advancing age (he must have been sixty to seventy years old at Hadrian’s accession) would have precluded it. More importantly, there seems to have

been bad blood between the new emperor and the aging master of the ancien régime, if Dio’s previously mentioned story about the “pumpkins” is to be believed. Hadrian, the young prince, and amateur, aspiring architect had been rebuffed by Apollodorus in the presence of Trajan, and never forgot it (see earlier). In the second part of the story, after becoming the emperor, Hadrian sent Apollodorus his plans for the Temple of Venus and Roma and asked the architect to comment on them. Apollodorus’ outspoken criticism of Hadrian’s design of the temple, mainly for being low and squat, led to his banishment and death because Hadrian realized in anger that he had fallen into a serious error that could not be corrected without changing his design – of which he was very proud, and obviously, did not want to change. There are parts of this anecdote, especially the slaying of Apollodorus, which appear patently fictional, and, given their context, calculated to blacken Hadrian as a cruel emperor. Yet, the existence of a level of discomfort, if not outright jealousy, between the two men – one a consummate professional, the other an aesthete and a talented and spirited amateur – is not surprising and constitutes the core of the story recounted by Dio Cassius. Apollodorus is the last architect whose name can be associated with major Imperial projects and with an Imperial patron until we come to Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus (a team recalling Severus and Celer) who designed and built the sixth-century church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople for the emperor Justinian. Public building in Rome slowed down after Hadrian, and it seems that what was being built became increasingly the responsibility of a professional staff of technicians, engineers, and architects employed by the cura operum publicorum, a kind of a presumed central office in Rome for overseeing the construction and maintenance of Imperial projects. If some of the emperors retained their own experts, like the architect Decrianus, whose skill in moving the Colossus of Nero for Hadrian was praised (SHA, Hadrian 19.10–12), they remained as colorless functionaries, or anonymous. The age of the hero-architect seems to have passed with Trajan’s Apollodorus. Given Hadrian’s inquisitive, restless personality, and creative interest in arts and architecture, one could easily infer that he would have found it more comfortable (or less threatening?) to work with a team of reasonably competent architectural technicians (like Decrianus) in order to implement his ideas, rather than with a Rabirius or Apollodorus. In Hadrian’s world of design there was room for only one architectural prima donna (or “starchitect” as we now say it), which does not preclude the 351

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity possibility that early Hadrianic buildings, especially when Hadrian must have been too busy working to the set the empire back on a stable footing after a none too smooth transition, were designed by professionals. Hadrian was born in 76 ce at Italica, in central Spain, to a senatorial family. He was a relative of Trajan, who became his guardian and mentor. He enjoyed the privileged education in liberal arts expected of a young aristocrat, including, most probably, a year studying philosophy in Athens. Upon returning to Italy he served with skill and distinction in the usual high-ranking military and administrative career posts under the close tutelage of his mentor. He shared military leadership with a handful of the emperor’s generals during the Dacian Wars, and was a member of his inner circle of trusted companions and comrades. Although it would have been totally natural for him to be chosen as the best man available for adoption as heir and successor, the unusual timing of this – allegedly only at the emperor’s deathbed, as confirmed only by Plotina, Trajan’s wife – gave rise to questions and gossip. Contemporary doubts were probably fueled by the apparent personality differences between the deceased, but now larger-than-life soldier emperor, and the more pacifist image of the art-and-culture oriented Hadrian. Hadrian was a popular subject for antiquity, as he is for us. His colorful, many-sided personality and tastes delighted his biographers, who, probably, left an exaggerated and biased account of him. There is little doubt that he was very intelligent; he enjoyed a privileged education in the humanities and arts; and he had refined taste. Interested in the arts, poetry, philosophy, literature, music, and antiquity (real or mythical), he was accomplished in many of them (he wrote poetry, played the lyre, sang, and could paint well. But he was also a skillful hunter, who liked the party after the hunt as much as the chase, “an expert on questions of arms . . . well versed in military affairs (who) could even handle gladiatorial weapons.” (SHA, Hadrian 14.9–10). His enthusiasm for Greek culture, history, religion, and philosophy was probably sparked by the nostalgia of his student years in Athens, but nonetheless genuine. For all his apparent outgoing nature, there seems to have been something also intensely personal and disconcerting about this complex man whose psyche was described by his fourth-century biographer as “alternately aloof and friendly, serious and playful, a delayer and a hastener, miserly and generous, cruel and merciful, he was at all times changeable in all things.” (SHA, Hadrian 14.10–11). Yet, under this restless, inquisitive, and flamboyant image there was a shrewd and sober administrator and an uncompromising disciplinarian. In matters that mattered – religion, law, justice, and the military – 352

he was a strict traditionalist of the old Roman order who performed his duties as emperor and head-priest of the state with impeccable precision and correctness, and displayed little tolerance for neglect, incompetence and flippancy. His administration in Rome and in the provinces, modeled after that of Trajan, was efficient, effective, and benevolent. In one matter only, in foreign policy, he instilled a new sense of geopolitical reality by abandoning the centuries-old expansionist Roman habit in favor of retaining the status quo and striving for an empire at peace within secure borders. One might rightly ask what had changed – and consider the eloquent answer hinted by J. J. Pollitt: It may be that this most complex of emperors – a good soldier, an efficient administrator, but at the same time a poet, architect, and philosopher, a man imbued with a sense of historic nostalgia and consciousness of the virtues of many cultures – the Roman imperialism of the past five hundred years seemed a little naive and crude (Pollitt 1966, 166).

Initiated into the Mysteries of Demeter in Eleusis, Greece, presiding over the Festival of Great Dionysia in Athens, climbing the summit of Mount Etna in Sicily to watch the rising of the sun, Hadrian’s interest in the “virtues of many cultures” found its truest expression in his passion for travel. Of the sixteen years between 117 and 134, he spent at least twelve outside of Rome visiting the empire he with delight – Britain, Gaul, Germany, Spain, North Africa, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine. Scholars have, indeed, hinted at the slow decline of Rome and Italy in favor of the provinces and provincial cities began with Hadrian, and suggested that Rome was losing its privileged position as the center of the Mediterranean world. This is only partially true. It was not before the middle of the third century or so that we find Rome relinquishing its leadership, although one would agree that Hadrian was the last of the great emperor-builders of the capital. Such a view, which prompts us to search for signs of early decay when there was none, is often due to our hindsight of a “fallen Rome” dominating Western History. It was not so much that Rome and Italy were falling behind, but that the provinces were gaining and closing the gap thanks to the greater wealth made possible by the benefits of a peaceful, effective administration. The dividends of the Pax Romana were finally paying off. The emergence of a Rome that became “first among equals,” instead of a privileged “jewel” in an economic and social wasteland, can only be judged normal and healthy as the fulfillment of a vision that had been promised by Augustus over a century earlier. In addition to the usual restoration and maintenance work, such as the rebuilding of the fire-damaged

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines Baths of Agrippa, additions to the terracing of the western slopes of the Palatine, repairs in the Forum of Augustus, and the “many sacred buildings” mentioned in the sources, major Hadrianic projects in Rome include the construction of the Temple of Deified Trajan and Plotina (in Trajan’s Forum; see earlier), the Temple of Venus and Roma, the Pantheon, his mausoleum and the Pons Aelius (the bridge leading to the mausoleum), and in nearby Tivoli a great villa complex where Hadrian spent the last years of his life. T E M P L E O F V E NU S A N D R O M A

The Temple of Venus and Roma, known, significantly, as the “Temple of the City of Rome,” was dedicated to a new cult in the capital that glorified the symbolic identity of Rome in the guise of a Goddess named Roma. The worship of Roma, as a political homage to the city and state of Rome, had long been accepted in the Eastern provinces; now, affiliated to Venus, the mythical ancestor of the Julian family (hence, by implication of Hadrian), the cult was brought to the capital. While the worship of Roma was localized, it was not dynastic. By seeking to coalesce the identity of Rome with that of the farflung empire, it was cosmopolitan and national.

The temple inside its precinct was an enormous structure competing in size with the gigantic Greek temples of antiquity, like the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, which it vaguely imitated (precinct 140  100 m; temple proper 105  53 m). It is located on the low, eastern extension of the Velian Hill, east of the Forum Romanum, overlooking the Sacra Via, on a site that had been part of the entrance to Nero’s Golden House (Figures 6.51 and 6.52; see also Figure 6.6). It was one of the first and last Hadrianic projects in the city, consecrated in 121 ce, constructed through the 120s ce, and dedicated in 135 ce, probably when still unfinished. The handsome semidomed apse and the hefty brick-faced concrete walls of the temple, conspicuous today especially from the east, Colosseum side, belong to the rebuilding of the temple under the emperor Maxentius after the fire of 307 ce. Close studies show that the present Maxentian temple followed mainly the plan of the Hadrianic scheme: a decastyle dipteros (ten columns at the ends, twenty along the sides) layout with a pair of cellas back-to-back divided by a wall, an unusual configuration. Venus occupied the east cella, Roma the west. Unlike the Maxentian building, whose thick, concrete walls carved with deep niches carried a barrel vault; the original cellas had thinner masonry walls, a span of about 22.5 meters, covered by a wooden trussed roof with gilt-bronze tiles.

figure 6.51 General view from the east of the Temple of Venus and Roma with vaulted platform, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 6.52 Hadrianic plan of the Temple of Venus and Roma, Rome; rendered by Diane Favro.

The temple proper was in the middle of a marble paved precinct, on a crepidoma of seven steps raised on a massive barrel-vaulted, concrete basement. On the east where the land falls, the platform reached a height of 9 meters where it was approached by a pair of corner stairs; the west side eased into the Forum Romanum. The long sides of the precinct were defined by colonnades of gray granite. A colonnaded pavilion in the middle of the long south side gave access to the Sacra Via. The original Corinthian order of the temple, and its entablature, were in white Proconnesian marble imported from Asia Minor. The ornament shows the influence of models developed in Anatolia, especially the near-contemporary Temple of Deified Trajan (the Trajaneum) in Pergamon (see later). If the artists who carved this ornament had also come from Asia Minor, as likely since marble masons traveled with their stone (or, even if they were Roman artists who were trained by Asian sculptors), we can consider a surprising break with tradition in Rome in favor of a wave of cosmopolitanism affecting not only the substance of the cult of Roma, but also the plan of the temple and the aesthetic of its decoration. This is one of the instances 354

where we can clearly see a limited, but reciprocating, influence of a province on the architecture of the capital by supplying it with building materials, labor, skill, and style. In the light of the famous passage in Dio Cassius (69.4.2–5), let us review the design of this unusual temple, which indeed combines Eastern and Western characteristics, and which one Italian scholar described as a monument in Rome advertising “Hadrian’s hopes of a new pan-Hellenism” (Barattolo, 78, 410). When Hadrian sent the plans of the temple to Apollodorus seeking his comments, the architect promptly replied that the temple should have been raised on an artificial structure, so that it could have a more dominating effect on the Sacra Via. Judged by the standards and design aesthetics and traditions of western Roman temples, which are typically raised on high podia, and which Apollodorus must have had in mind, his criticism makes sense: the Temple of Venus and Roma, even with its present, vaulted substructures (almost level on the west, Forum side), would have appeared relatively squat (see Figure 6.51). Hadrian, by contrast, had in mind a peripteral Greek-type temple resting

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines upon a low stylobate covered by a traditional roof, not a vault. He might have miscalculated a peculiar characteristic (or problem) shared by all giant decastyle Greek temples: no matter how tall their columns are, their proportions look wide and low – this is in the nature of their design. Perhaps, that is why, as Dio Cassius reports, Hadrian was panicked and angered “because he had fallen into an error which could not be rectified” (we would like to add) “without changing his design.” Did Hadrian swallow his pride and change his design following Apollodorus’ criticism? Is the vaulted substructure that supports the precinct the result of this? It hardly seems so because, considering the ground sloping down to the east, the vaulted platform created was the minimum necessary to achieve a flat ground upon which to place the temple. It is likely that Apollodorus had in mind a much higher vaulted platform (perhaps, a two-storied one like the platform of the Flavian temple in Ephesus; see later), or a separate podium proper to raise the temple on its precinct platform – solutions fairly well known in Roman temple design in the West (but also in the East where Apollodorus came from); apparently, that was not what the emperor wanted.

T H E P A N T HE O N

A vast, domed rotunda approached by a colonnaded, pedimented porch like a traditional temple front, the Pantheon is as pronounced in its difference in appearance and character from its near contemporary, the Greek-inspired Temple of Venus and Roma, as the alleged personality shifts of its Imperial patron (Figures 6.53 and 6.54). Started immediately upon Hadrian’s accession to the throne in 118 ce, or a few years earlier, and completed in good time by around 128 ce, the building is profoundly Roman in spirit and structure, and culminates sixty years of experimentation in concrete technology in the service of architecture since its revolutionary beginnings in Nero’s Golden House. It owes its exceptional state of preservation first to its remarkably robust structure, then to the fact that it was made a church, Santa Maria ad Martyres, in 608 ce. In the first lines of an inscription affixed next to the entrance in the seventeenth century, Pope Urban VIII called the Pantheon “the most celebrated edifice in the world.” Boasting the largest traditional dome (i.e., in masonry), the building certainly is one of the most celebrated in architectural history; it served as a source

figure 6.53 Aerial view of the Pantheon, Rome, 1977; American Academy in Rome – Photographic Archive (Aronson collection 168).

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figure 6.54 Façade of the Pantheon viewed from the north; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

of inspiration for countless other centralized schemes all over the globe and prompted a vast amount of written material describing it, defining it, and explaining it. As early as the 1890s, archaeological work by Italian scholars established the Hadrianic date for the entire building on the basis of brick stamps, now debated (see later in this chapter). The question of structure and building sequence has been largely cleared up by investigations of the dome in 1920s and 1930s, and subsequent studies leading up to our time. Despite all this, and despite the fact that the giant building stands embarrassingly intact in the middle of Rome, there still exists a number of questions about the authorship of its design, construction, function and meaning – without fully satisfactory answers (to witness its abiding interest, see the current and ongoing Bern Digital Pantheon Project: www.digitalpantheon.ch). The Pantheon is located in the southeast quadrant of Campus Martius, a flat and rather low area that was largely occupied by an artificial lake known as the Stagnum and Agrippa’s baths-and-gymnasium, all set in the gardens and parks created by and bequeathed to public use by Augustus’ close friend and civic-minded minister (Figure 6.55, also Figure 6.6). Occupying the 356

site of an earlier Agrippan Pantheon (see earlier, and later in this chapter), the present structure was not an isolated undertaking, but part of a comprehensive, Hadrianic-era urban redevelopment in this region, which included the rebuilding of the vast, Republican “voting precinct” known as the Saepta Julia (west of the Pantheon) and the Basilica of Neptune, a large, vaulted hall that is still attached to, and mainly obliterates, the south side of the great rotunda. A precinct dedicated to Hadrian’s mother-in-law Matidia rose north of the Saepta. Furthermore, fragmentary evidence indicates there probably was a long, narrow, colonnaded porticoed forecourt – a traditional touch – in front of the Pantheon, which was not much wider than the octastyle porch itself. What we know about the Agrippan Pantheon is incomplete and subject to debate. Limited archaeological excavations by the French Beaux-Arts architect Georges Chedanne, the Italian scholar Luca Beltrami and architect Pier Olinto Armanini in the 1890s revealed remains of earlier structures under the present-day portico; this was interpreted to be the south-facing porch projecting in the middle of the long side of a traditional rectangular building

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figure 6.55 Site plan of the Pantheon and surrounding buildings in the Campus Martius, Rome; rendered by Diane Favro.

(a T-shaped plan like that of the Temple of Concord in the Forum Romanum was contemplated). Curiously, the positions of the doors of the earlier and later buildings coincided. It appeared, then, that the

Agrippan temple faced south on an open, marblepaved plaza (the pavement was found some 3.0 m below the floor of the rotunda). This scheme, or rather the interpretation of the scanty archaeological evidence 357

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity in favor of this scheme, is now largely abandoned. More daring but probably true is the proposal by some scholars that Agrippa’s Pantheon was a vast circular structure whose diameter equaled that of the present rotunda and was directly under it (see Figure 4.28). Interpreting archaeological evidence differently, they demonstrated that the porch of Agrippa’s Pantheon faced north like the porch of the Hadrianic structure. Thus, Agrippa’s Pantheon provided the direct model for Hadrian’s unusual building not only in name but also in size and type – meaning its circularity. But there were also differences. Since a domed or vaulted roof covering such a large span at that early date is unlikely (and no evidence exists of super-thick circumference walls or a wooden roof supported by columns and piers), the proposal had to be for an open-air sanctuary enclosed by a circular colonnade, a sacred precinct that can be described as a templum, although the architectural meaning of the term is vague (Pliny, NH 35.11; Varro, Ling. 6.53) The sloping of the marble paving from center to the periphery also supports the likelihood of a roofless enclosure. An axial sightline from the north-facing porch falls significantly on the Mausoleum of Augustus in the distance at the northern edge of Campus Martius, and symbolically connects the Pantheons of both periods with the founder of the Principate. Investigations in 1996–1997 in front of the Pantheon’s porch uncovered what appeared to be pre-Hadrianic steps and furnished further archaeological strength for this proposal. The scheme is architecturally and conceptually interesting, though the material evidence is based on exceptionally limited and fragmented fieldwork – and, thus open to conflicting interpretations (for a more detailed discussion of “Agrippa’s Pantheon,” see earlier). Whatever shape it had, Agrippa’s Pantheon burned in 80 ce and was restored by Domitian; it was struck by lightning and burned again in 110 ce. Traditional scholarship posits that the Pantheon was completely rebuilt in its present form under Hadrian. Hadrian did not put his name on the new edifice which he created from the ground up, but with a politically inspired modesty, honored the original builder. Today, large, bronze letters (not original) on the portico entablature confusingly announce: M.AGRIPPA L.F. COS TERTIUM FECIT (“Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, made this during his third consulship”) (see Figure 6.54). The building’s name is confirmed by a smaller inscription below the first, which refers to renovations by Septimius Severus and Caracalla in 220: pantheum vetustate corruptum cum omni cultu restituerunt (“they restored the ‘Pantheum’ worn by age with every splendor”). The great majority of the brick stamps used in the building (or found in association) are hard to date 358

precisely; there are some of clear Trajanic or Hadrianic date, but most are “Late Trajanic/Hadrianic,” meaning circa 115–124 ce. Still, bricks made and stamped during the last years of Trajan’s reign (c. 116–118 ce) were used in the intermediate block and the rotunda of the Pantheon. Valuable new research by L. Hetland focuses on the problem of brick stamps in dating the construction and concludes that the building was in fact Trajanic – a proposal accepted by M. Wilson Jones who simply states: “In any event it is Trajan who should take the credit as the patron of the project; Hadrian only finished it off” (Hetland 2007, 95–112; 2015, 79–98 and Wilson Jones 2013, 45). The theory has considerable attractiveness: Trajan’s Pantheon not only pairs the design and structure of this exceptional building with an exceptional, professional architect, namely, Apollodorus (instead of a dilettante amateur like Hadrian, even if all he needed to contribute was the generating idea, the kind that could have been scribbled at the back of a restaurant menu – or equivalent – uniquely suitable for the Pantheon). It also has the merit of explaining the building’s alleged infelicities of design as Hadrian’s later incompetent and hurried meddling. Yet how Hadrian, or his architects, concurrently produced a spectacularly designed and expertly built architectural complex in his Villa at Tivoli comes to mind as a counterpoint. There is, however, an undeniable architectonic affinity in terms of space, structure and light between the Pantheon and some of Apollodorus’ designs such as the half-rotundas of the Thermae of Trajan and the western semidomed hall of the hemicycles of Trajan’s Markets. In fact, the convoluted, billowing, airy domes of Hadrian’s Villa appear to have little to do with the Pantheon’s (and Apollodorus’) classically inspired, soberly stable spatial sensibilities. Nonetheless, these are still unprovable, soft hypotheses, at best “logical argumentations” as Wilson-Jones concedes (Wilson-Jones 2013, 43; 2015, 193–230). As to the existence of Trajanic bricks in the Pantheon, something equally logical can be derived from considerations of Roman building technology and practice. Construction material assembled for one major project in massive quantities during the final years of one emperor would naturally be used on the same project or another one under the next emperor – the system could breach no artificially clean break lines. It is hardly conceivable that an all-concrete building of Pantheon’s size and scope could be started without stockpiling of materials and it is logical, rather imperative, that these bricks come from late Trajanic sources. To assume that the contractors had in their hands large stocks of bricks intended for numerous Trajanic architectural projects but never actually used is not

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines unreasonable; that is the way building industry works. Furthermore, despite the modern opinion that tries to prove the contrary, Roman brick could not be produced, fired, and used the same year they were stamped – such bricks would crack. Bricks shaped in wet clay needed as much as a couple of years of slow drying before being fired. The point was made by Vitruvius, although he might have been discussing mudbrick (“bricks would be most serviceable if made two years before using, for they cannot dry thoroughly in less time” 2.3.2). This truth was affirmed by a project for a modern reproduction of Roman construction (“A Bath for the Cameras”) in 1998 (Yegül and Couch 2003, 163). Following structural common sense and tradition it is reasonable to assume that the Pantheon’s bricks datable to 114–116 ce by their stamps were actually used only by 117–118 ce; the practice was routine. Some argue there was a logical order in the production and stockpiling of bricks, which resulted in the placement of earlier-dated bricks at lower levels of a building, but this interpretation reflects more the neat order of our minds than the messy reality of the construction site. In actual practice, with numerous brickyards and stockpiles (in which the production sequence was not so impeccably followed), material could occasionally be drawn randomly or following field vagaries unknowable to us, and thus easily undermine our neat, academic expectations. In our recreation of a Roman bath “for the cameras,” when asked if stockpiled bricks were used in order, brickmasters and stockpilers in the Gediz/Hermus Valley of Western Anatolia (who still produce massive quantities of building material using traditional techniques) responded with deprecating smiles. In sum, the chronological window allowed by brick stamps is far too narrow for the building to be firmly judged one way or the other. There should be indeed nothing exceptional about a Pantheon whose design was conceived and construction initiated during the last years of Trajan’s reign, which then continued to be deployed into the early years of Hadrian – still under Apollodorus’ guidance. Given the state of our provable knowledge, however, we should still not jettison a Hadrianic conception date for the basics of the design. We would like to conclude that the question is still open to logical and sophisticated argumentation. We have our preferences and admire new ideas and controversies that keep a field fresh and vibrant. The Pantheon is composed of two distinct elements: a cylindrical rotunda covered by a hemi-spherical dome and grafted onto it a columnar porch with a pediment. Both are raised on a podium of 1.30-meter height and approached frontally, from the porch by five steps like a traditional Roman temple (Figures 6.53

and 6.56). The eight frontal columns have monolithic shafts of grey Egyptian granite and carry white Corinthian capitals of Pentellic (Greek) marble (see Figure 6.54). Behind these columns there are two more rows of red granite columns arranged into three aisles; the middle, wider, leads to the main door; the sides lead to a pair of deep apses, which probably housed the statues of Augustus and Agrippa. The pediment is unusually steep and too shallow for statuary, but it once displayed a gilt-bronze wreath with an eagle and corona civica, clear symbols of imperial power. The marble-tiled roof of the porch was carried by bronze trusses (or, more likely, wooden trusses sheathed in bronze) weighing some 220 tons; Pope Urban VIII Barberini removed the metal in 1626 to make canons. This rapacious act prompted the witty Romans to quip: quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini (“What the barbarians failed to do, the Barberini succeeded”). The columnar porch is joined to the rotunda by a short brick-faced concrete “intermediate” block that rises above and behind the pediment and carries the outline of a second pediment in marble molding, echoing the real one. This molding, or cornice, is continued around the rotunda, while below it, the cornice of the pediment dies abruptly against the drum (Figure 6.57). The connection between the columnar porch and the great rotunda has always been criticized for being awkward and architecturally “unsolved.” Up to a point this may be so. Much of the discomfort is caused by the lack of visual continuity between the cornice lines that articulate the great swelling wall of the drum and those of the porch – the kind of horizontal continuity of surface elements we take for granted in classical architecture, or rather in our aesthetic preceptions shaped by neoclassical architecture. We forget, however, that Pantheon’s awkwardness is partially due to its state of preservation: if the drum was revetted in stucco imitation of marble (and we believe it was), the transition between the porch and the rotunda would have been seamless and smooth, and visual continuity could have been created in decorative stucco work. Furthermore, the frontal view of the Pantheon was originally hemmed and enclosed by the lateral columns of the forecourt whose marble floor was considerably lower than the modern paving, the visitor facing the building could hardly see the rotunda, and very little, as he came closer, of the dome (see Figures 6.54 and 6.55). In other words, the illusion of approaching a traditional temple with a pedimented front was intentional and complete. Nonetheless, M. Wilson-Jones hypothesized that the 40-foot standard, monolithic shafts of the porch (48 RF tall with base and capital) were reluctant, but practical, replacements. He proposed 359

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10

20 m

figure 6.56 Plan and section of the Pantheon; rendered by Alex Maymind.

that the “intended” 50-foot shafts of granite, which, for some reasons, could not be found or delivered in time, or they were needed for the newly-started Temple of Deified Trajan, a project of primary pious and political importance for Hadrian (Wilson-Jones 2000, 204–206; 2015, 211–224). Or, these “intendedoriginal” behemoths, a rare size to procure or transport were, as commented by another scholar, “lost in shipwreck, damaged in transit, needed elsewhere” (Claridge 2010, 228), or, we might add, delayed by labor strikes in 360

Egypt, or various other calamities. The granite monoliths, as we have them, are not “factory perfect” in the modern sense: there is a variation in height of some 6–7 centimeters (and some in thickness, too), which were adjusted on the construction site by varying the height of the Corinthian capitals by the same amount, naturally in order to achieve an absolutely level entablature. We may never know what happened, or if this proposal is even close to reality (it is hard to prove a negative), but reconstruction drawings and computer

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines

figure 6.57 Detail of connection between the intermediate block and the rotunda, Pantheon, east side; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

models that illustrate the new hypothetical façade are very effective (Figure 6.58). With taller, larger shafts, the proportions of the porch are better (admittedly, the present porch looks a little squat), the curious, awkward image of the double pediments disappears, and the north porch appears better integrated to the drum with matching cornice lines. As so many times in dealing with ancient architecture, absolute, epistemological truth may be impossible, but this proposal is logical and has the merits of probability and elegance. And all this may not quite matter anyway, because, as often commented, the moment the visitor passes through the great bronze doors of the Pantheon, all memory of the columnar, traditional porch is erased by the unexpected and truly awesome impact of the rotunda interior (Figures 6.59 and 6.60). The rotunda, and its extension the dome, are constructed entirely in brick-faced concrete. The interior diameter is 43.30 meters (close to 150 RF), equal to the height of the hemispherical dome, which springs (or starts, really) at half-height, 21.6 meters above the pavement. This means that a sphere, its top half defined by the dome, would precisely fit inside the Pantheon. The oculus, or the circular opening, in the

middle of the dome is nearly 9 meters (30 RF) in diameter and provides the sole source of light for the building except that entering through the door. The interior of the dome is articulated by 140 square coffers arranged in five rows of 28, diminishing in size as they rise. Renaissance drawings show that they were decorated in stucco with a gilt-bronze rosette in the middle of each. The exterior of the dome was sumptuously covered in gilt-bronze tiles, which were removed already in the seventh century by the emperor Constans II (today it is protected by a humbler, but thoroughly effective, cover of sheet lead). The plan of the Pantheon is deceptively simple (see Figure 6.56). There are seven deep niches carved into the thickness of the circular wall (6.20 m), rectangular and semicircular, alternating. The spaces between them are decorated by tall, projecting columnar aediculae crowned by triangular and curved (segmental) pediments. The seven niches define the four major and four diagonal axes of the room, the eighth being the barrelvaulted entrance. The niche directly across from the entrance is slightly larger than others, an apse flanked by a pair of freestanding columns of Phryigian purple marble (Figure 6.61). This special treatment marks the 361

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comparison of column bases

1.48 m

current state

hypothetical reconstruction with 50 foot columns

figure 6.58 Comparison of current (left) and hypothetical (right) façades of the Pantheon; rendered by Diane Favro (after M. Wilson-Jones).

main axis of the building, although it is not a visually strong, or even a noticeable feature. Only the semidome that covers this apse and the barrel-vault over the entrance is fully expressed and open to the main space; the rest of the niches are screened off from it by pairs of giallo antico and Phrygian purple columns between pilasters (Figures 6.59–6.61). These carry a high entablature with a red porphyry frieze and a strongly projecting cornice establishing the lower of the two-zone divisions of the interior below the dome (12.30 m). The considerably shorter upper zone (9.5 m) has fourteen windows, one above each niche and aedicule. Fitted with gilt-bronze grills, they open into the tall, hollow space inside the niche created by the rising barrel-vault or semidome – not visible from the main space. This arrangement brought in a soft, diffused light, partially effective in illuminating the statues that must have occupied the triple small, shallow niches on the backwall of each large niche. The spaces between the windows are articulated by sixty-four thin porphyry pilasters (four between each pair of windows) raised on a continuous plinth line. This delicate decorative scheme must have effectively contrasted with the bold 362

array of the dome coffers (Plate 12). Rising over the cornice of the upper zone, it did not, however, establish a vertical alignment between the geometry of the dome and the drum. The original surface ornament did not appeal to the eighteenth-century taste in classicism that preferred more regular relationships; it was replaced by the rather heavy-handed design that we see today. Only a short stretch of the original decoration has been reconstructed to the right of the main apse. Although it was heavily restored, the floor is one of the most impressive from antiquity for its design and state of preservation. A grid of ten-foot squares is laid out by three-foot bands of purple marble (see Figures 6.56 and 6.59). Along the main axes of the building, north–south and east–west, the squares alternate with circles of grey granite or red porphyry. Thus, looking down on the major axes, the eye picks up this strong structural grid of alternating squares and circles; and all circles along the diagonal axes. The basic geometry of the square and the circle – underlying the overall design of the building – seems to repeat and stretch endlessly in all directions, like the street network of an urban center, a city laid out on a plane.

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines

figure 6.59 Painting of Pantheon interior by Giovanni Paolo Panini (c. 1734); courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.

The technology behind the success of the Pantheon as a domed rotunda of extraordinary dimensions had long been experimented with in a number of Republican circular or octagonal structures in concrete,

many of these associated with public baths. However, none of these came close to the Pantheon in size and complexity. The best known and the most daring is the so-called Temple of Mercury at the thermo-mineral 363

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 6.60 Interior view of the Pantheon from the entrance; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

complex in Baiae (see Figure 4.47). This is a domed, circular bath hall dating to the Augustan period; it has a diameter of 21.6 meters (exactly one-half of the Pantheon’s diameter) and an oculus. The structural 364

problems created by the doubling of the diameter in a domed building could not be solved simply by making the foundations twice as deep or the walls twice as thick. The unknown architect of the Pantheon

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines

figure 6.61 Partial interior view of the Pantheon; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

not only enhanced the use of traditional methods of support, but successfully introduced an advanced structural system to overcome hitherto unknown and exponentially increased challenges. The circular walls of the

Pantheon rest on solid, cylindrical foundations of concrete 7.30 meters wide and 4.50 meters deep. The superior quality of the brick as well as the concrete core of the walls, employing a carefully, almost 365

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity scientifically, graded admixture of aggregate, is remarkable. At the bottom where weight is an advantage the heaviest aggregate, travertine, is used; travertine and tufa, or travertine and broken tiles appear in the concrete of the walls; broken bricks and tufa progressively lighter in weight in the lower zone of the dome; while the upper regions around the oculus, where weight is most problematic, a mixture of light tufa and featherlight volcanic slag or selce. The effort to lighten the mass is further achieved by incorporating inside the thickness of the walls large structural voids (some of those curiously shaped, semicircular “chambers”) at both the lower and upper interior zones. The loads over these voids are taken down (“relieved”) by a series of vertically aligned solid brick vaults (or arches), the larger vaults above a set of triple small ones, which are further fortified by cross walls in brick (Figure 6.62). A separate system of blind or relieving brick arches strengthen the outer skin of the rotunda and can be easily seen on the exterior (see Figure 6.57). Thus, the great cylindrical wall of the Pantheon (except for the foundations) is not a solid, inert mass, but a complex integration of void and mass, in principle a structural waffle not unlike the dynamic armature of the Colosseum. As in other large Roman buildings, concrete was not poured, but rather “laid” in horizontal layers, including the dome itself, and separated into compartments by solid bands of brick at every circa 1.20to 1.30-meter intervals. This well-known system that probably marked each day’s progress, helped to minimize the settling of heavy concrete and compartmentalize the inevitable cracks. There are, indeed, many large cracks in the dome running from the base to almost the crown, all around its circumference. This is a typical pattern in all masonry domes due to strong “hoop stresses” created around the base. Modern analysis of these cracks suggest that “arranged [like] orange segments,” they can act like a series of arches around the dome circumference rather than an inert, monolithic mass (R. Mark 1990, 57–67, fig 3.12; Wilson-Jones, 2000, 191, fig 9.25). Although the dome appears as a perfect hemisphere springing from the second interior cornice (exactly at half height of the rotunda), its bottom one-third is buried inside the thickness of the wall. The exterior, therefore, has a third zone, marked by a cornice line, above which only the upper half of the shallow extrados is partially visible (Figure 6.62; see also Figures 6.56, 6.59, 6.60). For structural purposes, the Pantheon’s mighty dome is not a true hemisphere at all; it begins really from that upper, third zone, its lower one-third seen from the inside

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is technically a part of the wall displaying the previously mentioned system of voids and relieving vaults and arches. The oculus, by reducing weight from the crown of the dome where compression forces are weakest, acts like a giant, threedimensional keystone (or compression ring), and contributes to the stability of the dome. Its structural, functional and aesthetic effectiveness has been well acknowledged by its widespread use in Romandomed construction. A large part of our admiration of the Pantheon is the impressive effort and skill that must have gone into its process of building: it is a monumental structure partly due to the monumental effort that was expended in building it. Along with a handful of other colossal monuments, the Pantheon’s structure, and especially its incomparable dome, is a testimony to Roman competence in handling and coordinating large-scale construction. More than any other technical feature of the building, we would have liked to know the actual process of building the giant dome: the laying and holding in place of some 5,000 cubic meters of heavy, wet concrete. Like all vaulted concrete constructions of substantial size, a full wooden formwork was essential. This vast wooden construct, with proper recessions built in for coffering – a timber engineering challenge in itself – was either supported from the ground, or more economically but daringly, cantilevered out from the second interior cornice. Our recognition of the sheer size and complexity of such a wooden structure, which disappeared of course without leaving a trace, is a just tribute to the heroic skills of the elusive Roman carpenter. The most straightforward and safest solution would have been to support the hemispherical formwork by a scaffold held up by a virtual forest of uprights from the ground up to heights nearly 35–40 meters. The construction of the scaffolding would probably be extended in tandem with the sequential laying of the concrete from the base of the dome toward its crown. Such modern-day scaffoldings are routinely built for repair and restoration purposes inside the great domes of the world like the Pantheon itself or the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. But these are metal scaffoldings erected to allow scientists and scholars to study the structure – or to restore it – not to support the immense weight of poured concrete. For ancient practice there are several hypotheses. We prefer that suggested by German scholars F. Rakob (1988) and J. Rasch (1991): in this system there is a central tower directly under the oculus with a number of centering

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines

figure 6.62 Structural diagram of the Pantheon showing the system of relieving arches; rendered by Diane Favro.

frames (trusses) radiating from it to the periphery of the interior wall where timber uprights are located. The system has the advantage of being relatively easy to build leaving most of the floor area unencumbered, but most importantly, due to its radiating, triangulated

geometry, rendering an exceptionally rigid structure to withstand the immense weight of the still wet concrete. Any system lacking this rigidity would slip and buckle under the sheer weight and result in a structurally and aesthetically flawed dome.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity Most people who enter the Pantheon through its great bronze doors are unaware of the extraordinary technical skill and effort that went into its making, and those with that knowledge soon forget under the pure visual and visceral impact of the interior (see Figures 6.59 and 6.60). Few experiences in everyday life prepare one to the impact of the rotunda. It is not just the sheer size and breadth of the building, or the lack of any measure or scale to relate to it. Rather, it is the sense of the majestic void, space and air contained within and under a single roof – a wholly interior void revealed in even, diffused light except for one dramatic highlight from the oculus (Figure 6.63). A more unified space would be hard to imagine. Much of this feeling is due to not only the immensity, but to the elemental simplicity of the half-sphere dome. Unlike the tall domes of Hagia Sophia, St. Peter, St. Paul, or the Süleymaniye Mosque which are supported by hefty piers and surrounded by a ring of light, seeming to float weightlessly from the heavens above and beyond the reach of visitors, the Pantheon’s lower but bigger dome, supported by a continuous, circular wall, belongs to the

figure 6.63 Pantheon dome with oculus; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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earth and contains all under its great, curved expanse; it is a dome you walk into. The tendency is to walk across the marble floor to the center and stand under the oculus that marks the building’s only real direction, its vertical axis. Overpowered by the hugeness of scale, and feeling exposed, the visitor inevitably retreats to the walls to observe the space from the familiarity and safety of the perimeter. Strictly speaking, the interior is devoid of the kind of spatial complexity and mystery that multicellular, multivaulted buildings such as the Hagia Sophia or Santa Costanza offer (see Figures 12.57 and 12.61). It is even hard to see the Pantheon in the direct line connecting the Octagon of Nero’s Golden House to those late antique centralized compositions which organize structure and space into one complex, integrated whole (see earlier and later). Except for the one extraordinary experience created by the great, single circle of light – that illuminates the interior of the dome (on sunny days), then travels with the day on its helical journey down one side of the curving walls, across the great marble floor, up the other side, and is

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines sucked out of the oculus in one magical instant – there is little visual drama. Even the niches, screened off by tall columns and with no light or space of their own, offer little sculptural plasticity and variation. Girdled by its strong, double cornices, the horizontal layering of the walls and their subdued decorative articulation impart a sense of definition and insulation that is serene, stable and distinctly classical. The interior of the Pantheon, perhaps ironically, represents the culmination of this classical and conservative line of design, one that continues into the third and fourth centuries with modest imitators. Now we come to the last and the most difficult – certainly, the most intriguing – question concerning a more crisp definition of the Pantheon’s function and purpose than the one provided by the third-century historian Dio Cassius who called it a temple dedicated to many gods (templum deorum omnium), as the name Pantheon signifies in Greek. Much as Dio’s passage lacks the clarity and specificity we seek, it is informative and the best we have: [Agrippa] completed the building called the Pantheon. It has this name perhaps because among the images it received there are the statues of many gods including Mars and Venus; but in my opinion the name derives because the vaulted roof [dome] resembles the heavens. Agrippa, for his part, wished to place a statue of Augustus there, and bestow him the honor of having the building named after him; but when the emperor would not accept either honor, he placed in the Temple itself a statue of the former Caesar [Julius Caesar] and in the porch statues of Augustus and himself. (Dio Cassius 53.27.2–4)

Fooled by the inscription on its façade, Dio Cassius made the same mistake others after him all the way to the threshold of the twentieth century did, that the present-day Pantheon was an Agrippan structure. However, while the building he is relating to is incorrect, Dio’s information that Agrippa’s Pantheon was a religious place, probably a dynastic temple, or open-air temple precinct (templum) honoring the gens Julia, that is Julius Caesar and his divine ancestors, is straightforward and credible. And while we do not quite know the shape of the original Pantheon, the name derives from a long tradition of Greek and Hellenistic pantheia, sacred buildings for ruler and hero cults where the images of gods and mortals were worshipped. But was Hadrian’s Pantheon, the domed structure Dio and we know about, such a sacred building; was it a temple? Hadrian’s policy during his early reign was to establish links between him and the Julian dynasty in every way possible. Having made a point of keeping

the Agrippan nomenclature of the building and filling the interior with many statues of gods (“including Mars and Venus,” deities of the Julian house), there is little reason to doubt that Hadrian intended to retain the religious and dynastic nature of the first Pantheon in the second one. Some scholars suggest that the Pantheon was not a temple because the circular design with its domed interior is unlike the typical orthogonal temple form, resembling rather, in substance and type, many great secular halls found in palaces and baths – in other words, an aula rotunda. There is even a passage in Dio Cassius that informs us that among a number of other places Hadrian liked to hold court in the Pantheon (69.7.1). Such a function, however, was not incompatible with the sacred nature of the building because Roman temples, with their typically spacious cellas, were often used as places where important events, such as court hearings and senate meetings sometimes took place. Furthermore, the imposing pedimented porch that was all one saw on entering the forecourt, was a clear and traditional signal for a temple, even though what followed, architecturally, was untraditional. Perhaps, the Pantheon was not a “temple” in the narrow, technical sense, but then sanctuaries for dynastic cults often were not. And if we were to imagine a patron who was likely to expand both the concept and the architecture of a temple, one could hardly find one more suitable than Hadrian. This brings us to Dio’s second, and more intriguing, observation: in his view the name is derived because the dome resembles the heavens (see Figures 6.60 and 6.63). Needless to say, many aspects of Pantheon’s distinctive design encourage generic comparisons to celestial symbolism. There is the simple geometry of circles, spheres and squares, symbols of completeness and perfection; the great dome, the universal symbol for the cosmos; its division into twentyeight segments by starred coffers, a number considered “perfect” with cosmic allusions; the seven niches representing the seven planetary deities; and the great oculus, the sole source of light, which admits the sun and the stars on their mysterious celestial course. Besides, planetary forces were perfectly compatible with the ancient belief in ordinary deities or those with dynastic associations. Yet, there is no proof in all this from antiquity except Dio’s anecdotal, patently personal opinion. We should also remember that despite his well-known poetic curiosity, Hadrian was a shrewd and sober administrator, who would not, in the early part of his reign, have found it wise to encourage the formation of a temple in Rome whose program deviated from traditional and state religions into the realm of syncretism with such strong metaphysical

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity symbolisms and connections. This said, religious and cultural symbolism need not be a restricting and minimalist phenomenon; it is rather a process that encourages multiple and varying layers of associations strengthening and enriching the meaning of the message. We believe that the unique design of the Pantheon at the muted level of architectural metaphors deserves and demands an inclusive and generous reading – one that evokes broader notions of order and universality, notions mirroring the majesty of a mighty empire at peace under the eyes of its protecting gods and majestic emperor. For Ammianus Marcellinus, a fourth-century ce traveler and historian, Rome was the “temple of the world,” and the Pantheon, its great dome vaulting over the gridded floor like the sky over a city, was the “temple of Rome” itself (Amm. Marc., 16.10.24 and 17.4.13). In the final analysis, we agree with the observation of W. L. MacDonald that Hadrian’s Pantheon “again and again provided inspiration in response to needs unknown when it was built,” and add that it is perhaps a sign of its immeasurable resourcefulness that allows each generation and person his own Pantheon to experience and explain (Yegül 1978, 121–123).

T HE M A U S O L E U M O F HA D R I A N – CA S TEL S AN T ’A NG E L O

Hadrian’s last major architectural undertaking in Rome was his mausoleum located on the right, or east bank of the Tiber, outside the Campus Martius proper but directly linked to it by the Pons Aelius (the modern Ponte Sant’Angelo) (Figure 6.64; see 6.6). This was a bridge built as a part of the funerary complex and finished in 134 ce. The mausoleum must have been started around 130 ce and only completed in 139 ce by Antoninus Pius, one year after Hadrian’s death. It was in use by the Antonines and the Severan Imperial families; the last deposition of ashes was for Caracalla in 217 ce. Known as Castel Sant’Angelo (because of the soaring statue of Saint Michael above it), the mausoleum, along with the Pantheon and the Colosseum, is one of the distinctive landmarks of the historic city. A lot of what we see today on the exterior of the massive monument, including the tall, square tower that supports the “angel,” belongs to the renovations of the late antique and medieval periods when it was made into a bridgehead castle, then fully incorporated into the papal defense system of Rome. On closer

figure 6.64 General view of Hadrian’s Mausoleum (Castel Sant’Angelo) with the Pons Aelius, Rome; Photo by Diane Favro.

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Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines observation, however, there is enough of the core structure preserved (although the much of the original veneer is gone, making it difficult to assign the building precise measurements), along with some literary references in ancient sources to give us a fair idea of the original design. There is, still, some controversy, especially about the design of the upper portions of the monument. Hadrian’s mausoleum is composed of a square base and a tall cylindrical middle which was surmounted by a third circular or square support for a colossal sculpture, perhaps a standing statue of Hadrian or the emperor in a bronze quadriga (Figure 6.65). The middle drum might have been terminated by a very shallow conical mound of earth (a gentle architectural transitionary form). The simple, elemental geometry of squares and circles (though quite typical of monumental tomb architecture), is in line with the geometries of the Pantheon, but unlike the latter which is all space, it is almost totally solid. The dimensions are impressive: the square base is about 87 meters (300 RF) to a side and 12 meters high (40 RF); the middle drum has a diameter of 64 meters and is 21 meters high (see Figure 4.24). The external appearance of the top levels is problematic: it is not clear if there was another stage, a drum of smaller dimensions interposed between the middle one and the base of the culminating statue, but lacking positive evidence, the balance of scholarly opinion is against it. We know little about possible transitory elements between the stages. Some reconstructions interpose a circular colonnade around the entire middle drum recalling the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Vitti 2014, 245–267). The overall height of the monument is assumed to have been around 50–55 meters, making the structure higher than the Pantheon, the Column of Trajan, and the Mausoleum of Augustus. The structure of the great square plinth displays a series of concrete walls (some seventy-two of them) radiating out from the central drum, creating interconnected, trapezoidal, barrel-vaulted chambers. It is not known if these basement spaces had any use such as storage, or simply formed the base for the concrete core of the central drum. The core was filled in concrete with small blocks in horizontal layers mixed with rows of large limestone blocks for greater strength rather like the construction system of the Republican Mausoleum of Caecilia Metelli (Figure 6.66; see Figure 3.15). The corridors, chambers, and other interior usable spaces were encrusted in marble, now entirely gone. The sheer size and impact of the exterior marble wall at the ground level, 87 meters long to a side, exactly the same as the double-cella wall of the Temple of Venus and Roma – but not screened by a row of columns – must have been staggering. It was capped by

an entablature composed of a frieze of bulls’ heads and garlands, and an ornate cornice of open-and-closed palmettes. An entablature with similar motifs (fragments preserved) must have crowned the drum. Although built in Italian marble from Luna, the ornamental style of the entablature follows Asia Minor models, a Hadrianic-era precedent already set in the capital by the marble ornament of the Temple of Venus and Roma (see earlier). Recalling the tradition of the great Hellenistic tombs, also from Asia Minor, such as the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the exterior was richly ornamented in statuary. Procopius, a sixthcentury writer, mentions colossal figures of men and horses in bronze and marble; these were hurled down from the parapets when the Goths besieged the castle in 537 ce (Procopius, BellGoth, I.22.12–25). Twelfthcentury sources report the existence of an outer bronze enclosure fence with corner pillars supporting giltbronze peacocks as symbols of immortality whose existence was confirmed by excavations (two of these are in the Vatican Museums). The entrance to the tomb was directly from the south, on axis with the bridge (Figure 6.64). A straight corridor led to a vestibule, which probably contained a colossal statue of Hadrian, dimly but dramatically illuminated by oblique light shafts cut into the vault. From here a helical annular ramp (3 m wide, 6 m high) encircled the interior of the drum counterclockwise, rising some 12 meters in a complete circle, and ending in another vestibule directly on top of the first one. A short radial corridor connected with the funerary chamber proper, a room with a Greek-cross plan (8.5  8.5 m with a 10-meter high vaulted roof ) located exactly in the geometric center of the drum. Only the concrete core is preserved of what appears to have been a tall structure containing two more superimposed rooms over the funerary chamber. This is probably the “tower” (circular or square on the exterior) that rose above the tumulus and supported the crowning statue of Hadrian. The closest architectural model for Hadrian’s Mausoleum is the Mausoleum of Augustus, which rises across the river, some 800 meters away (see Figures 4.24 and 4.25). Both are colossal structures sharing close bottom dimensions of about 300 RF (89 m diameter for Augustus) and externally composed of rising concentric cylindrical and conical elements, diminishing in size. The basic similarity is undoubtedly intentional, and given the prestige of the former, inevitable. Hadrian’s Mausoleum, however, appears to have been much more elaborate in its exterior decoration and lavish in its use of sculptural ornament (especially if the idea for an external ring of columns is true). Ultimately, both look back to the venerable ItalicEtruscan tradition of tumulus tombs. The specific type 371

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figure 6.65 Hypothetical reconstruction elevation and section of Hadrian’s Mausoleum; rendered by Diane Favro (after Stierlin).

represented by a square base supporting a tall, cylindrical drum, was already employed in several prominent tombs of the Republican period, such as the tomb of Caecilia Metella on Via Appia Antica outside Rome (see Figure 3.15). A more distant but dramatic architectural kinship could be forged between Hadrian’s 372

Mausoleum and another important Augustan monument, the Trophy of the Alps at La Turbie, in coastal southern France near Monaco (see Figure 7.25). Celebrating the conquest and pacification of the Alpine tribes, the many-tiered structure has a colonnaded, templelike drum rising over a powerful square plinth

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines

figure 6.66 Core construction of the Mausoleum of Hadrian composed of opus caementicium mixed with ashlar; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

(31.4  31.4, c. 12 m high) and probably had a stepped conical roof terminated by a statue of Augustus. The main design is ultimately and unmistakably inspired by the fourth-century bce Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in southwest Turkey. The famed tomb of King Mausolos and his wife Artemisa was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world and gave its name to the building type (mausoleum). While Augustus and Hadrian were both known for their admiration of “all things Greek,” they both merged prominent forms of Greek architecture with Roman themes in the designs of their mausoleums creating works that are distinctly Roman in form and spirit. There are two significant themes worth considering, one political the other urbanistic, behind the creation of Hadrian’s Mausoleum. The first is about, simply, Hadrian’s decision to build it. Hadrian started a new dynastic tomb, an undertaking far less frequently done than a temple or a public bath. The last major dynastic tomb built on (possibly) public land in Rome was that of Augustus, nearly a-century-and-half before Hadrian’s. The Flavians had their temple-tomb (Templus Gens Flaviae) on their private estate on the Quirinal. Trajan’s tomb was the pedestal of his celebrated Column in his forum, the only funerary monument allowed inside Rome’s sacred pomerial boundary. Hadrian’s choice for the location of his mausoleum on land owned by the Imperial family (Gardens of Domitia) in a region called the Ager Vaticanus, then a rather desolate and underdeveloped area across from the river, was unusual but politically cunning (see Figure 6.6). Burial in the city, even outside the pomerium (as in the Campus Martius), could be granted to exceptional individuals, but required the special permission of the Senate. Hadrian’s relations with the Senate had always been less than perfect (it was only

through the personal intervention of Antoninus Pius, his much-respected follower to the throne, that Hadrian was granted deification a year after his death). Thus, by building on his private land outside the Campus Martius, Hadrian bypassed the need for Senate permission. Yet, his mausoleum, located directly on the bridgehead was an extension of the Campus, and very much a part of the visual triangle formed by the Mausoleum of deified Augustus and his own Pantheon, sacred to all the gods. The urbanistic agenda generated by the tomb is equally remarkable. It would have been practically impossible and politically suicidal for Hadrian to place a so large mausoleum anywhere in the Campus Martius, a much-coveted part of the city already filled with public institutions. The Ager Vaticanus, by contrast, was sparsely built and sparsely populated; there were some wealthy estates (Gardens of Agrippina, Gardens of Domitian), the quasi-private circus of Nero, and some burials. The building of the Pons Aelius connected the existing road systems along the Tiber and on the interior, linked up the land on both sides of the river, and opened up a vast area, otherwise considered unhealthy and unfashionable, for urban development. No small part of the new feeling that helped the western expansion of the city was the presence of the magnificent and prestigious imperial monument providing the necessary social signals for acceptance and valuation – as important then as now in real estate matters. The mausoleum project is a just demonstration of Hadrian’s wisdom and skills to attend practical and ideological agendas, his ability to fuse political sensitivities with public needs and enhance each with the help of the other. HA D R IA N ’S VI L LA IN TIV O L I

Spreading over an area roughly the size of Pompeii (about 300 acres), Hadrian’s Villa complex located southwest of Tivoli is the largest and most elaborate of that popular and privileged genre of private architecture – the suburban villa – that spotted the Roman countryside from the late Republic to late antiquity. Unique even within a type that encouraged novelty of approach to design, Hadrian’s Villa represents Roman architecture at its creative best; it summarizes much of its past and projects some of its future. Yet, it remains a monument specific to its time and place, an intensely personal statement by its educated and refined Imperial patron. The construction of the main parts of the villa lasted through Hadrian’s first fifteen years as emperor though, based on brick stamps, roughly two building periods can be detected, the first 118–125 ce, the second 373

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity 125–133 ce. During most of the construction, except at the critical beginning and middle years (c. 118–121 ce and 125–128 ce), Hadrian was away from Rome and Italy. He took up residence in the villa in 132 ce and never left it until his death in 138 ce. Although the unknown professional architects of the villa deserve proper recognition and admiration for their masterful design, one suspects that at least some of the architectural credit belongs to Hadrian, the source of inspiration behind these restless creations. The villa culture enjoyed by the leaders of the Republic and the Empire combined negotium and otium, quintessentially Roman concepts of work and leisure – in a way underscoring the belief that a true aristocrat, a community leader, could not entirely escape from his public responsibilities even during his leisure. With its myriad of official buildings, this principle was firmly recognized and practiced at the villa in Tivoli. Like the Versailles of Louis XIV, a vast royal estate outside Paris that was both the center of government and the playground for the seventeenth-century French SunKing and his retinue, Tivoli was both the residence and the location from which all Imperial business was conducted for its Roman “sun-king.” At a time when electronic media communications were non-existent, this must have required extra effort, but Tivoli is only 28 kilometers east of Rome, or about three hours, or less, on horseback. On this large tract of land some fifty or so buildings stretch across the gentle hills or are nestled into the valleys (Figure 6.67). Our archaeological knowledge of the estate is imperfect; there almost surely are many other structures that have disappeared or lie hidden uninvestigated as evidenced by the newly discovered structures uncovered by Italian and American excavators. Neither the land nor the buildings seem to reach out for dramatic vistas, although there are wide horizons and a restful sense of containment, and from a few locations one can enjoy open and distant views of the hills. A more dramatic hilltop location might have been possible, but the presence on this location of a Republican villa possibly owned by Sabina (wife of Hadrian); the relative ease of receiving abundant waters brought from higher sources by one or more aqueducts; and, perhaps most importantly, the protected and secluded nature of the land as the clear preference of a famously moody and increasingly introverted prince might go a long way to explain the reasons behind the choice of the site. The assessment of the overall plan at the first glance has always been somewhat formidable for the architecturally uninitiated. It is hard to decide whether the scores of buildings spread over the page (or the land) like so many raisins in a fruitcake represent 374

willful and somewhat haphazard growth, or whether they show any underlying sense of order or design. A harder look suggests the latter. Although there is no overarching and unifying geometry, no strong axis or alignment, no architectural parti, no central planning score, the design is characterized by clusters of related structures. Each of these clusters is structured and unified around its own common axis – hence, there are many different alignments and axes, but they relate to each other topographically and organically in subtle and meaningful ways, in particular by elaborate and creative manipulation of water in its many expressive and experiential architectonic arrangements (“in no other villa urbana is the structural display . . . of water more richly represented than . . . in Hadrian’s Villa . . .” Ehrlich 1989: 161. “The hydraulic regime was complex and sophisticated . . . to form a tapestry of water across the entire Villa,” MacDonald and Pinto 1995, 170–182, esp. 170). There is no chaos, no random dispersal, no fruitcake. In fact, the overall layout of Hadrian’s Villa provided architects and planners in the 1960s and 1970s the perfect model they were looking for in their attempts to escape the doldrums of international modernism: a core of order in apparent confusion; an opportunity to indulge in complexity without chaos; a visually sophisticated and dramatic form of planning that involved the intellect as well as the senses (Rowe, Kotter 1977: 90–95; Yegül 1997). Despite the pleasures of analyzing this sort of abstract and disjointed design, the villa’s open-ended edges without artificial barriers, its complex and contradictory spatial sequences, underscore the importance of actually seeing and experiencing each component rather than viewing the totality from a distance (or on paper) in search of a grandiose composition. Even the apparent internal symmetries and shared axes could be misread in reconstructing relationships. One should also be cautious because much of the connective tissue, that is, the elements between the building clusters – landscape features, terraces, colonnades walkways, pergolas, stairs, waterways, even the well-placed marble bench – is gone. Perhaps, with these missing elements cementing the odd-looking, “left-over” spaces between the masses, the original design might not have looked so edgy, so “deconstructed.” Still, this is an architecture of exceptionally well composed junctions – and every effort should be made to understand and appreciate the shape of linkage as well as of the elements which are linked. Unlike the Pantheon, a tour de force of unified design occupying the stable center of Roman classical tradition, the Villa, with its expressive forms and light-filled spatial sequences is, in the words of an eminent scholar, “a restless experiment” (WardPerkins 1981, 111). Fractured and hybridized, none of

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figure 6.67 Plan of Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli; rendered by Alex Maymind and Diane Favro (after Stierlin).

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity its parts is monumental in the sense of being colossal. Almost all its major structures are made in concrete faced brick or a mixture of brick and tufa opus reticulatum (the latter harking back to a proud late Republican tradition; Métraux 2015). Bold and curvilinear forms dominate both in plan and in the third dimension, vaults, semidomes, and domes are combined in novel ways with common elements such as colonnades and arcades. Some of these architectural creations are in fact more traditional in nature even as they expand and enlarge the parameters of “familiar architecture” (MacDonald and Pinto 1995, 47); others, based on endless manipulations of basic geometric forms, mainly the circle and the square, are truly original creations and are outside the traditional notions of classicism. Several sources mention Hadrian’s Villa (Dio Cassius, 69.11.1; Marcus Lucretius Fronto, I.111, 2.9, 2.139, 2.207–209; Aurelius Victor, De Caes., 14.6), but our main information comes from a short reference in the SHA, Hadrian, 1.1–27: Hadrian built the Tiburtine Villa wonderfully, in such a way that he could apply the names of provinces and places most famous and he could call (parts of the Villa) for example, the Lycaeum, the Academy, the Prytaneum, the Canopus, the Poecile, the [Vale of] Tempe. And in order to omit nothing he even created an underground (Hades).

To these historic names more fanciful ones have been added by the Renaissance historian Pirro Ligorio, and there are other, more recent descriptive variants. We should be aware of several concerns in appraising and using these names as place identifications. First, giving parts of one’s villa or pleasure estate the names of significant elements or famous locations in classical architecture was a fairly common habit among the aristocracy; Hadrian was not alone or the first to indulge in this form of harmless vanity. Second, we do not quite know which name denotes which particular building or building cluster in the Villa, though some are descriptive enough for a fair guess. Third, while they resonate with nostalgic associations with famous historical places which Hadrian had indeed seen and admired during his extensive travels, architecturally and contextually there is no connection, or only a very distant and immaterial one between the model and the alleged recreation. For example, the name Poikile is applied today to a very large enclosed pool and/or fish-tank in the Villa; it has nothing to do with the actual form or function of the famous Poecile, which was a fifth-century bce “painted stoa” in the Agora of Athens. The Canopus, a long, narrow body of water like a canal nestled in a valley at Tivoli only vaguely resembles the Canopus from Ptolemaic 376

Alexandria, an artificial canal off the Nile which became well-known in antiquity as the center of popular and notoriously licentious entertainment. In a sense, some of these names, fanciful and inaccurate as they might be do have ancient authority, and their nostalgic and romantic roster of associations do contribute significantly to our understanding of Hadrian’s own thinking and feeling toward the villa complex he designed. Therefore, we will use those, or some of their more recent variants, in the following discussion. T HE P OI K E L E , TH E R E SI D E N CE , T HE B A TH S

The primary approach to the Villa must have been from the north, in the direction of the Via Tiburnina (see Figure 6.67). Scattered on a gently rising plateau shaped by several terraces were a few monuments set aside from the main concentration on the saddle. These included a medium-sized theater facing north and a circular Doric temple with open colonnade in which stood a copy of the famed Venus of Cnidus by Praxiteles. Raised on a formally planned semicircular terrace with apsidal fountains, the tholos temple commanded a fine view of the Aniene Valley and the hills beyond (much as the goddess’ tholos in Cnidus looks at the spectacular coastline where the waters of the Aegean meet the Mediterranean) and set the theme of erudite aestheticism that informs the Villa’s program. Somewhere here the road split, the southeast branch going up toward the large group known as the Residence, and the southwest one going around the west end of the high terrace of the Poikele, an immense pool enclosure, to the ceremonious entrance named the Central Vestibule. Also somewhere on the northern terrace must have been the beginning of a system of subterranean service passages that connected all major areas of the complex, with corridors large enough for the passage of carts. The Residence (or the “palace” proper) seems to have been the private living and working quarters of Hadrian and his close associates and a private entrance for the villa. A large group composed of several peristyle courts and suites of rooms with apses, it is the most traditionally designed part of the Villa. This is readily explained because the rectilinear geometry and axiality of the ensemble was essentially based on the already existing, traditionally planned Republican villa Hadrian inherited. Close to the entrance portico is a rectangular structure of basilical plan with five T-shaped rooms on either side of a central hall and a larger communal room at the head of the axis. Generally interpreted as a guest facility (hospitalium), it might have been the lodgings for some of the permanent, upper-level staff. The black-and-white mosaic

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines decoration of these rooms, justly admired for its quality and inventive variations of its geometric patterns of interlocking circles and squares, seems to mimic the larger themes of the Villa’s architectural geometry.

A more innovative addition on the south end is a monumental ensemble composed of three elements: a rectangular enclosure known as the Court of the Doric Pillars (Figure 6.68, Plate 13), an interconnecting suite

figure 6.68, plate 13 Restored corner view of the Court of the Doric Pillars, Hadrian’s Villa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity of five, tall barrel-vaulted units, and a great apsidal hall that might have served ceremonial purposes, such as a throne hall (Aula Regia) for formal receptions of emissaries. The Doric pillars themselves are striking in their elegant proportions, unorthodox entablature details, and with small, brick arches spanning behind the usual architraves, experimental in structure (Figure 6.69). Projecting at a sharp angle from the southeast corner of the Residence, but conveniently linked to it by a corridor, is the independent Heliocaminus Baths, well known for its circular, semiopen “sun room,” with a sand floor for sun bathing. Far from the modest proportions and artistic intentions as a kind of a picture gallery of its elegant Athenian namesake, Hadrian’s Poikele is a vast peristyle enclosure (some 232  92 m, an area of 21,000 sq m or 5.2 acres). It contains a proportionally large rectangular pool with a curved end (106  26 m, 1.6 m deep). The doubled northern ambulatory (stretching on both sides of a tall and robust wall) is exactly one stade (200 m) long, and was probably intended as a kind of xystos, or running track, a common feature of proper Greek gymnasia as well as fanciful Roman suburban villas. The large area inside the enclosure was probably planted as a formal pleasure garden-cum-gymnasium,

commanding a view of Rome from its elevated western end. In order to create such a large flat area, the west and southwest ends of the Poikele were build up in two or three tiers of buttressed, barrel-vaulted, concrete chambers, some one-hundred of them or so, probably used to house staff and services. Other facilities for staff and the military exist across the Villa expanse, as their numbers probably counted in the thousands. The impressive rise of the buttressed terrace first came in to view as outside visitors and foreign ambassadors approached by skirting around the Poikele and trudging up to the Ceremonial Vestibule – much like the visitors entering the Flavian Palace in Rome from the south/southeast saw the tall, vaulted substructures rising at the Palatine’s south end. Nearing the entry, the road divided, perhaps to handle incoming and outgoing traffic, or to emulate a stadium-like racetrack. Flanking it on the west was an eye-catching walled complex with two white marble tetrastyle temples facing each other (one has been hypothesized to have had a curved pediment based on limited evidence). Between the opposing shrines, a sturdy, square foundation might have supported an obelisk or other feature. On the west was a colonnaded hemicycle with a central room fronted by two canals. Discovery of various Egyptianizing elements

figure 6.69 Detail of the entablature with brick arches, Court of the Doric Pilasters, Hadrian’s Villa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines and statuary, including evidence for date palms, led the excavators Z. Mari and E. Salza Prina Ricotti to identify the complex with the tomb and worship of Hadrian’s favorite and lover, the young Bithynian boy Antinous who died in Egypt and is often depicted as Osiris, and the tetrastyle temples with Romano-Egyptian cults (Salza Prina Ricotti 2002–2003; Mari and Sgalambro 2007). Recent considerations of this controversial issue by G. H. Renberg suggests that association with Antinous is plausible, but not definitive. All considered, the balance of evidence indicates that Antinous died in Egypt and stayed there. The admittedly impressive complex in Tivoli could have been an Egyptianizing honorific cult center for him – or, just a building decorative in nature, such as “a highly Egyptianized nymphaeum” (Renberg 2010, 190–191). Composed of four generous units, the vestibule complex is located more or less in the middle of the main northwest/southeast axial stretch of the Villa. An apsidal, peristyle reception court opens on one side to a small temple enclosure (a shrine for the lares and penates for the villa?), and on the other, by way of a gatehouse with a suite of offices, offers the option of either going left (north) toward the tri-apsed triclinium (for official banquets), or right (south) toward the Canopus and its more informal dining facilities. Moving straight through another smaller peristyle courtyard visitors find themselves in a plaza between two baths. It was customary for overnight guests coming from afar to be treated to the relaxing and cleaning pleasures of a hot bath upon arrival. Those who would stay longer would be taken to their guest lodgings, possibly the multistory structure located near the baths, immediately east of the so-called Garden Stadium (see later in this chapter). Simply dubbed Large Baths and Small Baths, we know nothing about the clientele these baths served – speculation ranges that one was for Hadrian and his friends, the other for staff and/or guests; one for men the other for women; or the Large Baths were for guards – or, as we suspect, there was no social and specific differentiation at all (see Figure 6.67). Both baths are sturdily built in brick-faced concrete and lavishly decorated. Both share the same strong northwest/southeast alignment and the same basic planning typology: a front row of heated rooms (including a circular, domed unit) facing west/southwest is balanced by a back row, which has a cross-vaulted frigidarium, apodyterium, reception halls, and smaller service spaces. Behind these, both baths have ample exercise spaces or colonnaded courts. The well-articulated massing and generously proportioned rooms and the well-preserved soaring vaults of the Large Baths, still standing in the frigidarium, are more traditional and

perhaps less “interesting” than those of its neighbor to the west (Figure 6.70). The urge for experiment and surprise reaches a peak in the tightly composed and dynamic spatial units of the Small Baths, one of the gems in Roman bath architecture and a worthy exponent of the revolutionary architectural thinking that typifies the Villa and its master (and here brought to life in a reconstruction drawing by B. M. Boyle, Figure 6.71). Over twenty congruent and variously shaped rooms are fitted like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle into an interconnected, integrated whole. Yet, there is an underlying organizational geometry realized by circles and octagons, and axial alignments that determine the major relationships and sequences of spaces. The most inspired element of the whole composition is an octagonal hall whose defining walls are alternately straight and inward-curving, rising into a seamless, eight-sided dome or domical vault, the ridges melting in subtle transitional planes into the inward and outward-curving surfaces of the intrados (Figure 6.72). Tall, arched windows located high on the straight sides illuminate the curved surfaces of wall and vault in curved light and curved shadows. The individuality and creative design of the Small Baths is all the more admirable because it is achieved without sacrificing the functional requirements of a working bath. The area bordered by the two baths, the south flank of the Residence, and the east and southeast corner of the Poikele, is occupied by a building group with heterogeneous shapes and functions (see Figure 6.67 M, P). Following the north–south/east–west alignment of the Poikele, the group is composed of a trilobed banqueting pavilion, or triclinium, to the west, the previously mentioned multistory heated apartments to the east (either for guests or simply an alternative “winter palace” for Hadrian) and in between the long, north–south Garden Stadium (c. 128  30 m). At the east end of the “heated apartments” lies a peristyle pool enclosure, the rectangular pool surrounded by a Corinthian portico elevated over a cryptoporticus (Figure 6.67 N). The Trilobed Triclinium occupying the west end of the same axis is composed of a large, timber roofed, central hall with three semiopen apsidal extensions on the east, west, and south sides, while on the north it is attached to the Poikele by a vestibular unit with an elevated pool (Figure 6.73). The apses open to the main hall through screen walls and are articulated by curved arcades, perhaps one of the earliest uses of this motif that became popular in late antique architecture. These semiopen apsidal extensions also contain fountains and viewed through the multiple screens of the main hall, must have offered the banqueters the pleasures of changing light and sound. Lavishly decorated in polychromatic marble opus sectile floors, marble 379

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figure 6.70 Cross vaults of the frigidarium, Large Baths, Hadrian’s Villa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

walls and delicately detailed column capitals and bases, the overall design of the group is quite similar to the triclinium suite of the Flavian Palace on the Palatine (see earlier). 380

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The general shape and features of the Garden Stadium is also a smaller variation of the stadium/hippodrome

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines

figure 6.71 Axonometric reconstruction study of the Small Baths, Hadrian’s Villa; courtesy of M. Bernard Boyle

of the Flavian Palace, a form fairly common in luxury estates such as Domitian’s Villa Complex at Albano, or the one described with great pride by Pliny in his villa at Tusculum (Letters, 5.6.32–40). Naturally, the name is allusive. Garden stadiums were typically planted with trees, shrubs and laid out with walkways, fountains, statuary, and exedras – all that to evoke leisurely strolling with friends or quiet meditation by oneself rather than strenuous exercises or competitions. The Garden Stadium in Tivoli is divided into two roughly equal zones, south and north, by a pair of porticoes flanking a square, shallow pool in the middle (Figure 6.74). Recent excavations indicate that either side of this central pool was filled with roofed, columnar pavilions like semiopen, glorified gazebos. The south end of the stadium was designed as a watertheater, a semicircular cavea whose sloping sides were divided into wedges of planting beds separated by wedges of cascading or running water over steps collected into the half-moon of the orchestral pool. As generally true for the stadium-garden form, such watertheater, (elaborate variations on nymphaeum architecture) were fairly popular elements of luxury villas. In fact, a prototype occupying the southeast corner of the Republican core of the Residence seems to have been developed into a proper water-theater by Hadrian. The architecture of the stadium group is fairly traditional. What is remarkable is the way different forms and functions composing the group were pulled together into a well-knit whole and how water, in a variety of lavish forms of display (single or multiple water jets, gushing fountains, cascades down artificial steps,

canals, or on open, still pools), ununified and energized architectural groups. Even in today’s ruined state, there is a sense of visual and structural continuity between the disparate elements comprising the two dominant axes that are brought together at their crossing – the open, central pool flanked by porticoes like a residential plaza reflecting the images of the tall, brick buildings on either side, and viewed pleasantly from their upper story rooms. T H E CA N O P U S A N D T H E G R O T T O NY MP HA EU M- TR IC LIN IU M ( “ S E R AP E U M”)

Among the Villa’s myriad of ruins confusing to all but the specialist, the most visually and thematically engaging and popular is a “scenic canal,” generally known as the Canopus (Figure 6.67 T, U). Nestled is a valley stretching some 120–130 meters along the dominant northwest-southeast axis, the Canopus is a beautiful melding of architecture and landscape, a feature whose design is exclusively a part of its natural setting (Figures 6.75–6.77). The distinctive shape of the canal-pool (roughly 121  18 m, the longest body of water in the Villa), and the grotto nymphaeumtriclinium terminating the far end of its long axis, must have recalled the famous Canopus outside Alexandria (with its grotto Serapeum sanctuary), thus justifying the name. The tragic story of the drowning death of Antinous, Hadrian’s favorite, in the Nile in 130 ce and his subsequent deification, as well as some Egyptian or Egyptianizing statuary found in or near the Canopus (such as a crocodile fountain, the river god Nile, 381

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figure 6.72 Interior vaulting of the octagonal room, Small Baths, Hadrian’s Villa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 6.73 Reconstruction study of the Trilobed Triclinium, Hadrian’s Villa; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Kahler).

Antinous in Egyptian costume, Isis, Ptah, etc.) strengthens the thematic connection to Egypt, the Canopus and the Serapeum, but no visual similarity can be assumed. However, like the basis for other famous place names in the Villa, the so-called Canopus is mainly a thematic reference to trigger nostalgic memories of Hadrian’s traveling years (and perhaps the follies of a younger age), not an archaeological reproduction. The grotto-nymphaeum might have evoked quasi-religious and mysterious Egyptian themes and alluded to the deification of Antinous as an Egyptian god, but it was not a Serapeum, at least not in the sense of a proper sanctuary.

A colonnade encircled the canal, its long east side arranged as a roofed portico, along a supporting wall of the hillside; the west side had a row of free-standing columns. On the curved northeast end the columns were articulated carrying alternately archivolts and straight entablatures – a visual screen that defined space but did not enclose it (see Figure 6.76). Statues of amazons, Hermes, Mars (copies of well-known Greek pieces) were positioned between the columns; rows of tall pedestals carried copies of the caryatids from the Athenian Acropolis. The large sheet of water, alternately bright or somber as clouds overhead reflected its mood, the Canopus pool is graced now, 383

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figure 6.74 Reconstruction of the Garden Stadium, south wall and water theater, Hadrian’s Villa; rendered by W. Ashley Coon (after Hoffmann).

as it probably did then, by snow-white swans. At the south end of the canal, built into the hill, is a grottopavilion, or a nymphaeum-triclinium (which is the element some early publications misread as a “Serapeum” or a sanctuary to the Egyptian god Serapis). The front of the pavilion was articulated by a great half-dome, with scalloped, “pumpkin” segments, incrusted in green and blue mosaics. The half-dome was screened by a façade of four monumental cipollino columns; in front was a square, reflecting basin, separated from the canal by a narrow ledge (Figures 6.77 and 6.78). Flanking the basin and projecting out from the great apse were a pair of identical “summer apartments” with half-circle colonnades, an elegant composition like the veranda suites and garden pavilions that adorn luxurious fin de siècle hotels. The interior of the apse was arranged as a sloping, semicircular dining couch (stibadium), 13 meters in diameter that could accommodate some fourteen to sixteen diners. Its perimeters were traced by semicircular water channels and a small, half-round basin in the middle that might have been used for floating displays of fancy appetizers. Water cascaded down the steps carved into the deep niches of the thick concrete conch of the apse, 384

these alternating with others housing statuary. The center of the apse was carved into a long and narrow gallery (20  4.40 m), a tunnel that penetrated into the depths of the hill. Cascading down from a tall, apsidal niche in the center of the curved end, as if from a natural grotto, water inundated almost the entire floor of the gallery, except for a large platform in the middle that barely rose above the water line; the gently flowing current passed under the platform and connected with the stibadium channels, the large square basin and eventually joined the Canopus (whereas some scholars imagine that Hadrian would preside over the dinner gathering reclining on this platform, thus observing a sense of social hierarchy and personal security, we believe that this isolated position too impractical for Hadrian, or any host, to engage with his few guests as Hadrian did (this was, with a dozen or so guests, after all, an intimate, “private” party); besides, Hadrian had created better places to be isolated in the villa when he wanted to be isolated (Salza Prina Ricotti 1987, 176–178; Ehrlich 1989, 170–171; see later in this chapter for our preference). Only the platform was roofed by a tall barrel-vault resembling a bridge crossing a canyon; the rest of the gallery, its high walls articulated by

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figure 6.75 General view of the Canopus, Hadrian’s Villa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

alternating rectangular and semicircular statue niches, was open to the sky. The waters that fed the whole system were provided by an aqueduct (whose channels can be seen behind the extrados of the half-dome), but the desired – and achieved – effect was that of a natural source emerging inside the wondrous depths of a cave (see Figures 6.77 and 6.78). The view from the apse back into the grotto-gallery with strong contrasts of light and darkness was dramatic, secret, even a little foreboding. But the view toward the front, the great stretch of the Canopus canal, was by contrast broad, open, and on sunny days shimmering. Facing northwest, the apse and the stibadium received the light of the setting sun obliquely in the summer, the only season such a facility would have been used. While statues and statue groups (such as the possible presence of the Odysseus and his Men Blinding Polyphemus, a favorite tableaux of similar grotto sanctuaries and nymphaea) might have enhanced the drama of the architecture and formed erudite links with distant myths of Greek and local origin, there is little question that it was water and its manipulated effects, that was celebrated. Let us listen to W. L. MacDonald (1995, 115):

Hadrian would recline at the center of this, at the middle position of the seven-part stibadium, a few intimates and honored guests beside him and others at couches set up nearby and thus dine, as Dio says “in the company of all the foremost and best men [with whom such a] meal together was the occasion for all kinds of discussions.” In the distance, before twilight, the peak of Montecelio could be seen, about 9 kilometers away and just off the [canal’s] axis. . . . Forming a dramatic backdrop behind the emperor was the grotto, the sound and flow of water carefully regulated. Though sculpture can be imagined on the internal platform perhaps it was just a viewing place . . .

Axial, symmetrical, superbly balanced between the natural and man-made, the Canopus and its extensions is a masterful example of a type of creation fundamentally traditional in concept and execution despite novelties such as the use of the arcuated lintel or the mosaic-incrusted dome (the latter also found at Nero’s Domus Aurea). A circular garden pavilion with a pumpkin dome and its barrel-vaulted extension located in the Gardens of Sallust in Rome is dated to the Hadrianic period and provides a fine comparison to the Canopus group (Figures 6.79 and 6.80). Like the 385

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figure 6.76 Curved (northeast) end of the Canopus with arcuated entablature, looking south, Hadrian’s Villa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 6.77 Plan of the Canopus and the “grotto pavilion” (nymphaeum-triclinium); rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Stierlin).

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figure 6.78 Etching of the nymphaeum/triclinium with “pumpkin” semidome, Canopus, Hadrian’s Villa; Piranesi (c. 1769); courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art via Wikimedia. A B C D E L

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figure 6.79 Plan of the Hadrianic Rotunda in the Gardens of Sallust, Rome (taken at window level); rendered by Diane Favro (after Coarelli).

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figure 6.80 View of the Hadrianic Rotunda with ‘pumpkin dome,’ Gardens of Sallust, Rome; engraving by L. Rossini (1828)

semidome of the Tivoli example, this dome (11.20 m in diameter and 13.20 m high) is of the pumpkin type with flat and concave segments. A vestibular extension with a tall, arched window (and accentuated on the exterior by a pediment carried on engaged columns) opens to the west, toward the view down the valley between the Quirinale and the Pincian hills. The barrel-vaulted hall extends eastward and establishes a strong sense of directional, axial space contrasting with the lofty tholos. Partially buried into the hill and terminated by an apse that was connected to the water source, the long hall is clearly the counterpart of the Canopus gallery. However, with its somber barrel-vault, it is also the modest heir of the more monumentally conceived barrel-vaulted garden pavilions such as the Augustan auditorium in the Gardens of Maecenas in Rome, or the Domitianic Doric Nymphaeum in Albano (see earlier). Extensive brick-faced concrete structures preserved up to several stories high and accentuated by rows of travertine consoles that once supported continuous balconies (similar to those in Ostian apartment houses) are part of the structures that seem to have formed a cohesive architectural group. It appears that the pumpkin rotunda and its extension served as a nymphaeum-triclinium (cenatio) for the larger urban villa complex in the Gardens of

Sallust. These gardens were originally owned by Julius Caesar and had long been Imperial property before being developed by Hadrian who probably used them during his stays in Rome. P I A Z Z A D ’O R O

Another important part of the Tivoli Villa that combined the theme of water with the functions of dining and entertainment is the so-called Piazza d’Oro, its name aptly inspired by the bright golden-yellow mosaic of its peristyle floors. Located just outside the southeast wing of the Residence, and easily reached from it, the Piazza d’Oro can be broadly described as a peristyle building (roughly 85  56 m) (Figures 6.81 and 6.82). Composed of a large rectangular court enclosed on all four sides by double porticos, it must have offered a very different dining experience than the Canopus. Slightly off the northwest-southeast alignment of the Residence, the layout is strictly axial and formal, composed of three parts: (Figure 6.81, A) the domed vestibule; (B) the peristyle court and garden (north); and (E) the dining pavilion/triclinium and its dependent vaulted units (south). The vestibule, pulled outside (but attached to) the rectangular enclosure, is a small octagonal structure 389

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figure 6.81 Plan of the Piazza d’Oro, Hadrian’s Villa DF (after MacDonald, Pinto); rendered by Diane Favro.

figure 6.82 General view of the Piazza d’Oro, Hadrian’s Villa, looking northeast toward domed vestibule; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 6.83 Vestibule with “pumpkin dome,” Piazza d’Oro, Hadrian’s Villa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

(8.5 m diameter) whose sides, formed by alternating square and semicircular-semidomed niches, rise to a scalloped pumpkin dome complete with a small oculus (Figure 6.83). The ridges between the dome segments compose what looks like an internal stilted arcade and are carried down on to eight corner columns – a visual, if not a properly structural, demonstration of the relationship between load and support. The freestanding exterior fully expresses the swelling curves of the interior space. The Vestibule of the Piazza d’Oro is a clear illustration for the kind of dome referred to in the famous exchange between Hadrian and Apollodorus reported by Dio Cassius (see earlier) where the veteran architect chided the young Hadrian to go and play with pumpkins. Whether Hadrian as emperor put the elderly architect to death for his belittling remarks or not (and we believe not), he certainly had ample opportunities to show off his own skills in creating remarkable variants of this resourceful architectural motif. One of the most complex and skillful applications of the pumpkin dome variants is the Hadrianic so-

called Temple of Venus and its annex in Baiae, a popular thermal spa. The “temple” in question, along with a few others in Baiae, is actually a rotunda, a public bath hall housing an immense communal thermal pool. The plan of the main building is fairly common, a circular hall, 26.30 meters in diameter with four deep semicircular niches (Figure 6.84). Above rises an octagonal drum with windows that originally supported a hemispherical dome (now mostly gone). On the southwest corner of the rotunda an annexed pavilion shows even a greater degree of spatial and structural articulation. A tall central space is defined by concave and convex walls, an endless undulating surface – or four projecting semicircular niches connected by convex wall sections – essentially, the same arrangement we have seen in the octagonal hall of the Villa’s Small Baths (see Figures 6.71 and 6.72). Nestled into the convex diagonals there are three small round rooms opening by wide doors into the main space but not quite a part of it (on the fourth side the pavilion is attached to the larger rotunda). The central space over the undulating walls rises as the eight scalloped

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N figure 6.84 Restoration study of the annexed pavilion, “Temple of Venus,” Baiae, plan and section; rendered by Diane Favro (after Rakob).

segments of a pumpkin dome. Each segment except that on the northeast is pierced by a large window just below the scalloped segment of the dome. Unlike the Vestibule of the Piazza d’Oro, there appear to be no columns. The resulting room is characterized by vertical and horizontal curvilinear planes where columnar

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orders, even when incorporated into the design, would have disrupted the seamless continuity of the main space. The double aisled porticos of the Piazza d’Oro peristyle are defined on the open court side not by freestanding columns but by half-columns engaged to

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines square piers carrying an arcade; on the back walls this structural motif is mirrored in brick (see Figures 6.81 and 6.82). The middle columns of the portico are widely spaced and Corinthian. The portico roof was in timber. Unlike a typical peristyle colonnade, this arrangement creates a more secluded, enclosed and shady space, like the cloisters of a medieval sanctuary. The central area open to the sky was arranged as a garden with a long canal on the main axis and planting rows along the sides. Facing the garden and occupying the middle of the southeast wing is the tricliniumnymphaeum chamber, the architectural tour de force of the complex if not the entire Villa (Figures 6.85 and 6.86). This is a centralized room shaped by a curved colonnade alternately projecting and receding (or convex and concave) along a sinuous, airy perimeter. Yet, the room is rigidly ordered about its cruciform

axes, the main northwest/southeast one terminating in nymphaeum with a gently curving backwall. This wall is articulated by niches and fountains. The transverse axes open into pairs of small atriums also defined by inward-curving colonnades and small, square pools in the middle. On the diagonals, where the colonnade curves inwards toward the room, the pavilion expands into apsidal corner recessions, also with fountains. In contrast to the delicate colonnaded armature of the central triclinium the units that surround the side atriums are tall masses of brick-faced concrete with traditional barrel-vaulted rooms (perhaps, for winter use). There is little doubt that this columnar central pavilion was intended for entertainment and quasiformal dining functions that combined simple recreation with more seriously cultural activities, music,

figure 6.85 View of the triclinium-nymphaeum, northeast wing of Piazzo d’Oro, Hadrian’s Villa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 6.86 Reconstruction study of the triclinium-nymphaeum, Piazza d’Oro, Hadrian’s Villa: rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Kahler).

poetry reading, debates. Although the unusual shape of the room must have made the layout of dining couches difficult, there was room comfortably for an intimate party of fourteen up to twenty-eight guests (the overall size of the room is roughly 250 sq m, the size of a spacious modern apartment). The ambiance, with its directed vistas in all four directions through curving screens and artfully delineated spatial sequences, the changing quality of natural illumination and the controlled use of water as visual termini (still waters of the canal, multiple cascades of the curved nymphaeum, simple pools with jets inside the small atriums, even the fountains inside the diagonal apses) was eminently suitable for the sophisticated dining experience and recalls Rabirius’ triclinium at the Domus Flavia (see earlier). At the same time this would have been an experience calculatedly different from dining in the grotto-triclinium of the Canopus with its open views. Here nature, even in the cultivated garden had been shut out, the setting was intimate, enclosed, urbane.

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To create a dining ambiance as described above almost certainly requires a roof over the room. Arguments against a roof, not surprisingly, point to the apparent structural difficulty of placing something like a masonry dome on a flimsy colonnade (the spans are 18 m in the long directions and 12 m in the short directions). Yet, the alternative, an open courtyard would have been a functional impossibility and a waste of architectonic potential – in other words, good design needs a roof here (see Figure 6.86). We believe that the room was roofed, probably by a light-aggregate domical vault whose inner surface followed the sinuous curves set up by the colonnade – a system similar to the scalloped pumpkin domes successfully and quite frequently used in Hadrianic architecture (other scholars who are favorable to the roof idea are H. Kähler, J. B. Ward-Perkins and W. L. MacDonald). The structural argument against a masonry dome overlooks two important technical characteristics of the design: first, curved and undulating shapes, like corrugated cardboard, are capable of developing great stiffness and

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines strength. Such a scalloped dome could be made thin and light, like a modern ribbed or “thin-shell” structure. The Romans were aware of the advantages of light-weight concrete and knew how to make it. A thin-shelled undulating concrete dome using volcanic selce as aggregate could have worked remarkably well. Second, the skeptical view ignores the fact that the apsidal diagonal structures that look somewhat unsubstantial on the plan were actually extremely strong, vaulted, concrete elements capable of providing lateral stability to the system; in fact, they are no different than massive corner piers. Conceived three-dimensionally, the whole system is an integrated structural whole, internally braced and webbed, like the inside of a walnut shell, undulating, strong, efficient and effective. The same reasoning is applicable for the hypothetical, scalloped dome envisioned over the socalled Reverse-Curve Pavilion, another centralized scheme that represents Hadrianic architecture at its non-traditional best. This was possibly a gate structure with a belvedere for an independent palace complex named the Academy, situated on high ground behind the Canopus (see Figure 6.67 X). The design of the Reverse-Curve Pavilion is based on a large circle sliced at its major axes by the arcs of four smaller circles, the central space defined by segments of curving colonnades and wall screens (controlling spans are 18 m and 13 m). The corners, like those of the Piazza d’Oro triclinium, are braced by strong projecting structures built up of complex apsidal elements. T H E I S L AN D E N C L O S U R E

One of the smallest and most intriguing independent elements of the Villa, and one that plays a critical role in the organization of its overall plan, is called the “Island Villa,” or more descriptively, “Island Enclosure” (Figures 6.87–6.89). A perfect circle with an external diameter of 44 meters, the Island Enclosure is located on low ground between the Residence (toward east/northeast), the Heliocaminus Baths (toward southeast), and the Poikile (toward southwest). Situated like a giant hinge at the juncture of the Villa’s major alignments, the circle touches many of these building groups at single points or is tangent to their straight sides (see Figure 6.67). Although basically a centralized building, its own axis is established by a rectangular vestibule extension toward the northwest and a discreet statue niche on the opposite side of the circular enclosure wall (southeast). This axis is one of the several variants of the Villa’s dominant northwest/southeast axes.

The Island Enclosure is composed of three concentric circular elements encircled by a high opus mixtum concrete wall (42.80 m internal diameter): an exterior annular colonnaded walkway (4.20 m wide); a circular island in the center (24.50 m in diameter); and a ring-shaped moat separating the island from the annular corridor (4.90 m wide, 34.30 m in diameter). The total area of the enclosure is 1,438 square meters; at 471 square meters, the island comprises just one-third of the total, which again equates to that of a moderately large modern apartment. The near sameness of the interior dimensions of the enclosure and the Pantheon may not be accidental – although what it signifies is hard to fathom – and may not be uninteresting to those who delight in such metrologies. The Island Enclosure is accessible from the buildings around it by several doors, but once inside the isolation is deliberate and complete, and on the island even more so since it was connected to the annular corridor by two drawbridges across the moat. As previously mentioned, the larger Villa was the center of government as well as the residence of the emperor. Teaming with officials, visitors and soldiers, it was not a place for retirement. But this miniature “island villa” within the greater Villa must have been definitely a place for escape for Hadrian whose gregarious moods were matched by his need for complete, even romantic, withdrawal. Such an eccentric, and to some extent indulgent, need was shaped by an architecture at once eccentric and indulgent but also creative and brilliant. The peripheral corridor is defined by forty unfluted Ionic columns carrying a thin-shelled concrete annular barrel-vault (see Figure 6.88). The horizontally curving entablature was of brick flat arches fortified by iron bars. The island had a central peristyle court open to the sky defined by four inwardcurving fluted Ionic colonnades and punctuated by a small impluvium pool in the middle just like a traditional atrium. Four curving colonnades, mirroring those of the atrium, defined the portico walkway around the center; the northern one created the semicircular vestibule. Directly opposite on the south (directions simplified), was a suite of three barrelvaulted units; the center one appears to be a tablinum, but perhaps it was a triclinium because it is on the main axis of the complex commanding long views in both directions. Toward the north an 80-meter single shot vista penetrated some six or seven layers of colonnades and their interconnecting spaces, alternately open and closed, and focused on a wall fountain; toward the south, at shorter range, was a

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figure 6.87 Plan of the Island Enclosure (“Island Villa”), Hadrian’s Villa; rendered by Diane Favro.

precious, small statue niche (see Figures 6.87 and 6.89). The triple-room suite centered on the east transverse axis appears to have been used as bedrooms for shorter stays, though at least one could have been a library. Half-round washrooms and lavatories occupied the left-over corners of this intricate geometry. Opposite, on the west, was a miniature bath suite complete with an apodyterium, frigidarium and caldarium as well as a furnace room to service the heated bath floors. No Roman villa could be, of course, without a bath. But this one, like its master, was unique. Hadrian, soaking in the frigidarium 396

pool, could open a door or sluice gate that connected the cold tank to the moat, and slide down a gentle ramp into the waters of the moat, and enjoy swimming around his fantasy island. So delightful and unusual is the luxury and apparent frivolity of the place that we often forget that the Island Enclosure (Island Villa) is a serious and masterful piece of design. The curve-countercurve play of its colonnades, the rhythm of its open-and-closed spatial sequences, the dance of light reflected from its watery surfaces – all contribute toward the making of a unique personal environment, yet the layout of the “island”

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figure 6.88 General view of Island Enclosure, Hadrian’s Villa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

itself is strictly anchored to the design principles of a traditional domus. Likewise, we could easily imagine the whole complex as the personal creation of a man who had everything money could buy, a solipsistic

fantasy for the whims of an Imperial patron, but forget that there was a quite serious tradition of such island or islandlike retreats for rulers for reasons of security or exaltation going back centuries. 397

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figure 6.89 Axial view, Island Enclosure, Hadrian’s Villa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

T H E L E S S O N O F TH E V I L L A : A N E W SY N T H E S I S O F TH E CO L U MN AN D THE ARCH

This may be a good time to recall and underscore the geometric basis that generates the formal and spatial relationships typical of much of Hadrian’s creations in or outside Tivoli. The basic geometry of the Island Enclosure, too, is arrived at by manipulating several large or small concentric circles and squares, beginning with a nominal exterior dimension of 150 RF (which is almost exactly the Pantheon’s interior diameter), and following a loose planning module of five-foot subdivisions. It is also useful to suggest that while the theoretical principles of these geometries rigidly defined by octagons, four and eight-sided axes, diagonals, overlapping circles and squares (also seen in the intricate patterns of marble and mosaic geometric pavements in the Villa) were erudite and complex, in field applications these systems were invariably manipulated and simplified. Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli freely borrows from and builds upon the architectural forms and sensibilities started by Severus and Celer in their Golden House and developed by Rabirius in the Domus Augustana wing of the Flavian Palace, and Apollodorus in his Markets of Trajan. In overall planning and 398

landscaping, it is informed by a long and strong tradition of suburban villa complexes and aristocratic gardens. In the context of Roman villa architecture, it appears to have influenced complexes such as the Hunting Villa at Piazza Armerina in Sicily, nearly two centuries into the future (see later). Its larger universal fraternity may subsume such diverse examples as Jefferson’s Monticello, the eighteenth-century Chinese imperial estate at Yuangmingyuan, the Alhambra in Spain, and perhaps the Ottoman Seraglio of Topkapi in Istanbul. The Villa’s power to inspire generations of architects who sought historical models for their creations includes such leading figures as Le Corbusier and Louis I. Kahn. Can we isolate and analyze what exactly the Villa and its experimental architecture brought as new, different and unique to the already known forms of classical architecture? The clue to a possible answer may be apparent in the first impressions of a visitor to the Villa today. This is a site where one is impressed by the massive and dynamic forms of the concrete architecture of Imperial Rome – tall, brick-faced walls, arches, vaults, and semidomes appear everywhere. But, this is also a site where traditional columns, columnar rows, arcades, and peristyles can be seen everywhere in novel and complementary combinations with walls and vaults. Indeed, the Villa in Tivoli is the place where

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines one can observe the best applications of a kind of growing synthesis between the traditional elements and motifs of traebated architecture with the powerful and dynamic forms of Roman concrete, crudely put, where the vault and the dome come to terms with the column and the entablature. It is a synthesis that exploits the architectural potentials of these two different modes by offering a new form of architectural aesthetic and thus expands the boundaries of traditional classicism.

ARCHITECTURE UNDER THE ANTONINES After a prolonged illness of several years, Hadrian died in 138 ce at the thermal center in Baiae and was succeeded by his recently adopted son T. Aurelius Antoninus, a senator who came from an old and distinguished family. Never truly trusted by the Senate, Hadrian’s capricious behavior during the last years of his tormented life had eroded whatever love remained between the emperor and that august body in Rome, which only grudgingly and upon the insistence of the new princeps, decided to deify him. His ashes were brought to his recently finished mausoleum in 139 ce and a proper college of priests was created for his cult. It is believed that “Pius,” the surname of new emperor was given in response to his filial piety. Early in his principate, Antoninus Pius adopted Marcus Aurelius, who was his own nephew and also much favored by Hadrian. In choosing his successor, Hadrian’s last act as emperor proved his wisest: Antoninus Pius, who reigned twenty-three years, was a modest, considerate and intelligent ruler. He was deferential to the Senate, believed in consultative government, and maintained the legacy of the Empire with authority. Traditional by nature, he continued his adoptive father’s administrative and artistic policies – even his bearded portrait image was closely based on Hadrian’s. Hadrian had left behind a sound and efficient government, a powerful and disciplined military and a healthy economy. Antoninus Pius strove to retain this happy status quo reflected in the concept of “Rome as an abstract and everlasting entity” (Garzetti 1974, 443). There were no major wars during his long reign though there were growing signs of unrest on the frontiers, especially in Germany; and the economy, despite his meticulous vigilance (“They called him the man who splits a cumin seed,” Dio Cassius, 70.3.3), was beginning to be burdened by inflation. When Pius died in 161 ce in his country villa at Lorium west of Rome, the Roman world, at peace and stable, mourned for a departed prince and welcomed Marcus Aurelius as the new emperor.

Upon succession, Marcus Aurelius, a quiet scholarly man, and a serious follower of Stoic philosophy, took his adoptive brother Lucius Verus as co-regent. As observed by J. J. Pollitt: “This ill-advised charity was characteristic of the austere, ascetic, dedicated emperor who took on the burdens of the principate as a Stoic philosopher . . . with detachment and selfeffacement but also an unflinching sense of duty” (Pollitt 1966, 167). A handsome and hedonistic youth uninterested in and incapable of fulfilling the serious responsibilities thrust upon him, Lucius Verus proved to be more hindrance than help until his early death in 169 ce. The darkening clouds of war that had appeared on Pius’ last years erupted all at once during Marcus Aurelius’ reign. His rule of nineteen years was almost entirely spent in heroic efforts to keep the empire from disintegrating in wars, revolts and plagues stretching from border to border – Britain, Germany, Syria. Upon his death in Germany in 180 ce, Commodus, Marcus’ natural son, and as it proved, unwise dynastic successor, concluded an easy peace and returned to Rome to celebrate a questionable triumph. Soon embroiled in unsavory palace intrigues, Commodus’ rule was remembered for its tyranny, cruelty and debauchery. Starting with the reign of Marcus Aurelius, there had been an increasing tendency even in Rome and the Western provinces to adulate the living emperor as partly god, thus eroding the carefully constructed boundaries between civic reverence and religious worship, although this delicate balance had been occasionally tested before by “bad” emperors such as Caligula and Nero. Commodus’ delusions of being Hercules incarnate (and giving performances in amphitheaters wearing the hero’s lion-skin costume) would have been comical if this tendency had not been accompanied by his vicious persecutions. When the end came in 192 ce by his assassination in his bath by a professional athlete, the Empire was up for grabs and the Roman world was at the brink of civil war. TH E TE MP L E O F DE IF I ED HA D R I AN

Two contemporary temples, the Hadrianeum in the central Campus Martius and the Temple of Deified Faustina and Antoninus Pius in the Forum Romanum, underscore the vigorous new outlook on deification and the Imperial cult in general, and Antoninus Pius’ renowned piety in particular – but they are very different in their architecture. The Temple of Deified Hadrian (Hadrianeum) was started early in Pius’ rule and dedicated in 145 ce. Incorporated into the nineteenth-century palazzo that housed Rome’s Borsa (Stock Exchange), the north wall of its east-facing cella and eleven columns are preserved almost intact 399

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 6.90 View of north side, Temple of Deified Hadrian, Rome; Photo by Diane Favro.

(Figure 6.90). Following the Corinthian order, it combines the typical features of Greek and Roman temples in the assured manner of the middle years of the Empire; it is peripteral with 6  13 columns (27  45 m) but elevated on a 4-meter high podium with broad frontal steps, and a very spacious porch. The exceptionally wide cella (26.5  16 m) is built in gray tufa (peperino) block walls incrusted in marble. The cella interior was richly embellished with a shorter, engaged columnar order raised on a continuous podium; above rose a concrete, coffered, barrel-vault. A colossal image of Hadrian – perhaps, also of Sabina – on a base placed against the back wall under 400

the stuccoed and painted great vault must have appeared like a throne room in a palace. The exterior fluted columns in imported Proconnesian marble at 14.83 meters (50 RF) are among the tallest in the city, although they are composed of drums, not single shafts. The partially preserved exterior entablature has a convex (pulvinated) frieze (the first in Rome) and a cornice sima decorated with palmettes and lion-heads, suggesting the continued influence of Eastern ornamental motifs that had been introduced to Rome only two decades earlier by the craftsmen from Asia Minor working on the Temple of Venus and Roma (Figure 6.91). More formal in style are a group of

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines

figure 6.91 Detail of entablature, Temple of Deified Hadrian, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

high-relief sculptural panels representing the provinces and peoples of the Empire alternating with military trophies, which probably decorated the attic of an exterior colonnade running along the northern side of the temple; “no evidence for porticoes on the other sides of the temple has yet been found,” although one would certainly expect them to complete an enclosure (Claridge 2010, 225). Standing erect, free, and proud in their native costumes – emphatically not as “captives” – these allegories clearly embody Hadrian’s effective foreign policy of cementing a peaceful and idealized union with subject provinces through participation and inclusion. T EM P L E O F F A U S T I N A A N D A NT O NI NU S P IUS

The death of Faustina the Elder in 141 ce prompted the construction of a new cult temple honoring the deified empress in the Forum Romanum, immediately east of Basilica Aemilia and directly on the Sacra Via facing the Regia (see Figure 4.1). The temple, identified by its architrave inscription, was dedicated in 145 ce. Upon Pius’ death in 161 ce, his name was added in a dedicatory inscription on the frieze, and no doubt his cult image joined that of his beloved wife. Thanks to its conversion to the Church of S. Lorenzo in Miranda,

it is reasonably well preserved, except the pediment, conspicuously replaced by a baroque façade in 1602. The temple is Corinthian and follows Roman typology: a prostyle hexastyle with six columns in front and two behind the outer ones defining the deep porch. It is raised on a high podium, approached by wide frontal steps incorporating the altar in their middle (Figures 6.92 and 6.93). The plan resembles the early Augustan Temple of Saturn in the western end of the Forum. The near-square cella is spacious (c. 17.50 m wide, length unknown; wider than the Hadrianeum, but probably much shorter due to the tight space). It is constructed of peperino blocks, incrusted in marble. The green cipollino monolithic columns (marble from the island of Euboea, Greece) are only slightly shorter than those of the Hadrianeum and about the same as the columns of the Pantheon (14 m, or 48 RF; the shafts are 11.80 m, or 40 RF). The capitals and entablature, although in Proconnesian marble, revert to Trajanic models: the frieze, well-preserved along the sides, showing heraldic griffins between candelabra, is beautiful in a precise, metallic way (see Figure 6.93). Much like its patron and honoree, it is a traditional, competent, handsome, and unexceptional building. Compared to earlier periods going back to Julius Caesar, there is a noticeable paucity in building in Rome during the Antonine era. A significant part of 401

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 6.92 Temple of Faustina and Antoninus, south front, Forum Romanum, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

this can be explained by the simple fact that Rome had its fill of temples, Imperial fora, basilicas and baths; there was little need and little room for big projects. What was needed and carefully attended to by 402

Antoninus Pius was the maintenance and repair of aging buildings and infrastructure. Pius is on the record for repairing the Temples of Venus and Roma, the Pantheon, the Colosseum and also several Tiber

Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines

figure 6.93 Detail of capitals and entablature, Temple of Faustina and Antoninus, southeast side; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

bridges and ports. No doubt he also expended much effort and money to restore the damages inflicted by the fire of 142 ce that had destroyed 340 houses, and a disastrous collapse in Circus Maximus which killed 1112 people. But, mainly, the severe decline in new building was the direct and inevitable result of two decades of warfare that followed Pius’ death, draining the treasury and leaving little room for architectural projects except a few politically important ones like the dynastic temples just discussed. In the former category one could include a pair of monumental, commemorative columns both in central Campus Martius. T HE C O L U M N S O F AN T O N I N U S P I U S AN D M A R CU S A UR EL IU S

The earlier of these, the Column of Antoninus Pius, erected by Marcus Aurelius to the memory of his adopted father, located near a hill now known as Monte Citorio. A plain monolith of red Egyptian granite 14.75 meters (50 RF tall), has left no trace except for its large, square marble base famous for its funerary reliefs (now in the Vatican Museums). A simplified coin illustration shows the column in a

grated enclosure; on the Corinthian capital stands a colossal, heroic statue of the deified emperor. On axis, on the south of the column, was a large, paved platform (c. 30  30 m) and a square enclosure containing what appears to be a commemorative altar complex. This monument might have consecrated the actual area where Pius’ body was cremated (ustrinum); in effect, it was a permanent, architectural memorial to the site where the process of apotheosis took place as the flames rose to the heavens. Not far from this column stands a much grander one, the Column of Marcus Aurelius, one of the principal landmarks of the capital, standing nearly intact in the middle of a plaza opening on the east to the Via Flaminia (modern Via del Corso). Constructed over a long period of time (180–193 ce) and dedicated to his (real) father by Commodus, it is exactly 100 RF tall (29.6 m) and elevated on an exceptionally tall base (3.86 m); the whole monument was situated on a platform, 3 meters higher than the ancient street. With a spiraling relief depicting the events of the bloody German Wars (172–175 ce), this celebrated victory monument was closely fashioned after the Column of Trajan and might have been associated with a temple of deified 403

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity Marcus Aurelius located somewhere to the west of it. No remains of this hypothetical temple have survived. While we know very little about the nature of the structures that were related to these columns, we do know – what is architecturally more important – that they did not stand alone, each was created to be a significant part of the larger urban context. TH E TE MP L E O F SE R A P IS

We will conclude our study of the High Empire with a discussion of an interesting but highly controversial temple located on the western slopes of the Quirinal Hill, a very large structure that can be identified reasonably, but not firmly, to the Egyptian god Serapis. The temple faced east toward its columnar precinct, but it was mainly approached from the west, the back side, leading up from the Campus Martius by a monumental stair complex, except for a few brick-faced concrete walls the structure disappeared in the seventeenth century; we know the temple mainly from the drawings of Renaissance artists and architects, especially Palladio who made a fairly accurate plan (Figure 6.94 A). Based on these drawings and a few colossal fragments of ornament that still survive on the grounds of the Palazzo Colonna (with stylistic affinities to both Asiatic and local Roman marble

workshops), a late Hadrianic or early Antonine date may be assigned. Although one inscription refers to the construction of a Temple of Serapis under Caracalla (ruled 206–211 ce), the reference probably signifies a reconstruction and the addition of the vaulted, brickfaced concrete stair structure. Quite apart from these problematic issues of date and identity, the temple is interesting because of its extraordinary size and unusual plan. Measuring roughly 70  55 meters and boasting Corinthian columns reaching a height of nearly 20 meters, it is in the order of international giants such as Hadrian’s Temple of Venus and Roma in Rome, and the Temple of Apollo in Didyma (columns 19.5 m high). R. Taylor, a contemporary scholar, credibly argues that the columns and the giant order intended for and never used for the porch of Hadrian’s Pantheon were accommodated during his successor’s reign in the “new project” of building the Temple of Serapis (Taylor 2004, 249; also see earlier). There were twelve columns in front (an unprecedented number); the sides were pseudodipteral, possibly with sixteen or eighteen columns, but none at the back (sine postico). The front porch, with double columnar “aisles” terminating in pairs of apsidal niches flanking the main door, clearly imitates the porch of the Pantheon. The cella had an interior colonnade that reduced the span to circa 22 meters,

N

C

A

B

D A ‘Temple of Serapis’

0

B Baths of Constantine

50 m

C Great staircase

D Porticus Constantini

figure 6.94 Plans of the “Temple of Serapis” and Baths of Constantine, Rome; (after Lanciani, 1892–1901).

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Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines still daring, but possible to roof with timber trusses. The cella walls were typically constructed in ashlar tufa, but no doubt they were revetted in marble. The columns of the main order were in fluted white marble (possibly Proconnesian), but the shafts were almost certainly not monolithic. The main temple with its twelve-column façade must have been, of course, overpowering (the wider the façade, the higher the pediment) but perhaps a little bland. The back side of the complex, however, with the broadly stretching wings of the precinct wall, the broken masses of multiple vaults and the diagonal lines of the great staircase rolling down the hill (probably Severan in date), must have been impressive – another powerful testimony to the Roman penchant for shaping nature into complex architectural settings. REFERENCES

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Imperial Architecture in Rome from the Flavians through the Antonines Osborne, J. 1983. “The Earliest Antiquarian Description of Caracalla’s Serapheum on the Quirinal Hill in Rome.” Echos du monde classique: Classical Views. 27 n. s. 2.2: 220–225. Packer, J. E. 1997. The Forum of Trajan in Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press. Paris, R., ed. 2000. Via Appia. The Villa of the Quintili. Milan: Electa. Parisi, C. Presicce and M. Baldi 2014. Hadrianeum. Il tempio di Adriano (BullComArch Supplement 24). Passarelli, V. 1940. “Rilievo e studio di restituzione dell’ Hadrianeum.” Atti del III Convegno Nazionale di Storia dell’Architettura. Rome: Colombo, 123–130. Pensa, M. 1978. “Rapresentazioni di monumenti sulle monete di Adriano.” Rivista Italiana di Numismatica 80: 27–78. Piazzessi, G. 1989. “Foro Traiano, Gli edifici: I potesi ricostruttive.” ArchClass 41: 125–98. Pierson, J. 2011 edition. Arena: The Story of the Colosseum. New York: McGraw-Hill. Pflug, J. 2012. “Die bauliche Entwicklung des versenkten Peristyls der Domus Augustana – Erste Ergebnisse der bauforscherischen Untersuchung.” In Domus Augustana. Neue Forschungen zum ‘Versenkten Peristyl’ auf dem Palatin, N. Sojc, ed. Leiden: Sidestone Press, 47–78. Ragni, M. S., ed. 2010. Villa Adriana. Una storia mai finite. Novità e prospettie della ricerca. Rome: Electra. Rakob, F. 1961. “Litus beatae veneris aureum: Untersuchungen am ‘Venustempel’ in Baiae.” RömMitt 68: 114–149. 1984. “Metrologie und Planfiguren einer kaiserlichen Bauhütte.” In Bauplanung und Bautheorie der antike. Berlin: Wasmuth, 220–237. 1988. “Römische Kuppel Bauten in Baiae.” RömMitt 95: 257–301. Rasch, J. J. 1991. “Zur Konstruktion spätantiker Kuppeln vom 3. Bis 6. Jahrhundert.” JDAI 106: 311–383. Reggiani, A. M., ed. 2002. Villa Adriana. Milan: Electa. Renberg, G. H. 2010. “Hadrian and the Oracles of Antinous.” MAAR 55:160–198. Richardson, Jr., L. 1976. “The Villa Publica and the Divorum.” In L. Bonafante and H. von Heinze, eds. In Memoriam: Otto J. Brendel. Mainz: P. von Zabern, 159–164. Ridley, R. T. 1989. “The Fate of an Architect: Apollodorus of Damascus.” Athenaeum 67: 551–565. Royo, M. 1999. Domus Imperatoriae: Topographie, Formation et Imaginaire des Palais Impériaux du Palatin (École Française de Rome). Paris: De Boccard. 2001. “Le Palatin entre le IIe et le VIe siècle apr. J.-C.: Évolution Topographique.” RevArch 31.1, 37–92. Salza Prina Ricotti, E. 1987. “The Importance of Water in Roman Garden Triclinia.” In E. B. MacDougall, ed. Ancient Roman Villa Gardens. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks: 135–184. 1992–1993. “Nascita e sviluppo di Villa Adriana.” RendPontAcc 4: 41–73. 2001. Villa Adriana. Il sogno di un imperatore (Bibliotheca Archeologica 29). Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. 2002–2003. “La ricerca della tomba di Antinoo a Villa Adriana.” RendPont 75: 113–144. Santangelo, M. 1941. “Il Quirinale nell’antichità classica.” MemPontAcc 5: 77–214.

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ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING IN ITALY AND THE WESTERN PROVINCES FROM THE REPUBLIC TO THE EMPIRE

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The western provinces of Rome included almost all of western and eastern Europe, England up to the Scottish border, and the Balkans. The regional names and rough modern geographical equivalents of this vast territory are: the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal); Gaul (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland); Upper and Lower Germany, the lands west of the Rhine River; the Balkans and Illyricum (modern Adriatic states including Serbia, Croatia, Slovania, Bosnia, and Albania); Dacia (Romania) and Thrace and Moesia (Macedonia and Bulgaria). Due to its strategic importance in the campaign against Carthage and its legendary leader Hannibal, Roman rule in Spain goes back to the third century bce, although it was not before the beginning years of the Empire that the peninsula was fully subdued and settled with any sense of permanence. However, during the period from Augustus to Hadrian, the design of many of the Hispano-Roman cities and individual monuments represent sophisticated experiments in western regional classicism with close ties to Rome and Italy. A similar story can be told about Gaul. The province of Gallia Narbonensis (loosely southern France and Provence) was annexed in 121 bce, but it took long years and bitter fighting between 58–51 bce under Julius Caesar, and a few decades later under his successor Octavian (Augustus), for peaceful rule to be established. Not surprisingly, the process of Romanization, which normally followed the process of urbanization (and can be seen as a form of urbanization, see earlier), came earliest and was most successful in southern Gaul and Provence. Many of the thriving cities of coastal France and the Rhone Valley were created either as military colonies where retired legionaries settled, or they were already existing tribal centers

and market towns subsequently reorganized as Roman cities after the conquest. One should also consider the significant presence of Greek colonies in this region going back to the eighth century bce. A major Greek sea port like Massilia (Marseilles) – much like Neapolis (Naples) – acted as a center for the dissemination of ideas and architecture long before Roman occupation, and in subtle ways, even long after a city lost its independence. Another important factor is the sheer physical closeness of southern Gaul to northern Italy (Cisalpine Italy) and the natural cultural and ethnic connections between the two regions. In faraway Britannia, conquest and Romanization came relatively late, and always retained a military flavor. Caesar’s campaigns in 55–54 bce were only marginally successful. It was not until Claudius’ invasion in 43 ce that the south and southeast Britain came under Roman command, and it took many years and many tribal revolts (most memorably the one by Queen Boudicca in 60 ce) before northern England was secured. Despite emphatic reminders of Rome’s presence and control, as exemplified by Hadrian’s Wall dividing the island from sea to sea, Roman city-making in Britain was not as intense and successful as it had been in Iberia and Gaul. Roman settlements could be represented either by the bona fide legionary fortresses, such as Chester, York, and Caerleon, or colonies such as Colchester, Gloucester, and Lincoln, which had started their lives as army camps that were later occupied by a civilian population. Some of the colonies attracted significant native settlements outside their walls, although these would hardly display any of the familiar urban forms and symbols of a Roman city. More promising were natural trading ports such as Londinum (London), or tribal market centers which 409

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity in time became successful Roman cites, such as Silchester (Calleva Atrebatorum) or St. Albans (Verulamium). In these cities, the basic framework of city life organized around Roman standards (with fora, basilicas, theaters, and the ubiquitous public baths) became established only by the mid- or late second century ce. Romanization in Britain was slow and tentative, but still an on-going concern. The unstable conditions that resulted in a militarized form of life in Britain were also true for Germany and Austria where most Roman settlements were legionary fortresses along the Rhine-Danube frontier. With many well-preserved and well-excavated (and sometimes reconstructed) legionary fortresses such as Xanten, Vindonissa, Carnutum, and Aquincum, we get a glimpse of the life and material culture along the frontier and appreciate the slim hold of Romanization in this distant, sparsely populated war zone. Further east, along the Adriatic coast in centers like Iadar (Zadar), Pula, Salona (near Split), and Doclea (in Albania), urban conditions were remarkably conducive for the creation of fora, basilicas, temples, theaters, and honorific arches. The forms of Roman urbanization can be readily compared to north Italian towns, an area relatively easy to reach across a narrow sea. Even when they were cast into the ubiquitous and practical rectilinear matrix of the fortress or colony, local materials and traditions gave a variable character to the architecture of the western territories. Widespread and typical, especially in Gaul and Spain, was a kind of mortared rubble construction characterized by its distinctive veneer of small, squared blocks following a fairly regular coursing – conveniently called petit appareil (see earlier). This type of wall might be seen as a regional version of the Italian opus incertum, but the small blocks and their courses are more even, and the mortared core of the wall less homogeneous than the aggregate-andconcrete mixture of the former. Brick was used sparingly (more common in military construction), except in later periods as alternating bands in petit appareil masonry. Such a wall looks like Italian opus mixtum but unlike the concrete tradition of the mainland Italy, brick courses run solid through the thickness of the wall (as they also do in Asia Minor). In addition to this small-block construction, the Iberian Peninsula boasts a tradition of larger ashlar masonry, distinguished by regional variations in stone types, surface treatment, rustication, and the drafting of courses. This kind of stonework, probably inspired by the Greek-Hellenistic ashlar tradition of the maritime colonies, is particularly popular and effective in monumental buildings, such as city walls, theaters, amphitheaters, and some of the aqueducts, such as the one that supplied water to Segovia. Blessed with many local varieties of good limestone, marble made its 410

appearance in Gaul and Spain late, and it was sparsely used, mainly for singular, prestige monuments. Local stones, however, were often molded into impressive forms. Remarkable for the audacity of its spans and the gracefulness of its design is the bridge the architect Julius Lacer built for Trajan at Alcantara in central Spain (see earlier). Up north, in Germany and Britain, along with mortared rubble, and simpler and indigenous materials such as mudbrick, timber, wattle-and-daub, or thatch appear to suit the needs of the military and even appear in public architecture. There were, of course, certain forms of architecture, like the square Celtic temples of Britain and Gaul, dictated by local religious customs. Or, instances where the familiar forms of classicism were interpreted in refreshingly un-familiar ways, such as the façade and details of the Temple of Aquae Sulis (Bath) in England. Nonetheless, whether in western Europe, North Africa, or Asia Minor, Roman architecture expressed its individuality mostly at the level of building materials and methods. Nobody could have possibly mistaken Silchester for Timgad, or Aosta for Italica, even though they represented the same basic traditions of planning. This mixture of tradition, flexibility, and innovation gave Roman architecture of the western provinces its strength and character. Although our preferred approach to the study of Roman architecture and planning is to regard regions, provinces, and significant urban centers as cultural and contextual wholes, in the following discussion of Italy and the western provinces we purposefully deviated from this method to consider individual building types or building groups, such as the forum-temple-basilica ensembles, or arches and gates, as comparable entities across the map. To treat the architecture of each meaningful regional division as a group across such a vast territory would have required, and deserved, separate books. Often, the regions as described by their Roman designations, or modern boundaries, are indistinct and overlap. Furthermore, we believe there are benefits to comparing apples to apples even as one tries to understand why one setting and one climate produces the Granny Smith and another the Golden Delicious. When Augustus returned to Rome from Spain and Gaul in 13 bce “after having successfully attended affairs in the provinces” all of peninsular Italy and much of Rome’s western provinces were at peace and reasonably united (Res Gestae II.12). Indeed, Augustus’ safe return and recognition of the blessings of this sorely needed peace were the occasions for the Senate’s creation of the famous Altar of Augustan Peace (Ara Pacis Augustae) in Rome (see earlier). After the business of war was over even the more difficult business of peace – settling down, ensuring security in the newly conquered lands, creating

Architecture and planning in Italy and the western provinces: from the Republic to the empire the necessary amenities such as roads, bridges, harbors, water-supply systems, houses for veteran soldiers and civilians, facilities for entertainment, and of course, institutions of religion, politics, and justice, in short, the business of creating functioning cities – had to be attended. The needs and expectations of growing populations, coupled with the energy and technical ability of the Romans to fulfil these needs by organizing and building, often in collaboration with local talent, make the first two centuries of the Empire an extraordinary period for architecture and urbanism in the history of the Western world. Naturally, Roman construction outside of Rome did not begin with Augustus. Republican expansion into the eastern and western Mediterranean had started centuries earlier. Rome had been establishing military and civic colonies and engaging in building fora, temples, and other useful public facilities since the fourth century bce, but now with the realization of a sort of universal peace (pax Romana it had been dubbed), and the resources of an Empire, the pace quickened and the volume exploded. The architects and planners of the early Empire built upon the knowledge and experience of the Republic as well as the traditions and achievements of local peoples, in establishing new colonies and improving the older ones; in many instances it was the same Republican colonies, such as Ostia and Terracina that continued into the Empire as large and successful cities. As the Romans could not understand “civilization” except in terms of urban life, it was the cities that set the stage for, “a premeditated design for what a functioning Roman environment ought to be” (Brown, Cosa, 12). It was the cities that provided the setting for the pacification and Romanization of the newly conquered territories and their subjects. Romans brought their temples, basilicas, baths, theaters, amphitheaters, colonnades, and arches as the familiar components of the classical city. They supplied it with civic regulations, law, order, and security, as well as all-weather roads and water. Not all this worked perfectly; still, there was an idealized and recognizable image that served and supplied the ineluctable visual symbols for the might and permanence of the Roman state. It would be a mistake to presume that it was all a one-way street. Through conquests and expansion, Romans were exposed to new cultures, religions and traditions that influenced and inspired their culture, art and architecture in subtle and effective ways. Cities were the proper stages where such exchange most effectively took place. Even in regions where there was not much urban life (as the Romans knew it), local climates, construction materials and methods, and agricultural know-how were explored and assimilated into their architecture and landscape in a myriad of new forms and institutions.

There appears to be no single planning model that was created in Rome (the image-consciousness of the capital notwithstanding) or any other center and imposed upon the provinces with a one-size-fits-all policy. Although the technical and administrative input of the capital in the initial formation of the colonies was paramount and well documented, and specific lines of influence can be detected in the shaping of some institutions (such as the establishment of the Capitolium temple dedicated to the triad Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva as the foremost agent of state religion), local needs, ambitions, and resources – both technical and financial – seem to have governed final designs. There is also the question of the influence of military architecture in shaping colonies in new territories. Although some scholars see the layout of Roman military camps, the castra (plural of castrum), as the direct models in the planning of colonies (the four-square grid plan, the right-angle crossing of the main streets, gates), the relationship between the castrum and colony-city appears to be reciprocal, or at any rate broad and diffused. Many of these Republican settlements, such as the early, coastal, maritime colonies (Ostia, Minturnae, Puteoli, Terracina, et al.), or the colonies founded for veterans, had the quasimilitary purpose of securing strategic locations; but, none were strictly speaking active soldiers’ camps. In some instances, such as Colchester or Gloucester, both in Britain, the civilian population actually moved into the castrum barracks vacated by the soldiers! Thus, a sort of military mentality must have made sense in laying out cities or colonies on the frontier. More importantly, technical skills, such as surveying the land and planning the defense systems, was almost certainly provided by army engineers and surveyors. We might be justified in arguing for the existence of a broad military model, or the “castrum model” (in modo castra), as a viable source of influence behind planning colonies, but each application appears to have been shaped by many subtle and creative variations of the model. The following is a typology-based review of some of the prominent urban forms and institutions, and to the extent we could conceive, their interactive and thematic relationships. Concluding the chapter are Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall in Britain as a special form of undertaking. Utilitarian structures, such as bridges and aqueducts are not included in this selective survey as they are already covered in Chapter 3.

FORUM AND BASILICA As the political symbol and physical manifestation of civic assembly, we might begin our review with the forum, a loose counterpart of the Greek agora. Although fora were among the first public areas to be set aside and 411

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity developed in the formation of Roman cities and colonies, their beginnings were modest and components variable. A typical forum might contain a temple or temples to the gods (or to the Imperial cult), a civic basilica for judicial and administrative uses, a curia or meeting place for the city council or senate, city offices, and sometimes even shops, all arranged about an open, often colonnaded, multipurpose public space. This would also be the place for honorific statues of heroes, civic leaders, as well as steles and inscriptions recording important events, legal agreements, and decrees of the state. Yet there were fora without a temple (there might have been just an altar or shrine), or a basilica (a projecting colonnade might do), and many fora relegated the commercial functions to independent market buildings (macellums) in the city. We know very little about the early days of the colonies, but there is a general tendency to locate the forum as close to the center as practically possible and start in simple, unstructured settings – like a roughly shaped piazza – and develop into an architecturally defined, paved, colonnaded enclosure (often emphasizing its ceremonial potential) in the course of the city’s history. Cosa was founded as a Latin colony on the west coast of Italy in 273 bce (see Figure 1.24). The earliest phase of the forum, soon after the colony’s establishment, contained a comitium – a circular, unroofed, stepped auditorium for popular assembly – and a curia behind it. The imposition of an orthogonal order, paving, planting, and the enclosing of the rectangular space with a colonnade and creating a formal, arched

entrance, came much later in the course of the second century bce (Figure 7.1). This was the period when a number of atrium-type buildings were also added for administrative functions, and a basilica with a clerestory roof, roughly following a simplified Vitruvian model, was built at the northeast corner (see earlier). There had been a very simple shrine next to the curia from the earliest days, but the colony’s real religious center with its Capitolium was located not in the forum but on the Arx, the highest and most sacred part of its territory (see Figures 2.4 and 2.5). This was about the extent of the development of Cosa’s forum; the colony, always a small one, declined in the second half of the first century bce and stopped being a viable political entity by the middle of the next century. Minturnae, a maritime colony also on the western Italian coast (south of Rome) founded in 295 bce had a forum which started as an irregular, U-shaped portico surrounding an Italic podium temple, probably the Capitolium (Figure 7.2). Rising behind and embracing the whole composition by its curving arms, was the theater. The forum and shops opened into the Via Appia, the decumanus maximus of the settlement. A small peristyle enclosure that served as a market, public baths, and colonnades extended southwest of the decumanus. After several fires and rebuilding, the forum of the late Republic still retained its informal and untidy shape as well as its vibrant, multipurpose functions as a market, religious and administrative center, and place of entertainment. The forum of Terracina (ancient Terracina on the western coast of Italy), by contrast (perhaps

figure 7.1 Restored perspective of the Republican forum (sixth phase), with basilica at upper right, looking north, Cosa (F. Brown 1980); American Academy in Rome – Photographic Archive (Cosa collection.Forum.N).

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responding to the good fortunes of the harbor town that like Minturnae had started its life as an early Republican maritime colony on the west coast), was destined for greater glory. Located in the center of an old castrum on a large, rectangular, artificially-raised terrace, the late Republican/early Augustan forum opened toward the sea through a multilevel colonnade (Figure 7.3). On the landside, resting on the slope of the rising hill, a theater commanded the view; while a colonnaded enclosure behind the stage building formed a visual and physical connection to the forum enclosure below. The northern boundary of the forum was defined by the Via Appia, which entered into the plaza at each end through honorific arches. The center was paved in square blocks of marble donated by the magistrate Aulus Aemilius, whose proud inscription in bronze letters was emblazened across the floor. A large, Corinthian, pro-style temple raised on a podium with frontal steps dominated the east end of the plaza, while across from it a rectangular basilica surrounded by arches (documented by an early-sixteenth-century drawing by Peruzzi) occupied the west end. The Capitolium, however, appears to be a smaller podium

temple with its tell-tale triple cellas, behind the main temple, next to the theater. The formally composed and integrated elements of the Terracina forum, its majestic, terraced composition taking full advantage of its hillside location, present a good example of the Roman interest in scenographic design, and a worthy companion and inspiration to the city’s better-known Sanctuary of Jupiter Anxur, high above (see earlier). The forum of Luni, a military colony on the Ligurian coast, far north of Rome (near the famous marble quarries of Carrara), was restructured during the Julio-Claudian period, and represents an equally elaborate layout, but a different organization, than Terracina. The long, north-south oriented forum plaza was located in the center of the orthogonal grid of the colony, in castrum fashion, at the crossing of the two major arteries (Figure 7.4). The east-west street (decumanus maximus), formed by the Via Aurelia, entered the forum and divided it into north and south zones. The northern zone, going back to the Republican period, was occupied by a traditional Italic pro-style Capitolium with triple cellas and surrounded by a U-shaped portico. The eastern portico was later developed into a 413

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figure 7.3 Reconstruction of the forum at Terracina with plaza inscribed by donor Aulus Aemilius; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Luigi Leporini).

three-aisled basilica expanding the design but destroying its simple axiality and symmetry. Colonnades with offices and/or shops flanked the long, rectangular plaza of the southern zone. On the south end of the forum facing the Capitolium strictly on axis was a single, large building, perhaps the curia, the meeting place of the city Senate. This building was raised on a basement and approached by a gate-and-stair structure on the south, which formed the terminus of the cardo maximus. The design, with its powerful axiality and monumental formality is typical of many other north Italian fora, such as the long, colonnaded forum of Brescia (Brixia) redesigned under Vespasian as a lengthy, impressive, marble-paved formal plaza (c. 200  60 m). The main street (decumanus) separated the “official” upper zone, dominated by the strongly projecting Corinthian porch of the Capitolium, from the lower “business” zone of shops behind the long porticos; a very large basilica rose on the short side facing the Capitolium (Figures 7.5 and 7.6). Further north in the foothills of the Alps, the Forum of Augusta Bagiennorum in Piedmont, is also a long rectangular plaza defined by lateral colonnades, with a temple enclosure at one short end and a basilica on the other. An Augustan municipium (c. 5 bce) in a region occupied by Ligurian and Celtic tribes, the city was laid out according to an almost perfect rectangular grid, with the forum in its traditional position in the center. 414

A smaller and simpler version of the same arrangement can be seen in the Julio-Claudian forum at Velleia (near Mantua) an agricultural settlement of local significance, which was made a Latin colony in 89 bce. The forum is a well-defined enclosure (only 32.75  17.25 meters, a proportion of 1:2, not the Vitruvian 1:3); the north side has an axially placed temple flanked by council rooms; the south side, slightly raised, is occupied by a basilica that appears to have no aisles (Figure 7.7). On three sides porticos of the Tuscan order define the central plaza, screening the rooms and shops behind; a basilica closes the fourth side. In their simpler or more elaborate forms, these forum-temple-basilica combinations of peninsular Italy, especially the northern Italian cities, must have served as useful models for the new colonies and municipia of Gaul and the territories north of the Alpine range (Cisalpine Italy). In Glanum (Saint-Remy-de-Provence, France), a small Greek city in the Rhone Valley (very close to the large Greek colony Massilia, the modern Marseilles), art and architecture retained a Hellenistic flavor despite the Roman presence in the region as early as the early first century bce. We do not know much about the Greek agora, but the Augustan period forum is a self-contained, colonnaded enclosure with a three-aisled basilica occupying the whole breadth of the paved plaza and a small, apsidal shrine in the middle of the opposite wall – no temples. Despite

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figure 7.4 Plan of the Julio-Claudian forum (left) and overall plan of colony (right), Luni; rendered by Rui Xiong (after Rossgnani).

the absence of any strong sense of formality or monumentality, the simple design is characteristically Roman, like a drastically shrunk version of one of the colonnaded enclosures in the Campus Martius in Rome, or a north Italian example, such as the forum of Velleia. The Iberian peninsula, the proud home of some of the leading intellectuals of the Empire, such as Seneca and Quintillian – not to speak of the first two nonItalian emperors Trajan and Hadrian – was already enfolded into Roman rule by the end of the second century bce. It provides us with some of the most sophisticated variations of the forum-temple-basilica combination. The earliest example, dating not much later than circa 100 bce, comes from Emporiae (Ampurias), a Roman military colony right next to the Greek colony of the same name (Emporion), located on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, north of Barcelona. The rectangular grid of the Roman settlement on the hilltop occupies the site of the original castrum, where the forum at the crossing of the major streets, must have been built over its presidium (Figure 7.8). An axiallyplaced, small, tetrastyle prostyle temple on a podium was surrounded by a U-shaped colonnade raised on

a columnar cryptoporticus structure. The ensemble opened generously to the forum plaza; the south end of this plaza was defined by a row of shops. Little is known about details, but the introduction of the raised cryptoporticus terrace to “set off” the forum temple is a successful motif destined for many future applications in Iberia and Gaul. Its earliest use in a similar context can be traced back to the forum at Aosta (Augusta Praetoria), a veteran’s colony in north Italy established in 25 bce. The forum of Emporiae was developed under Augustus: the open area was paved and fully enclosed by a peristyle colonnade; a main entrance was created in the middle of the south side where the shops used to be, strengthening the axiality of the layout; a narrow basilica (almost a porticus) was created behind the east colonnade. Like many of the other developed versions of provincial fora, these changes made the forum of Emporiae more formal and ceremonial. The Augustan forum in Conimbriga, in western Portugal, was a highly functional space dominated on the north side by a small temple raised on a basement terrace, a three-aisled basilica, a curia, and a porticoed wing of shops, all within a tightly enclosed structure. 415

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D figure 7.5 Plan of the forum, Brescia; rendered by Rui Xiong and Diane Favro.

figure 7.6 Reconstruction model of the Capitolium, Brescia; Parco Archeologico di Brescia Romana; Photo by Diane Favro.

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figure 7.7 Plan of the forum, Velleia; rendered by Alex Maymind (after WP).

During the Flavian period the forum was enlarged and fully brought up to the standard, fashionable, ceremonial mode (Figure 7.9). The north end, the sacred area, was raised as a terrace with its ubiquitous U-shaped colonnade over the cryptoporticus serving as a powerful backdrop for the freestanding, axial temple (a tetrastyle, pseudodipteral with an imposing set of frontal steps), probably dedicated to Augustus and Roma. The south end of the forum was redesigned as a long rectangular plaza surrounded by porticos, but no basilica or shops.

These tightly composed forum enclosures that integrate a temple, surrounding colonnades and a broadside basilica into an axial and hierarchical frame may share something of the sterile, “blueprint” mentality of academic architecture anywhere (and might have been inspired by the rectangular grid imposed on almost all of the newly established colonies), but their popularity across the western provinces from Bavay in Belgium to Iader (Zadar) on the Dalmatian coast, and their creative variations within the highly recognizable type, is a remarkable demonstration of the degree of disciplined 417

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figure 7.8 Plan (bottom) and reconstruction perspective of the Roman forum, Emporiae (Greek Emporion, modern Ampurias), late first century bce; rendered by Marie Saldaña and Youssef Maguid.

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figure 7.9 Reconstruction study model of the forum with axial temple, Conimbriga; Photo: Carole Raddato via Wikimedia.

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figure 7.10 Plans of the Forum at Herdonia: early first century ce (left), c. 100 ce version (right); rendered by Alex Maymind.

originality, even civic splendor, early Imperial architects were capable of achieving. On the one end of the spectrum stand the late Republican Italian ancestors of the type, such as we see in the tentatively formalized

forum-basilica arrangement at Alba Fucens (see earlier), or the early Imperial (c. 100 ce) version of the forum at Herdonia (Ordona) in south Italy (Figure 7.10). Occupying the northwest side of the forum is a rectangular 419

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figure 7.11 Reconstruction study of the city center, forum and theater, Augusta Raurica (Augst); rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Ward-Perkins).

basilica (clerestory roof, entered on the long side; compare to Cosa basilica, see earlier; Figure 7.1). A small axially located podium temple on the southwest dominates the plaza next to the macellum with its radiating walls describing a round central space. On the other end stands the fully developed, high Imperial creations such as the forum-temple-basilica at Augusta Raurica (Augst, in Switzerland). The latter, mid-second-century ce ensemble, occupies three city blocks in the center of the military colony founded in 43 bce (Figure 7.11). It is dominated on the one end by a high, peripheral, podium temple surrounded by the conventional U-portico, on the other end; opening into the large, colonnaded 420

enclosure, is a monumental basilica with a circular tribunal-auditorium projecting in the middle of its long back wall. A street, arrested at its two entries by gate structures, traverses the enclosure and divides it neatly into the familiar double-zones, unified in serving the ceremonial and sacred heart of the city. The civic ensemble is an integrated whole that could have easily passed as an “imperial forum” in the capital itself. But, this is not all. The mastery of the composition at Augusta Raurica is enhanced by the inclusion of a theater whose imposing curved cavea rests partially on a natural hill. Juxtaposed against the hard edges of the forum, and slightly convergent from its dominant axis,

Architecture and planning in Italy and the western provinces: from the Republic to the empire

figure 7.12 plate 14a Reconstruction study of Roman Tarraco (Tarragona); courtesy of the Museu Nacional Arqueològic de Tarragona

the theater is in deliberate contrast with the orthogonal severity of the forum. The minor axis created by the theater is culminated beyond its stage building – unconventionally split in the middle in order not to obstruct the view – by a second temple complex that is raised on a podium on a small hillock and set off formally and ceremonially by the extending arms of its U-shaped portico. There is more than a little visual and structural sophistication in this design that so skillfully plays the humanmade rule against topographical exception. We suggest that the elaborate compositions and powerful siting of those forum-temple-basilica complexes so typical of the western provinces – as we have seen at Augusta Raurica – can be related to late Republican sanctuaries of Italy, such as the ones at Gabi, Terracina, Tivoli, and Palestrina (see earlier). Both entities share an emphatic sense of scenographic composition shaped by formal order and topographic inspiration. Naturally, the formal, symmetrical layouts of the imperial fora of Rome (particularly the Forum of Augustus – if it had a basilica facing the temple as it has recently been improbably posited) should be included in this group and counted as the later manifestations of this very Roman preference

for total design. Perhaps, the best demonstration of this sense of total, environmental design can be visualized in Tarraco (Tarragona) on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, not just as a forum enclosure but as the shaping of the whole hillside rising from the harbor to the heights of the upper city (Figures 7.12). Tarraco was an important base for Roman military operations against Carthage since the late third century bce; it was awarded colony status under Augustus, probably in 27 bce, starting a period of Imperial favor and prosperity culminating by the establishment of the city as the capital of the province of Hispania Citerior, and the construction of a monumental complex for the provincial assembly under the Flavians. The complex, covering more than 7 hectares (c. 14 acres), was composed in three terraces (Figure 7.13, Plate 14A). The lowest terrace, rising above the houses on massive, vaulted substructures, was a functioning circus, placed lengthwise, from wall to wall. The middle terrace, a huge open space enclosed on three sides by a two-story colonnade (266  151 m), and built over a massive ashlar cryptoporticus, was the provincial forum proper, the meeting place for the assembly. It was probably 421

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figure 7.13 Plan of provincial the forum, circus, and sacred plaza, Tarraco; rendered by Marie Saldaña.

open to the south, toward the sea and the view, and connected to the upper seats of the circus below by way of a monumental staircase. Above this rose the sacred plaza, containing in its middle a frontal, peripheral, podium temple dedicated to the Imperial cult and surrounded by, in typical fashion, a U-shaped portico. The attic of this portico was decorated with circular medallions (clipei) with images of Jupiter Amon and Medusa, an iconographic arrangement seen in a similar cult precinct at Augusta Emerita (modern Merida in Spain) (see Figure 7.20). The movement up through the axially disposed sacred and ceremonial terraces must have been slow and deliberate, the view across the breadth of the rectilinear grid of the city, down to the sea and over the vast horizon, southeast toward Rome, controlled but breathtaking. At Tarraco we see a city-scale scenographic ordering of space – a majestic display of planning and ritual recalling distant Hellenistic Pergamon, but here the order is emphatically Roman. 422

TEMPLES Western provinces in the main subscribe to the Italian model of the podium temple, often set axially within the formal confines of a temenos or a forum complex. There may be occasional Eastern influences in later years mainly confined to ornament, but Greece and Asia Minor are a long way off. The dominant model for temple design comes from Rome and Italy, often consciously following particular Imperial projects in design and iconography. Many in their well-conceived settings represent good, competent design with an appropriate sense and scale of civic grandeur; few, as the hilltop arrangement at Munigua, Spain, stand out in originality and excellence (see later in this chapter). One of the best-preserved Roman temples, a textbook example of the Roman Corinthian order, is the Maison Carrée (French for “square house”) located in Nîmes (Nemasus), a veteran’s colony in Gaul established under Augustus. The site received its name

Architecture and planning in Italy and the western provinces: from the Republic to the empire

figure 7.14 Frontal view of the Maison Carrée (Temple of Augustus and Roma), Nîmes (Nemasus); La-tête-ailleurs, Via Wikimedia.

from native water gods and was famous for its old healing sanctuary much in use during the Roman period. The temple, a hexastyle pseudo-peripteros raised on a podium with frontal steps, was dedicated to the cult of Augustus and Roma, circa 19 bce (Figures 7.14 and 7.15). It stood on the south end of the large, rectangular forum with colonnades along the sides. The plan shows certain proportional concerns based on basic square ratios: the length of the temple is exactly twice as its width (two squares); the depth of the porch is exactly one-half of the depth of the cella, and a perfect square fits on the façade below the pediment. The generous proportions based on the square impart a sense of breadth and spaciousness, both to the cella itself and to its pronaos-porch extension. Although the sculptural form of the fluted half-columns against the coursed, marble ashlar cella

walls along the back and the sides recalls the peripteral arrangement of a Greek temple, the strongly frontal, wide and deep porch and the exceptionally spacious cella clearly make it a Roman statement. The handsome Corinthian capitals and the ornate entablature with rich acanthus frieze and fluted sima make the Maison Carrée are among the best representatives of the kind of correct Augustan classicism available in the provinces even as these norms were being created in the capital (Figure 7.16, Plate 5B) – in fact, a direct line of influence extending from the Temple of Portunus in the Forum Boarium to the Temple of Mars Ultor is highly plausible (see above, Figure 2.12). Located in Évora (Ebora), a Celtic town in inland Portugal that received its municipal charter under Vespasian, the so-called Temple of Diana, probably dedicated to the Imperial cult, demonstrates a different 423

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figure 7.15 Plan of the forum at Nîmes with Maison Carrée; rendered by Diane Favro (after Alphonse de Seynes 1823).

attitude towards classicism in temple design. Dating to the first half of the first century ce, the robust, south-facing frontal, hexastyle, peripheral structure sits atop a 3.5-meter-high podium (Figure 7.17). It is built in heavy rubble but must have been veneered in stucco. The restored number of side columns is nine (five or six remain). Column shafts are of coarse-grained local granite and carry marble Corinthian capitals (Figure 7.18). The moldings of the podium, the column bases and the remaining members of the entablature are simple to the point of coarseness. But what strikes the eye and distinguishes the building are the column shafts with their exceptionally wide flutings and fillets – all manner of polite classicism of Italy and Greece, as instructed by Vitruvius have been discarded for a heavy, provincial look that seems just right for the place and the material, and the stark, buff hills surrounding the town. Classical scholars try to fit this temple into the sphere of influence from Asia Minor (particularly Pytheos at Priene), but we believe that the 424

figure 7.16 Detail of entablature of Maison Carrée, Nîmes; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

unknown architect at Évora threw the book away and went directly to design – no, to the job site. He might have worked at Merida (Augusta Emerita), an Augustan colony only 170 kilometers to the east where a stylistically close and near-contemporary peripheral podium temple has been uncovered. Also called the “Temple of Diana,” but in reality probably another Imperial cult temple, it is constructed and decorated entirely in local granite (Figure 7.19). The bases (with strong double toruses but without square plinths) and Corinthian capitals are stark and simple. The temple appears to have been situated inside a porticoed plaza, perhaps an extension of the old colonial forum, refurbished by the middle of the first century ce to honor the cult of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. There was a special portico whose attic was adorned by marble medallions carrying sculpted heads of Jupiter Ammon and Medusas alternating with caryatids (Figure 7.20). This ambitious arrangement is almost identical to the attic decoration of the Provincial Forum at Tarraco,

Architecture and planning in Italy and the western provinces: from the Republic to the empire

figure 7.17 General view of the imperial cult temple (so-called Temple of Diana) facing south, Évora; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

both harking back to their archetype from the Forum of Augustus in Rome. This part of the cult enclosure at Merida, stylistically and iconographically refined, has nothing to do with the style and spirit of the temple itself. Probably added a generation or so later, it was certainly an official import from the capital. Another example of an official project in content and form is the Hadrianic Temple of Deified Trajan (Trajaneum) in Italica, the oldest Roman city in Iberia and the birthplace of both emperors. A very large octastyle, peripheral temple on a podium (48  30 m) rises in the middle of a colonnaded, rectangular enclosure whose back walls are articulated by alternating square and apsidal niches (Figure 7.21). A large altar stands in front of the temple steps. The stiff formal design, especially the arrangement of the projecting exedra, shows more than a passing similarity to Hadrian’s Library at Athens, or the Flavian Forum of Peace in Rome; and like these examples might have been conceived to include cultural functions. The actual building was entirely destroyed; therefore, it is hard to make architectural judgments. Still, there must have been a lot of grandeur and imported marbles of course, but little of what one can describe as personal feeling in the design. The project, a perfect copy of an academic prototype, appears to be

almost certainly the product of an imperial works office. Occupying two large city blocks, it was also a testimony to Hadrian’s generosity to his patria, a part of the great urban renovation project called the “New City” much as Athens, his adopted city, became a new city or “the City of Hadrian” by his benefactions (see later). Except that the far-roaming Hadrian never returned to his birthplace after having left Italica as a youth. Perhaps, this explains why among Hadrian’s many architectural creations in Rome and abroad the Trajaneum in Italica looks so uncharacteristically uninspired. When it comes to state religion, many Iberian and Gallic examples show a peculiar predilection for a conservative brand of classicism. The late-first-century ce sanctuary for the Imperial cult at Aventicium (Avenches in Switzerland) is another boxy, pristine, walled enclosure formed by a U-shaped colonnade; a pedimented, octastyle, temple façade, slightly taller than the wings, projects out discreetly. Such an academic scheme presents a vivid contrast to the dynamic design of the fragmented and multilayered sanctuary complex hugging the mountain top site of Munigua, a small mining town near Sevilla in southern Spain. Starting with a fairly conventional forum with a porticoed enclosure and temple, four or five platforms rise on the hillside 425

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figure 7.18 View of the columns of the imperial cult temple, Évora; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 7.19 View of the so-called Temple of Diana, Merida; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 7.20 Cult precinct and forum, reconstruction of the portico corner decorated with the medallions of Jupiter Ammon, Merida; rendered by Ric Abramson.

related to each other by stairs and ramps. The top is crowned by the terrace for the main temple, set off by its standard U-shaped colonnade, directional, rising over a semicircular exedra (or theater) and commanding a remarkable view (Figures 7.22 and 7.23). Similar 428

scenographic compositions, often following a more formal vein, had been tried before on Iberian soil, most emphatically and grandly at Tarraco (see earlier), but the informally arranged scheme at Munigua most clearly calls to mind formal, axial late Republican sanctuaries of Italy,

Architecture and planning in Italy and the western provinces: from the Republic to the empire Many were built of local materials, especially timber, but there are examples such as the so-called Temple of Janus near Autun (in central Gaul, France), constructed entirely in petit appareil, its towerlike cella preserved to a height of 13 meters. More conventional and classicizing, at least in its general appearance, is the small podium temple dedicated to local healing god Sulis and connected to the thermal sanctuary and spa at Aquae Sulis (Bath, England) (Figure 7.24). Isolated in its colonnaded precinct, with four Corinthian columns in front and engaged columns along the side and back walls, the Temple of Sulis may recall, at first sight and description, say, the Maison Carrée at Nîmes, but its oddly shaped entablature and ungainly steep pediment with a huge medallion of Medusa, indicate a half-understood and freely-interpreted sense of classicism. Dedicated to charismatic and popular regional deities, or in combination with classical ones, these Celtic cults and temples over time must have attracted Roman settlers with as much fervor as native populations. Religion in form and spirit in the provinces was generally a changing and inclusive affair where Rome had influence but not monopoly. N 0

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figure 7.21 Plan of the Temple and precinct of Deified Trajan, Italica; rendered by Diane Favro.

especially those at Tivoli and Praeneste. As in those examples, the slow, purposeful climb up the hill, the shaping of architecture around ritual and ceremony, the creation of symbolic hierarchies that define the city, forum, and temple, the Muniguan sanctuary is more about celebrating the believer through the ritual of use and experience than it is about celebrating architecture by its mere presence. Vaguely honoring the cult of the emperors with a special link to Hercules Augustus, there might have been a direct, specific connection to Italy – such as a community of well-to-do Spaniards living in Latium – as argued by some scholars, but the free form sanctuary at Munigua is no more a copy of Tivoli or Praeneste than those celebrated sanctuaries of Latium could be said to have been copies of the Hellenistic Asclepeion at Kos. Another type of temple that survived Roman domination in very large numbers – especially in the more distant regions of Gaul, Britain, and Germany – are the Celtic temples serving local deities. Although there are variations, the typical scheme is a simple, square structure surrounded by functional colonnades on four sides – as we see at the Albachtal Sanctuary near Trier (Augusta Trevororum in northern Germany).

COMMEMORATIVE MONUMENTS AND TOMBS During the Résistance in the Second World War, the French had made Vercingetorix, the formidable Gallic chieftain who defended his country against the Roman invaders, their national symbol. Already in 1865 Napoleon III had erected a large bronze statue of the long-haired Gallic hero at Alesia, site of his last, tragic stand in 52 bce against the forces of Julius Caesar. The Romans themselves were partial to raising war memorials and celebrating events by monuments. In a perfect reversal of roles, they had erected in 6 bce the Trophy of the Alps at La Turbie (near Monaco), an impressive block of a building like the Mausoleum at Halicarnassos, commemorating their victory over hardy Gallic and Alpine tribes (Figures 7.25, 7.26 and Plate 15). This monument and its impressive core construction combining an armature of ashlar piers with mortared-rubble fill, is already discussed in connection to the Mausoleum of Hadrian (see earlier). A comparable monument in size, general intent and design is the Trophy of Trajan (Tropaeum Traiani) in Adamklissi, on a windswept highland crossroads near the Black Sea in Romania (Figure 7.27). The structure, dedicated to the avenging god Mars Ultor in 109 ce, properly honors the victory of Trajan and his soldiers over the Dacians in general, but local tribes in particular – the same war for which the best-known victory

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figure 7.22 Plan of the forum and temple terrace, Munigua; rendered by Diane Favro.

figure 7.23 Reconstruction perspective of the temple terrace, Munigua; rendered by Diane Favro.

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Architecture and planning in Italy and the western provinces: from the Republic to the empire monument in Rome, the Column of Trajan, was raised. The Tropaeum Traiani, whose form is ultimately derived from the circular Etruscan-Italian tombs (or from the Mausoleum of Augustus), is composed of a massive cylindrical drum (c. 33 m in diameter) raised on nine steps and surrounded by a conical roof like a tumulus and crowned by a hexagonal tower-base supporting the stone effigy of an actual trophy (enemy armor and standards supported on a pole or truncated tree). The total ensemble reaches some 40 meters. The drum, constructed with a solid opus caementicium core and covered in ashlar veneer, was decorated along the top with an acanthus frieze and fifty-four square sculptured panels between short pilasters illustrating stock scenes of the Roman army’s victory over its tough tribal enemies. Although its sculptural style is vigorous and crudely provincial, the architecture of the monument, its fine proportions, ashlar work and engaging militaristic ornament, is distinctly more sophisticated and owes its genesis to central Italian funerary monuments. In another fitting reversal of roles, the recently restored (some say over-restored) Roman monument has become the symbol of modern Romania. Monumental tombs or mausoleums, highly private in nature, were another way of honoring the memory and celebrating the life of an individual or family. Since burial inside a city’s religious limits (pomerial lines) was allowed only to a few exceptionally privileged persons, the roads leading up to major cities, generally near the gates, were lined with tombs, large or small, modest or showy. Good examples of this include the Via Appia Antica leading to Rome and the “Street of Tombs” leading to the Herculaneum Gate in Pompeii (see earlier; Figure 1.63). This phenomenon was generally also true in distant provinces, such as its spectacular demonstration like a market place of tombs outside Hierapolis in Asia Minor. Cemeteries covering larger areas were located outside cities and some, like the huge Isola Sacra situated on a triangular piece of land north of the port of Ostia, contained thousands of burials over many centuries. Looking at funerary architecture we are struck by two opposing tendencies: first, the repetitive and boring similarity of the tombs; second, their contrasting variety and endless inventiveness of design. In the first category we could place the “house tombs” or “temple tombs” as we see in the hundreds at Isola Sacra, or, admittedly more interestingly, at the socalled Vatican Cemetery, the street of tombs buried under Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. These are neat brick boxes with pediments, doors, windows, niches, marble inscription panels and sculpted images of the

deceased. Most of these “houses of the dead,” owned by a family or clan, represent middle-class burials. Among the finer and richer examples in this group can be counted many Imperial era tombs along the Via Appia entrance to Rome, and the mid-secondcentury Heroon or Cenotaph of Annia Regilla near the Via Appia, its boxy, pedimented templelike form enhanced by flat pilasters and classical ornamental details in exceptionally fine molded, polychromatic bricks, red and yellow (see Figures 3.23, 3.24, and Plate 11A). No doubt this “brick-style” must have been used outside funerary contexts, commonly in domestic and utilitarian architecture in the cities – consider the houses and apartments of Ostia, or the exposed brick-faced façade of Trajan’s Markets in Rome. More interesting are the individual tomb monuments (though some are not technically speaking “tombs,” but cenotaphs or monuments to the memory of the deceased widely interpreted, as is the memory monument to Annia Regilla) whose architectural forms and typologies are too varied to be covered here. We already had a chance to refer to the circular monumental Imperial mausoleums (and their more modest cousins such as the Tomb of Caecilia Metella) and linked them to the tumulus tradition of central Italy and Etruria (see Figure 3.15). The so-called Le Carceri Vecchie in Capua (in Campania), a circular tomb whose drum is faced in opus reticulatum and bands of brick and articulated by semicircular niches alternating with engaged columns and surmounted by a conical roof, is a good example of this tradition enlivened by invention (Figures 7.28 and 7.29). The other, widely repeated form is a kind of tiered tower, often with a square base, a temple-like colonnaded circular middle, and a conical or pyramidal roof. There are endless and delightful variations of the “funerary tower” (from the deserts of Syria to the tree-rich slopes of Rhineland), but they all seem to go back ultimately to the Mausoleum, the famous tomb monument of the Hellenistic King Mausolos and his wife Artemisia in Halicarnassus (Bodrum in southwest Turkey), circa 350 bce, considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In Glanum, the Monument of the Julii, circa 10–20 ce, an elegant and handsomely proportioned tower has a solid square base, a four-way arch anchored at the corners by threequarter columns, crowned by an open, columnar, circular pavilion with a conical roof (Figure 7.30). The sculptural panels decorating the podium portray mythological battles in the Greek metaphorical tradition, but the figures are fully Roman in dress and style. They underline the dual cultural heritage of Gaul in

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figure 7.24 Reconstructed facade of the Temple of Sulis Minerva and plan of Sanctuary at Aquae Sulis (Bath); rendered by Youssef Maguid.

celebrating the conquest and victory theme on a private monument, as the same theme is celebrated next to it on a public one, a contemporary and equally elegant triumphal arch. Contrasting with the colonnaded, airy look of the Julii Monument is the solid simplicity of a three-tiered square tower with a massive pyramidal roof known as the Tower of Scipios, just 6 kilometers from Tarraco (modern Tarragona) in Spain (Figure 7.31). Mourning figures on the

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second story and a much-eroded relief depicting the deceased couple inside a shallow niche on the third level are the only concessions to decoration. An early Imperial date, though tentative, appears appropriate. Another provincial funerary tower, solidly built in local stone, and perhaps no later than the late-second century, is the tomb monument of the Secundinii family, or the so-called Igel Monument coming from a village near Trier in Germany (Figure 7.32). Unlike the austerity of the previous example,

Architecture and planning in Italy and the western provinces: from the Republic to the empire

figure 7.25 Reconstruction model of the Trophy of the Alps, La Turbie; photo by D. Favro.

the Igel Monument, rising to an impressive 23 meters (the height of a seven- to eight-story building!), is entirely covered in rich ornament and the rich relief sculpture that vitiates any interest in the architectural integrity of the piece. The Secundinii, a wealthy, self-made merchant family in cloth-making (probably of local stock),

preferred to use every square inch of their tower’s surface to depict views from their everyday life and business, somewhat indiscriminately mixed with episodes from mythology alluding to immortality. The top of the many-tiered structure displays the sweeping curves of a baroque pyramid topped with a sculpted finial. 433

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figure 7.26, see also plate 15 Construction detail, Trophy of the Alps, La Turbie; photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 7.27 Tropaeum Traiani, Adamklissi, Romania, reconstruction by A. Furtwangler (1903); detail of restored relief, CristianChirita via Wikimedia.

If architectural form is sacrificed to surface decoration at Igel, the opposite is true for the remarkable tower tomb known as La Conocchia in Capua (Santa Maria Capua Vetere) in Italy (Figures 7.33, 7.34 and Plate 16). Fully reflecting the sheer creativity available to a genre of architecture not shackled by utilitarian needs (at least, not of the ordinary kind), La Conocchia is an embodiment of the triumph of form over function, a dynamic juxtaposition of curve against countercurve, a restless but harmonious interplay of surface and volume molded in concrete in three stages and culminated by a solid tholos with engaged, pseudo-peripheral, columns. The facing in opus incertum was originally stuccoed with brick details as accents. Of unknown patronage and date, devoid of any decorative or funerary statuary that might have provided a clue to its history, La Conocchia itself is sculpture – and represents an aesthetic conception of form we generally (and somewhat indiscriminately, perhaps) attribute to Hadrianic architecture (although a late Flavian date might also be appropriate). So masterly is the play of surfaces and masses and the integrity of form that it would be justifiable to assert that the genius of the great seventeenth-century architect, Francesco Borromini was honed on this “(ancient) Roman baroque” masterpiece and others like it that he knew and admired.

HONORIFIC ARCHES AND GATE STRUCTURES Just as tombs, mausoleums, and cenotaphs were private monuments to honor and perpetuate the memory of a person or family and to sanctify a particular location for their memory, the honorary arch was a public monument “to honor a specific person . . . or to commemorate a specific event” (Kleiner 1985, 11). The honored person or event might typically be a military victory with the putative victor (a Roman emperor or general), the occasion for the establishment of a Roman colony (usually accompanying the pacification of a newly conquered territory), or more commendably, the bringing of major public works or services to an area, such as building a road, a bridge, an aqueduct (“an infrastructure or engineering victory,” as it were), or providing funds for a social cause. The consolidation of Roman power in northern Italy and the western provinces occasioned the creation of many honorary arches in these regions that are important as political and sociological records of the expansion of the Roman state but also as early experiments in the architectural development of a distinctive Roman monument. Dedicated in 9/8 bce, the Arch at Susa (Segusium) in northwest Italy, commemorates a peace treaty between Augustus and M. Julius Cottius, the king of a confederation of Alpine tribes, who was made a 435

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figure 7.28 Partial plan and elevation of the tomb known as “Carceri Vecchie,” outside Santa Maria Capua Vetere; rendered by Diane Favro (after Pane).

figure 7.29 View of the Carceri Vecchie, Santa Maria Capua Vetere; Photo by Diane Favro.

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figure 7.30 Mausoleum of the Julii, Glanum (S. Remy); Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 7.31 Tomb known as the “Tower of Scipios,” outside Tarragona; rendered by Diane Favro.

Roman citizen and given the title of prefect for the price of his cooperation (Figure 7.35). The arch is located on the Via Gallia, a major road connecting Italy with Gaul, close to Alpine passes. Built of local marble, the arch is arguably the most refined of all Augustan arches for its simplicity and elegance. The single opening, with a discreet molding is raised on pilasters; a classical entablature with sculptured frieze carried on four corners by three-quarter Corinthian columns frames the arch, the independence of each part clearly expressed. The attic is plain except for its inscription. Sculptural ornament is restricted to the frieze whose crude but expressive style depicting military scenes and sacrifice should please even the most discerning connoisseur of Italic, popular art. Roughly contemporary to and superficially comparable to the Susa arch in basic design, is the Arch of the Sergii in Pula (Croatia) erected by Salvia Postuma to honor three male members of her military family (Figures 7.36, 7.37 and Plate 17). An inscription boastfully proclaims that she paid for the monument with her personal funds. Originally built into the city walls and also serving as a city gate, it is thus a funerary monument honoring the memory of local heroes (whose statues crowned the attic) as much as the memory of the early heroic days of this distant colony. The architecture is composed of an elegant arch with paired half-columns flanking the center and a richly articulated entablature decorated with a frieze of putti, garlands, and chariots in the Hellenistic tradition. The elaborate and busy

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relief panels decorating the inside of the archways, an unlikely combination of acanthus rinceau and grapevines, seemingly declares specific knowledge of the great acanthus relief of the newly completed Ara Pacis Augustae in Rome. This privately built monument at Pula seems to perfectly echo the fussy and precious pretentions of a rich and deserving local family, very different in style and feeling than the simple and stark Italic manner at Susa (see Figure 7.35), where a hard-worn Alpine victory was quietly declared, or some 20 kilometers northeast of Tarragona (and possibly marking the border of the district), the simple, stark and elegant single-bay Arch of Bara, dedicated to Augustus or his genius circa 13 bce (Figure 7.38). Located on Via Augusta (or Via Herculea), the arch probably commemorated the work on this important highway that, after a long trip, connected Rome with the shores of the Atlantic at Cadiz (Gades). The contrast between its clearly drawn, linear, fluted pilasters and corner pilasters (bottom thirds with “filled” flutes as was often common in high-traffic areas) carrying sharply outlined Corinthian capitals, and the broad, simple surfaces of the unornamented main prismatic volume, evoke the sparse elegance of “archaic” design. All three of these arches, however, might have been foreshadowed by nearly two decades by the simple design of the so-called Actium Arch of Augustus in the Forum Romanum, but archaeological information about this predecessor of the Parthian arch, which is supposed to have replaced it, is scarce and unreliable (see earlier), Continuing the early tradition of simple single-bay arches into the early Empire, are the Arch of Titus in Rome and the Arch of Trajan at Ancona. Moving from Spain to the Adriatic shores of Italy and the terminus of another important highway, the Trajanic Arch at Ancona is a tall, graceful composition with pairs of closely spaced, fluted columns framing a narrow archway (Figure 7.39). There is little decoration except tautly framed panels and applied bronze wreathes. The arch marks the end of the Via Appia and commemorates engineering triumphs of Trajan, especially the extensive rebuilding of the adjacent harbor. The special setting, viewed dramatically from the harbor below, is a planning tour de force, and enhances the light, but commanding, presence of this distinctive monument. The early Augustan Arch at Rimini (Ariminum), circa 27 bce, located on the Via Flaminia on the Adriatic coast of Italy marks the point of passage of the consular highway into the city proper where it became the decumanus maximus. Thus, this

Architecture and planning in Italy and the western provinces: from the Republic to the empire

figure 7.32 View of the Igel tomb monument near Trier, Kaukor, via Wikimedia.

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figure 7.33 Cut-away reconstruction of the tomb known as La Conocchia, Capua (Santa Maria Capua Vetere); rendered by Diane Favro (after De Franciscis and Pane).

commemorative monument, like that at Pula, was actually a gate in the city walls (not illustrated). The dedication by the Senate and the People of Rome is to Augustus and specifically mentions repair to the Via Flaminia and other major roads. A pediment directly over the archway (but “set in” and disconnected from the pair of Corinthian columns that flank the arch) is the first use of this familiar classical element over an arch and an eye-catching feature of the Rimini façade. Another interesting motif is the pair of medallions in the spandrels with the busts of four deities (Jupiter, Neptune, Apollo, and Roma) – a location that is usually reserved for Victories in the later arches. The 440

Arch at Aosta (Augusta Praetoria, near Turin) is of the same vintage, but with a significantly different program and even more different outlook (Figure 7.40). Set up just outside the east gate of the city on the road leading to Turin and eventually to Rome, the Aosta arch also commemorates the founding of this Cisalpine colony in 25 bce, and Rome’s victory over and the pacification of Celtic tribes. Thus, like many of its kind, it is a monument both to war and to peace. Built of dark local stone, it looks powerful and squat (especially since the attic is gone), and severe. Pairs of unfluted Corinthian columns raised on a common and continuous podium carry a Doric entablature with the standard metope and trigliph frieze. The archivolt is heavy and barely fits into the space between the flanking columns and entablature. Above, the entablature projects over the arch and the corner columns. Two tall, narrow, shallow rectangular niches, possibly left empty, are the only decorative touches unless the monument had freestanding statuary on its attic. The austere, dark mass appears heavy and foreboding, but on a crisp sunny day, as the taut surfaces are broken into broad planes of light and shadow, the appearance is strong and engaging – a diamond-in-the-rough design, by a military engineer, one imagines – and strangely appropriate for this no-nonsense frontier town in the shadow of the high Alpine peaks. The Arch at Glanum (Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, next to the Monument of the Julii, see earlier), circa 10–20 ce, represents a very different approach to the examples discussed. Although the general architectural form looks superficially like the Aosta arch (single opening flanked by double Corinthian columns on a continuous podium), the proportions are lighter, classical details more refined, but more significantly, the stark, plain aesthetic has been replaced by a highly decorative and ornamental one. The underside of the arch vault is decorated with hexagonal coffers; the trim face of the archivolt is carved in thickly-woven plant motifs; the spandrels are filled with long-limbed, elegant Victories. Standing on separate brackets on the front, back and the sides of the piers are high relief statues of standing Gallic captives and trophies, in much the same manner as the standing captives illustrating the ends of the slightly earlier and similarly designed Gallo-Roman Arch at Carpentras (Carpentoracte, c. 50 km northeast of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence). If the entablatures and attics of these arches had been preserved, one would have expected more busy surfaces. The Gallic preference for busy surfaces is fully exemplified on the Tiberian Arch at Orange (Arausia), also in Provence, circa 20 ce (Figure 7.41). Yet, this is an arch also remarkable for its strikingly complex and

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figure 7.34 plate 16 Detail view of La Conocchia tomb, Capua; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 7.35 Augustan Arch at Susa (Segusium); Hibernian (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

heterogeneous design, arguably the first triple-arch, if one does not count the disjointed composition of the so-called Parthian Arch of Augustus in the Forum Romanum of 19 bce. Massive and reminiscent of the later high Imperial arches such as the Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome, the Orange arch has a two-story attic whose projecting and receding surfaces break up the unity of the form and create a fractured but 442

powerful and exaggerated piling of sheer, top-heavy mass, as in a Piranesi fantasy. The middle bay of the lower attic is surmounted by a pediment. The sides of the arch offer more surprises: tall, tetrastyle “temple fronts” with “arcuated pediments” (an arch inside a pediment) dominate the composition and provide us with one of the earliest architectural variants of the socalled Syrian pediment (Figure 7.42). This is an

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figure 7.36 plate 17 View of the Arch of the Sergii (east face), Pula, Croatia; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 7.37 Detail of acanthus rinceau ornament, inside archway of the Arch of the Sergii looking north, Pula; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

exuberant decorative motif particularly popular in Eastern provinces, but almost surely created in the West, as it is a characteristic motif in third-style Pompeian paintings. In a perfect illustration of horror vacui (fear of empty space) in ancient art, every surface 444

of this arch is covered in decorative sculptural ornament. The pilasters of all arches and their archivolts are decorated in plant forms, oak leaves, and acanthus scrolls; the areas above the minor arches and the lower attic flanking the pediment are covered with reliefs of

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figure 7.38 Arch of Bara, near Tarragona; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 7.39 Arch of Trajan, Ancona, side facing inland; Claudio.stanco via Wikimedia.

spolia and trophies of land and sea. The place of pride, the projecting center of the upper attic is reserved, not for a real Roman battle scene, but a metaphorical “Greeks-and-Galatians” (like the relief panels of the Monument of the Julii in Glanum, see earlier, Figure 7.30), tipping its hat to the tenuous Greek colonial heritage of the coast. The sides, between the engaged “temple” columns of the Syrian pediments, display Gallic captives and trophies in the manner of the Carpentras arch, and other references to major Roman victories. Clearly, the Arch at Orange, located not at but near the north gate of the colony, was as much a 446

symbol of the universal Roman mastery over land and sea as it was a specific reminder of the conquest of Gaul. Architecturally, its complex and unorthodox design, although not harmonious in the ordinary sense, is exciting and intriguing as a forerunner of future experiments in the classical cannon. Particular and progressive instances of experimentation with the classical orders often occur as a part of the redesign and renovation of Republican period city gates during the early Empire and later. There are many examples. Often these experiments were essentially face-lifting operations, adding fully applied

Architecture and planning in Italy and the western provinces: from the Republic to the empire

figure 7.40 Augustan Arch, Aosta, Agnello via Wikimedia.

classical façades on already existing utilitarian structures. To start with, comparable utilitarian gates were ubiquitous and standard features of the defenses for almost any late Republican settlement in harm’s way from north Italy to the Swiss Alps. In essence, a typical military gate consisted of one or a pair of main arches (sometimes with flanking minor ones) between projecting towers, inserted into the city wall. More elaborate examples displayed separate outer and inner gates with a small, rectangular courtyard between them, perhaps to isolate and trap a potential enemy, but practically to create a safe zone for security checks or taxation. A second, and in some instances a third, story gallery composed of a series of small, arched openings above the main archways provided the defenders with a better chance for surveillance, and the gate itself a more ambitious architectural look. The degree of refinement or classicizing varied. Normally, archivolts are accentuated by classical moldings; levels are separated by entablatures with projecting cornices; tall, narrow arches of the upper story galleries alternate with pilasters or engaged columns with Tuscan or

Corinthian capitals. Sometimes rectangular niches, plain or framed by pilasters, flank the gate structure. The façades are almost flat; in no cases do we have a breaking of the surface (except, perhaps, the Augustan gate at Nîmes, which has small columns raised on brackets). Materials also vary but they are typically local; dark stones, or lighter limestones, or a combination of these; they are rarely brick. Representative examples are the so-called Gate of Augustus (Porta di Augusto) at Fanum (ancient Fano, on the northeastern Adriatic coast of Italy, known from a fifteenth-century drawing); Porta Praetoria at Aosta with its rough, dark stone ashlar work; Porta Saint Andre at Autun with more refined ashlar work; and the well-preserved, large Porta Palatina at Turin, a magnificent combination of brick-and-stone (Figure 7.43). The façades of these gates, and others not mentioned nor illustrated here, display a kind of functional elegance, and if preserved sufficiently, were passed on to the Empire little changed. Two notable gates from Verona stand out as special and remarkable cases for the complexity and sophistication 447

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figure 7.41 General view of Tiberian arch at Orange (Arausia); Photo by Fikret Yegül.

of their revised designs and the gentrification and beautification of their façades: the Porta dei Leoni (South Gate) and Porta dei Borsari (West Gate; Figures 7.44 and 7.45). Both date from the mid-first century ce or slightly later. The city side of the Porta dei Leoni in Verona (courtyard building of the mid-first century bce with polygonal towers on the exterior) was typical: a stark three-story arrangement of arches with little ornamentation. A century or so later (c. 50–70 ce), the old brick-and-tufa structure was physically overlaid by a 448

new urban façade (with space left between the old and the new!) carved in Verona’s beautiful, white, translucent limestone (pietra bianca). The main double arches were fitted with classical moldings and framed by gabled units carved by fluted, Corinthian engaged columns. The lower gallery arches remained essentially unchanged, but the upper gallery was extended in height and completely rebuilt as an elegant loggia with two pairs of spirally-fluted columns on pedestals flanking a wide, shallow and gently curving exedra.

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figure 7.42 Side view of arch at Orange with ‘Syrian pediment’; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 7.43 General view of the Porta Palatina, Turin, Godromil via Wikimedia.

The remodeling of Porta dei Borsari in the same city was more complex. The outer face of the gate was wrapped in the same white stone retaining the underlying order of the original arched openings but giving them a classical dress and a new rhythm (Figure 7.45). No structural changes were made. The main archways were topped with classically-correct pediments carried by Corinthian half-columns. The outermost arches of the middle-level gallery were framed by small aediculae with small, segmental pediments and superimposed by larger aediculae with regular, triangular pediments; on the same story the two middle arches were framed by aediculae with triangular pediments and grouped together as a single architectural unit by a large aedicule with a flat entablature over them. The strongly projecting columns of the “super aediculae” of the middle level were given special decorative treatment: they are spirally-fluted. The contrapuntal rhythms of the projecting and receding aediculae alternate on the upper two galleries: aediculae over void (plain arches) and void over aediculae, with a single projecting 450

column on a bracket marking the middle. The reconstituted façade of Porta dei Borsari can be seen as a kind of subdued “Roman baroque,” disciplined, elegant, visually and intellectually coded. Variations by different geometric combinations of the classical elements of this façade, their grouping and catenations into different shapes and groupings, could be almost endless. Still, the highly sophisticated new urban façade fashioned here without at all altering the basic, austere arcaded order of the old gate is remarkable – and knows no parallels in Italy at this early date. The recreated gates of Verona leave us with three basic questions difficult to answer but worth considering. First, what were the civic, political, and cultural factors operating in Verona that made the authorities go to such lengths to refashion these elegant, new gates out of the old while many cities did not bother to change theirs? Second, given that there are no contemporary parallels from Italy (or elsewhere), except perhaps in wall paintings and stucco decoration, where did the models, the

Architecture and planning in Italy and the western provinces: from the Republic to the empire inspiration, for these creative façades come from? Third, why did the apparently successful and eminently available models provided by the new Verona gates seem to have had no architectural impact at all – nary an example from Italy – until almost the middle of the second century ce, in the form of “aedicular façades” of gates, nymphaeums, and ceremonial halls, and those mostly from the East?

THEATERS AND AMPHITHEATERS There is hardly a provincial city in north Italy or military colony north of the Alps that does not boast a theater or an amphitheater, or both. As distinctively Roman forms of public entertainment, they were among the urban staples of any settlement, but just as it is true for television today, they seem to have been more appreciated in the distant provinces where the forms of entertainment were limited than in the cosmopolitan center of the Empire. Some of the earliest examples in both categories, especially in Rome and Campania, have already been discussed. It should only be repeated here that with the theaters of Pompey and Marcellus, and the Flavian Amphitheater in Rome, both types of buildings had fully achieved their architectural and structural form and could have served as ultimate or ideal prototypes for northern Italy and the western provinces. Many of our theaters (Verona, Orange, Arles) date from the second half of the first century ce; there are relatively few examples from the Augustan or Julio-Claudian periods, or these have gone through major renovations later (Fiesole, Gubbio, Aosta, Trieste). The reasons for the relatively late development of such a popular institution is not so much any possible repercussions of the famous (and overemphasized) Senate ban on permanent theaters, but perhaps, the exceptionally high cost of a stone theater and amphitheater compared to the relative ease of building a perfectly passable wooden one that, being temporary, offered increased opportunities for elite patronage and jobs. In distant parts of the Roman realm, Britain and the Rhineland frontiers, timber theaters and amphitheaters for veteran’s colonies and legionary fortresses were still the going concern well into the Empire. At Frejus (Forum Julii) in Gaul, the lower parts of the cavea and the façade of the stage building of the colony’s small Augustan period theater were in stone while the rest in timber, and never changed later. With a few exceptions, Italian and Western theaters represent the Roman type. The cavea (or auditorium) is a semicircle (or slightly more than a semicircle) structurally integrated with the stage building (scaenae) with the side wings of the latter joining the cavea along a straight line (whereas in the Greek type

the cavea is more than a half-circle, independent of the stage with passages between them, and has a fully round orchestra). We can detect a development in the design of the stage building and its permanent columnar decoration (scaenae frons) from simpler to more complex models. Earlier examples, such as the theater at Frejus display a straight, plain stage back wall; the Augustan theater at Aosta has a single, wide niche; theaters at Trieste, Orange, Lyon (Lugdunum), Vienne, and Merida were established from the late Augustan through the first century, but in the course of the second century all received elaborate stage buildings of similar design, a stage wall articulated by three semicircular or rectangular niches, each housing a door, and a rich display of columnar rows grouped into aediculae in two or three stories. One must add that the taste for this kind of polychromatic, marble columnar exhibition was a fairly universal trend in the theater architecture of the High Empire across the realm: there is a lot in common between the scaenae frons of theaters of Lyon in Gaul, Lepcis Magna in North Africa, Ephesus in Asia Minor, and Bostra in Syria, possibly due in part to the needs and experiences of traveling troupes of actors. The theater at Orange (Arausio) built against a steep hill – a preferred method wherever a convenient inner-city hill could be found – could seat about ten thousand spectators separated into three tiers by walkways (Figure 7.46). Most of the spectators had to reach their seats from above. An arcade encircled the top of the cavea supporting the poles for the great awning (velabrium) that protected the audience against the sun. The fully preserved stage wall reaches a height of 37 meters but only a few of the seventy-six columns that had adorned the three-story scaenae frons have been preserved. The outer face of this wall, plain and uncompromising except for the handsome pattern of rusticated masonry, may be seen as overpowering by its immense height – a good case for the stereotyped observation that Roman architecture cared little about exteriors (Figure 7.47). By contrast, if we are ready to admire the sheer power, even the beauty, of coursed masonry, we may join Louis XIV in his patriotic assessment of this exterior as “the most handsome wall in my realm.” At Merida, Spain, the theater and amphitheater are grouped as a complex built during the last few decades of the first century bce, on the southeast edge of the city. As in Orange, the Merida theater was cut partially into a hillside and was crowned by a portico above the cavea (Figure 7.48). The construction of the cavea has massive ashlar work displaying some of the finest “rustication” found anywhere (though this ashlar, too, is a veneer over mortared rubble!); it is lightened by plain, classical mouldings (Figure 7.49). The stage building with its ornate colonnaded façade, probably 451

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figure 7.44 Axonometric reconstruction, Porta dei Leoni, Verona; rendered by Rui Xiong (after G. Cavalieri Manasse).

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figure 7.45 General view of the Porta Borsari, Verona; Jean-Christophe Beneoist via Wikimedia.

rebuilt during the Hadrianic era, and now fully reconstructed, uses a cheaper mixture of brick and rubble, all to be veneered in marble, naturally. The multicolumnar scaenae frons, vying the colonial effort at Sabratha (see later) is now fully reconstructed. This theater, with its adjoining peristyle court is a good example of how conscientiously such popular, public locations could be exploited for Imperial and dynastic propaganda. On the back wall of the peristyle, on axis with the stage, is an exedra (a rectangular chamber) for the Imperial cult in which the statues of Augustus and other members of the Julio-Claudian family were exhibited (see Figure 7.48). Augustus again appears in a large niche

over the central door of the stage, much like the arrangement at the theater in Orange (see Figure 7.46). Sculptural decoration of the scaenae frons included images of emperors mixed with deities. More emphatically, during the Trajanic period a section in the center of the cavea was set off by low walls as a separate shrine or the Imperial cult. The discovery of an altar surrounded by Imperial images underlines the importance of cult ritual in everyday, civic contexts outside of the proper temples of the Imperial cult. Another grouping of an amphitheater with a theater as a sort of “entertainment complex” can be observed at Aosta, in northern Italy. The two large 453

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity structures occupy several of the blocks at the northeast corner of the Augustan colony’s rigid rectangular grid. The theater (or rather the “odeum” for being roofed), appropriately small for the modest needs of the exmilitary Alpine community (the stage at 45.60 m long is less than half of the stage length at Orange), is unusual for being enclosed within a rectangular box; the radiating walls of the cavea develop into sturdy corner piers (Figure 7.50). The structural layout suggests a permanent roof over the cavea; the small size

figure 7.46 Interior of the theater at Orange; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

makes this possible. A “roofed theater” (theatrum tectum) was perhaps necessitated by Aosta’s long and hard winters. The well preserved south back wall of the cavea with its powerful vertical stone buttresses and the handsome rhythm of four tiers of openings, gives an idea of the austere civic splendor even a small theater in a small city could command. We are accustomed to admire the magnificent scenic settings of Greek theaters; yet, in more urban contexts, Roman theaters – often in connection with other major civic monuments such as stadiums, amphitheaters, fora, sanctuaries and odeums – could also create impressive urban scenographies. In Rome’s maritime colony Minturnae, the theater rises north of the forum, the bowl echoing and enhancing its open U-shaped colonnade (see Figure 7.2). There is a closer link between the forum and the theater at Terracina, the long northern flank of the forum piazza opens to the wide theater bowl through a colonnaded courtyard behind the stage back wall (see Figure 7.3). The theater appears well integrated to the rest of the scheme, its commanding presence enhanced by the steep site. In Verona, the dramatic setting of the Augustan era theater and terraced temple complex occurring outside the city grid, on a steep, rocky hill across the River Adige, is

figure 7.47 Exterior wall of the theater at Orange (Arausia), Itto Ogami via Wikimedia.

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figure 7.48 Plan of the theater and peristyle at Merida (Augusta Emerita; rendered by Marie Saldaña) (after Gros).

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figure 7.49 Detail of the rusticated exterior cavea wall of the theater at Merida; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

exceptionally impressive. The panoramic composition – especially viewed from across the river – is deliberate and masterful: several terraces, connected to each other by stairs and ramps, rise in successive stages behind the cavea whose sweeping curve is girdled by arcades – lessons from the late Republican sanctuaries welllearned (Figures 7.51 and 7.52). The top terrace, some 60 meters above the river, supports a temple on axis with the theater. With such examples where the dramatic potential of the land was so successfully exploited, one wonders why at Tarraco, in Spain, a city whose spectacular layout with multiple terraces was discussed, the theater was placed not as a crowning element of the scenographic composition, but outside the walls on a relatively flat ground by the harbor (see Figure 7.12). Given the somewhat rowdy nature of Roman theatrical performances (no Greek tragedies here) and theatergoers, to place popular entertainment right by the busy, bustling commercial heart of the port city must have made sense. Furthermore, arriving by sea, one could imagine a perfectly satisfactory and scenic unfolding of the town, starting by the curve of the theater at the water’s edge, and building slowly up the gently rising terraces and temples in the distance. Finally, among scenographically sophisticated compositions, let us remember the back-to-back arrangement of 456

the theater-sanctuary and the forum-temple-basilica complex in downtown Augst (Augusta Rauricorum, in Switzerland) – a composition where the theater with its powerful external curves, and its shifting axis, acts as an effective counterpoint to the rigidly formal and selfcontained geometry of the forum group (see Figure 7.11). In contrast to their wide presence in Iberia and Gaul, theaters in Roman Britain are rare, and those which are known (mainly Canterbury, Colchester, and Verulamium) are significantly different from the basic Italian model. We are informed by Tacitus that a theater at Colchester (Camulodunum), an early capital of preRoman England, was burnt during the rebellion of Queen Boudicca in 60 ce (Ann. 14. 32). It was perhaps this theater, and the establishment of a sanctuary to deified Claudius (a classical-style temple inside a huge peristyle enclosure) that offended the local sensibilities and fueled the brave and fiery Queen’s uprising. The well-preserved theater at Verulamium (St. Albans) should stand as our sole example for the RomanoBritish type (Figure 7.53). There might have been an earth-and-timber structure that served the early Roman settlement after the conquest in 43 ce. However, the building we have, along with other permanent structures in the city, belongs to the second century. Located on flat ground next to the temple precinct for local Celtic deities, the cavea has a core of compacted earth faced with squared-stone masonry, three-quarters of an oval in plan. The stage was very modest. During the course of the third and early fourth centuries both the stage and the peripheral wall of the cavea were slightly enlarged providing seating for an estimated twenty-five hundred to three thousand spectators, which probably represented most if not all of the town’s adult population. Comparing the Verulamium theater to typical ones in Italy and Gaul, we are struck by the differences in architectural form and structure. The solid earth embankment of the cavea obviates the need for piers and radiating vaults of the Italian theaters; it is simpler and cheaper to build, but it would have made the circulation and movement of spectators slow and difficult. In Verulamium there are three main, axial entrance corridors cutting through the earth embankment and leading directly into the orchestra; spectators climbed up to their seats from there. The advantages of many stairs and ramps all around the theater’s (or amphitheater’s) periphery taking one very close to one’s seat (inherent to the structure of a theater raised on piers) could not exist in the earth-embankment model as seen at Verulamium. With its nearly oval shape and nearly circular orchestra (like a bull ring), the Romano-British theater also seems to have been actually a combination of an amphitheater and a theater. This potential dual use must have made sense and represent “a wise economy

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figure 7.50 Plan and reconstructed interior perspective of the theater at Aosta; by G. Izenour, © Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Penn State University Libraries.

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figure 7.51 General view of the hillside theater complex at Verona; Paolo Monti via Wikimedia.

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figure 7.52 Reconstruction perspective of the theater and hillside sanctuary, Verona, after Bolla; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after M. Bolla).

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figure 7.53 Axonometric reconstruction study of the theater at Verulamium; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Guy De la Bédoyère).

for a town with perhaps limited means and uncertain of the reception which would be accorded [to classical forms of entertainment]” (Wacher, 1975, 56). The proximity of the Celtic sanctuary suggests that the cavea could have been also used for religious gatherings and

festivals, a fairly common and deliberate association between the theater and the temple not restricted to Verulamium or Britain. Compared to theaters, amphitheaters in Britain are more common in military camps as well as civilian 459

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figure 7.54 Aerial view of the amphitheater at Caerleon (Isca); CADW via Wikimedia © Crown copyright (2013) Visit Wales.

colonies. We have early examples from Silchester, Caerleon, Chester, Cirenchester, and Dorchester. Because of their large size they were normally built outside the edges of main settlements or left outside the walls when these were eventually built. Like the simplest amphitheaters from Republican Italy (Sutri, Terni, Velleia, Cuma, Alba Fucens), they were mainly constructed in earth (partially dug out and partially piled) and strengthened to varying degrees by masonry armatures and faced in stone, or in some cases, by timber plank construction. One of the better-preserved amphitheaters for military use is at Caerleon (Isca, the fortress of the Second Augustan Legion), erected entirely by soldiers in the late first century ce. It was basically built in earth but faced with roughly coursed rubble stone inside and outside; projecting buttresses further strengthened the peripheral wall (Figure 7.54). Measuring 80  60 meters, it could probably provide seating on wooden benches laid on earth for around five thousand specatators, about the size of a typical legion. One should bear in mind that because Roman Britain was heavily militarized some of these earth-core amphitheaters at or near active forts were primarily intended for weapons training of the legionaries. With the same kind of eye for economy and efficiency we have observed in the use of theaters, they too could double as regular arenas for gladiatorial games or wild beast shows, popular entertainment for all (ludi). The flexible and unorthodox form and function of these Romano-British theaters and amphitheaters is a good reflection of the diverse and volatile life typical of any frontier town – at once civilian and military, urban and tribal, Roman and native. The simple, earth-core amphitheaters of late Republican Italy must have had a structural resemblance to those in Britain and the Rhineland, and ultimately served for them as sources. Almost all were based on a system where earth or rock was partially 460

dug out and filled to create an embankment for seats; the oval perimeter of the embankment and the interior of the arena were fortified by a stone wall. Many, at least in their initial stages, must have had a timber superstructure of seats over masonry foundations. The first phase of the new amphitheater constructed within the walls of the veteran’s colony at Xanten (Colonia Ulpia Traiana, Germany), founded in 100 ce, had an entirely wooden cavea supported on stone foundations and a service corridor around the arena. It was only by the end of the second or beginning of the third century that the wooden structure was replaced by a masonry cavea supported on piers and vaults. Located inside the southeast corner of the town this amphitheater was for civilian use. The military fortress Vetera, 3 kilometers southeast of Xanten had always been served by a small and simple earth embankment. As underlined earlier, one problem with the solid earth embankments and stone amphitheaters was their poor circulation, which relied on a limited number of radiating corridors and stairs cut into the solid structural fill to provide access to the seats. In some of the important examples such as the late second century bce amphitheater of Pompeii, a series of very visible exterior stairs gave access to the uppermost tier of seats (see Figures 1.49 and 1.50). Individual designs varied, but many of the late Republican or early Imperial amphitheaters from Italy follow one or the other of these simple arrangements (Pompeii, Cumae, Sutri, Ferrentino, Velleia, and Alba Fucens come to mind; see earlier). The ideal solution for the challenge of providing easy egress and ingress all along the periphery of the building was achieved by artificially raising the seats above the ground on a system of ashlar piers connected by radiating and annular vaulted corridors – the model perfected in the Augustan Theater of Marcellus in Rome and later in the Flavian period with the Colosseum. It would hardly be an exaggeration to suggest that the structural development and maturity of the Roman theater and amphitheater can be gauged by the degree of freedom its seats and cavea achieved from the earth. Although this kind of advanced structure was more typical and necessary for the larger amphitheaters, a medium sized amphitheater at Merida in Spain, securely dated by inscriptions to 8 bce (126  102 m with a seating capacity of circa fifteen thousand) still employed fundamentally a solid-core construction, partially exploiting the higher ground on the south (Figure 7.55). The entire lower story of its exterior arcade is below ground level. Fourteen minor radiating corridors, some with stairs and the two main ones on the long axis, penetrate the solid periphery of the earth embankment and lead to the lower and middle tiers of

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figure 7.55 Plan and section of the amphitheater at Merida (Augusta Emerita); rendered by Alex Maymind (after Golvin).

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figure 7.56 Partial view of the interior of the amphitheater at Italica; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 7.57 Lower level plan and section of the amphitheater at Capua; rendered by Alex Maymind (after Golvin).

seats; the uppermost seats (summa cavea) are reached by an extra ring of stairs embedded into the peripheral structure. In the center of the arena a deep rectangular pit with tunneled connections to the outside must have contained the facilities for the wild animals and their handlers, while the gladiators had their waiting rooms (and toilets) flanking the two main entrances. The

arena and the lower tier of seats of the Hadrianic amphitheater at Italica were excavated into the natural rock (and the stone extracted used for the upper construction), while the two levels above were carried by ashlar piers and connecting vaults (Figure 7.56). Unfortunately, these upper levels are almost entirely gone. A vaulted tunnel or cryptoporticus encircling the 463

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figure 7.58 Exterior view of the amphitheater at Capua; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

arena connected to a series of stairs that gave access to the better lower tier seats and the private boxes – and segregated the traffic between the commoners and the privileged. This hybrid structural system used in Italica appears practical and effective (and it was certainly economical) for the circulation needs of the fourth largest amphitheater in the Roman world (156  134 m, c. thirty-five thousand to forty thousand capacity). A simple, subterranean service facility, as in Merida – a large rectangular depression in the middle of the arena covered by wooden planks and a thick layer of sand – seems to have been considered adequate. Looming just outside the main gate of the decumanus maximus like an artificial hill on a landscape that lacked strong topographical features, the amphitheater of Italica must have been an impressive sight and a reminder of its Imperial patron’s generosity to his New City. Returning to peninsular Italy, the long tradition and popularity of gladiatorial combat in Campania may explain the large numbers, ample sizes and technical sophistication of amphitheaters in this region. The great amphitheater at Capua (second largest after the Colosseum, 170  139 m) is mainly Hadrianic, but the mixed structure of ashlar and brick piers and concrete vaults is based on its Julio-Claudian predecessor (Figures 7.57 and 7.58). With the powerful influence of the Colosseum behind it, the Hadrianic arena at Capua was provided with a complex system of 464

underground corridors, chambers and elevators to house and handle wild animals and to bring them dramatically into the sight and action of the arena through trap doors in the floor (Figure 7.59). The well-kept and well-preserved amphitheater at Verona, left just outside the peninsular grid of the city defined by the great bend in the river, is located near the south gate. Probably belonging to a generation of amphitheaters built soon after the Colosseum, it is a fair-sized structure (152  123 m) with an estimated capacity of around twenty-eight thousand spectators. The three-story exterior of roughly dressed ashlar and un-profiled arches between Tuscan pilasters has little use for classical niceties (Figures 7.60 and 7.61). The utilitarian exterior recalls the aesthetics of an aqueduct in its simple strength and sparse elegance. The interior is equally simple. It comes as no surprise that the German poet Goethe, who, as a young man, visited this amphitheater on September 16, 1787, was impressed by the “agreeable austerity of the [empty] oval” and imagined that it would have been transformed once filled with people. He mused that it was the architect’s job to keep the hollow of the amphitheater as simple as possible because “the ornament of this architecture will be supplied by the people themselves.” If Goethe had seen it, he would have been equally impressed by the “austere oval” of the Flavian-era amphitheater of Pula, on the Istrian peninsula, Adriatic

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figure 7.59 View of the vaulted subterranean passage with brick-faced concrete at the amphitheater of Capua; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 7.60 Exterior view of the amphitheater, Verona; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 7.61 Detail of the exterior construction, amphitheater at Verona; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 7.62 Exterior partial view of the amphitheater at Pula; Photo by Diane Favro.

figure 7.63 Detail of upper story, exterior of amphitheater at Pula; Photo by Diane Favro.

coast, its robbed interior in stark contrast to the perfectly preserved exterior wall composed of two tiers of arches surmounted by a plain attic of large rectangular windows and a simple horizontal crown molding (Figure 7.62; Plate 18). The powerful and elegant 468

perforated wall of the amphitheater in beautiful Istrian white stone rises majestically some 34.5 m from the seaside, partially supported by the eastern hills that comprised the upper city (pars superior coloniae). About one-quarter smaller than the Verona amphitheater

Architecture and planning in Italy and the western provinces: from the Republic to the empire

figure 7.64 Exterior view of the amphitheater at Nîmes (Nemasus); Photo by Fikret Yegül.

(32  104 m), with an estimated capacity of twenty thousand spectators, it could still hold more than twice the entire population of the early Augustan Colonia Iulia Pola Herculanae, indicating that as in North Africa (see later), these oversized structures were intended to serve the whole region. Nonetheless, the city rightly identified with this white castle and cherished it as a symbol of its classical past Yet, like Verona, this was the simple, stripped, and robust classicism beloved of Goethe: in the two lower tiers thin pilasters with severe “Tuscan” capitals barely distracted from the powerful rhythm of the seventy-two arches; the top story plain ashlar except its rectangular openings and a simple cornice with square holes which probably supported timber masts for an awning (Figure 7.63). The sturdy piers and pilasters separating the arches are left rough (only the pilaster tops and capitals displaying smooth finish); the similarity to Claudian rusticated work in Rome is unmistakable and probably intentional. An unusual feature is a water channel encircling the top of the outer wall. The people, especially if they were dressed colorfully, might do for the “hollow” of some colonial amphitheaters, but cities anchored to an older classical past preferred exteriors with a greater measure of ornament. The discreet application of the classical orders emphasized the dual nature of all amphitheaters, utilitarian as well as architectural. At Verona and Pula the exterior was simple and Spartan; at Nîmes and

Arles, in the Rhone Valley, two well preserved, medium sized amphitheaters of the late first century ce (possibly designed by the same architect), the presence of the classical orders, albeit discreetly, is more pronounced. The exteriors of both have double tiers of arches with a blind attic hiding the summa cavea seats (Figures 7.64 and 7.65). Both display strongly projecting pilasters below and half-columns above. At Nîmes both orders are Tuscan, the preferred stark order for amphitheaters in general, while at Arles the upper story half-columns carry Corinthian capitals. Unlike the Colosseum and other Italian amphitheaters mentioned (Capua, Verona, Pula), where continuous entablatures wrapping at three or four levels around the oval are molded into a unified mass (in keeping with the concrete nature of the structure), at Nîmes and Arles the mass is fractured. The verticality and individuality of the prominent orders are preserved and accentuated by entablatures that break and project over each pilaster or half-column – 120 times! It is as if the architect wished to celebrate the basic post-and-beam aesthetic of classical architecture, an aesthetic at home on coastal once-Greek Gaul. Likewise, in the interior stone beams or lintels supported by powerful brackets are also preferred over arches and vaults; the visual impact of the repeating rectilinear frames is effective, as if the classicizing architect had sought for a respite from the ubiquitous Roman arch (Figure 7.66). 469

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figure 7.65 Exterior view of the amphitheater at Arles; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 7.66 Detail of construction with stone lintels, upper level interior, at the amphitheater at Arles; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

PUBLIC BATHS AND THERMAE Along with the theater and amphitheater the public bath was another institution devoted to recreation that found ready acceptance and use throughout northern Italy and the western provinces. In some ways, offering warmth, hygiene, and an affordable kind of luxury in the cold climates of northern Europe, it was the ideal institution for middle-class burghers and retired soldiers. Representing a very Italian way of life, baths must have appealed to the veterans’ sense of nostalgia; while for the new, tribal citizens of frontier towns they were the substance and symbol of becoming Roman, at least as far as this powerful and popular form of recreation signified. Appealing to the gentle corporal pleasures, baths were perhaps the most universally accepted Roman institution even in the farthest provinces: who could not like a Roman bath? Baths were also a natural amenity for an active military unit, a fortress, because they offered the legionaries of Caesar, tired and dirty after long marches and drills, a welldeserved chance for comfort and cleanliness much as they had done for the Bronze Age warriors of Homer. There are very few large baths in Western provinces, no Imperial style prestige establishments of the type we see in the larger cities of North Africa and the Eastern

Empire, Asia Minor, and Syria. Western cities and veterans’ colonies were generally modest in size. With most of the technical skills of building provided by military engineers, even when there was need for a larger building, it was easier to build and more economical to operate several small sized baths (such as the three baths at Cimiez-Cemenelum; see later) than a very large one. Exceptions include the North (“Cluny”) Baths in Paris, Constantinian Baths at Arles, and the Barbara Baths and Imperial Baths both in Trier, an imperial city. The Cluny Baths in Paris, dating from the Severan period, follows the half-axial Imperial type. With an area of circa 5000 square miles, thick, concrete walls articulated by niches, soaring concrete vaults, a monumental frigidarium, and a caldarium, the structure is an impressive building of a familiar type and that could have been at home in Rome or Ephesus (Figures 7.67 and 7.68). The typical military bath embedded into a legionary camp was, however, small and practical; it was built in locally quarried stone (rubble or petit appareil), or mudbrick, or half-timber. Extensive use of kiln-baked brick is rare in the Western provinces. If masonry vaults are employed at all they were modest in span and used mainly for the heated spaces; other rooms were often roofed by timber trusses and covered in tiles. The timber rich north, especially Britain and Germany, 471

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figure 7.67 Plan of the Cluny Baths, Paris; rendered by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 7.68 Interior view of the vaulting of the frigidarium at the Cluny Baths, Paris; Miguel Hermoso Cuesta via Wikimedia.

might have even offered a good chance for the application of the elusive Vitruvian tile and stucco vault hanging from a wooden framework (“Iron bars or arches are to be made and hung from the timber framework of the roof by means of iron hooks set close together. . . these bars will be closely spaced so that tiles without flanges may rest upon them . . . the whole vaulting [of the bath] will be completely supported by iron;” De arch. 5.10.3). The most common type of bath plan, from Portugal to Provence, was the so-called Pompeian or Campanian type (see earlier). This was an arrangement with a row of contiguous rectangular rooms along an open courtyard or palaestra. Due to the fundamental simplicity and technical and structural efficacy, this scheme was the choice for many small and medium sized baths (balnea) also in Italy and Rome. Among the dozens of small public baths in Ostia many, such as the late Hadrianic Baths of Neptune, follow this type of plan (Figure 7.69). Famous for its black-and-white mosaic showing Neptune in his sea chariot and other marine scenes, the Neptune baths were surrounded by streets with shops and had an entrance on the decumanus side. A row of seven or eight barrel-vaulted bath rooms leading to the caldarium is flanked along the west side by a palaestra with three-sided colonnades. The Pompeian type had been introduced to north Italy and Gaul during the last decades of the Republic in much simpler schemes, but it gained a proper foothold only during the Julio-Claudian period and became common in the course of the

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figure 7.69 Plan of the Baths of Neptune, Ostia; rendered by Fikret Yegül.

Empire. In the Gallic sites Glanum and Derventum (Drevant), the type is clearly recognizable. At the earlier Small Baths at Glanum (first phase c. 40 bce), there are the familiar three units – frigidarium, tepidarium and an apsed caldarium – next to the colonnaded palaestra that also contains an unusually large (6  11 m) swimming pool (Figure 7.70). The entrance, typically, is from the palaestra. At Derventum (early first century ce, Drevant, southern France), the scheme is only slightly more developed with a four-room row – frigidarium, apodyterium, tepidarium and caldarium – positioned between a colonnaded palaestra on the east side and a more utilitarian, service court on the west. The North, East, and West Baths at Cemenelum (Cimiez, southern France), an important garrison town in the Maritime Alps, are three separate baths from the late second to early third centuries; they comprise an impressive urban group on either side of the decumanus (Figure 7.71). Each of the three has four barrel-vaulted rectangular rooms constituting the “bath block” next

to some kind of open courtyard. These contain outdoor pools. The well-preserved frigidarium of the North Baths is distinguished by its size (17.8  9 m) and its fine construction of petit appareil interrupted by bands of brick (Figure 7.72). Known locally as the “Temple of Apollo” it has a brick-ribbed vault, an interesting local variation of the stone-ribbed barrelvault of the “Temple of Diana” in the Water Sanctuary of the Nymphs in nearby Nîmes (see later). A creative variation of the Pompeian type, not unknown in Italy but particularly striking in the West, is the symmetrical disposition of the bathing rooms, and sometimes the palaestra, too, on the same single row or axis. The Flavian Double Baths at Gisacum (Le Vieil-Évreux), in Normandy, represents a diagrammatically clear application of a pair of backto-back baths stretched along a row dividing unequally a large rectangular enclosure. On the north, the larger colonnade is the palaestra, the smaller southern area is a service court. A pair of circular 473

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laconicums, projecting outside the rectangular enclosure, is a later addition. Sharing services, these equal baths must have been men’s and women’s. In Alonnes (Le Mans in France), a pair of identical and parallel bathing rows shares between them a courtyard and a swimming pool. Each of the “rows” is composed of four or five small units; the caldariums are identifiable by projecting rectangular niches that typically housed heated pools. Men and women were probably segregated, though they must have shared the same swimming pool.

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Examples of military baths from Britain are among the earliest uses of such axial-symmetrical planning; all are baths in castra (or legionary fortresses): Exeter (c. 60–65 ce), Vindonissa (c. 55 ce), and Isca (Carleon, early Flavian). Although the in-line arrangement of the frigidarium-tepidarium-caldarium row is quite similar in the last two examples, the Vindonissa Baths, with their generous and repeated use of projecting apses, an open natatio court between double frigidaria/apodyteria, and a large, apsidal heated hall impart a sense of monumentality lacking in the simpler 'Pompeian' row-

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figure 7.71 Plan of the North Baths, East Baths and West Baths, Cemenelum (Nice); rendered by Fikret Yegül.

type baths (Figure 7.73). At Caerleon (Isca), the legionary baths feature an impressive example of a long, timber-roofed, columnar basilical hall ( 64 X 25 m), vaguely referred to in inscriptions as basilica thermarum (a thermal basilica), which could have been used as an exercise space as well as a ceremonial one. The basilica thermarum was a fairly common element both in the cold climate of Britain as it was in the hot one of North Africa. The Trajanic phase of the South Baths in Conimbriga, Portugal, is a variation of the single-axis type writ large (Figure 7.74). As can be appreciated by the excellent reconstruction study by J. Alarcao and R. Étienne, a central spine composed of three tall, contiguous cross-vaults flanked by lower vaulted wings and a pair of domed sweating chambers creates a

powerful composition and massing. The best aspect however, is the way in which the bath block is enveloped among gardens and courts and related to its topographical context. On the north is a plain entrance and exercise courtyard with a swimming pool; on the south, opening to the grand view of the plain through an (hypothetical) arcade and elevated on an artificial terrace high above the sloping ground is a garden-palaestra. A monumental flight of steps connects the garden-palaestra (perhaps, mainly for meditative enjoyment) to the colonnaded south front of the building. It is hard to imagine a bathing establishment more graciously planned or more sensitive to the advantages of its site and view – or one whose reconstruction is as finely committed on paper.

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figure 7.72 View of the frigidarium, North Baths (also known as the ‘Temple of Apollo’), Nice; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Baths and spas that developed around natural hot springs represent another category of bath buildings. Because of the special nature of these thermal baths – which typically need facilities for large, communal pools as well as small, private plunges – their planning is varied and defies classification. Across Italy and Europe their numbers, large or small, are in the hundreds. The symmetrically composed thermal baths at Badenweiler in south Germany and those at Aquae Neri (Néris-lesBains) in France are notable. Arguably, one of the most elaborate and one of the best-known cure centers in the Roman world, at least in the European provinces, was the Thermal Complex in Aquae Sulis (Bath) in England. Bath owes its fame to the unbroken use of its facilities into recent times when the spa became the favorite watering spot and social playground of the European aristocracy. The source (which yields roughly one-quarter of a million gallons of water daily) was developed by the Romans, but the use of the site as a cure center where the Celtic god Sul was worshipped goes back to the Iron Age. During the Roman era the thermal facilities were a part of the Sanctuary of Sulis Minerva whose classical looking temple is located in a precinct immediately north of the source (see Figure 7.24). Across from the main temple was an ornate, small tholos honoring the nymphs presiding over the 476

curative waters – this was perhaps the spiritual center of the entire complex. The most impressive and characteristic architectural element of the complex is the great pool hall (the thermal pool 19  8.90 m and 1.56 m deep) whose timber roof was supported by rows of square piers like a basilica. During the late second century the hall was covered by a lofty barrelvault. The apsidal and rectangular niches expanding the space were probably intended for the display of statuary and used as quiet retreats away from the bustling communal pool. The wondrous phenomenon of hot and cold springs and thermal baths explains the frequent association of these curative centers with nymphs and water deities. At Bath the religious and secular contents of bathing were brought together. At the Water Sanctuary in Nîmes, a venerable hydraulic center dedicated to the spring god Nemasus (who named the city) represents a similar phenomenon. An extensive architectural complex had developed around the sacred spring already by circa 25 bce and included the water source, baths, a theater, a three-sided colonnade – and just outside this colonnade a uniquely remarkable barrel-vaulted hall (Figure 7.76). In the center of the sanctuary enclosure was a rectangular platform shrine whose corners were marked by four elegant column monuments. At a lower level a Doric

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figure 7.73 Plan of the Fortress (“Legionary”) Baths at Vindonissa; rendered by Fikret Yegül.

portico surrounded the shrine, its back walls articulated by fountain niches, semicircular and rectangular, alternating. The architectural showcase of the sanctuary, however, was the so-called Temple of Diana, the previously mentioned hall with exceptional design (14.5  9.5 m) situated on the west side (Figure 7.76, Plate 14B). One of the first products of Augustan-era classicism (though possibly with alterations during the Hadrianic era), the hall is entirely built in precisely cut marble ashlar, covered by a barrel vault accentuated by wide ribs. Side walls display five rectangular niches each crowned by finely delineated pediments, triangular and

segmental with simple moldings (Figure 7.77, Plate 14B). Half columns between the niches (and aligned with the centers of vault ribs) carry Corinthian capitals and a continuous entablature that ties the interior perimeter. At the end of the entrance axis, the far wall is built up with a tall, slightly projecting aedicular shrine. The entire hall, except on the entrance side, is enveloped by a narrow barrel-vaulted corridor dramatically illuminated by a by a “step-down” in the height of the barrel-vault extrados, creating an unusual type of clerestory. The double-nucleus arrangement (an ambulatory encircling the core space) has prompted some scholars 477

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figure 7.74 Restored perspective of the South Baths (Later Trajanic Baths), Conimbriga (Yegül Collection, courtesty of Alarcao and Etienne).

to propose that this hall could have been a library, or a “culture center” – an enticing idea, but not true (see Figure 7.75). However, considering the overall design (especially the main, axially disposed aedicular shrine and the side niches as typical locations for statuary) and the significance of Augustan patronage of the sanctuary (Nîmes became a colonia under Augustus in 27 bce), we prefer to accept the traditional interpretation that this was a cult hall, an Augustaeum where the princeps and the members of the Julio-Claudian family shared honors 478

with Roma (comparison to the Temple of Serapis in Ephesus is apt; see Figure 10.69). Whatever its particular function this beautifully constructed and delicately austere ornamented hall fits within the genealogy of rectangular, vaulted and niched halls in Roman architecture, well-established by the cella of the Temple of Apollo Sossianus in Rome (c. 30 bce, nearly contemporary), and by the later examples in the series such as the Basilica of the Flavian Palace on the Palatine and the Maxentian version of the back-to-back cella of the

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Temple of Venus and Roma, all in Rome (see earlier and later in this chapter). It is also arguably the classical forerunner of the later aedicular baroque architecture that swept across Asia Minor and the Eastern provinces of the Empire and a reminder of the exceptional quality of design and execution available in Augustan Gaul. HADRIAN’S WALL AND ANTONINE WALL IN NORTHERN BRITAIN Some of the most useful and daring examples of Roman technological achievement, roads, tunnels, bridges, and aqueducts – such as the Pont-du-Gard

near Nîmes, or the 200-meter-long tunnel in sheer rock in the Italian Alps at Val d’Aosta, or the great bridge at Alcantara over the Tagus in western Spain – come from north Italy and the western provinces (see earlier). Many have been already discussed in our chapter on technology; it may be fitting, however, to end our review of this region with a very special and monumental military project in north England, popularly known as Hadrian’s Wall. By far the single largest single construction in Roman Britain, Hadrian’s Wall is some 120 kilometers long, dividing the island from sea to sea between Newcastle-on-Tyne on the east coast to Bowness in Solway Firth, on the west (Figure 7.78). It was begun 479

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figure 7.76 Interior view with ribbed ashlar vaulting, “Temple of Diane,” Nîmes; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 7.77 plate 14b Interior view of side wall with niches, “Temple of Diana,” Nîmes; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 7.78 General view of Hadrian’s Wall at Milecastle 39, Great Britain; Photo: Adam Cuerden via Wikimedia.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity in 122 ce following Hadrian’s visit to Britain and must have been completed in the main in four or five years although changes, additions and improvements continued to be made until it was practically abandoned in 140 ce when the Antonine Wall, a new, simpler and shorter wall of turf blocks was built some 80–100 kilometers to the north. Hadrian’s Wall is more than just a very long wall; it incorporates a complex linear defensive and control system. Undoubtedly, the central feature of this system was the wall itself, a 10 RF (3.3 m) wide structure (during construction some parts were reduced to 8 RF) faced in small blocks of stone over a core of rubble. The height of this wall must have reached some 14–15 RF (c. 4.5 m), plus a parapet to protect the patrolling soldiers. The defense was strengthened by a series of small forts (each housing eight–ten men) incorporated into the wall structure at every mile or so, with two smaller watch towers (or turrets) between these known as “milecastles.” The line of the wall on the north (outside) was followed by a V-shaped ditch, or a fossa (9 m wide and 3.5–4.0 m deep) unless rugged terrain made it unnecessary. Some 120 RF (c. 35 m) south (inside) of the wall there was another, slightly shallower ditch flanked by earth mounds (mainly the earth dug out to make the ditch). A military road more or less followed the wall. A number of fortresses along this road to the south, inland, had already existed. Sometime along the way it was decided to replace these earlier castra with a more orderly arrangement of twelve to sixteen legionary fortresses physically connected to the wall’s interior. These new forts followed the basic castrum typology; they were rectangular in outline with rounded corners, each housing five hundred to one thousand legionaries and composed of an administrative center (principia), commander’s headquarters (praetorium), granary, hospital, baths, and barracks. Some of the better preserved, like Chester and Housesteads, became successful frontier stations attracting civilian settlements around them (Figure 7.79). This elaborate undertaking was entirely built by soldiers organized into groups of eighty, who quarried and cut stone, transported all materials, built the wall and the roads and dug the ditches – and proudly affixed their company name for each 40-meter stretch they completed. One would appreciate that these soldiers during long peaceful stretches, must have had time on their hands. As a defensive system, or barrier, the wall was only moderately effective since the six to eight thousand troops deployed along the entire length would have been spread quite thinly to resist any major assault. However, Hadrian’s Wall was probably

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never intended for that purpose which was, after all, the job of the many legions housed in various camps across Britain. The wall could, however, resist small-scale attacks and perform as a linear watchout facility – an ancient equivalent of an early warning system. With ditches, earth embankments (like modern barbed wire or mine fields), roads, gates, and communication facilities, it also created an effective, de facto military zone, a permanent border or frontier to police and control traffic. One expects that it had a positive psychological effect on the civilian populations living behind it, creating a sense of security conducive to peaceful sleep though perhaps more than it could absolutely deliver. This alone would have been worth the effort and the expense, but since it was wholly built by soldiers and army engineers (who received their pay whatever they did or did not do), it cost nothing: “It made no difference to the Imperial treasury whether they [soldiers] fought wars, sharpened their swords, or built walls that seemed a good idea at the time” (De la Bédoyère 2013: 77). On balance, the wall probably did prove a good idea as even after the Antonine Wall was abandoned twenty years after it was built, Hadrian’s defensive structures were many times repaired and used until Roman presence in Britain became completely untenable by the end of the fourth century. To us, Hadrian’s Wall, along its better-preserved stretches, marching across the solitary Scottish landscape, over hill and dale, is one of the most impressive and haunting sights – a moving and tangible testimony to the scope and daring of Roman technological achievement regardless of its militaristic (or peaceful, one could also say) premise. For the fourth-century historian of Roman emperors, the purpose of this complex systematic undertaking was refreshingly simple: “Hadrian built a wall to separate the Romans from the barbarians” (SHA, Hadrian, 11.2). The desire to separate the Romans from the barbarians was put to test a second time by Antoninus Pius, Hadrian’s successor, who built a second wall some 100–120 kilometers north of the first wall. This wall, known to its builders as the Vallum Antonini, was a simpler affair. Only circa 65 kilometers long between the Firth of River Clyde on the west and Firth of Forth on the east (deep inlets that constrict the width of land in southern Scotland), it was built of turf on stone foundations, about 3 meters high and 5 meters wide, with a deep ditch on the outside. There were some nineteen to twenty fortresses along its course connected to each other by a military frontage road. It was begun by 140

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ce, soon after Pius’ accession, and finished circa 150–152 ce and abandoned completely by circa 160–162 ce, having served effectively for a decade or less. Its shorter length probably allowed it to be controlled better and held more effectively than the much longer and grander Hadrian’s Wall. Antoninus Pius inherited and continued Hadrian’s non-expansionist foreign policy as much as he could; however, pressure from northern Scottish tribes, especially the Caledonians, required military action and consequently pushed the boundaries of the empire considerably beyond Hadrian’s wall. The result of this somewhat unexpected, but at least temporarily, successful campaign – which also provided Antoninus Pius a relatively easy but legitimate reason to celebrate

a triumph in Rome – was the primary reason to build this cheaper wall. Like Hadrian’s wall before it, the new wall was entirely built by soldiers, who must have looked on their hard work with a sense of pride and personal victory as reflected by a group of carved and inscribed stone slabs (c. 30  40–50 cm) recording the length of wall completed by each legion (Figure 7.80). Known as “distance slabs” (and almost all of them kept at the University of Glasgow Museum), this important collection has been described as “triumphant records of conflict and conquest celebrating the Roman army’s victory over an enemy who is always shown as naked, dejected, bound and mutilated” much as the earlier reliefs of the Tropeum Traiani at Adamklissi (see

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figure 7.80 Distance slab from the Antonine Wall, westside of Hutcheson Hill, Great Britain; Hunterian Museum F.1969.22, Glasgow.

Figure 7.27) (Breeze 2015, 70). Their iconography of crude but charmingly naïve sculpture is in no way different than the more famous relief slabs from the Sebasteion in Aphrodisias, some 3,500 kilometers away in Asia Minor. Both are statements of imperial power, one the decorating an all-marble precinct for Greekspeaking urbanites, the other facing the cold winds of a lonesome frontier left to the care and protection of homesick legionaries. REFERENCES

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Bedon, R., R. Chevallier and P. Pinon. 1988. Architecture et Urbanisme en Gaule romaine, 2 vols. Paris: Éditions Errance. Bellet, M.-E. 1991. Orange antique (Guides Archéologiques de la France). Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. Bellido, A. G. 1960. Colonia Aelia Augusta Italica. Madrid: Instituto español de arqueología. Biers, W, R. 1988. Mirobriga (BAR, International Series 451). Oxford: BAR. Birley, R. 1972. Guide to the Central Sector of Hadrian’s Wall. Newcastle upon Tyne: Frank Graham. 1973. Vindolanda, Roman Fort and Civilian Settlement. Newcastle upon Tyne: Frank Graham. Bolla. M. 2000. Archeologia a Verona. Milan: Electa. Brown, F. E. 1980. Cosa: The Making of a Roman Town. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. Cleere, H. 2001. Southern France (Oxford Archaeological Guides). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coarelli, F. 1987. “Munigua, Praeneste e Tibur. I modelli laziali di un municipio della Baetica.” Lucentum 6: 91–100. Collingwood, R. G., I. Richmond, and B. R. Hartley. 1969, rev. The Archaeology of Roman Britain. London: Methuen & Co. Cunliffe, B. 1971. Roman Bath Discovered. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1986. The City of Bath. New Haven: Yale University Press. Curchin, L. A. 1991. Roman Spain: Conquest and Assimilation. London: Routledge. De la Bédoyère, G. 1991. Buildings of Roman Britain. London: Batsford. 2013. Roman Britain: A New History. Second edn. London: Thames & Hudson. De Palol, P. 1988. En foro romano de Clunia. Valencia: Ministerio de Cultura. De Palol, P., et al., eds. 1994. La cuitat en el món romà. (Actas La XIV Congreso Internacional de Arqueología Clásica. Tarragona 1993), 2 vols. Tarragona: Comité organizador del XIV CIAC. Droste, M. 2003. Arles. Gallula Roma – Das Rom Galliens. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern.

Architecture and planning in Italy and the western provinces: from the Republic to the empire Duval, P.-M. 1961. Paris antique: des origins au troisieme siècle. Paris: Hermann. Emberton, R. and F. Graham. 1984. Hadrian’s Wall in the Days of the Romans. New York: Dorset Press. Étienne, R. 1996. “Du nouveau sur les débuts du culte impérial municipal dans la péninsula ibrique.” In A. Small, ed. Subject and Ruler: The Cult of the Ruling Power in Classical Antiquity (JRA Supplement 17): 152–163. Fogliato, D. 1992. L’Arco di Augusto a Susa. Collegno: Gruppo Archeologico “Ad Quintum.” Galan, M. B., ed. 1993. The Hispano-Roman Town (Ministry of Culture, Spain). Barcelona: Ambit Servicios. Gans, U. W. 1990. “Der Quellbezirk von Nimes.” RömMitt 97: 93–125. Golvin, J.-C. 1988. L’amphitheatre Romain, 2 vols. Paris: De Boccard. Grossi, V. R. Malizia, A. R. Mari, et al., eds. 2003. Il foro Emiliano di Terracina e le sue trasformazioni storiche nell’età medieval, moderna e contemporanea. Terracina: Bookart. Grünhagen, W. 1959. “Die Ausgrabungen der Terrasenheiligtums von Munigua.” In E. Boehringer, ed. Neue deutsche Ausgrabungen im Mittelmeergebiet und im Vorderen Orient. Berlin: Mann, 329–343. Hufschmid, T. and P. Rentzel. 2009. Amphitheatrum in Provincia et Italia: Architektur und Nutzung römischer Amphitheater von Augusta Raurica bis Puteoli (Forschungen in Augst, 43), 3 vols. Augst: Römermuseum Augst. Hurst, H. 2000. “The Fortress coloniae of Roman Britain.” In E. Fentress, ed. Romanization and the City: Creation, Transformation, and Failures (JRA Supplement, 38): 105–114. Jiménez, J. L. 1987. Arquitectura forense en la Hispania romana. Zaragoza: Departamento de Ciencias de la Antigüedad, Universidad de Zaragoza. 1993. La cuidad Hispanorromana. Barcelona: Ambit Servicios Editoriales. Johnson, J. 1935. Excavations at Minturnae, I. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvannia Press. Keay, S. J. 1988. Roman Spain. Berkeley: University of California Press. King, A. 1990. Roman Gaul and Germany. Berkeley: University of California Press. Laur-Belart, R. 1948. Führer durch Augusta-Raurica. Basel: Froben. Lengyel, A. and G. T. B. Radan. 1980. The Archaeology of Roman Pannonia. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Lewis, M. J. T. 1966. Temples in Roman Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Loseri, L. 1961. Il foro imperiale di Aquileia. Trieste: Tipografia moderna. MacKendrick, P. 1969. The Iberian Stones Speak. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1972. Roman France. New York: St. Martin's Press. Manasse, G. C. 1986. “Porta Leoni: Appunti per la ricostruzione di un monumento.” In Scritti in ricordo di Graziella Massari Gaballo e di Umberto Tocchetti Pollini. Milan: Edizioni ET, 159–172. Mansuelli, G. A. 1971. Urbanistica e architettura della Cisalpina romana (Collection Latomus, 3). Brussels: Latomus. Mar, R. 1992. “El teatro de Tarragona y el sanctuario de Hercules en Ostia.” In H.-J. Schalles, H. von Hesberg

and P. Zanker, eds. Die römische Stadt im 2. Jahrhundert n. Chr. Köln: Rheinland-Verlag, 163–172. Marsden, P. 1980. Roman London. London: Thames and Hudson. 1987. The Roman Forum Site in London. London: Museum of London. McWhirr, A. 1971. Verulamium. London: Ginn and Company. Merrifield, R. 1983. London, City of the Romans. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mertens, J. and G. Volpe. 1999. Herdonia: un itinerario storicoarcheologico. Bari: Edipuglia. Mierse, W. E. 1999. Temples and Towns in Roman Iberia. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mirabella, M. R., ed. 1995. “Forum et basilica” in Aquileia e nella Cisalpina romana (Antichità Altoadige, 42). Udine: Arti Grafiche Friulane. Modona, A. N. 1961. Gli edifici teatrali greci e romani. Florence: L. S. Olschki. Naumann, R. 1937. Der Quellbezirk von Nîmes. Berlin: W. de Gruyter. Nünnerich-Asmus, H. von Hesberg, W. Trillmich, et al., eds. 1993. Hispania Antiqua: Denkmäler der Römerzeit (DAI, Madrid). Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. Pfanner, M. 1990. “Modelle römischer Stadtentwicklung am Beispiel Hispaniens und der westlichen Provinzen.” In W. Trillmich and P. Zanker, eds. Stadtbild und Ideologie. Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 59–116. Pinali, G. and F. Ronzani. 1979. La iconografia di Verona antica. Verona: Centro per la Formazione Grafica. Potter, T. W. 1987. Roman Italy. Berkeley: University of California Press. Raventos, X. D. and J. M. M. Sole. 1993. La ‘Antiga Audiència. un acceso al foro provincial de Tarraco (Excavaciones Arqueologicas en España). Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura. Richmond, I. A. 1967. “Adamklissi.” PBSR 35: 29–39. Rivet, A. L. F. 1988. Gallia Narbonensis. London: Batsford. Roberti, M. M., ed. 1995. Forum et Basilica in Aquileia e nella Cisalpina Romana. Udine: Arti Grafiche Friulane. Roth-Congès, A. and P. Gros. 1985. “Le sanctuaire des eaux à Nîmes.” In A. Pelletier, ed. Le Médicine en Gaule. Paris: Picard, 167–194. Russell, J. 1968. “The Origins and Development of Republican Forums.” The Phoenix. 22: 304–336. Salway, P. 1993. The Oxford Illustrated History of Roman Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sanmarti, E. and J. M. Nolla. 1997. Empúries (Guides Museu d’Arqueologia de Catalunya). Barcelona: Electa. Sanmarti. E. 1990. “Emporion: un ejemplo de monumentalización en la Hispania républicana.” In Trillmich, W. and P. Zanker, eds. Stadtbild und Ideologie: Die Monumentalisierung hispanischer Städte zwischen Republik und Kaiserzeit. (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 103). Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 117–143. Sanmarti, E. and R. Marcet. 1989. Empúries. Barcelona: Diputació de Barcelona. Scullard, H. H. 1979. Roman Britain: Outpost of the Empire, London: Thames and Hudson. Spina, L. 1997. L’Anfiteatro Campana di Capua. Naples: Electa.

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Stretching nearly 4,000 kilometers across the southern coast of the Mediterranean from Alexandria to Tangiers, a land shelf 40–400 kilometers deep between the sea and the inhospitable, semiarid ridge on the east and the Atlas Mountain range or sand of the desert on the west, North Africa should have had little interest for the Romans. No such excuse is needed, however, for Rome’s presence in Egypt leading to the annexation of the country in 27 bce. It was made inevitable because of the role inadvertently played by the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt in Roman politics in the last few decades of the Republic, especially the episodes involving the dallying of Julius Caesar, and later Mark Anthony, with Cleopatra, the last Ptolemaic queen. Rome’s involvement with the central and western portions of North Africa (covering the coastal regions of the modern states of Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco), by contrast, is inextricably tied with its famous wars with Carthage during the third and second centuries bce. This involvement culminated, in a sense, with its final victory over its resourceful foe in 146 bce and the creation of the province of Africa Proconsularis. Carthage, strategically located on the Gulf of Tunis, was the leading Phoenician-Punic colony founded on the African coast probably as early as the eighth century bce. Others included Utica, Lepcis Magna, and Sabratha – all major trading posts, on the lucrative maritime network that connected eastern Mediterranean and Egypt with Spain. The wealthy Punic colony might not have attracted the conflict with Rome if it had not developed as a rival Mediterranean power and started to dominate southern Spain and Sicily. Still, even after Carthage and the Punic interests in North African trade were utterly

vanquished, and the Third Augustan Legion comfortably settled first in Carthage, then in Thelepte and Lambaesis, the new province of Africa was too remote and insignificant to inspire a coherent and forceful policy of emigration and Romanization. As true for Rome’s many other provincial holdings outside Italy (especially in Spain and Gaul), such a policy which matured during the waning years of the Republic and early Empire effectively established Rome’s permanent foothold in Africa.

EGYPT AND ALEXANDRIA Quite apart from its historic and mythic stature, Egypt’s importance as an agricultural giant, a prodigious supplier of wheat for the army and for the city of Rome was established early on. By the end of the Republic the potential of the rest of Africa was also recognized, – what appeared to be dry, poor but vast masses of land, especially the coastal plains, hills, and valleys of Numidia and Mauretania. The economic potential of this unlikely land was so brilliantly realized that even before the Julio-Claudian dynasty was out of office the larger province of Africa was providing two-thirds of Rome’s grain supply while Egypt’s contribution remained one-third. Rome’s presence in all of Africa could be boiled down to its economic interests, but the physical and social dimensions of this presence – the processes and the results of settlement and urbanization – followed a drastically different route between the eastern and western portions of the land, two unequal halves geographically divided by the great Gulf of Syrtis (Gulf of Cirta, or Libya). The eastern portion, composed of Egypt and 487

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity immediately west of it, the region known as Cyrenaiaca, a large and hilly landmass that projects into the Mediterranean (and brings Africa close to Crete and Greece), spoke Greek and retained its Greek/ Hellenistic/Ptolemaic cultural heritage. The western portion, Tripolitania, Numidia, and Mauretania (the modern stretch from Libya to the Straits of Gibraltar), spoke mainly Punic and many other native languages, but with the establishment of the Roman presence the population also increasingly spoke Latin. It had only limited experience of Greek architecture and urban institutions and turned to (or imposed upon) Italy and the West for inspiration and example. As we believe that Rome’s cultural presence in eastern North Africa remained superficial and its architecture somewhat derivative of local, Hellenistic models, we will keep our discussion of Egypt and Cyrenaiaca brief. It is a commonplace but true observation that Egypt with its millennial pharaonic history, was a land of tradition. Religious architecture, not surprisingly, was particularly resistant to change. Even the classically conceived temples retained typical Egyptian forms and orders – pylons, tapering doorways, palm and lotus columns and cavetto cornices – well into the Imperial

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period. It is unfortunate that almost nothing survives of ancient Alexandria, the only urban center of significance that might have nurtured creative interpretations of Hellenistic and Ptolemaic architecture. Still, the great metropolis offers a few buildings that point to significant future developments in Roman architecture. One of these is the Sebasteion or the Kaisereion established in 48 bce as a cult center for Julius Caesar, the earliest example of this kind of institution honoring a Roman leader or emperor. Apparently initiated by Cleopatra to honor Mark Antony, and reorganized under Augustus, the building is known largely through a description in 40 ce by Philo of Alexandria: “It is a very large enclosure adorned by porticos, libraries, club rooms, gardens, gates, and courtyards open to the sky” (de Legatione ad Gaium XXII, 150). A roughly contemporary Kaisareion with similar architectural layout is found at Cyrene, the second largest and the most important Greek city in Egypt. The building in Cyrene is well preserved and identified by an inscription as the “Caesareum.” Following the Alexandrian model, it displays a quadriporticus arrangement of slender Doric columns on four sides with a small cult temple in the middle (Figures 8.1 and 8.2).

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figure 8.1 Aerial view of central Cyrene; Map data: Google, 2017 DigitalGlobe.

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The northwest wing of the enclosure was rebuilt under Hadrian as a long, three-aisled basilica with an apse making the structure looking much like a forum of the western, provincial type. Although there are clear Hellenistic precedents – such as gymnasiums and

palaestras – for this type of “colonnaded enclosure building” (as well as similar schemes on Italian soil such as the Temenos of Apollo in Pompeii, though itself not entirely free of Greek influence) the particular models developed in Alexandria and Cyrene might have been 489

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figure 8.3 East façade of the main chamber of the Mustafa Pasha Tomb, Alexandria; rendered by Rui Xiong (after Adriani 1966).

among the sources of influence for a number of JulioClaudian and Flavian buildings in Rome, like the Forum of Caesar, Saepta Julia, Porticus Divorum, and even the Forum Pacis (with its libraries and formal planting) (see earlier). The proposed connection can be further explained by certain historical links like Caesar’s long stay in Alexandria and his familiarity with its architecture. It is also interesting that the type and its welldocumented association with Hellenistic Ruler Cults and Roman Imperial Cults were given a new life with a related architectural form in the sumptuously decorated “Imperial hall” (Kaisersaal) of the second-century bath-gymnasium complexes in Roman Asia Minor (see later). Better preserved than the city itself, a number of monumental tombs of the third and second centuries bce located in a large necropolis complex outside the southwest quarter of Alexandria evoke our interest. Designed to imitate partially underground architectural complexes or houses – with multiple chambers, ante rooms, galleries, and porticos opening into sunken courtyards – the façades of these tombs were articulated by full and half-columns, pilasters, heart-shaped corner columns, entablatures; there are also in stucco or in paint doors, windows, half-open shutters, niches, 490

even small, pedimented aediculae. In better examples, such as the Shatby Hypogeum A, or the elaborate catacombs known as the Mustafa Pasha Complex, the creation of illusion is admirable (Figure 8.3). Considering the early dates of these schemes, the important position of Alexandria in the creation of the familiar, painted, illusionistic architecture of Italy, the second Pompeian style, cannot be overemphasized. Yet, there is nothing in the architecture of these tombs that had not been already tried and achieved in the painted or real architecture of Hellenistic Greece or Asia Minor. Even the best displays of illusionism of the Mustafa Pasha tombs are elegant but fairly tame exercises in classical façade-making; their possible connection to the full-blown, dynamic aedicular façades of the high Imperial period is legitimate, but the argument for a direct and formative influence, we believe, requires special pleading.

CYRENE AND THE PENTAPOLIS Founded in 631 bce by colonists from the island of Thera, Cyrene was the leading Greek city of Cyrenaica, the hilly promontory that constitutes the east flank of

Architecture and Planning in North Africa the Gulf of Cyrtis; it is a land mass roughly 80 kilometers from Alexandria to the east and over 1000 kilometers from Lepcis Magna to the west but removed from both by an inhospitable coastal desert stretch. The city’s defensible position some 10 kilometers inland on the crest of a limestone plateau must have played a part in its success as a regional center with several satellite colonies, including its port Apollonia, as well as Ptolemais, Arsinoe, and Berenice (Benghazi), a group that became known as the “five cities,” or Pentapolis. After the death of Alexander, Cyrene came under Ptolemaic rulers who gave the city and the rest of Cyrenenaica peacefully to the Romans in 96 bce. Its grid plan, following a northwest/southeast orientation with two major decumani and an irregular circuit of walls, is Hellenistic. So are most of its original public buildings, such as the Caesareum (a former gymnasium, already discussed, see Figures 8.1 and 8.2), the agora, several theaters, Sanctuary and Temple of Apollo, and the Temple of Zeus, although all were rebuilt or renovated under the Romans. The city suffered a setback during the disastrous Jewish Revolt of 115 ce, but recovered later, mainly under Hadrian when a new batch of immigrants from Italy was settled. The population, including rural dependencies, might have reached thirty thousand and the urban area covered about 1.0–1.2 square kilometers (c. 300 acres). This is not big for a regional center, but it still represents an urban area five times larger than, say Timgad, a veteran’s colony in Numidia (Algeria; see later). Much like Alexandria, the city must have had a mixed, cosmopolitan population, mainly Greek with a minority of Roman and western settlers, native Libyans, and a heterogeneous handful of transient shippers, sailors, and traders from across the Mediterranean. Some Roman buildings and institutions took root and were enjoyed by all, such as the rather elaborately built Trajanic/Hadrianic Baths, which crowded the Sanctuary of Apollo, or the city’s great, traditional Greek theater that was conveniently converted into an amphitheater by obliterating its stage! Changing tastes with changing times. On the whole, the nature of Roman building in Cyrene and the cities of the Pentapolis is unremarkable. The town displayed a preference for traditional architecture in fine ashlar (and imported Greek marble) and a slim, late Hellenistic variety of the Doric, although it had no inhibitions for mixing orders. The Hellenistic agora was divided into north and south zones by the southern decumanus; the north plaza was defined on the east, west and north sides by three two-aisled stoas, any of which could have functioned during the Roman era as a basilica. Other Greek civic institutions, such as the prytaneion (committee

building for the Senate) and a small bouleterion, were all represented and retained through the Roman period. A small Capitoline temple was added south of the decumanus. But the most remarkable make-over was the conversion of the Greek fountain house into an Augusteum (a temple to Augustus) with an unorthodox arrangement of five slender Doric columns in front and side columns connected by a half-height wall projecting from a solid back (Figure 8.4). In keeping with the spirit of its forerunner, the shrine appears to have been an airy, semiopen pavilion, a glorified shed for the display of cult images. Still, Roman architectural interests in Cyreneiaca were more for renovation than innovation. As humorously observed by a colleague, this process of “make do and mend” is colorfully illustrated by converting “the statue of a female whose breast were clumsily removed to turn it into a male body so that the head of an emperor could be substituted” (Sear 1983, 191). P A LA Z Z O D E L L E C O L O N N E , P T O L E M A I S

It is not surprising that one of the finest residences from the Mediterranean world, the so-called Palazzo delle Colonne in the coastal city of Ptolemais is remarkable for the wealth and refinement of its architectural ornament rather than any particular novelty of its design. The large building, a typical peristyle villa, occupies almost an entire regular city block (98  37 m, or c. 3,600 sq m floor space) on land sloping down toward the north (Figure 8.5). Roughly the northern one-third is occupied by a row of shops opening to the street, a small peristyle court surrounded by a private suite of rooms, and a sumptuous bath in the best Roman tradition. The southern two-thirds of the villa displays a more formal, axial manner: a very large twostory peristyle court opens on the south and north to two large rectangular halls of public nature. The larger, northern one, an oecus with internal Corinthian columns might have been a reception or banqueting room. All this is competent, traditional design and a fine display of wealth, marbles, mosaics, lavish ornament and a healthy disregard of mixing the orders – similar to some of the late Republican villas in Campania – but nothing to write home about. It is the second-story arrangement of the north side of the peristyle court that assures the Palazzo delle Colonne a special place in the history of ancient architecture as a rare example of the transition of architectural forms and taste from Hellenistic to Roman (Figure 8.6). Here we have a rich display of delicate columnar groups, projecting and receding, carrying broken pediments, quarter-pediments, even a central pediment inscribing an arch – creative and 491

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figure 8.4 Reconstruction perspective of the Temple of Augustus at the agora of Cyrene; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Stucchi).

unorthodox elements probably derived from Ptolemaic Alexandria, familiar in the illusionist second style Pompeian paintings, and exciting forerunners of the future aedicular façades of Asia Minor. There is no hard archaeological evidence to date this building. Judged by overall planning and ornamental style a late Hellenistic/early Augustan date – hence our description as “transitional” – appears justifiable. WESTERN NORTH AFRICA – AFRICA PROCONSULARIS If the Romans inherited a well-established, tame, and increasingly stale version of Greek urbanism in eastern North Africa, the situation in the lands west of Cyreneiaca, with only limited town experience, was definitely “frontier-like.” Punic Carthage must have been a major port city, but we have no idea what it looked like because it was annihilated, “ploughed and salted” by the vengeful and victorious Romans in 146 bce. Other Phoenician towns, almost all along the coast, were mainly maritime trading posts, not sophisticated urban centers to serve as models for the conquerors in the 492

manner that Greek cities of eastern Mediterranean could and did. To be sure, there were important inland tribal centers and capitals (Volubilis, Iol, Dougga, Cirta, Zama, et al.) and many other smaller market towns at road crossings, desert outposts and oases which served, if not as ultimate civic examples, certainly as important kernels around which the future location of Roman cities were formed. With the coming of a more peaceful period under the JulioClaudians, many veteran colonies, such as Djemila (Cuicul), were added to this mix. The administrative and religious structure of these “cities,” the colonia and municipia, with their familiar senates, councils, elected representatives, duumvirs, priestly associations, trade unions, and so on were directly modeled after Rome and the cities of the western provinces. Significantly, the official language was Latin, although on the street one probably heard more Berber and Punic spoken. Scholars who wish to underline the runaway success of Romanization in western North Africa, would like to cite the alleged five to six hundred flourishing cities with average populations of fifteen to twenty thousand. Because the entire population of North Africa during the high Imperial period is estimated at 5–6 million,

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figure 8.5 Reconstruction perspective of the “Palazzo delle Colonne” at Ptolemais, view from Northeast; rendered by Alex Maymind (after Ward-Perkins Pesce).

this concept of the city requires clarification. Real cities, as Romans understood with fine buildings and institutions – fora, paved streets and plazas, temples, basilicas, theaters, libraries, temples and baths – probably numbered no more than fifty to sixty. These, even only a handful of them, are the ones that left a clear archaeological record; they are the cities we know and love – and are prejudiced by. However, administratively dependent on these real centers were probably large numbers of agrarian hubs, townships, and villages where most of the indigenous population lived. The North African city – as we admire in Lepcis Magna, Bulla Regia, Dougga and Djemila – represented an urban culture and luxurious life style only those who were relatively wealthy (who owned enough land to have bailiffs to manage it for them) could enjoy, or the relatively urban poor serving the wealthy. Cities were the homes of foreign businessmen and merchants (mainly Italians, negotiatores Italici), civic and legal

administrators, professionals, craftsmen, and veterans. But the definition can be broadened. Inland at the edge of the desert, at oases sites in the desert, and along caravan routes were strings of settlements of indigenous tribal populations with brisk lifestyles, capable manners, and considerable economic muscle. Some of these settlements, such as the Garamantian cities of southwest Libya dating as early as the seventh and sixth centuries bce, had elaborate stone architecture, carefully constructed urban defenses, effective transportation systems on desert roads, sophisticated agriculture based on masterful control of underground water sources (the foggara), and considerable expertise in mining, minor industries, handcrafts, and trade. Many such production centers were connected to artificial port establishments, increasing the “connectivity” between cities and regions and “enhanc(ing) the picture of North African economy both before and during the Roman empire” (Stone 2014, 565). 493

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figure 8.6 Reconstruction of the façade of the peristyle court, detail, “Palazzo delle Colonne,” at Ptolemais; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after De Laine in Sear and Lyttleton).

Urbanization in North Africa was not a solely Roman affair. The latecomers, Greek or Roman, learned much from these older cultures, although sadly they remained as “promiscuous barbarians” or savages in the eyes of educated Romans like Pliny (Mattingly 1994, 33–37).

THE QUESTION OF ROMANIZATION An important issue related to the intersection of these old and new cultures concerns the controversial nature of Romanization in North Africa. Some scholars observe the economic boom created by the production of grains and olive oil, the 16,000 kilometers of roads laid, miles of spectacular aqueducts crossing hills and plains to bring fresh, healthy water to cities, and conclude that Romanization – seen as the creation of a typical Roman way of life and culture – was a great success. Others focus on the negative aspects of such allegedly dubious achievements, imposing a colonial regime on local populations, ignoring and obliterating native cultures, and in the end exploiting resources and damaging the environment for the sake of maximum gain. This view attributes the quantifiable, physical results of production and advancement more to the native genius and traditional methods – such as the successful irrigation methods and dry farming – than anything to do with Roman presence. The truth, such 494

as it is, may be somewhere between the gushing or damning extremes (on the general question of “Romanization,” see the Introduction to this book). With half-a-million tons of grain taken to Rome each year as tax to feed the capital (annona), there is no question that agricultural production (and exploitation) under the Roman system increased ten- to twelvefold. So did the population. Agriculture was regulated through law and custom; land was made accessible, measurable, and manageable. Above all, cultivation was expanded by reclaiming new land that had previously been barren. For good or ill Rome’s regulatory hand was everywhere. Farming and the types of production were subject to permission and largely depended upon Rome’s agricultural policy and needs (not too different from the regulatory measures imposed by the European Union today). For instance, during the early Empire cultivation of olives and fruits was discouraged lest these would distract from the grain production the capital depended upon. But by Trajan’s time this policy was reversed and Africa became an exceptionally successful producer of olives, olive oil and vines as evident from the acres of mosaics that show the harvesting and tending of a variety of agricultural products. All this required the effective use of natural resources in a land where rainfall is low and unpredictable. There is no question that indigenous experience in water control by capturing runoffs from hills, developing qanats and foggara to tap into

Architecture and Planning in North Africa

figure 8.7 View of valleys, ditches, and terraces to catch water near Douiret, Tunisia; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

underground sources, creating terraces and ditches to retain ground moisture and reduce erosion, predated the Roman presence in Africa. This knowledge, and its transmittance, was invaluable for the new masters. Romans certainly, and hopefully gratefully, utilized and expanded this knowledge (much of it still used by today’s farmers), as well as the native talent behind it (Figure 8.7). It was not all the army’s doing, but the army’s well-established logistical capabilities and

technical expertise (and sheer man-power) in building roads, bridges, aqueducts, canals, irrigation systems, and harbors in North Africa enhanced local traditions; that, we believe, is a fact that requires no apology. A significant part of Romanization in North Africa should be perceived as “urbanization” in a special sense – something that is particularly meaningful for the cities and city dwellers, Roman or native – who could afford to enjoy the comforts and amenities 495

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity offered by an urban center even though the process no doubt bred its “discontents.” For the great majority of the agrarian population who lived on land in farms and villages – or the seminomadic, pastoral and tribal populations who lived in settled and semisettled ways on the fringes of the desert – Romanization was not a pressing issue, nor were they pressed to it. Under Roman rule (and probably well before that) wealth appears to have been concentrated in the hands of a small segment of large landowners (or, the hand-picked few managing the great Imperial estates) and the leading merchants and shippers. This privileged minority was undoubtedly mainly Italian immigrants, military veterans, and their descendants but also included a fair number of local and tribal leaders, many of whom had even received Roman citizenship as political gifts or through intermarriage. And, there were other ordinary natives who had done well by hard work or sheer luck. The opportunities possible through work are illustrated by this frequently quoted and charming tomb inscription that summarizes the life of a humble harvester from Mactar in Tunisia: I was born of poor parents. My father had neither money nor his own house. From the day I was born I lived cultivating my land; neither I nor my plot of land had any rest. When harvest time came, I was always the first to lead the gangs of harvesters who came to hire themselves out as far as Cirta, the capital of Numidia. Leaving my home, for twelve years, I toiled in fields under a fiery sun; for eleven years I was the chief harvester of my gang all over the Numidian plains. Thanks to my hard labor, and my thrift, I finally became the master of a house and a well-equipped farm. Today I live comfortably. I have even achieved honors: I was called to sit in the Senate of my city, and even though I was once a modest peasant, I became a municipal censor. I have watched my children and grandchildren grow up around me; my life has been well spent, peaceful, and honored by all. (ILS, no.7457)

It is true that this single rags-to-riches story, however charming, does nothing to illustrate the poverty of the great majority of the people enduring under heavy taxation, and often despotic rule. And it has been pointed out somewhat cynically that the story of the “Mactar Harvester” has very little to do with Romanization – it would be unreasonable to presume that hard work of anyone should go unrewarded! Yet, this kind of social mobility and economic reward was unthinkable for most of the people of the ancient world for any amount of hard work, nor is it possible, unfortunately, for a great many who live on the same lands now. 496

CITIES OF THE REALM Timgad (Thamugadi) and Djemila (Cuicul), both military colonies of near contemporary date located in Algeria, represent significantly different but wellarticulated approaches to city planning. As a result, they are choice examples for almost any entry level discussion on North African urbanism. We will follow the academic tradition and start with them. T I M GA D A N D L A MB A E S I S

Timgad was created for the veterans of the Third Augustan Legion (Rome’s main military force in North Africa) in 100 ce by an order of Trajan. Its planning and history can best be understood in the context of the actual military headquarters of the legion itself, located in Lambaesis some 20–22 kilometers west of the city. Several military camps (castra) existed in Lambaesis, some going back to the time of Vespasian, but the largest and permanent one was Hadrianic. One could imagine both the castrum and the city feverishly under construction with an aim to present their best appearance to Hadrian who visited these sites in 128 ce. The layout of the camp at Lambaesis strictly follows army regulations for castra and it was essentially the same as many others built along the Rhine in Germany, some 1,600 kilometers away (Figure 8.8). A rectangle measuring 550  450 m (24 hectares or c. 60 acres), it was divided into four quadrants by the east-west Via Principalis and the north-south Via Praetoria, both wide, colonnaded avenues. The headquarters building or praetorium occupied the middle of the camp (Figure 8.9). This was typically a large, paved square surrounded on three sides by colonnades, the fourth side facing the entrance fully taken up by a basilica. The long, backside of the basilica had a row of chambers for official and ceremonial functions, the central one being a military shrine. The entrance to the praetorium at the crossing of the main avenues was marked by a massive four-way gatehouse (c. 28  20 m; 15 m high), each side articulated by colonnaded aediculae and three arches, a large central arch for vehicles flanked by a pair of smaller arches for pedestrian traffic (much like a triumphal arch) (Figure 8.10, Plate 23A). Arch keystones were proudly decorated with standards of the Third Augustan Legion (Figure 8.11). Windows on the upper story of the boxy structure indicate that this gigantic structure was as much a functional “guard-house” as it was a symbolic, triumphal, entrance element. The castrum at Lambaesis follows the standard plan with peristyle-court type houses for the commander and officers; tightly set, repetitive barracks for soldiers;

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figure 8.8 Plan of the Castrum, Lambaesis, Algeria; rendered by Diane Favro.

stables; a military hospital (valetudinarium); and a rather elaborate bath-house for the enjoyment of all. It is estimated that the Lambaesis camp could house some six thousand soldiers (circa one hundred soldiers per acre of space inside). Timgad, strategically located on mountain passes separating the coastal plains from the wild country to the south, is a near-perfect example of a Roman city realized along the lines of regularized, orthogonal layout (Figure 8.12). It is in a sense a reflection of its putative military prototype in Lambaesis. The city plan is a perfect square, 1,200 RF to a side, some 30–31 acres in area, thus only one-half the size of the castrum and even smaller than some of the Imperial thermae of Rome. Although its stiff geometry has been described as “a town without soul” (Finley 1977, 73), as many a Greek city with strict orthogonal plan has so been described, the truth about the planning of Timgad is more variegated and the experience of the city more nuanced. Furthermore, it is a textbook example less for its blueprint model appearance, but more for showing how such an ideal, regulation model could change in real life over

time. The city is divided, in military fashion (and like the nearby castrum at Lambaesis), into four quadrants by a pair of colonnades, crossing major streets, the decumanus maximus and the cardo maximus. At their junction is the rectangular forum. The north-south street, the cardo, terminates against the forum main gate and does not continue southwards because the medium-sized, Roman-type theater, taking advantage of the hilly terrain of the south quarter, blocks the way (Figure 8.13). The southern extension of the cardo jogs westward and connects with the south gate. The ideal plan of the fourquadrant scheme accommodates 36 square blocks (insulae) to each quadrant (6  6, but actually western quadrants are 6  5), hence 144 blocks total, each circa 21  21 meters (c. 440 sq m). Each block contains one fairly spacious peristyle courtyard house, though some have two; those; those with frontages on the main streets also have shops. This mechanical order is broken on the ground by the intentional inclusion inside the city of a hill that mainly supports the theater, a functional arrangement that also creates interesting vistas. Also on the ground, this ideal number and order of the insulae 497

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figure 8.9 Plan of the Praetorium of the castrum at Lambaesis; rendered by Güzden Varinlioglu and Diane Favro (after Canat).

changed because many city blocks were taken up by public buildings; a total of only circa 115–120 available house lots remained. The blueprint order was further compromised because some of the public buildings – baths, markets, and the theater – in order to maximize their footprint, projected out into the street, or even took up the street itself entirely, thus obliterating straight-shot vistas and continuity of the streets. But the most striking irregularity that marred Timgad’s four-square perfection was the spontaneous urban growth that developed through the second to the fourth centuries just outside the city’s long abolished walls, especially next to the main gates. This was an urban sprawl of no apparent order at all, its winding streets and haphazard neighborhoods a planner’s nightmare, an artist’s dream, but definitely an economist’s confirmation that things were going well for Timgad. 498

Socially and culturally Timgad provides a clue to the nature and degree of Romanization achieved by this military colony perched on the fringe of urban civilization. Although some of the buildings outside the colony were major public structures – the monumental Capitolium, the Markets of Sertius, several temples and several baths – that could not be fitted inside the grid, most extramural development was more modest in scale; they were dwellings, shops and industrial neighborhoods almost exclusively occupied by local Africans drawn there for commercial reasons. Around the periphery of the southwest quadrant there were also some large houses or villas. The city must have attracted even a larger circle of settlements outside the first one built out of humble, perishable materials, even seasonal semi-nomadic tent cities and open markets. Timgad’s population is given as twelve to

Architecture and Planning in North Africa

figure 8.10 plate 23a View of the gatehouse of the Praetorium at Lambaesis, looking southwest; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

fifteen thousand; this is a likely figure if the entire extramural zone, suburban territories and villages are included. The city proper itself could not have housed more than about a thousand or so, about one quarter the capacity that the theater could seat. This may be an indication that the theater, as well as other fine public amenities of Timgad – its paved and colonnaded forum, its orderly markets, its thirteen baths and thermae – were intended to be used by the larger country population, especially on certain days and occasions. It is hard to gauge, however, the impact these GrecoRoman civic institutions had on the locals who probably represented a wide and mobile spectrum from the semi-nomadic Berbers to quasi-Latin speaking local landowners and aristocrats. One could imagine a full house of mixed audiences during a pantomime performance at the theater, but only a select group of Italian-born retired officers at the library. The Romanization represented by Timgad, and other Roman cities like it, appears to have been a fairly selective and easygoing, and above all reciprocating affair. But, even reading the plan of the sprawling city, or studying the inscriptions that reveal the preponderance of local

names, suggests that by the third and fourth centuries the social and cultural vitality of Timgad had passed from the four-square city to the larger suburbs and the country – while the extramural neighborhoods were jostling for space, there were still unbuilt, unoccupied lots inside. What were the main architectural monuments like? At the end of the north-south axis of the cardo, the forum of Timgad could have been almost in any provincial Italian city (like Velleia), or in Gaul (like Glanum). Its paved, open space (50  43 m) was surrounded on all sides by Corinthian colonnades except for the high rostrum of the small, podium temple projecting out on the west side (Figure 8.14; see Figure 8.12). Next to this temple is the rectangular curia, or the council house; this richly decorated, marble chamber was entered by mounting a few steps between a pair of elegant columns. The east side was largely taken by the basilica, its long side facing the forum with a raised tribunal on one end, balanced by an apse on the other. The interior is spacious, without columns, but with wall pilasters, and five chambers opening into it. Shops and offices occupy the north 499

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figure 8.11 Detail of keystone with standard of the Third Augustan Legion at the Praetorium Gatehouse, Lambaesis; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

and south sides of the forum; there is a continually flushing public latrine on the northwest corner, entered from the street. The central space, the plaza, was littered, as in any Roman forum (or Greek agora) with 500

inscriptions, dedications and statues honoring civic leaders. The forum of Timgad demonstrates well the tangible agents of urban civilization (or Romanization) available to all, a breadth of amenities and experiences

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ranging from a speaker’s platform to a hygienic toilet, however deep-reaching or superficial these symbols might be. On the east side of the cardo one of the standard square blocks was rebuilt sometime in the second century as a library (Figure 8.15). According to the inscription it was a gift by a wealthy citizen. Climbing the few steps fading against the rising slope of the street the building opened to the public space by a U-shaped forecourt with twelve snowy-white limestone columns carrying Corinthian capitals. The library proper is semicircular; its curving walls are carved by niches for books and screened by a freestanding, decorative colonnade carrying an undulating entablature. A large central niche flanked by a pair of spirally-fluted giallo antico columns on raised pedestals was probably the place for a statue of Minerva

(the Roman Athena), the patron goddess of knowledge and wisdom, hence libraries. Judged by the relative thickness of the walls, the chamber could have been roofed by a lofty vault, or semidome, receiving light by a large thermal window over the main door. Another later addition to the town’s architecture is the East Market, occupying just one block (and the additional width of a side street) on the south side of the decumanus. Like the library, it is characterized by a playful use of curves (Figures 8.16 and 8.17). The entrance from the street portico is by a few steps up into a small, semicircular vestibule flanked by exterior shops. Inside, Tuscan columns carrying straight entablatures define two tiny, overlapping semicircular courts. The back wall follows the double curvature of the semicircles, each housing five shops with marble 501

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figure 8.13 View looking east toward the theater at Timgad; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 8.14 General view of the forum, looking west, Timgad; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 8.15 Library at Timgad plan (top) and façade reconstruction (bottom); H. F. Pfeiffer (ca.1928), Yegül Collection.

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figure 8.17 Interior view of East Markets, Timgad, looking west; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Architecture and Planning in North Africa counters; there is a fountain inside the triangular niche created by the crossing of their arcs. Within the restricting box measuring a mere 638 sq m (29  22 m), it is hard to imagine a space more inviting, playful and intimate. Most of Timgad’s a dozen or more baths are small, neighborhood establishments occupying a standard city block, of the traditional “Pompeian” type. Or, they display slightly more elaborate plans (such as the Small Central Baths) where a partially colonnaded or arcaded courtyard serves the multiple functions of palaestra, apodyterium and frigidarium. Large, open-

air palaestras are rare among North African baths. The Large North Baths (c. late second century ce), located just outside the North Gate, is an Imperial type bath whose grand spaces are arranged around a powerful axis with strict symmetry (see Figure 8.12). Probably a direct commission from Rome, it is the only structure in the city that is entirely faced in brick as opposed to the customary small-stone opus Africanum. For a less academic exercise in bath design, we should turn to the Large South Baths, situated just outside the South Gate, behind a fountain marking the forking of the south end of the cardo (Figure 8.18). The architect was

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figure 8.18 Plan and section of Large South Baths, Timgad (Krencker)

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity able to transform the restrictions of the irregular site into a positive design force by placing the building diagonally to the city grid and contrasting the rectilinear format of the building to three sweeping, curvilinear elements, a large colonnaded court, a roofed apsidal exedra, and a half-round latrine with twenty-eight seats. The most remarkable quality of the Large South Baths is the reciprocating relationship between the building and the street – the subtle gradation and change between public and private space. The galleries or corridors that separate the broad curvilinear exedras from the more traditional bathing halls connect to the street; in fact, they are part of the street, providing many ports of entrance into the compound (in this case three). In Roman cities gates attract baths like magnets. In Timgad, too, the weary traveler entering from the north or south had an opportunity to enjoy the usual comfortable bathing facilities at his/her disposal. These experiences were different though; in one a formally conceived Imperial bath was placed at the edge of the city, but independent of it; in the other, a complex and irregularly-shaped building was inspired by its unique site, and engaged in a dynamic visual dialogue with it. The most impressive route one could take through Timgad was the passage along the whole length of the decumanus, from gate to gate and beyond, along its westward extramural extension toward Lambaesis. Immediately inside the East Gate was the Large East Baths, the third largest bath in Timgad. The 350-meterlong straight vista of the main street, framed by shady, colonnaded porticos, and textured by diagonally-laid paving slabs, culminates in the massive and handsome (so-called) Arch of Trajan (Figure 8.19; see Figure 8.12). First, on the left, the raised portico and half-round vestibule of the East Markets beckoned; a few blocks further on came the more formal entrance of the forum, a gate with stairs between columns. This is where the cardo met the decumanus; looking right (north) midway down the thoroughfare one could see the elegant forecourt of the library, and further down, the North Gate – in fact, it was at this point all three gates, the official boundaries of the colony, were visible at once, and visually joined to the forum. Moving past the forum gate, the visitor now approached the imposing “Arch of Trajan” (the West Gate proper), a triple arch with the usual large middle opening flanked by smaller arches, corresponding to the main roadway and pedestrian porticos (Figure 8.19A). Pairs of freestanding Corinthian columns are raised on tall pedestals and carry curving, segmental pediments with open bottom chords (Figure 8.19B). Filling the space above the side arches are smaller aediculae with rectangular niches framed by the giant order (Figure 8.19C). Although this arch has been suggested as dating to the late second century ce (or even early third), we 506

figure 8.19 Sequence of images moving west along the decumanus from the city center toward and through the so-called Arch of Trajan at Timgad; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

believe, because of its classical proportions, dynamic but restraint design, and fine details, it is no later than mid-second century, possibly even earlier – it could have been an urban showcase created for Hadrian’s

Architecture and Planning in North Africa

figure 8.20 General view of Djemila (Cuicul), looking north; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

visit in 128 ce. Whatever its date, the arch is the most emphatic landmark of the city, an eloquent element of connection and passage where the orderly decumanus leaves the four-square layout, bends sharply north, dips down and follows a slightly curving course between stately colonnades for a couple of hundred meters toward another freestanding archway on the road at the Lambaesis Gate. The widening view as one passes through the Arch of Trajan subsumes on the north side the precinct for the Temple of the City Cult, on the other, a small plaza in front of the Markets of Sertius. Glancing south sideways one could see the tall, imposing outline of the Capitolium, a Severan addition. What catches the eye, however, is the way the frontal steps of this small, side plaza fade diagonally like a knife-edge against the sloping paving of the street, an urban detail of impressive visual precision (Figure 8.19D). Continuing along the decumanus extension there are fountains, shops, hostels, other baths and connections to small, irregular streets – the dynamic, messy edges of a sprawling, living city – until one gains the high road to Lambaesis. D J E M I L A ( C U I CU L )

Djemila (Cuicul), some 70 kilometers northwest on the high coastal ranges of Algeria, is stretched out on a ridge; with terraces of housing thrown like a mantle over

the slopes, its edges snuggling into deep valleys and blending into hills, it is best viewed from a distance, at sunset (Figure 8.20). Cities, like people, have their ways and times when they look their best. The layouts of these two contemporary veteran’s colonies, Timgad and Djemila, are very different and illustrate how topography and land could inspire and shape a city even though the fundamental principles of planning and the institutions through which it is realized could be similar. Djemila, a colony founded in 96/97 ce, occupies a strategic position on the main mountain road from Cirta to Setif, linking the fertile coastlands to the interior. The original settlement covers a roughly triangular piece of rolling land on both sides of the north-south cardo that stretches some 380 meters along the high ridge between the north and south gates (Figure 8.21). Although the city blocks and the secondary streets that connect them deviate from a regularized, grid plan, there is a rudimentary sense of order. The cardo, colonnaded along its entire length, is bent circa 10 degrees near its middle, the change in direction marked by the handsome Middle Arch. The forum, located on the east side, immediately north of the arch, is a rectangular enclosure surrounded by ample porticos housing the usual civic and religious buildings (Figure 8.22): a basilica placed along the street facing an open, paved plaza crowded with honorific statues, official decrees and inscriptions, and a tall and 507

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figure 8.22 Plan of old forum, Djemila; rendered by Rui Xiong and Diane Favro (after Kleinwächter).

imposing Capitolium with the standard tripartite cella on the north and a senate house (curia) on the east. After all, cities like Djemila and Timgad were Rome’s ostentatious outposts for displaying its “civilization” in a region having little or no urban tradition, or so the Romans in Rome believed. Because the land sloped down northward, the lower end of the forum is artificially raised, creating a massive vaulted basement for the Capitolium. Adjoining the forum on the north and opening generously into the cardo by an elevated porch and flights of stairs are the Markets of Cossinus. The design, with a central, hexagonal pavilion surrounded by a portico of shops, follows the classic early Imperial macellum model of Italy. Cosinus, who provided the funds for this fine building, was significantly not from Djemila, but was a merchant of Carthage. Given that the modest hilltop city displays an unusual number of sumptuously decorated peristyle houses and villas, one may be justified in wondering if this colony of army veterans had become particularly attractive for out-oftown investors – or, simply, a clean-air retirement haven

for the same privileged seigneurs whose fortunes were made in the busy emporiums of the Mediterranean. The physical signs of Djemila’s success during the second and third centuries are embodied by the southern expansion of its urban area along the extension of the north-south street. During the Severan period the extramural open market immediately outside the original south gate was reorganized as a “new forum” (known as the Severan plaza) (Figure 8.23). The space was dominated on the southeast by the Severan family cult temple raised on double podiums, the steep, triangular mass of its lower-podium stairs spilling out into the plaza aloof and arrogant (Figure 8.24). From the west, the tall Caracallan arch, the terminus of the road from Setif (Sitifis), formed the official entrance (Figure 8.25). The central area, sloping down north and northeast, was paved, and defined by colonnades along the north and east joining at an acute angle. At the southeast corner next to the temple another arched gate started a street, sloping downhill, leading to the majestically placed theater (see Figures 8.21 and 8.23). 509

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figure 8.23 Severan plaza, Djemila: top looking north past the tall Caracallan arch; bottom looking northeast past the Severan temple to an arch over the street leading to the theater; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 8.24 General view of Severan Temple with frontal stairs looking southeast, Djemila; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

The new southern quarter of the city developed quite freely and irregularly, mostly as a residential neighborhood and flourished especially during the Christian era. One Imperial building, a late-second century bathing establishment, deserves special comment. The Large Baths present a firm urban façade on the west side of the main street, an inviting entrance with a partially elevated, colonnaded porch. Due to the tightness of space the plan developed vertically with major vaulted spaces stacked about a powerful axis (see Figure 8.21B). The underlying plan structure can be described as a pair of superimposed triangles. The first is defined by the square, cross-vaulted frigidarium and its apsidal lateral extensions. The second is comprised by the stepped arrangement of the heated halls. On either side of the central axis diagonally positioned doors offer a carefully controlled direct line of vision through four separate spaces converging in the caldarium. Because of the sharply sloping land the entire heated zone of the baths, as well as the narrow outdoor terrace or palaestra next to it, are raised on elaborate

vaulted substructures, which conveniently house some of the services. In developing the concept of “urban armatures” (describing the concept as “consists of main streets, squares, and essential public buildings linked together across cities and towns from gate to gate, with junctions and entranceways prominently articulated,”) W. L. MacDonald chose Djemila as his prime exemplar (MacDonald 1986, 5). There is good reason for this: with its clear skeleton of a simple, long avenue linking buildings, plazas, fountains, and streets, wellarticulated junctions; controlled, dramatic vistas enhanced by the picturesque, hilly site; few cities could rival the experiential potential of Djemila. To the visitor approaching the city from the south on the cardo the first powerful urban signal is the façade of the Larger Baths, with its inviting colonnaded porch a part of the street itself. On the left, at middle distance is a conical fountain (like a miniature copy of the Meta Sudans in Rome), its unusual shape arresting vision and announcing the near presence of the Severan plaza 511

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figure 8.25 View of the Severan plaza from the Caracallan arch, looking east, Djemila; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

whose wide, open expanse, complex sloping surface and variously patterned and textured paving are pivoted around several freestanding civic monuments and punctuated by the rising mass of the Severan cult temple: a fountain, bases for statues, and epigraphic displays (Figure 8.26; see also Figures 8.23–8.25). Next to it is the gentle curve of the arched gate starting the street leading down to the theater; approaching it one saw through the archway not the street but the distant hills. Viewed from the south end of the extended cardo, the uneven western edge of the plaza was marked by another distinctive Severan monument, the tall Caracallan arch which formed a powerful terminus for a major street entering the plaza from the west, and offered the visitor the first framed, controlled view of the all-important dynastic temple (see Figure 8.25). From the south, however, the arch was seen obliquely, its columnar façade foreshortened and enriched – it was visually connected, past the freestanding conical fountain, to the arched ‘old’ south gate of the city (see Figure 8.23). Progress across the plaza and down toward the south gate offered subtle surprises. The slope concealed from sight the “middle arch” (where the cardo bent left, westward); then like ships appearing on the horizon, first the top, then slowly the rest of the arch appeared (see Figure 8.21 U, J). The “middle arch” joined at right angle by an almost identical arch or 512

gate, the entrance to a temple precinct – an urban pair of arches that offered, in the words of MacDonald, “an equality of choice.” The vista through the “middle arch,” down the cardo, was angled, first revealing partially the blank, handsome ashlar wall of the forum; then, as the direction shifted, the main street opened to the view, a telescoping, columnar, straight stretch of nearly 300 meters, punctuated on the left and right by more gates and entrances; it focused in the distance on yet another arch, the north gate of the city, which marked the edge where town met country. The progress through Djemila, the slow, pedestrian experience of the city, was smooth but subtly controlled. Natural features of the hilly, sloping site were incorporated into the design as visual and tactile elements. Everywhere the incomparably stark presence and beauty of the surrounding land enhanced the presence and beauty of this organically conceived city – ancient Cuicul was aptly re-named by its later, Numidian denizens: Djemila, in Arabic means “the beautiful one.” D O U G GA ( T H U G G A)

Perched up on the steep slope of a hillside and commanding a rolling, rich agricultural valley, the site of Dougga (ancient Thugga) in Tunisia was probably chosen for its easily defensible position (Figure 8.27).

Architecture and Planning in North Africa

figure 8.26 Approach to the Severan plaza on the cardo looking north with the conical fountain on the left; Caracallan Arch in the distance, Djemila; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 8.27 General view of Dougga (Thugga), with the Baths of Licinius on hill top; American Academy in Rome – Fototeca Unione (Fototeca Unione 18809).

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity Once an important center of Numidian kings, the settlement goes back centuries before the Roman presence in Africa. Dougga is some 100 kilometers inland from Carthage and came under strong Punic influence through its history. Roman settlement in the native town (civitas) started early in the first-century ce, but it was not before 261 ce that it was made a colonia. Visible architectural remains at Dougga are in date and nature predominantly Roman, with the notable exception of a Libyan/Punic tower tomb south of the city, one of the finest specimens of the type. What seems to have remained unchanged is the shape of the town: the tight, organic layout of narrow, winding streets, irregular building lots, and the picturesque massing of large public buildings hugging the tiered mosaic of residential hillside. Like Djemila, Dougga occupies a rugged hillside, but as an old settlement with incremental, growth over time (rather than possessing a one-time colonial master plan), it exploits the planning potential of the unique and difficult topography more naturally. Fractured into parts and layered into terraces and levels in order to fit the steep site, the forum complex is a fine demonstration of what organic design is all about (Figures 8.28 and 8.29). The group is arranged on two main levels, an upper (east) terrace, the Windrose Plaza and a large, porticoed lower terrace, the forum proper (see Figure 8.31). The plaza is named after a large windcompass engraved on its pavement possibly used to orient the city plan to the winds as recommended by

Vitruvius (De Arch. I.6.6); excavators suggested a similar use of an enigmatic inscribed platform at Caunos in Asia Minor. The two terraces are connected by stairs and an intermediate landing at the head of which rise the great frontal steps of the tetrastyle, Corinthian Capitolium temple (Figure 8.30; see also Figure 8.29). The Windrose Plaza is defined by a curving east wall, and mirroring this wall, a sweeping, curved portico and steps; behind the north portico is a triple-cella temple honoring Mercury (deity associated with commerce and markets) (Figure 8.31). Opening to this plaza on the south side is a large, rectangular market enclosure (see Figure 8.28). The Capitolium, bearing an inscription to Marcus Aurelius and co-regent Lucius Verus, is of standard design, and of standard opus Africanus construction, but it serves as an imposing and effective focal point for the fractured composition of the forum complex. Other standard forum elements, such as a basilica and a curia, are conspicuously absent unless the large apsidal hall across from the Capitolium landing was intended for those functions. Providing passage and transition, the forum and its dependencies provide a dynamic interface between the upper and lower portions of the city and moving through this richly assembled civic group is a rewarding experience even today. In 205 ce, Dougga was promoted to the status of municipium, and around this time received two handsome arches as symbolic gates from Imperial donors,

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figure 8.29 General view of the lower forum looking northeast toward the Capitoline temple, Dougga; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

one erected under Septimius Severus, the other, on the west, under Severus Alexander. The mid-third-century ce Baths of Licinius, located in mid-city, were hemmed on all sides by already existing buildings, but developed, quite surprisingly, as a creative local version of an axial, symmetrical thermae of the Imperial type (see Figure 8.27). Dougga is also distinguished by an unusual number of equally creatively designed sanctuaries. A recurring type is the peristyle enclosure, either with shrines/temples located at the rear of an internal portico, such as the Temple of Liber Pater (or the Punic Shadrack), or the Temple of Saturn (or Ba’al) – an arrangement that was probably inspired by the Forum of Peace/Vespasian in Rome; or, as we see in the Temple of Minerva, an elevated cella and frontal steps, a type ultimately derived from common Italian models. Of particular interest is the Severan temple of Celestis (the goddess of the crescent moon, also known as the Punic god Tanit), whose half-round, half-moon colonnaded enclosure sets off in the middle of the enclosure a regular podium temple with peripheral Corinthian columns (Figure 8.32). The handsome precinct design and the bucolic extramural setting in an olive grove make this a special example of religious architecture in North Africa.

VOLUBILIS

Another important Roman city with a rich Libyan/ Punic urban background is Volubilis, in the western province of Mauretania, in Morocco. The history of Volubilis and its mixed ethnic population goes back to the third century bce, but it flourished especially in the late first century bce under the reign of local client king Juba II who received exceptional favors from Rome. The irregular layout of the old city was reoriented and extended northeast, and more or less regularized under the Antonines and Severans (Figures 8.33 and 8.34). During the Antonine period the city was enclosed within a defense circuit of walls, circa 2.4 kilometers in length with eight gates flanked by half-round towers, embracing an area of circa 40 hectares, but the population probably never exceeded ten to twelve thousand. Volubilis is distinctive for its extensive, and for the most part wealthy, residential zone, which developed about an impressively wide colonnaded avenue (decumanus) and its subsidiaries, displaying dozens of large, wellappointed houses following a basic, Greek influenced plan type. These houses are among the most elegant in North Africa: typically, an internal peristyle court or garden dominated by at least one main room, an oecus or 515

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figure 8.30 Façade of the Capitoline temple, Dougga; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Architecture and Planning in North Africa

figure 8.31 Windrose Plaza with curving steps and upper terrace temples, with Capitolium behind, looking northwest, Dougga; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

triclinium. Of these, the House of Gordian III, opening directly into the decumanus with a porticoed front, shops, an oil press, elaborate baths, and a total of seventy-four rooms arranged around double peristyles, is the most sumptuous; it might have been the residence of the local governor. Another, located in the northeast quarter, a neighborhood of some two dozen rich houses from the Antonine period onward, is the House of Venus, renowned for its superb mosaics, elegant central peristyle with a long reflecting pool, a separate private suite centered around an elegant nymphaeum and an elaborate bath with separate entrances from the house and the street (see earlier, Figure 5.28). The owner of the House of Orpheus, located in the southern quarter, entertained his baroque fancy with a more elaborate nymphaeum pool with triple oval basins behind a colonnade that opens into the peristyle courtyard of the house (Figure 8.35). It is interesting that the city, though enjoying close political contact with Italy and the western Roman world, always preferred to hold on to its distinctive Hellenistic cultural heritage in domestic architecture; the Italian atrium house is not in evidence in Volubilis. At the end of the decumanus, forming a visual terminus to the long colonnaded and arcaded avenue,

rising slightly askew in the center of an irregular plaza is a monumental arch, or gate, dedicated to Caracalla, massive in bulk, stark, even crude, in detail (see Figures 8.36, 8.37; see Figures 8.33–34). Some 100 meters south of the arch is the forum area, mostly rebuilt under the Severans; it is dominated by the triple-cella Capitolium placed inside its colonnaded precinct (Figure 8.38). A double-apsed basilica is located across from the Capitolium. Significantly, there is no theater, amphitheater or stadium in Volubilis, as if the Hellenized minority of the town had no taste for these overtly Roman forms of entertainment. The wealth produced by the fertile inland plateau surrounding the city remained exceptionally strong into late antiquity. The site continued to be occupied by Romanized Berbers well into the eighth century. LEPCIS MAGNA

Separated by some 2,000 kilometers from Volubilis, Lepcis Magna in Tripolitania affords us with one of the best examples for tracing the growth and development of a wealthy and successful city through its preRoman beginnings to its final collapse in the fifth and 517

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figure 8.32 Plan (top) and view (bottom) of the Temple and Precinct of Celestis, Dougga; plan rendered by Diane Favro, Photo by Ross Burns/Manar al-Athar

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sixth centuries. Rising between the dull and dun Saharan plateau and the azure Mediterranean, the present-day view of Lepcis Magna, with its remarkably well preserved avenues, colonnades, plazas and temples in honey-hued local limestone, or imported marbles (helped in a measure by Italian reconstruction efforts in the 1930s), is short of magical. The city owes its state of preservation mainly to the constantly shifting sands of the desert that completely buried it by the sixth century. To some, it is an African Pompeii that deserves to be known better. Tripolitania is on the western half of the great Gulf of Sidra (Syrtes), which was subsumed by the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis by the middle of the first century bce. All of its three main cities (hence the

name), Sabratha, Oea (modern Tripolis), and Lepcis, were Phoenician coastal settlements with reasonably good harbors that negotiated Mediterranean maritime trade with the Saharan caravan routes. Rainfall is scarce and uneven in Tripolitania, but the coastal zone where the high Saharan plateau meets the sea supported dry farming of grains and produced particularly good yields of olives. Probably the climatic conditions in antiquity were less severe and erosion less advanced than it is today. Local know-how in building dams and cisterns and managing water in the torrential wadis (small valleys) no doubt enhanced by Roman technology, creating a sustainable environment which supported a hardy but reasonably comfortable farm population. 519

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figure 8.34 View of the decumanus with arches, Volubilis, looking southwest; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Established in the early fifth century bce on the west bank of Wadi Lebda, overlooking the natural harbor, we know almost nothing about the physical nature of the Punic city except that it was connected to inland by a northeast/southwest road (Figure 8.39). This road, later called the Triumphal Avenue, became the cardo maximus of the Roman city and was eventually connected to the east-west coastal highway that stretched between Carthage and Alexandria. The modest Punic settlement came increasingly under Carthaginian power and influence until the power of Carthage was replaced by that of Rome. The beginnings of the grid at Lepcis as a system of streets crossing the cardo at right angles, and creating elongated city blocks, could have been a late Hellenistic undertaking. Still, we believe the remarkable sequence of urban development at Lepcis, when major buildings and possibly some of the orthogonal street grid were laid out, hardly goes earlier than the late Republican era. The Old Forum, located west of the harbor, appears to have been the first Augustan era civic reorganization (Figure 8.40). The three parallel temples on the north side date from late first century bce to 19 ce. All are basically of the Italian podium type with side columns fading against the extensions of their back walls (the sine postico type of Vitruvius: De Arch. 3.2.5), an arrangement that was already anachronistic at this time, but specially 520

favored by Augustus. These temples honoring local deities, might have dated back to the Punic period. The middle temple, rearranged with a high front rostrum (instead of the usual front steps), was rededicated to Roma and Augustus; the one on the left was the Temple of Liber Pater/Dionysus; and the small one on the right probably belonged to Hercules. The idiosyncratic version of the Ionic order of these temples and the peculiar heart-shaped corner capitals (also used elsewhere on the site), were probably local, Punic derivatives. Originally built of a local, hard limestone with a yellow tint, they were given a facelift in marble sometime in mid-second century ce. The luxury of imported marble was indeed introduced to Lepcis only during the Hadrianic period; earlier buildings are invariably constructed in limestone, or an inferior sandstone (intended to be stuccoed), both coming from nearby quarries. By the middle of the first century ce, a basilica with four-sided interior colonnade and a tall nave lit by a clerestory was added to the southeast side of the forum at which point the plaza, paved in limestone and surrounded on three sides by colonnades, assumed a more formal and monumental character. Later, by the early second century, on the southeast side, a templelike curia (municipal senate house) set inside a porticoed precinct was built at an oblique angle to the rest, probably following a preRoman alignment. The classical appearance of the curia enclosure might have been a calculated effort to

Architecture and Planning in North Africa

figure 8.35 View of the nymphaeum, House of Orpheus, Volubilis; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

reflect the dignity of the city awarded the status of municipium in 14 ce, and honored as a colonium in 109 ce (even though it never was a military or veteran’s colony).

A number of dated monuments from the Augustan age allow us a good glimpse of the extension of the Punic nucleus south and southwest along the main street (see Figure 8.39). The first is a market (macellum) of the 521

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figure 8.36 Arch of Caracalla, northeast face, Volubilis; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

pure Italian type, a rectangular, colonnaded enclosure with a pair of circular pavilions surrounded by hexagonal, Ionic porticos (Figure 8.41). A bilingual inscription (in Latin and neo-Punic) names the donors as Annobal Tapapius Rufus, a leading citizen and the flamen of the Imperial Cult, and dates the building to 8 bce. Annobal also started the theater in 1–2 ce, while another model citizen of Punic ancestry, Iddibal Kaphada Aemilius (note the Punic names attached to family names in Latin), built in 11–12 ce the nearby Chalcidium, a monumental porticoed façade for a public plaza or basilica. The theater, one of the largest in North Africa, was partially carved into a natural hill. The triple-apsed stage and the three-story aedicular façade of the scaenae frons, follow western models (Figures 8.42 and 8.43). Most of the columns were reerected in marble during the second half of the second century. A shrine dedicated to Ceres-Augusta in the middle of the uppermost seats is another instance of the wholesale importation of an Italian custom that allowed popular observation of the Imperial Cult in theater shrines (an early incorporation of a cult shrine and theater is found with the Theater of Pompey in Rome). The Lepcis theater must have served as a model for the almost 522

identical layout of the slightly larger theater in Sabratha. Fully reconstructed in the 1930s by an Italian team under the directorship of Giocomo Caputo, the multistorey colonnaded stage at Sabratha provides a striking illustration of how freely and sumptuously the classical orders could be manipulated when composing the aedicular façade architecture typical in Asia Minor and the Eastern provinces during the high and late Empire (Figures 8.43 and 8.44, Plate 19). In 56 ce, Lepcis also received an amphitheater with a modest capacity of circa sixteen thousand located some 1.5 kilometers away from the center, along the sea and to the east of the harbor. The arena had no exterior façade except for a top arcade encircling its outer perimeter because it was hollowed into an old stone quarry. Sometime in the second half of the second century ce the city also undertook to build the largest of the North African circuses (450  150 m) in the narrow strip of land along the edge of the sea. Through the first two centuries of the Empire Lepcis Magna grew apace along the extension of the cardo and the city grid southwest from the Old Forum for a length of circa 500–600 meters. Several “bends” on this long, main street must have been necessitated by existing conditions, but were treated as architectural

Architecture and Planning in North Africa

figure 8.37 Detail of the Arch of Caracalla, later fitted with a fountain, Volubilis; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

opportunities to celebrate the connection by a series of gates and arches, including at least two foursquare quadrifons, one honoring Trajan and the other Septimius Severus, the native son (see Figure 8.39). Of these the

Severan quadrifons with steeply broken corner pediments is an unusual exercise in permissive classicism and in its modern eye-catching restoration (Figure 8.45). By the end of the first century, or early second, an 523

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figure 8.38 View of the Capitoline temple and precinct looking southwest, Volubilis; Photo by Fikret Yegül. U

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Architecture and Planning in North Africa

figure 8.40 Reconstruction of the Old Forum at Lepcis Magna, looking northeast; Jean-Claude Golvin

extensive earth embankment was built around the city at a distance of 1.5–2 kilometers from the center. The purpose of this work was probably twofold: to provide defense as well as to protect the city against frequent flash floods. The building of a diversion canal along the exterior of the northern stretch of the embankment, and a dam across the Wadi Lebda, indicate the serious measures undertaken to control torrential waters. The area enclosed by the earthwork is around 1,000 acres, although this must represent the full extent of suburban Lepcis; it is doubtful that any more than one-half of this area would have been filled by the city proper. The Hadrianic period, as it was true for many provincial cities across the Empire, was important for the maturation of urban services and amenities at Lepcis Magna. In 120 ce, the generosity of a private citizen paid for the aqueduct that supplied the city with many fountains and occasioned the building of a great bath, the second largest among the North African thermae. An inscription by the proconsul Publius Valerius Priscus dedicates the baths to Hadrian in 127 ce, although major renovations were undertaken in later dates. The well-preserved building is located southeast of the cardo at an oblique angle to the grid utilizing a large, roughly triangular plot conforming to the shape of the land along the west bank of the wadi (see Figure 8.39). This may be the reason why the palaestra with its great apsidal ends and double colonnaded exedras is shifted off from the main axis of the baths. One might observe that this unusually shaped and paved palaestra is truly a magnificent civic plaza more than an exercise yard inspired by sweat. Predating the Antonine Thermae at

Carthage by some thirty to thirty-five years, the design of the Hadrianic Bath (though later revised in minor ways) is important because it represents the first application of the Imperial thermae type on African soil. The plan with its symmetrically disposed sequence of spaces – a strongly projecting caldarium, a frigidarium and a vast, open-air natatio – is clearly derived from models firmly established in the capital. The frigidarium is one of the finest of its kind with triple cross-vaults raised on monumental cipollino columns; the lofty vault was decorated by a colorful mosaic of geometric and figural motifs (Figure 8.46). A pair of rectangular pools, surrounded by generous ambulatories, expands the main space laterally – this arrangement, tried in Lepcis for the first time, became a successful architectural motif of North African baths. The construction employs extensive use of fine local limestone ashlar, revetted in lavish displays of imported polychromatic marbles; only the vaulting of main halls is in concrete. The discovery of a rich collection of statues of gods, heroes, athletes and civic notables from the baths confirms that, just as the Antonine Baths at Carthage, this was a fashionable, prestige monument for Lepcis, in a sense the watershed when the city – remodeling itself in imported marbles and styles and welcoming foreign craftsmen – shed its provincial status and began to embrace the cosmopolitan mien of a Mediterranean center. SE VE RA N L EP CI S

Thanks to Septimius Severus, a native son who became emperor (193–211 ce) and one of the most powerful to 525

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figure 8.41 Reconstruction perspective and plan of the Macellum at Lepcis Magna; rendered by Rui Xiong and Alex Maymind.

rise to the purple, the cosmopolitan dream was fully realized. The scope and the grandiosity of the urban renewal started under Septimius Severus would have been impressive even in Rome. In summary the major 526

projects included: extensive renovations and improvements in the harbor basin with a new eastern quay, warehouses, and a lighthouse at the tip of the refurbished north quay; a broad, colonnaded avenue

Architecture and Planning in North Africa

figure 8.42 General view of theater, cavea and stage, Lepcis Magna; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 8.43 Reconstructed scaenae frons of the theater at Sabratha; Franzfoto via Wikimedia.

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figure 8.44 plate 19 Detail from the scaenae frons from the theater at Sabratha; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 8.45 Reconstructed Severan Tetrapylon at Lepcis Magna; Photo: David Gunn via Wikimedia.

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figure 8.46 Reconstructed frigidarium of the Hadrianic Baths at Lepcis Magna by C. Briggs FAAR (1929).

connecting the new harbor with a plaza in front of the Hadrianic Baths; a lavishly ornamented, apsidal fountain monument facing this plaza where the avenue bent to accommodate the topography; a vast forum, 530

basilica, and dynastic temple complex on the north side of the colonnaded avenue; an ornate four-way arch, or tetrapylon, at the crossing of the cardo and the beginning of the road to the interior (one of the decumani,

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figure 8.47 Plan of the Severan urban development: colonnaded street, nymphaeum, plaza, forum and basilica, Lepcis Magna; rendered by Youssef Maguid and Diane Favro.

Figure 8.47). The tetrapylon was strictly associated with the emperor’s successful military exploits and his visit to his birthplace in 203 ce (see Figures 8.39 and 8.45). It was probably intended to be the focus of a real triumphal ceremony, not celebrated in Rome, but contrary to custom, in the emperor’s own hometown. One of the triumphal reliefs on the four-way attic shows Septimius Severus and his sons in a triumphal chariot in Lepcis itself, identified by the city’s lighthouse in the background. Impressive in scope as this agenda might seem, it was, in essence, the continuation of a long tradition of urban munificence by the wealthy and multi-ethnic elite of Lepcis going back to the Augustan era or even earlier. As noted by D. J. Mattingly and R. Duncan-Jones, in lists of inscriptions recording construction and other gifts among the North African cities, “Lepcis consistently features at the top” (Mattingly 1994, 120). Lepcis was indeed fortunate to be both a port city and a caravan city benefiting from sea trade and long-distance land trade. At the height of the Empire it was also the center of a thriving Tripolitanian olive oil industry. Yet, in the final analysis we should credit the extraordinary quality of Lepcis to the raw energy and ambitions of these local farmers, businessmen and sea-merchants whose Punic and tribal past must have served as a resourceful background for their practical and urbane Roman present. The straight stretch of the Severan Harbor Avenue over 400 meters long and 40 meters wide between the

port and the nymphaeum, with a wide carriageway flanked by wide arcades and shops, was, like the grand boulevards of nineteenth-century Paris, an Imperial project (Figure 8.47; see also Figure 8.39). But unlike the conflicting ambitions of Napoleon III’s bourgeois Second Empire, Severan Lepcis was truly representative of a world power that, despite the political setbacks of the late second century, still controlled all of the Mediterranean and much of what we call the Middle East. Let us also remember that the colonnaded avenue of Lepcis, the backbone of the new city, was only one of the many grand thoroughfares that typically adorned the cities of Roman East – Antioch, Gerasa, Palmyra (see later). The junction at the bend of the Harbor Avenue was developed as a roughly trapezoidal plaza (the original idea was a great circle) whose irregular edges were articulated by several sweeping curves: the convex backside of the palaestra apse on the west; the concave receptor of a colonnaded exedra on the northwest; and facing this, the open wings of a huge apsidal nymphaeum on the southeast. The plaza was an urban “collector,” a hinge, receiving several axes from different directions and mediating the movement of the street and the repose of the open space. The dominant façade was the tall nymphaeum, its great apsidal pool reflecting the two-story columnar marble aediculae in the manner of stage front (Figures 8.48 and 8.49). The fine ashlar work of the back wall, revetted in marble, was actually a facing for the 531

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figure 8.48 General view of the Nymphaeum at Lepcis Magna; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

concrete wall core. The columns were green cipollino below and red granite above, the rest in white Proconnesian marble. Water splashed into the basin from two levels of arched niches. A handsome limestone balustrade, raised on a few steps, separated the basin from the plaza. While the opulent architecture of the nymphaeum was visually engaging, we must consider it in relation to the rest of the façades opening into the plaza, as a part of a total experience of this space. What gave depth and richness to this experience was the approach, on foot, to the plaza along the marble arcade of the avenue, the raking shadows of its four hundred columns, the gradual widening of paved open space ambiguously defined by alternating concave and convex façades, the sound and reflecting light over water and spray, the perception of its coolness, and in the distance, the view of the angled continuation of the street. One element that might have arrested this movement was the monumental doorway – one of the several entrances to the Severan forum and basilica complex. The forum is a rectangular enclosure (c. 100  60 m) with high walls defined on three sides by imported green marble columns with lotus-and-acanthus, Pergamenetype capitals in white marble (Figure 8.50; see also Figure 8.47). They carried not the usual straight entablatures, but arches; in fact it is one of the earliest uses of such an arcade (see also the Canopus in Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli for an earlier variant of this motif ) (Figure 8.51; see also Figure 6.76). The Medusa-head medallions filling the spaces between the arches 532

(supposed to be frightening, but here they look quite cherubic with their puffy cheeks and curly hair) were a special decorative touch whose immediate models came from Aphrodisias in southwest Asia Minor. Dominating the plaza and projecting from the middle of the southwest side is the Severan cult temple, which is raised on a very high podium, its front steps cascading into the open space (Figure 8.52; compare to Djemila, Figure 8.24). At the head of the steps, elevated on pedestals, rose the eight red granite Corinthian columns of the temple front. Opposite the temple a wedge-shaped arrangement of offices or shops, and a half-round exedra entrance into the basilica ingeniously masked the divergence of the axis between the forum proper and the basilica (see Figure 8.47). This unusual change of direction was probably necessitated by the already existing bend in the street north of the complex. Occupying the east side of the forum, the basilica has a three-aisled plan with semi-domed apses on each end, the nave wider and taller than the aisles to allow for clerestory lighting (Figures 8.53, 8.54 and Plate 20A). Corinthian columns with monolithic red granite shafts in two stories supported the wooden roof. The monumental interior, with its 19-meter span and circa 30-meter height, represents a daring structural achievement in traditional, trabaeted architecture. Like most construction in Lepcis, the walls of the basilica are in local limestone ashlar (as are those of the whole forum complex), revetted in marble. An interesting exception is found with the

Architecture and Planning in North Africa

figure 8.49 Detail of the Nymphaeum at Lepcis Magna; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 8.50 General view of the Severan Forum at Lepcis Magna, looking northeast; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

basilica apses and the entrance exedra that are in brick, a rare use of this material in Tripolitania. Continuing inside the apses, between niches which housed statues, were projecting colonnades in two stories, the center accentuated by pairs of giant columns that carried unusual entablatures raised on griffin brackets – a bold and eye-catching flaunting of the classical canon (see Figure 8.55). The richness of decoration was further enhanced by pairs of white marble pilasters deeply carved with vine-and-acanthus scrolls peopled with small figures and animals, perhaps another direct borrowing from the peculiar sculptural repertoire of Asian Aphrodisias. Completed under Caracalla in 216 ce, some twenty years after it was begun, the sumptuous complex with its axially situated podium temple and basilica laid across the full width of the forum, belongs to a broadly defined, generic Italian type with echoes of Apollodorus’ Forum of Trajan in the capital and its many variations in the Western provinces. Yet, many of its architectural and decorative idiosyncrasies – such as the misalignment of some of its parts, the peculiar “interior street” along the east side of the complex, the generous use of arcades, the unusually flamboyant treatment of the basilica apses – show that this was a highly sophisticated and individualized creation inspired by a wide variety of sources. In overall style as well as details, the distinctive architectural ornament of all of the Severan monuments in Lepcis Magna displays considerable influence from eastern Mediterranean, especially Asia 534

Minor. This has been frequently explained because almost all of the white marble used in Severan projects in the city was imported from the prolific Proconnesian quarries in Asia Minor (from an island in the Sea of Marmara) along with the craftsmen who traveled with their stone. These foreign marble carvers worked in Lepcis and trained local artists. One could maintain that the large-scale trade in and transportation of marbles across the Mediterranean promoting the socalled ‘international’ or ‘marble style’ started to change the face of Lepcis under Hadrian and found its culmination in the massive building program under the Severans. This phenomenon of a common marble style across the Mediterranean, while creating the features of a broadly shared cosmopolitan architecture, eroded local tastes and styles that had often resulted in regional differences in design. The case of Lepcis is one specific demonstration of the much larger urban building activity of the high Empire affecting many provincial cities, and to a certain extent, even Rome.

SOME INDIVIDUAL BUILDINGS FROM NORTH AFRICA The preceding selective survey of Roman cities of North Africa naturally leaves out much that is informative and interesting, from modest country towns to large regional centers. The wealth and variety of individual

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figure 8.51 Reconstructed arcade of the Severan Forum, with Medusa medallions, Lepcis Magna; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Iacovuzzi).

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figure 8.52 Reconstruction perspective of the Severan Cult Temple at Lepcis Magna; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Ward-Perkins).

figure 8.53 plate 20a Severan basilica, view toward the north apse, Lepcis Magna; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

monuments, too, requires a more specialized venue than what we can here afford. What is most remarkable, unusual, and vital in the architecture of Roman North Africa is the play between the mainline examples from the capital and the transformation of these examples by 536

local precedents and traditions, the presumed dialogue between local and imported tastes – or, the more complex lines of artistic influence and interplay between the provinces themselves, as between Lepcis and Asia Minor, despite the potential detrimental effects of such

Architecture and Planning in North Africa

figure 8.54 Reconstruction of the interior of the Severan Basilica, Lepcis Magna; rendered by Alex Maymind (after Ward-Perkins).

widely-shared cosmopolitan habits to the idiosyncracy and creativity of local centers. We shall choose and focus on a few individual examples from different regions representing different categories that we believe to be unusual: temples and sanctuaries, amphitheaters, baths, aqueducts, and fountains. T EM P L E S : T H U B U R B O M A J US , S B E I T L A A ND L A MB A E S I S

The Capitolium at Thuburbo Majus, a town only 50 kilometers inland from Carthage (founded by the veterans after the fall of this city), is a typical example

of the widely accepted Italic temple in North Africa. Much like the setting of the Capitolium of Pompeii, the temple is placed axially at the back of the large, square forum and dominates the colonnaded space in front of it. The order is monumental, eye-catching Corinthian, prostyle with six columns, raised on a 4.5-meter-high podium (Figure 8.56). A product of the Antonine era (dated to 168 ce), the Capitolium of Thuburbo Majus is a solid and unremarkable building; it represents officialdom in a region known for its rich, and perhaps for Roman soldiers’ eyes exotic, heritage and contrasts – probably intentionally – with the city’s more creative temple architecture. 537

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figure 8.55 Detail of the giant order of the north apse in the Severan Basilica, Lepcis Magna; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 8.56 General view of the Capitolium, Thuburbo Majus; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

What moved the city fathers of ancient Sbeitla (Sufetula), a remote highland town located on major roads leading up into desert oases, to adopt the highly unusual arrangement of three separate Capitoline temples instead of the standard model with a temple with triple cella divisions (or a single cella accommodating multiple deities) is hard to say. Sbeitla’s large, rectangular forum (70  67 m enclosure) is entered through a monumental triumphal arch-gate facing the three parallel temples only slightly off-center from the main axis (Figure 8.57). These three well-preserved Antonine structures, all about the same size and height, all raised on podiums, and dutifully lined up like soldiers on parade, or Olympic winners about to receive their prizes, with massively projecting cornices, is an impressive sight to behold (Figure 8.59; Plate 21). They recalled a similar arrangement at Baeolo, Cadiz, in southern Spain, a small city of Libyo-Phoenecian origins). Their charming similarity is deceptive; there is indeed a well-articulated aesthetic and semantic hierarchy in play. All temples are pseudo-peripteral and tetrastyle and connected to each other by masonry arches at podium level. The outer two temples are Corinthian and have the usual frontal steps; the central

one, dedicated to Jupiter, is slightly higher, employs the less-common Composite order, and displays a frontal speaker’s platform (rostrum) instead of steps. With strongly projecting side and back half-columns (the outer temples have pilasters) the central temple is more richly articulated and bolder in design and ornament – clearly considered appropriate for the god representing the state. What would have been an unremarkable and orthodox forum arrangement is here enlivened by the bold scenography of the triple-temple motif with subtle ornamental variances. The last to be considered is the temple group that forms a part of the second-century Sanctuary of Asclepius in Lambaesis, located some 1.5 kilometers southeast of the great military camp, next to the forum and Capitolium of the civilian settlement (see earlier). Eight small, rectangular, apsidal temples line along the north side of the east-west “avenue” like a sacred gallery of chapels dedicated to different deities, Roman and native (Figure 8.60). Slightly varying in size, design and orientation, they appear much like the treasuries at a Greek sanctuary, and start the long, ceremonial approach that culminates in a broad and sweeping hemicycle, its center accentuated by the projecting, 539

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figure 8.57 Plan of the Forum, Sbeitla; rendered by Diane Favro.

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figure 8.58 View of the Triple Capitoline temples, Sbeitla; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 8.59 plate 21 Detail of the entablatures of the middle (Jupiter, right) and south (left) Capitoline temples, Sbeitla; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 8.60 Plan and reconstruction perspective of the Asclepion and eight small temples including Jupiter Valens and Silvanus, Lambaesis; rendered by Güzden Varinlioglu (after J.-M. Gassend).

tetrastyle pedimented façade of the Temple of Asclepius, god of healing. This temple is flanked by the colonnaded, curving arms of a portico and a pair of projecting, half-round aediculae honoring the gods Jupiter Valens and Silvanus. The seven continuous steps enhance the soft, undulating rhythm of the ensemble, except at the middle where the temple front is marked by the contrasting, hard-edge of its traditional stairs. The temple is Doric – perhaps an oblique reference to the Doric of the great Hellenistic Asclepions at Epidaurus and Kos – while the columns of the portico and the aediculae are typically Corinthian. By any design consideration this is an inspired gem of “Roman baroque” that has few equals in North Africa or anywhere else. The bigger question is who was responsible for the design. Lambaesis was, of course, the home of the III Augustan Legion, Rome’s main military presence in Africa, who built and predominantly used the sanctuary which was also a thermomineral bathing and cure center. Looking at the mechanical, four-square design of the castrum, one might find it difficult to imagine that both were designed by the same military technicians (see earlier). One should not, however, underestimate the broad background and potential creativity of some military architects and 542

engineers – after all, Apollodorus was one. In addition, underlying the deceptive free forms of these sweeping curves, there is a firm geometrical order (as is true for the better known curves of seventeenth-century Italian baroque architecture). Or, it could have been an architect sent from Rome (albeit unlikely), or a local talent trained by the army. These questions may never receive an answer, but the creative dynamism of this temple group at Lambaesis is in perfect harmony with similar “baroque” developments of high Imperial architecture across the Mediterranean – and finds its aesthetic soul mate in schemes such as the Severan Temple of Venus at Baalbek (see later). A SUPER AMPHITHEATER AT EL DJEM

There is no shortage of amphitheaters at North Africa – some two dozen or so have been preserved well. In a heavily militarized country, settled with many veterans’ colonies, the taste for the kind of entertainment an amphitheater provides is not surprising. However, their distribution is somewhat uneven. They are rare in western North Africa and Mauretania (Morocco) but more common in the central part, Africa Proconsularis (eastern Algeria

Architecture and Planning in North Africa and Tunisia). In keeping with the general development of cities, most of our examples date in the second and third centuries ce. A fairly large number of African amphitheaters are also quite small in size (c. 70–60 m) and simple in design and construction (Sbeitla, Mactar, Thuburbo Majus). The numbers of theaters are far greater than amphitheaters and their distribution more even. Even the most modest tribal centers boast a theater, or more surprisingly an odeum (since odeums were intended for a more specialized performance, like music), and of course, some of these theaters could have been put to service for gladiatorial combats and wild animal shows with little or no alteration. One should also consider the highly agrarian nature of North African countryside, especially the sparsely populated highlands and semidesert regions toward the south. There were probably many temporary arenas in wood located in suburban market centers serving settled farm communities as well as seasonal, semi-nomadic tribes. The largest and most impressive amphitheater in North Africa, and one of the largest in the Roman world was the one in El Djem (Thysdrus) on coastal Tunisia. The amphitheater at Carthage could have been slightly larger, but it is not as well preserved. Approaching El Djem on the high road today, with the colossal structure dominating the humble village like a beached whale growing ever larger, is a surrealistic experience – and, probably was so in antiquity because Thysdrus was never a big city (Figures 8.61–8.63). The measurements of the Thysdrus amphitheater in comparison to the Colosseum are as follows: overall size 148  122 meters versus 188  156 meters; arena 65  39 meters versus 86  54 meters; height 42 meters versus 57 meters; periphery 427 meters versus 527 meters. The capacity of the African building is estimated around thirty-two thousand spectators versus the Colosseum’s fifty to fifty-two thousand. In its overall structural and architectural principles, the amphitheater at Thysdrus appears to have taken the great Flavian monument as its primary source of inspiration (see earlier). Given the ambitious scope of the provincial building and the prestige of the supermodel in Rome, that appears not surprising. However, there are also significant differences besides just size. The African building displays a more conservative structure. Its subterranean facilities are smaller and restricted (Figure 8.64). It is more reliant on traditional, cut-stone masonry than concrete though the vaulting systems supporting seating are (especially in their ruined state) eye-catching and competent (see Figure 8.65, Plate 23B; compare Figure 6.14). With heavier peripheral piers and

radial walls, the proportion of solid (mass) to void (space) is far greater, making the structure less efficient (i.e., it uses far more material to support an equal load, and offers less room for human traffic, hence longer time to empty), and the building is and looks heavier (see Figure 8.61 and 8.62). This is readily visible on the exterior: the threestory elevation of Thysdrus has proportionally smaller arch openings and more wall than the Colosseum (compare Figures 6.9 and 6.10). The proportions and spacing of the exterior bays also seem to have given the builders considerable trouble as these spans vary as much as fifteen percent, far beyond the range of tolerance. According to one scholar, this is mainly because of the difficulty of converting measurements of standard Roman feet to their rough equivalents in local Punic cubits (Wilson-Jones 2000, 12, 72). By contrast, the masonry is precise and refined, especially compared to the rough work of Gallic amphitheaters such as those at Arles or Nîmes. The half-columns of the elevation are Corinthian at the bottom and top and Composite in the middle. The capitals are finely carved but much simplified, quite in keeping with the massive nature of the structure. A fourth story of internal colonnade is only scarcely preserved. Like other major amphitheaters of Italy, the central part of the arena has a well-developed subterranean zone, with vaulted galleries, stairs, ramps, elevators for wild beasts, and an excellent drainage system, but is altogether smaller and less complex than the double-story basement of the Colosseum (see Figure 8.64). Naturally, this great amphitheater, located in an unexceptional center of mixed populations, gave service to a much larger region. Still, one wonders why this town was specially honored with this super specimen. The answer is simple: the amphitheater at Thysdrus appears to have been built to celebrate the proclamation of Gordion I, the Emperor and the local hero; or, more likely, with a historic nod to Septimius Severus and Lepcis Magna, it was built by the young Gordion as a prestige gift to his African home when he was the Proconsul of Africa (c. 230–238 ce) before his access to the purple. B AT HS : I MP ER I AL T HE R M AE AT C A R T H A GE ; H U N T I NG BA T HS A T L E P C I S M A G N A ; A N D TW O U N U S U A L B AT HS AT TH E N AE A N D O U E D A T H M E N I A

Vast in scale and lavish in decoration, the Antonine Thermae at Carthage (c. 145 ce) was another prestige monument among the many Roman baths of 543

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figure 8.61 Exterior view of the amphitheater at El Djem (Thydrus); Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 8.62 Exterior detail of the amphitheater, El Djem; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

North Africa. The Carthaginian baths conform to the Imperial thermae plan-type of Rome closer than any other in Africa and display three critical characteristics: (a) the bath block is surrounded by a

precinct of open space (gardens, sports grounds) and secondary functions (meeting halls, libraries); (b) the rectangular frigidarium has triple cross-vaults and side recesses for pools; and (c) the pair of 545

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figure 8.63 General interior view of the arena of the amphitheater at El Djem; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

palaestras are internalized and integrated into the bath block (Figure 8.66). The building must have set out consciously to represent the notion of what an Imperial thermae was all about; in a sense, the Antonine Thermae represent an important stage in the development of this type, fitting between the Thermae of Trajan and the Thermae of Caracalla in Rome. The complex is located on a spectacular spot on the edge of the sea, occupying six of the very large insulae of Carthage’s Roman urban grid. This spectacular seaside spot, however, had its own problems: the water table being very high (you dig down several meters, you find sea water), it was hard to place the basement facilities. The solution is typically Roman: the bath block (c. 260  100 m) is entirely raised on a 6-meter-high artificial platform of massive ashlar piers and concrete vaults housing all of the services. This vaulted platform is all that remains of the colossal building. The entrances were by way of the double palaestras, square peristyle courts with thirty-six columns each. The heated row was composed of a tight group of octagonal and hexagonal halls that wrapped around a traditional, rectangular, cross-vaulted frigidarium like a projecting crown. This interesting ensemble of domes and vaults, externally expressed, must have 546

been visually engaging as it was functionally sound. Although the Antonine Thermae at Carthage is formally organized, it seems to have been enriched by the spirit of experimentation we have seen in establishments such as the Large and Small Baths in Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli. As in other forms of buildings, bath architecture in North Africa tends to follow the functional and structural models established in Italy but adopted to local needs and climate with ingenuity. A good demonstration of this kind ingenuity and of expressive experimentation still based on solid, classical bath planning precepts (and solid concrete structure) is the exceptionally well-preserved and tiny Hunting Baths in Lepcis Magna located west of the theater close to the sea. The design is a tight arrangement of a few basic geometric shapes, roofed by vaults, semi-domes, domes, fully expressed on the exterior, looking like a textbook example of the rational, “form-follows-function” dictum (Figure 8.67, Plate 20B). A pair of identical bathing suites composed of a rectangular frigidarium with apsidal ends and a cross-vaulted pool extension, octagonal double tepidariums, and double square caldariums, maintain a deceptively simple row-type circulation. A wall painting from the frigidarium depicting a leopard hunt suggests that these small baths belonged to an

Architecture and Planning in North Africa

figure 8.64 View of the subterranean level of the amphitheater, El Djem; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 8.65 plate 23b Detail view of the support structures for seating at the amphitheater, El Djem; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

association of merchant-hunters who supplied wild animals to the arenas of the Roman world. A more experimental spirit informs a number of small North African baths whose unusual plans do not fit into any prescribed mold or type. At the Small Baths in Thenae, over 200 kilometers southeast of Carthage, the riot of over a dozen varying, curvilinear shapes clustered around a central rotunda, is a perfect example of unorthodox, creative planning (and a bewilderingly dynamic plan) – although even here there is a clear order of use and function underlying this deceptive display of “free forms” (Figure 8.68). It is a pity that these baths have been lost without leaving a trace of their ground plan. Even more interesting and sophisticated are the so-called Baths of Pompeianus at Oued Athmenia (c. 30 km southwest of Constantine), Algeria (Figure 8.69). This was a bath complex associated with a wealthy country villa. A great semicircular pool or natatio, open to the sky but circumscribed by an ambulatory, wraps around the cross-vaulted core of a small, square frigidarium that is paved in a mosaic showing hunting scenes. The frigidarium 548

extends into an apsidal, independent “pool pavilion” (with steps down into it), which in turn projects into the great semicircular pool, or natatio. The layering of visual and spatial sequences – open and closed, light and dark, tactile and watery, all hallmark values of bath architecture in general – are specifically enhanced. The heated rooms, more traditional in arrangement, project out to the west. We do not know, once again, if the architectural talent responsible for this imaginative building was local or imported, but the designer appears to have been someone who could handle the novel trends in Roman architecture with the same ease as he could the traditional values. The inspiration for the ensemble at Oued Athmenia might have come from examples such as the Island Villa of Hadrian in Tivoli (see earlier). At the Island Villa water surrounds a built solid. By surrounding water with water at Oued Athmenia, the creator of this small African bath appears to be reaching for even a higher level of intellectual and aesthetic abstraction. Lastly, as emphasized by Yegül, we should show special appreciation for the patron – as we do in the case of Hadrian:

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figure 8.66 Plan and axonometric reconstruction of the bath block, Antonine Baths, Carthage; rendered by Fikret Yegül (after Lezine and Yegül).

“if the manner a person chooses to shape his/her environment is an indication at all, Pompeianus, the owner of this interesting complex, must have been a person of taste and judgment who knew how to find and value artistic talent” (Yegül 1992, 249).

AN AQ UE D UC T FO R C ART H AG E AN D A NY MP HA EU M F O R Z A GH O UA N

As throughout the empire in general, North African public baths were ideally served by aqueducts or a 549

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figure 8.67 plate 20b Exterior of the Hunting Baths, Lepcis Magna; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 8.68 Plan of the Small Baths, Thenae, rendered by Fikret Yegül (after Krencker).

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figure 8.69 Plan of the Baths of Pompeianus, Oued Athmenia; anonymous rendering, courtesy of W.L. MacDonald.

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figure 8.70 General view, Hadrianic nymphaeum (Sanctuary of the Nymphs), Zaghouan; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

branch from one. In fact, the growth and development of baths in cities follow a parallel development of water supply systems. It is true that small baths, especially those in the challenging dry climates as in

North Africa, could function with remarkably small amounts of water supplied by cisterns, wells, and roof tanks – a tribute to effective management and economic use of this precious resource – but large 551

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figure 8.71 Detail of figure-eight shaped pool at the Hadrianic nymphaeum, looking southwest, Zaghouan; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

baths were more prodigious in their use and display or water. In the Imperial thermae such displays of luxury were a part of their political and cultural agenda, and thus they relied on a steady and copious supply of water only an aqueduct could provide. This is the case with the Antonine Thermae in Carthage, served by one of the most impressive and betterpreserved aqueducts of North Africa which brought water from the hills at Zaghouan some 56 kilometers to the south (actual length of the line is nearly 90 km). A very large cistern, known as Bourc Djedit (“Old Castle”) near the Antonine baths, had a capacity of 25–30,000 cubic meters (twice the volume of the famous Piscina Mirabile at Baiae, in the Bay of Naples) Bay of Naples (see earlier). Long, straight stretches of this aqueduct, on piers and arches built of roughly dressed, large blocks of ashlar or smaller, squared stone work, over a core of opus caementicium, some 10–12 meters high, is one of the most memorable views of Roman building in rural Africa. Supplying nearly 5 million gallons of water a day (estimated 300 gallons per day/per person), it is a colossal undertaking, although it must be remembered that just one of the many aqueducts that supplied Rome, such as Aqua Claudia, boasted a capacity of circa 50 million gallons a day – more than ten times the

552

amount! Military masons marks on ashlar blocks indicate that the Carthage aqueduct was planned and built, not surprisingly, by the army. The source at the foot of the rising slopes of Mount Zaghouan was developed as an elegant water sanctuary, an elevated, horseshoe shaped plaza (c. 30  21 m) over a capacious cistern, surrounded by a Corinthian portico with cross-vaulting (Figures 8.70–8.72). This water plaza offered a spectacular view of the plain (where the imposing march of the aqueduct arches carrying the water to Carthage could be seen). Visitors approached by a pair of curving stairs on the north side. Between the stairs, at the bottom of the plaza, is an open basin or pool shaped like a figure eight, its curves enhanced by steps outlining the sinuous perimeter (Figure 8.72). At the back of the colonnade, on axis, is an apsidal chamber, or cella, housing the spring. Its façade is raised on a few steps and crowned by a pediment like a temple – the sanctuary chamber of the water nymphs. The general apsidal and colonnaded scheme can be compared to several nymphaeums in North Africa (e.g., Henchir Tamesmida in Tunisia and Hammam Berda in Algeria), or the Hadrianic water sanctuary at Letoon in Asia Minor (see later). While the overall planning of the nymphaeum (along with the building of the aqueduct) could have been late Hadrianic, the completion

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figure 8.72 Reconstruction perspective of the Hadrianic nymphaeum, Zaghouan; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after WardPerkins).

of the project, based on architectural ornament, appears mid-to-late Antonine. With its formal and symmetrical layout, harmonious proportions and bold use of curves, the Nympaeum at Zaghouan represents a fine balance between classical reserve and baroque effervescence of design. It is a practical development of a water source as well as the exuberant celebration of its sanctity.

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Adriani, A. 1963. Repertorio d’Arte dell’Egitto Greco-Romano, vols. 1–2 (Atti del 7. Congresso Internazionali di Archeologia Classica III, 1961), 219–267. Aounallah, S. 2010. Thugga. Dougga, Ville Romano-Africaine de Tunisie. Sousse: Contraste Editions. Aupert, P. 1974. Le Nymphée de Tipasa (École Française de Rome 16).

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity Ballu, A. 1903. Le Ruines de Timgad, Antique Thamugadi – Nouvelles découvertes. Paris: Leroux. 1911. Le Ruines de Timgad, Antique Thamugadi – sept années de découvertes (1903–1910). Paris: Neurdein frères. Bandinelli, R. B., E. V. Caffarelli, and G. Caputo. 1966. The Buried City: Excavations at Leptis Magna. New York: Frederick Praeger. Baradez, J. 1952. Tipasa. Ville antique de Maurétanie. Algiers: Direction de l'Intérieur et des Beaux-Arts. Baratte, F. 1974. Les ruines d’Ammaedara – Haidra. Tunis: Société tunisienne de diffusion. Barker, G, J. Lloyd and J. Reynolds, eds. 1985. Cyrenaica in Antiquity (B.A.R. 236). Béjaoui, F. 2004. Sbeitla. L’Antique Sufetula. Tunis: Sites et monuments de Tunisie. Beschaouch, A., R. Hanoune, and Y. Thebert. 1977. Les Ruines de Bulla Regia (École Française de Rome, 28). Birley, A. 1988, rev. Septimius Severus, the African Emperor. New Haven: Yale. Blas de Roblès, J.-M. 2005. Libye. Grecque, romaine et byzantine. Aix-en-Provence: Édisud Archeologies. Broughton, T. R. S. 1968, rev. The Romanization of Africa Proconsularis. New York: Greenwood Press. Bullo, S. 2002. Provincia Africa. Le Cittá e il territorio dalla caduta di Cartagine a Nerone. Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider. Cagnat, R. L. 1893. Lambese. Paris: E. Leroux. 1909. Carthage, Timgad, Tébessa et les villes antiques de l’Afrique du Nord. Paris: H. Laurens. Chaouali, M. 2010. Bulla Regia. Bulla la Royale. Tunis: Sympact. Charles-Picard, G. 1954. Mactar (Bulletin économique et social de la Tunisie, 90). 1959. La civilization de l’Afrique romaine. Paris: Librairie Plon. 1968. The Life and Death of Carthage. New York: Taplinger. Cherry, D. 1998. Frontier and Society in Roman North Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Dahmani, S. 1973. Hippo Regius – Hippone. Algiers: Direction des Beaux-Arts et Antiquites. Duval, N. and F. Baratte. 1973. Le ruines de Sufetula – Sbeitla. Tunis: Société tunisienne de diffusion. Eingartner, J. 1992. “Fora, Capitolia und Heiligtumer im westlichen Nordafrika,” In H.-J. Schalles, H. von Hesberg and P. Zanker, eds. Die römische Stadt im 2. Jahrhundert n. Christ (Xantener Berichte, 2) Köln: Rheinland-Verlag, 213–242. Fantar, M. H. 2007. Kerkouane: A Punic Town in the Berber Region of Tamezrat. Tunis: Alif. Fevrier, P. A. 1971. Art de l’Algerie antique. Paris: E. de Boccard. Goodchild, R. G. 1971. Kyrene und Apollonia. Zürich: RaggiVerlag. Goodchild, R. G., J. E. Pedley, and D. White 1975. Apollonia, the Port of Cyrene: Excavations by the University of Michigan 1965–67 (Libya Antiqua, Suppl. 4). Graham, A. 1971. Roman Africa. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries. Gsell, S. 1901. Les monuments antiques de l’Algérie. Paris: Fontemoing. Haynes, D. E. 1955. The Antiquities of Tripolitania. Tripolitania: Antiquities Department of Tripolitania. Janan, M. 1973. “Recherches à Lambèse.” Antiquites Africaines, 7: 193–254. Kendrick. P. 2009. Tripolitania. London: Silphium Press.

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Kirsten, E. 1961. Nordafrikanische Stadbilder. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Kraeling, C. H. 1962. Ptolemais, City of the Libyan Pentapolis. Chicago: Oriental Institute Publications. Kuttner, A. 2013. “Representing Hellenistic Numidia in Africa and in Rome.” In R. W. Prag and J. C. Quinn, eds. The Hellenistic West: Rethinking the Ancient Mediterranean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 216–272. Lepelley, C. 1979. Les cités de l’Afrique romaine au bas empire. Paris: Études augustiniennes. 1996. “The Survival and Fall of the Classical City in Late Roman Africa.” In J. Rich, ed. The City in Late Classical Antiquity. London: Routledge, 50–76. Leschi, L. 1950. Djemila. Antique Cuicul. Algiers: Service des Antiquities, Algeria. Lézine, A. 1958. Architecture Punique. Recueil de documents. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. 1963. Architecture romaine d’Afrique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. 1968. Carthage, Utique: Etudes d’architecture et d’urbanisme. Paris: Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique. 1968. Thuburbo Majus. Tunis: Société tunisienne de diffusion. 1969. Les thermes d’Antonin a Carthage. Tunis: Societe Tunisienne de Diffusion. 1970. Carthage – Utique. Tunis: Societe Tunisienne de Diffusion, Revue archéologique du Centre de la France Année. MacKendrick, P. 1980. The North African Stones Speak. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Manton, E. L. 1988. Roman North Africa. London: Seaby. Marec, E. 1950. Hippone la Royale – antique Hippo Regius. Algiers: Service des antiquités. Matthews, K. D. and A. W. Cook. 1963. Cities in the Sand. Lepcis and Sabratha in Roman Africa. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Mattingly, D. J. 1994. Tripolitania. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. McKenzie, J. 2007. The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt, c. 300 BC to AD 700. New Haven: Yale University Press. Menen, A. 1973. Cities in the Sand. New York: Dial Press. Ponti, G. 2015. “Marble Entablatures from the Severan Basilica at Lepcis Magna.” In Paradigm and Progeny: Roman Imperial Architecture and Its Legacy. (JRA Supplement 101): 15–26. Quinn, J. C. 2013. “Monumental Power: ‘Numidian Royal Architecture’ in Context.” In J. R. W. Prag and J. C. Quinn, eds. The Hellenistic West: rethinking the ancient Mediterranean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 179–215. Rakob, F. 1974. “Das Quellenheiligtum in Zaghouan und die römische Wasserleitung.” RömMitt, 81: 41–89. 1979. “Das Groma-Nymphaeum in Legionslager von Lambaesis.” RömMitt, 86: 375–389. Rakob, F. and S. Storz. 1974. “Die Principia des römischen Legionslagers in Lambaesis.” RömMitt, 81: 253–280. Raven, S. 1993, rev. Rome in Africa. London: Routledge. Risse, M. 2001. Volubilis. Eine römische Stadt in Marokko. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. Romanelli, P. 1925. Leptis Magna. Rome: Società editrice d'arte illustrata.

Architecture and Planning in North Africa 1970. Enciclopedia Classica: Topografia e Archeologia dell’Africa Romana, X. Turin: Società editrice internationale. 1976. Cirene e la Grecia. Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider. Shaw, B. 1982. “Fear and Loathing: The Nomad Menace in Roman Africa.” In C. M. Wells, ed. L’Afrique Romaine: Les Conférences Vanier. Ottawa: University of Ottawa, 29–50. 1995. Rulers, Nomads and Christians in Roman North Africa (Collected Studies Series). Great Yarmouth: Variorum. Squarciapino, M. F. 1966. Leptis Magna. Basel: Raggi Verlag. Stucchi, S. 1975. Architettura cirenaica. Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider. Thompson, L. A. 1969. “Eastern Africa and the Greco-Roman World,” In L. A. Thompson and J. Fergusson, eds. Africa in Classical Antiquity. Nigeria: Ibadian University, 26–61. 1969. “Settler and Native in Urban Centers of Roman Africa.” In L. A. Thompson and J. Fergusson, eds.

Africa in Classical Antiqity. Nigeria: Ibadian University, 132–181. Thouvenot, R. 1941. Une colonie romaine de Maurétanie Tingitane: Valentia Banasa. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Venit, M. 2002. Monumental Tombs of Ancient Alexandria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ward-Perkins, J. B. 1948. “Severan Art and Architecture at Lepcis Magna.” JRS 38: 59–80. 1951. “Tripolitania and the Marble Trade.” JRS 41: 89–104. 1958. “The Caesareum at Cyrene.” PBSR 26:137–194. Wheeler, M. 1966. Roman Africa in Color. New York: McGraw-Hill. Wilson Jones, M. 2000. Principles of Roman Architecture. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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9

GREECE UNDER ROMAN RULE -

All of Rome’s provinces, from Britannia on the shores of the frozen North Sea, to Arabia swept by sundrenched sands of the desert, were unique. But Greece, the Province of Achaea, was unique in a special way. Hellas, after all, was the shining font of Mediterranean civilization when Rome was a rustic town on the Tiber, and along with the even more exotic East, remained its mentor and model for centuries to come. Throughout the sixth and fifth centuries bce, when the Italian peninsula emerged as a constellation of hard-working and modest farmers’ towns, Greece was studded with cities of sophisticated urban culture and reasonable political applications of democracy and independence. Simply put, despite justifiable arguments about the importance of Italy and Italic traditions in shaping the fundamentals of the emerging Roman civilization, more than any other external source, the roots of Rome’s art, institutions, literary and urban culture were informed by the Greek or the classical model. Roman architecture, in broad and important ways, was based on the notion and principles of classicism that defined Greek architecture. To visualize Rome dominating Greece, its mentor, as an imperialistic force poses problems and calls for an explanation. For the ancient view of history, which was more accommodating than our’s, these ups and downs of fortune were natural events in the course of human destiny. Nevertheless, as Horace’s wise, although some might say rhetorical description of captive Greece conquering its conqueror by bringing the arts into rustic Latium reverberated through time, the Romans themselves saw something remarkable in this paradoxical turn of events (see later in this chapter; Horace, Letters 2.1.156). Cicero, writing in 59 bce, expressed his admiration for Athens, then a fallen city, as the place where 556

“humanity, learning, religion, agriculture, rights and laws were born and spread through the earth” (Pro Flacco 26.62). These views were echoed more than a century later by Pliny who advised a colleague who was sent as an inspector to Greece to be respectful of the cities’ dignity and sense of independence: “Pay regard to their antiquity, their heroic deeds, and the legends of their past. Do not detract from anyone’s dignity, independence, or even pride, but always bear in mind that this is the land that provided us with justice and gave us laws . . . that it is Athens you go to and Sparta you rule” (Letters 8.24.1–4).

There is more than a little patronizing smugness here. One must remember that some of this was the cultured rhetoric shared by an educated segment of the Roman society. Plenty of Romans, often the members of the same elite group, criticized the Greeks for being lazy, vain, weak, and effeminate in contrast to the Romans who displayed the virtues of dignity, gravity, piety, hard work, and military valor – indeed, the very virtues which they believed ultimately made Rome the master of Greece. And we should remember that for all Rome unquestionably owed to Greece in arts and architecture, it also owed in fair measure to the older civilizations of the East, Egypt and most critically, to its native neighbors of central Italy and to the Etruscans, their primary trading partners. Rome entered Greece in the first half of the second century bce as the self-styled “liberator” of the Greek cities from the Macedonian aggression. First sympathetic to Rome’s cause, the cities soon found themselves unable to accept the intruding ways of the great power and rebelled against it under the leadership of the Achaean League. They were easily defeated. In 146 bce, the Roman consul L. Mummius sacked

Greece under Roman rule and wantonly destroyed Corinth, one of the wealthiest cities of Greece. The city’s lands were taken and its women and children sold to slavery. Corinth and its territory were ruled from Rome until it was refounded in 44 bce by Julius Caesar as a Roman colony and the capital of the Roman province of Greece. The defeat of the Achaean League and the grim fate of Corinth were sufficient to keep the smaller Greek cities more or less quiet although many resisted Roman incorporation and domination in hopeless and defiant denial. During the last century of the Republic these cities were drawn into the politics and drama of Rome’s Civil War that was largely fought in Greece. In 86 bce, Athens, which had sided with King Mithridates VI of Pontus (eastern Black Sea region) against Rome, was sacked by Sulla (a consul and general with extraordinary wartime powers), who carried to Rome some of the magnificent columns of the unfinished Temple of Zeus as war booty (see earlier). During the balance of the century Athens made three more unfortunate political choices: backing Pompey over Caesar; Brutus over Anthony and Octavian; and Anthony over Octavian (Augustus). As put succinctly by J. Camp, “Any other Greek city would have sunk without a trace as a result of such choices, but Athens survived” (Camp 2001, 183). Athens, indeed, survived and revived. Along with the rest of Greece it became a part of the Roman Empire after Octavian’s victory at Actium in 31 bce and in the subsequent centuries even flourished under the benefactions of admiring emperors, senators and caring citizens. Its glorious and cultured past illuminated its present and lent it ready prestige. Even at the height of its political power, Greece was a land of restricted resources. Ancient literary sources from the second century bce onward point to a sad picture of poverty, desolation, and population loss in Greece. Gods leave their favorite abodes, sanctuaries are abandoned, cities deserted. However, while it is true that the decline in rural population was real, extensive archaeological surveys undertaken in the last thirty years or so indicate that these accounts of total desolation of the countryside were grossly exaggerated. They should be seen largely as rhetorical exercises that express the culture’s deep disillusionment with the passing of a great era, or literary tropes giving voice to Greece’s reluctance to accept its altered and reduced status. To contrast the situation in Greece with Asia Minor (taken up in our next chapter) would be instructive. Asia Minor, a land of coastal mountains but also broad valleys, wide plains and highlands, was occupied from the distant past by peoples of diverse backgrounds and cultures; it was a land of early Greek colonies, but also of many competing

non-Greek people and kingdoms – Lydians, Phyrigians, Carians, Galatians, Urartians, Attalids, and Seleucids, to name a few. As a land bridge between the East and the West, it took on the big events of war and peace, and the changes these events brought, bright or dismal, in its stride. Although no less troubled and devastated during certain periods in its history, in the end Asia Minor’s cosmopolitan Hellenistic past accepted the inevitability of Roman domination with certain aplomb. The Roman Province of Asia began after Attalus III, the last king of Pergamon, peacefully ceded his kingdom to Rome in 133 bce. The independent poleis of Greece, on the other hand, geographically isolated and politically ambivalent, defended their precious freedoms against an intractable foe heroically, stubbornly, and ultimately ineffectively while the “fair cities of Asia” slid into the fold of a world empire with relative ease. When the Greek Sophist Aelius Aristides of Smyrna, in the second century ce, was extolling the benefits of being a part of the Roman Empire, the prosperous cities he was talking about were not the ones in Greece proper; they were the ones in Asia Minor (see later). A modern tourist in eastern Mediterranean could easily concur with Aristides: the great ancient urban centers characterized by formidable temple precincts; wide, colonnaded avenues; marble-paved plazas; showy fountains and urban façades – such as Ephesus, Aphrodisias, Hierapolis, Perge, Side, Sagalassus, Gerasa, Palmyra, Ba’albek, and Antioch – are not in Roman Greece. Its past inhibiting its present, an unwilling partner, Greece became a bit of a backwater under the Empire. Still, it would be a mistake to conclude that Greek cities did not take their share of benefits under the long “Roman Peace.” Such a misconception can be excused, or at least explained, because convinced of the superiority of Greece’s golden past, archaeologists have paid less attention to the remains of the Roman era in Greece. This is changing, but much needs to be done. In reality, the alterations to the civic landscape of Old Greece under Roman rule were significant and widespread. Living in and investing in Greece were not only common among the Roman aristocracy, as Susan Alcock has underlined, starting with the second century bce, large numbers of Italian middle class businessmen, known as negotiatores (merchants), established strong commercial communities in Achaia and the islands. To these groups we must add as landowners the colonists and discharged veterans of the Roman military. In sum “families of Rhomaioi stock [what the Greeks called Romans] are often seen to have settled permanently in their new homes, ploughing their wealth back into their adopted communities” (Alcock 1993, 77). 557

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity ROMAN CONSTRUCTION IN GREECE Roman construction in Greece followed Italian or Western practice closer than it did in Asia Minor. Both countries are rich in building stones, particularly in the varieties of white and polychromatic marbles and retained their ashlar traditions to a large extent, at least in their more important buildings. For ordinary construction of walls and vaults they relied on regional stones, and varieties of mortared-rubble, itself a variant of the Italian opus caementicium. Also common was a mixed construction composed of a core of mortaredrubble with different types of facing, occasionally larger ashlar blocks, more frequently small, squared blocks of stone (petit appareil), or brick, depending on local resources. The rough wall surface was often revetted in marble given the famously easy availability of the material. Brick was more common in Roman Greece than it was in Roman Asia Minor, including the triangular cut varieties used as a facing much the same way as in Italy, such as at the Great Baths on the Lechaion Road in Corinth, the Hadrianic Baths at Isthmia, and the so-called Arapissa Baths in Sparta. Neither region followed the useful Italian custom of stamping bricks with the name of the local magistrates or the brickyards nor established any standard sizes. Brick production was locally owned; regional brick types and sized varied. The most significant difference in construction between Greece and Asia Minor was the method: brick in Asia Minor is almost always solid in walls and vaults; Greece, with notable exceptions, followed the Western usage of brick as a facing for a different core construction (see Figures 3.18 and 3.19). The reason for these differences can be explained by the nature and amount of Italian influence, especially in the form of military presence in each country. Major Roman construction in Greece was spearheaded by the needs of Roman colonies and military establishments sprouting up across the Peloponnesus and Achaea from the Augustan era onward. Actually, a fair degree of peaceful Roman presence in Corinth followed closely after its destruction and resettlement in mid-second century bce. Roads, bridges, waterworks, and baths serving the accustomed needs of troops and newly settled Italian communities were undertaken mainly by military construction teams and supervised by army engineers. The great civilian projects of later years simply followed this well-established tradition of building. At the risk of over simplification, local Greek builders, trained in the superior methods of Roman construction, undertook great projects such as the vaulted Roman baths, while decoration and marble ornament, luxury arts, remained by and large 558

in the hands of local craftsmen; consequently, the latter retained its exquisite native style and sense of oldfashioned classicism. Roman intervention in Asia Minor by comparison was less intrusive and less military. The land had far fewer Roman colonies and Italian settlements (see later below). MARBLE STYLE

Starting with the Hadrianic period, Roman architecture in Greece, as it did elsewhere in the Mediterranean basin, assumed a monumental and international quality. The primary agent for this change was the widespread use of marble as a structural and decorative material, at the expense of simpler, cheaper local materials. To be sure, in Roman usage marble was mainly for veneer, but the new marble style also created a taste for grand and showy colonnades, arches, and aedicular structures in white and colored marbles imported from distant sources. The lavish use of this luxury material was made possible by the state control of major marble quarries and the establishment of large-scale Mediterranean marble trade. Prized marbles from Greece, Asia Minor, and North Africa (and granite and porphyry from Egypt, giallo antico from Tunisia) encouraged a marble architecture of recognizable elements and decorated in a recognizable style. Because local craftsmen ordinarily accompanied their stone to destinations, they brought their artistic skills to distant lands. This resulted in the dissemination of broader stylistic uniformities – referred to by some scholars as the “marble style” – at the expense of the old, geographically circumscribed local stylistic variations. In this interesting phenomenon (“trade affecting art and style”) by exporting prodigious quantities of white and colored marbles, both Greece and Asia Minor occupied leading positions.

FOUNTAINS, BATHS, AND BATHING CULTURE The evidence for Roman presence in Greece expressed through building is actually rich and varied. Before looking at the larger issues of Rome’s architectural presence in Greece, especially urban planning and architecture in a select number of cities, we will focus on Roman fountains and baths in Greece as a special category which, by merging architecture, structure and social usage, illustrates the complex relationship between Greece and its conquerors and sets the tone for the demonstrations of this relationship. Baths are indicated by their hydraulic systems. Even for the modern casual traveler the country is rife with

Greece under Roman rule

figure 9.1 Reconstruction perspective, Nymphaeum of Herodes Atticus, Sanctuary of Zeus, Olympia; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after Bol).

the remains of aqueducts bringing water to cities from distant sources, partly on the familiar arches constructed in mortared-rubble and brick in Roman fashion. Most of these waterways, which date from the second century ce, terminate in baths and fountains. Large nymphaea with multistory columnar façade displays, as better known from examples in Miletus, Ephesus or Gerasa, were not unknown in Greece, but they were less frequent – the great apsidal Nymphaeum of Herodes Atticus in the Sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, or the north and south nymphaeums inside the West Gate in Nikopolis, being exceptions (Figures 9.1 and 9.2). Simpler functional fountains, such as the Hadrianic fountain on Larissa Hill in Argos with its classicizing façade – a quadruplet of Ionic columns carrying an arcuated lintel – or, the similarly designed nymphaeum marking the vaulted reservoir on the Lykobettos Hill in Athens, were typical (Figure 9.3). Even the late Antonine phase of the Peirene Fountain in Corinth is

a deep, sumptuous box with high walls beautifully rendered in flat marble revetment. There was no attempt to animate its periphery in three-dimensional columnar compositions – “surface architecture,” as trendily called today (see Figures 9.14 and 9.15). The great apsidal nymphaeum fitted into the southeast corner of the Athenian Agora suggests an unmistakable, but still moderate, taste for the baroque civic monument that had arrived by the middle of the second century. Seen in this context, the sumptuous spectacle of architecture and sculpture brought together by the Nymphaeum of Herodes Atticus in Olympia was a normal step in the progression of monuments serving a cosmopolitan Imperial agenda and perfectly reflected the political aims of its renowned donor (see Figure 9.1). More telling as a sign of Roman influence was the growing interest in baths and public bathing as a social activity. Greece, of course, had its balaneia as early as the 559

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figure 9.2 View of the South Nymphaeum (pi-alpha), West Gate, Nikopolis; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 9.3 Reconstructed façade, Lykabettos Nymphaeum, Athens; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after Leigh).

fifth century bce, but with their circular rooms, hip baths, and simpler forms of heating, these baths represented a wholly hygienic and practical mode of bathing. By the middle of the Imperial era the appeal of social bathing in Greece was widespread, well entrenched and genuine. Unlike the blood sports that primarily appealed to colonists of Italian background, bathing was accepted across people of all backgrounds. Small baths and larger thermae proliferated in towns and many wealthy Greeks desired to include sumptuous and elegant private baths as a part of their suburban villas just like their counterparts in Italy. Also like Italy, Greece is rich in thermal and mineral waters, and spas became favored destinations for leisure and rest. Plutarch tells of a place called Aidepsos in Euboea 560

where the local hot springs attracted crowds for leisure, where people indulged in the privileges of their otium and enjoyed endless conversations and laziness – a Greek Baiae, one presumes (Plutarch, Questiones conviviales, 667 C–D). In this instance, at least, “captive Greece” was captivated by the not so fierce habits of its conquerors. In design and the use of heating technology, public baths in Greece are no different from those in Italy and other provinces. Larger cities, especially with Italian populations, such as Corinth or Nikopolis, acquired the bathing habit à la Rome earlier and built larger establishments whose massive ruins with spacious, apsed halls spanned by daring vaults in brick or concrete, identify them easily as thermae. Most of the larger baths emerged in the course of the second century ce in step with advances in water supply systems. Some are partially excavated and studied, others such as the so-called Gymnasium of Eurycles (or, the Arapissa Complex, if you prefer the popular local name) in Sparta are known in name and in massive, shapeless, and overgrown ruins only. The latter was probably a combination of a bath and a palaestra roughly in the manner of the bath-gymnasium complexes of Asia Minor (see later in this chapter), a combination rarely seen in Greece. We have a far greater record of smaller baths spread over a chronological span between Augustan to early Byzantine periods. Deeply embedded into the physical and social fabric of urban neighborhoods these balneae feature parallel vaulted halls and small apsidal units and follow the typical layouts familiar in Italy and elsewhere.

Greece under Roman rule But, unlike the Italian examples these often indicate no use for a courtyard or a palaestra. No doubt, the land that had created the gymnasium had no use to wed them to their baths. Some of these small baths stand out by their novel and creative spatial configurations, such as the baths north of the Temple of Zeus Olympos (the Olympeion) in Athens, probably a part of the larger Hadrianic development of the neighborhood. Roughly 400 square meters, these baths present a dynamic organization of several units whose curved geometry seems to be reflected in the vivid patterns of its well-preserved mosaic and opus sectile floors (Figure 9.4). An apsed, half-round nymphaeum court served as an entrance and established the long axis culminating in the apse of a basilical hall. Next to this social zone is a compact group with a domed octagonal frigidarium whose sides undulate in apsidal projections, attached to a pair of heated rooms also with projections. The expressive and organic geometry of the unusual plan follows the best traditions of experimental bath planning across the Mediterranean which were not restricted, but found their apogee, as many would agree, in the Small Baths of Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli (see Figure 6.71). It would not be illogical to ask if Hadrian’s extensive and varied building program in Athens was not spearheaded by architects from Italy, perhaps even from Tivoli, who would then be in a position to train their capable, but somewhat old-fashioned, Greek followers. Perhaps, it was such a nextgeneration local follower who designed the superbly composed private baths on the estate of Herodes Atticus overlooking the beautiful Bay of Marathon. Atticus, like the grandees of the late Republic and early Empire in Rome, had several country estates each with gardens, groves, walkways, and baths, where he would temporarily withdraw to enjoy his otium in “private pursuit of knowledge” often in the company of his like-minded Roman friends (see earlier for the heroon-cenotaph of his wife Annia Regilla outside Rome). No doubt the culture of baths and bathing was cherished by all in this company. Atticus’ baths, occupying an area of circa 1200 square meters (hardy a private bath!), follow a half-axial arrangement known from major contemporary examples such as the Forum Baths in Ostia (Figure 9.5). The partially symmetrical composition is centered about a magnificent oval pool (with a saucer-shaped dome, one presumes) encircled by a string of square, octagonal, and circular spaces like jewels adorning a crown. Experiencing the contrast between the orthogonal discipline of the unheated entrance zone and the ever-changing spatial exuberance of the heated one must have been elegant and energizing. Such baroque bath schemes

can be admired from Thenae in North Africa to Late Antique Constantinople (see Figure 8.68). Creative experimentation in bath architecture is probably the vivid and collective expression of designers centered in Rome, but diffused throughout the Mediterranean, who achieved variegated harmonies outside the classical canon – ultimately, a large part of architecture is about the sheer delight in creating and experiencing spatial harmonies. There are about a dozen known baths in Corinth dating from the Augustan period through Late Antiquity (for Corinth, see later in this chapter). The largest of these, the Great Baths on the Lechaion Road, is a proper thermae with a cluster of vaulted halls symmetrically disposed about a bent-axis separating the massive frigidarium from the heated zone (Figures 9.6 and 9.7). The sumptuous façade rising behind the natatio displayed a double-story aedicular scheme – which would have been doubled again in its reflection on the water – and finds closest parallels in the great aedicular nymphaea of Asia Minor or specifically multi-level, aedicular backdrops to the great natatio of Roman thermae. One might ask if the strong presence of public baths in Corinth was the outcome of the city’s status as a Roman colony, but the picture is more or less the same in other areas. There are at least twenty-five known Roman baths in Athens (the list given in Travlos 1971, 180–181); the Sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia has nearly a dozen; Sparta and Nikopolis have several each. Never excavated, the massive Baths of Proasteion, the gatekeeper to the Apollo Sanctuary in Nikopolis, share the same angular dynamism of the Lechaion Baths (Figure 9.8). The outline of this complex traces a roughly isosceles triangle with its straight bottom extending a full 250 meters! A semicircular exedra circa 77 meters in diameter opens today into a large flat field. Brick-faced, barrel-vaulted rectangular halls displaying back-to-back apses occupy the sides and ends of a diagonally congruous symmetrical composition. Both the construction technique (opus mixtum and opus reticulatum) and the inventive design invite comparisons to the playful examples of Imperial-era Italian design. More limited in formal vocabulary and later in date (c 200 ce) are the so-called City Baths in Dion (Colonia Julia Diensis), a well-watered site at the foothills of Mount Olympos in northern Greece. The baths are located on a busy plaza with shops, and odeum/bouleterion and a public latrine (Figure 9.9). The block of heated rooms comprising the baths are organized astride a large rectangular hall expanding visually and spatially into a set of secondary rooms by way of colonnaded screens. The main hall covered entirely in a mosaic floor depicting marine scenes and displaying a rich collection of statues of Asclepius 561

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figure 9.4 Plan, Baths north of the Temple of Zeus Olympos, Athens; rendered by Diane Favro (after Travlos).

and his daughters must have been used for a variety of social and ceremonial purposes. The plan of the City Baths at Dion with its main hall and ring type circulation follows the pattern 562

established at the Hadrianic-Antonine baths located at the north edge of the Sanctuary of Poseidon in Isthmia (Figure 9.10). Both can be identified as “halltype” baths. At Isthmia, there is a block-like

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figure 9.5 Plan, Baths on the estate of Herodes Atticus, Marathon; rendered by Diane Favro.

congregation of barrel vaulted rooms with a row of five parallel halls along the south, most of them heated; the frigidarium with projecting rectangular units occupies the northwest corner. Collecting all these spaces in the center is the main hall, a large rectangular space accentuated by a small apse and a podium at the end of the long axis. Like the main hall at Dion, the floor is entirely covered by a handsome polychromatic mosaic depicting Nereids and Tritons (Figure 9.11). The iconographic significance of the marine theme, appropriate for the location, points to Poseidon who was the honorand of the sanctuary as the deity whose presence in the hall probably overlapped with utilitarian and ceremonial uses. B A T H S I N S A NC T U AR I E S

The reader might have noticed that from Isthmia to Olympia, an unusually high numbers of Roman baths

were situated in sanctuaries – notwithstanding the fact that Greece has a lot of sanctuaries. The inclusion of baths and bathing in the life and ritual of a sanctuary was not peculiar to the Roman era. Almost from their inception many sanctuaries in Greece and Asia Minor contained facilities for washing, bathing, and swimming. The majority of Greek era bathing facilities were, however, simpler structures designed for cold water ablutions for athletes, although by the first century bce many were already redesigned to include heating facilities – the efficacy of hot water in cleaning oily bodies after exercise and the sheer pleasure of bathing in warm water in a heated space were too powerful to resist even for Spartan purists. After a short hiatus during the turbulent years of war and passage, the religious and social life of Greek sanctuaries revived, and even expanded and thrived during the Roman Imperial era. One of the practical advantages under Roman supervision was an increase in the 563

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figure 9.6 Restored plan of the Great Baths on the Lechaion Road, Corinth; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after Biers).

number of people who visited sanctuaries. Another is Rome’s realization of the political advantages of supporting these prestigious and venerable centers as benefactors and masters. Bathing was an activity judged to be inherently compatible with the basic program of a sanctuary whose baths served athletic, ritual, and cultic needs. In addition, bathing was appreciated by the increasing numbers of pilgrims and visitors as well as suppliants many of whom came to the sanctuary after long and arduous trips and needed to stay long. Seen in this light one can understand the reason why Roman baths – designed and operated much like any other city bath – offering a sumptuous variety of hot and 564

cold bathing, and boasting large halls for social uses and entertainment like modern resort hotels, became among the most popular elements of Greek sanctuaries. To fully understand and appreciate the relevance of baths to sanctuaries we need to remember that a Greek sanctuary was not just a pure religious place removed from the infelicities of the everyday world. Although distinctly cut out and dedicated to a deity, sanctuaries were places teeming with people and activities, natural locations for assembly and exchange where religious and secular demands intermingled. In Isthmia, as told by Dio Cocceianus, the sanctuary was alive with the noise and bustle of crowds (besides the usual worshippers, attendants, and contestants), including

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figure 9.7 Restored natatio façade, Great Baths on the Lechaion Road, Corinth; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after Biers).

figure 9.8 Plan, Baths of Proaskeion, Sanctuary of Apollo, Nikopolis; rendered by Fikret Yegül.

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A figure 9.9 Reconstruction perspective, “City Baths” (“Large Baths”), Dion (Colonia Julia Diensis); rendered by Diane Favro (after Pandermalis).

philosophers, poets, lawyers, peddlers, and tricksters – and “all needed washing” (Dio Cocc. Discourses, 8). It should hardly be surprising then that many of these sanctuary baths (especially the great pan-Hellenic ones, such as Olympia or Isthmia) were revived and thrived under Roman rule; they presented a new and special setting for public bathing and became new features of old divine landscapes, relocating a traditionally secular activity at home in a spectacularly religious setting. Some, such as the previously mentioned Hadrianic Baths of the Sanctuary of Neptune in Isthmia (see Figures 9.10 and 9.11), continued their life and function even after the pagan use sanctuaries were reduced in state “as attractive items on the diminished menu of extra-urban offerings – offerings whose own

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waning life, like the old sanctuary’s, found renewed meaning in memory and symbol” (Yegül 2015, 267). We will now proceed to the larger setting of cities where, indeed, crowds from all walks of life – soldier and sailor, rich man and poor man, matron and servant girl, even the thief – contributed to the extraordinarily hybrid culture of Roman Greece.

CORINTH, THE CAPITAL OF THE ROMAN PROVINCE OF GREECE As a result of the ill-advised war against Rome, Corinth was sacked and destroyed by the Consul Lucius Mummius in 146 bce. One hundred and two

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figure 9.10 Plan, Hadrianic Baths, Sanctuary of Poseidon, Isthmia; rendered by Fikret Yegül and Diane Favro. (after Dinsmoor and Gregory)

years later, in 44 bce it was refounded by Julius Caesar as a Roman colony, the capital of the Roman province of Greece. A century of utter neglect, rejection, and depopulation took two centuries to overcome. By the mid-second century ce, the city had become an urban showcase in many respects not much different from other well-built Roman centers. The rebuilding and reordering of the city was in a sense a reflection of the reordering of the country. In the manner of all new colonies, the division of agricultural land into measured plots soon followed the city’s destruction because the territory was acquired by Rome and offered for sale. After 44 bce, the cadastration of the country mainly north of Corinth was completed and the city grid was linked into the vast grid of the country. The old Greek agora formed the center of the Roman forum, organized into a rectangular plot of 720  480 RF at the crossing of the major cardo and decumanus

(Figure 9.12). The newly widened Lechaion Road (which became the cardo maximus) led straight north to the harbor bearing the same name. A new, extended grid covering the entire gulf area was applied under Vespasian (69–79 ce) coinciding with new restrictions imposed on Greece to create a larger cadaster, undoubtedly to increase much needed tax revenues. This new “industrialized” centuriation model which displaced the typically fragmented land holdings based on small family farms might have generated some discontent, but over time it brought agricultural efficiency and wealth. The ordering of Corinth’s farmland into a vast grid, one of the most impressive large-scale applications of the system, in a sense symbolized Rome’s orderly occupation and underscored the city’s new birth and identity as Rome’s colony. Starting with Augustus, Rome’s presence was most obviously felt in public architecture, namely the 567

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figure 9.11 View of the Great Hall with the Nereid Mosaic looking northeast, Hadrianic Baths, Sanctuary of Poseidon, Isthmia; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

rebuilding and reorganization of the old agora in a grandiose manner (Figure 9.12, top). Located on the gentle northern slopes of the Acrocorinth, and south of the hill occupied by the Temple of Apollo, the agora was loosely limited on the south by the long South Stoa; its east, west, and northwest edges were untidy and connected to roads. The open, sloping middle ground was arranged in two terraces, defined in the middle by a row of shops and a centrally placed rostrum confirming the new official character of the public space. The simple, linear arrangement of the South Stoa was completely overhauled and rebuilt as larger units, some projecting such as the apsidal bouleterion and the rectangular basilica. The new straight cardo, or the Lechaion Road, entering the space from the north, was enlarged as a 50-foot-wide, marble paved colonnaded avenue with a basilica, a market building, and a precinct of Apollo (Peribolos of Apollo) along its wide porticos (Figure 9.13). The long peristyle-basilica placed on the west side along its long axis was clearly modeled after the late Republican basilica at Pompeii. A third, the Julian Basilica, closed off the east side of the forum. Confirming the establishment of the standard Roman rule with a standard Roman basilica, this was a simple building with a twostory interior peristyle; it was entered from the broad side much like the Republican basilica at Cosa. 568

Modestly built in local poros stone and decorated in stucco (marble revetment was introduced a century later), it contained statues of Augustus and the JuliaClaudian family, probably signifying the introduction of the Imperial cult to the early colony even before such practices were accepted in Rome. It must be remembered that none of the Roman additions to the agora during this period or later (with the exception of the Lechaion Road) followed the hard, rectangular outline or the north-south orientation of the centuriation grid. The firm rectangle of the Roman forum was a theoretical construct of the land surveyors, or in the words of D. Romano, the leading scholar of the plan of Roman Corinth, a “drawing board” design (Romano 2003, 285; Romano 1994, 9–30). Throughout the first two centuries of the empire six temples were built in a row on the west side of the agora (see Figure 9.12 top). All are small prostyle podium temples dedicated to various deities, the last, Corinthian Temple H, a cult temple to Commodus. Overlooking the agora from higher ground on the west, the large colonnaded enclosure of Temple E could claim for its inspiration any typical Hellenistic peribolos, but the temple proper itself, a peripteros elevated on a podium with frontal steps follows western models and was probably the Capitolium of the Roman colony. The Peirene Fountain occupying the

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figure 9.13 View of the Lechaion Road with Acrocorinth, looking south, Corinth; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

northeast corner of the agora went through several Roman renovations, the last and the most elaborate during the Antonine era as a large enclosure with high walls, probably paid by the wealthy family of Antoninus Sosper, a local orator (Figure 9.14). The history of the spring is fused with the sacred history of the city, the natural source marking the place where the mythical flying horse Pegasus was captured and tamed by the hero Bellerophon. Pausanias who visited Corinth in the second century ce described the monument decorated in white marble (2.3.3). As illustrated in the beautiful reconstruction perspective by Gorham P. Stevens (an early-twentieth-century architect, a student of the Beaux-Arts master Charles F. McKim and one-time director of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens as well as the American Academy in Rome), the fountain, at least in its later rebuilding, was truly a water court, an enclosure articulated by three wide apses and a sunken pool-fountain in the middle where the Corinthians could descend to fetch water (Figure 9.15). The refined classicism of the reconstructed design is accentuated by its complete lack of columns or half-columns (contributing to a sense of cool minimalism of surface), and the precise, linear pattern of marble revetment. The six arches of the first story, embellished with simple pediments, gave access to the grotto-source, and the middle two framed

figure 9.14 View of the Peirene Fountain, Roman Agora, Corinth, looking east; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 9.15 Restored perspective, Peirene Fountain, Roman period, Corinth by G. Stevens (1934).

cascades of water. The reconstruction of the “midget order” of pilasters and square decorative panels above the arches is purely conjectural and represents a kind of stylistic license – even though it is based on good comparative parallels – that historians of Stevens’ time felt more comfortable taking than do our contemporaries today. Shaded by its high marble walls, and echoing with the sound of water, the handsome court of marble and its deep apsidal recesses must have been a favorite gathering place for young and old, as young women came to draw water, much like the scene described in Euripedes’ play Medea (Medea 68–69). The Antonine period also witnessed the filling up of the awkward space between the Northwestern Shops with a row of barrel vaulted chambers built just below the peribolos of the Temple of Apollo, and the single arch propylon at the entrance of the Lechaion Road as a two-storied colonnade popularly known as the Captives Façade. Acting also as a kind of vestibule for the Lechaion Road Basilica, the central bay of this colonnade was articulated by a “Syrian pediment” supported by over-lifesize baroque statues of captives, similar to the kind of eye-catching mixing of architecture and sculpture used in the massive terrace of the Flavian temple in Ephesus (see Figure 10.15). The captives here were no doubt an allusion to Emperor Lucius Verus’ victory over the Parthians. Just as the Roman tastes of the colonists favored the construction of three basilicas in the Western

mode within the space of two generations, the theater of the old city (fourth and third centuries bce) was completely rebuilt following Italian models in the century or so after Roman occupation, but more substantively under Hadrian (see Figure 9.12). The massive cavea, no longer resting on the hill and carved as a part of the rocky natural slope, was instead integrated to the three-storied stage building; the Hadrianic stage had three large apses behind an elaborate aedicular façade with panels of rich relief sculpture. By the third century ce, the theater was converted, like so many others in the Greco-Roman world, to an arena for wild beast shows and gladiatorial contests. Immediately south of the theater is the odeum, a perfect half-circle, built in the late first century ce, whose overall width (c. 60 m) equaled exactly one-half the diameter of the theater. Linking the odeum to the theater, behind the stage, is a rectangular peristyle (8  17), a gift of Herodes Attticus, as was the overall refurbishing of the structure in marble. After suffering severe fire damage, it was rebuilt in the early third century as a gladiatorial arena. A more telling process of Romanization (here simply meaning adapting to Roman tastes and preferences) was the reorganization of the Temple of Apollo, the city’s Archaic-Classical era landmark, by combining the two back-to-back chambers of the cella into one and removing all interior columns. Whatever particular function prompted it (the columns were reused in 571

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity constructing a stoa in the Agora), a more spacious and unified interior must have been achieved (a recent proposal that the cella division dated to the Augustan period rests on debatable evidence: Frey 2015, 157–162). Three centuries of building and renovation of the public center of Corinth created a city in which any newcomer Italian would have felt at home. The urban forms and functions – orderly terracing, colonnaded avenues, vaulted shops, podium-style temples, arched gateways, showy façades – were familiar elements of Imperial architecture. As C. Williams II, the city’s long-term American excavator (1966–1997), observed, even when the colonists retained and restored original Greek cults and sanctuaries “they did not feel compelled to restore them to their original form . . . with any great precision or accuracy. . . . (They) preferred Roman ‘modernization’ to ancient Greek authenticity” (Williams 1987, 32). However, the process was subtle and self-conscious. For all the order and geometry of the surveyor’s grid laid over the city, and the orderly “blueprint” design created for the new forum, the actual development delightfully flouted these rules and retained to the end the changing orientations, the open, fuzzy edges, and the fractured, informal character of the old.

NIKOPOLIS, CITY OF VICTORY Nikopolis, the “City of Victory,” was an entirely new creation, a “forced city” founded on the north top of the peninsula at the sea entrance to the Gulf of Ambracia, on the west coast of Greece. The occasion was to commemorate Augustus’ great sea victory at Actium in 31 bce. The fateful battle took place a few miles out from the future location of Nikopolis. To assure the success of the new colony, Augustus gave the polis ample territory for agriculture; settled Italian military veterans and businessmen; and brought additional Greek settlers from various regions – practical considerations for a happy interdependence between town and country. He also established the Actium Games dedicated to Apollo, his patron deity, imbuing them with a new political meaning. Naturally, the commemoration of a military victory was only an appropriate pretext for this new foundation. The real and enduring reason was the strategic position of the new city between two harbors, thereby securing the military control of western Greece and stimulating its much-needed economic recovery. Like the founding of other important Roman colonies such as Corinth, Patras, Philippi, and Dion, Nikopolis signaled the end of hostilities between Greece and Rome, and the beginning of a policy of revitalization and Romanization of Hellas. 572

The city was enclosed by a 5-kilometer circuit of walls and gates, covering an area of circa 90 hectares (compared to the 240 hectares of Corinth), though it was probably never fully occupied. Within the walls a northwest-southeast grid appears to have been laid out, but lies for the most part overgrown and unexplored, massive buildings popping up amid the bushes like so many surprises. The still visible West Gate was the terminus of the road from Komanos on the Ionian Sea, which continued inside as the decumanus maximus. Just within the gate, two rectangular nymphaeums face each other across the main street, both impressing the visitor and providing welcoming refreshment. Slightly off-axis from each other, their thick brick walls are articulated by arched niches, alternating with semidomes and vaults (see Figure 9.2). Since they contained fountains at different levels, one imagines water pouring and cascading down into the large basins that filled the U-shaped enclosures. Judged by the thickness of the walls (c. 2.2 m) preserved up to 9.5 meters high, and the brick-faced concrete in the manner of Western construction, there was probably a second story with statues of deities and notables inside niches, an arrangement comparable to Trajan’s Fountain at Ephesus (see later in this chapter). Unlike the Ephesian example (and many others in Asia Minor), the marble revetted façades were probably not adorned by projecting arrangements of aedicular colonnades, the simple, marble-clad pilasters between the niches creating a quieter sense of classicism, characteristic of some of the Roman work in Greece, such as the interior decoration of the Fountain of Peirene in Corinth (see Figure 9.15). Both nymphaeums of Nikopolis were the termini of a single aqueduct (its arches visible outside the gate) that brought water to the city from a source 50 kilometers away. The latest research indicates that the southern building dates from the second century – probably Hadrianic considering the careful brickwork and the emperor’s particular interest in developing hydraulic systems in Greece – the northern one is an early-third-century ce response to the growing water needs of the city. A flat area in the center of the city is thought to be the forum. On the north edge, the “odeum/odeon” is really a small theater in the Roman manner not intended to be roofed. The cavea (diameter 45.2 m) probably dates from the early decades of the colony as suggested by the extensive and careful construction in opus reticulatum, a direct Italian import, the trade-inhand of the military engineers; major changes were undertaken during the second and third centuries which extended the construction in brick-faced mortared rubble, typical of Western usage (Figure 9.16). The cavea and the orchestra define a perfect semicircle

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figure 9.16 General view of Odeum, Nikopolis; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

and are joined to the stage building by way of vaulted side entrances. The seats are raised on a system of radiating sloped vaults. A pair of symmetrical, axial ramps on the exterior gives direct access to the upper seats of the cavea. The stage is articulated by a wide central apse flanked by smaller niches and three doors. Clearly set up for theatrical performances and annual festivals, the building could have also have served as a bouleterion – which is commonly believed to be the case though there is no evidence for roofing, such as interior supports necessary for the large span. Among the more visible ruins at Nikopolis is a massive set of parallel vaulted cisterns in the northeast, the Byzantine quarter of the city, next to and serving the Large Baths. Identified as a bath by its frigidarium and marble-lined pool, this massive, brick-faced concrete building is represented by several large, parallel barrelvaulted halls, unexplored (Figure 9.17). Such an all-brick bath complex would be rare or nonexistent in Asia Minor where even in massive structures brick is used sparingly mixed with ashlar or rubble (see later). Both the cisterns and the baths are second century buildings. This neighborhood, defined by an inner circuit of late walls (construction in mortared rubble intercepted by bands of brick) of the much-reduced Byzantine city, also contains several fifth- and sixth-century Christian basilicas, some with superb mosaic floors. On the north and nearly 1 kilometer outside the city is the Proasteion, a rural sanctuary in honor of Apollo, and the location for the celebration of the Nea-Aktia Games. On the southern edge of the Sacred Grove are the Proasteion Baths, a

large complex with a cluster of vaulted and semidomed halls set diagonally and symmetrically on both sides of a wide exedra facing a flat ground on the southeast, probably the palaestra (see Figure 9.8). The dynamic, curvilinear design and substantial brick-faced-concrete walls evoke ready comparisons to Italian baths and make this a prestige thermal establishment probably used by athletes who competed in the games as well, as the crowds who came from afar to see them. Further north, forming a closely knit group of facilities for competition and entertainment include a stadium, a gymnasium, and a large, southwest facing theater that could probably have seated close to seven thousand spectators. Measuring 87 meters in diameter, the half-circle of the cavea, partially raised on vaulted structures and buttressed, joins the three-story stage building. In size and design the Nikopolis theater resembles the Roman theater at Aspendos, one of the few truly western-type theaters in Asia Minor. The brick-and-concrete ruins of its stage walls, which must have provided the support for the usual multistory colonnaded façade, dominate the site. The seats are largely gone, but the great semicircular sweep of the piers and pilasters of the vaulted brick arcade on top of the cavea (summa cavea) are impressively there. When whole, this arcade would have protected the spectators in case of unexpected rain showers, but also provided a handsome crown to the theater. Of particular interest are two exterior staircases on the curving outer wall of the cavea offering convenient extra access for the 573

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figure 9.17 General view of Large Baths, Nikopolis; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

crowds coming from the sanctuary. There is no hard evidence (like a convenient dedicatory inscription) to date the theater, but based largely on construction style, the main structure appears to be second century with later renovations. Some of the walls of mortared-rubble separated by bands of solid brick are comparable to the extensive Byzantine era fortifications typically representing third century renovations – and also to similar mural work in Asia Minor (Figure 9.18). Nikopolis suffered several major earthquakes in the late third century and the destructive passage of the Goths and Herulians in 268 ce, but it continued to be inhabited and prospered through the fifth century when it became the seat of a metropolitan bishop. TH E C AM P S ID E M EM O R IA L MO N UM EN T

North of the Proasteion, high up on Apollo’s hill, the so-called Actium Trophaeum, or Octavian’s “Campside Memorial,” is a victory monument whose importance goes far beyond the city or the region. Located “on the spot where Octavian pitched his tent” (Dio Cassius 51.1.3) and ordered the battle, the prominent place has a view over the Sanctuary of Proasteion and the city to the south. To the west and beyond it overlooks the waters on which the battle was won which effectively ended the Republic and gave young Octavian absolute power. 574

Raising trophies on battlegrounds was nothing new, but this was a permanent architectural monument that changed the topography and was intended to be seen from afar. It conveyed a wider meaning of victory for the new leader of the Roman world and the beginning of a new era. The monument extended over two terraces, a lower narrow one some 62 meters long constructed of concrete faced with true Western style opus quasi-reticulatum. Above this rose a large terrace, more a plaza (c. 39  38 m) defined by a U-shaped stoa open to the south, the sea, and the view. Partially embedded into the robust limestone ashlar retaining wall of the upper terrace were the captured prows, rams, and anchors of the enemy ships with a dedicatory inscription above in massive bronze letters (Figure 9.19). This arrangement was clearly inspired by the Republican Rostra in the Forum Romanum in Rome whose ship-ram trophies alluded to the naval victories of the Republic (see earlier). The spacious upper precinct contained a monumental altar decorated with sculptural friezes; it also served as a gallery for the display of the war spoils and statuary. Its typological kinship to the great Hellenistic victory monuments, such as the Altar of Zeus in Pergamon, is unmistakable. Also unmistakable is the kinship of the overall layout and natural background to some of the well-known Republican sanctuaries of Italy, such as the Sanctuary of Jupiter Anxur at Terracina, or the Sanctuary of Hercules

Greece under Roman rule

figure 9.18 Detail of construction, Theater, Nikopolis; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Victor at Tibur (see earlier) – all distinguished by dramatic settings where terraced architecture and landscape are integrated into one grand totality. The inscribed dedication in Latin over the ships’ prows and rams (all twenty-three of them) declared that “Imperator Caesar [i.e. Augustus] following the victory in the war waged on behalf of the Republic . . . after peace had been restored on land and sea consecrated to Neptune and Mars the camp from which he set forth to attack the enemy now ornamented with naval spoils” (trans. W. Murray 1989, 86). Thus, one victory memorialized and sanctified on one small hilltop ushered in countless future victories that created a powerful world empire. The irony that “the war waged on behalf of the Republic” ended the Republic appears to have been lost on all but few.

PHILIPPI If Octavian’s victory over Mark Anthony at Actium marked the commemoration of the site and the creation of the city of Nikopolis, his earlier victory in 42 bce, when he collaborated with Anthony against the Republican contenders Brutus and Cassius, had led to

the creation of Colonia Augusta Julia Philippensis, easier known as Philippi, a city at the northern end of Greece. Following Octavian’s victory, Philippi, like Nikopolis, was settled by army veterans and large groups of Greek immigrants from diverse regions. By the beginning of the second century ce, Philippi had been fully Romanized: its epigraphic output was entirely in Latin; its theater was used routinely in gladiatorial combats; and, Roman emperors and Roman cults were honored and worshipped. Perhaps, the pace and nature of Romanization at Philippi was faster and deeper than at Nikopolis or even Corinth – the location of the city on the militarized east-west highway, the Via Egnatia, might be offered as an explanation. And, unlike Nikopolis, Philippi was not a new city created from scratch, but one with a long history. Located in eastern Macedonia, 15 kilometers north of the modern harbor town Kavala (ancient Neapolis), the earliest settlement in the region goes back to prehistoric times. The town was known for its Roman and Early Christian periods, the latter strengthened after Paul’s visit in 49 ce to found what many believe the first Christian church outside Rome. King Philip II of Macedonia in 365 bce, captured the city, then called Krenides, fortified it with walls and changed its name. King Philip’s city owed its prosperity to the rich and well-watered surrounding agricultural land, and its strategic location on the Via Egnatia. This important Roman highway, connecting the eastern and western halves of the empire, crossed right through the town as the decumanus maximus, separating it into two halves. On the north and northwest, the steeply rising land was arranged in several terraces, culminating on a high, rocky acropolis. The flat ground on the south was organized following an orderly orthogonal plan (Figure 9.20). The city center, directly south of the Via Egnatia, or the decumanus, was occupied by the large marble-paved rectangular enclosure of the forum (99  50 m) entered mainly from the north and south (Figure 9.21). The forum’s early history is JulioClaudian, but most of the visible remains belong to the city’s expansion years under the Antonines. On the west was a long stoa-basilica balanced on the east by several administrative offices and a library. On the northeast and northwest corners, a pendant pair of tall, Corinthian temples with four-column (tetrastyle) prostyle porches provided the only monumental accent to the low enclosure; the design was closer to the kind of civic precincts or agoras familiar in Hellenistic Asia Minor than to the axially ordered typical Western fora. South of the forum a commercial street parallel to the decumanus was lined with shops and faced a Roman-style market, or as unequivocally identified by a Latin inscription, a macellum. A colonnaded front 575

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figure 9.19 Hypothetical reconstruction of the Campside Monument (Actium Trophaeum), Nikopolis; rendered by Alex Maymind (after Murray and Petsas). [H]

porch gave access to a centralized court with shops and stalls. The theater on the south-facing natural slopes of the acropolis was built in the mid-fourth century bce under Philip II, and remained in use until Late Antiquity, but changing with the times and tastes. The original structure, with a circular orchestra, was enlarged during the Imperial period which included the addition of a twostoried stage building with decorative, columnar scaenae frons, a deep stage platform, and vaulted side entrances (paradoi). Later, the circular orchestra was converted into a real arena for gladiatorial combat and wild animal shows by adding two-meter high protective walls, and an underground passage for the sudden presentation of lions and tigers and bears. The tombstone of a local benefactor boasts that he had not only paid for a show of seven pairs of gladiators and four sets of wild beast hunts, but also for the sprinkling of perfume to mask the offensive smells of blood-letting – one thinks, however, such smells would have contributed to the authenticity of these shows, and wonders, if the scope of smells created by the fourteen gladiators in the tiny Philippi theater was found offensive, 576

how bad the situation in the Colossum in Rome could have been! The handsome votive relief panels of marble decorating the piers of the arcade behind the stage building are also from this period. Their subtle and elegant representations of Mars, Victories, and Nemesis appear to be antithetical to the combative use to which the theater was put but still appropriate. A P AL A E S T R A, A T R AD E A S S OC I A T I O N H E A D QU AR T E R S , O R A C I V I C C E N T E R ?

A rectangular building (c. 89  59 m, or 90  60 RF) next to the macellum on the west has been identified as a “palaestra,” perhaps because of its long interior peristyle (Figure 9.22). Dating to the Antonine period, the function and architectural typology of this interesting and intriguing building eludes simple naming – and evokes our (and our readers, too, we hope) curiosity. With a two-storied internal peristyle enclosing a narrow “nave” (12  60 m), it does not appear to be a palaestra in the usual sportive sense – at the first glance it looks like a variant of the Vitruvian basilica. The center of the long east side is emphasized by a

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figure 9.20 Plan of Philippi; rendered by Anthony Caldwell and Diane Favro. [F]

rectangular chamber with semicircular, odeum-type seating (perhaps, for music or political meetings), flanked by a pair of identical rooms. Across, the axis is emphasized by an exedra opening into the central colonnaded space (probably roofed) through two columns in antis, resembling a place of honor or cult, or a civic exedra like the ephebeum of a Hellenistic gymnasium, probably why the building was dubbed as a “palaestra-gymnasium” in the first place. Stairs at northwest and southwest corners ascended to an upper story.

In Roman cities another widely diffused venue for the internalized palaestra-type arrangement can loosely be identified as a workshop or “tabernae building” (this interesting typology and variants are explored by J.-C. Béal 2010, 17–19; also F. Coarelli 1991, 47–59). These independent rectangular blocks basically contain rows of tabernae (shops or workshops) as tightly organized spatial modules, often grouped around a roofed, colonnaded courtyard. Housing different or similar activities, handicrafts or trades, the blocks fit conveniently to crowded urban settings, such as the rectangular building 577

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figure 9.21 General view of the Forum Philippi, looking southwest; Photo by Diane Favro.

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figure 9.22 Plan of the “Palaestra” Philippi; rendered by Diane Favro (after Lemerle 1937).

under S. Clemente in Rome (plan and location also confirmed by fragment number 680 of the Marble Plan). Dating to the Flavian era and identified as the “Workshop of Moneta” (headquarter office and workshops of coinage), the plan of the two-story structure resembles in a general way the Philippi “palaestra-gymnasium.” 578

Yet, the modular sameness of the tabernae of the “Workshop of Moneta” without any prominent architectural elements such as large meeting halls, or exedrae, makes the use of the Philippi building for a mere industrial purpose unlikely; a more exalted purpose, like the center for a trade association (with its own meeting halls and

Greece under Roman rule odeum), like the configuration of Eumacchia’s complex of the Corporation of the Fullers in Pompeii, is not out of the question (see earlier). Another diversion in this marketplace of possibilities brings to mind the enigmatic complex at Chester (Deva Victrix) in England, composed of a central, porticoed elliptical enclosure set within a rectangular block including a bank of tabernae and baths and alternatively interpreted as a “religious building” (sanctuary of Augustus and the Olympian gods) or a palaestragymnasium – displaying an unusual design morphology affiliated with the Philippi complex (see Figure 4.19). It might have been a special form of palaestra-gymnasium-cum-officers’ club serving the elite military leaders of this distant, but very important frontier fortress, similar in idea to other elite clubs with quasi-military and sportive nature, such as the Praedia (House) of Julia Felix in Pompeii. In our best estimate, the formally composed complex in Philippi must have served multiple uses as a civic center, perhaps combining cultural, artistic, and commercial functions, not incompatible with the wider meaning of an Imperial Roman basilica, a trade association, or a modern community center. Readers who are familiar with the resourceful and flexible nature of Roman architecture and its dynamic and hybrid typologies, are invited to engage in their own interpretations.

ATHENS As described by A. D. Rizakis, the Romans ruled Greece by a hierarchical system of administration, “a chain of allied cities” connected by roads and supported by centuriated agricultural hinterland, all ultimately linked to Rome (Rizakis 1997, 18–9). Athens, never a Roman colony, never became a part of this chain. This might be seen as surprising since in the last century of the Republic Athens made a number of unfortunate political mistakes by siding with Rome’s enemies (see earlier). Yet, the city suffered comparatively little physical damage even during Sulla’s sack in 86 bce. Athens’s gloried past protected its present and assured its future. Athens always occupied a special position in Western thought as the font of democracy and the arts as “. . . where men think that humanity, learning, religion, grain, rights and laws were born and whence they were spread through all the earth . . .” (Cicero, pro Flacco 26.62). Thus, expressed in 59 bce, Cicero’s opinion was essentially shared by the romantic view held by Lord Byron, who came to Greece’s aid some nineteen centuries later in its struggle for independence against Ottoman rule. Athens, under Roman rule suffered no

sudden break with the past; it was allowed a slow, gentle decline, and granted by the same masters, a slow, steady rise. Most scholars agree that the nature of Roman architecture in Athens compared to the provinces was more varied, more eclectic, and at times more inventive. The first monument that signaled Athens’s recognition of Octavian’s triumph is a small, circular temple (8.6 m in diameter) with nine columns and no cella built in 27 bce in front of the Parthenon. The white marble structure carries a dedication from the people of Athens to Roma and Augustus, its open, airy, elegant form – called a monopteros – is a well-established type in classical architecture. The Ionic capitals are faithful copies of the Erectheion capitals. Foreshadowing the acceptance of the Imperial Cult, this monument planted in the heart of Athens is fully Roman in idea, but Greek in form and artistic style. Neither Augustus nor the Athenians were averse to such elusive, symbolic gestures. Another similar gesture was the full-scale moving of a small, disused temple to Ares from somewhere in Attica to Athens where it was re-erected (its blocks all numbered and marked like a modern reconstruction project) in the middle of the old agora with a new dedication to Gaius Caesar, Augustus’ adopted son as the “New Ares” (see Figure 9.31, inset A). This was not the first example of such archaeological recycling, a reuse of material past, but conflating Ares with Gaius, the Greek past with the Roman future, it underscored a model where such cultural symbioses and deliberate archaisms were not only acceptable but desirable. The gateway to the Sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis, known as the “Outer Propylaea” (or sometimes the “Greater Propylaea”) finished under the Antonines was another instance of deliberate historicizing. Down to its dimensions the gate was an almost exact copy of Mnesikles’s celebrated Propylaea of the Athenian Acropolis. Located in front of an irregularly shaped, marble-paved plaza entered by a pair of arches, exactly copied from the recently finished Hadrian’s Arch at Athens (see later), the Eleusian Propylaea stood on a stepped podium; this additional height must have created on the otherwise flat ground the illusion of the steep angle of ascent that the original had; at the same time this arrangement obliterated the need for different heights for its inner and outer porches. The pediment over the outer, Doric porches displayed a large, sculptured shield framing a now-eroded portrait of Marcus Aurelius (imagio clipeate) who must have completed the project, although the names of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius are also included in the dedicatory inscription (Figure 9.23). All its visible parts built entirely in Pentelic marble, the sentiment behind the construction of a near-duplicate of a celebrated older monument (unlike the rebuilding of the Temple of 579

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figure 9.23 Model of the Sanctuary of Demeter, Eleusis, showing the Outer Propylon with detail of pediment containing a shield portrait of Marcus Aurelius; Photo by Diane Favro.

Ares) is not even invested in the game of memory and subtle evocation of the past – the scheme is too obvious for that. There is no abbreviation, no metaphorical invention, no epic allusion burdened with the past – but more imitation and appropriation. With a framed imperial portrait staring out from its center, the Outer Propylaea is about Imperial presence cloaked in Greek costume. It exalts the privilege of giving a gift to a Greek sanctuary in the Roman manner. Also Roman in manner is the core construction of the monument the eye could not see: Roman concrete or opus caementicium faced with marble ashlar. 580

The building of the Odeum of Agrippa (Augustus’ trusted friend and victorious naval commander at Actium) in circa 15 bce, also in the middle of the Athenian agora, represents a more subtle gesture from a more substantial man (see Figure 9.31, inset B). A cubical mass (c. 43  51 m, 25 m high) with seating for about one thousand arranged in a segment of a circle, the building dominated, or rather overpowered, the city’s most venerable public space (Figure 9.24). The main entrance, a discreet four-column propylon, was from the north and a walled-in stoa surrounded the main block on south, east, and west. The 25-meter

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figure 9.24 Axonometric reconstruction of Odeum of Agrippa, Agora, Athens; rendered by Alex Maymind.

width of the concert hall which had no interior supports (but massive side piers which project outside as pilasters) must have been crossed by a daring truss construction hitherto unparalleled in Greece (and rarely elsewhere), clearly a product of Roman engineering know-how, while the building’s beautiful marble architecture and ornament displayed Greek taste and classical workmanship. The overall models for Agrippa’s generous gift were undoubtedly the great

Hellenistic bouleteria, such as the one in Miletus (c. 175 bce), common in Asia Minor, but with no precedents in Greece. Indeed, as J. P. Ward-Perkins deadpanned, “to the Athenians who watched it going up it must have seemed very strange” – almost obliterating the center of the city’s most valuable public space, it must have, indeed (Ward-Perkins 1981, 26). Damaged in the second century earthquakes, it was repaired and renovated under Antoninus Pius (c. 150 581

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figure 9.25 General view of the Markets of Caesar and Augustus (“Roman Agora”), looking west, Athens; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

ce) by dividing the larger hall into two small lecture halls, perhaps more to the taste of the philosopheremperor. The north side was rebuilt as a grand colonnade with supporting figures of Tritons and Giants modeled after the similar figures on the Parthenon pediments. In its original form and later reincarnation this was an impressive building that represented GrecoRoman eclecticism at its best. The old agora, even with the new additions throughout the Roman period, remained as the cultural, religious, and administrative center of Athens. Commercial activity even from the earliest days had been concentrated in the open market some 90–100 meters to the east of it. It is here that under Julius Caesar, and later under Augustus in 27 bce, as the donor inscription states on the architrave of its Doric west propylon, a large peristyle enclosure (111  98 m) for commercial purposed was built, referred to as the Agora of Caesar and Augustus, or the Roman Agora (Figures 9.25 and 9.26). This was for all intents and purposes an unremarkable, functional building. Entered on the east and the west by classicizing gates, the paved enclosure was surrounded by one hundred unfluted Ionic columns. The shorter east side had a 582

row of shops, the wider stoas of the north and south sides were reserved for stalls. Outside, on the east was an independent public latrine, and across from it and the East Ionic Propylon (not preserved), stood the Horologion of Andronikos, commonly known as the Tower of the Winds, in reference to the great weathervane that once stood on the faceted conical roof (Figure 9.27). Almost preserved intact, this time monument appropriately associated with the market is a 14meter-high hexagonal structure in Pentelic marble. Above each side of the hexagon sculpted, flying male representations of the eight winds are inscribed with their names – Boreas (north), Skion (northwest), Zephyros (west), and so on. Vitruvius, ever curious about such scientific schemes, described the monument referring to the bronze weather vane as a Triton with a rod in his right hand, “driven around by wind and always faced the current of air, as the rod above correctly identified the representation of the wind” (De arch. I.6.4). Entered by way of two pedimented porches, the interior of the tower is circular and housed two metal tanks operating a water clock, and metal contraptions that indicated time based on the rise and fall of a float. Similar water-powered gadgets

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figure 9.26 View of the West Gate of the Markets of Caesar and Augustus looking east; Athens; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

and timepieces created by Greek scientists were often adopted and popularized by the Romans. The actual date of the Horologion is controversial, varying within a century from the late second to the mid-first century bce. Its elegant marble architecture favors the earlier date, however the extraordinary ability of Greek craftsmen working for their Roman masters to create Attic detailing in stone well into the Hadrianic era should be also reckoned. H AD R IA N A ND AT HE NS

A handsome arch at the northwest entrance to the precinct of the Temple of Zeus Olympos (the Olympeion) on its side facing the old city declares: “This is Athens, the ancient city of Theseus” (Figures 9.28 and 9.29, Plate 22). On the east side facing the new

city and the Olympeion it boasts: “This is the city of Hadrian and not of Theseus.” The two-story arch with an airy upper level of a pedimented aedicule over a single, wide opening below was erected in 131/132 ce by Athenians to honor Hadrian. It is interesting that Hadrian’s name is both exalted by its association with the great Athenian hero, but also distinguished from him by making it clear that Theseus had nothing to do with the city Hadrian created and gave as a gift to the Athenians – for which the small, elegant arch is a symbol of gratitude and boundary marker. To be sure Hadrian was a restless emperor known for his extensive travels and he is special in his extraordinary generosity to the cities of Asia and Greece. Recent scholarship and fieldwork reveal that projects and buildings associated with his name are even greater than we had believed. But his patronage in Greece is a little different 583

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figure 9.27 General view and detail, Horologion of Andronikos (“Tower of the Winds”), Athens; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 9.28 Arch of Hadrian, Athens, north façade (toward the “City of Theseus”); Photo: A. Savin via Wikimedia.

in nature than in Asia Minor. In the latter, more often than not the cities paid for their buildings, which were inspired by, and in some cases, initiated by him with seed money. In the former, the projects were largely real, outright gifts. And among the cities of Greece he had what he considered a special relation with Athens, special enough to declare his jealous independence from Theseus. The unusual design of his arch, though, seems to bring together the two modes of classicism

represented by Greece and Rome: a high-classical traebated, pedimented top carried by an arched bottom. We do not actually know if Hadrian had spent time in Athens as a young student of philosophy and rhetoric, as imagined in Margaret Yourcanour’s gripping fictional biography of the emperor, but it was not uncommon to spend a “graduate year” in what had become a matchless university town among young males of the Roman upper social class just as the 585

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figure 9.29 Plate 22 Upper level detail of the Arch of Hadrian, Athens; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Grand Tour became a must for eighteenth-century English aristocracy. Sometimes the re-creation of plausible reality based on circumstantial evidence can be more enlightening than one limited by unverifiable “facts” culled from elusive archaeological evidence. At any rate, Hadrian visited Athens no less than three 586

times after he became emperor; for him, as for other Roman literati, Athens was suffused with memory and meaning. It was, as S. Alcock observed, “an imagined, magical place” (Alcock 1993, 225). Passing under Hadrian’s arch marking the boundary between the old and the new, one would be

Greece under Roman rule confronted ironically with the great Temple of Olympian Zeus, one of the oldest and largest monuments of Athens (Figure 9.30). The temple, which was begun in the sixth century bce by Pisistratos as a Doric dipteros, was continued in the Corinthian order by the Roman architect Cossutius working for the Hellenistic King Antiochus Epiphanes (176–165 bce). Cossitus might have even spent some time at Antioch-on-the-Orontes, the king’s capital, reversing the trend of Greek architects working for Roman masters (Vitr. De Arch. 7.15.17). The giant structure was finished by Hadrian and dedicated during his visit in 131/2 ce. Although the temple’s beautiful capitals display stylistic characteristics we associate with the Roman Corinthian – like the capitals of the Augustan Temple of Mars Ultor in Rome (see Figure 4.20 and 4.21) – the elongated plan (8  20 columns, c. 300  70 m) retains Archaic composition and proportions. Given the long and tortuous history of the building, and its religious significance, we can see it as a material witness, and a magnificent one, of the link between the present and the venerable past of the city. Another Pisistratid project completed by Hadrian was the aqueduct which brought water to the city from springs on Mount Parnes (Parnitha) some 20 kilometers away, first to a large reservoir on the slopes of Mount Lycebettus, then down to a fountain in the agora. Steeped in the old Roman traditions of grottolike nymphaeums, this reservoir was designed as a large basilical, barrel-vaulted hall. A simple classical façade of four Ionic columns with an arcuated lintel bay celebrated the terminus of the water (the design known from fifteenth-century drawings of Cyriac of Ancona) (see Figure 9.3). Hadrian’s work was acknowledged in an inscription on the architrave, but the façade was finished in 140 ce by Antoninus Pius. Although we cannot know to what extent the vaulted hall of the reservoir can be related to some late Republican nymphaeums of Italy, such as the so-called Auditorium of Maecenas on the Esquiline Hill in Rome, or the “Doric Nymphaeum” of Domitian’s villa on Lake Albano, Hadrian’s vaulted Lycabettus nymphaeum with its formulaic arcuated façade is a clear departure from the Greek and Hellenistic fountain typology. A branch of the same aqueduct brought water to a nymphaeum on the southeast corner of the agora. This was an apsidal structure with a semicircular basin and curved back wall articulated by a series of statue niches (Figure 9.31, inset D). Facing a small, triangular plaza framed by stoas, the dynamic form and decoration of this urban nymphaeum offered maximum visual impact for those approaching from north, or on the Panathenaic Way and gave them, perhaps, a last chance for refreshment before commencing the steep climb up to

the Acropolis. Hadrian’s unknown architect – probably, a Roman – who introduced the apsidal nymphaeum type in Greece might have influenced (even be the designer of ) the great apsed Nymphaeum of Herodes Atticus at the Sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia (see Figure 9.1). The most visible and perhaps the most splendid of Hadrianic monuments in Athens was the great quadriporticus building some 16 meters north of the Agora of Caesar and Augustus identified by Pausanias as the Library of Hadrian (1.18.9) (Figure 9.32). The entire west exterior of the building was treated as a columnar wall in marble with freestanding Corinthian columns in green Carystan stone on white marble pedestals carrying an undulating entablature; the center was accentuated by a pedimented propylon of white marble (Figure 9.33). Seven of the columns on the north side of the propylon have been restored. Approached from the old agora, the firm, continuous urban façade created by the twin peristyle buildings, the Library of Hadrian and the Agora of Caesar and Augustus, with their pedimented gates facing west, would have underlined, as observed by J. Travlos Jr., “a (special) relationship with the Agora” (Travlos 1971, 244). Pausanias tells us that the rectangular enclosure (125  99 m) had 100 columns of Phyrigian marble and adds like an afterthought that books were kept in the compound. The east side of the enclosure was developed with five symmetrically arranged rooms; the central large hall with wall niches for wooden cupboards for books surrounded by a two-story colonnade was clearly the library. Rooms flanking the center, their walls revetted in colored marbles, were perhaps for reading or picture galleries, while the outer pair with stepped marble seats, must have been lecture halls. The middle of the peristyle was arranged like a garden with a long reflecting pool lined with statues (like the Canopus in Hadrian’s Tivoli Villa); side walls behind the colonnades were articulated by alternating apsidal and rectangular exedrae intended for quiet reading and discussions, recalling Vitruvius’ description of the Greek gymnasium, and as one imagines it might have been at Plato’s Academy in Classical era Athens. However, the direct and close architectural model for the complex was clearly Vespasian’s Temple of Peace (or, Forum Pacis) in Rome, a sumptuous sanctuary of arts and books under the protection of Pax, the Goddess Peace (see Figures 6.1 and 6.3). In an insightful essay on the impact of Roman architecture on Athens, H. Thompson suggested that the Library of Hadrian was no mere library, but “an “arts centre” of a sophisticated kind on a scale previously undreamt of in Greece” (Thompson 1987, 10). We agree. It would have been natural for Hadrian, unfairly chided by some 587

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figure 9.30 View of Temple of Zeus Olympos (“Olympeion”), Athens; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 9.31 Reconstructed the Nymphaeum, southeast corner of the Agora, Athens; rendered by Rui Xiong and Diane Favro.

manly men as the “Greekling,” to return the gift of arts and philosophy that he had received from Athens as a young man, with a building complex dedicated to the arts whose inspiration came from Rome. However, lest we are too much taken by the aura of marble classicism of Greece that shaped the spaces dedicated to philosophical and artistic themes, we invite the reader to view the construction of these rooms with their sturdy, brick-faced-concrete walls of popular Roman usage – vintage Hadrian in all. H E R OD E S A T T I C U S A N D A N T I O C H U S P HI L OP P AP O S

Rivaling Hadrian (not quite!) in the lavishness of his gifts to Athens and other Greek cities and sanctuaries was Tiberius C. Herodes Atticus, a wealthy philosopher and philanthropist from Attica (the region around Athens). Among his many gifts outside Athens

were the previously mentioned grand nymphaeum at Olympia, an eye-catching structure dedicated to Zeus and his wife Annia Regilla, who was the Priestess of Demeter (see Figure 9.1). Built circa 150 ce in a far grander manner than the Hadrianic Athenian prototype, this nymphaeum displays a wide exedra articulated by two stories of aediculae and niches between a pair of columnar tholoi (plural of tholos, a circular structure) providing an impressive backdrop for three levels of basins. Statues of the Atticus family mixed and mingled with those of the Antonine family and appropriate deities “to suggest, even to the unlettered, a significant relationship” (Walker 1987, 61). The position of the massive monument (diameter of the apse is 19 m) on the narrow terrace occupied by the diminutive treasuries, just behind the venerable Archaic Temple of Hera, might have been a little overpowering, and to some tastes, crude; its sculptural form and rich decoration a little flamboyant; but, it was, after all, an 589

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figure 9.32 Restored plan, Library of Hadrian, Athens; rendered by Diane Favro (after Travlos).

Imperial Roman monument – and by the middle of the second century ce there seemed to be a limit to when an Imperial monument could masquerade as a Greek classic, a limit Hadrian himself knew to recognize and never cross. The fountain did, however, serve the welcome function of providing clean, cool, copious water, and water’s beautiful sight and sound, to thousands of visitors and athletes parched under the summer sun. In Athens, Atticus built the all-marble stadium of the city and the famous odeum dominating the southwest slopes of the Acropolis. The latter was finished in the early 170s and bearing his name in memory of his wife Regilla, who died in Rome in 160 ce (her handsome memorial cenotaph designed like a brick tomb is outside Rome, see Figures 3.24, 3.25, and Plate 11A). The massive walls of the Odeum’s well-preserved stage rise some 28 meters, probably the largest roofed (or 590

partially roofed) ancient structure in the city (Figure 9.34). Serving the city’s important need for a major music hall since the much smaller Odeum of Agrippa had by this time collapsed and been rebuilt as two lecture halls (see earlier and Figure 9.24), the new establishment was in essence a Roman type theater whose huge half-circle auditorium (76 m in diameter) was linked to the three-story stage by massive towers housing stairs. The construction is also Romaninspired: the 2.40-meter-thick walls in poros ashlar hide mortared-rubble cores and are veneered in rich marbles. The deep stage with its three-story aedicular scaenae frons arrangement could have rivaled the Theater at Aspendos, a locus classicus of the type (see later and Figures 10.96 and 10.97). The big question is how was this colossal odeum (or a “roofed theatre”) with no interior supports roofed? The inquiry emerges in the first place because of a reference to a wooden roof in

Greece under Roman rule

figure 9.33 View of the west façade colonnade of the Library of Hadrian, Athens; Photo: Carole Raddato via Wikimedia.

figure 9.34 General view of the Odeum of Herodes Atticus, looking south, Athens; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 9.35 Hypothetical roof construction, Odeum of Herodes Atticus, Athens; by G. Izenour, © Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Penn State University Libraries.

Pisistratos, a late-second-century ce Sophist: “Herodes also dedicated to the Athenian the theater in memory of Regilla, and made its roof of cedar wood, though this wood is considered costly even for making statues” (Vit. Soph., 551). Despite this seemingly clear confirmation for the existence of a “wooden roof,” and the considerable amount of charred wood and ashes found in the excavation that seems to support Pisistratos, the technical difficulties (some would have said the impossibility) of spanning a 38-meter-radius cavea (the actual maximum span in the center would have been closer to 41 m) in any form of wood, give pause. There is no known truss system from antiquity that comes close to the circa 40-meter span of this building further complicated by its half-round geometry (paramount to putting a timber-trussed roof over the Pantheon in Rome). The short span of the odeum at Augusta Praetoria (Aosta) was circa 33 meters (see Figure 7.50); the trusses of the Odeum of Agrippa in Athens, and the odeum in Aphrodisias each had a span of circa 26 meters, as did those crossing the late Roman Basilica at Trier. The most convincing, and structurally credible, solution is a partial roof in wood over the cavea cantilevered from its curved, double back walls creating a kind of a half oculus (Figure 9.35). This scheme has been analyzed and worked out by G. Izenour, a pioneer in theater design and technology whose study Roofed Theaters of Classical Antiquity (1992) offers many innovative and beautifully presented solutions on the subject. Convinced that no full roofing was possible to cover the Odeum of Herodes Atticus by the available technologies of its day – and given that ancient authors are 592

not clear about what they mean by a “roof” – he suggested a “partial system . . . based on a radial array of twenty knee-braced, cantilevered, outward-sloping timber beams . . .” (Izenour 1992, 137). The argument, and the handsome restoration drawing accompanying it, appear logical. The last monument of the Roman period in Athens we take up presents no structural challenges. It is a decorative and delightfully eclectic tomb the Athenians built to honor the memory of J. Antiochus Philopappos, a distinguished philanthropist and an exiled prince of Commegene (a Hellenistic kingdom in eastern Anatolia, modern Turkey) to whom they gave citizenship. Philopappos’ career peaked with a consulship under Trajan, celebrated on his tomb by an inscription and statuary. Dated to circa 114–16 ce, the tower-like tomb (13 m high) rises on the crest of the Mouseion Hill, west of the Acropolis (Figures 9.36 and 9.37). The restored northern face, visible from the Acropolis, is decorated; the backside contains the burial chamber. Over a poros ashlar sockel the concave middle zone carries a marble relief panel showing Philopappos in a consular procession; he is in a chariot evoking deliberately the iconography and artistry of the famous triumphal procession from the Arch of Titus in Rome. Above, in a tri-partite arrangement of niches separated by tall pilasters, Philopappos sits in the center niche flanked by his Commegene and Seleucid ancestors – just as their colossal images sit enthroned on top of distant Nemrud Dag, their wild and windy royal burial mound in eastern Anatolia. The sweeping curve of the façade, which gives the design its

Greece under Roman rule

figure 9.36 Front view of the Philopappas Monument, Athens; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 9.37 Plan and section of Philopappas Monument, Athens; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after Travlos).

uniquely elegant but powerful appearance, and which catches the afternoon light sideways in an illusionary display of depth, is anchored in Roman spatial and architectonic sensibilities (Figure 9.38); the clear, crisp workmanship and details are pure Greek. This is a monument of a “barbarian” prince whom the Greeks honored and made their own; who achieved the apogee of his civic career under and because of Rome; and for whom a trans-cultural monument unique in form and content, admired but never repeated, was created. As tersely and justly appraised 594

by H. Thompson, “there is no other tomb remotely like it in Greece” (Thompson 1987, 14). Rome’s relation with conquered Greece was more complex and nuanced than described by Horace’s clever aphorism once memorized by every school child: “Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit – Captive Greece conquered its fierce conqueror” (Letters, 2.1.156). Greece was never as helpless in politics, nor Rome as untutored in arts and letters as this adage with its captivating sound-symmetry claimed. Starting with Julius Caesar and Augustus, the relationship between

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figure 9.38 Detail view of the Philopappas Monument, Athens; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

the center and the periphery – although Greece and Asia Minor hardly count as periphery in cultural matters – was a dynamic exchange of talent, materials, and ideas which affected all parties in complex and mutable but ultimately beneficial ways. REFERENCES

Alcock, S. 1993. Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2002. Archaeologies of the Greek Past. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Aupert, P. 1973. “Argos. Thermes A.” BCH 97: 490–500. Béal, J.-C. 2010. “Formes architecturales et gestion de l’espace dans les ateliers artinaux gallo-romains.” In M. Jones, ed. Aspects de l’artisanat en milieu urbain: Gaule et Occident romain (Actes du colloque internationale d’Autun, 2007). Dijon: Revue archéologique de l’Est, 17–31. Bergemann, J. 1998. Die Römische Kolonie von Butrint und die Romanisierung Griechenlands. Munich: Bierung and Brinkmann. Biers, J. C. 1985. The Great Bath on the Lechaion Road (Corinth, vol. 17), Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. 2003. “Lavari est Vivere: Baths in Roman Corinth.” In C.K. Williams II, and N. Bookidis, eds. Corinth: The Centenary, 1896–1996 (American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 20). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 303–319.

Boatwright, M. T. 2000. Hadrian and the Cities of the Roman Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bol, R. 1984. Das Statuenprogramm des Herodes-Atticus-Nymphäeums. AJA 89.2 (Olympische Forschungen – DAI, vol 5). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Camp, J. 1986. The Athenian Agora. London: Thames and Hudson. 2001. The Archaeology of Athens. New Haven: Yale University Press. Cartledge, P. and A. Spawforth. 1992. Hellenistic and Roman Sparta. London: Taylor & Francis. Coarelli, F. 1991. “Moneta, Le officine della zecca di Roma tra Repubblica e Impero.” Annali Istituto Italiano di Numismatica 38–41, 38–66. Collart, P. 1937. Philippes. Ville de Macédoine (École française d’Athens, 5), Paris: de Boccard. Frey, J. M. 2015. “The Archaic Colonnade at Ancient Corinth: A Case of Early Roman Spolia,” AJA 119(2): 147–175. Ginouves, R. 1972. L’Odeon d’Argos et le theatron. Paris: de Boccard. Izenour, G. C. 1992. Roofed Theaters of Classical Antiquity. New Haven: Yale University Press. Leigh, S. 1979. “The Reservoir of Hadrian in Athens.” JRA 10: 270–290. Lemerle, P. 1937. “Palestre romaine à Philippes.” BCH 61: 86–102. Longfellow, B. 2011. Roman Imperialism and Civic Patronage. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity Mee, C. and A. Spawforth. 2001. Greece (Oxford Archaeological Guides). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Murray, W. M. and P. M. Petsas. 1989. Octavian’s Campsite Memorial for the Actian War (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 79.4). Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Oulkeroglou, A. 2017. “Public Baths at Roman Dion (Colonia Iulia Augusta Diensis),” Journal of Greek Archaeology 2: 283–320. Pfaff, C. A. 2003. “Archaic Corinthian Architecture, ca. 600– 480 B.C.” In C.K. Williams II and N. Bookides, eds. Corinth, The Centenary 1896–1996. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 95–140. Provost, S. 2001. “City Walls and Urban Area in LateAntique Macedonia: The Case of Philippi.” In L. Lavan, ed. Recent Research in Late Antique Urbanism (JRA Supplement, 42), 123–135. Rizakis, A. D. 1997. “Roman Colonies in the Province of Achaia: Territories, Land and Population.” In S. Alcock, ed. The Early Roman Empire in the East. Oxford, Oxbow Books, 15–36. Romano, D. G. 2003. “City Planning, Centuriation, and Land Division in Roman Corinth.” In C. K. Williams II and N. Bookidis, eds. Corinth, the Centenary, 1896–1996 (The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 20), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 279–301. Russell, B. 2017. “M. Korres: The Odeion Roof of Herodes Atticus and Other Great Spans,” Journal of Greek Archaeology 2: 445–447. Thompson, H. A. 1987. “The Impact of Roman Architects and Architecture on Athens: 170 B.C.–A.D. 170.” In S. Macready and F. H. Thompson, eds. Roman Architecture in the Greek World (The Society of Antiquaries of London. Occasional Papers, 10). London: The Society of Antiquaries, 1–17.

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Travlos, J. 1971. Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens. New York: Praeger. Vermeule, C. 1968. Roman Imperial Art in Greece and Asia Minor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vitti, P. 2016. Building Roman Greece. Innovation in Vaulted Construction in the Peloponnese (Studi Archaeologica 206), Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. Walker, S. 1987. “Roman Nymphaea in the Greek World.” In S. Macready and F. H. Thompson, eds. Roman Architecture in the Greek World (The Society of Antiquaries of London. Occasional Papers, 10). London: The Society of Antiquaries, 60–71. Williams, II. C. K. 1987. “The Refounding of Corinth: Some Roman Attitudes.” In S. Macready and F. H. Thompson, eds. Roman Architecture in the Greek World (The Society of Antiquaries of London. Occasional Papers, 10). London: The Society of Antiquaries, 26–37. 1994. “Roman Corinth as a Commercial Center.” In T. E. Gregory, ed. The Corinthia in the Roman Period (JRA Supplement, 8), 31–46. Yegül, F. K. 2015. “Roman Baths in Isthmia and Sanctuary Baths in Greece.” In T. E. Gregory and E. Gebhard, eds. Bridge of the Untiring Sea. The Corinthian Isthmus from Prehistory to Late Antiquity (Hesperia, Supplement, 48). Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 247–269. 1994. “The Roman Baths in Isthmia in their Mediterranean Context.” In T. E. Gregory, ed. The Corinthia in the Roman Period (JRA Supplement, 8), 95–112. Zachos, K. 2001. “Excavations at the Actian Tropaeum at Nikopolis. A Preliminary Report.” In J. Isager, ed. Foundation and Destruction at Nikopolis and Northwestern Greece (Monographs of the Danish Institute at Athens, 3). Athens: Danish Institute at Athens, 29–42.

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For the Turkish poet Nazım Hikmet, writing in 1930s, the peninsular geography of Asia Minor – or what its modern inhabitants call Anatolia, or Turkey – evoked the image of a stallion’s head galloping to the Mediterranean from the depths of central Asia. From the eleventh through the fourteenth centuries, that was the direction, east to west, that most Turkic peoples entered Asia Minor controlled mainly by a weakening Byzantine Empire. For most of its earlier history, however, Anatolia served as a land bridge between Asia and Europe facilitating passage and settlement of a great many peoples and races in both directions. Stretching roughly 1,600 kilometers east-west and about one-third of that across, it is a high plateau rising eastward from circa 1,000 to 2,500 meters or more. Its long north and south sides are defined by high mountain parapets parallel to the Black Sea on the north and the Mediterranean on the south, allowing only a few tortuous passes through deep valleys. The range of mountains running perpendicular to the western Aegean coast and separated by a series of fair-sized rivers, lush valleys, and broad plains, offer more permissive passage. Traveling inland from one of the many ports and harbors protected by fingers of land stretching into the sea, the change from gentle coastal plains lush with grapes, figs, and olives, to the rising land of wheat fields, sunflowers, and pine forests draped over mountain ridges, gradually replaced by the bleak and vast steppe highlands of the central Anatolian plateau – all achieved today within three to four hours of driving – is impressive. The palpable sense of change in topography and vegetation is enhanced by the change in climate, passing from the mild coastlands where snow rarely falls, except on distant ranges and peaks, to the dry summer heat and

bitter winter cold and heavy snowfalls of the inlands. Linking the inland Anatolian cities with their sea terminals at Hellespont, Smyrna, and Miletus were the great caravan routes of antiquity, some crossing over high Taurus passes into Syria and Mesopotamia. Many of these ancient routes can still be traced by connecting the substantial remains of medieval Seljuk inns and karvansarays, a network extending eastward from central Anatolia to the shores of Lake Van and beyond. One of the most important and well-traveled of these arteries was the Royal Road of the Persian kings described by Herodotus. This major road connecting Ephesus on the Aegean with Susa, some 2,000 kilometers east, and later developed with many alternate branches by the Romans, was itself a relic of a much earlier route over which Assyrian kings and Hittite armies had traveled. The large size and the remarkable geographic diversity of Asia Minor are reflected in the great regional variety of the country’s inhabitants from the earliest Bronze Age. When the great Greek colonial settlements of the coastlands began in the ninth and eighth centuries bce, some of these Anatolian peoples with distinct religious beliefs, artistic traditions, and native languages became neighbors to the Greeks. In the subsequent centuries many – such as the Phrygians, who settled in the western central region; the Lydians, whose home was directly east of Ionia; the Carians in the southwest; and the Galatians in central Anatolia around their capital city Ankyra (modern Ankara) – became closely involved in Greek affairs of peace and war. Rich Croesus, the famous last king of the Lydians, who was a supplicant at major Greek sanctuaries and a friend and protector as well as a scourge of Greek cities, suffered the same fate with them when he was 597

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity vanquished by King Cyrus I in 546 bce. This led to a two-hundred-year occupation of western Anatolia by the Persians. It must be emphasized that following the conquests of Alexander the Great and during the time of the Hellenistic kingdoms emerging after his death in 323 bce, many of the non-Greek-speaking cities and communities of Anatolia, aspired and gradually adopted to a remarkable degree the language and the material culture of the Greeks without necessarily losing their identity. As commented by G. M. A. Hanfmann, the principal excavator of Sardis (1958–1974), “(as early as 340 bce) a Lydian thought it necessary to make his dedication to Artemis in Lydian and Greek.” By the first century bce, the language in circulation in the market places of even distant Anatolian towns was Greek, despite the continued tenacious hold of some native Anatolian languages and manners in the peripheral regions, such as Lycia, Pamphylia and Cappadocia, “the arts of western Asia Minor had become Greek in form and in most essentials of content.” (Hanfmann 1975, 23, 40). The Hellenization of post-Alexandrian Anatolia was a part of a deliberate policy and judged by social and political institutions and their physical, urban manifestation, for the most part, a success. More importantly, these transformations provided, in essence, a template for the changes that were soon to follow under Roman rule.

THE ROMAN PRESENCE If the Hellenistic overlords of Anatolia (the Seleucids and Attalids) had been willing to grant the Greek cities more extensive and genuine autonomy and kept their own expansionist policies at bay, perhaps they, instead of the Roman newcomers, would have retained their privileged position as the cities’ “ally and protector.” We will never know. As it was, the first Roman army came to Asia Minor in 196 bce ostensibly to help the Pergamene King Eumenes II against the aggressor Seleucid Antiochus III. The first city that asked for and received protection from the Romans (also against the same Antiochus) was Lampascus in the Troad, justifying the request by citing a mythical kinship of shared descent from the Trojans. This move set a pattern for many similar applications in the future. The defeat of Attalos III resulted in a power vacuum in Asia Minor, which Rome happily filled as a promising and beneficent patron. The last ruler of Pergamon, bequeathed his kingdom peacefully to the Romans in 133 bce. Throughout the second century bce Rome’s relationship with the cities of Asia Minor, both the original Greek colonies as well as native Anatolian towns, was as politically enlightened as it was 598

pragmatic; after all, Rome needed the cities’ support in this distant land and they in turn needed Rome’s protection. From the outset the Romans established a tradition of non-interference in the free city-states of Asia; when possible, they preferred to allow the cities and communities to resolve differences among themselves. This tradition, in principle and spirit, continued into the late Republic and the Principate. It was good that the cities were “independent,” but at the same time dependent on the goodwill and favors of Rome. That they were reliable, tax-paying allies of the rising power in the West, and that they were valued performers in the last act of a historical play in which the Romans appeared as predestined saviors and benefactors – sometimes, saving their Greek friends even from their own vices. For all its ups and downs, it was a symbiotic relationship. The century before the Principate, Asia Minor suffered warfare, strife, and economic decline, cast against the raging and recurrent civil wars in Italy. Major players during this unsettled period were King Mithradates of Pontus (a kingdom along the Black Sea), who revolted against the Roman presence in Asia and overran the country in many devastating campaigns; pirates who ransacked the southern coast, especially Cilicia through the 70s and 60s bce and crippled Rome’s Eastern sea trade; and ambitious Roman generals from Sulla to Pompey to Julius Caesar. These strong men eventually succeeded in subduing Mithradates and Rome’s other enemies, and annexed troublesome distant provinces, including Pontus, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, and Syria. These wars, the internal rivalries between military commanders, as well as the rapacious rule of some of the Roman governors during the intermittent periods of peace caused much damage to the country and much suffering by its occupants. For a moment, final victory seemed to belong to the battle-hardened but enlightened Julius Caesar, who “came, saw and conquered” (veni, vidi, vici) Rome’s enemies in Asia Minor at the Battle of Zela (Zile). The grateful cities saw him as a liberator, although the Ephesians, with characteristic politically-turned exaggeration, proclaimed him “descendant of Ares and Aphrodite, a god made manifest, the savior of all human life” (CIG 2957). But, it was left to his adopted nephew, the young Octavianus, crowned as Imperator Augustus in 27 bce, to usher an era of unbroken peace and gradually developing prosperity for some two centuries or so. Unlike Rome’s interests in North Africa, which we observed to be slightly unusual (except for the historical circumstances which made them necessary), those in Asia Minor were natural and inevitable; after all, it was a land rich in resources and even richer in its

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor cultural past. Along with mainland Greece, coastal Asia Minor was the cradle of Greek culture and the classical tradition in the arts, literature, and philosophy, birthplace of many gods. Furthermore, along with Egypt and the Near East, Anatolia was home to a remarkably sophisticated urban culture, architecture and arts extending in time from Bronze Age Troy to Neolithic Çatalhöyük and even earlier in Göbeklitepe (prepottery Neolithic A, dating to the tenth millennium bce, a sanctuary, not an urban site). It was evident that the Late Republic and the Principate could benefit from this seasoned and sophisticated font of preclassical and classical culture even as it subjugated its sources and patronized, even occasionally ridiculed, its native practitioners. It is logical to infer that against such a special cultural landscape the ordinary programs and procedures of Romanization – however vague and overused the term may be – could not be applied without some sort of special adjustment. Indeed, many scholars concur that Rome did not possess a consistent policy of Romanization at all for its Greek-speaking provinces. Even the process of creating colonies in Asia Minor was mainly restricted for security and pretty much limited to a handful of sites in the Pontus and the Troad established under Caesar and another group in Pisidia under Augustus. Unlike Italy’s new Latin colonies, or the Greek trading colonies of the preClassical era, almost all Roman colonies in Asia Minor were additions of a mixture of veteran soldiers and small groups of civilians to a preexisting and fully developed Greek city. The impact of Roman culture and the Latin language upon these communities was understandably tempered, and in the course of time the Italian element was absorbed into the local fabric. Many scholars have acknowledged the special position of Hellenistic Asia Minor, and to some extent the Near East, in confronting and absorbing the realities of Roman rule, transforming, adjusting, coopting, without largely losing their varied identities (Barrett 1997, 51–66; Bergemann 1998, 9–15; Halfmann 2001, 21–25; Waelkens 2003, 311–336; Mattingly 2004, 5–25; Pleket 2003, 85–95; Kenzler 2013, 113–142). The physical world they created, from private houses to temples, to public spaces where power was shared and identities exchanged, were meaningful amalgamations of independent and interdependent traditions – a colonnaded agora with a stoa-basilica was the product of such a cultural merger, so was a particular form of ornament, such as the vine scroll, reintroduced to Asia Minor from the West, charged with the power of the Principate and the “golden age” (saeculum aureum) of the early empire but itself a Hellenistic creation. Behind it all, however, the most important factor that distinguished the nature and process of Romanization in Asia Minor

and the East was intermarriage: an institution defined by an old-fashioned union of large families and clans (not the simple, modern “nucleus family”) where the married person (typically a discharged Italian soldier, or a settled merchant) entered fully into the world of his/her inlaws’ clan through which he/she received much benefit and imparted some in a perfect symbiotic union (Yegül 2000, 133–153). It is unlikely that the newly arriving groups, almost all from modest, rural Italian origins, constituted an aristocratic upper class over the native populations of the Greek polis, even though their Roman citizenship and military connections must have been valued as social and political assets. Intermarriage between the Italians and the eligible daughters of the town’s upper crust would have enfolded the newcomers into local aristocracy. At the same time, prominent local families benefited from such connections that would have increased their chances for the much-coveted Roman citizenship. At any rate, it is logical to expect that within a few generations, a reasonable level of integration would have been achieved. The entangled motives for assimilation, some purely practical, some ideological, all mutually beneficial, made the emergence of sharply defined roles as Greek versus Roman difficult to discern, even moot to discuss. Asia Minor under the Empire was organized into various provinces such as Asia, Galatia, Bithynia, and Pontus, ruled by proconsuls or governors answerable to the Senate in Rome. The management style of the Roman proconsul was unobtrusive and his presence somewhat elusive, since he spent much time on the road holding court and administering justice. After decades of excavations in leading cities such as Pergamon, Ephesus, Miletus, and Sardis, there are no buildings that could be identified as the permanent headquarters of the Roman legate and his staff, or the official residence of a governor – although Ephesus is suggested as a possible focal point of power and excavations could anytime unearth a structure to be labeled as such. Except for roads and bridges, there are no military constructions such as army camps, forts, checkpoints or stations in western and southern Anatolia. However, because archaeological excavations tend to favor urban centers rather than small rural settlements, we may have missed facilities intended especially for auxiliary troops posted in the countryside. The fortified military zone lay to the east and southeast of Anatolia, on and beyond the Euphrates River, where military colonies, such as the fortress-city Zeugma, were established and the remains of a long line of castra and signals stations have been recovered. Enjoying a considerable degree of autonomy, the cities were allowed to mint their own coins, a privilege, 599

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity however symbolic, not accorded to the Western provinces. They also kept their traditional administrative offices: the names and duties of the magistrates had their origins in the historical, even mythical, past. There were panegyriarchs who supervised festivals, gymnasiarchs who managed gymnasia and oversaw education, stephanephoroi who were priests and priestesses of Zeus and the Imperial Cult; and the office of the astynomes (not the aediles as in the West) was charged with maintaining streets, squares, water systems and drainage. Even the official records laws decrees, memorials and civic dedications, carved on marble and displayed in public places and on prominent buildings – an uncommonly rich tradition of Asia Minor commonly described as the “epigraphic habit” – were almost always in Greek. Still, judged by the enthusiasm and the apparent sincerity with which cities honored the emperor and his image as a part of their daily life, and tried to appease and please their Roman proconsuls and governors, the Roman state, and its representatives did have power. The cult of the emperors and its various religious and civic manifestations remained as one of the most characteristic and dominant aspects of life in Anatolian communities. As observed by Yegül: occasionally, Rome stepped in to advise, approve, intervene, and in rare and serious cases, reprimand. . . . When the province of Bithynia mismanaged its affairs, and overstepped its building programs, Trajan sent Pliny the Younger as his personal representative with special investigative powers. For the fair cities of Asia, self-rule in the everyday sense was real, but it was exercised at the end of a long leash. (Yegül 2000, 136)

W E A L T H , C U L T U R E , AN D T H E ARISTOCRACY OF MUNIFICENCE

The men who held the municipal offices and possessed the power to rule at the local level were Greeks and native Anatolians who had been granted Roman citizenship. The creation of local elite, an ambitious, upwardly mobile new aristocracy with strong ties to Rome and the Imperial system, was an event of extraordinary significance in the social restructuring of Asia Minor under Roman rule. Especially remarkable is the opening of the boundaries, physical and conceptual, between the West and the East due to the mobility available to the new elite. Holding equestrian or even consular rank, the “New Men” avidly pursued service careers, and many occupied high military and administrative posts far and wide in the Empire before returning home to retire. Statistics bear witness to 600

the rising prominence of Eastern provinces in ruling the Empire: in the second half of the first century ce about 17 percent of the identifiable senators in Rome originated from Greece and Asia Minor; a century later the number had risen to 58 percent. There were two preconditions for membership in the new aristocracy: wealth and culture. Wealth was necessary because the new, privileged class was expected to be leaders in civic munificence (euergesia); massive public building projects and costly religious festivals and contests were sine qua non responsibilities of their office – an aspect of Romanization that, too, was true for Italy. The second condition, culture or education in the Greek liberal arts (paideia) – that one had to be Hellenized before being Romanized – is more remarkable because it implies a far deeper significance than the possession of mere wealth. Of course, it was still wealth that best assured the privileges of a good education and created the conditions for participation in the literaryrhetorical-judicial culture of Asia. Among notable examples were the Sophists, a group of exceptional men of learning rising to great social and political eminence in their cities whose urban-themed and selfconsciously archaistic writings and lectures mirrored the magnificent physical, architectural world of their creation. The representatives of this cultural phenomenon, sometimes referred to as the Second Sophistics, almost exclusively came from the Greek East operating in wellknown centers like Athens, Smyrna, Ephesus, and Pergamon, but also in many other cities such as Nicomedia, Aphrodisias, Sardis, Side, Perge, Cnidus, and places on the urban fringe of Anatolia such as Tyana in Cappadocia. Besides Herodes Atticus of Athens, the famous millionaire benefactor and the friend of emperors, we have the likes of Dionysus of Halicarnassus, Dion of Prusa, and Aelius Aristides of Smyrna, all privileged by wealth, leisure, and connections. But it was paideia, anchoring the Sophists in the literary culture of their patria, and the sense of identity that this knowledge and love provided, that made possible (at least as far as the upper crust of the society was concerned) the belief in and the loyalty to the Emperor and the Empire. As observed by Glen Bowersock, in this kind of rarefied, patriotic atmosphere it was “possible for a Greek to be Roman without any loss of national pride or abnegation of cultural tradition” (Greek Sophists 1969, 16). If this is Romanization, the secret of the system lies in Rome’s ability to co-opt local heritages and local values in order to create a cultural climate in which it was difficult to feel like an alien. The complex set of relationships between Rome and the Greek East can be framed (at least for our architectural concerns) under two headings: (a) the physical, or the world of the well-built city and the

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor celebration of the present; and (b) the metaphysical, or the world of the mythical origins of the city and the celebration of its past. Both of these fundamental concerns were enriched by and anchored in the community’s belief in its ancestral gods and the Roman emperor – often subsumed under one inseparable, protective entity. Aelius Aristides of Smyrna, who lived under the emperor Antoninus Pius, underlined the values that defined this magical interdependence in his famous, and florid, encomium To Rome. Aristides comments on Rome’s gifts for ruling peacefully through inclusion and assimilation: The most praiseworthy of it all is your concept of citizenship. There is nothing on earth like it. . . . Everything lies open to everybody; and no one fit for office or responsibility is an outsider. The constitution is a universal democracy under one man who can rule and govern best. (To Rome, 59–60)

In the government represented by Rome, democracy, as we understand it, or the independence of the citystate, was a fiction. Yet, as an educated Greek coming from a major Greek city, Aristides assured his audiences that the city’s voluntary and joyful acquiescence to Rome’s expert and benign rule was a fair price to pay for the pax Romana and the good life that universal peace provided. Full independence had always been a fiction in the turbulent, warring history of Greece and it was also a questionable political thought. Even in Plato’s writings the idea of democracy and civic autonomy are relative, because they are compromised by the community’s desire for the good life and its willingness to accept an authority which will impose the “orderliness” that is deemed necessary to maintain it. Aristotle also believed in compromise: “A citizen is one who shares governing and being governed” (Politics, 1284 B). If, however, there emerge men of exceptional virtue and ability, they should be allowed to rise over the state (polis) as absolute rulers “since such a man will naturally be as a god among men” (Politics, 1284 A). Thus, we have the theoretical basis for the position taken by the Sophists of the Greek city thriving under Roman rule and the validation for that strange concept of a democracy under one man – the emperor – who can rule and govern best.

THE PHYSICAL CITY Pausanias, writing in the second century ce had difficulty accepting Panopeus, a small, mountain hamlet in northern Greece, as a proper city. Although it had a

marked territory and probably a constitution on which to stake its political independence, it had no government offices, no market place, no gymnasium, no theater, no baths and no water supply – none of the buildings or tangible realities that make life meaningful and pleasurable (Pausanias, Description of Greece, 10.34). What was then the physical basis of the city under Roman rule, that aspect of urbanization that made the city “an argument in stone” and shaped the good life that was so dear to Aristides and his fellow citizens? Aristides continues to be our guide in assessing the nature of Rome’s critical role in shaping the built environment in the Roman East. Whereas previously kings ruled tribes, Rome rules cities, he observed; Rome made cities out of tribes, city-dwellers out of tribal people. It was not only the new cities, but also even the old Greek cities that realized the potential of their native cultures and art under the Empire: “Now, under your guidance, all Greek cities emerge. All the monuments, works of art, and showplaces in them mean glory to you” (To Rome, 94–95). Thus, Rome does not impose its bona fide material culture on the Greekspeaking East but, rather, co-opts and assimilates the culture of this land, particularly the physical urban culture, architecture and city making. Elsewhere Aristides confirms what we generally know from many other sources, but most effectively through archaeological remains, that the cities of Asia Minor blossomed under the Empire as leading local families of every city rivaled each other in a flurry of building and beautification of their hometowns in order . . . to show off a maximum elegance and luxury. Every place is full of gymnasia, fountains, gateways, temples, shops, schools. . . . Gifts never stop flowing from you to the cities and because you are impartially generous to all, the leading beneficiaries cannot be determined. Cities shine in radiance and beauty, and the entire countryside is decked out like a pleasure ground. (To Rome, 97–99)

There is no doubt that private giving was generous and building activity was brisk, but there are also oversights and exaggerations in Aristides’ account. Rome was never so generous with direct cash gifts to the cities but contributed by diverting cities’ taxes and customs for projects. Especially after natural disasters, emperors exempted cities of whole regions from tax obligations to alleviate their hardship and aid in their recovery. Contributions of building materials, marble and timber from imperially owned quarries or forests were also a popular means of providing relief. The inclusion of an emperor’s name on the dedication of a monument did not necessarily mean that the members 601

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity of the imperial family, or the Imperial purse, paid for it. Often the real benefactors’ names were given in the lines below those of the city’s patron deities, the royal family, the Senate, and the People of Rome – following a traditional formula. Significant exceptions, however, include the building of roads, aqueducts, bridges, dams, and other large and extremely expensive engineering projects whose cost would have dwarfed anything that even the wealthiest citizens could pay. Furthermore, even the richest citizens often preferred to patronize showy center-city projects on which they could inscribe their names. The handsome ashlar arches of the aqueduct of C. Sextius Pollio, circa 4–14 ce, which brought water to Ephesus, and were conspicuously visible then, as now, are all Pollio paid for of this project; the miles of underground conduits representing the far greater cost of the aqueduct, were made possibly by municipal and state funds (see Figure 3.50). Urban building did not progress at the same speed and lavishness at all places; although the cities might have shone, the situation in the country – often ignored or overlooked by archaeology – was never a pleasure ground. Some modern critics might view this as exploitation of the underprivileged and imperialism of a sort, though we prefer not to separate the concept from its context. The small towns of central Anatolia in distant provinces did not enjoy the benefits of Roman rule as much as the fertile western and southern coastlands. Still, by the middle of the second century even the remote mountain cities of Lycia and Pisidia, or inland from them the far away Isauria on the heights of the Taurus, where no bird flew and no caravan passed, had acquired their decorative gates, colonnaded streets and theaters. Even remote villages in Lydia petitioned the emperor for new and better public baths. The brisk pace of urbanization which affected even the out-ofthe-way areas of Anatolia under Roman rule may be explained by two centuries of peace and prosperity made possible by a strong and reasonably welladministered Empire, and an economic tide which raised all boats. Even when the occasional remains of rural communities and humble agrarian facilities emerge, we should not judge such suburbia as necessarily unhappy. But does this count as Romanization? Were the physical advantages of a well-built city all that mattered in the complex relationship of a community with Rome and the all-powerful emperor?

THE METAPHYSICAL CITY To the citizens and rulers of the Greek city who sought protection and patronage from Rome, the memory of a long tradition of freedom was as important as an up602

to-date city center with splendid buildings. Foundation legends creating picturesque ties with the gods and heroes of ancient Hellas were essential in establishing national identities for the Greek cities of Asia: “‘NonGreek’ cities might just grow, but a Greek city must have parents who were Greek in order for it to be admitted into the community of Hellas,” wrote Plato (Laws, 6.754A). Now, with the emergence of Rome on the scene, these legends were used to snare the new masters in the craftily woven webs of common origin, irresistible and mutually satisfying. The case of Lampsacus in the Troad, the first city in Asia which sent an envoy to Rome in 196 bce to win favors based on their mutual past in Ilium (Roman Troy) and share fictional memories, has already been mentioned. Aphrodisias, the home of a venerable cult of Aphrodite, achieved a special status with Rome and Augustus, who a few years after he became the emperor, called it in his letter to the Aphrodisians “the one city from all of Asia I have chosen to be my own,” as subsequently inscribed in Greek on the “Archive Wall” of the theater (Erim 1986, 1). For generations, even under Persian rule, golden Sardis never lost its historical and mythical allure as the royal capital of the mighty Lydian Empire, the beloved city of King Croesus. Although civic splendor in cities was prized, what made a city unique could not be solely sought in its buildings, nor the number of times it won Imperial favor through privileges for establishing temples for Imperial Cult, nor the coveted title of a “metropolis,” but in the intangible idea of a city in the mind of its citizens. This was a kind of “reflective” rather than “restorative” nostalgia which sought a fictional past to add value to the present (Boym 2001). Inventing the past gave value to the present and prepared the future. Memory lives to rescue not the past but the future. The most effective way to exploit and affirm the mythical past, and the memory of this past as a metaphor for the present, was through the creation and enactment of religious and civic rituals. The enthusiasm of the leading citizens to endow their homeland with marble monuments and beautiful colonnades was matched only by their desire to found and subsidize festivals, athletic and musical contests and religious processions evoking the city’s pride in its origins. These rituals linked ritualized human action to the actual physical urban reality of the city, and in doing so magnified the personal, everyday experience of the citizens to the level of community celebrations. In Ephesus, C. Vibius Salutarius, a local notable under Trajan, provided an annual procession celebrating the sacred identity of his city. The procession started at the venerable Sanctuary of Artemis and proceeded down the two-kilometer thoroughfare, winding its way

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor through the town and stopping and celebrating at almost every major urban monument along the colonnaded streets. Statuettes of Artemis and the heroes and legendary founders from the distant past were carried and displayed alongside those of Augustus, Trajan, Hadrian, and the personifications of the Roman Senate and the People. In all such celebrations, an important, indeed critical, characteristic was the speciallychoreographed mixing of local deities with the cult and sacred presence of the Roman emperor, thus underscoring the direct and close personal relation of Asian cities with the emperor – often characterized by the inclusion of the Roman emperor’s portrait among images of the ancestral gods and goddesses of the city on the golden crown worn by the agonothetes, the high priest presiding over the festival. The participation of the young in this and all ceremonies was particularly meaningful: it was through such participation citizenship was built and earned. As observed by G. Rogers, both the route and the timing of the procession “implied one way for young Ephesians to see (their) city, and also many ways not to see (it) . . . performing the procession implied one way for the participants to act in public, and innumerable ways not to” (Rogers 1991, 82). Thus, although the celebrants looked back to the memory of old Greece and old Anatolia by enacting a symbolic ritual involving their city, by proclaiming loyalty to the system and the emperor, they privileged the present. More significantly, they underlined the fulfillment of a long history and invested in their future.

ARCHITECTURE AND CONSTRUCTION: A CREATIVE SYNTHESIS The character of Roman Architecture in Asia Minor and the Roman East is largely determined by two major issues: the available materials and methods of construction and the preferred, traditionally predominant building types. The first is based on natural and technical factors, the second on social and cultural ones. Together, these shaped over time how an architecture steeped in traditional Hellenistic classicism interacted with the architecture of Rome and the Roman West. It is these special conditions that justify a discussion of building technology of Anatolia separate from, but overlapping, the overall discussion of the subject in Chapter 3. Anatolia has rich natural resources. It is a land of building stones, tufas, marbles and granites. Coastal regions in the south and southwest, and in the north the Pontic and Caucasus ranges along the Black Sea abound in forests. Valleys and plains that divide the

hilly terrain are fertile and produce good clay for brick, both baked and unbaked. Only the Central Anatolian plateau, and its mountainous eastward extension, is arid; wood for construction is scarce. As a result building is limited to mudbrick with flat, earth roofs, a style that uncannily connects the outlook of today’s villages to prehistoric Çatalhöyük of eight thousand years ago (although the region is fast changing with the construction of a series of large dams). ASHLAR AND MORTARED RUBBLE – WALLS AN D V AU LTS

There are two main types of stone construction in Anatolia: cut stone blocks or ashlar (opus quadratum) and the countless varieties of rubble, or river stone, mixed with (or “packed in”) mortar, which we will generally refer to as “mortared rubble” following the nomenclature devised many years ago. Lingering through the entire Roman era in Anatolia, ashlar was the distinctive hallmark of Greek and Hellenistic masonry tradition – especially when made with quality stones such as marble or hard limestone. Because each block had to be individually cut, shaped and laid in regular, horizontal courses, it was also the most expensive. In its late Hellenistic and Roman versions, the interior of the wall often had a core of smaller, irregular stones hidden from view by facing on either side which appeared as regular, square or rectangular blocks. The quality of most Roman ashlar was seldom as refined as its Hellenistic predecessors: mortar was often used in joints, the blocks were casually shaped and their surface was left somewhat rough; refined chiselwork, drafted edges and subtle paneling rare. All this mattered not since ordinarily the Romans intended to stucco over or veneer walls with marble slabs. Some Roman work, however, is closer to refined Hellenistic stone work, as evident with the principal façade of the bathgymnasium complex at Termessus in Lycia (Figure 10.1). As a general rule, earlier construction, such as JulioClaudian (closer in date to, and often intentionally modeled after, fine Hellenistic work), tends to be more carefully done than later projects. In some examples, such as the well-preserved temples in the remote Pisidian site Adada, or those in Arycanda in Lycia, joints were left slightly raised and rough, mainly in order to protect the delicate edges during transportation and construction; although they were planned to be removed later, too often this was never done either because the project was unfinished, or perhaps it was left consciously as rustication, an intentional stylistic preference (see later in this chapter). Ashlar construction extended to arches and vaults (even in rare cases to semi-domes and domes) where 603

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 10.1 Bath-Gymnasium façade in fine ashlar work, Termessus, detail view and drawing by Lanckoronski (1892); Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 10.2 Ashlar barrel vault in the frigidarium of the bath-gymnasium at Hierapolis; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

every voussoir was individually shaped, though they were normally backfilled with irregular stones and mortar. In Hierapolis, the mid-second century Large Baths boast a frigidarium with an all-stone barrel vault 604

spanning 12.5 meters and a caldarium vault of nearly 16 meters (Figure 10.2). The fine marble vault with coffers of the temple-tomb in the West Necropolis of Side has a span of 11 meters (see Figure 10.70).

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor A city-gate of the late Imperial period at Sardis, made mainly of reused materials (some coming from the Temple of Artemis, the primary attraction of the site) had a cut-stone central arch with over 10-meter diameter, the widest ashlar arch known from all of Asia Minor. The subterranean hall under the late Flavian Temple of Zeus at Phrygian Aezane with an ashlar barrel vault of 9-meter-span is simpler and bolder. In the mountain sites of Lycia and Pisidia the cellas of small temples or temple-shaped tombs are often roofed by fine cut-stone vaults: good examples come from the East Necropolis in Arycanda, Termessus, Ariassos, Myra, and Patara – none exceed spans of 5–6 meters (Figure 10.3). These modest but crisply built buildings witness well the simple, matter-of-fact continuity of the Hellenistic ashlar tradition of Anatolia. A distinctive and special use of stone vaulting comes from the Antonine basilica in the agora of Smyrna where series of stone radial and interlocking “ribbed” cross vaults support the basement level (Figures 10.4 and 10.5). Far more common and cheaper was mortared rubble, masonry constructions using small field or river stones employed typically in their natural state.

D

Agora enclosure Basilica Sub-vaults Dais

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figure 10.3 Ashlar vault of a temple-tomb, Patara; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

A 50 m

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C figure 10.4 Axonometric reconstruction and partial plan of Antonine Agora and Basilica, Smyrna; rendered by Rui Xiong (after Naumann).

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity The faces of the wall are built up more carefully with relatively larger and regular stones varying with smaller, longer pieces, while the core is filled with masses of rubble in lime mortar as seen in the Roman baths at Nysa (Figure 10.6). The system was used confidently also in building curved, vaulted, and domed construction, as in the first-century ce circular laconicum of the Baths of Capito in Miletus (Figure 10.7). The careful construction of the facing and the less careful core must have progressed in tandem, the wall center filled

as the outside edges are built up; no formwork would be needed. A more regular and carefully built variation is facing of small, squared blocks, some partly shaped by the mason; this type, loosely referred to as petit appareil, and widely encountered in Gaul and Western provinces (see earlier), is used more selectively though competently in Asia Minor as at the circular room with

figure 10.5 Detail view of basement-level, stone-ribbed vaults at the Agora, Smyrna; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 10.6 Mortared rubble wall from late-Roman baths, Nysa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 10.7 Mortared rubble dome construction, laconicum, Baths of Capito, Miletus; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

606

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.8 Small squared-stone construction (petit appareil), circular chamber at the Theater Baths, Aphrodisias; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

semicircular niches from the Theater Baths at Aphrodisias demonstrates (Figure 10.8). Technically speaking, mortared rubble is a form of opus caementicium. Scholars take pains to underline the difference between Roman concrete, typical of central Italy and Campania characterized by the inclusion of volcanic pozzolona as the primary binding agent in the mortar and its many provincial substitutes which instead used lime, sometimes mixed with crushed bricks or tile (to make mortar harder and water-

resistant). Pozzolona creates an exceptionally strong mortar and is considered to be mainly responsible for the daring vaulted and domed constructions of Italy (see earlier). This is generally true but exaggerated. As we have suggested in an earlier publication, the structural inferiority of mortared rubble in Asia Minor is caused not only by the lack of pozzolona, but by the careless manner of the work (Yegül 1986, 123–124, n 15). Often, as displayed clearly in the thick mortared rubble walls of the Imperial Bath-Gymnasium complex at 607

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 10.9 Detail of mortared rubble core construction from a wall in the Imperial Bath-Gymnasium, Sardis; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Sardis, or more dramatically in the construction of the first century ce Capito Baths in Miletus, the core mixture has too many massed rubble stones and very little lime mortar; therefore, the core fill cannot develop a strong bond and sufficient structural strength (Figure 10.9). The economic logic of using as little mortar as possible is easy to see, lime is far more difficult to obtain and expensive than fieldstones. Pliny the Elder provides clear evidence that this malpractice and its disastrous results were quite widespread in the Roman world: “The chief reason for the collapse of buildings in Rome is the stealing of lime, as the result of which the rough stones are laid on each other without any proper mortar” (NH, 36.54.176). Partly to compensate the loss of strength, almost all rubble construction in Asia Minor incorporates horizontal bands of brick, each three or four courses thick, intercepting the wall at every 1.0–1.40 meters or so, as illustrated in the frigidarium of the Bath Gymnasium complex at Sardis (Figure 10.10). Unlike the similarlooking technique in Italy and Greece, where brick is only a facing material for the concrete core, in Asia Minor the brick bands penetrate the full thickness of 608

the wall (unless the contractor has cheated and omitted some bricks inside). Sometimes referred to as “leveling courses” (or “bonding courses”), these brick bands have structural capacity and intent, and might have been serving several functions. By compartmentalizing the thick wall into smaller segments and spreading the loads evenly to the foundations (as seen in the diagram Figure 10.10), they reduce initial and uneven settlement of the wet, heavy mortar and rubble. However, their primary use seems to be to prevent the formation of long vertical cracks that run through the whole height of the wall by localizing them between the courses. We should remember that Asia Minor is a land of notorious volcanic activity and many regions do have volcanic sands and dust comparable to the pozzolona of Italy. Only 30 kilometers east of Sardis are the vast volcanic fields of Kula (ancient Ketakekaumene), a region of collapsed craters, black basalt, and scoriae. Yet, little of this very available material was ever used in the orthodox versions of mortared rubble and opus mixtum construction at Sardis or in other ancient sites on the Hermus plain. There seems to have been little interest or incentive in developing mortars capable of building vaults or domes exceeding the 18- or 20-meter spans. This was a limit builders in Roman Anatolia could, and did, respect using local, traditional methods (the most commonly used vault spans in Roman baths remained in the safe 12- to 14-m range). Perhaps, there was no programmatic need for creating spaces as big as the Pantheon, or the frigidarium of the Baths of Caracalla, even in the highly urbanized province of Asia whose largest metropolises were one-tenth the size of Rome. There are, however, significant exceptions. In parts of Cilicia with ready resources of volcanic material and a lack of strong Hellenistic building traditions, construction follows closely Italian opus caementicium. Buildings in Elaiussa Sebaste, Augusta Ciliciae, Korykos and Anazarvus display facings of brick, or opus reticulatum mixed with brick over a dense concrete core of volcanic caementa (Figure 10.11). One needs to explain this phenomenon not simply as a result of the availability of volcanic material, but the availability of the knowledge, experience, and incentive in exploiting this material due to close and direct Roman military and administrative presence in this remote and rugged province (see earlier). It was, after all, from the plains of this arid region that Roman troops were gathered and mobilized to hold their positions across the Eastern limes, or to start campaigns in Parthia and the eastern borders of the empire. In addition to Cilicia, in a few other Anatolian sites, such as Illium (Troy), Alexandria Troas and Parion in Troad, Sivrihisar in Cappadocia, Amastris in the Pontus, Samosata in northern Syria,

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.10 Structural diagram of the frigidarium from the Bath-Gymnasium at Sardis; analyzed and rendered by Fikret Yegül.

the use of opus incertum and opus reticulatum as facings for concrete-core walls can also be connected to their colony status, specific military presence, and military projects. As pointed out by M. Spanu, “the most common and recurring misinterpretation has been the belief that the West and the East . . . were neatly opposed and conflicting in this regard” (Spanu 2015, 27). Therefore, rather than accepting the notion that opus caementicium was the building technique to which all parts of the Roman Empire aspired, we could appreciate “the much more subtle process of mutual cultural and technical influences” (Millar 1987, xi) and the new technical and architectural forms that emerged from this mutual, creative relationship. After all, a building such as the sixth-century church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, a masterpiece of daunting size and structural ingenuity, was the product of such a dialogue between Rome and Anatolia. B R I C K P R O D UC TI ON A N D CO N ST R U CT IO N

Compared to the large numbers and almost unbroken sequence of brick-faced concrete buildings of Rome and Italy (opus latericium), the use of brick is less common in Asia Minor. But, when used brick is always

a solid material, not a facing. It appears that in Greece and Asia Minor brick production was in private hands, a competitive environment resulting in a great variety of sizes and types. The useful standardization of brick common in the West does not exist. Nor do bricks from Eastern brickyards carry identifying stamps helpful in dating. Used almost always used in combination with ashlar or mortared rubble in Asia Minor brick it is part of a mixed system. The one remarkable exception for the use of solid brick is the main hall of the Temple of the Egyptian Gods (‘Serapeum,’ locally known as Kızıl Avlu) in Pergamon generally date to the Hadrianic era (Figures 10.12 and 10.13). The overall complex, composed of a basilical hall flanked by peristyle courtyards and fronted by an immense forecourt (c. 200  110 m; total area 270  110 m), was located in the lower Roman city, probably next to the forum. A pair of vaulted tunnels crossing diagonally under the forecourt channeled the River Selinos through the city and controlled winter flooding (and still does). The solid brick walls of the main rectangular hall, 60  26 meters, has a large interior span of 22 meters, and a total estimated height of circa 20–21 meters, which is largely preserved. Light entered through a very large arched window over the main door facing west and a 609

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 10.11 Opus reticulatum wall detail, Roman baths, Elaiussa-Sebaste, Rough Cilicia; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

series of large arched windows above deep niches along the side walls. A crypt with a 5-meter diameter segmental, “pumpkin” dome in brick, is located under the hall’s east end. The hall is flanked by a pair of square, colonnaded courtyards entered on their axes, and a pair of domed rotundas (12.5 m diameter). Unlike the allbrick construction of the main hall, the rotundas are built in small squared blocks, their domes in brick but backfilled with mortar and rubble. The exteriors of the hall and rotundas were articulated with horizontal bands of marble ornament; the very fine, red brick of the exterior, so handsome for the modern eye, was entirely covered in marble veneer. This massive building was probably not roofed by a brick vault, but by a timber truss; the walls, only 1.80 meters thick and plain, are too weak for a masonry system. Normally, solid brick, radially-laid over a wooden formwork and backfilled with rubble and mortar, was the preferred material and method for vaults in Asia Minor in contrast to the concrete, opus caementicium, vaults and domes of Rome and Italy. Although the widespread use of kiln-baked brick in Asia Minor is commonly dated to early second century ce (such as 610

the early Hadrianic Library of Celsus; see later), there were earlier instances of smaller buildings and tombs that utilized baked bricks. In Sardis brickwork dating to the late Hellenistic and early Roman eras were found in domestic contexts; brick vaults were used in the Hellenistic tombs in Thrace as early as late fourth and third centuries bce. The preferred vault form in Asia Minor was the barrel covering simple rectangular spaces; square (or nearly square) spaces were roofed by domes or domical vaults. Cross vaults or other complex formations are less common in Asia Minor compared to the practice in the West which displayed great variety and expertise already during the Neronian era (see earlier). The spans achieved in brick barrel vaults never challenged the great concrete vaults of Roman baths and basilicas but still could reach a respectable 18–20 meters maximum, as we see in the caldariums of major bathgymnasia such as the Harbor Baths at Ephesus (19 m), or the one at Alexandria Troas (18.80 m), or the Imperial Bath-Gymnasium at Sardis (18.20 m). It is noteworthy that with a few exceptions, large span barrel vaults in Asia are created entirely in the context of baths. There are no vaulted basilicas in Asia Minor comparable to the Market Hall of Trajan’s Markets, or the great Basilica of Maxentius in Rome; the brick barrel-vaulted substructures of the basilica at Aspendos (a mixture or radial and pitched-brick construction) is unusual. However, there are some barrel-vaulted temples. The most interesting and structurally advanced is the so-called Temple of Serapis in Ephesus, whose double-walled inner cella was roofed by a brick-and-mortared-rubble barrel vault with a nearly 16-meter span. One of the most creative and exciting uses of brick in roofing a space is the diagonal, basketweave of the brickwork creating the domical vault (or, sometimes a “sail vault”) of a small subterranean chamber of the theater in Nysa (Figure 10.14; Lancaster 2015, 70–98, esp. 94–95). Roman-style vaulted terrace structures for large buildings in mortared-rubble, brick, or its various combinations are fairly common – some also creating usable basement spaces and cryptoporticos – well illustrated by the terraces that support Domitian’s Temple at Ephesus, or the north terrace of the Vedius Bath-Gymnasium in the same city (Figure 10.15). These are creative, competent, but technically modest works of engineering. For more challenging examples we can consider the tall, multiple-level vaulting that built up and raised the deep gorge to make a stadium at Nysa (see Figures 10.107 and 10.108, Plate 24B) or the major stone arch/vault of the Severan bridge at Kahta over the majestic Cendere River in eastern Turkey, with a span of 35 meters (see Figures 3.36 and 3.37).

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.12 Exterior view of the Temple of the Egyptian Gods (“Serapeum” – Kızıl Avlu), Pergamon; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

M I X E D CO N S T R U CT I O N

By far the most common construction style in Asia Minor (and to a large extent elsewhere in the Roman world) was a mixed system, combining different materials in ways that would best produce a structurally sound and economically viable building. Typically, the foundations and the lower parts of the walls of a large structure would be in large ashlar blocks sometimes connected by a single or double ring of arches; the upper parts of the walls would be either in brick (Harbor Baths or the East Bath-Gymnasium, Ephesus) or in mortared rubble with bands of brick (Baths of Faustina in Miletus, Imperial Bath-Gymnasium, Sardis; Baths of Faustina in Miletus; or the Small Baths, Aspendos; Figures 10.16 and 10.17; see also Figure 10.10). In these examples, the regular ashlar face of the thick wall hides the core construction of smaller stone blocks mixed with rubble and mortar. The roof, if vaulted, is rarely in solid ashlar (as in the baths in Hierapolis and Laodicea); more common are solid, radially-laid brick vaults which are back-filled in rubble and mortar, or a combination of brick and mortared rubble. In some small or medium spans, vaults might be built in mortared rubble with little or no brick, with

specially selected elongated stones laid radially like brick. Variations exist. In the massive caldarium of the Üç Göz Bath-Gymnasium at Tralles, the entire wall zone up to the springing of the all-brick barrel vault is in ashlar, including the double-ring stone arches connecting the piers. In the Faustina Baths in Miletus the upper wall zone is in small, squared blocks supporting a brick and mortared rubble vault (see Figure 10.16). In some of the large structures, such as the Vedius Bath-Gymnasium in Ephesus or the BathGymnasium in Sardis, the structural system can be described as “point loading”; the weight of the vaulted roofs is taken uniformly by the full length of the massive rubble and brick walls (2.50–3.0 m thick), then transferred down to the ashlar piers by means of a continuous row of arches (see Figure 10.10). Between the piers the thickness of the wall is lightened by a series of deep rectangular or semicircular niches (providing useful interior space without losing the bearing capacity of the full thickness of the wall), or solid brick “relieving arches” occur inside the thickness of the wall; these last, whether in brick or ashlar, might have been intended to provide greater stiffness to the wall and to compartmentalize and direct the transfer of stresses, but they probably became homogeneous 611

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figure 10.13 Interior view of the Temple of the Egyptian Gods (“Serapeum” – Kızıl Avlu), Pergamon; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Architecture and planning in Asia Minor load-bearing wall elements over time. Arches over window or door openings naturally retained their compressive functions through the life of the building, transferring loads to solid walls and piers, down to the foundations. In large buildings, with many large and

figure 10.14 Detail of brick “basket-weave” of a domical vault from the Theater at Nysa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

small rooms, such as baths, different models and systems of construction are used: while major halls are built with heavy ashlar walls and masonry vaults, smaller rooms of the same building may use thinner, mortared rubble walls and carry wooden roofs. Whether in the West or the East, the Romans had – or they believed they had – a clear notion of the structural abilities of different materials and used each where it would be structurally most appropriate and effective. Materials were graded from the strongest to the weakest. Let us take one of the pressure towers of the second-century ce aqueduct in Aspendos to illustrate the complexity and sophistication of this hierarchical notion of mixed construction (see Figures 3.53 and 3.54). The major piers of the pressure towers are in large, dressed ashlar blocks typically quarry-faced (rusticated) over a core of mortared rubble; the large piers are connected by arches made of solid stone voussoirs, while the small piers have single or double rings of solid brick arches. The upper parts of the towers are either in solid brick, or a

figure 10.15 Colonnade with caryatids of captives and vaulted substructures of the terrace for the Temple of Domitian and the Flavian dynasty, Ephesus; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 10.16 View of mixed construction wall from the Faustina Baths, Miletus; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

mixture of brick and mortared rubble, while the ramps and bridges are in mortared rubble, intercepted and strengthened by bands of brick. How should such a work be characterized – Eastern or Western? Ashlar piers are patently Hellenistic, though also found, for example, in major Western works such as Rome’s Colosseum. Brick is closer to Western than Eastern practice. Mortared rubble is typical to Asia Minor, and though not strictly a substitute for Roman concrete, it admits considerable Western influence. Blind, relieving arches are equally at home in the East as they are in the West. So, we must go beyond the simple analytical approach to view Roman architecture (or construction) as a list of paired, formal, characteristics between the East and the West, between Rome and the provinces. Rather, it is a synthetic construct meaningful within historically and topographically defined - but changing, often impure - conditions. In this way, the chief lesson of the Aspendos aqueduct lies not in the genesis of its component parts, or their polarity, but in the recognition that it has become a whole from diverse parts, an amalgam whose constituents have fused into a structural unity in a particular geography and chronology (Yegül 1991, 345–355).

PLANNING OF CITIES AND THE “HIPPODAMIAN GRID” Asia Minor is the putative home of the orthogonal or gridiron plan, the celebrated urban plan type of antiquity as demonstrated with textbook clarity in Miletus and Priene. Miletus, the earlier example by a century or more, was founded as a new city in 479 bce following the destruction of the earlier settlement by the Persians. It enjoys the distinction of being the “earliest” and the primary example of the so-called Hippodamian plan (or grid), named after Hippodamus, the Milesian designer and theorist who 614

figure 10.17 View of mixed construction, detail from the frigidarium wall, Bath-Gymnasium, Sardis; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

appears to have been mainly responsible for the plan featuring straight streets crossing each other at right angles, thus creating a regular grid of rectangular blocks or insulae. Early-twentieth-century German excavations have shown that the northern and southern halves of Miletus had slightly different sized grids following the same north-south orientation (although the grid on the ground was probably not as perfect as it looks on paper). Unlike the grid of many Western cities, none of the crossing streets dominate as major avenues, like the decumanus and cardo of the typical Roman city or castrum. The center of Miletus, more reliably explored, was reserved as public land, and over centuries (well into the Roman Imperial Age) filled with large public buildings, squares, colonnades, all following strictly the rectilinear geometry of the generating idea (Figure 10.18). While Miletus represents a natural application of the grid on a fairly flat terrain, Priene (c 350 bce), as seen in the beautiful reconstruction perspective, spreads across the fairly steep slope of a rocky mountain (the acropolis). The system is pushed to its logical limits: flat land for the larger buildings is created by elaborate terracing; the smaller streets running against the slope are virtual stairs (Figure 10.19).

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figure 10.18 Plan of the city center, Miletus, developed through the second-century ce; rendered by Marie Saldaña.

figure 10.19 Perspective reconstruction of the city, Priene; Zippelius (1908).

Also credited with the grid plan of Piraeus, the port of Athens, and possibly the colony of Thurii in southern Italy circa 444 bce, the planner Hippodamus is an elusive figure whose position as the inventor or the codifier of the system must be clarified. Aerial photography, ground surveys, and limited excavations of Greek sites in southern Italy and Sicily such as Megara Hyblaea, Metapontum, and Paestum (ancient Posedonia) indicate beyond question that looser forms of regularized, nearly-orthogonal grids (usually with elongated city blocks) were used in these Greek colonies as early as the seventh century bce. In Megara Hyblaea, Sicily, two differently oriented streets create a trapezoidal open space, or agora, in the center, the differing street alignments reflecting the directions of existing country roads. At Metapontum, established in the Gulf of Taranto circa 600 bce, the uniform division of the agricultural land into thin strips appears to be 615

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity connected to the alignment of the city grid. In these instances, it is clear that the generating idea behind such rudimentary grids was the need for equitable distribution of land to settlers in the city and country – and the agent behind the effective application of the colonial grid was the Greek surveyor, or agrimensores (Latin) “who accompanied these colonists to . . . establish the equable allocation of land” (WardPerkins 1974, 24). Thus, we understand that Hippodamus of Miletus was less of an inventor, as we understand the word, but a codifier or perfector of an already known colonial practice into a highly rational, practical, and socially conscious urban planning system. Like the “master plan” of a modern city the Hippodamian system provided the blueprint for orderly growth over time (see earlier). At Miletus we can follow such an orderly growth. Very little of the city center, as represented in the beautiful reconstruction studies, existed during the immediate centuries following Hippodamus (see Figure 10.18). By the end of the fourth century bce, the L-shaped Harbor Stoa and several peristyle buildings, the Sanctuary of Apollo Delphinios, and the Pryteneion had been built. The second century witnessed brisk urban growth including the North Agora and the vast enclosure of the South Agora; between the two was the city’s handsome Hellenistic-era bouleterion and a small gymnasium. It is only during the Roman Imperial period that growth and integration of these elements were completed: a columnar gate provided formal passage between the harbor and the market zone; the open east side of the North Agora was closed by a stoa and a separate colonnade facing the newly created street, which was echoed by another colonnade along the side of the gymnasium and the Roman-era baths. The open space and varying building façades were ordered and regularized into a broad avenue leading to the civic plaza in front of the bouleterion and the monumental North Gate (Market Gate) of the South Agora transported to and reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. The Hippodamian plan and its variations enjoyed exceptional success and popularity in Asia Minor and the cities of the Mediterranean basin. Rooted in Greek scientific thinking, mathematics, metrology, and applied by the surveyor’s sheer practical knowledge and common sense, the orthogonal layout was an easily replicable model for all new cities, but also for old ones which aspired to the modernity symbolized by this new system. There was even something practical and fashionable about it. Because many of these new, planned cities of Ionia and coastal Asia Minor were the products of the late Hellenistic age, they were inherited by the new Roman masters – as were the planned Greek cities of Magna Graecia in Italy (see earlier). As in Miletus and 616

Priene, urban growth represented a long continuum, but the full development belonged to the Imperial age. Recent archaeological work has been significantly aided by modern geophysical methods such as electromagnetic conductivity (EM), electrical resistivity tomography (ERT); and ground penetrating radar (GPR) as well as increasing use of aerial photography by drones. These examinations have established the extensive use of orthogonal grids in Aphrodisias, Hierapolis, Laodicea in Phyrigia, Notion, and the lower Roman town at Pergamon and counting (and, of course, in many examples in Italy and the Western provinces). Although the orthogonal layouts of well-established Hellenistic cities, such as Knidos and Xanthos are original, in Perge, Hierapolis, and possibly Aphrodisias, they belong to the larger urban development efforts typical of the early Empire (Figure 10.20). In Ephesus, recent investigations argue for the existence of two different grids, an earlier Hellenistic and a subsequent Roman one, the latter perhaps late Republican or Augustan, which was closely related to the earlier plan.

CITIES: PARTIAL GRID, IMPERFECT GRID, AND NONGRID OPTIONS Even with this kind of well-deserved popularity, there are astonishing numbers of nongrid cities, or those with only partial, loose applications of the grid, in Asia Minor. Despite the proven tenacity of the application of an artificial orthogonal system on hilly sites, such as Priene and Rhodes, even on the acropolis of Pergamon, it is hardly surprising that topography, history and the regional isolation of a site remain significant factors in shaping city plans. Although interest in the easily accessible orthogonal cities of Ionia and coastal Asia Minor dominate modern scholarship, the creative and spontaneous impulses that shaped “unplanned” communities have not gone unnoticed. The rich urban scenography created by the imperfect geometries and supple urbanism of Anatolian towns going back to late Hittite cities and citadels was highlighted by the late urban historian Spiro Kostof who sought native and Eastern inspirations in the, “terraced monumental groups with buildings arranged at odd relationships to one another (which) had a wellestablished place in this landscape” (Kostof 1991, 214). The question to ask is a methodological and a simple one: How do we define a Hippodamian grid – can there be a partial-Hippodamian grid? Or, how restrictive should we be in negotiating the differences between its theoretical and practical applications? Few sites, even Miletus, provide us with a grid composed of perfectly ordered insulae with textbook clarity and

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figure 10.20 Reconstructed plan of Aphrodisias based on electronic survey; rendered by Diane Favro (after Stinson).

regularity. In many Roman grids, as in the lower city of Pergamon, and in Ephesus, the geometric purity of the system is compromised by exceptions on the ground. In the latter, neither the Hellenistic nor the Roman grid is generated by the strict geometry of crossing streets, but by negotiated alignments of structures: many of the Roman buildings are slightly off the grid, meet it at a slightly oblique angle, or overlap its parameters altogether – innocent looking infractions on 1:5000 maps represent some 8–10 meters “off-the-grid” conditions on the ground! In Perge, while the dominant alignment of the grid covering the area between the

Hellenistic era South Gate, and the rising acropolis hill, is firmly established by the Roman agora, other large Roman buildings, such as the South Baths, are outside the grid (Figure 10.21; see also later in this chapter). Streets and blocks vary in size, shape and alignment; the famous north-south colonnaded avenue with the canal (cardo) cuts through the grid in several bent segments and makes a strong but uneven crossing with the east-west street (decumanus). These minor bends may appear insignificant on paper, but they would have added a subtle and picturesque sense of urban dynamism when experienced on the ground. The partial and uneven grid can be 617

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figure 10.21 Plan of Perge; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after Abbasoglu).

explained by practical and historical conditions (existence of earlier streets or structures, legal restrictions), or the exigencies of topography, or sheer design choice. Thus, Perge may help us to understand the grid in real life not as an imaginary, theoretical system of crossing lines or streets, but as an approximation of an orthogonal order, created by approximate alignments. 618

The greater planning strength of cities in Roman Asia Minor is not in the applications of the grid nearing theoretical perfection, but their distorted and scrambled derivatives (as in the case of the bends of the canal-and-cardo in Perge), which are endless and endlessly creative. These cities display irregular plans, and reflect organic, piecemeal growth indicating a palpable

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figure 10.22 Plan of Side; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after Mansel).

lack of central planning authority, or a looser, more democratic, and negotiated form of control between public and private realms. Thus, they offer exceptional opportunities for architectural and social analyses. Writing half-a-century ago, Arif M. Mansel, the primary excavator of Perge and Side, observed that strict Hippodamian plans were not typical of Pamphylian cities. Despite the existence of a loose rectangular grid at Perge, the observation is fundamentally sound and finds its best demonstration at Side, the large maritime center of eastern Pamphylia. The flat, peninsular site features a strong ordering armature of several major colonnaded avenues of divergent alignments and widths (Figure 10.22). These are wide connective elements that join major city gates with the city center (where the theater, the commercial agora, baths, and fountains are closely bunched), and both to the main harbor and the temple district at the southwest of the peninsula. Changing directions and width, these porticoed thoroughfares define several large neighborhoods internally divided into parallel, angled streets creating orderly but irregular insulae. Great vistas framed by colonnades and energized by diagonal relationships, culminate in handsome façades, commemorative arches, and nymphaea; at the crossing of avenues paved public plazas emerge.

Ephesus, one of the best-preserved and beststudied cities in Asia Minor, was shaped by its geography and natural landmarks. Lysimachos, a general of Alexander, had by the beginning of the third century bce established the new city in a valley between two prominent coastal hills, the Bülbül Dag (Lepre Acte) and the Panayır Dag (Mount Pion), the gentle slopes easing into the flat plain of the harbor (Figures 10.23 and 10.24). Over the next couple of centuries, the city filled this topographical frame, placing the great porticoed enclosures of the larger commercial, religious, and sportive establishments on coastal flatlands, and the smaller residential and official structures more informally on the slopes of the hills and inside the valley between them. The excavators identified a Hellenistic era grid draped over this uneven terrain, later superimposed and extended by a Roman one. However, given the practical imperfections of any grid in shaping and defining the actual street network, we would like to think of the Ephesus grid not as a strict geometrical blueprint, in the manner of Miletus or Timgad, but a useful, orderly, orthogonal system of urban alignments. The heart and hub of the city was marked by the theater, its great hollow carved into the slopes of the Panayir Dag, the wide, marble street, known as the Arkadiane in late antiquity, stretching 619

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figure 10.23 Aerial view of Ephesus looking east with Mt Pion behind the theater and Mt Coressos on the right with the Embolos valley and Kuretes Street between them; ÖAW OeAI, photo F.-O. Durgut.

arrow-straight from the cavea to the city’s harbor (Figure 10.25). But, the true backbone of the city’s network of urban connectors was the two-kilometer long thoroughfare stretching from gate to gate, but particularly its sloping, colonnaded section occupying the bottom of the valley between the hills, known as the Embolos (or Kuretes Street). This special, marblepaved busy street was lined with shops, fountains, temples, and civic monuments, its receding slopes rising in terraced tiers of houses (Figure 10.26). At the junction, where it joined the straight Marble Avenue from the theater, was a small plaza dominated by the “baroque” multi-story columnar façade of the Hadrianic Celsus Library, and an equally eye-catching, tall arched gate, also Hadrianic, establishing unforgettable focal points in the city’s urban armature (Figure 10.27). Also memorable must have been the citizen’s daily journey along this prominent thoroughfare with many stops from gate to gate, no less meaningful than those special religious processions which celebrated the sacred identity of Ephesus. Natural settings and topography made a great deal of difference even for cities of lesser ambition than Ephesus. Cremna, which lies in the mountainous 620

heart of Pisidia, is a good example of a city representing hybrid approaches to planning displaying an “imperfect grid” (Figures 10.28 and 10.29). Although the Hellenistic settlement stretched east-west across the mountain spur boasted an impressive fortification system and sophisticated stone buildings, highlighted by a U-shaped Doric agora open to a grand view toward the south, there is no indication of the use of a regularized grid city plan. The present grid, which occupies mainly the western part of the city, is a composite of two slightly divergent alignments (with varying size and shape of insulae), and probably belongs to the early Imperial period when Cremna was made a Roman colony. The regularized “modern” neighborhood, mainly filled with houses and shops, reflects the rising economic fortunes of Cremna as well as the new housing needs of the veteran settlers. The city center, a bowl-shaped depression with rising hills on three sides, is a natural gathering place. It is dominated by a large forum-basilica of Hadrianic date which faces, across a paved plaza, a small Hadrianic temple with frontal steps – a perfect place to sit watch town life on summer evenings. The plaza expands with open and irregular edges

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figure 10.24 Plan of Ephesus; rendered by Diane Favro (after Yegül).

toward north, where, above a grand flight of steps, rises a grand propylon, a massive triple-arch with richly ornamented aedicular façades – leading to a higher-level extension of public space, an esplanade on top of a cistern (Figure 10.30). To the northwest of the propylon, an Ionic temple of Severan date overlooks the plaza. Toward the southeast, at middle distance, the cavea of a theater snuggles into the hill. The hills rising around the civic plaza are sprinkled with large and small buildings, houses, and villas commanding a spectacular view of the Cestrus River Valley and accommodating the slope with theatrical splendor (see Figure 10.29). A 200-meter-long straight stretch of a colonnaded street, probably late-secondcentury in date, extends along the south edge of the grid zone; it connects with the southwest corner of the public plaza through an arch. Although it took centuries to take shape, the elements of the city are related to each other following a complex visual geometry as if choreographed by a master hand. Cremna’s exceptional topography – its hills, valleys, dips, and rises – and its spectacular views taking in the larger forms of nature surrounding the city, are all players in this multidimensional cityscape.

Another Pisidian site near Cremna where a similar choreography of exceptional mountain topography is put into play is Sagalassus. Rising in successive terraces against the formidable backdrop of the Tauros mountain ranges, the city’s civic heart is shaped about a north-south axis, a major thoroughfare that connects the Antonine-Hadrianic Temple precinct occupying a low hill on the south to the Lower Agora, then jogs sideways and climbs up to the Upper Agora, macellum, and bouleterion with an Augustan era heroon, overlooking all this like a historical sentinel (Figures 10.31–10.33). Decorated fountain-walls rising against rugged cliffs like stage sets define the back of each paved public square. The Antonine nymphaeum of the Upper Agora, with elaborate multistory columnar rows, now beautifully restored, is the grandest of them (Figure 10.34, Plates 26 A). A person standing by the heroon, or from the upper seats of the theater located even higher, could observe this clear urban backbone, the strong armature connecting streets, ramps, stairs, terraces, and buildings; residential neighborhoods cascading down slopes; and all opening toward the spectacular vistas of distant hills and plains. Although there is no orthogonal grid in Sagalassus (unless an 621

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figure 10.25 View of the Arkadiane from the theater, looking west toward the ancient harbor, Ephesus; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 10.26 View of the Embelos (Kuretes Street), looking east toward the State Agora with the Temple of Hadrian on the left; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 10.27 Reconstruction sketch of Celsus library plaza: library façade and Hadrianic Arch (left), Ephesus; rendered by Fikret Yegül.

imaginary system of lines is imposed on the land, like a cadastral map), there are strong and deliberate alignments, connections, focal points, and a basic order of relationships inspired by the larger forms of nature. At the other end of the spectrum from cities with fully or partially regularized plans, are the smaller hill towns of Lycia, Pisidia, and Cilicia. No city is truly unplanned. No city is entirely without a conception of order and design. Even those which look like a scattering of buildings, winding streets, and dead-end alleys randomly thrown across a rugged terrain, represent growth following some internal reference and cohesion. One of the most impressive of those Lycian hill towns is Arycanda, situated high on the eastern slope of the Arycandos River valley (Aygirçay Valley) (Figures 10.35 and 10.36). Excavated by a Turkish team since 1970s, the setting directly below a 300-meter rocky rise, appeals to one as a kind of Anatolian Delphi. Various structures are distributed across the steep hillside (the slope as much as 1:3 or 1:4) following natural contours, the larger public structures and plazas built up as a system of east-west terraces. These stepping terraces are connected by short stretches of stairs

or ramps, an order particularly true in the east part of the site. Dominating the city at its highest are a stadium and a theater, much like Delphi (Figure 10.37). The stadium, due to the restrictions of topography, is designed more like a running track (xystos) in front of steps for spectators – a modest and effective arrangement sufficient for the small polis. Below the theater is the rectangular plaza-terrace of the state agora, colonnaded on three sides, but open to the view on the fourth. Northwest of this group and higher up is a narrow terrace comprising the commercial agora whose 180-meter length is lined by rows of shops and offices. Large and Small Baths, a street of temple-tombs, small sanctuaries, and slope houses arranged informally, occupy the lower slopes of the site and command views (Figure 10.38). Although the street arrangement is not very clear, there are no powerful axial alignments defined by straight thoroughfares as in Sagalassus; rather, short stairs link sets of terraces and an organic network of small streets zigzag across the hill. Arrangements similar to Arycanda displaying an informal and irregular order of streets and buildings, plazas and terraces, public and private spaces, unevenly distributed 623

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figure 10.28 Plan, Cremna; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Mitchell).

figure 10.29 General view of Cremna and environs with the Cestrus River valley looking northeast; Photo by Diane Favro.

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figure 10.30 Monumental stairs of the Propylon, looking north, Cremna; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

across landscape and following its inspiration and demand, are typical of many small, unplanned hilltop cities such as Termessus, Oenoanda, Lyrbe, and a cluster of small hamlets that populate inland Lycia: Kyaneai, Apollonia, and Teimiussa. Occupying a remote mountain top at the eastern edge of Pisidia, on the west bank of the Eurymedon River valley, Selge and its Anatolian settlers, had an undeserved reputation for their cruel and barbaric nature (Strabo, 21.7.11). Fiercely independent, they never came under the rule of others until the Roman era, when the city (c. 20,000 population) still minted its own coins, boasted a Greek-style democratic government, and a sophisticated urban structure. Its remote location (Alexander the Great did not even attempt to take it) and wise decision to side with the Romans in local conflicts, promoted its success. Even today, Selge is difficult to reach; crossing the singlearch Roman bridge which connects the banks of a deep gorge at a dizzying height, is still the only passage to the city, and to the Turkish village which occupies the site (see Figure 3.38). The vision of Selge’s backdrop of mountain ranges, layered in purple haze and edged in ghostly cedars, echoes a sense of the sublime. The Roman city occupies a roughly triangular area marked by three prominent hills connected by saddles (Figures 10.39 and 10.40). The west hill, the Kespedion,

higher than the rest, was identified as the acropolis. Almost all of the 2.5-kilometer-long circuit of Hellenistic-Byzantine walls and gates can be traced. The most important feature of Roman planning in Selge is the colonnaded street connecting the Upper Agora on the South Hill with the North Hill. At its south end the street opens through an arched gate into an irregular shaped plaza defined by a small public bath, the ornate columnar façade of a nymphaeum, and higher up, the tall stoas of the Upper Agora (Figure 10.41). This hard-paved public space is defined on the north by a multistoried market hall (K); to the east is a large odeum reminiscent of the bouleterion at Miletus. Two small structures (temples?) close the west side. Following the colonnaded street moving north, the façade of a small Ionic prostyle podium temple provides a dramatic visual terminus. The 230-meter stretch of the street, which is lined with porticos and shops, makes several bends to accommodate the topography. Selge had several temples and temple-tombs almost all of them small, except the Ionic peripteros occupying the acropolis (west hill), possibly dedicated to Zeus. Carved into the east slopes of the north hill is an imposing theater, large for the city, and a stadium which appears to be connected at its southern end to the palaestra of a large public bath, perhaps, denoting double use of the sportive facilities and reminding us 625

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figure 10.31 General view of Sagalassus looking south toward the lower agora, colonnaded street and the Hadrianic-Antonine temple in the far distance; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

of similar bath-stadium linkages which we see in cities such as Laodicea and Nysa (Figure 10.42; see also Figures 10.40, and 10.107, Plate 24B). The residential section of the city occupied the gentle slopes around the hills, houses arranged in terraces layering down following diverse orientations, their small, fractured texture contrasting the larger public buildings on the heights. Such a residential arrangement would have been comparable to many others on hilly terrains, particularly the famous Hanghäuser, or the “slope houses” of Ephesus (see later in this chapter), but perhaps, freer, more organic, and picturesque; there is no indication of even a rudimentary grid. Selge itself was an urban citadel. Compared to Selge’s formidable high-country appeal, Phaselis, a Lycian harbor town on the western shore of the Gulf of Antalya (Adalia), exudes a gentle, subtropical feeling. As Selge’s urban layout is structured by its three hills, that of Phaselis is shaped by its peninsular location with three harbors set against the spectacular backdrop of Lycian coastal ranges rising from the shore among pine forests and citrus groves to the snowy, nearly 3,000-meter peak of Mount Olympos 626

(Figures 10.43 and 10.44). Colonists from Rhodes founded the city in the early seventh century bce. Phaselis occupies a southern facing peninsula, originally surrounded by sea and land walls. The high ground along the south and east edges of the peninsula served as the acropolis; residential neighborhoods spread organically on the rising ground toward north and southwest. The northeast and southwest harbors are natural bays on either side of the peninsular “waist,” while the smaller one on the east, protected by a breakwater and lighthouse, was the safer city harbor. The town center occupied the flat ground on the isthmus – the perfect passage – and was defined by two segments of a bent colonnaded street connecting the city harbor with the west harbor (see Figure 10.45). An irregular civic plaza was created where the two streets changed direction, accentuated by a nymphaeum and an agora-basilica enclosure, probably a gift from the emperor Hadrian. A small public bath and a latrine opened directly into the plaza, supplied with water by a branch aqueduct on arches that passed close to the city center. Leading up to the north-facing theater is a short street, a dynamic extension of the

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figure 10.32 Plan of Sagalassus; rendered by Rui Xiong.

figure 10.33 Reconstruction sketch of the monumental city center and lower Agora looking north north with N, M, P of the previous plan, Sagalassus; rendered by Marie Saldaña.

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figure 10.34 plate 26a Restored Antonine Nymphaeum, Sagalassus; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plaza. The southwest continuation of the colonnaded street, terminated by a Hadrianic arch, opened into the square in front of the west harbor and framed Mount Olympos rising against the shimmering expanse of the sea. This stretch of the wide, straight street is depressed a few steps below the level of the flanking colonnades and the plaza, creating a special sense of place and containment, which found its dramatic release by the wide open spaces at either end. The steps under the colonnades were probably used by townsfolk to watch informal games or contests – a practical and attractive arrangement familiar from other Greco-Roman cities of Asia Minor, such as Kadyanda, or Adada. Phaselis, shaped by visual and functional precepts of its unique topography, is a welcoming town: Alexander the Great wintered there, as did Hadrian during a shorter visit sometime in 131 ce. The advantages offered by the gentle climate and easy access by way of the sea had its down side: the city suffered the depredations of pirates in the late-third century ce. Today, piracy has come back in different way: national 628

and regional attempts to open the area to mass tourism succeeded only too well. The level of noise and pollution created by booming yacht tourism in Phaselis’s once pristine harbors, and the damage done to antiquities, compels one to wish that Phaselis had some of Selge’s formidable natural defenses. Phaselis was special because of its location on a friendly sea with three harbors as were other “harbor cities” along the western and southern coast of Asia Minor. On a smaller scale, cities on rivers, such as Aezane on the Rhyndacus, or Pessinus on a small tributary of the Sangarius, or the numerous frontier posts on the slow-flowing Euphrates, such as Zeugma (“bridge”), reflected some aspect of their riverine locales in the urban layouts. Some sites tamed available water from springs and aqueducts into canals and pools to shape the city – Aezane, Antioch-in-Pisidia, Side in Pamphylia. We are lucky to have a reasonably well-preserved example of an urban canal occupying the middle of a long colonnaded avenue at Perge, as mentioned earlier. In the early second century ce, this magnificent avenue (cardo) about half a kilometer long

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.35 General view of Arycanda, looking east; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

stretched between the city’s historic South Gate, and the rising ground on the north where water originated (Figure 10.46, Plate 24A, and Figure 10.21). The colonnade and its waterway, with subtle bends and crossngs at every six meters by marble foot-bridges, found their culmination at a nymphaeum arranged as a doublearched columnar gate nestled against the mesa-like rise of the acropolis hill (Figure 10.47). One must imagine waters cascading down the elevated basin of the fountain and flowing in gentle eddies and swirls against its marble-clad banks, down the middle of the busy avenue to a collecting pool at its southern end. Rising behind this pool, and catching its reflection on the water, were the circular towers of the old Hellenistic South Gate redesigned by the Romans as an urban plaza surrounded by statue niches, and the new triple arch decorated with statues, all built in the second century ce by Plancia Magna, the Priestess of Artemis, the generous, aristocratic daughter of Perge (Figure 10.48). We must also imagine the people of Perge strolling along this thoroughfare, the place to be, enjoying the cool spray from the canal and the fountain, and drawing water for their

daily use. The Perge canal-avenue was an urban showcase, among many, amalgamating the practical with aesthetics, architectural sensibility, community responsibility, and plain pleasure in urban life.

BUILDING TYPES After showcasing just a few of the fair cities of Asia, in the following section we will review some individual buildings that gave shape to these and other cities and represented their cultural and social institutions. In the creation of architectural types, a dialogue between Rome and the Eastern provinces was at work comparable in its main lines to the one between the capital and the Western provinces. Similar dynamic relationships existed concerning the creation and transference of building technology (see earlier). Scholars view these processes of change and continuity between the center and the periphery in terms of imitations, adaptations, and creations – processes that were not mutually exclusive, but often overlapping. 629

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figure 10.36 Plan of Arycanda; rendered by Alex Maymind (after C. Bayburtluoglu).

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By its very nature, religious architecture in Asia Minor was resistant to change. Temple types and plans, for the most part, followed long-established Greek precedents. A specific and important factor contributing to this sense of conservatism was the exalted position of the Hellenistic tradition associated with Hermogenes. Active during the first half of the second century bce, Hermogenes, an architect and theorist, tried to bring regularity and system to the Ionic order by devising a complex system of proportions based on the relationship of the distance between columns to that of their height. While the didactic system was exemplified by his major work, the Temple of Artemis in Magnesia-on-the-Meander (much admired by Vitruvius, to whom we owe our knowledge of the architect: De Arch. 3.2.6; 3.3.8; 3.3.9; 4.3.1; 7. Introduction, 12), it was never quite reproduced in future temple architecture with the same rigor. One 630

still wonders how such an academic manner came to be so influential and popular in Asia Minor many centuries after his time. A major reason is surely the availability of the clear Vitruvian description. Another is that despite Hermogenes’ rules, the Greek and Roman followers of the master could induce considerable flexibility into the system. Yet another would seem to be Hermogenes’ preference for pseudodipteral temples (planned like a dipteral temple but where the inner row of surrounding columns is omitted), which results in a more impressive size and spatial feeling created by the wide ambulatories between the cella and the exterior colonnades – clearly, a very different architectural experience than that offered by the tight corridors of Doric temples. In fact, Vitruvius informs us that Hermogenes eschewed the use of Doric order for temples because of its too confining rules and restrictions (De Arch. 4.3.1). The Temple of Augustus and Roma, circa 25 bce, in Ankyra (Ankara), the capital of the newly

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.37 General view of theater, looking north, Arycanda; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

conquered Galatia (as it is of modern Turkey), is the earliest Imperial era pseudodipteral temple following the Hermogenean system (Figure 10.49 left). The creation of this temple was clearly a political statement

whose meaning was heralded by the Greek and Latin texts of the Res Gestae, the text and list Augustus compiled of his achievements to be left for posterity carved on the marble walls of the cella – copies of the 631

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figure 10.38 General view of Large Baths and the Aygircay Valley, looking southwest, Arycanda

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figure 10.39 General view of Selge looking north from upper Agora; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

original displayed on his Mausoleum in Rome (though in Ankara the Greek text was paraphrased). It is noteworthy that this deliberate Roman presence in a remote, central Anatolian province, which had little

Greek urban culture, was represented by the choice of a deliberate Greek architectural style – as if Augustus wished the natives to learn to be Greek in order to be Roman. The temple follows the Corinthian order, 633

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figure 10.40 Plan of Selge; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after A. Machatschek and M. Schwarz).

octastyle (8  15), raised on a relatively low platform with only seven or eight steps. It has a frontal porch with four prostyle columns and a back porch (opisthodomos) with two columns in antis. The prostyle porch displays a spacious, open arrangement because it has no columns in antis, a deliberate deviation from the more common in antis porches preferred in Asia Minor and displayed by almost all of the prominent Hellenistic pseudodipteros temples, such as the Temple of Artemis at Magnesia, Temple of Apollo Smintheus at Chryse (Gürpinar in the Troad), and the temples at Alabanda and Lagina in Caria. The plan of the Ankyra temple is closely comparable to the well-preserved Temple of Zeus at Aezane, in northern Phyrigia, dated to the late Flavian era (dedicated in 92 ce; Figure 10.49 right). The temple is Ionic, an octastyle pseudodipteros (8  15, 21.5  36.5 m on stylobate), also raised on a low platform of 634

six to seven steps set in the axial middle of a very large and high colonnaded enclosure like an Imperial forum (Figure 10.50). This grand precinct is entered from the north through propylon with a monumental staircase. The short back porch of the cella has the usual two columns in antis, while the front porch, facing southeast is a tetrastyle prostyle arrangement with no columns in antis (Figure 10.51). The columns of both porches conspicuously boast Composite order capitals. Truly unique is the spacious, stone vaulted crypt under the cella (9-m span, entered from the back porch), believed to be connected to the cult of Meter Steuene, a local manifestation of Cybele (Figure 10.52). The sanctuary to the Great Goddess is actually outside the city focused on a cave shrine. The rich and inventive decorative program of the temple is eye-catching: a meander pattern accentuating the cella wall; vases ornamenting the upper fluting of the Ionic order

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.41 Hypothetical reconstruction of the Upper Agora at Selge showing Market Building (front), odeum with portico (rear left), and temples (right of Market Building); rendered by W. Ashley Coon and Marie Saldaña (after Machatshek).

(Figure 10.53); lush carving of acanthus scrolls and bucrania-and-garlands decorating the frieze; and the ravishing, exuberant foliage on the oversized acroterion. One wonders if this work by the talented local masons of Aezane signaled some response to the famously flamboyant architectural decoration of the Flavian period in Rome (e.g., the Arch of Titus), following Anatolian styles. The Temple of Domitian at Ephesus is an Imperial Cult temple honoring the Flavian Dynasty and celebrating the city’s much-coveted privilege of having an official “Temple Warden” or neokorate (a privilege only granted by the Senate in Rome). Adhering to the Hermogenean model with slight variations, the temple was an octastyle pseudodipteros of squat proportions (8  13, 24  34 m), raised on a stylobate platform of eight peripheral steps. While keeping a rather shallow tetrastyle-prostyle front porch like the previous two examples, it had no back porch. Directly on axis with the east front was a large, U-shaped altar decorated with a frieze of trophy weapons. Both the temple and the altar were situated inside a partially colonnaded enclosure (50  100 m) and raised high above the main

street on a lofty terrace built up on two levels of vaulted chambers and cryptoporticos (see Figures 10.15 and 10.24). A double-storied colonnade whose upper half-columns displayed male and female captives, or caryatids, formed a decorative façade for the bold mortar-and-rubble utilitarian structure (recalling the “captives façade” in the Roman agora at Corinth, see earlier). It is also an arrangement in keeping with the Roman habit of creating an artificially prepared and raised site to present a temple to the best visual advantage – one that probably would not have been the first choice of Hermogenes. Peripheral temples dedicated to major GrecoRoman deities, or local Anatolian ones, or the new “gods and masters” of the Imperial Cult, generally follow the established Hellenistic types going back to Pytheos’ model, the Temple of Athena in Priene, or its simpler variations. Much of this work is provincial and unremarkable. The Augustan cult temple in the Carian city Stratonicea, raised axially above the cavea of the theater is more special for its siting than its architecture per se. It is an elegantly proportioned Ionic peripteros of modest size (6  9, 12.5  18.5 m), with a 635

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figure 10.42 View of theater and stadium at Selge, looking northeast; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

small, square cella, front porch with two columns in antis, and no back porch. Nearly a century-and-half later, the Hadrianic-Antonine cult temple in Sagalassus, the Pisidian mountain city, commands a hilltop at the south end of the main colonnaded avenue (see Figures 10.31 and 10.32). The plan is similar to the 636

Stratonicea temple, only larger. Although the Sagalassus temple is Corinthian, both structures subscribe to the same mode of ornament common in Asia Minor composed of a three-fasciae architrave, a rich, acanthus-scroll frieze, and a cornice with dentils, no modillions. The columns appear squat for the order

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figure 10.43 Plan of Phaselis; rendered by Marie Saldaña.

(c. 1/7.5 lower diameter-to-height ratio, instead of 1/9 or so, typical for Corinthian). The façade, as restored by the excavators, appears top heavy with an exceptionally high pediment – perhaps a conscious effort to achieve a massive look in order to anchor the building against its spectacular mountain setting, or perhaps simply an example of provincial conservatism. Contemporary with the last example is the wellpreserved Temple of Zeus at Euromos located in the much older sanctuary of the native Carian god (Figure 10.54). The temple is Corinthian, of medium size (6  11, 14.4  28.8 m) with carefully worked out proportions in plan: the back porch is a single intercolumnation deep, the front porch (pronaos) two, and the cella three. The pronaos porch has no columns in antis but the front of the temple is emphasized by a double row. Many of the fluted column shafts display inscriptions on raised panels (tabula) recording donations by leading citizens of Euromos. Impressive in their precise ashlar work in local limestone or marbles and crisp ornamental details are

the many small, prostyle temples or temple-tomb combinations that often occupy scenic spots in the stonerich hill towns of south and southwest Asia Minor. These Imperial-era heirs of typical Hellenistic prototypes (there are at least five of these tiny, prostyle naiskos temples in Hellenistic Pergamon, possibly the center for the dissemination of the type) are often Corinthian and display cellas raised on podiums with frontal steps, in the Roman manner. Termessus, the spectacular Lycian mountain city overgrown in forests of pine, has several simply named “Corinthian” temples. The so-called Large Corinthian Temple (N1), with a hexastyle front porch has an unusual pediment broken by an arch, a local version of the so-called Syrian pediment, a motif made popular in Syria but also well represented in Asia Minor (Figure 10.55). Far in the heartland of Pisidia, the highland city of Adada, all but forgotten to time and tourism (may it stay that way!), boasts three or four of these all-stone, tall, frontal-accessed structures, some preserved up to the top of their cella walls and part of their pediments (Figure 10.56). Based on inscriptions 637

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figure 10.44 View of Mount Olympos from the theater, looking northwest, Phaselis; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 10.45 View of city center plaza (F) at Phaselis, looking west; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 10.46 plate 24a General view of the colonnaded avenue with canal, Perge, looking south toward the South Gate; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 10.47 Nymphaeum at the end of the colonnaded street, looking north, Perge; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 10.48 Detail of South Gate interior with niches, Perge; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

which carry dedications to local notables, who gave these buildings “with all of their ornament and statuary,” they were dedicated to the cult of the reigning Roman emperors, but still carefully retained their sacred commitments to the city’s ancestral deities (such as the “Temple of the God-Emperors and Zeus Megistos/Serapis”), a sensible way for a city of modest means but stubbornly proud disposition to display its dual identity – or obtain two temples for the price of one. Perhaps, the most elegant of these structures is the Northwest Heroon at Sagalassus, a tall commemorative monument perched on the northern heights of the city. The Belgian archaeologists date it to the Augustan era, mainly based on its fine ornament. The tiny naiskos (barely 6  7 m) with a pair of Corinthian columns in antis, is raised on double podiums, the vertical emphasis enhancing the dramatic appeal of the steep site (Figure 10.57). An elegant relief band of “dancing maenads” decorating the upper podium is in perfect harmony with the exquisite capitals and the acanthus scroll band crowning the cella walls. Compared to these rather elegant and precisely made ashlar temples and tombs, we are worlds apart when we view the temple-tombs of Rough Cilicia. The latter have thick, unfluted shafts, simple (sometimes) unfinished details, rough stone textures, and heavy proportions 640

Although the majority of temples erected in Asia Minor during the Imperial era followed conventional, Hellenistic models, a handful display a greater resemblance to Roman and Western podium-temples. It is difficult to know the factors and forces that determined the particular architectural choices for these temples in the “Roman manner.” An obvious and plausible explanation is the existence of some form of direct and specific involvement with Rome, most likely a military or administrative association, as in Roman colonies or military outposts. Temples dedicated to the Imperial Cult were also logical candidates for the Roman manner. Both of these factors appear to be the case for the formally composed Sanctuary of Augustus (and probably also to Men/Cybele, the principal local deity) in Antioch-in-Pisidia (modern Yalvaç), the leading Augustan colony in the region founded in 25 bce. The sanctuary, located on a high hill and commanding a view of the city, is composed of several formally related components: a large semicircular exedra carved in natural rock and defined as a two-story colonnade, Doric supporting Ionic; placed in the middle of the exedra, set against its great sweeping curve, a small tetrastyle Corinthian temple rises on a high podium and frontal stairs, opening west to a large, paved plaza. A colonnaded avenue, or a long plaza (Platea Tiberia), forms a grand axial processional way leading to the temple complex; it is separated from the upper plaza by a ramp and a flight of stairs at the head of which rises a monumental triple-gate propylon (Figure 10.59). This elaborate, ceremonial composition with its formal hierarchies and multilayered total design, displays all the hallmark characteristics of scenographic Roman planning from the late Republican sanctuaries of Italy to the great Imperial fora of Rome. The focus of this visual and experiential ensemble, the temple itself, with its four frontal columns defining a deep porch and strong sense of frontality, rich but delicate ornament, is a conspicuously Western building. Hidden from the view by the high podium, a small, vaulted crypt cut into the natural rock implies chthonic connections as we have seen in monumental form in the Temple of Zeus/Cybele in Aezane, and points to a distinct sense of Anatolian preference. An inscription from the

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figure 10.49 Plans of theTemple of Augustus, Ankara, plan (left) and Temple of Zeus, Aezane (right); rendered by Diane Favro.

figure 10.50 Reconstruction perspective of the Temple of Zeus, temple precinct and propylon, Aezane; rendered by Marie Saldaña.

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figure 10.51 General view of the Temple of Zeus looking southeast, Aezane; Photo by Diane Favro.

propylon carries a dedication to Augustus as the “son of a god,” while the rich sculptural iconography of the gate arch and the temple alludes to his valor in war and piety in peace much the same way such political themes are routinely symbolized in the Augustan monuments of Rome and Italy. In terms of its dramatic setting and grand design the Temple of Trajan (Trajaneum) crowning the Acropolis of Pergamon provides a worthy parallel to the masterly ensemble at Antioch-in-Pisidia (Figure 10.60). Here, the extremely steep site forced the architect to raise the sanctuary precinct on a high, artificial terrace of vaulted chambers creating a rectangular plaza (c. 80  60 m). The U-shaped colonnades of the plaza frame an exceptionally tall, axiallyplaced Corinthian temple whose commanding presence is further emphasized by its podium above the 20-meter high terrace wall. The rich, all-marble, architectonic ensemble imparts a sense of monumentality, especially when viewed from a distance, has few equals in Roman scenographic design. Of course, here the architect (who was probably a Greek) was capitalizing on the already existing visual drama of the Hellenistic royal capital, but he did justice to it. The temple proper, now partially restored by the German archaeological team, is a peripteros, 6  10 columns, 642

whose relatively small cella with a tight front porch with two columns in antis only differs from a conventional Hellenistic peripteros in being raised on a podium in the Roman manner (Figure 10.61, and Plate 25). Indeed, the scheme is a competent, but unremarkable, exercise in amalgamating Hellenistic and Roman traditions in temple planning that appears occasionally in the West as well as in the East, such as the Temple of Deified Hadrian in Rome, or the Temple of Bacchus in Heliopolis/Baalbek. What is more “Roman” in spirit is the powerful axiality of the setting reminiscent of Imperial fora, such as the Forum of Augustus in Rome. The temple’s superb all-marble details and ornament, especially the distinctive frieze of staring Medusa heads between vertical consoles also used in the Temple of Venus and Roma in Rome, is patently of Asiatic derivation –– and, perhaps, reflects a stylistic transmission from Pergamon to the capital (Figure 10.62). Scholars speculate with good reason the presence of architects and craftsmen from Asia Minor working in Hadrianic Rome. The close contact and relationship between Rome and Asia Minor is underlined in a different albeit still cogent field: a “college” or club of professional athletes from Asia Minor were established in the Thermae of Trajan under the emperor, a

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.52 Section of Temple of Zeus, Aezane (top) and view of underground cult chamber (bottom); Diane Favro and Gtuffli via Wikimedia.

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figure 10.53 Detail view of Ionic capital from the exterior colonnade (peristasis), Temple of Zeus, Aezane; Photo by Fikret Yegul.

figure 10.54 View of columns of the north Peristyle, Temple of Zeus, Euromos; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 10.55 Façade of the Corinthian Temple (N 1) with Syrian gable, Termessus; Lanckoronski (1892).

highly-visible privilege continued under Hadrian and Antoninus Pius (CIL VI, nos. 10153–10154; CIG III, nos. 5906–5913; Yegül 1992, 175–176). The Pergamene temple was dedicated by a local donor to the joint cults of “Trajan and Zeus Philios” and later included the worship of deified Hadrian, whose colossal cult statue shared the cella with Zeus and Trajan. The Temple of Artemis in Sardis, the fourth largest Ionic temple of the ancient world, is a truly remarkable temple from the land of Croesus, the legendary king of Lydia. The colossal structure represents a sophisticated relationship between Anatolia and Rome and, as in Pergamon, features Hadrian as its Imperial patron and inspiration. Latest research indicates that the city 644

received its second Imperial Cult (neokorate) privilege under Hadrian. The temple started its life as a Hellenistic temple and ended it as a Roman one. This aspect of its bridging design – shaped by historical restrictions, overlapping tradition, bold experimentation and a fair degree of creative happenstance – alone makes the building worthy of special attention. The temple is situated on the western slopes of the acropolis of Sardis, below the rise of the Tmolos mountain chain; the setting, located in an early sanctuary sacred to the goddess outside the city, is spectacular (Figure 10.63, Plate 27 B). Construction probably started around 280 bce, following the conquest of western Anatolia by Seleucos II and within a generation or so of Alexander’s short visit to Sardis in 334 bce, on his great quest to “liberate the cities of Asia” from the Persian yoke. The Hellenistic construction achieved no more than the marble cella, which was put to use unfinished, not an unusual occurrence in the case of these gigantic temples. After a long period of inactivity, construction resumed sometime in the middle of the second century ce when the temple, designed as an irregular pseudodipteros, received its peristasis (at least, some of it). Originally facing the west, the cella was divided into two nearly-equal chambers in order to accommodate the newly awarded Imperial cult honors under Hadrian. The gigantic structure was still unfinished at the end of the fourth century when it was taken

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.56 Temple D (small prostyle temple), Adada; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

over by the Christian community and a small church built snugly against its southeastern corner. Measuring 44.60  97.60 meters (c. 151  330 RF; almost the same size as a modern football field), its unusually elongated proportions are generally considered to be an “archaizing” characteristic (Figure 10.64). The Roman building enhanced this characteristic by applying a columnar scheme on its short, east end by diminishing interaxial distances progressively from the center to the sides, a rarelyused feature of archaic temples, such as the Artemision of Ephesus. The front and back colonnades are three columns deep while the sides are the usual two; thus, the side ambulatories do not wrap uniformly around the ends as is normal in pseudodipteral temples. Furthermore, the Roman design introduced pronaos porches at each end of the temple (four columns in front and two in the returns), creating in the heart of the temple tall, boxy, spatial volumes, probably open to the sky, redefining the whole concept of the Hellenistic pseudodipteros (Figure 10.65). This is a dramatic and creative departure from the canonical pseudodipteros scheme of Hermogenes and his Anatolian followers

(such as we see in the Temple of Augustus and Roma in Ankyra and the Temple of Zeus in Aezane, see Figure 10.49 left and right). Interestingly, the special spatial emphasis of the Sardis temple finds parallels in Italian temples, especially in the design of their deep front porches, a characteristic noted by Vitruvius when describing the Etruscan temple (De Arch. 4.7.1). The tall, airy tetrastyle porches of Sardis recall traditional Republican temples in Rome such as the Temple of Saturn, or the Temple of Portunus, or even the porch of the Pantheon (see earlier). Although there is no hard evidence for a direct connection between Rome and the Artemis Temple, at a more general level there was considerable porosity and reciprocating artistic exchange between the capital and its prized Asian province, particularly by the beginning of the second century ce (see earlier mention of the Anatolian athletic club in the Thermae of Trajan in Rome). An inscription in Greek carved on the bottom of one of the columns of the Sardis temple’s east front proudly declares that of all the columns “I was the first to rise” – a speaking column that, on epigraphical style as well as narrative content, 645

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figure 10.57 Upper level view of the Northwest Heroon (back side), Sagalassus; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

can be associated with Hadrian who instigated or rebuilt more temples in Asia Minor than any other emperor, and almost certainly visited the Lydian capital in 123/24 ce. This would have been the ideal time and occasion to award the city its second neokorate honor and the consequential transformation of its long unfinished mega-temple as the seat of the Imperial cult. It would also provide an explanation for the “Italification” of its unorthodox design, and its identification as a unique and transitional building crossing types and borders (Yegül 2012, 109; Yegül, forthcoming). A more academic Hadrianic inspiration is the Temple of Asclepius Soter at the Asclepion, Pergamon; it was directly and deliberately modeled on the Pantheon in Rome (Figure 10.66). Two of the private donors to the Pergamene Asclepion had been granted senatorships in Rome under Hadrian. Located on the eastern side of the great rectangular precinct of the healing god, the temple is composed of a circular cella whose thick walls are carved alternately with semicircular and rectangular niches, a front porch raised on a podium and leading up from frontal steps to four prostyle columns. The drum is built in traditional ashlar but the dome, instead of the Pantheon’s carefully 646

graded concrete, was in solid, radially laid brick. With its 24-meter diameter, and construction in the materials and methods familiar in Asia Minor, this rotunda, at least structurally, was a pale imitation of the original in Rome. Yet, in its conscious copying, down to the oculus, there must have been a sense of celebration. The structure must also have underlined the close rapport between the famous royal city that first welcomed the Romans in Asia and the emperor Hadrian in Rome, who probably instigated the work when he visited Pergamon in 124 ce. For us, however, the multilobed Cult Hall just south of the temple, with six great apsidal exedras around a tall, cylindrical rotunda raised on a barrel-vaulted annular cryptoporticus, represents a more daring and original composition that foreshadows many of the dynamic, centrally-planned schemes later developed in the West (Figures 10.67 and 10.68). The Temple of Serapis (or some other “water deity”) in Ephesus looks to the West in a more direct and specific way, and to an even greater extent than the previous examples. Dating in the mid-second century, this is a very large Corinthian, prostyle temple of unusual design and bold structure (Figure 10.69; see

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.58 View of the double temple-tombs, Imbriogon (Demircili), Rough Cilicia; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

also Figure 10.24). The eight frontal columns raised on a podium with stairs define a 29.20-meter frontage that equals the width of the great octastyle layout of the Augustan Temple of Castor and Pollux in Rome, exceeds that of the Temple of Venus Genetrix (c. 25 m wide), and vies with the breadth and height of the Pantheon. The monolithic columns circa 14 meters high (48 RF), almost exactly match the height of the latter’s eight red granite monoliths. A 6-meter wide door spanned by a single lintel, estimated to weigh 12 tons, led one to a barrel-vaulted chamber whose long walls were articulated by six pairs of niches with fountains and a water channel around the perimeter of the floor. Cella walls are doubled with a very narrow corridor (1.20 m wide) between them, and a stair leading to an upper chamber above the central niche of the main hall, probably serving unknown cult functions. The waffle-like wall structure must have aided the support of the 17-meter span vault. Comparison to the vaulted and niched cella of the so-called Temple of Diana (or Augusteum) in the Water Sanctuary at Nemasus (Nimes) is inevitable, although instead of

the crisp ashlar construction at Nimes, here the rough ashlar and small block walls and the mortared rubble vault strictly follows local practice writ large (see earlier). Also local in derivation is the bold, deeply cut ornament as on the prominent cornice where typically Roman modillions are combined with Ionic dentils. Set against the broad back wall of a large colonnaded precinct, which was entered on axis through a monumental gate, the image would have been more at home on the Tiber than the Meander delta. The monumental late second century ce mausoleum complex in the West Necropolis of Side on the Pamphylian coast is interesting because it represents the application of the Roman mode in a setting that recalls the Sanctuary and Temple of Augustus-Men in Antioch-in-Pisidia (see Figure 10.59) but in a private, funerary context (Figure 10.70). This temple-tomb, in the middle of a precinct, is raised on a podium with frontal steps like a typical Italic temple, but carries a pediment broken by an arch. Its construction, including the barrel-vaulted cella (span 11 m) is in cut stone over a core of mortared rubble, the intrados of the

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figure 10.59 Plan of the Augustan temple precinct, Antioch-in-Pisidia; rendered by Diane Favro (after Woodbridge).

vault decorated by handsome marble coffers. The precinct is defined on three sides by colonnades carrying brick arches and roofed by a series of small cupolas in brick, like a Byzantine cloister with its exotic sense of tranquility. 648

Five temples from Side illustrate the complexity in making stylistic and architectural choices and the futility of finding consistent patterns in these choices. Two of the larger, spectacularly situated at the southern tip of the peninsula, Temples N1 and N2

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.60 Reconstruction perspective of the Pergamene Acropolis with theater (center) and Temple of Deified Trajan (top); drawing by Richard Bohn (1896).

figure 10.61 Reconstructed northwest rear corner of the Temple of Deified Trajan, Pergamon (looking west) with North Stoa on right; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 10.62 Detail of southwest corner with pediment, Temple of Deified Trajan, Pergamon; Photo: Thérèse Gaigé via Wikimedia.

(possibly to Athena and Apollo), need no elaborate explanations (see Figure 6.22). Almost identical in plan, both have conventional peripteral layouts (6  11, front porch with two columns in antis, no back porch) standing atop a crepidomas with just three steps following well-established Hellenistic models (Figures 10.71 and 10.72, Plate 27B). Only the choice of the Corinthian (N1) and Composite (N2) orders, and their bold ornamental style (especially the “Medusa frieze” of Temple N1, which is clearly derived from the Pergamon’s Trajaneum, see Figure 10.62) betray their Imperial provenance and hybrid parentage. The Temple of Dionysus, a small, podium-temple placed tight against the cavea exterior of the theater in the same city, by contrast, follows the Roman manner (see Figure 10.22). Common in Italy, but rare in Anatolia, the temple is a Corinthian pseudoperipteros (i.e., side and back columns are “engaged,” like the Temple of Portunus by the Tiber in Rome); raised on a low podium, it has a four-column prostyle porch with

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frontal steps. A second-century inscription in Greek found nearby probably refers to this temple as a deipnisterion, or a “sacred dining hall” for the priests of Dionysus – here is a bona fide Italian-style temple serving a function specific to a city of Greek culture! Another podium-temple in Side in Side is a small Corinthian tholos possibly dedicated to Tyche/Fortuna (“Fortune”) inside the colonnaded enclosure of the agora (Figure 10.73; see later). The last temple we will discuss also displays an unusual design. Located on the southwest end of Side’s main colonnaded avenue, immediately east of the temenos of Temples Apollo and Artemis and dating to the end of the second century (or the early third), this is a half round temple raised on a high podium and approached by a monumental flight of steps facing west (Figure 10.74). Its walls are constructed in ashlar faced in travertine (podium) and marble (cella). The cella must have been roofed in timber as a half cone with a timber and stucco semi-dome on the interior.

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.63 plate 27b Temple of Artemis, aerial view toward the east with acropolis, Sardis; courtesy of Sardis Archaeological Expedition.

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figure 10.64 Temple of Artemis, restored composite plan, Hellenistic/Roman phases (the east cella housed the Imperial cult), Sardis; rendered by Fikret Yegül.

The façade has a very deep porch and four Corinthian, prostyle columns, the central pair set three times wider than the outer ones, indicating that they carried a pediment broken by an arch – the popular frontone Siriaco (or Syrian Arch) motif of the East. Circumstantial evidence suggests that this temple was dedicated to Men, a popular, native Anatolian deity with many local

manifestations. Its miniature size and the decorative nature of its architecture go together well. The similarity of this imaginative shrine to the Temple of Venus at Heliopolis-Ba’albek was already noted half-a-century ago by A. M. Mansel, Side’s famous excavator and scholar (see later in this chapter). The metropolis of the long Hellenized Pamphylian coast, its markets and colonnades thriving with Greek, native Anatolian, Syrian, and Roman populations, Side was both a port city and a caravan city. The great variety of Side’s architecture during the Roman era, characterized by creative heterogeneity and facile syntheses, must have only mirrored the busy city’s hybrid life and culture. T H E AG O R A A N D T H E B A S I L I C A

If temples and sanctuaries occupy the religious and spiritual heart of the Greco-Roman city, the agora and the basilica, civic institutions that often appear

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figure 10.65 Temple of Artemis, hypothetical structural restoration, “analytique,” Sardis; rendered by Fikret Yegül.

together or in proximity to each other, concretize the city’s administrative and commercial business – and thus represent two different poles, to the extent that the secular and spiritual could be separated from each other in the ancient world. The agora, the public core of the city often created the context for temples and the basilica often contained civic and Imperial cult shrines. If site conditions allowed, the agora and the basilica often took a prominent and accessible location close to the center of the city. William L. MacDonald was right in characterizing the basilica as a “catchall of the history of architecture . . . (a public hall) almost always bordering on the forum or the agora” (MacDonald 1986, 114). Although the broad definition of such an institution open to official, legal, and commercial business allows a great variety of architectural forms, in the East the long, narrow type with interior colonnades was favored. The earliest and one of the best examples that answers this definition is the late Augustan basilicastoa on the north side of the State Agora (Upper Agora) in Ephesus (Figure 10.75; see also 10.24). Entered from the south by a pair of Doric gates, the state agora is a large rectangular enclosure at the southeast end of the Embolos. The south and east colonnades are double-aisled and carry Doric capitals. In the center, clearly following Western models was a small, 652

prostyle, peripteral temple raised on a platform, appropriately dedicated to Julius Caesar and Roma (formerly identified as the Temple of Isis), a precursor to the Imperial cult. The basilica-stoa occupied the entire north side of this enclosure, 180 meters long and 20 meters wide entered across its 150 meters long south frontage, much like the Hellenistic North Stoa of the agora at Priene. The interior is divided into a tall nave with clerestory lighting and aisles; there is no second story gallery. The spacing of the inner columns is twice that of those on the outside – a common arrangement in Greek stoas in order to allow greater interior space and flexibility (and made possible by the use of wood beams able to carry wider spans than stone architraves). The employment of a special variant of Ionic capitals with projecting bull-heads would have been structurally useful by reducing the span, but the simple desire to introduce a handsome ornamental motif with exotic, Persian derivation, was probably just as important. A separate chamber at the east end, like a tribunal (chalcidium as Vitruvius names such chambers), housed the statues of Augustus and his wife Livia, and displayed dedications to the Imperial family and the local donor C. Sextius Pollo and his family. A number of doors on the long back wall of the basilica gave direct access to the Bouleterion and the Prytaneion, the latter an official reception hall and cult center containing the

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figure 10.66 Plan of the Sanctuary of Asclepios, Pergamon; rendered by Rui Xiong and Diane Favro.

sacred fire symbolizing the sanctity and perpetual fortune of the state. Thus, the Upper Agora was simultaneously the real center of the government and the religious heart of the city. If the sparsely built basilica-stoa of Ephesus ushered the integration of the Roman basilica and the Greek stoa (creating a type that could be referred to as the porticus basilicata), the next step came with the basilica on the southwest end of the South Agora in Aphrodisias, datable to the Flavian era (Figures 10.76 and 10.77; see also Figure 10.20). This handsome basilica closely follows

the architectural and structural model provided in Ephesus including a monumental hall at the south end, but by this time following the Western tradition with a central, raised tribunal (as in Pompeii, see earlier). It is considerably larger and taller than the Ephesian building and lavish in its marble decoration and details (see Figure 10.75). As observed by P. Stinson, who has completed the study and restoration of this impressive building, the design “reveals . . . a generating process of imitation and adoption, and not the act of replicating or ‘copying’ a model” (Stinson 2007, 95; Stinson 2016). 653

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 10.67 General view of the multi-lobed cult hall, Asclepion, Pergamon; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 10.68 View of annular subterranean corridor, cult hall, Asclepion, Pergamon; Photo: Klaus-Peter Simon via Wikimedia.

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figure 10.69 Plan of so-called temple of Serapis, Ephesus; rendered by Youssef Maguid.

Other important differences generated by circumstance, or choice, exist. Unlike the Ephesian prototype, the Aphrodisias basilica was connected to the agora along its short end, an arrangement forced by topography, specifically the rising theater hill on the east. The main entrance facing the agora, the north façade was architecturally distinctive with three monumental doors between

giant Corinthian pilasters, and a pedimented upper story, the clear expression of the tall nave (see Figure 10.77). Giving the building a unique character, the basilica was open on both ends, creating, in effect, a roofed street. The relief panels of the upper level balustrade depicting the city’s mythical origins offered the citizens lessons in patriotic pride and civic identity. 655

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figure 10.70 Plan (left) and axonometric reconstruction of temple-tomb (“mausoleum”) complex (right) in the West Necropolis, Side; rendered by Youssef Maguid and Diane Favro.

Merely a generation or so earlier, Aphrodisias had just completed another “sculptured street,” the famous Sebasteion, with its double-story display of columns and relief panels, introduced at one end by an airy, aedicular propylon and on the other by the tall façade of an Imperial Cult temple atop monumental stairs (Figure 10.78). Both the basilica and the Sebasteion gave the slightly vain and pampered denizens of Roman Asia a sense of theatricality they were wont to enjoy. This was not a case of Romanization as in the West, but certainly a Roman interpretation in the context and use of a late Hellenistic model made possible by the transformative vitality of the city’s culture. An agora-basilica combination comparable to Ephesus and Aphrodisias, but later in date, is the State Agora complex in the gridded city of Hierapolis (Figure 10.79). This is a truly enormous precinct (at 280  170 meters, nearly three times the length of a football field, one feels that the stakes for urban splendor rising in Asia Minor) dating to the years of dynamic urban growth under Hadrian when the northern sectors of the city were rebuilt in monumental form. The rectangular enclosure was on the north end of the so-called Frontinus Street, the major avenue (the platea) of the city’s regular grid. Facing the street, along the Doric colonnade and close to the north gate of the city, was a commodious public latrine of Domitianic date; further down the visitor caught sight of the lavish columnar façade of the nymphaeum, dedicated to the god Apollo and the emperor Alexander Severus (ruled 222–235 ce). The east side of the vast 656

agora enclosure was dominated by a stoa-basilica whose fully arcaded façade was raised some 4 meters above the plaza level over an unbroken cascade of stairs (Figure 10.80). These steps must have functioned also as seating for thousands of spectators at sportive or civic events. The façade of the stoa-basilica was composed of Ionic double-engaged columns carrying arches, while the central entrance was articulated by a monumental, columnar propylon – here, “monumental” both in size and in contextual setting. The piers of the propylon carried ornate sculptured capitals decorated with sphinxes and lions attacking bulls – eyecatching examples of the so-called Asian baroque manner. A more advanced version of the agora-basilica ensemble is the Antonine Agora-Basilica Complex in Smyrna (modern Izmir), the preeminent Ionian harbor city. The large colonnaded precinct identified as the State Agora features a two-story stoa-basilica occupying its north side; internally it is divided into a nave and flanking aisles (see Figure 10.4). The internal supports are designed as double-engaged piers with composite capitals connected by arches. Open to the agora space along its full 160-meter long frontage (a good example of the porticus basilicata type), and the upper level arranged as an open gallery, it featured a slightly projecting central porch, mainly decorative in nature, and less flamboyant in design than the similar porch of the Hierapolis stoa-basilica. There was another, proper vestibule and entrance directly from the street on the short east end. The west end was

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.71 General view of the reconstructed Antonine Temple N1 (to Athena?) by the sea, Side; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

raised as a dais or tribunal. The agora enclosure, not fully excavated, had monumental, double-storied, triple-aisled porticos on the east and west sides. Dated to the mid-second century, the building must have

been damaged in the severe earthquake of 178 ce; the west portico was restored under the emperor Marcus Aurelius. One of the most interesting features of the Smyrna agora is the magnificent vaulted basement 657

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figure 10.72 plate 27a Detail of pediment and entablature with Medusa frieze, Antonine Temple N1 (to Athena?), Side; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

composed of a perfectly preserved armature of stone piers and arches, the ends strengthened by ribbed cross-vaults (see Figure 10.5). On the west stoa, the great stone vaults sheltered large cisterns lit by slit windows. On the north side the architect took advantage of the sloping ground, placing a row of shops opening into a street at a lower level. The discovery in the agora of fine statuary and reliefs depicting groups of deities, including over life-size statues of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, and Poseidon, the master of the seas, next to each other, points to an intentional choice. As remarked by E. Akurgal, the late doyen of Anatolian archaeology, “it may well be that the Smyrnians of those days, by representing these two deities side by side wished to illustrate that their city dominated both the land and maritime commerce of their time” – surely true also for these days, although sadly the modern residents of Izmir may feel more constrained in the use of classical-inspired semi-nude public sculpture in expressing the timeless traditions and high culture of their city (Akurgal 1973, 23). The well-regulated, rectangular agora-basilica precincts of Roman Asia Minor can trace their genesis to 658

the agora-market enclosures of the Hellenistic period – which find their best expression in projects such as the North and South Agoras of Miletus (see Figure 10.18). The defining stoas of these well-planned public spaces developed into full quadriporticus enclosures only during the Roman period. Unplanned cities, like Athens, display irregular and lively architectural groups over time. The emergence of the agora as a selfcontained and formally conceived rectangular building can be structurally linked to the development of the orthogonal, grid-based city plans where the agora simply occupies several standard city blocks. Although neat and orderly in appearance, such self-contained agoras of orderly cities might have lost some of their messy dynamism in design and in function by being segregated from the street – the non plus ultra of urban dynamism. As observed by R. E. Wycherley “when the agora became a mere building, however grand, this meant a certain disintegration of the city” (Wycherley 1976, 83). Wycherley has a point, but he was not really right. Roman Anatolia offers many examples where a “walled-in” agora appears within an organically conceived city (one with only a loose or partial grid), while

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figure 10.73 Plan of the commercial agora with the round temple (in the middle) at Side; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after Mansel).

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figure 10.74 Plan and podium elevation of the “half-round temple” (Temple P) at Side; rendered by Diane Favro (after Mansel).

fully meshed to its dynamic scenography and lively street life. The agora-basilica in Cremna is a square enclosure (57  57 m) located inside the low plaza constituting the city center (Figure 10.81; see also Figures 10.28 B, and 10.30). Positioned across from the Hadrianic temple and the colonnaded street which opened into the plaza through an arch (D, E, F), it provided the eastern limit of the loosely defined plaza. Later this civic space was firmly bound on the north by the great stairs of the Severan propylon leading up to an upper esplanade (C, N). The basilica on the north side of the agora enclosure had three aisles, with the nave formed by an arcade on stone piers carrying a high roof with clerestory lighting. The basilica’s south face constituted one side of the Doric colonnade that defined the agora’s open space. On the west the short end of the stoa-basilica faced into the civic plaza with a monumental triple-arched gate. The use of the Doric order and the old-fashioned solidity and simplicity of the structure and ornament 659

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Temple Precint of Domitian Niched Monument Em bo Fountain of Domitian los Monument of C. Memmius Prytaneion Temenos with double temples Bouleterion-odeion Basilica Stoa Tribunal (’chalcidium’) Temple of Julis Caesar and Roma(?) Reservoir fountain Nymphaeum Facade with captives

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figure 10.75 Plan of the Upper Agora and Augustan basilica, Ephesus; rendered by Youssef Maguid.

figure 10.76 Reconstructed plan and section of basilica, Aphrodisias; courtesy of Phil Stinson.

are probably reflections of provincial tastes and local stone carving traditions. Vibia Talia and Fabricia Lucilla, the wife and daughter of L. Fabricius Longus, a leading citizen and one-time magistrate of Cremna, dedicated the complex to Hadrian. Although it was large, the agorabasilica of Cremna was not an insular, “mere building,” 660

but an urban entity that was well integrated into the irregular context of the city center, taking full advantage of the enclosing, bowl-shaped topography, and contributing to the dynamism of public space and public life. The designers at Arycanda, a city like Priene positioned on the steep lower slopes of a mountain, did

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.77 Reconstructed north façade of the basilica, Aphrodisias; courtesy of Phil Stinson.

not have the advantage of a level ground provided by a natural bowl or valley bottom. As in Priene, both the so-called commercial agora and the state agora of Arycanda are shaped as terraces in a system of stepped structures (see Figures 10.35 and 10.36). With no particular basilica taking up precious flat space, and facilities such as a bouleterion, odeum, shops, and other administrative offices snuggled into the hillside, the agora proper is conceived as a semiopen plaza, or grand viewing platform for the city’s famous panorama. Responding to their natural and civic potential, the agora-basilica ensembles of Asia Minor present a wide variety. In Iasos, there is no distinct basilica, but the north and south colonnades of the large, rectangular enclosure of the agora are double-aisled and one of them could have served as a stoa-basilica. The south stoa, which terminates at its west end with an Imperial cult shrine, would have been a natural candidate. The same argument can be extended to the handsome quadriporticus agora of Elaiussa Sebaste, once a vibrant port city in distant Cilicia. This is a square precinct (32  31.60 m) bounded on four sides by high walls of limestone ashlar connected to another public space on the north (unexcavated) by seven doors (Figure 10.82). The main entrance is on the center of the east side, flanked by a pair of fountains. There is no separate basilica, but generous stoas on all four sides and a columnar tholos in the center, opposite the entrance. Although the particular function or design

of the tholos is unknown, it is believed to be a “market pavilion,” familiar from many commercial agoras in Asia Minor, such as the agora in Aezane and the Upper Agora in Sagalassus, or markets in Pompeii and Pozzuoli in Italy where the form had originated. One of the earliest examples of a market or commercial agora in Asia Minor is the Tetragonas Agora in Ephesus, which goes back to the time of the Hellenistic ruler Lysimachos but was fully rebuilt during the first century ce and several times later (see Figure 10.24). A vast square quadriporticus with 42 Corinthian columns to a side (110  110 m), twostoried, double-aisled porticos and shops on the east, west, and south sides, it was accessed mainly by the Ionic West Gate at the end of a colonnaded avenue. In addition to this classically designed entrance reflecting the city’s Hellenistic past, the South Gate (Gate of Mazaeus and Mithridates) was rebuilt during the Augustan era as a handsome triple-arch pavilion, whose robust presence was mitigated by its delicate classical ornament (see Figure 10.27). This gate opened into the busy plaza at the west end of the Embolos, an area further embellished under Hadrian by the ornate façade of the Celsus Library (see later). Backing onto the stage building of the theater, the commercial agora at Side is conspicuously situated in the center of the great Pamphylian harbor city (see Figures 10.22 and 10.73). The main entrance to the 661

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figure 10.78 Propylon of the Sebasteion looking northeast, Aphrodisias, with drawing of upper level superimposed on the reerected lower level; in antiquity sturdy side structures supported this airy gate; rendered by Diane Favro (after Hueber).

square enclosure (65.50  65.50 m) is from the north, a triple-arched propylon opening into a small, busy plaza on the main east-west avenue, across from the Center City Baths. The deliberately numbered one-hundredcolumn, single-aisled, Corinthian peristyle housed shops and offices on the north and east sides, while the west was built as a series of barrel vaulted chambers in fine ashlar against the theater stage. A large twentytwo-seat semicircular latrine located at the northwest corner was handsomely fitted out with marble floors and wall revetment, and niches for statuary; it was accessible from the agora and the street and undoubtedly served the theater and the city at large. In the central agora space, but off-center, is located a circular temple (9.9 m. in diameter) with twelve peripteral 662

Corinthian columns (see Figure 10.73). Raised on a podium (c. 170 m. high) and entered by stairs from the southwest, the tholos follows the model established in the West, such as the late Republican Temple of Vesta in Tivoli (see earlier). The columns carried a tall, twelve-sided marble conical roof signaling prosperity at the bustling port town. Based on coin representations the temple seems to be dedicated to Tyche or Fortuna, the popular goddess of luck and fortune, quite appropriate for a market, but the structure is not a “market pavilion” as typical of many western examples. It is noteworthy that the special position of this agora directly behind the stage allowed its use by theatergoers as a peristyle shelter in bad weather, just as recommended by Vitruvius (De Arch. 5.9).

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figure 10.79 Plan of Hierapolis; rendered by Diane Favro (after D’Andria).

figure 10.80 Axonometric reconstruction of the stoa-basilica raised on steps and its columnar propylon, Hierapolis; rendered by Alex Maymind (after d’Andria).

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figure 10.81 Reconstruction study of the agora and basilica, plan and elevations, Cremna; rendered by Alex Maymind and Diane Favro (after Mitchell).

Contemporary in date and similar in form to the Side agora, the square enclosure of the commercial agora at Perge also features a central tholos temple (c. 13.5 m in diameter) raised on a high podium (Figure 10.83, see also Figure 10.21). The tholos temple was probably dedicated to Hermes, the patron god of commerce (and pickpockets and thieves as well). Located prestigiously next to the city’s South Gate, at the start of its famous colonnaded waterway and lined with shops on all four sides looking into a peristyle of handsome Corinthian columns raised on pedestals, the commercial agora must 664

have been a very attractive civic space; one can readily imagine the Pergaians might have enjoyed visiting the agora for purposes other than shopping, just as we do in our favorite malls. Monumentalizing a commercial function through architecture and context (not necessarily size) appears appropriate for this regional rival of Side. Perge displayed unabashed pride in its titles and achievements, including a very special one, as “the first among (cities with) agoras” (Kaygusuz 1984, 1–4). The architectural arrangements of the commercial agoras at Perge and Side with their central, round

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.82 View of the Roman agora with foundations of a tholos (–temple?) in the middle, Elaiussa Sebaste, Rough Cilicia; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 10.83 View of the Roman agora with ‘tholos temple’ in middle, Perge; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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buildings surrounded by a colonnaded enclosure of shops, clearly resemble the macellum type common in Italy and the West as in Pozzuoli and Lepcis Magna (see earlier). Yet, these plans are deceptive because at both Perge and Side the central tholos is not an open market pavilion with open counters and easy, allaround access, but rather a frontally-oriented cult building. Since it is invariably the function, rather than a specific architectural shape, that defines the macellum, these “commerical agoras” of Asia can be called macella in the technical sense as the name occurs in a fair number of inscriptions. Still, as J. Richard points out in his recent valuable study of Roman food markets in Asia Minor and the Levant, macella of the Italian type are rare in the East (“only a handful of cases is known in Asia Minor”); the more reliable examples we have, as in Sagalassus or Aezanae, belong to the second and third centuries ce. In general, Asia Minor has few of the narrowly defined, “canonical, self-contained, inward-facing layout(s)” with open central pavilions. The majority of the food markets referred to by the word μάκελλος or μάκελλον probably described loosely defined commercial enclosures (typically without a central market tholos), which we generically call “commercial agoras” (Richard 2014, 256). Although hardly less ambitious in claiming mythical ancestors and Imperial virtues, the smaller cities of the rugged southern and southwestern Anatolia often display, in accordance with their city plans, irregular and creative agora layouts. In Oinoanda, a hilltop city in central Lycia, the agora is located in the center, on a low, relatively flat ground surrounded by three hills (Figure 10.84). The south, east and west sides, defining a roughly rectangular (or trapezoidal) area paved in irregular blocks (c. 90  30 m), 666

figure 10.84 Reconstructed plan of the agora, Oinoanda; rendered by Rui Xiong (after Coulton).

have colonnaded porticos with different widths; the north side merges into an unpaved, informal extension. Several streets open into the agora through simple archways with straightforward ornamental accents; local limestone and conglomerates add to the severe, sober expression. A more elaborate, four-way arch announced the street entering from the west. All arches and porticos were piecemeal additions in the gentrification of an otherwise modest town-square into a formal agora over time, extending over a century between the mid-second and mid-third centuries ce. The east portico, following a northwestern bend, is accentuated by a small tetrastyle pavilion featuring a Syrian arch raised on a tall podium; the central niche probably held a life-size honorific statue of the emperor Septimius Severus. Behind the porticos, there are public rooms (the larger of those might have served for meetings), shops and offices; and, at the northeast corner is a palaestra belonging to the nearby baths. There is no specific, basilica but a large market peristyle dominating the west side. Some 30 kilometers northeast, in northern Lycia, is Balboura, its seldom-visited ruins spread across two hills and the narrow plain between them. The agora is placed on the lower east slopes of the north hill, a roughly triangular plaza at the crossing of three streets defined on three sides by stone buildings. The main entrance from the west was monumentalized by a triple-arch dedicated to Septimius Severus (as in Oinoanda) and his younger son Geta. On the south side, facing the street is a small prostyle temple of the goddess Nemesis (“divine retribution”), dedicated by one Onesimos, the city archivist who had made enough money to make this gift to his city (c. 140–150 ce). There are also exedras carrying honorific statues to the

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor City and the People, to Rome, the Roman Senate, and by extension, the Imperial Cult. In this distant, provincial outpost the traditions of the Greco-Roman city were observed with care and pride. These elaborate religious and cultural associations and refinements contrast nicely with the simplicity and modesty of the agora, an irregularly shaped clearing among buildings that seem to have grown in response to civic and commercial needs, and in increments, with minor planning decisions. More ambitious in planning, though no less informal in its response to context and need, is the Upper Agora in Selge, the mountaintop city in Pisidia populated by men and women of tough reputation. This is a small paved plaza (c. 60  50 m) immediately west of the south hill at the south end of the colonnaded street (see Figures 10.39, 10.40, and 10.41). Thus, it is on a saddle with land falling rather sharply to the north and south, and rising to the southeast, against the hill. The trapezoidal shape is defined by the L-shaped configuration of two colonnades: on the north the uppermost gallery of the market hall, and on the southeast by the tall, Ionic colonnade of the so-called Stoa Plageia, behind which rises the rectangular, hipped-roofed mass of the bouleterion-odeum (restored on paper with stone detailing following the Hellenistic bouleterion of Miletus). The west side of the agora plaza is edged by a small in antis temple to Tyche and the office of the agora supervisor (the agoranomeion, as in almost all cities of Asia Minor, the names and the functions pertaining to the Greek past are retained). The most interesting, and structurally and aesthetically most challenging building in this ensemble is the market hall, located on the north side of the agora (see Figure 10.41). This is a good example of the fine ashlar “multi-storied stoa” type familiar in many hill towns of Hellenistic Asia Minor, such as Pergamon, Aigae, Alinda, and Assos, restored and used during the Roman era. In Selge’s market hall the top story is level with the agora and constitutes a wide, three-aisled Doric hall. Two more stories with shops built against the falling ground present a handsome façade of superimposed piers – semiopen galleries facing distant, spectacular views. Along with the agoramarket hall combination at Assos, the Selge example is a distinguished illustration of an inspired solution in designing a public complex with many parts on difficult and restraining land, creatively exploiting the terrain. It appears that the Upper Agora always retained its character as a state agora while a much larger commercial agora was built lower on flat ground south of the theater in response to the needs of the expanding Roman town. An extraordinary example of a fully integrated and rarely seen “agora building” (as opposed to an “agora plaza” with separate facilities) is the great

quadriporticus-agora at Lyrbe (near Manavgat, previously known as Seleucia-ad-Pamphylia), on the lower slopes of the Tauros range in eastern Pamphylia. Partially excavated by the late J. Inan, a leading name Pamphylian archaeology and art history, the enclosure has a Doric peristyle on four sides, fronting shops and city offices in two stories, a semicircular meeting hall (or a bouleterion), an exedra and a library (Figures 10.85 and 10.86). The building, fully Roman in concept and execution, occupies the southeast-facing slope of the town. The two-aisled west porticus is raised on a basement gallery with stone piers and arches reminiscent of the basement gallery of the Antonine stoabasilica in Smyrna. The utilization of the slope to create a many-storied building follows the multilevel market hall models discussed above. Of particular interest is the mosaic floor of the library with sixteen panels depicting portraits of philosophers, statesmen, and sages of antiquity, each identified by inscriptions datable to no earlier than the late third or the early fourth century, a testimony to the remarkable longevity of civic and intellectual ideals even in the remote, mountain towns of Anatolia. Finally, we would like to highlight an unusual form of outdoor assembly with a refreshing interpretation of the traditional forms and functions of the classical city. Some 40 kilometers north of Selge as the local hawks fly, situated in a lonely valley in Pisidian highlands, Adada is first known through a friendship agreement with Termessus in second century bce. Never properly excavated, the Roman city boasts several very wellpreserved temples and tombs in fine ashlar, a small theater, and a bouleterion (see Figure 10.56). More remarkable and visually engaging is an outdoor meeting facility arranged as a monumental flight of steps (twenty steps, rows 24 m long) east of a small, paved agora with Doric stoas (Figure 10.87). Rising proudly against the small rocky hill that probably served as the acropolis of the city, the steps create a sense of splendor and underscore the creative interaction between natural and manmade forms. The innovative arrangement recalls that seen at the so-called temple-theater at Pessinus, where an impressive flight of steps (twenty-six rows curved into an L form) connects the Imperial Cult temple on a small hill with the flat, colonnaded plaza below used for cultic and entertainment performances. AR CH ES AN D G A TE S

The monumental arch, whether freestanding as a landmark way station, or at the head of an urban pathway, is a form of architecture whose simple elemental form commands attention. Its close integration with urban defenses as a gate, or with a civic space as a decorative 667

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figure 10.85 Plan of the agora, Lyrbe-in-Pamphylia; rendered by Diane Favro (after Inan).

propylon, makes the arch a natural element in a city’s layout, pattern of communications, and urban armature. It is an element of transition from one place into another, a connector that joins, but in the process of passage an arch also transforms all who pass through it. By commanding attention to itself, and to the parts of the city, an urban arch brings spaces and activities together. The popular and primary association of some arches with military and civic triumphs engenders a particularly dominant variety that belongs mainly to Rome and Italy. Broadly conceived, military triumphs (especially during the Empire) were generated by the periphery and celebrated in the capital, the only locus for an “official” triumph. Lesser known, but equally cogent, were those erected to mark regional boundaries or to celebrate impressive engineering feats (themselves “triumphs”), such as the construction of roads, aqueducts and towering bridges, the opening of mountain passes or harbors, or memorable social programs (such as the Trajanic arch at Beneventum; see earlier). The arches in Asia Minor (and the East; see later) are 668

primarily of the “gate” type albeit often projecting some triumphal theme or association. “The most important quality of an archway is its traverse position directly athwart the axis of a roadway or passage. It is the right-angled position of a large opening to the path through it that makes an arch such an effective device,” wrote W. L. MacDonald in his thoughtful consideration of civic arches as elements of passage architecture (MacDonald 1986, 76). Although MacDonald in this instance had Western arches in mind, the observation is valid for those in Asia Minor that were mainly erected as honorific monuments or civic gates in direct or close relation to a major street. But, these distinctions between an honorific arch and a city gate seem to be more in modern eyes than in the original intent – many arches blurred such boundaries and served both purposes. In either case, the arches included in this study are all urban elements establishing significant nodes in a city’s armature of streets and buildings by beginning or ending streets, privileging entrances or exits, marking changes in direction and

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.86 View of the agora, looking northeast, Lyrbe-in-Pamphylia; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 10.87 View of the agora plaza with monumental steps, Adada; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

crossings, defining vistas and projecting movement. Their siting, shape, and decoration – always subsumed in creative varieties of the familiar “half-round shape” – underlined function and inspired symbols. Many arches, usually announcing transitions within the city, were quite modest in size if not in design. In

Cremna, a pair of single-opening arches defined the ends of the colonnaded street, the eastern pair acting as formal gates to the agora-plaza (see Figures 10.28 and 10.30). Hadrian’s visit to Phaselis in 129 ce occasioned the erection of a marble gate at the entrance to the South Harbor at the end of a wide, straight colonnaded avenue, an arrangement that recalls the Hadrianic Harbor Gate of Ephesus (see Figures 10.24, 10.25, 10.43, and 10.45). In Sagalassus, stretching from the Tiberian Gate at the south entrance to the lower agora, all the way to the arches of Caligula and Claudius located at the entrance to the upper one, the half-kilometer long pathway (from the bottom to the top of the mountain city), is marked by stairs, ramps, plazas, and terraces, and punctuated by honorific and civic arches (see Figures 10.32 and 10.33). In Ephesus, the earlier-mentioned Harbor Gate was created at the edge of the water terminating the grand, colonnaded Harbor Avenue known as the Arkadiane (because of extensive restorations under the emperor Arkadius, c. 400 CE); it was a triumphal arch in all but name (see Figure 10.24). Its classicizing design with discreet openings between paired Ionic columns reflects the city’s Hellenistic past. This is true also 669

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity for the Augustan era South Gate (Gate of Mazaeus and Mithridates) of the Tetragonas (or “commercial”) Agora, a handsome triple-arch structure opening into the plaza in front of the Library of Celsus (see Figure 10.27). Another Hadrianic gate in Ephesus is at the junction of this plaza (specifically at the point where the Embolos bends) and the residential district up the hill (Figure 10.88, also seen in Figure 10.27). Handsomely restored by H. Thür, it represents a very different design (Thür 1989). Its tall, thin, columnar architecture – a central arch carried by Corinthian columns, which support a squat upper level crowned by a pediment broken by an arch – represents a creative exercise in classical design and finds its closest parallel in spirit, if not strictly in form, in the contemporary Arch of Hadrian at Athens (see Figures 9.28 and 9.29; see also the Sebasteion gate in Aphrodisias, Figure 10.78). Arches or gates that were situated to define and present cities usually had a more substantial appearance and more closely followed triumphal iconography. In Hierapolis two triple-arches stood some 1,200 meters apart at the ends of the decumanus (Frontinus Street) (see Figure 10.79). The northwest arch, also known as the Frontinus Gate (after the consul Sextius Julius Frontinus, 84 ce), is better preserved and constructed in local limestone; originally probably one story high, it has a simple archway and austere appearance with no ornament except for fine masonry profiles. Flanked by a pair of round towers (recalling the Hellenistic South Gate towers in Perge), it was in design and concept a proper gate and fully a part of the street. Identical inscriptions on both façades refer to it as a “portus” (significantly not an “arcus”) dedicated to Domitian. In Antioch-in-Pisidia, the freestanding southwest city gate faces a hypothetical nymphaeum at the end of a plaza terminating the decumanus. Recalling the arrangement at Perge, a long canal with series of stepping pools, carried the water from the nymphaeum down to the gate (Figure 10.89). The triple-arches of the gate were separated by slender pillars, and articulated by corner pilasters and tall, narrow statue niches. The long architrave inscription in bronze letters dedicated the arch to Hadrian and Sabina, occasioned by the emperor’s probable visit to Antioch during his tour of Asia in 129 ce. There is little doubt that the design and delicate lacelike surface ornament of the Hadrianic gate was inspired by the handsome triple-arched propylon of the Sanctuary of Augustus (c. 2/1 bce) in the same city (see Figure 10.59). On the side facing the country, Augustus’s gate was embellished with free-standing Corinthian columns on pedestals and an ornate façade in low relief looking like an embroidered billboard with representations of standing and kneeling barbarians, victories, garlands, and fruits (some of which, as 670

stock elements, also used in the Hadrianic Arch shown in Figure 10.89). Probably celebrating the Augustan victory over the Pisidians and other warlike native tribes of southern Anatolia, the decorative iconography of victory and attendant peace complemented the textual dedication of the structure to Augustus and his family and defined the pride and historical identity of Antioch-in-Pisidia. It is significant to note that although rich in triumphal allusions, this was only a visual message appropriate for a colony of Rome, not an arch erected to celebrate a particular military triumph. A massive triple arch in honey-colored limestone greets the visitor to the ruins of Patara, a coastal Lycian city once famous for its fine harbor and lighthouse, now mostly buried in sand (Figure 10.90). The arch situated by, but not over, the main road from the inland lined with tombs and sarcophagi, was probably a symbolic gate, intended to honor Mettius Modestos, the governor of Lycia and Pamphylia under Trajan. Modestos was responsible for the construction of an aqueduct which may have been physically connected to the arch. An inscription makes it clear that the honor conferred, by the “People of Patara, the metropolis of the Lycian nation.” The boast was born by the fine looking, if somewhat unusual design that has no equal among arches in Asia Minor. Unadorned by columns or ornament, the attic is crowned by a Doric frieze and a pair of crisply framed, shallow rectangular niches above the middle piers, on either side of the central arch. Busts of Modestos and his family members must have been carried by the six consoles on both sides of the sturdy structure, not placed inside the niches. The Patara arch was not technically a city gate, but a monument that celebrated entrance, a welcoming civic gesture the city and the governor extended to all travelers much like the roadside arches and harbor gates of other Asian cities (Miletus, Ephesus) celebrated the arrivals of dusty caravan traders from inland and salty sailors from the sea. A tall gate that straddled not only the access road to a city but almost an entire valley, the triple-arch at Pisidian Ariassos is more impressive for its context than its design (Figure 10.91). Raised on extra pillars to compensate for uneven topography, thus gaining an ungainly sense of verticality, the solidly functional structure hemmed in by the terraced buildings of the steep and narrow valley was a relatively late addition (c. 200 ce) to the small city’s linear high-valley spread. Its strongly projecting impost blocks below tall arches and consoles for statuary (comparable to those that adorn the arch at Patara), provide a sense of relief to the stark aesthetic shared by the rocky hills and the stony, gray gate (Figure 10.92). The lone survivor in what once was a built-up valley, the arch-gate probably dominated the narrow terraces of Ariassos, as it does

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.88 Reconstruction of the Hadrianic gate on the Embolos, Ephesus; rendered by Rui Xiong (after Thür).

the steep hillsides now, a mute sentinel to and celebrant of the incomprehensible and little visited ruins and small temple-tombs, ghosts of the past among scattered monumental sarcophagi. In eastern Cilicia, some 70 kilometers northeast of Tarsus, Anazarvus, located on the fertile plain of the Pyramus River, below the formidable rock outcrop (the acropolis) known in medieval times and now as Yılan Kalesi (Snake Castle), stands a well-preserved triple-arch of unusual design (Figure 10.93). Directly at the south end of the cardo, and at the south edge of the

city, the 30-meter-wide structure is categorically, like many of its Anatolian counterparts, a gate; although unlike others we discussed, it was not a functional one connected to city walls or one with doors that swing on hinges. The massive arch (9 m thick) with barrelvaulted side passages is built in true Roman fashion with a concrete core faced with limestone blocks, corner quoins and archivolts in marble. The central arch is considerably wider and 3.5 meters taller than the side arches (10.5 m versus 7 m), imparting a sense of hierarchical monumentality. An entablature with 671

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figure 10.89 Reconstruction of the Southwest Gate dedicated to Hadrian and Sabina, and the nymphaeum plaza, Antioch-in-Pisidia (after A. J. Ossit and J. M. Harrington); rendered by Youssef Maguid.

deeply carved, vigorous ornament is dated to the Severan period. The main opening is flanked by projecting, freestanding aediculae with black granite columns carrying pediments. More unusual are a pair of structural wings at the ends; crowned by broken pediments toward the countryside they embrace what must have been a small plaza or an esplanade. With a poorly preserved but proper amphitheater – rare in Asia – Anazarvus probably had a large Italian population and was a favorite of Septimius Severus (whose beguiling empress, Julia Domna, was from the region), who raised it to the rank of a metropolis in ce 207. T H E A T E R S A N D S T A D I U MS

Even now, when the great theater of Ephesus and the large civic buildings that once surrounded it lie in ruins, it is easy to visualize the small, paved plaza behind the massive stage building as a busy city node where several avenues joined (Figure 10.95; see 672

Figures 10.24 and 10.25). From the north, starting from the venerable Sanctuary of Artemis well outside the city, the Sacred Way stretched along the high wall of the stage, curved around Mount Pion, against which the cavea nestled, and connected with the plaza in front of the Library of Celsus, and becoming the street called the Embolos (Kuretes), continued hugging the bottom of the valley (see Figures 10.23, 10.26, and 10.27). Another wide avenue of marble, the Arkadiane, linked the theater plaza with the harbor – a straight stretch 600 meters long like an arrow shot from the cavea ’s great bow westward to the sea (see Figure 10.25). The theater’s bowl-shaped cavea, one of the largest in Asia Minor (71 m radius), was arranged in three tiers of seats separated by two diazomata and eleven wedgeshaped seating sections (kerkides); the Ephesian theater could seat at its fully developed phase some twentyfour thousand spectators (Figure 10.94). Like other urban theaters in Asia Minor, it was primarily a place of entertainment, but also a place of assembly and

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.90 City gate/arch, west façade, Patara; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

religious festivals. Located at the junction of main thoroughfares, it was an important way station for ritual on the route of cult processions (see Figure 10.95 and 10.24). One would have liked to be there on one memorable occasion to hear the great bowl echo with the chorus of citizens intoning “Great is the Artemis of Ephesians!” opposing what must have been a proselyting Christian sermon by the visiting Saint Paul (it was mainly encouraged by the jewelers whose profit from Artemis figurines was threatened). It took another two centuries or so for Ephesus to become a great Christian center. The theater started probably late in the second century bce with a single-story stage building (scaena) and a horseshoe shaped cavea of several seats resting on the natural slope. With Augustus, construction of the cavea and the stage building with its decorative architecture developed, receiving its monumental, “baroque” three-story aedicular façade in one major building phase by the end of the Flavian period (c. 80–90 ce), surprisingly early. Still, with its great side entrances and vaulted passages between marble end walls of the cavea and the stage (paradoi, plural of parados), the Ephesian theater retained its basic Greek form to the end. The Greek theater, even in its later developed form, was a simple architectural entity. Carved mostly into

the natural slope of a hill, open to the sky and the view, it presented a perfect balance between the natural and the man-made, between the city and nature, linking them in an architectural embrace. Typically defined, the cavea (and the auditorium) endorses an arc larger than a half-circle and stands apart from a modestly scaled stage building consisting of no more than a raised stage (parascenium) and a single-story backdrop. The Roman incarnation of this entity, mainly in the West, is a massive self-contained building, integrating a tall, multistory stage building with the perfect halfcircle of the cavea, the connection between the two negotiated by large, barrel-vaulted side entrances. The cavea could be, as in the theater of Aspendos, partially supported by a convenient hill, but mainly rose on flat ground on piers connected by arches and vaults following the same structural principles of a Western amphitheater such as the Colosseum – and with the same advantages of fast and convenient human circulation. The Aspendos theater, preserved nearly intact, was built by the architect Zeno during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (Figure 10.96). It is located on the eastern slopes of the high hill below the agora-basilica of the Pamphylian city. Its cavea (c. 85 m diameter) is fully integrated to the massive stage building that rises like a 673

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figure 10.91 General view of the city gate/arch, Ariassos; Photo by Diane Favro.

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figure 10.92 Detail view of attic, city gate/arch, Ariassos; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 10.93 Reconstruction study of city gate/arch at Anazarvus; courtesy of Musa Kadioglu.

figure 10.94 Plan of theater at Ephesus; Heberdey, Niemann, Wilberg (1912).

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figure 10.95 View of the theater from the Arkadiane, looking east toward Mt Pion, Ephesus; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

castle some 24 meters above the flat ground – and was later used as a fortified Seljuk residence. Divided into two tiers by its diazoma, forty-two rows of seats rise to a monumental arcaded gallery encircling the cavea on top (summa cavea). The two-story aedicular façade of the stage (scaenae frons) covered by a wooden canopy is one of the most sumptuous of its kind in Asia Minor (Figure 10.97). The narrow parascenium in front of this thundering backdrop of classical orders is less than 4 meters wide, indicating how simpler were the needs of acting and stage sets in antiquity than now. Few theaters in Asia Minor follow the full Roman scheme of Aspendos. For the most part, the land remained faithful to its Greek cultural and architectural past; some, like the theaters of Priene and Pergamon, had been established during the Hellenistic period and continued to serve the Roman city with little change. However, the majority of theaters underwent some alterations during the Imperial period, typically connecting their cavea to the stage building by vaulted entranceways – as clearly visible at Termessus, though it is hard to tear one’s eyes away from the truly

spectacular natural setting – and enlarged the stage to receive multi-story and aedicular colonnades, a form of false façade much loved during the empire and ubiquitously applied to public buildings of diverse forms and functions (Figures 10.98 and, 10.99, Plate 26B). In Aphrodisias, the early Augustan theater is built against a hill occupying the city center – or, rather, this small hill (site of an archaic settlement) was the topographical impetus, or the privileged situation, for chosing the site (see Figure 10.20). Facing east the theater turns its back to and rises above the South Agora; from its upper tiers of seats afford a fine view of the civic centers and monuments of the city. The simple proscenion, or “stage,” with its stage raised on delicate Doric columns, was enlarged in the second century. The six barrel-vaulted basement rooms in fine ashlar of the original building are typical and “no doubt for the [use of] the stars of their day,” commented the first excavator of the site Kenan T. Erim. Late renovations included lowering of the orchestra floor and obliterating the front row of seats to build a protective marble balustrade when the theater was altered to 677

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figure 10.96 Exterior view of theater with stage building at Aspendos; Niemann/Lanckronski (1912)

figure 10.97 View of the scaenae frons at the theater of Aspendos; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

accommodate gladiatorial games and wild beast shows, functions usually associated with amphitheaters. Such a transformation reflected changes in taste affecting many a theater in Asia Minor that on first sight looks too pristine to be involved in blood sports. More inspiring is a set of early third century ce inscriptions 678

in Greek on the north parados wall of the Aphrodisias theater: these historic documents included senatorial decrees and letters from the emperors confirming the city’s special status, rank and privileges. The peristyle court called the “tetrastoon ” placed somewhat askew behind the stage building and connected awkwardly

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.98 plate 26b General view of the theater at Termessus with stage wall, looking south; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

to the stage dates from the fourth century, but it was no doubt a late incarnation of an earlier plaza – such a peristyle between the theater and the Theater Baths (directly south) ideally served both. With its horsehoe-shaped orchestra snuggled into a hollow on the northeast side of the Trojan mound, the theater of Ilium is a true early Hellenistic building that was probably “prompted by the creation of the (Panathenaic) league.” The theater received a new stone stage building during the Flavian period with an ambitious scaenae frons of columnar aedicular façades in two, possibly three, stories. Noting that this is indeed an early date for such baroque interventions, which were not popular before the end of the first and through the second centuries ce, the excavator C. Brian Rose amusingly observed: “Since Ilion was not noted for its architectural innovation, it is rather surprising that they set up a façade of this type so quickly after (building their first stone stage)” (Rose 2014, 240, and 165). Despite Rose’s scholarly modesty, perhaps, Ilium was not such an architectural backwater at heart as it appeared to be, but maintained a conservative façade befitting its unique and venerable history. In some venues the residents were more progressive. Dating securely to the Julio Claudian period (c. 50–60 ce), the small agora baths in Ilium with hypocaust floor

heating (and opus reticulatum walls) was one of the earliest of its kind in Asia Minor. The setting of the theater in Side on the lower eastern slopes of a small hill in the city center, and the quadriporticus of the agora behind it (see above), draw a close parallel to Aphrodisias (see Figure 10.22). Because of its central location directly on major thoroughfares and elevated on a visible position on a minor hill, the Side theater must have been a powerful urban presence in the life of the city. Here, the natural declivity was enhanced by digging down to shape the lower half of the auditorium and the orchestra, and building up to form the upper half, above the diazoma. Rising some 20 meters on massive stone piers connected by broad, cut-stone vaults, the exterior of the cavea, tangent to the broad, colonnaded harbor way, presents a spectacular view comparable to the structural bravado of typical Western theaters (Figure 10.100). Looking like a massive Renaissance palazzo, the stage building (63  9.20 m, with a basement of vaulted chambers) supports a two-story aedicular façade, Corinthian above Ionic, and a rich sculptural display alluding to Dionysiac themes similar to the decorative iconography of the theaters at Perge and Nysa (see below). In size and design the Side theater belongs to the larger south and southwestern 679

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figure 10.99 Detail of the Roman-built vaulted connection between the cavea and the stage of the theater at Termessus; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 10.100 Exterior view of the theater with ashlar piers and conical vaults, Side; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Anatolian group of theaters, such as Perge, Sagalassus, Termessus, Patara, and Myra, all adapting to naturally hilly terrains, but enhanced by partial yet bold use of cut-stone vaulted substructures. They have larger than half-circle caveae and independent stage buildings. However, the Side theater deviates from the type by the close structural connection of its parados to the stage building, the height of the aedicular scaenae frons being exactly equal to the top of the cavea, the two entities integrated, creating a type hovering between a Hellenistic and a Roman theater. A keen observer of Anatolian landscapes, S. Mitchell alluded to the magnificent views made possible at the theater of Cremna by keeping the stage building low. He noted similar considerations in other Pisidian theaters: “at Termesos, where the cavea looked toward the striking sugar-loaf peak of Mount Solymos, around which the city was built (see Figure 10.98, Plate 26B), and Sagalassus, where the stage building may have been deliberately restricted to a single story so as to allow the audience a view across the city to the conical hill where they had fought a historic battle with Alexander the Great in 332 bce” (Mitchell 1995, 75). Theaters exploiting a dramatic setting were not restricted to Pisidia, but they are rather the rule in the mountainous south and southwestern provinces.

The needs of Simena, a small city on central Lycian coast appears to have been satisfied by a tiny theater that could seat only three hundred spectators arranged in seven rows (Figure 10.101). Located on a steep coastal hill, the site’s acropolis, the seats are entirely carved in rock, and there is no traditional scaena to obstruct the open view across the bay toward the island of Kekova. There were no cities nearby with larger theaters; however, the Simeneans could have also gathered for impromptu performances and religious celebrations on other natural hillsides. The inland Lycian city of Balboura has just this kind of rudimentary, unorthodox “nature theater” with few irregular seats shaped from stony mountainside and a flat, stonetopped platform raised on Roman vaults – a truly theatrical outlier. A sense of the dramatic plunge down the Mediterranean can still be enjoyed sitting in the small theater of Antiphelos (modern Kas¸), which has no parados walls, no diazoma, and no formal stage building, the seats for the audience just merging into the hill. The Hellenistic era theater at Knidos directly faces the harbor; the curve of its small cavea is cut off along a straight line in order to fit the structure into the preRoman city grid. The theater at Phaselis, reached by a short, steep street from the central plaza, faces northwest, inland, to take in at one breath the spectacular 681

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figure 10.101 General view of theater at Simena; Susan Walker; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

view of snowy Mount Olympos (see Figure 10.44). The perfect half-circle of the cavea, with no diazoma, follows the Roman model although the simple stage (probably its second story added in the late second century ce) was conceived as a separate entity. One of the most memorable settings of a theater in an urban context is in Arycanda. Carved on the lower slope of the acropolis dominating the city, but between the terraces of the stadium above, and the State Agora below, this is a small structure with only twenty to twenty-two rows of seats (it could seat no more than circa eight hundred to one thousand) probably first constructed during the Augustan era (see Figures 10.36 and 10.37). With its horseshoe cavea the plan follows the textbook Greek model, and its single-story scaena allowed views across the city’s terraced rooftops, toward the deep Aygirçay Valley. Reversing position, the sight of the theater from the city itself, and the sheer rise of the rocky mountain behind is even more dramatic and impressive. Topographical conditions could explain the occasional proximity of theaters and stadiums in several Asian sites. However, in a few instances their distinctive interrelationship as they create powerful urban compositions indicates a deliberate visual and architectural intention. The stadium of Arycanda is essentially a 120-meter running track, only half the length of a full 682

stadia (see Figure 10.36). Three straight rows of marble seats raised on a low podium (capacity circa five to six hundred) indicate the intimate nature of spectator sports in this well-planned city. In Sardis and Perge the theater and stadium are linked in a linear relationship, the theater on the higher slopes of a hill with the stadium down on the flat (Figure 10.102, see Figure 10.21). The better-preserved Perge stadium (234  34 m) is entirely built up by a ring of sixtynine barrel vaults in well-crafted ashlar limestone, their inclined extrados providing support for the seats. The sloping, conical vaults are conspicuous for the skill in cutting and shaping stones displaying complex geometries. Interconnected by square-topped doors, every third of these spacious vaults was connected to the arena; the others are believed to have served as storage units and shops. The Selge stadium is placed at an oblique angle to the theater, its northern (presumably) flat end connecting to one of the paradoi and the stage corner of the theater as if the two were hinged at this point (see Figures 10.40 and 10.42). If there was a gate at this connection, as normally expected, it could have served like a commemorative arch marking the entry into the opening onto an irregularly shaped stadium. The theater and the stadium at Aezane, Phyrigia, are located on the eastern edge of the Roman city. The two are locked in a strictly formal relationship. Sharing the same axis, the back wall of the tall stage is integrated to the flat end of the stadium; the whole ensemble is unified in an elegant composition with the rising curved seats, the theater and the stadium at either end of the long vista (although not simultaneously visible!), creating a powerful sense of space and plasticity (Figures 10.103 and 10.104). With their enormous size and capacity (the largest up to circa 300 meters long and holding circa thirty thousand spectators), stadiums were proper venues for athletic competitions as well as gladiatorial combats, and wild animal shows (venationes). Along with theaters they were also, significantly, the locations for religious and secular festivals, cultic celebrations, and processions where residents celebrated the city’s mythical and religious history. The diverse agendas associated with stadiums explain their great popularity as valued urban institutions and may explain why the Roman amphitheater (in its Western form) never took hold in Asia Minor with a few minor exceptions (Pergamon, Anazarvus). Their large size often necessitated their placement at the edges of cities, outside grid plans as in Ephesus and Aphrodisias (see Figures 10.20 and 10.24). The latter, located at the extreme north side of the city and incorporated into its defense walls, is one of the largest (270  59 m) and displays a less common arrangement with both ends curved (Figure 10.105). It

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.102 General view of stadium with the theater behind, Perge; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

was probably used for blood sports from its inception in the early Imperial era. The identification of the Aphrodisias stadium by an inscription as an “amphitheater stadium” may allude to its unusual amphitheater-like shape; this was exactly how the Flavian era stadium at Laodicea (280  70 m), also with two curved ends, was referred to in an inscription. Unlike comparably sized and fully built-up stadiums, such as the one in Perge (see earlier), these utilized only a minimum of vaulted structures. In Aphrodisias the ground was lowered allowing the seats to rest on the natural slope. From the point of view of sheer structural bravado and ingenuity, the stadium at Nysa (c. 195 m long and 44 m wide) has no equal because it was largely built directly over a deep gorge (Figures 10.106 and 10.107, Plate 24B). The bold plan might have been conceived and the bridges that spanned the gorge might have been started by the middle of the first century ce, but the main construction appears to be the work of the second century. Carried on what must have been a bold armature of multi-tiered barrel vaults (most washed away by the torrents below except for some hefty abutments still visible on the steep scarps), the stadium and a plaza that separated it from the theater must have been the true urban center of the city and reminds one of some terraced complexes in Italy, such as the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor in Tivoli – under which the Via Tecta passed. Nysa is a tour de force of structural engineering belying the notion that the Roman builders in Asia Minor lacked the skill and boldness of their Western counterparts in handling dramatic

and monumental tunnels and vaulted support systems (Figure 10.108). Balanced on its west side by the large peristyle of a Greek-type gymnasium and on the other by baths and agora, this project was not simply about making functional use of the “air space” over a formidable gorge. It was about the pride of taming this gorge that divided a city – and, perhaps, at the same time creating an “underground city” and passageway along a canaled waterway – here we are in the realm of speculation: one can imagine the attraction of a cool, underground Nysa, replete with its shops, as an escape from the intense summer heat the region, the Menderes (Meander) River Valley was famous for then as now. B AT HS AN D BA T H- GY MN A SI UM S

The theaters, stadiums, and amphitheaters served the recreational needs of the people, needs that went beyond simple entertainment, but reached deep into the social and religious traditions and civic rituals of communities. Another important component of the recreational program was the public baths, the smaller balneae and the palatial thermae whose importance in Roman lives and Roman cities has been underlined in previous chapters. Although small Greek baths with rudimentary heating systems existed from the Classical period onward, bathing as a social habit and the bath house as a public institution were mainly Western imports in Roman Asia Minor. The custom caught on during the late Republic and early Empire; by the second century ce public baths flourished in the city and country alike. 683

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figure 10.103 Plan of the stadium and theater at Aezane; rendered by Marie Saldaña.

As elsewhere, these were frequently small, neighborhood balneae, but Anatolia’s distinctive contribution to the culture of bathing was the bath-gymnasium complex, a new type developed during the early Imperial period that combined the large colonnaded peristyle of a Greek gymnasium with the great vaulted halls of a Roman bath. The circumstances at work in the 684

formation of an institution of dual parentage must have been many, but one of the most important factors, as underscored by J. B. Ward-Perkins, was the “established position of the Hellenistic gymnasium” in Asia Minor (Ward-Perkins 1981, 292). The gymnasium was the primary educational and athletic institution of the Greek city and the largely Greek-speaking populations

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.104 View of the theater and stadium looking south, Aezane; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 10.105 View of the stadium at Aphrodisias looking west; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 10.106 View of the stadium, theater (upper left), and gorge at Nysa, looking northeast; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 10.107 plate 24b Reconstruction of major monuments and gorge at Nysa; Experiential Technologies Center, UCLA, © Regents of the University of California.

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figure 10.108 Tunnel supporting superstructure in Nysa gorge; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

of Asia Minor. Typical gymnasia included simple washing facilities (loutron) for the benefit of athletes, mainly using cold water. By the end of the Hellenistic period many of these facilities were renovated, rebuilt, and transformed into fairly sophisticated hot-water bathing suites as part of the palaestra (Vitr. De Arch. 5.11.1–2). The gymnasia of the Augustan era in Asia Minor as well as Greek-speaking western Greek colonies subsumed much that was recreational, including hot bathing in their programs. As indicated by inscriptions in Greek, many of these bona fide gymnasia were referred to as baths (balaneion, βαλανείον) while many fully-fledged baths dominated by mighty vaults continued to be denoted as gymnasia (γυμνάσιον). The impetus and inspiration behind the merging of the two institutions, the Greek gymnasium and the Roman bath, into what Yegül first named as a bath-gymnasium, reflects the traditions of the land rooted in its Greek past. The Baths of Vergilius Capito in Miletus, dated by an inscription to the time of the emperor Claudius (41–54 ce), is the earliest and clearest example illustrating the combination of a gymnasium and a bath. The rectangular complex (100  40 m) preceded by a colonnaded forecourt or palaestra, occupying roughly one-half of the building, is laid out following a strong order of axiality and symmetry (see Figure 10.18). The

bath block behind the palaestra is developed with eight barrel-vaulted rooms, the rectangular caldarium with deep niches and a central apse placed at the end of the main axis; a small, domed laconicum off-center served as the sweating chamber (see Figure 10.7). The Capito Baths were located next to the early second-century bce Hellenistic gymnasium, also designed as an axially disposed quadriporticus whose plan seems to have supplied the logical and direct prototype for the Roman bath next door. During the century-and-half following the Capito Baths, thousands of baths and bath-gymnasium complexes, some like the great Harbor Bath-Gymnasium in Ephesus challenging the great thermae of Rome in size, scope, and luxury, were built in Anatolian cities ranging from the Hellenized coastal plains of Ionia and Caria to the hilltop highlands of Lycia, Pisidia and Pamphylia (see Figure 10.24). Trajan, writing to Pliny, his special envoy in Asia Minor, chided the Niceans (a city in Bithynia) for attempting to build beyond their means, as “these little Greeks [Graeculi] have a weakness for gymnasia” – an obvious reference to an overly ambitious, unfinished bath-gymnasium in the city (Pliny, Letters 10.40). Two of the finest examples of the strongly axial and symmetrical bath-gymnasia in western Asia Minor are the Antonine era Vedius Bath-Gymnasium in Ephesus and the much grander Imperial Bath-Gymnasium in Sardis, probably started in the early second century, but with major renovations continuing under Septimius Severus (Figures 10.109 and 10.110). These two bathgymnasia are so close in design that one must have served as the model for the other – or they were the products of a central planning office if such existed in Asia. With a total area of five acres, the Sardis complex is twice as large as the Ephesian one. The two complexes represent a plan type where the bath block (on the west) and the palaestra (on the east) are placed on the same axis (another example following closely this plan type is the bath-gymnasium in Aezane). The palaestrae, unpaved to facilitate physical exercise, are large colonnaded courtyards with direct street entrances indicating that they could have been used as bona fide gymnasia independently of their use as exercise grounds within the usual bathing program. In both examples, the western heated row is composed of a series of barrel-vaulted halls on both sides of a monumental, west-facing caldarium. Large, elongated halls with niches or alcoves sometimes referred to as basilica thermarum (or, ambulacra, singular ambulacrum, in some publications) occupy much of the unheated zone of the bath block. These impressive vaulted halls must have served multiple functions, as apodyteria (changing rooms), spaces for social, ceremonial, and perhaps 687

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figure 10.109 Plans of the Vedius bath-gymnasium in Ephesus (left), and the Imperial bath-gymnasium in Sardis (right); rendered by Fikret Yegül.

figure 10.110 Axonometric reconstruction of the Vedius Bath-Gymnasium, Ephesus; Steskal – La Torre, 2008 Taf 415

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Architecture and planning in Asia Minor athletic functions. The H-shaped hall of the Vedius Bath-Gymnasium is identified as a kind of “water court” because its deep alcoves between projecting piers were filled with pools and fountains. In both complexes the most conspicuous element of the symmetrical composition is a “marble hall” (restored and named the Marble Court in Sardis) directly on the main axis, opening toward the palaestra through a colonnade (Figure 10.111; see Figure 10.109). These halls, common to many bath-gymnasia of Asia Minor (and dubbed in the singular as Kaisersaal, meaning “imperial hall,” by the Austrian excavators of Ephesus), are special spaces that typically display a rich decorative architecture of multistory colonnaded façades – which we refer to as “aediculae” – or, decorative façades like those of a theater scaenae frons. In Ephesus and Sardis, these projecting and receding columnar series in dynamic, contrapuntal compositions are elevated on a continuous podium and focused on a wide, heraldic apse (Plate 28, Figure 10.112). In Ephesus an altar and a togated statue of the donor Publius Vedius Antoninus were displayed inside the apse, while an inscription dedicated the space to the goddess Artemis and the emperor Antoninus Pius. In Sardis, too, a grandly displayed inscription on the architrave of the first story honors the Sardian Artemis, Septimius

Severus, his family, the Senate, and the People of Rome, as well as two high ranking women of the city as the benefactors. In the bath-gymnasium at Sagalassus, colossal, iconic portraits of Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, and Faustina the Elder were found in what was identified by the excavators as a “cult room,” (we do not support recent suggestions that these cult images originally belonged in the cella of the Hadrianic-Antonine cult temple; Waelkens 2013, 62–71). Nonetheless, these lavishly decorated marble halls, though never proper, official cult centers, probably served among their other ceremonial functions, as spaces for informal observance of the Imperial Cult at secular and populist levels, different from officially sanctioned Imperial Cult temples. If the Imperial system wished to promote itself, no place would have been a better choice for reaching the greatest number of people (a captive audience in reasonably happy mood); nor would the citizenry have found a more opportune one for showing off their ostentatious support of the system than these grand and luxurious baths open to all and loved by all. Nearly as large as the bath-gymnasium at Sardis, the plan of the Baths of Faustina in Miletus (Antonine date) is unaxial and unsymmetrical. Outside the famous grid plan of the city, its palaestra of one

figure 10.111 Restored view of the Marble Court of the bath-gymnasium, Sardis; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 10.112 Detail of Marble Court southwest corner, Sardis; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

hundred columns is shifted north along the west side of the bath block (see Figures 10.16 and 10.18). The latter is composed of eight rectangular, vaulted halls, the large apsed caldarium dominating the building. Between the two is a striking 66-meter-long basilical hall articulated by deep rectangular alcoves with raised floors – commonly thought to have been private lounges for resting or changing clothing. At the end of this long gallery, and separated from it by a monumental arch, is a square hall (like a tribunal in a basilica, such as the one in Aphrodisias, see above) terminated by a wide apse. With many wall niches for statuary, this room could have been a lecture hall, or a museion (a space honoring the Muses), compatible functions. Bathing establishments in the mountains and remote regions of Caria, Lycia, Pisidia, and Rough Cilicia – as exemplified by examples from Tlos, Oenoanda, Patara, Arycanda, and Anemurium – are typically small or medium-sized; they are planned and situated with close consideration for the potentials of their topography. Many display plans referred to as “hall type,” characterized by large and conspicuous rectangular halls for social use placed at right angles 690

to the row of vaulted heated rooms. The design and placement of the Large Baths at Arycanda with its row of vaulted rooms opening toward the impressive mountain views through large windows is noteworthy (see Figures 10.36 and 10.38). Similar arrangements of heated rows of halls opening outside through large arched windows (as in the Large Baths of Tlos, or Harbor Baths at Caunos) suggest that the association with nature and its enjoyment must have been a valued concern for the Roman architect, presuming that the bathers could see the outside if openings were covered with better quality Roman window glass or left without fenestration if intended to be used as a heliocaminus, or “sun-room.” LIBRARIES

Often although not always a part of the agora or forum ensemble, the architectural form or type of the ancient library building shows considerable variety. Once the focus and symbol of classical paideia with such prominent examples as the great Ptolemaic Library at Alexandria (of which we have no architectural remains), the public library must have been aligned

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor with similar notions of learning in the Roman cities of Anatolia; yet, with the exception of a handful known examples, the ancient library is an institution architecturally too indistinct and elusive for easy identification. One begins with the Hellenistic library at Pergamon erected by Eumenes II (197–59 bce), prominently located on the upper level of the north stoa of the Temenos of Athena. It consisted of four contiguous rooms. The larger, corner room (16  13.5 m) identified as a “reading room” was lined on three sides with continuous wooden shelves behind a podium and an axially placed platform carrying a colossal, 3.5meter-high statue of Athena, now in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. According to an ancient story, the library contained some two hundred thousand volumes (parchment or papyrus rolls), also housed in the other three rooms. The second story of the colonnade, running like a balcony in front of the library rooms, would have afforded a pleasant place for the readers to take out the rolls, enjoying at the same time a spectacular view of the citadel city of the Hellenistic rulers. The rich holdings of the Pergamene Library, as all libraries of the Hellenistic era, were in the form of rolls. The codex, arranged in bound sheets and written on both sides, much like a modern book (which itself may be not so modern by the time our codex is published!) only came into use by the end of the first century ce as we can deduce from Martial, who admired the compact and efficient codex over the bulky rolls. Written on parchment made of thin animal skins, the codex was also far more durable than the plantbased papyrus of the rolls. The use of the codex form must have increased the capacity of the typically small libraries of Asia Minor. Even then, one imagines that through the Imperial era into late antiquity, library “volumes” were a mixture of rolls and codices. The location of the royal Pergamene Library within the Sanctuary of Athena, a goddess associated with wisdom and learning, was appropriate, but not necessary. Libraries of the Roman era were often subsumed as a part of large civic complexes, such as the twin libraries in the Forum of Trajan in Rome, or they could stand alone such as the small but well-designed city library of Timgad in North Africa (see Figures 6.37, 6.42, 8.15; also 6.15 L and B, 6.36). Three hundred years after Eumenos II, the famed Sanctuary of Asclepius of Pergamon also included a library on the northeast corner of the precinct (see Figure 10.66). The central apse, across from the double doors, housed a nude statue of Hadrian (now in the Bergama Archaeological Museum). According to the inscription on the podium, a local aristocratic lady, Flavia Melitine, gave the heroic statue identified as a god. The side walls and both sides of the statue apse contained niches housing wooden cabinets for books

(armoria). High above the niches, large windows allowed copious daylight under the high, probably woodentrussed roof. The floor and walls were encrusted in rich marble revetment. The spacious chamber appears to have been a combination of an Imperial Cult hall and a library, honoring the “deified Hadrian” – underlining our earlier suggestion that Roman Imperial cult was widely accepted in secular institutional and architectural contexts separate from bona fide cult temples. Heroic and artistic presence in the precinct was also apparent in the circular Temple of Zeus Asclepius, a small round temple inspired by the famed Pantheon in Rome (see earlier). A small, square room (6  5 m) located on the north wing of the agora at Lyrbe in Pamphylia (see earlier) has been identified as a library mainly on the evidence of the superb mosaic floor depicting philosophers and wise men (see Figure 10.85). The high quality of the work consisting of sixteen small portrait panels could be as late as the late third century ce. The fine ashlar architecture of the room is otherwise featureless, lacking the tell-tale “book niches” but probably had wooden shelves around the walls. The presence next door of a larger exedra, or lecture hall, open into the north gallery of the agora enclosure through a colonnaded front suggests that intellectual pursuits and the memory of a shared classical cultural past were alive and well under the integrated roof of this unusual agora in a distant mountain hamlet at the fringes of the Greek-speaking world. The best-known and best-featured library of the Roman period in Asia Minor is the Library of Celsus in Ephesus, owing its textbook fame to its prominent location in the city and its fully-restored, rich columnar façade (Figure 10.113; see Figures 10.24 and 10.27). The façade, is a tour de force of the rich and dramatic architecture of multiple aediculae, exemplified also at the reconstructed Marble Court at Sardis (See Figures 10.111, 10.112, and Plate 28). Located at the busy junction southwest of the commercial agora, where the Marble Road from the theater meets the bottom of the Embolos, the Ephesus library is a free-standing rectangular hall (10.90  70 m), its 21-meter-wide façade approached by a flight of nine steps rising from a slightly sunken, marble paved plaza. The chamber was lined on three sides by rectangular niches for books on three levels, thirty in all, arranged on either side of the tall central apse (Figure 10.114). A onemeter high podium ran along the walls and supported columnar galleries or balconies providing access to the niches reached by a narrow staircase between the double walls of the room (Figure 10.115). One assumes that books were brought to the readers by a library attendant, probably a literate slave. The floor and the all-brick walls (an early example of solid kiln-baked brick construction in Asia Minor (see earlier) were revetted in marble. 691

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity For all the beauty of its architecture, the holdings of the Celsus Library must have been modest. According to L. Casson, its sparsely spaced niches were capable of holding no more than some thirty thousand rolls (Casson 2001, 115–116). As with libraries in Roman North Africa, the libraries of Roman Asia Minor were on the whole small affairs, not probably intended for serious research. The importance of the Celsus Library was realized by its powerful presence on the busiest hub of the city (across from, at one point in its history, the town’s brothel), its dynamic, eye-catching façade, a reference point between the Augustan South Gate of the commercial agora and the Hadrianic Gate dominating the plaza in front (see Figures 10.24 and 10.27). It must have been one of the most distinctive landmarks of the city signifying movement and passage at the junction of major streets, but also inviting rest and repose as an urban way station. It is no surprise that after the reading room was destroyed and abandoned following the earthquake of 262 ce, the proud façade was restored and retained as a backdrop of a fountain structure, its many columns reflected in the broad basin built in front of it. The library was funded by the grandson and son of C. Julius Celsus Polemaenus, a leading Ephesian who had been a consul in Rome; his sarcophagus was found in a vaulted chamber under the library apse. Thus, this library was also a kind of funerary monument for Celsus, who had been given the rare honor of being buried within the city limits. Another dutiful son, T. Flavius Severianus Neon, a contemporary of Celsus’ grandson, built and dedicated a hall identified as a library in Sagalassus in Pisidia (see Figure 10.32). The excavators suggested that the Ephesian library, weeks away by inland travel, served as an inspiration and model for this building whose architectural features, though severely damaged, bear a distinct resemblance to the former. Occupying a spectacular position above the mountainous city where all buildings seem to be spectacularly positioned, on the street that connects the Upper Agora to the theater, the hall rises as an independent entity directly above the Hellenistic fountain house. Although several phases of reconstruction and the final destruction obscure the building’s original outlook, it was a room almost square in proportions (12  10.50 m) entered through a wide frontage, the street making an esplanade above the fountain house, and creating, perhaps, a pleasant outdoor reading terrace with a view, librarians permitting. The back and sidewalls of the room contained the usual niches for books, alternating rectangular and semicircular (the latter perhaps not so good for codices but all right for rolls which were kept in cylindrical leather containers). A deep central apse accentuated the back of the room; before and below 692

the apse and the niches a 2.35-meter high podium articulated by eight narrow arched niches was preserved intact. Originally, the podium must have ran continuously also in front of the sidewalls. The parapet molding above the podium contains inscriptions set up by the city honoring generations of the Neon family, listing their proud careers and services to their hometown. The podium, and probably some of the niches, might have contained statues of the honored family while the central apse, positioned higher than the rest, would have been reserved for Athena. Although the uncommonly high podium would have made access to the book niches difficult – or, cleanly impossible for the scholars – a wooden gallery reaching up to the hypothetical second story and wooden stairs (as in an old-fashioned modern library), and younger staff to climb up the stairs, might have solved the problem. During the last renovation of the building, perhaps by the mid-fourth century, a rich geometric mosaic with a central figural emblemata depicting scenes from the Iliad was installed – comparable to the Seven Sages mosaic of Lyrbe. The main walls of the Neon Library, unlike the double walls of the Celsus Library, its putative model, are single. The common explanation of the double-walls for libraries, to protect the books from damp, is unconvincing. Some of the best known libraries of the Roman world, such as the Ulpian Libraries of Trajan’s Forum in Rome, have no use for double walls, while some buildings, which are not libraries, such as the so-called Temple of Serapis in Ephesus, or the so-called Temple of Diana at the Sanctuary of the Nymphs at Nimes (perhaps, also a cult building), both basilical, vaulted halls, do (see earlier; Figures 10.69, 7.75 and 7.77). One of the smallest, the Library at Nysa (c. 150–160 ce), offers a good demonstration of the structural expedients of double-wall construction. It is a freestanding building some 150 meters north of the gymnasium on the west bank of the deep gorge that separates the city into two halves (Figure 10.116, see 10.107). The entrance on the east was probably enhanced by some form of decorative marble architecture. The thick, mortared rubble side walls have been preserved in two stories with triple niches on each side, although a third story of niches appears possible. The interior of the well-preserved reading room is only 13.6  7 meters (circa 172 sq m, about 10 sq m less than the Celsus Library); the exterior, expanding by its thick double walls on the east and west sides, is 25  19 meters (circa 475 sq m, which is 2.7 times larger than the interior). The heavy projecting piers of the internal corridors between walls are connected by barrel vaults creating an impressive waffle structure 6 meters thick, easily capable of supporting an east-west barrel vault

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor

figure 10.113 Detail view of the restored façade of the Celsus Library in Ephesus; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 10.114 Interior view of the Library of Celsus, Ephesus; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 10.115 Restored view of interior, Library of Celsus, Ephesus; rendered by Marie Saldaña.

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Architecture and planning in Asia Minor over the main room of 13.6 meters span. As noted by the excavators, the series of small chambers created inside the inner wall space could have been used for storage. Recalling the Library of Celsus, the Library of Nysa, too, contained the sarcophagus of its donor, and thus served also as a funerary monument or heroon. Given the vibrancy of civic institutions that underscored the blossoming of cities under the Imperial rule, it is surprising that more libraries have not been identified in well-excavated sites such as Aphrodisias, Hierapolis, Laodicea, Arycanda, Perge, and Side. The answer may lie in the protean nature of library architecture: the tell-tale double wall and the multiple-niche model we are fond of using, describe only one form of creating a room for books. Small civic libraries might have been incorporated into the large and complex layouts of the larger baths and gymnasia, which normally featured kindred functions like lecture halls, exedras, and muses’ halls; they could have been parts of agoras, multi-story market halls, or civic precincts, as in Lyrbe; or, they could have been subsumed in basilicas. One only has to consider the nondescript architectural nature of a

modern “branch library” of a small town tucked away in a shopping mall. The elaborate and enigmatic complex dubbed as “Building M” in Side, dating from the Antonine era, may illustrate the capacity of classical architecture in generating new and hybrid forms to serve new and hybrid functions. Building M consists of a large peristyle courtyard with three large halls along one side – an arrangement much like a generic Roman palaestra (Figure 10.117, see Figure 10.22). The central hall, larger, prominent, and more accessible across an open frontal colonnade boasts a rich sculptural display of the Imperial family, gods and heroes against a very opulent backdrop of multicolored, marble aedicular façades, columnar rows in two stories rising above a continuous podium. The side halls, accessible by doors, and with shallow wall niches, could have served as lecture rooms and/or libraries. Building M mimics any number of socalled Imperial halls (Kaisersäle) typical of Anatolian bath-gymnasium complexes and could have served like them for vaguely described cultic and ceremonial purposes, or as a kind of arts and cultural center; however, it is an independent establishment. The arrangement is

figure 10.116 Interior view of the Library at Nysa looking north; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity also closely comparable to the Hadrianic Library complex in Athens, and ultimately, to the Forum of Peace in Rome (see earlier).

HO U SI NG AN D R ESID E NT IA L AR CH IT EC TU RE

In any of the handsome graphic restorations of ancient cities, housing is indicated as a sea of small cubical shapes, one or two stories, with interior courtyards and neat hipped roofs, all wrapped around the larger masses and precincts of public buildings. It is probable that not all the houses or not all towns were dominated by such a neat, classical outlook achieved by the use of sloped roofs and gables covered by tiles. In humbler dwellings, and where local conditions required, the predominant roof type might have been flat, even covered with earth rather than tiles. Still, these images were probably right in so far as they represent variations in generic and ubiquitous house types, mainly the peristyle house of Greek-Hellenistic derivation, which was indeed the predominant residential form in Asia Minor. Reflecting the Greek cultural bias of the land, the peristyle house is characterized by several large and

figure 10.117 Plan of Building M at Side; rendered by Rui Xiong (after M. Beken in Mansel).

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small rooms opening into a central colonnaded courtyard, with one prominent larger room identified as oecus (main room, or dining room in Roman usage; or the proper triclinium/oecus). Yet, any expectations to uncover this type in its purer forms are routinely frustrated because archaeology often yields the final phases of a construction, the stage before the final destruction or abandonment, frequently dating from late antique or early Byzantine periods. Over centuries of continuous use and changing fortunes, properties were rebuilt and altered as owners jockeyed their holdings across the neighborhood and over the block. Such changes were typical in almost all cities, but observing a strong trend in Aphrodisias, the excavator C. Ratté commented that “richer citizens in Late Roman times invested more of their wealth in private houses than in earlier periods, and as a consequence . . . prime residential areas saw a consolidation of desirable property in the hands of a relatively small number of citizens, who were able to buy building plots and so combine two or more houses into a single grand residence” (Ratté 2001, 124). However, another important Late Roman trend was the transformation of residential neighborhoods into “mixed use” areas by incorporating industrial or semi-industrial activities such as workshops, kilns, and warehouses as a part of domestic space – a trend far less objectionable to the ancient world than our zoning laws typically allow. At Arycanda, a large peristyle villa with pebble mosaic floors located at the western edge of the city may represent the palpable benefits from the rising timber trade the city enjoyed beginning with the Imperial era, especially of valuable cedar from the Tauros Mountains. Up the slope from this wealthy residence, terraced in stepped fashion, is a later development of simple, two or three-room houses in two stories with no courtyards, occupied by middle and lower income families (see Figures 10.35 and 10.36 M, N). Upper stories, probably in wood (logical in a region with rich forests), were open to the mountain breezes and the spectacular view; the lower levels, in mortared rubble, were open to public use; they were typically set aside for agricultural production and storage much like contemporary houses in the region still do, but also included minor workshops, such as iron working and glass making. In Elaiussa Sebaste in Cilicia, a residential terrace above the South Harbor has been identified as a domestic and artisan quarter. Rising in two major rectangular terraces, this was a complex of mixed use, houses, industrial workshops, pottery kilns, and bakeries. Whereas the earliest settlement here goes back to the end of the second century bce, the neighborhood seems to have prospered through the Roman period (sturdy foundations, well-built ashlar party walls, three

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor different floor levels), but suffered damage and destruction in the fifth century ce. Perhaps, the most dramatic and widespread transformation in the physical and social fabric of a residential zone can be demonstrated by the “slope houses” (Hanghäuser) south of the Embolos in Ephesus where two large insulae, with rather elegant peristyle houses, were excavated, and (protected by a modern roof structure) meticulously reconstructed (see Figures 10.23, 10.24). Through centuries of continuous use and several devastating earthquakes, most of these houses, however, changed their character. The neighborhood was entirely built over by coarser structures, and along the course of the fifth century ce became an artisans’ settlement with marble and pottery workshops as well as a series of mills driven by overshot water wheels (comparable in technology to the serial mills complex at Barbegal, near Arles; see earlier) that exploited the long slope of the hill. Excavated and partially restored between 1960 and 1980, the terrace houses of Ephesus present us with one of the best examples for the study of the design and development of a large residential zone covering roughly 7,000 square meters (c. 1.5 acres). The two insulae on the northern slope of Bülbül Dag (Lepre Akte, the mountain rising east of the Embelos), and separated by a narrow alley of ramps and steps, were cut at an oblique angle by the street. Original peristyle houses arranged in pairs with six to an insula, have changed over the centuries, their boundaries irregular and hard to distinguish, groups of vaulted rooms clustered cheek-by-jowl as evident in Insula “II” (Figure 10.118). The structural expedience provided by these tightly packed, small, squarish units creating a honeycomb of interrelated spaces and the relatively thick mortared-rubble walls (0.90–1.20 m) facilitated a vaulted system to cover the spaces and support terraces. The serial vaulting of contiguous rooms, the thrust-counterthrust action of each, achieved structural stability. The integration of the insulae at structural level might have been reflected also at social and legal levels by the resulting intimacy of spaces. Inscriptions found on the site suggest that the blocks of houses were commonly owned, sharing some services such as the maintenance of roofs and water systems, comparable to modern day condominiums. In most units, at least one large room (oecus-triclinium) opened into the peristyle courtyard, which had typically three or four columns to a side or an open area of circa 90–100 square meters. In the course of rebuilding, some of the larger rooms acquired apses, shaping into a “domestic basilica” arrangement favored in late antiquity. Peristyle courts, paved in marble, were connected to a running water source, but also had cisterns and wells.

There were no elaborate domestic baths, the city having more than a dozen public facilities, but some rooms had hypocaust floors for heating. The lower, entrance levels of the houses were partially cut into the bedrock and all must have had second stories with bedrooms, terraces, and balconies. The changing orientation of some units, especially at upper levels, must have given the neighborhood a vibrant, fractured, and picturesque quality. Insula “I” allows us to interrogate the significant changes over time (Figure 10.119). Sometime in the second century ce, its entire western half was rebuilt as a very large peristyle house with a spacious colonnaded courtyard with a decorative pool (A, B). The courtyard was raised on a terrace and entered directly from the Embolos by way of stairs (or, directly from the sloping side alley) (Figure 10.120). Opposite the peristyle a large, square atrium (C) was connected to a vaulted, rectangular hall, or oecus (D). Its relatively simple plan consisting of few monumental spaces and austere façade suggest that the complex might have served as a community center or club house. We have here concentrated on the architecture of the “slope houses;” for the student of art history these houses also hold exceptional importance for their decoration, marble and mosaic floors, and rich and varied wall paintings. Although superimposed layers of stucco decoration offer a sequence from the early Imperial period onward, most extant paintings date from the fourth and fifth centuries ce. These follow the traditional tripartite division of Roman painted walls, imitation of marble architecture and revetment. There are, however, fresh and colorful representations of nature, animals, mythological scenes, superb and sketchy portraits of philosophers, poets and intellectual leaders of the Greek world (one of “Sappho” and another of “Socrates” are justly admired). These late Roman houses and their decoration stand in testimony to the high standard and remarkable longevity of classical culture and learning in this middle class neighborhood of Ephesus, a phenomenon that we had also observed in reference to the Seven Sages mosaic of the agora-library in the small mountain hamlet of Lyrbe (see earlier). Late antique interest in vibrant interiors covered with colorful wall paintings can also be observed in a group of fifth- and sixth-century houses from Sardis. Crammed into tight and irregular plots south of the ancient Marble Avenue, southeast of the Imperial bathgymnasium corner, and partially built into the thick mud brick structure of the Lydian city’s defenses, these houses form several clusters of rooms on both sides of the oblique course of a late Roman colonnaded street. Each cluster is dominated by a large apsidal room 697

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

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figure 10.118 Plan of the Slope Houses, Insula II Ephesus; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Sabine Ladstätter).

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E 0

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figure 10.119 Plan of Peristyle House in Insula “I” approached by stairs from the Embolos Street, Ephesus; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Ladstätter).

serving as the focus of the surrounding irregular spaces, its hierarchical presence bringing a sense of order to the haphazard geometry of the building lots occupied (Figure 10.121). Another apsidal room (Room 6, 5.8  4.9 m with a 3.6-m apse projection) is distinguished by its eye-catching and skilled painting scheme: bold geometric panels in imitation of rare and colorful marbles

between simplified pilasters accentuate the room’s directional geometry. M. Rautman, the excavator of this sector, aptly described the style as “economic yet impressive,” and identified these apsidal halls as a combination of a triclinium with a curved bed (kline, or stibadium) around the apse for formal dining, a kind of reception hall, which offered the owner a stage for self699

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 10.120 Reconstruction of the “peristyle house” (Insula “I”) viewed from the Embolos street, Ephesus; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Ladstätter).

promotion and self-presentation, “an aura of affluence (in) a ritual setting” in a world where economy rather than riches was the order of the day (Rautman 2008, 154, 157). Other apsidal halls, or even the same ones, could have been used as reception or business rooms for the owner. Another marginally dominant element of these late Roman houses is a collecting area that could be easily accessible from the main apsidal hall or the triclinium of 700

the house. In the Sardis houses illustrated here, the courtyards are small, irregularly shaped common spaces having little in common with the colonnaded and formally composed peristyle courtyards or atriums of some of the terraced houses of Ephesus, or the more sumptuous “villa above the theater” in the same city (see Figure 10.24 no. 35). Although some scholars argue that there was a greater tendency to segregate public and private space in Roman houses (in Asia Minor or elsewhere), different

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor parts of the houses were, as in Sardis, visually and physically connected – it was not difficult for the paterfamilias to take his visitor from the apsidal hall, through easy corridors and passageways to the triclinium located in another part of the house. Compared to the architectural segregation of men’s and women’s zones in the traditional Islamic house (harem and salam), the separation of spaces based on public-private or menwomen in the late antique world of the Mediterranean was at best mild and insubstantial. One expects to find regular variants of the peristyle house in cities with grid plans since the rectilinear footprint of such houses would fit well into orthogonal blocks. For obvious examples of such arrangements, widely known across the classical and Hellenistic cities of the Mediterranean, one can refer to Miletus and Priene whose orderly courtyard-type houses continued to be used into the late Roman era, although of course with changes over time. Yet, few instances of such houses in their neighborhood grids have been explored even in Roman cities with well-attested orthogonal plans such as Aphrodisias, Hierapolis, Side, Perge, and the lower city of Pergamon. Natural destruction and massive changes due to agriculture, the perishable nature of domestic architecture, and to a certain extent the preference of excavators to focus on monumental public buildings, may be to blame. At Hierapolis we know of one large house called the “House of the Ionic Capitals,” just west of the theater, occupying fully one-half of a regular city block of 70  30 meters. At Perge, the large residential zone south of the decumanus appears to be filled with orderly peristyle residences of the Hellenistic type (some

figure 10.121 Partial plan of the late Roman residential area, Sardis; rendered by Diane Favro (after Rautman).

with two stories), but few have been investigated except an elaborate villa on the northeast quarter. Roughly twice the size of other houses, this villa (c. 700 sq m) is distinguished by its large apsidal hall, handsome peristyle, marble ornament, well-defined service zone (kitchen, baths, latrine) and decorative waterworks, but quite shoddy construction. The well-preserved houses (R1 and R2) occupying one of the elongated city blocks of Side represent creative variations in the peristyle type (Figure 10.122; see also Figure 10.22). Located immediately east of the commercial agora and south of the colonnaded avenue, House R1 (c. 260 sq m) has six rooms around a small central court. This space is defined on two sides by double columns in antis – not a proper peristyle circumscribed by a colonnade, but a tightly planned arrangement similar to the houses at Priene dominated by one major room, the oecus. Here the southwest unit is a marble paved extension of the central space, adorned by a long pool against the back wall. The entrance is from an alley that divides the city block and leads by way of a mosaic-paved vestibule to the large northeast unit, probably another oecus or triclinium. The narrow northwest end of the block faces the colonnaded avenue with three shops in a row and is accessed directly from the house through the service yard. No doubt this was a business owned or controlled by the owner of the house. Across the alley from R1, house R2 is larger and has a colonnaded central court, closer to a regular peristyle type. Originally entered from the alley, the long visual axis through pairs of columns enhances its appeal. There are some eight or nine rectangular rooms surrounding the three-sided colonnaded area articulated by a small pool with carved, raised sides against the wall. The center, open to the sky, is paved in blocks, the galleries around in polychrome mosaic. The southeast end of the house forms a self-contained unit; the excavator A. M. Mansel suggested it may be an apartment reserved for women – a proper ginaikonitis, though this hypothesis, and its identification of such a specialized room, is perhaps too strict. These two well-built houses of Side enjoying a long occupation history from the late Hellenistic through the late Roman periods, demonstrate the historical and architectural variations possible of the peristyle type. One knows less about the design of particular houses, but more about their overall arrangement and general characteristics at distant, largely unexplored and undisturbed hilly sites. At Cremna, the main residential zone is on the west half of the city, draped over the rising hill north of the colonnaded street (see Figure 10.28). It is a zone structured by the loose and irregular grid of the city (see earlier). The houses, tightly set on low terraces, appear to follow the peristyle 701

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 10.122 Plan of houses R1and R2, Side; rendered by Diane Favro (after A.M. Mansel).

arrangement with small central courtyards defined by simple, faceted columns. Compared to some of the examples we have seen, they were modest in size, only circa 200–250 square meters in area, and four to an insula (c 30  35 m). At many hilltop towns of Anatolia, terraced houses draped across suitable slopes with an eye for climatic orientation and view. The terraced houses of Ephesus occupying the narrow valley between the city’s two celebrated mountains, and austere city gate, is an orderly example. The similar valley setting at Ariassos encouraged a more modest application of the same topographical model (see Figure 10.91). At Iasos, a peninsular site in Caria, housing surrounded the central height of the acropolis in successive terraces, especially the gentler slopes toward the South Harbor. At Phaselis, another peninsular site, the city center developed on the isthmus and its extension (originally an island), with housing covering the slopes of the hills overlooking the north and south harbors (see Figures 10.43 and 10.45). At Sagalassus, far from any sea, excavators projected that the area below the theater covering the vast rolling slopes of the mountain that dominates the city, was occupied by a dramatic residential zone composed of residences with irregular outlines fitting into available spaces (see Figure 10.32). An equally dramatic setting for a terraced residential zone developed on the southern slopes of the acropolis at Sardis; there the undulating spurs and valleys offered prime opportunities for a mix of houses and larger civic structures on terraces, many dating to the city’s Lydian and Hellenistic past. Perhaps the most impressive exploitation of a landscape can be gleaned in the stony ruins of Selge (see Figures 10.39 and 10.40). The three prominent hills of the site were occupied by temples and public structures and connected by thoroughfares following natural saddles; tightly woven residential neighborhoods closely conform to the hills and curving saddles of the unique topography in loosely united compositions. 702

In all cities, whether following the natural order of the land or imposing control over it by an artificial grid of streets, there were houses conspicuous for their position, size, and luxury both inside and outside the main settlement. At Aphrodisias, one might mention the so-called Bishop’s Palace, a luxurious late antique peristyle house with apsidal halls and a grand triconchal triclinium (see Figure 10.20). Located next to the Temple of Aphrodite (converted into a church) and the bouleterion, it outgrew the orderly limits of the city’s square insulae but retained its privileged downtown position. Also in Aphrodisias, the Atrium House north of the Sebasteion has an irregular outline set at an oblique angle probably predating the grid. With its great apsidal court dominated by an axially-placed apsed “basilica,” this extraordinary dwelling might have served, at least in its late antique renovation, as a kind of philosophical school or club. A set of superb philosophers portraits found in the exedra strengthens the notion that pagan learning in the fair cities of Asia (as in Ephesus and Lyrbe) continued well into the “twilight of antiquity” (Ratté 2001, 136). A select neighborhood of late Roman peristyle houses was built over the old Lycian necropolis in Xanthos. One of the best preserved and largest is the “Northeast House” dating from the late fourth century (Figure 10.123). It occupies an area of 1,650 square meters and features a large colonnaded courtyard with an elaborate poolfountain, rooms set at different levels conforming to the natural slope, and a grand apsed basilica separated from the courtyard and private rooms, but accessible from them; it likely served as a reception hall and triclinium for the privileged. The previously mentioned large peristyle villa raised on a sturdy terrace just above the cavea of the theater at Ephesus is another model of domestic privilege (see Figure 10.24 no. 35). The peristyle opens to the west and commands the dizzying view of the

Architecture and planning in Asia Minor A B C D

Entrance Court with pool/fountain Apsed basilica on lower level Blocked entrance

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figure 10.124 Restored view of dwellings partially cut in the rock (“Large rock house”) at Heraklia-on-the-Latmos; J. Denkinger. N 0

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figure 10.123 Reconstruction of the Northeast House, Xanthos; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after M.-G. Froidevaux).

plunging cavea of the theater (the owners could watch performances without paying for them!), the Arkadiane, the harbor, and the setting sun over the Aegean beyond (see Figure 10.25). Its origins going back to early Imperial times, this prestigious dwelling (identification as the local governor’s palace has been suggested) with a separate but linked wing for a large apsidal hall, must have been the setting for many power banquets deciding the fate of Asia’s leading city. Even in distant poleis of limited importance a few select, privileged houses set back or apart from the rest – like the two grand peristyle villas perched on the hill northeast of the city center in Cremna – must have symbolized the importance of constructed power relations in local life and politics. The sentiment for exclusivity and civic power through the location of dwellings had not changed for the aristocratic owners of these minicastles that studded the hilltops of medieval Italy, or for the industrial barons of early-twentieth-century Santa Barbara, California (where we live), who vied with each other for coastal high places. We would like to end this selected survey of houses and housing in Roman Asia Minor by highlighting an unusual type of residence that is the opposite of exclusivity and whose roots are deep in Anatolia’s prehistory – these are houses partially or wholly built into rocky landscapes of sites such as Heraklia-on-the-Latmos. At Heraklia, these uniquely located dwellings rise on natural terraces on the granite expanse of the Latmos massif, often making use of natural caves and crevices in rock as enclosure or supplementing rock outcrops with walls built in natural

boulders and blocks (Figure 10.124). These dwellings are often composed of several rooms with vaguely differentiated functions, no colonnaded courts, but simple wall enclosed front yards opening to the south. They vary in size in various increments since several are interconnected through corridors, but all are modest, averaging between 26 and 100 square meters. Similar rock houses can be seen in other Anatolian sites, such as those on the upper city at Alinda; or, on the high plateau settlements on the northern slopes of Mount Sipylus (near Manisa) in Lydia; or, on the Phyrigian acropolis of Midas City. The spectacular siting of these, but especially those of Heraklia, rising above the fiord-like inlet (now a lake) to the granite heights of the Latmos, may be seen as a kind of inspiration for the poetic union of nature and humanmade, in which the ultimate poetry belongs to the land itself. REFERENCES

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11

THE ROMAN NEAR EAST -

When a traveler from Italy, after two weeks of perilous sea travel, set foot on one of the renowned ancient ports of Syria, it was not only the thousand miles or more of open seas that separated him from home but also a cultural divide evident in the diverse faces, languages, and customs. Indeed, many of these busy ports, from Laodicea to Caesarea, rooted in their Phoenician or Greek past, were only moderately familiar sea gates opening to the increasing unfamiliarity of the interior – a world populated by Semitic and Arab communities stretching over the vast, stony steppes of Syria, Jordan, and Arabia, across the great rivers of Euphrates and Tigris to the venerable civilizations of Mesopotamia and Persia deep into the edges of the desert. Beyond that, the great and legendary land routes to India, China and southeast Asia beckoned the fearless traders. This was a world of great diversity in some ways similar to, but in others significantly different from, Asia Minor where the coastal regions had been populated by Greek colonies from the first millennium onward and consequently established a culture and language that was predominantly and genuinely Hellenic. Even inland Anatolia, with its native populations, such as the Phrygians, Lydians, and Carians, had been substantially Hellenized and more importantly urbanized by the time of the Roman dominion of the land. This world all changed east of the Cilician Gates. There is much truth in the colorful (and now simplistic sounding) characterization by J. B. Ward-Perkins that once we turn to eastern Mediterranean and the lands beyond, the duet represented elsewhere by the Greek and Roman traditions “becomes . . . a chorus of mixed voices,” although, as we have tried to underline earlier, there were a few important voices other than Greek and Roman even in Italy and the Western provinces (Ward-Perkins 1982, 307).

For the traveler from Italy the most familiar, consequently the most important, of these “voices” was Greek represented by dozens of cities founded by Alexander’s successors, namely the Seleucids in Syria and Palestine and the Ptolemies in Egypt – until they were gradually replaced by the legions of Pompey the Great in 63 bce. These late Hellenistic cities and others established by minor dynasties and buffer states from Pontus to Judea – jockeying for power between the waning fortunes of the Seleucids and the rising Roman empire – retained their authority as centers of Greek culture and followed Alexander’s dream of, if not a wholly Hellenized Orient, an urban world where a multi-cultural dialogue between the East and the West was viable and the assimilated and assimilator were at times variable and not even identifiable. It is a measure of the success of this dream that throughout their three-century-long presence in the region, with the exception of a few military colonies such as the Augustan Berytus (modern Beirut), the Romans did not feel the need to establish a single new city, but instead expended their energies in altering, developing, and enlarging almost all others. The region under consideration is large and varied, from the Seleucid metropolis of Antioch-on-theOrontes and the southeastern extension of the Tauros mountain chain on the north, to the Persian Gulf on the south; from the balmy coast of the eastern Mediterranean to the Syrian highlands and the great southeastern arc of the Euphrates merging into the formidable stretches of the Negev desert in Arabia. The most densely populated area was naturally the coastal belt including the long, fertile valley of the Orontes River running between the Lebanon and anti-Lebanon Mountains on the north and its southern 707

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity extension into the Jordan River Valley. Northern Syria, for the most part, is an arid, stony steppe of rolling hills and limestone massifs; but it is not a desert. Through the intelligent management of the limited water sources by various means, including the exploitation of wells and seasonal runoffs on valley slopes, the region enjoyed a modest but stable agrarian economy that supported large numbers of villages and rural settlements (see later). There were few large cities. Settled and nomadic Arabs occupied Southern Syria and Jordan extending from Damascus to the Gulf of Aqaba. As early as the fourth century bce they established the Nabataean Kingdom at and around the mountains of Petra, stalwartly resisting succeeding waves of Greek aggression. Over the course of centuries, these Nabataean kings were able to extend their control northward into Jordan, even taking, perhaps for a short time, Damascus before Trajan annexed the whole region as the Roman province of Arabia in 106 ce. Long before Trajan, the area that constitutes modern Jordan had been organized by Pompey into a confederation of ten free Greek cities called the Decapolis, though their freedom was more a political name and intention than a fact (Gerasa, Scytiopolis, Hippos, Gadara, Pella, Philadelphia, Capitolias, Kanawat, Raphana, Damascus). The cities of the Decapolis and dozens of others in southern Syria and in the great Hauran plain south of Damascus, Philadelphia (modern Amman), and Bostra, constituted the center of a prosperous and highly urbanized region remembered for their handsome city gates, broad colonnaded streets, and monumental theaters. At the heart of the Hauran (or Hawran, “cave land”), a fertile, volcanic plateau extending from Damascus on the north to Jordan on the south, the regional capital Bostra is surrounded by a land of bleak lava fields and rough, rocky highlands. The local black basalt is hewn into a distinctive architecture of stone (a volcanic rock denser and heavier than even granite). The creative combinations of Roman and local Nabataean traditions that characterize the superbly crafted buildings of small market towns such as Shakka, Suweida, Mismiyeh, Si (Seia), and Kanawat (Canatha) are among the more memorable forms of regional expression in all of Roman architecture. Outside the trade-rich ports and well-watered coastal valleys, the provinces of the Roman Near East were generally dry, the arid plains gradually turning into semideserts and true deserts towards the east and the south. Nonetheless, the region was well populated thanks to the effective native traditions in conserving and managing water that allowed for dry farming of grains on the plains and fruits and vegetables on valley beds. Just as we have seen in the dry plains of North 708

Africa, native ingenuity in conserving water resources was aided by Roman technology and capital in creating dams and reservoirs and supplying water to urban communities by aqueducts. Still, these climatic restrictions were probably responsible for the fact that, with the exception of Antioch (and unlike the great metropolises of Asia Minor), the urban world of the Roman Near East was characterized by a widely spread and vibrant network of small towns and villages, not metropolises. In the transitional regions between cultivated dry land and the semi-desert, especially east and south of Jordan and Arabia, settled conditions gave way to nomadic existence of transhumance - local tribes with their flocks of sheep and goats and herds of camels moving to favorable seasonal pastures. Although at the first glance such nomadic tribes, many of Bedouin Arab stock, may be imagined to be threatening to settled communities, the truth was that the relations between the two groups were constructive and for the most part peaceful. In fact, providing meat, milk, and animal products the nomadic groups complimented the rural economy and were important elements in the symbiotic relationship between the city and the country. As succinctly and somewhat romantically observed by Glen Bowersock, “The Bedouins are as natural in the desert as its oases and flowers.” The Roman rulers of the Near East knew that and respected that “(i)t was not until they became sedentary or else were brought together in large confederations under politically minded leaders [mostly in recent history, though now in shambles as we write] that they posed any major problem to those who would rule in the areas they traversed” (Bowersock 1983, 10). Besides agriculture, and in some regions far more important than agriculture, the wealth of the Near East was tied to trade, particularly what is known as the long-distance trade. Short-distance trade among local centers was widespread and vital to an economy mainly driven by the interdependence of small cities and rural communities, but it was the long distance or international trade that brought in the wealth. In general, the Near East and its cities were convenient and necessary stopping points on the many trade routes that brought spices, silk, gems, and perfume from Arabia, India, and China to the ports of Syria, and Lebanon. It depended on caravans and entrepreneurs from many lands who changed many times between the distant origins of the goods and the sea ports from which the precious cargos were taken to Italy and other Mediterranean centers of consumption. One major route extended north from the Arabian peninsula to Petra, from where the caravans could continue up the Royal Road (later improved by Trajan) to Damascus

The Roman Near East and the coast. Another route also from Arabia, and specially exploited by the Nabataeans, bypassed Petra on the east and moved up the desert passage known as Wadi Sirhan to Bostra, their new capital. After the annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom in 106 ce, main trade moved north by way of the Persian Gulf, up the Euphrates to the great oasis city Palmyra. Some 300 miles from Mediterranean ports and equidistant from the frontier-garrison town Dura-Europos, Palmyra became the predominant desert center in the movement and storage of silk and luxury goods from India and Asia.

THE GREEK-SELEUCID PAST AND QUESTIONS OF IDENTITY In a widely acclaimed study of the Roman Near East published in 1993, Fergus Millar observed that “If we think of ‘culture’ in the full sense, as a tradition, an educational system, a set of customs and above all a collective understanding of the past, then we can find in the Roman Near East only two established cultures: Greek and Jewish” (Millar 1993, 517). This overwhelming statement based on Millar’s painstaking research and interpretation of almost exclusively epigraphical evidence subordinates or eliminates the presence and solid achievements of the native populations of the Near East and in no sense thinks of “culture” in its full meaning. Warwick Ball, another scholar with long and serious background in Near Eastern archaeology, in his book Rome in the East (2000), downplayed the GrecoRoman presence – the cities, the baths, and the aqueducts that brought water to them; popular gladiatorial shows and the amphitheaters built to accommodate them – and attributed the major, if not the whole, physical and literary culture as the creation and contribution of native, non-Western peoples. He concluded that the story of Rome “is a story of the East more than of the West [and] a triumph of the East” (Ball 2000, 450). Both sides seem to approach their subject subjectively, overreaching and interpreting evidence to fit into their preferred cultural perspectives and polarities. Such bias in reading evidence, especially distant, historical, ambiguous evidence, is not unusual. Scholars, like all people, are the products of their time and place, background, education, disciplines, and conditions of research. Bias, like cheering the home team, is normal and almost inevitable – and sometimes, as a historical corrective for past injustices, perhaps even salutary. Scholars who argue for the dominance of the Greek culture in the East naturally consider the Seleucid origins of cities. Founded by a general of Alexander the Great, the Seleucid kingdom had Greek as its

official language and civic institutions based on Greek models. Documentary evidence attests to the widespread use of Greek in the Near East by the end of the first century bce, not only in Hellenized coastal cities but in the distant interior towns and villages of the Nabataean Kingdom, or desert outposts such as Palmyra and Dura-Europos. Yet, this view tends to downplay the equally widespread presence of texts in Semitic languages that existed along with official Greek, as well as the predominant use of native languages for the names of places and deities, including Persian. Above all, it fails to emphasize the significance of the widely accepted Eastern custom of bi-lingual and trilingual texts. It is true that Greek was the written, official language of public documents, and as pointed out by D. Kennedy, represented the pro-Greek sentiments of the educated urban elite, not the reality of a “sea of illiterate Semitic speakers” (Kennedy 1999, 89). It is also true that with the possible exception of Syriac, native languages like Palmyrene did not reflect the presence of a literary culture and institutions, such as the Greek gymnastic tradition and Greek paideia, but the culture of a people is not solely gauged on achievements of high literature and high art predicated on the classical models. We may never know what oral traditions in literature existed among native populations of the Near East, but to cite one example, judged by the degree of sophistication of Koranic Arabic that emerged in the early seventh century, we would be unwise to doubt the slow coming of age of such a tradition embedded in the many pre-Arabic dialects spoken in the region for centuries. We should perhaps query who the “Greeks” were representing the Greek culture at the time Romans emerged across the geography by the middle of the first century bce and in the succeeding centuries. Were they the handful of genuine colonists and settlers of the Seleucid cities? Or, were they their descendants who had intermingled with local people? Were they locals who aspired and eventually received Roman citizenship and distinguished themselves in Imperial service in and outside the Eastern provinces? Were they Romans in colonial service, or members of the military from Italy and the West who, as veterans, settled in the East and married to the local aristocracy? How does one measure and describe identity in a dynamic situation when so much depends upon the perception of background and belonging rather than a rigid norm? Cultural boundaries might have been porous and national identities on borderlands might have been malleable, flexible and fluid, but ultimately native people knew who they were and where they came from, as displayed clearly (or not so clearly) in their religious and artistic choices. Even thoroughly Hellenized 709

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity Syrians of many generations, members of the urban elite who set up dedications in Greek, would have been conscious of their un-Greekness, distant ancestral roots, “family structure, diet, everyday costume, death rituals, concepts of justice, honesty and love, patriotism and taste in art – these and many more could set [them] apart” (Kennedy 1999, 103). Few would maintain today, as Millar did, that native populations suffered from “historic amnesia.” Even if they might not have had clear historical or scholarly knowledge about the land they lived in, it would be wrong to assume that they had no sense of inheritance, no deep and visceral attraction to the region’s past, its myths and monuments. The modern Bedouin’s view of ancient ruins as the “works of old men” is not as meaningless as it might first appear. Just as the more literate city dwellers of ancient Greece expressed their connection to the unknown and unknowable past in the language of mythology, the Bedouin’s words, with the wisdom of economy, express all the belief and pride in the achievements of his ancestors and the ultimate unknowability of this distant achievement. The ambiguity of identity and its basis on physical achievements of one’s ancestors hides truths difficult to articulate. So much truth and so much bias depends on where we come from and from where we take our viewpoint. We are often identified by not who we are, but whom we are different from and whom we opposed, as revealed in Italo Calvino’s story of two visitors visiting the same ancient city in the East. To a camel driver entering a great sea port from the dusty inland, the magnificent colonnades and temples of the city probably looked foreign – the spawn of distant Greeks. To the sailor from Greece or Italy, after weeks at sea, the strange classicism of the sea town, its outlandish temples in local style and its camel drivers, also looked exotic and foreign – the work of uncouth desert dwellers. Neither the sailor nor the camel driver realizing how much they took from each other and “each taking its form from . . . (what) it opposes” (Calvino 1974, 18).

ROMANS AND THE HELLENIZED EAST How did the Romans, gradually pushing into this distant land, fit into this picture of a Hellenized East? Just as they had in the Greek-speaking Asia Minor, Romans in the Near East – with a limited and exceptional use of documents in Latin – maintained Greek as the lingua franca of the cities they inherited and governed. A part of the reason was the shrewd and well-rehearsed universal Roman diplomacy in following local tradition in governance. However, the 710

other part was simply practical: in a land of many languages the choice of Greek as a common tongue made sense. Porphyry, a mid-third-century ce neoPlatonic philosopher from Tyre (himself of native Phoenician origin), compared the languages of many Easterners to the “screeching of cranes.” And, those of the Syrians and Persians were so unintelligible that they “(could) not be articulated or put into writing [sic] just as . . . the language of animals cannot be.” (On Abstinence, iii.3.4). In expressing such a biased view Porphyry was not exceptional. Romans in general, and Greeks before them, were woefully ignorant of the ways of others, the “barbarians,” who were given this derogatory title due to the “babble” of their speech. This kind of elite narrow mindedness about the language and culture of non-Greeks is ironic in a land with very few gymnasia, the font of Greek education even in its Hellenistic heyday. Therefore, to speak of a deeply rooted Greek culture in the Near East based primarily on epigraphy is deceptive. It is misleading and misreading because what is Roman in the culture, art, and architecture of the Near East is often subsumed under the umbrella of Hellenism, or sometimes as an afterthought designated as “Greco-Roman.” T HE B A B AT H A AR CH IV ES

A family archive of thirty-five documents in Greek concerning property sheds light on the degree and nature of Romanization in the East (for a general discussion of the concept and substance of “Romanization,” see also “Introduction”). These archives concerning the parenthood demands of a Jewess named Babatha were discovered in a cave west of the Dead Sea. Babatha had taken refuge in the cave in 132 ce during the turbulent years of the Jewish rebellion of Bar Kokhba against the Romans. The documents, going back in date to 93 ce, cover the entire period of transition of the region from Nabataean rule through its annexation by Rome in 106 ce. The earliest documents, which belong to the last years of the Nabataean King Rabbel II, seek justice under the Arab system, referring to Rabbel as “our lord who maintained life and brought deliverance to his people.” Complex issues of ownership, property transfer, irrigation rights, and litigation are handled. As commented by G. Bowersock, “the most striking feature of the evidence is the thorough Roman character of the law which is being applied in this frontier territory of Semitic and Hellenic traditions” (Bowersock 1983, 79). One might add that also striking is the orderly continuity of the legal system in this remote corner of Arabia from the way of the conquered to that of their conquerors, giving sufficient confidence to Babatha to

The Roman Near East preserve this cache of documents through hard times in order to seek justice – although unfortunately she did not survive to achieve her aim. Perhaps a glimpse of what Romanization meant to a humble village, and the level at which Rome’s sovereignty, protection, and stewardship could be applicable to such a village community can be illustrated by quoting in full this simple, but forceful, letter of a late-second-century Roman governor of Syria to a village in distant Trachonitis, the bad lavalands of the Hauran: (From the governor) Julius Saturninus, to those of Phaena, the “mother-village” (metrocomia) of Trachon, greetings! If a soldier, or even a civilian, should try by force to secure lodgings in your village, notify me and your right shall be protected. For neither do you owe any contribution to strangers, since you have public guest-houses. Display this communication of mine in a prominent location at your village, so that no one may plead ignorance as an excuse. (I.G.R. III, no. 1119; also H. I. MacAdam 1986, 55)

ADMINISTRATIVE, LEGAL, AND MILITARY PRESENCE OF ROME As illustrated in the earlier example, the impact of the military was inseparable from questions of Rome’s influence and administrative authority in the lands it occupied, annexed, or merely “liberated.” As in western Asia Minor, the military presence was largely curtailed; troops were more visible along the frontier. Large buildings once identified in Bostra and Dura-Europos as the governor’s palace or military headquarters are now known to have served civilian administrative functions. More visible was the military effort in building all-weather roads, bridges, and water supply systems, which contributed massively to improved communications, better trade, and what the Empire’s own historians (as well as some early twentieth-century modern scholars) would have perceived, Rome’s appointed mission to civilize the technologically uncivilized. However, unlike the situation along the Rhine outposts in Germany, there was little in the traditional way of “civilization” the legionaries could do to impress or mystify local populations. The peoples of the East, whether they were city dwellers with centuries old urban experience behind them, or seminomadic groups with venerable tribal customs, represented an older and deeper culture. Still, as any cursory survey would show, military presence and military architecture as exemplified by army camps, legionary headquarters, fortifications, and relay stations left their marks on the

land and minds of the region. Some of these military establishments were direct responses to a military crisis, as occurred in the case of Diocletian’s camp in Palmyra, late in the life of the trading city (see later). Others, such as the long and impressive string of interconnected camps along the Strata Diocletiana extending some 400 kilometers from the Euphrates through Palmyra and Damascus, that marked Rome’s eastern desert frontier against the Iranian threat – and in the end proved to be not that effective in keeping the enemy out. These complex and sophisticated military systems are acknowledged but will not be elaborated in our discussion. Here, we would like to emphasize another, nonarchitectural, aspect of Rome’s impact in the East as an agent of Romanization or acculturation through the imposition of administrative and legal standards – Rome’s renowned and controversial governing mission. Romanization, a loaded word and concept in any continent and context (although generally we prefer to view it in the context of urbanization), can be viewed in its most enlightened form – as Babatha must have known and appreciated – as an individual’s right to unrestricted access to law and equal protection by law. In its ideal form this is the most important concept bequeathed to the Western legal civilization by Rome. Whether this concept and its application worked for everyone and everywhere and every time under Roman governance or not, the citizen’s right to seek justice by means of court jurisdiction did exist. Provincial capitals had standing law courts and governors traveled across the breadth of their administrative domains to hold assize hearings also in smaller centers. Rome’s occupation was not only military, but also legal. Many leading citizens of native birth became legal experts, high-level administrators, and even senators in Rome. And in the third-century, one (under privileged) Arab, Philip from Shahba, became the emperor.

CITIES AND THE ARCHITECTURAL PRESENCE OF ROME The earlier discussion featuring the Roman presence in the Near East approached the subject primarily from administrative, military, and legal angles. Now, we can review this presence in the architectural and the physical world of cities. The architectural types generally and thematically reviewed here are chosen for their Roman or Western bias, such as theaters and baths, or those with universal application, but with special appeal in the East, like the great colonnaded streets. They all belong to the well-rehearsed urban repertory of Roman cities. Although the rich epigraphical yield 711

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity in the Roman East is mainly in Greek, what is on the ground, the physical evidence, is almost entirely Roman – and in that sense Latin. Even the strange absence of the gymnasium, the paramount cultural and architectural institution of the Greeks, strengthens this hypothesis (a few major cities with gymnasia, such as Laodicea (Syria) and Jerusalem are exceptions).

are still evident. Antioch, Laodicea, Apamea, Beroea (modern Aleppo), Damascus, and Dura-Europos all had standard Greek colonial layouts consisting of a grid of uniform, elongated city blocks created by streets crossing at right angles. One or more of these streets could be wider and more prominent than others, such as the main north-south avenue of Antioch later furnished with a glorious colonnade (although no trace now remains) (Figure 11.1). A loose circuit of walls was draped around the city without conforming to the orthogonal grid but tied to the street pattern by one or more gates. The tenacity of these Greek plans and their contribution to the

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figure 11.2 plate 29a General view of the main colonnaded street, Apamea; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

later development of the cities should not be underestimated. Although in some, like Dura-Europos, the orderly city center, the agora, was taken over by a maze of streets and turned into an “Oriental bazaar” even before the final grid was finished, on the whole the plan provided a firm and rational urban framework upon which future generations of Roman builders could embroider their monumental projects. The Greeks were successful in laying out a firm foundation for urbanism. The most overriding and expressive planning element embroidered upon the physical framework of the Greek city was the colonnaded street. So powerful is the visual effect of these colonnaded streets and columns in serial juxtaposition (as seen today at sites like Apamea and Palmyra, where rows of columns partially restored, visually overlap as they stretch for miles), we forget the overall impact and experience would have been quite different in antiquity when the columns carried roofs and fronted large buildings (Figures 11.2, 11.3 and Plate 29A). As pointed out by W. L. MacDonald, the columns, in ruins now, “appear not as conjunctive parts of a larger concept but as independent entities lined up for their own sake” (MacDonald 1986, 43). Still, the humanmade splendor of colonnades separating the city from the country, and the repetitive impact of

the classical canon they represent in groups or individually, the sophisticated ornamental impact of bases, shafts, and capitals (as the alternating spiral fluting of rows of shafts at Apamea; see Figure 11.3) make the colonnaded street physically and conceptually among the most important and memorable elements of ancient urban design. Although the effects might have been similar, there is a categorical difference between a colonnade that is part of a building’s façade, such as a portico (or arcade) running in front of shops, or the stoas as we see in Hellenistic cities such as Miletus, and a truly independent colonnade that is part of the street structure (see Figure 10.18). There are many examples of the former type, some in Western cities, such as Ostia, dating to the late Republican times, but the true colonnaded street appears to be a product of the early Imperial period in time, and the cities of North Africa, Asia Minor, and the Near East, in place. Scholars generally agree that the earliest colonnaded street known to us was in Antioch, dating to the early decades of the first century ce, undertaken under the emperor Tiberius, although some scholars detect the earlier influence of Herod the Great and his patron Augustus (see Figure 11.1). This was the great avenue, nearly 3 kilometers long between the north and south gates and accentuated by major crossings and public plazas. To a large extent it was the 713

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figure 11.3 Detail of spirally fluted columns on the main street of Apamea; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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The Roman Near East dramatic but restricting geography of Antioch, the prestigious Seleucid capital, that dictated the idea and the creation of this main street between the Orontes riverside and the steeply rising ground of Mount Silpius. Although told half-a-century after the event, historian Josephus’ account exaggeratedly credits the evolution of this thoroughfare from an unassuming unpaved road to a glorious marble street, to Herod, his hero, Augustus’ client king and Agrippa’s follower: (Herod) displayed his generosity to numerous cities outside his realm. . . . And that broad street in Syrian Antioch, once shunned on account of the mud – was it not he who paved its 20 furlongs with polished marble, and as protection from rain, adorned it with a colonnade of equal length? (Jewish War 1.21.11)

Herod’s civic generosity toward Antioch could have included the reshaping and repaving the city’s main street circa 30–20 bce, but perhaps it did not include starting the colonnades. Nonetheless, Herod’s undertaking was clearly politically motivated, described by R. Burns as a “spectacular gesture . . . to ingratiate himself to Augustus by advancing the princep’s interests in establishing Roman authority in the city . . . striving to assert its dominant political role in the Eastern provinces” (Burns 2017, 123). Still, Josephus’ admiration of the marble-paved and colonnaded street in equal measure for its usefulness and beauty, protection from rain and mud (the Vitruvian “commodity and delight”) is noteworthy. By the end of the first century ce, the idea had caught on and became an almost obligatory symbol of civic grandeur and authority in every major, and some not so major, town in the East. Although often built in sections over time, these colonnaded thoroughfares defined the connective structure of a city, and as in Antioch, often reached impressive lengths. In Damascus, the Via Recta (“Straight Street”) was about 1,500 meters; the east-west decumanus maximus of Gadara (Umm-Qais) was nearly the same length; that of Roman Bostra was 860 meters; the north-south cardo of Gerasa was 710 meters, but there were at least two colonnaded cross streets each nearly as long (Figures 11.4 and 11.5); the decumanus of Philadelphia (modern Amman) was about 1,000 meters, equal to the great colonnaded avenue of Palmyra. The longest and the widest colonnaded street in the Near East was at Apamea, a north-south thoroughfare traversing the whole city, almost 2 kilometers in length (see Figure 11.2). The width of colonnaded streets normally varied between 5 and 15 meters, not counting the sidewalks. At Palmyra, the total width of different

segments varied from 26.7 meters to 36 meters (Figures 11.6 and 11.7); in Apamea it was 39 meters (to give a modern comparative example, Park Avenue in New York is 43 m wide and a regular ancient street, as in Pompeii, is about 5 m wide). The prestige conferred upon a city by the aesthetic appearance of its colonnaded streets was well bolstered by the hard economic facts of their realization – a one-kilometer long street had an average of six hundred columns, capitals, and bases – an impressive display of wealth and might that must not have been lost on friend and foe alike. What made colonnaded streets more than “photogenic files of columns” was the great variety achieved in their design, composition and decoration. Often completed in several bent segments, their “joints” were articulated by plazas circular or oval in shape, and these privileged features further accentuated by gates, tetrapylons (four way gate/arch), or tetrakionions (four columns making a unit), as in Gerasa, Palmyra or Ephesus (Figures 11.8, Plate 30A, and 11.9). These way stations acted as focal points or targets for the observer-visitor following the long visual vector of the street. The perceived monotony of the columns themselves was relieved by their structural or decorative variation: some of the columns were plain, others fluted; or, as in Apamea spirally-fluted alternating their twist (see Figure 11.3). The types and colors of stone, marble, and granite shafts changed; sidewalks were often paved in colorful mosaics while the carriageways in large blocks, sometimes laid in diagonal rows. When the street widened out to form a plaza, the cantering, sloping surface (for water drainage) and the changing patterns of the paving – linear, diagonal, herring-bone, curved – created a textured pattern that made the plaza feel, in the evocative imagery of Louis Barragán, the great Mexican architect, like “a façade looking at the sky.” Sometimes certain stretches of the trabeated colonnade were replaced by an arcade (or a gate-arch) denoting a special place, like the connection to a separate avenue or the entrance to a major building. Similarly, a projecting porch or a vestibule could be announced with taller columns announced and accentuated with taller columns (see Figure 11.2). The ends of long colonnaded streets were almost always treated as special termini, such as the Oval Plaza at the south end of Gerasa’s cardo (Figure 11.10 and 11.11); or, the richly ornamented triple gate, or commemorative arch, with distinctive wedge-shaped plan, marking the strong bent across the east end of the main avenue at Palmyra (“Severan Arch/Gate”) (Figures 11.12–11.14; see also Figures 11.4 and 11.6). These privileged moments of urban passage, connection and transfer created a dynamic set of urban experiences whose totality was greater than the sum of its parts. Let us follow W. L. MacDonald’s evocative summation of the experience: 715

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figure 11.4 Plan of Gerasa; rendered by Diane Favro (after Macdonald and Kraeling).

The net result was a cognitive system of largely functional units dividing urban texts into chapters and paragraphs. Each structure was a reliably fixed event in the complex weave of time, place and motion that underlies all urban experience. . . . The effectiveness

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and authority of many structures was enhanced by the cultural and historical meanings associated with their basic forms and sculptural and architectural décor. And though passage architecture was one of moments, pauses, it was also one of structures and monuments in

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figure 11.5 Colonnaded street looking toward North Gate, Gerasa; Photo: Sean Leatherbury/Manar al-Athar.

their own right. . . . It did this by accentuating the presence and individuality of main points by increasing their visual interests while at the same time contributing forcefully both to the city’s physical organization and practical functions. (MacDonald 1987, 108)

GATES AND TRIUMPHAL ARCHES

Often associated with streets, gates and gate-like triumphal, or rather commemorative, arches in Syria and the East fundamentally follow Western models but are embellished with local decorative motifs and ornament, 717

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figure 11.7 Colonnaded street looking east towards the tetrakionion, Palmyra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 11.8 plate 30a Tetrapylon at colonnaded crossroads, Palmyra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

such as the imposing Severan Arch/Gate (now wantonly destroyed but hopefully to be restored and re-re-erected) at the end of the monumental avenue in Palmyra (Figures 11.13 and 11.14; Plate 29B; see also Figure 11.12). A single arched opening between projecting round towers set in thick ashlar city walls, as we see at the North Gate in Caesarea or the identical South Gate in Tiberias, both dating in the late first century bce, are strictly military gates and could have occurred almost anywhere in the Empire. More than a century later, the West Gate at Bostra, the east terminus of the Nabataean town’s decumanus, by contrast, appears to be a monument of its time and place. Set in the thick defense walls that rise like a fortress, the stark basalt mass is only marginally relieved by projecting square piers and pairs of flat pilasters, which squeeze the narrow niches between them; small pediments floating above the niches appear to be classical afterthoughts (not illustrated). The severity of the West Gate was anticipated by the East, or the Nabataean Gate probably dating from the period just before the Roman annexation (Figure 11.15). Wide and clumsy as it may appear, this is a free-standing structure that broadly fits the typology of Western honorific arches. The massive façade looks somewhat awkward in its uncertain

rhythm of niches and loosely placed half columns carrying gutsy, Nabataean-type capitals (Figure 11.16). Nonetheless, the gate projects a remarkable sense of power, and it is, at any rate, no clumsier than, say, the Augustan arch-gate at Aosta (see earlier), where local Gallic traditions battle for the soul of Roman classicism – a battle no different in essence than the one given in distant Arabia. The Trajanic North Gate in Gerasa, with its distinct, trapezoidal plan – a creative response conforming to a bend in the street at this point – is a monument that could fit the run-of-the-mill classicism better than either of the Bostra gates (Figure 11.17, see also Figure 11.4R). The façade is arranged more or less like a triumphal arch with a single, tall archway flanked by a pair of monumental half-columns on pedestals, carrying normal Corinthian capitals and pediments. The spaces between the engaged columns are articulated by two tiers of arched niches. The South Gate in the same city, on the other hand, with its handsome triple arches, tall half-columns each ornamented with “acanthus drums” (a Syrian decorative favorite motif placed between bases and column shafts), is a city gate in name only. It is almost an exact copy in plan, elevation and decoration of the so-called triumphal 719

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figure 11.9 Reconstruction of the tetrakionion and the circular plaza, Gerasa; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Merrill).

arch in the same city, a monument dedicated to Hadrian some 450 meters to the south (see Figure 11.63; Figure 11.4 C, A). The handsome pediment crowning the central arch, and the double attics separated by projecting cornices, the familiar overall proportions, produce a monument of good classical pedigree which renders the comparison to another provincial arch, such as the one at Orange in Provence, not only possible, but useful (see Figures 7.41 and 7.42). Both are monuments at the edges of the Empire where the elements and tenets of classicism were creatively tinkered with but not fully transformed. As some of the examples discussed earlier demonstrate, freestanding gates in the East and Asia Minor, such as Hadrian’s Arch in Athens or the arch-gates in Patara or Ariassos in southern Asia Minor, followed generally the design typology recognized as triumphal arches in the West, or they conflated and confused the 720

formal and iconographical boundaries between a gate proper and a triumphal arch; unlike the Western custom, they did not celebrate a particular military victory or the official awarding of a triumph (see above). Dedicated to an emperor or governor, many were urban elements accentuating significant moments in transfer and connection in the network of streets. Those serving as city gates were also cogent reminders of the theme of triumph and Imperial visits associated with the entrance to a city. T HE AT ER S , A M P H IT HE AT ER S , A N D H I P P OD R OM E S

Although the underlying pattern of streets and armature of a city might owe much to the original Greek planners, the later projects embroidered upon this armature and the manner of execution were distinctly

The Roman Near East

figure 11.10 General view of the Oval Plaza looking north (Temple of Zeus in foreground) Gerasa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Roman. Almost all cities of the Near East, even relatively small ones, have one, sometimes two, theaters of Roman vintage. Some of these, such as the theaters in Philadelphia, Apamea, and Gerasa are huge by any standards (capacity six to nine thousand) and almost all follow the Western-Roman plan type with their half-circle cavea structurally connected to the stage building, as clearly exemplified at Bostra (Figure 11.18). A few, such as the Herodian theaters in Caesarea Maritima, or Jerusalem, date to the Julio-Claudian period, but most, as in Bostra, belong to the mature years of the Empire and display a well-developed, twoor three-story columnar scaenae frons. One would have liked to know the kind of plays and performances put on stage in these theaters, especially in distant inland locations. There might have been a token of dramatic classical plays followed by comedy, mime, and pantomime popular with Roman audiences anywhere. Given the degree to which the Jews of Judea were willing to accept theatrical entertainment, and even gladiatorial combat, against clear religious discouragement, it is likely that native populations of even distant cities, such as Petra and Palmyra, learned to enjoy the popular forms of Roman performances. Compared to theaters, of which over thirty are known, circuses and amphitheaters were less common

in the Near East. Still, some six or eight of each, including those attested only in literature, are known. Chariot races and athletic contests became increasingly popular under Roman rule. Bloodier sports, gladiatorial combat and wild animal fights were typically of Western origin and took some time to gain popularity in the Near East. And even then, the Western type of artificially built up, and no doubt, expensive amphitheaters were rare. The few examples include those at Caesarea, Bostra, and Eleutheropolis in southern Palestine. They are all modest, structurally simple, elliptical enclosures, with nothing that approaches the tall, interconnected vaults that characterize the structure of Western examples. The rarity of the amphitheater as an architectural form, however, is misleading. The taste for combat sports was established over time, and as in Asia Minor, these events migrated to circuses, stadiums, and even ordinary theaters; temporary structures for regional fairs and festivals may also have been built. Typically, one of the semicircular ends of a hippodrome was built up into an oval arena as we see in Neopolis, Scythopolis, and Gerasa. Even the Jews of Palestine, despite strong Talmudic injunctions against attending such performances, found these patently Roman forms of entertainment irresistible not only as passive spectators, but even as participant actors, athletes, and combatants! 721

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figure 11.11 Detail of columns on east side of Oval Plaza, Gerasa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 11.12 Colonnaded street looking east towards the Severan Arch, Palmyra; view (top); Photo by Fikret Yegül. and reconstruction (bottom) by Iain Browning.

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figure 11.13 plate 29b General view of the west façade of the Severan Arch, Palmyra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 11.14 Plan and detail view of the “bend” and soffit decoration of the Severan Arch, Palmyra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 11.15 East (or Nabataean) Gate looking west, Bostra; Photo by Diane Favro.

PUBLIC BATHS

Another form of patently Roman entertainment, which held the Eastern populations in thrall nearly as much as Western ones, was the institution of bathing. A deeply rooted social custom, for an average Roman, whether an ex-soldier from Italy or a Greek from Alexandria, whether at a military garrison along the Rhine, or the Euphrates, a visit to the public baths in the afternoon was a necessary and pleasurable part of the day’s routine. As an importation from the West, baths were more common in areas where Rome’s presence was strong. According to Polybius (a second-century bce Greek writer), the Seleucid king Antiochos Epiphanes was known for his habit of frequenting the public baths in Antioch, a major center of Greek culture. Once, he had a large jar of perfume poured over the head of a man who had expressed his happiness for the privilege of bathing with the king (Polybius, Histories 26.1.12f.). This story, told in more than one form, may illustrate the popularity of bathing among the Greeks, but Antiochos had lived in Rome for a long time and had grown fond of Roman customs. Therefore, it can also

indicate the Hellenistic king’s efforts to introduce and popularize the Western bathing habits among his culturally mixed subjects. If so, his efforts were well rewarded. According to the historian Malalas, writing in the mid-sixth century ce, there were a dozen or so major baths in Antioch. But Malalas left out dozens of small or medium-sized neighborhood establishments – such as the eighteen baths that belonged to the eighteen tribes of the city “each tribe trying to make its baths finest” (Libanius, Or. 11.245). The Antioch archaeological expedition of the 1930s produced no less than six baths. One of them, Bath C (datable to early or mid-third century ce), included a wide colonnaded vestibule opening into a major thoroughfare, two large octagonal halls covered by domes, and some twenty vertically aligned rooms grouped symmetrically about a major north-south axis (Figure 11.19; see also Figure 11.1). One of the octagons, the frigidarium, had a large octagonal pool in the center. Decorated in marble walls and mosaic floors, Bath C projects a sense of civic grandeur befitting a metropolis poised between Asia Minor and Syria. The octagon is a distinctive architectural element 725

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 11.16 Detail of the Nabataean capital from East Gate, Bostra; Photo by Diane Favro.

developed essentially in the West (think of the Octagon of Nero’s Golden House), but the peculiar way it has been isolated, externalized, and monumentalized in Antioch appears more characteristic of Eastern usage, and with its central pool under the dome, foreshadows the typical domed pavilions of Ottoman architecture. The plan and the spatial sequencing of Bath C of Antioch bears comparison to the South Baths at Bostra (Figure 11.20) both displaying clear and orderly juxtaposition of simple, geometric shapes arranged about a strong axis. Comprised of surprisingly few but monumental spaces (with spans of 10–14 m) this is a bath also with strong urban presence. A large, octagonal reception hall is accessed directly from the decumanus by way of a wide, octastyle porch. The octagon establishes the main north-south axis of the building and composes the projecting arm of the T-shaped plan. A modest frigidarium leads to the three halls of the heated zone, a pair of caldaria connected by a spacious tepidarium. All spaces are covered by shallow domical vaults constructed in a local version of opus caementicium using an aggregate of scoria (lightweight basaltic lava) abundantly available in the region (for a comparable major bath with strong urban presence, see later in this chapter for the West Baths, Gerasa). 726

Many of the smaller baths uncovered at Antioch, such as Bath E (c. 300–350 ce), display groups of tightly packed rooms with small pools and small, apsidal units in their heated zones joined to larger, more uniformly composed rectangular halls. They can be compared to small baths of the late Roman period in Greece and Asia Minor, as well as others in Syria. Characterized by rectangular, annexed spaces that appear to have functioned as multipurpose halls for reception, entertainment, even lodging, the comparison is useful and important. These distinctive, tall, boxy, basilical halls built in pure cut stone form the core of a social complex and are especially typical of late Roman and Byzantine baths of northern Syria, such as the complexes at Serdjilla Babiska (Figures 11.21 and 11.22). The development of the so-called social hall in bath architecture seems to go hand-in-hand with the disappearance of the Western type of frigidarium as a major cold-water bathing hall. The Eastern frigidarium was transformed into a spacious lounge for resting, social gathering, and entertainment. One last observation about Eastern and Syrian baths is the increasingly infrequent use of the openair palaestra, a common element of Western and Anatolian baths, intended mainly for games and

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figure 11.17 Reconstruction and plan of the North Gate, south elevation, Gerasa; by H. Detweiler (1938);

exercise preceding hot bathing. In the West many bathing complexes also contained libraries, lecture halls, and semiopen promenades architecturally linked to the colonnaded palaestra. Asia Minor, with its native Greek population, famously developed a special combination of the Roman thermae with the Greek gymnasium commonly referred to as bath-gymnasium (see earlier). The disappearance of the palaestra in the Eastern provinces, even before the well-known Christian opposition to exercise and nudity, may have resulted from the precarious and superficial position occupied by the Greek gymnasium in the East, as previously noted. It may also be that open courtyards and physical exercise were considered unsuitable in a very hot climate. In sum, public baths and

bathing, as patently Western forms, were accepted and popularized in the East but also were transformed and translated to fit local conditions and tastes.

JUDEA AND HEROD THE GREAT Following Pompey’s advances in Syria in 64 bce, Rome’s involvement in the affairs of the Near East took an active turn. The most visible demonstration of this policy was Rome’s support of Herod (“the Great”) as the King of Judea (ruled 37–34 bce) as a friend and ally. A scion of the priestly Hasmonean dynasty of Jerusalem, Herod had already received 727

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 11.18 Large theater looking towards stage, Bostra; Photo by Diane Favro.

support from Mark Anthony during his short visit to Rome in 40 bce; his position as king was confirmed and strengthened by Augustus after his Actium victory in 31 bce. The policy of the early Empire of ruling much of the East through client kingdoms may partly explain Herod’s long-lasting success through difficult years, but in the end it was mainly due to his political acumen and his remarkable ability to turn close relationships with the leaders of the Republic and the Principate to his advantage. A Hellenized half-Jew (his mother was a Nabataean Arab), Herod was a great admirer of Roman power and culture. His interest in the rising empire in the West was confirmed by the decision to send his sons to Rome for education and by many trips to the capital. He was a genuine innovator who exploited his knowledge of Roman culture, art, and architecture to levels even beyond what was possible in the West during his lifetime. Upon his death in 4 bce, the Kingdom of Judea was dissolved and its territory turned into the Roman province of Judea governed by a procurator. This pro-Western, cultured, mix-race ruler is only a part of the story; his ability to bring stability and reasonable wealth to his people and his civic and architectural benefactions is one aspect of his autocratic leadership; his ruthless and tyrannical rule, cruelty to his real or imagined 728

adversaries, often overlooked by his reviewers, is another. The moral dimensions of the question that “scholarship (tends to) highlight the celebrity (and glamor) and obscures the tyrant” has been posed though to no great enlightenment (Berlin 2015, 895). Herod is known to be a prodigious builder within his kingdom and outside, giving buildings as gifts to cities such as Athens, Rhodes, Pergamon, and perhaps as far away as Armenia. His possible paving of the main avenue at Antioch (later colonnaded under Tiberius) has been mentioned. In Damascus, he is reported to have built a gymnasium and a theater, although neither has been found. Indeed, with the exception of large projects in Judea much of Herod’s widely flung building activity is known only through the literary testimony of Josephus. In Sebaste (ancient Samaria renamed to honor Augustus), he rebuilt the Hellenistic city walls with massive ashlar blocks and round towers, characteristic of the Herodian defense work seen also in Caesarea. His major project in the same city, the Temple of Roma and Augustus, was a scenographic tour de force. Elevated high on an artificially terraced hill, the temple was a Corinthian peripteros on three sides with a plain back; possibly elevated on a podium, it projected into a large, porticoed enclosure. Reminiscent of the arrangement at Ba’albek, the design

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figure 11.19 Plan Bath C, Antioch-on-the-Orontes; rendered by Fikret Yegül (after Levi).

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 11.20 South Baths, plan and section, Bostra; H. C. Butler (1919).

appears to be a product of Roman preferences imposed upon a diffused and generalized Hellenistic tradition. In Jerusalem, the rebuilding of the second Jewish Temple under Herod began around 22–20 bce. The structure can be imagined to have been a similar 730

porticoed enclosure with wide stoas and basilical halls and a marble-paved plaza surrounding the temple proper; little of this is visible except for the massive platform and the raised temenos wall. Of the royal palace and its famous towers nothing remains beyond

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figure 11.21 Plan and axonometric reconstruction of the Roman baths and inn, Serdjilla; rendered by Fikret Yegül (after Tchalenko).

figure 11.22 General view of the Roman bath complex and with inn looking northwest, Serdjilla; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

the interesting information that two of its halls were named after Augustus and Agrippa – Kaisareion and Aggrippaion. The overt pro-Roman sentiment that characterizes Herod’s political and artistic programs elucidates his

equally overt preferences for Roman building types and technologies in a land that had little left in the way of a distinctly and solidly established Greek or native architectural tradition to challenge Western input. Herod’s theater in Caesarea, although much of 731

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity what exists now is Flavian, is the first to introduce the Western theater type in Judea, and was followed by scores more. The extensive harbor of the same city with its multiple basins, breakwaters, warehouses, and lighthouse was a masterpiece of planning and technology which had no equals at that time even in Italy. The underwater construction of the harbor, although outlined in its principles and methods by Vitruvius (De Arch. 5.12.13–14), required a mastery of innovative techniques, such as the operation of heavy cranes in water, special boats and floating platforms, the construction of extensive wooden frameworks for pouring concrete into double-walled caissons, and a central command structure to communicate and coordinate these complex activities (see earlier, Figure 3.60). Herod might have imported Italian engineers to supervise the project, but more dramatically he imported pozzolona from Puteoli – tons of it, some 2,500 kilometers across the sea because this material is the critical component of Roman opus caementicium that sets under water. His close friendship to Agrippa must have helped. We know that Herod widely used Roman concrete technology in the simpler constructions he undertook – waterworks, substructures, bridges, and baths – one mega project such as the Caesarea harbor would have assured the acceptance and the success of all others. Yet, it would be a mistake to view Herod’s building program as a wholesale exportation and flowering of Roman architecture in the East. He was a bold planner and imaginative thinker whose buildings were not mere followers of the West but displayed creativity and mastery of architecture in their own right. HE RO D ’S P A L AC ES: T HE WI NT ER P ALA CE A N D T H E P R O M O N T OR Y P A L A C E

The privileged Hasmonean family that Herod was born into had over generations created an extensive winter palace complex near Jericho. Different parts of this collection of palaces were composed of several connected peristyle courtyards, tricliniums, gardens, swimming pools, and pool pavilions arranged on terraces. Intelligent use of water as a critical resource in this hot and dry climate bespeaks of an advanced hydraulics technology in the service of a highly Hellenized, luxurious lifestyle. The overall architecture was sophisticated, but unremarkable, except for Herod’s addition to this existing complex: his own Winter Palace, some 150–200 meters to the south straddling a valley (Figures 11.23 and 11.24). On the north side is the residential wing with baths connected to the southern wing by a bridge. The north wing is composed of a basilical reception hall, an open, axially disposed apsidal court and, on the east, a private bath complex 732

of the most up-to-date Campanian style with a domed frigidarium, vaulted heated halls, and a colonnaded peristyle-palaestra centered on a T-shaped triclinium – dining was never an inappropriate activity in the context of bathing. The construction is partly in concrete (the bath) and partly in mud-brick. Long exterior colonnades and walkways must have offered great views to strollers among well-irrigated gardens supplied by water from a huge reservoir, perhaps also used as a swimming pool. The southern wing is a large, rectangular sunken garden (90  42 m) with a pair of large exedras and a long back wall of rectangular and semicircular niches detailed in opus reticulatum, a patently Italian construction method. Last to be added was a tall, square structure surmounted by a domed pavilion on an artificial mound. Built of ashlar and concrete and connected to the southern wing by a ramp raised on arches, this was perhaps a fantasy “tower” or belvedere – an eminence among the distant, dry hills echoing the local belief in sacred high places. Whether we trace in this picturesque palace the long, maritime porticus villa traditions of the Gulf of Naples, or more imposing garden-villas of the late Republic in and around Rome – such as the great axial, exedral layouts of the so-called Villa Farnesina on the Tiber, or the gardens of Lucullus on the Pincian Hill – Herod’s Winter Palace demonstrates that he had fully absorbed the Italian manner with skill and sophistication. By the middle of his long reign Herod had mastered the maritime-villa idiom in his Promontory Palace in Caesarea, south of the great harbor. This was a rectangular peristyle enclosure built on a rocky projection into the sea (Figure 11.25). Exploiting its dramatic location, the center of the peristyle was developed as a large pool, perhaps for swimming or cultivating fish, or both; a large triclinium opening toward the pool was featured at the end of the main axis; a semicircular balcony projected over the waves crashing on the rocks. A decade later, a larger, more conventionally designed upper level wing was added on the land side creating an integrated royal complex, sea and land palaces connected to the hippodrome and the theater, both Herodian projects. T HE N O R T H P A L AC E A T MA S AD A

Herod’s taste for the dramatic and his ability to coerce land to his architectural vision (or to find land to enhance this vision) found its climax at the North Palace situated on the northern tip of the Masada massif (Figure 11.26 and 11.27). Rising some 400 meters above the eastern edge of the Judaean Desert, his belvedere complex is arranged on several levels, each hanging at the sharp edge of the cliff: the lower one is a

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figure 11.23 Plan, Herod’s Winter Palace (“Third Palace”), Jericho; rendered by Diane Favro (after Netzer).

figure 11.24 Axonometric reconstruction of the North (private) wing of Herod’s Palace, Jericho; rendered by Rui Xiong (after Netzer).

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figure 11.25 Plan, Herod’s “Promontory Palace,” Caesarea; rendered by Diane Favro (after Gleason).

rectangular, colonnaded pavilion with semiopen core; the middle a circular belvedere, a tholos with 360degree views; and the upper an open, semicircular colonnade pushing out over the great drop – each level separated from the other by a height of circa 12–18 meters, fortified by ashlar terrace walls, and connected to each other by steep, narrow stairways. Above, on the plateau, the southern extension of these hanging pavilions is more conservative, composed of groups of rooms, magazines, courtyards, and a Romanstyle bath, all decorated in fine mosaics and stucco ornament following a late Hellenistic artistic repertory. 734

The Masada North Palace is difficult to classify: it is an architectural and structural masterpiece pushing the limits of the dramatic and fearful aspects of humans’ relationship with nature – the product of a passion like extreme skiing down sheer Alpine slopes. The north tip of the Masada is the kind of place the possessor of an adventurous eye might have spotted and mused about how grand it would be to build a pleasure pavilion hanging on these rocks – but, believed it could never be done. The palace might remind us of Tiberius’ Villa Jovis on the rocky eastern summit of Capri and its daring construction and plunging views, except

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figure 11.26 Plan of Herod’s North Palace, Masada; rendered by Diane Favro (after Netzer).

Herod created his fantasy some half-century earlier (see Figure 5.43). T HE H E R O DI AN , A F O R T I F I E D P AL A C E A ND TO M B

Less bold in execution but equally imaginative in design is the Herodian, a fortified palace, which later became his tomb (although there is some controversy whether he was actually buried there). It is located south of Jerusalem where an artificial terrace was raised on a hill scooped out by a multi-level circular structure of massive ashlar construction. The circle is about 49–50 meters in diameter with four circular projecting towers, or belvederes, on the cardinal points. Arranged as an independent retreat, the eastern tower is much larger than the rest (Figures 11.28 and 11.29). Circumscribed by annular corridors at each level, the basic

plan of the circle is formal and symmetrical. The eastern half is taken up by a rectangular peristyle; the western is a residential wing with a symmetrically disposed central hall, triclinium, and a small bath complete with a tiny domed sweating chamber. Below the mound was a group of peristyle palaces with a long stadium-garden, tricliniums, more baths, and a huge natatio featuring an island-tholos in the center. With its exacting geometry and juxtaposed primary shapes, the basic composition of the Herodian enthralls the most jaded followers of the metrological delights of Roman design. Its comparison to Augustus’ Mausoleum (they are almost contemporary), Hadrian’s Pantheon, and his Island Villa in Tivoli, is logical and, perhaps, inevitable (Figure 11.30). There is, indeed, something in Herod’s tight geometries foreshadowing Hadrianic creations. One imagines he would have been delighted to have the great architect-emperor show him 735

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figure 11.27 Reconstruction perspective of Herod’s North Palace, Masada; rendered by Marie Saldana and Diane Favro (after Netzer and model).

his beloved Tivoli villa as the two men compared notes (and this time no rumors on false beheadings due to architectural jealousies). As to Hadrian, whether he actually saw the Herodian when he came to Judea 150 years later to pacify Herod’s rebellious descendants is hard to say; but he probably did. Herod’s architecture (especially his numerous palaces) is characterized by a controlled sense of bravura, a desire for exploiting dramatic natural settings, and a taste for integrating landscape and building so fully that they could hardly be separated. There is little question that Herod’s cultural and architectural background was anchored in the best Hellenistic traditions of planning, leavened by what he saw and learned about contemporary practices in Italy. But his vision far surpassed that background and placed him squarely on the creative trajectory of future developments in Roman architecture. It is ironic that Augustus’ favorite king client was shaping an architectonic vision in his distant land far 736

more progressively than what the Princeps had allowed himself to do in his capital – but, that, too, is to be expected.

SANCTUARY OF JUPITER HELIOPOLITANUS AT BA’ALBEK One of the most impressive and long-term Roman building projects in the Near East, and the largest, is the Sanctuary dedicated to Jupiter-Ba’al and Bacchus in Ba’albek/Heliopolis. The site is located on a fertile plain between Lebanon and the anti-Lebanon mountains and deeply rooted in the cultural world of ancient Phoenicia; it is about 50–60 kilometers equidistant from Damascus and the coast with its historic harbor cities, Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre. But that Phoenician world was all in the distant past when the Roman colony of Julia Augusta Felix Heliopolitana was

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figure 11.28 General plan of the Herodian Palace, south of Jerusalem; rendered by Diane Favro.

founded in 16 bce. Work soon began on the sanctuary by early first century ce. Indicated by a Neronian inscription on one of its columns, the main temple seems to have been finished by 60–70 ce, but the temple courtyard, and the smaller Temple of Bacchus in its adjoining temenos to the south, are mid-secondcentury constructions, while the hexagonal forecourt and its massive propylon belong to the first half of the third century, finished by Caracalla (Figures 11.31–11.33). From the earliest days the site was sacred to the Semitic storm god Ba’al, whom the Greek settlers of the Seleucid period identified as Helios (the Sun, hence Heliopolis, the City of Sun), and the goddess

Atargatis, recycled as Venus-Aphrodite. Occupying an area of circa 60,000 square meters (c. 200  300 m) and raised on a very high terrace, the complex is impressive not only because it is big (after all, there are a number of Greek and Roman temples and temple enclosures bigger than Ba’albek), but it is solidly constructed in megalithic limestone blocks, majestic in composition and magnificently ornate in decoration. The Roman decision to undertake such a massive sanctuary on a site where some of the most venerable native deities of the land were worshipped is both an indication of the depth of local feeling for native religions and the Roman respect of this tradition – 737

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 11.29 Perspective, cutaway view looking south, Herodian fortified palace, south of Jerusalem; rendered by Alex Maymind.

or, shrewdness in investing political capital through cultural assimilation. The temenos of the Temple of Jupiter-Ba’al was raised over an ancient tell (hill) and the main courtyard built up on a massive platform some 7.5 meters above the ground. The entrance is from the east by a monumental, 42-meter-wide flight of stairs leading up to a propylon with twelve grey granite columns carrying a Syrian pediment (wide pediment broken by an arch, an Eastern favorite; see Figure 11.33). The propylon portico is flanked by a pair of towers, also a façade-gate motif common in the Eastern provinces. Comparisons could be made with the façade of the Temple of Ba’alshamin at Si and the propylon of the Temple of Jupiter at Damascus. This impressive entranceway leads to a hexagonal forecourt open to the sky; the wide central span of the middle colonnade and the propylon portico establish a strong axiality to the whole complex. Located directly on this axis, in front of the main temple, are two tower-altars. The larger rising 17 meters above the courtyard, has a flat, terraced roof reached by an intricately designed and ornamental staircase; this tower was probably conceived as a sacred “high place” for the ritual requirements of the ancient local cult. The altars partially 738

obstruct the view to the temple even though it is raised on a five-meter podium approached by frontal steps (the total height of the temple stylobate above the natural ground in front of the propylon is 13.5 m). The temple follows in its general lines Western prototypes, with a Corinthian pseudodipteros (88  48 m) 10  19 columns, a wide central intercolumnation and a deep, Roman-style porch (there are no columns inside the pronaos). The columns are in pink Aswan granite shafts and composed of three segments. Reaching a height of 19.9 meteres, they are among the tallest columns of the classical world (Figure 11.34, Plate 30B). The apex of the pediment was nearly 38 meters above the court floor. The interior seems to follow the requirements of the cult with a cella unencumbered by columns, giving full view of the adyton, a throne-like cult chamber or baldachin for the image approached by a cascade of steps. Because the cella was almost entirely destroyed, it is impossible to know the details of the plan, but it may have been very close to the cella of the better-preserved Temple of Bacchus next door. Six columns of the great temple have been reerected. They carry an entablature that is nearly four-

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figure 11.30 Comparative plans of the Herodian (left), and Hadrian’s Island Villa at Tivoli (right); rendered by Diane Favro.

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figure 11.31 Plan (partially restored), Sanctuary of Jupiter/Ba’al Heliopolitanus, Ba’albek; rendered by Diane Favro (after Wiegand 1898).

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figure 11.32 Reconstruction perspective, Sanctuary of Jupiter (with Temple of Venus, lower left), Ba’albek; Wiegand (1921).

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figure 11.33 Reconstructed propylon, Sanctuary of Jupiter, Ba’albek; Wiegand (1921).

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figure 11.34 plate 30b View of the south colonnade, Temple of Jupiter/Ba’al, Ba’albek; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

meters high composed of the usual three-fasciae architrave, a frieze decorated by vertical consoles, with alternating bull and lion protomes, and a cornice with dentils, modillions, and massive lion-head spouts centered on column axes (Figure 11.35). Although the bull and lion motif is an iconographic detail showing Persian and Mesopotamian influences, it is specific to this temple since the lion and bull are attributes of Ba’al and Atargatis. The main courtyard in front of the temple (97  86 m) is defined on three sides by

Corinthian colonnades in front of a series of rectangular and semicircular exedrae (Figures 11.36 and 11.37; see also Figures 11.31 and 11.32). The interior walls of the exedrae are articulated with rich, rectangular and apsidal niches and aediculae in two stories. Flanked by small columns (2.40 m high: all size is relative in this giant building!) and crowned by pediments or ornate arches framing the fluted shells of semidomes, the aediculae and niches that articulate the back walls are masked by the frontal, inantis columns of the exedrae. The repetitious use of 741

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 11.35 Detail of the columns and entablature, Temple of Jupiter/Ba’al, Ba’albek; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

exedrae on interior and exterior walls provides a sense of continuity and rhythm among elements of varying size. The overall style of ornament of the temple and its enclosure also follows Western models. The Corinthian capitals of the temple find their counterparts in the near contemporary capitals of the Temple of Mars Ultor of the Forum of Augustus in Rome, whereas the meander pattern of the cornice corona at Ba’albek, although a common enough Hellenistic motif, had already been used to frame the niches inside the exterior porticos of Augustus’ forum in Rome. Throughout, the aesthetics of stone is effectively exploited. The soft, ochre local limestone, which is used uniformly in structure and ornament alike, creates a powerful and seamless sense of unified surface and color that would be hard to achieve in ornament of applied marble veneer. What further separates this great Eastern sanctuary from its putative models in Rome and Italy is the apparent delight in profuse, even excess ornament, that leaves little breathing space for appreciating areas of plain surface. The Temple of Bacchus, which occupies its own temenos south of the Temple of Jupiter-Ba’al, is a very 742

large temple in its own right (66  35 m, columns 17.65 m high), laid out as a Corinthian peripteros of 8  15, raised on a five-meter-high podium and approached by frontal steps (Figures 11.38 and 11.39; see also Figures 11.31 and 11.32). In design and style of ornament it follows its larger neighbor, but it is far better preserved; its spacious, boxy cella (its width equal to its height) and imposing 13.5-meter-high door, are almost intact. The cella walls are articulated by a strongly projecting gigantic order of half-columns with fluted shafts carrying Corinthian capitals and an undulating entablature (Figure 11.40). Deeply set between the columns are two tiers of niches, crowned by pediments above and arches below. Flanked between these deeply sculptured walls, the visitor must have been propelled toward the rich, theatrical composition climaxing the west-end adyton, this brought to life in the superb, latenineteenth-century reconstruction by Theodore Wiegand (Figure 11.41). Rising above the monumental stairs across the entire width of the cella, the central bay between the returns of gigantic columns, housed an individual pavilion composed of four columns supporting an ornate arched-pediment with projecting, broken

The Roman Near East

figure 11.36 Precinct colonnade, south side, partial view, Sanctuary of Jupiter/Ba’al, Ba’albek; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

ends – a house within a house enveloping the cult image. The overall effect, probably dimly but dramatically lit, enhanced by polychrome and gilded statues, must have been overpowering and mysterious, very different from the astute classicism Western temple interiors, or other comparably illusionistic interiors such as the audience hall (Aula Regia) of the Flavian Palace in Rome; or the cella of the so-called Temple of Diana in Nîmes; or the double vaulted cellas of the Temple of Venus and Roma, rebuilt by Maxentius in Rome. The Sanctuary of Jupiter, in all stages of its construction, was a monument designed to impress by its size, scope, and ornateness. One wonders why the builders included three mega-blocks (called the trilithion, or the “three blocks”) in building the enclosure wall each circa 20  4  3.75 meters (another in the nearby quarry is even larger weighing approximately 2,000 tons) except for ostentatious display? A sheer love of exuberance may also have motivated the treatment of ornament that, although generally following Western prototypes in typology, was so lavishly applied that the stone “groaned beneath the weight of its own luxuriance,” as observed by the nineteenth-century French Orientalist A. de Lamartine. Such love may be the

product of a long-standing regional tradition in building in very large stones. Lost among the high coastal hills of Lebanon, and hardly known or visited, but almost as impressive, is the second century ce Sanctuary of Ba’al/Jupiter at Hösn Suleiman (the ancient Baetocece); here stands a small podium temple with half-round engaged columns within an enclosure of all-stone megalithic construction, with single blocks in the wall measuring over 10 meters long and 3 meters high.

T E MP L E O F V EN U S AT B A’ A L B E K

Toward the southeast of the two temples at Ba’albek, stands the Temple of Venus whose diminutive size and unique design – in contrast to the massive conventionality of the two larger temples – have won universal admiration among architects and architectural historians (Figure 11.42; see also Figure 11.32). The well-preserved temple has a nearly round cella facing northwest raised on a podium with frontal steps. The prostyle porch with four columns, Corinthian capitals and a very wide spacing in the middle, carries a broken pediment joined 743

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 11.37 Precinct colonnade, detail of exedra, south side, Temple of Jupiter/Ba’al, Ba’albek; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

by a segmental arch – a variation of the Syrian pediment (the arch does not share a continuous molding with the pediment entablature). Four freestanding columns with pentagonal bases and capitals stand on 744

the scalloped, concave backside of the podium and support a concave entablature mirroring the scallops of the podium. Small semicircular niches are carved in the curved exterior wall between the peripheral

The Roman Near East

figure 11.38 General view of the back (west) side of the Temple of Bacchus, Ba’albek; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

columns. The circular wall of the all-stone interior, only 8 meters in diameter, is articulated by two tiers of colonnaded aediculae, the upper level crowned by triangular and segmental pediments alternating with short entablatures over single columns. The broken corners of the pediments enhance the sense of visual enrichment composed of recreated, richly layered elements of classical architecture, often described as “baroque” (a term borrowed from the dynamic architecture of seventeenth-century Italy). Above, a plain, circular entablature unifies the interior space under the stone dome. This temple has been judged, mainly on stylistic grounds, to date to the beginning of the third century ce. Its ornament, although it includes certain local stylistic idiosyncrasies, such as the rather flat and linear palmette row of the sima, may well follow the practices of late-second-century workshops. The Temple of Venus can be compared to Hadrian’s Pantheon, although it is small enough to be suspended down the oculus of its great dome in Rome. The comparison is cogent in the general typological sense because both are, regardless of size, round, domed temples to which a pedimented porch has been grafted. Yet, it is more important to note the creative

variety achieved between these two specimens of a type; or rather, to admire the individuality of the Temple of Venus, which was able to step outside this type. Skillfully and playfully contrasting the concavities and convexities, curves and counter-curves of the design, and constantly engaging our sense of visuality and surprising it with the unexpected, Venus’ home is an elegant gem; the dancing columns stand in cheerful contrast to the stolid phalanxes of its solemn neighbors – and appear more human. In our quest to identify the sources and origins of architectural design and ornament, and to assign Eastern, Western, or native roots to modes and motifs of architecture, the Temple of Venus at Ba’albek shows how meaningless such classifications and taxonomies could be in the face of true individual creativity.

PETRA AND THE NABATAEAN ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUTHERN SYRIA Located halfway between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba (ancient Aela), among the rose-colored 745

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figure 11.39 View of the interior through the main door, Temple of Baachus, Ba’albek; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

sandstone mountains of south Jordan, Petra was the capital of the Nabataean Kingdom. Remote, inaccessible and almost unknown until the beginning of the nineteenth century, the site was the ancestral home of 746

the Nabataean Arabs, formerly nomadic and seminomadic people, who had established their rule in the area by the early third-century bce and achieved considerable wealth from agriculture and overland trade

The Roman Near East

figure 11.40 Detail of the interior order, the entablature, Temple of Bacchus, Ba’albek; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

between Arabia and the southern ports of the Mediterranean. Under a series of capable kings, such as Obadas II, Aretas IV (contemporary of Herod and Augustus), and Rabbel II, they expanded their territory north into Syria up to Damascus, and by the early first century ce, established Bostra in the Hauran as their new center for administration and trade. The archives of Babatha (see earlier) provide eloquent testimony to the lawful, orderly, and prosperous life during the last decades of the kingdom and its smooth transition into the Roman province of Arabia under Trajan. In the first century ce, Strabo described Petra as a well governed city with extensive stone houses commanding a country that is “fruitful and . . . produces gold, silver and spices. Many Romans live here and the Nabataeans are extremely acquisitive” (Histories, 14.4.21–22). Under Roman rule Arabia, as well as the cities of southern Syria and Decapolis that had folded into the new Roman province, continued to prosper and enjoy the advantages of the ubiquitous urban development of the second and third centuries, adopting epithets such as Nea Traiana Bostra and Nea Hadriana Petra. They might even have assumed a semblance of

Greco-Roman civic institutions, at least judged by existing official epigraphy in Greek. Under the thirdcentury emperors of Arab origin, including Elagabalus, Severus Alexander and Philip “the Arab,” Arabia in general, and its leading cities, such as Petra, Bostra, and Shahba in particular, enjoyed favor and distinction. Petra is best known for its picturesque array of rock-cut tombs with remarkable façades whose sophistication of design and inventiveness defy attempts of dating in the absence of hard archaeological evidence (Figure 11.43, and also see later in this chapter). The city developed at a well-protected site at the western end of Wadi Musa (with the dramatic, narrow gorge at its east end called the Siq) through which water reached the site. The settlement is mainly arranged along a major east-west colonnaded avenue that probably originated as the Sacred Road leading to the temenos of the main temple Qasr al-Bint (where Zeus Hysistos or the native god Dushara was worshipped; see later). The paved street must have received its sidewalks and colonnades in the course of the second century ce when the gate to the temenos, a triple-arch, was built combining Eastern and Western forms and 747

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 11.41 Reconstruction of the west end adyton, interior of Temple of Ba’achus, Ba’albek; Wiegand (1921).

decorations (Figures 11.44 and 11.45). On both sides of the 300-meter stretch of the colonnades, which constituted the heart of the Roman city, were temples, propylons, markets, shops, baths and at the east end, a nymphaeum with a large, decorated apse behind a basin. Some 300 meters east of the nymphaeum, at the west end of the Siq, is the extra-urban Large Theater whose cavea was cut into sheer rock cliffs. Dating from the early first century ce, the theater follows Western typology, its stage articulated by a large central apse and decorated with a multitiered columnar scaenae frons in the course of the next century. The temenos of the Qasr al-Bint is a narrow, paved court of about 200  50 meters (the north boundary wall is largely eroded). At its far west end and looking northeast, is the great square mass of the temple itself facing the plaza and a large, tall altar (Figures 11.46 and 11.47). The building is almost a cube (33  32 m in plan) with a height of 24 meters from the cella floor to the top of the attic and rising on a podium for an additional 5 meters (Figure 11.48 and 11.49). It is 748

believed that a colonnade reaching only one-third of its height surrounded the cella on the back and the sides. In a classical sense, the façade appears familiar enough: four Corinthian columns on low pedestals between the projecting anta walls of a deep pronaos carrying a pediment with a Doric frieze; broad frontal steps rising up the porch from the temenos floor. The construction is in soft local sandstone but covered entirely in stucco decorated partly in ornamental panels (see Figures 11.46 and 11.47). The plan, divided across its width into three nearly equal parts, the porch, the vestibule, and triple chambers at the back (cella proper), abandons all that classical familiarity. The middle chamber, the adyton, is elevated high on steps and flanked by two-story high rooms with colonnaded fronts. Narrow stairs built into the back walls of the rooms led up to an attic and partially terraced roof hidden behind the high parapet walls. The square plan, with or without adyta, with or without frontal columns, and sometimes encircled by a peripheral corridor, is the product of the East, signaling

figure 11.42 Plan and reconstruction perspective, Temple of Venus, Ba’albek; rendered by Alex Maymind.

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figure 11.43 Rock cut tombs including the Urn Tomb, Petra, engraving by Louis Haghe (1849) based on watercolor by David Roberts.

Achaemenid and Mesopotamian roots. However, the closest parallels to Qasr al-Bint come from Syria, such as the Temple of Tyche at es-Sanamen, or the temple at Slem, and most closely the late-first-century ce Nabataean temple of Zeus-Haddat (and his consort Atargates) at Khirbat at-Tanur, only 60 kilometers north of Petra. Even closer to the native, preRoman Nabataean traditions of the Hauran is the late-first-century bce Sanctuary of Ba’alshamin and Dushara at Si (ancient Seia; Figure 11.50). The main temple, approached by a forecourt, displays a typical eastern tower façade: a pediment squeezed between a pair of square towers (one might even ponder about the link between this basic model and its late, sumptuous resurrection in the great Propylon at Ba’albek). Behind the door, framed by a pair of columns, is the square cella (10  10 m) wrapped by an enclosed corridor (19.2  19.2 m). The Dushara temple situated in the exterior temenos is a smaller, purer application of the square-insquare plan (cella 8  8 m), its religious nature signified by a Syrian pediment. Both temples, as in Qasr al-Bint, display fine masonry and discreetly applied stucco ornament. 750

The stucco architectural ornament that has been preserved on the walls of the Qasr include corner pilasters and anta ends decorated in the typical Nabataean style of square panels; on the lower zone of the back wall large panels surmounted by elegant pilasters support a pair of broken and segmental pediments in a proper second-style painting composition. This remarkable motif recalls the fine brick reliefs from the hemicycle of Trajan’s Markets in Rome designed by Apollodorus, the master architect from Damascus (see earlier; Figures 6.44–6.46). Intriguing questions concerning possible connections, authorship and dating emerge. Bluntly put, because the Qasr al-Bint appears to be earlier than the Markets of Trajan (c. 110 ce), could the idea for the handsome motif have been brought to Rome from his homeland by the young Syrian architect? The date of the Qasr has been problematic because of the lack of firm archaeological evidence. However, recent excavations and new stylistic studies of the ornament strongly suggest construction late in the reign of King Arates IV, that is, circa 30–40 ce, or even a decade or two later since work on this monumental structure and its elaborate decoration (probably designed and executed in stages) could have

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figure 11.44 Plan, Petra center; rendered by Diane Favro (after Bachmann).

taken many years – making it almost possible for a very young Apollodorus to apprentice there. The mixed architectural heritage evident in this massive building whose classicism is more applied than integrated can be conceived in terms of a scholar’s straightforward observation that the “Nabataeans tended to glean artistic styles from many different sources” (E. C. Egan 2002, 358). Indeed, practical and innovative in their own spheres, Nabataean artists and architects reveal an astonishing awareness of what was going on in their own territory and around it, achieving an eclectic blend of elements from Hellenistic, Roman, and indigenous sources. This is a “Romanization” that goes beyond its narrow, popular (post-colonial) definition.

T H E R O C K- C AR V E D F A ÇA D E S OF P E T R A AN D T HE KH A ZN E

The great variety of the famous rock-carved tombs that rise above the mountain cliffs and deep gorges in and around Petra, from representations of simple pylons or towers to elaborate classical or postclassical façades, seems to confirm the observation just made about the multiple sources behind Nabataean art (see Figure 11.43). The lack of clearly datable evidence contributes to the apparent confusion and controversy in the assessment of their place in the development of classicism and its mutations in the Greco-Roman world and its fringes. Thanks to the meticulous 751

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figure 11.45 Colonnaded street looking east, Petra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

typological sequences established in comparison to a group of better datable tombs from a site called Medain Saleh (Hegra), there is a general agreement that the earliest tombs belong to the period well before the Roman annexation in 106 ce. The simplest are the pylon tombs with sloping sides, Egyptian cavetto cornices, and rows of crow-step parapets. The next step in the development was the introduction of certain classical elements such as corner pilasters, half-columns, classical moldings, and pediments decorating doorways. More elaborate are the Roman-style templetombs incorporating complex and unorthodox combinations of classical elements, multistory colonnaded arrangements, broken pediments framing tholoi, such as the remarkable façades of the so-called Khazne, or ed-Deir. Although it is generally agreed that these temple-tombs are later, there is strong disagreement as to how much later. Scholars such as M. Lytellton, 752

J. McKenzie, and F. Zayadine opt for a date as early as the late first century bce; others, such as W. L. MacDonald, J. B. Ward-Perkins, and P. J. Parr, regard the complex façades in the larger context of the evolution of the aedicular façade type in Roman architecture (scaenae frons, nymphaeums, city gates, etc.) and suggest a date in the mature years of the Empire, namely, the early second century. If some of the complex façades at Petra (especially the Khazne) can be shown to belong to the late firstcentury bce (or, even early first-century ce), it can then be argued that Hellenistic Alexandria, an artistic hub, provided the inspiration and direct models for the Petra façades – as well as for the architectural creations of second- and third-style Pompeian wall paintings. Hence, runs this argument: Hellenistic architecture of Ptolemaic Alexandria would have been the principle origin of much we call, rather carelessly, “baroque” in the later Imperial

The Roman Near East

figure 11.46 General view, southeast side, Temple of Qasr al-Bint, Petra; Photo by Diane Favro.

Roman architecture, from the Tiberian arch at Orange to the Severan Marble Court of Sardis. One problem with this bold theory – apart from the lack of any objective dating criteria for the Petra façades – is the absence of any real examples, or credible baroque façades, from Alexandria. What remain are small, isolated fragments of classical ornament, which are not preserved as complete baroque compositions. There are also several tombs from the Ptolemaic period (such as the Mustafa Pasha Tomb; see earlier Figure 8.3) whose rather staid late Hellenistic façades or interiors do not represent any of the qualities we could describe as baroque. More promising are written sources such as the enigmatic description of a festival pavilion of Ptolemy II, Philadelphus (ruled 283–246 bce) and a pleasure barge of Ptolemy IV, Philopator (ruled c. 244–205 bce), whose rich, multicolumnar arrangements might have anticipated some of the dynamic qualities we find in late Roman architecture (Athanaeus, 5.196–206). Also promising as a potential model for rich columnar compositions and architectural illusionism is the so-called Palazzo delle Colonne, a splendid private residence in Cyrenaica (modern Libya), whose second-story colonnade displays a dynamic aedicular arrangement similar to second-style painting schemes of the late Republican Italy (see earlier; Figure 8.6). Unfortunately, we are no closer to dating the Palazzo

delle Colonne and its decorative upper story order than to dating the Petra façades. Those who opted for an early-first century ce date (J. B. Ward-Perkins, F. K. Yegül) have just as much traction as those who argued for a late-Hellenistic one (G. Pesce, M. Lytellton). TH E K HA Z NE I N C O NT EX T

The queen of the Petra façades is the Khazne (means the “treasury” in Arabic, a colorful misnomer). Located at a slight widening inside the deep and narrow Siq, the dramatic partial views of its handsome façade inspired the popular Indiana Jones movie in 1989 (Figure 11.51, Plate 31). The Khazne, though not a small structure by any standard (25 m wide and 38 m high), appears delicate by comparison to a later façade such as the Tomb known as ed-Deir (see later; Figure 11.54). The upper level of the vertically developed composition in both is basically the same: a central tholos with a conical roof and a florid urn flanked by a pair of broken corner pediments (Figure 11.52 and 11.53). The lower story is simpler and more classical: a slightly projecting, prostyle temple front with four columns carrying a simple pediment, expanded on the sides by single-engaged columns. On the lower story the columns frame a deep porch with lateral chambers leading up, not to a conventional cella of course, but to a large tomb chamber, all carved in 753

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 11.47 Detail of the northwest exterior wall ornament, Temple of Qasr al-Bint, Petra; Photo by Diane Favro.

rock. There is, indeed, a sense of incongruity between the classical sobriety of the subtly projecting “temple façade” and the dramatic emphasis of the deeply molded upper level. The Khazne clearly follows the general compositions and architectural vocabulary of secondstyle paintings (also represented in the many later varieties of aedicular façades, or the so-called Asiatic 754

façades, typical of Asia Minor, see earlier), but it is a far more refined façade than any from Petra. Much of this subtle effect may be due to the crisp delicacy of the ornament. The Corinthian capitals belong to the socalled floral type characterized by delicate intermingling of tendrils growing above the acanthus leaves, a type fairly common at Petra, probably a local variation

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figure 11.48 Axonometric reconstruction, Temple of Qasr al-Bint, Petra; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after Ward-Perkins).

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figure 11.49 Plan and restored front elevation, Temple of Qasr al-Bint, Petra; rendered by Youssef Maguid and Diane Favro (after F. Larché).

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figure 11.50 Restored plan and front elevations, Sanctuary of Ba’alshamin and the Temple of Dushara, Seeia (Si’); rendered by Youssef Maguid (after Ward-Perkins and Gibson).

inspired from Hellenistic models. The same fresh looking and spirited floral ornament, like the Roman rinceau, decorates the friezes of both stories and fills the tympanum of the pediment (see Figures 11.52, 11.53). The sculptural figures between the columns, now too eroded to identify, are classical in style and probably represent images from classical mythology chosen for their iconographic significance for the tomb. Again, we do not know the date of this beautiful and important monument. Is it anchored in the late Hellenistic art of the eastern Mediterranean anticipating future developments in Roman perceptions of classicism? Or, is it an early Imperial monument of its time and place shaped by a multitude of local and foreign influences – including those from Alexandria? A modest and little-noted archaeological excavation in 2003 uncovered important evidence of dating: three tombs were found at the entrance of the Khazne which are datable by ceramic evidence to the last decades of the first century bce. The Khazne must have been built later. It could have been a royal tomb from the reign of King Aretas IV (ruled c. 9 bce–40 ce), but “preferably later in his reign than earlier” (Graf, 2006, 448).

Following this critical lead that anchors the dating hypotheses on criteria other than style, and in consideration of overall architecture and context, we suggest a date for the Khazne in the late Julio-Claudian era. TOMB OF ED-DEIR

The largest and perhaps the most stately of Petra façades, the Mausoleum of ed-Deir, 46 meters wide and 38 meters high, can proudly stand next to the façade of the Temple of Jupiter at Ba’albek (47 m wide and only 32 m high from stylobate to pediment top), or just about any large monument from classical antiquity (the Colosseum in Rome is 10 m higher, and if its elliptical shape were opened up, would present a “façade” of nearly 500 m of engaged columns in three tiers – a sobering statistic reminding us of what was almost routinely possible in the capital of the Romans!) (Figure 11.54). The general composition of ed-Deir, like that of the Khazne, has a close resemblance to many second-style paintings of architectural fantasies (such as the “sanctuary” from the Roman domus in Boscoreale, circa 50 bce, now restored and 757

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figure 11.51 plate 31 General view of the Khazne, Petra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

758

The Roman Near East BOSTRA, THE NABATAEAN CAPITAL AND THE HOME OF THE THIRD CYRENAICAN LEGION

figure 11.52 Detail of the half-pediment, upper level of the Khazne, Petra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York). This is especially true for the upper level ensemble of a tholos between broken corner pediments. Breaking free from the steep, dry hill behind it, ed-Deir is almost a freestanding monument. The lower floor, by contrast, is solid, except for a series of engaged columns flanking the central door and blind windows, the overall arrangement resembling the Corinthian Tomb in the Siq. The undulating entablature and the contrapuntal rhythm of solids and voids on two stories capped by a stupendous finial make a powerful statement unalloyed by decorative detail (Figures 11.55 and 11.56). With its minimally rendered Doric entablature, blocky (unfinishedlooking) Nabataean capitals, and chunky, massive geometry of the finial urn crowning the central tholos, ed-Deir is a cross between crude power and solemn elegance in perfect harmony with the austere heights of the mountain chains around it. Considered as a whole, a second-century ce date appears appropriate. Perhaps more cogent than just date is the cultural significance and meaning of these proud and characteristic creations of Nabataean architecture. The rock-carved tombs of Petra and their famous façades were not merely architecturally exciting, big, two-dimensional surface exercises in creative (although some would say aberrant) classical composition. Some were not strictly even tombs but memorial monuments. Many were only façades for much larger complexes with considerable space in front of them for ritualistic use. Some had courtyards, triclinia with benches, altars, and other religious and social paraphernalia where traditional funerary meals could be taken under the watchful eyes of the local gods. In sum, they were theatrical settings projecting power and pride and enhancing ritual and ceremony through the spectacular backdrop of architecture.

Bostra is located at the northern end of the Nabataean Kingdom, some 300 kilometers north of Petra, at the edge of the volcanic region known as the “lava lands” on the southern Syrian steppe. The region does not rely entirely on dry farming for grains; the adequate and well-harvested Spring rains and snow runoff, augmented by perennial springs, created fertile land and allowed more desirable cash crops, such as fruits and grapes. Equally important for regional economy were the peaceful and profitable contacts with seminomadic Arab tribes who moved seeking pastures in the steppes of the Hauran. During the first century ce under Nabataean rule, Bostra and its hinterland rivaled Petra as a center for long distance trade from Arabia. Located in the center of an improved road network, it also benefited from growing inland local trade. Under the newly created Roman province of Arabia, Bostra became a regional administrative center and the prestigious home of the Third Cyranaican Legion, directly on Trajan’s north-south highway (Via Nova Traiana). The wellwatered and well-connected region around Bostra encouraged the development of new rural settlements with mixed populations of Greeks, Arabs, and Syrians and, increasingly, Roman veterans. Laid along the lines of a grid with axial arteries and a looser subdivision of smaller streets, the city is almost entirely a Roman creation although the lack of rigidity strongly suggests Nabataean precedents to the plan (see Figure 11.57 left). Entirely built in the black volcanic basalt of the region, its paved streets, colonnades, gates, and large buildings, many substantially preserved, Bostra emerges as a testimony to the extraordinary skill of Nabataean masons and craftsmen. Carved with precision and élan, and mixing classical form with bold native tradition, the dark architecture of Bostra evokes a sense of grave and grim urban elegance. The city is dominated by an 860-meter-long basalt-paved east-west colonnaded avenue, the decumanus, with broad, raised sidewalks and at one point with a row of street-level windows lighting an improbable cryptoporticus (Figure 11.58). Several northsouth streets cross it at right angles. Between the East and West Gates (see above) the decumanus is articulated by an oval plaza at its west end, a circular plaza with a tetrakionion (or a tetrapylon), and a massive central arch at the intersection with the Theater Street. The latter is in effect is a triple arch with a wide central passageway; the full attic on the north face was shaped as a Syrian pediment carried on flat pilasters and statue brackets. Further east, the junction of the decumanus and the cardo is punctuated by a small nymphaeum positioned diagonally across the 759

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 11.53 Detail of the central tholos with conical roof, upper level, the Khazne, Petra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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The Roman Near East

figure 11.54 General view of the Tomb of Ed-Deir, Petra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

intersection with four frontal columns carrying the ubiquitous Eastern favorite, another Syrian pediment. Across the intersection is the so-called kalybe, a semiopen, stagelike building with a wide apsidal back wall (Figure 11.59). An enigmatic urban element peculiar to the region (good examples are also at Amman and Philippopolis/Shahba, the latter probably connected to an official residence or mansion, see Figure 11.57 right), the kalybe typically opens into urban space creating a theatrical enclosure and strong backdrop for urban ceremonies and entertainment. Its similarity to the spatial enclosures fronting some of the rock façades of Petra has been noted (Ball 2000, 292–293). We would like to underline the visual and possibly programmatic kinship between the kalybe and large public fountains or nymphaea opening onto a thoroughfare or plaza in Roman cities. A particularly interesting feature connected with the Bostra decumanus is the previously mentioned 100-meter-long cryptoporticus east of the tetrapylon. Illuminated and ventilated by a series of narrow, slit windows cut into the stylobate of the sidewalk colonnade, this unusual element was probably used as a warehouse for the dry goods market, delightfully cool on a summer day or pleasantly warm when the steppe’s icy wind swept across the high land on a winter day (see Figure 11.58). Located south of the nymphaeum and facing the decumanus across a wide, colonnaded

porch are the main, South Baths of the city that present a fairly simple, formal, axially-arranged plan comparable to Bath C at Antioch (see earlier; Figures 11.19, 11.20, and also Figure 11.57 left). The east end of the decumanus is terminated by the heavy basalt mass and powerful accents of the Nabatean (“East”) gate previously discussed (see Figure 11.15). South of the East Gate, and outside the grid alignment, is the so-called palace, a solidly built stone mansion with a two-storied portico on three sides of an interior courtyard (Figures 11.60 and 11.61). A large, second-story hall with double apses contrasts with the simple, functional array of the smaller rooms; the handsome colonnaded façade suggests that the palace was actually a public building, used for residential and administrative purposes, like a praetorium. One of the most impressive and largest theaters in all of the Near East is the second-century example at Bostra, located at the end of the colonnaded Theater Street, at a short distance from the decumanus (see Figure 11.18). Substantially reconstructed now, this “castle in basalt” appears larger than it actually is because it is built from the ground up by expertly raising the cavea entirely on concentric vaults. The plan follows the Western model with a tall stage building integrated into the cavea. In front of the three deep apses of the stage the scaenae frons creates a 761

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 11.55 Partial view of the façade, Tomb of Ed-Deir, Petra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

762

The Roman Near East the large, paved expanse of the agora (Figure 11.62). To those approaching from the east on the decumanus it was visible as a grand façade attached to a larger public building possibly realized through the generosity of Philip. Pulled back behind a low podium-stage, the well-preserved back wall, bent outward on either side of a huge central apse, might have been adorned with a colonnaded front, though none remains. Without its applied decoration, it is the sheer mastery of ashlar work in basalt, the perfectly formed voussoirs and the clear structural logic of superimposed segmental and flat arches over openings that impress the modern visitor.

GERASA: FROM NABATAEAN VILLAGE TO THE “CITY OF THE DECAPOLIS”

figure 11.56 Detail view of the tholos finial, Tomb of Ed-Deir, Petra; Photo by Diane Favro.

sumptuous, three-story columnar façade. An inscription on a block that supports one of the masts for an awning to protect the spectators from the sun informs the passer-by that the operation of each wooden upright was the responsibility of a particular squad of soldiers from the local centuria – a prosaic but eloquent testimony to the military tenor of Roman life and public order in this Nabataean town of many cultures. One imagines that local army units under Imperial command were engaged in far larger projects than just manning masts – it is almost certain that the building of the theater itself, as many other monumental structures of Bostra, were military projects. Specialists from the corps of engineers were responsible for laying out the firmly set grid plan of Shahba, the home of the emperor Philip the Arab (ruled 232–237 ce), renamed Philippopolis (see Figure 11.57 right). One might do well to compare it to Bostra’s older, looser grid. The layout at Philippopolis/Shahba is more regular. A rigid, military logic is evident in the nearly square blocks dominated by the orderly crossing of the decumanus and the cardo dividing the square outline of the city into four nearly equal quadrants, the center occupied by large, open public spaces and buildings. One of these large public buildings is the kalybe dominating the entire west side of

Well south of the lava lands of the Hauran, midway between Petra and Damascus, the ruins of Gerasa (Jerash) represent an urban impact we usually associate with cities such as Lepcis Magna, Ephesus, and Side. Although the colonnaded avenues, the great oval plaza and the gates of all kinds make a just cause for wonder, the city was a relatively wealthy, medium-sized, caravan town and owes at least a part of its distinction to its exceptionally well preserved monuments and the undeniably successful scenographic layout (see earlier; Figures 11.4 and 11.5). Starting its life as a Semitic-Nabataean village, Gerasa was first organized as a Greek city in the early second century bce under Seleucid rule but nothing of the urban form or individual monuments remains from that period except for an epigraphic habit that attests to the existence of Greek, or Greek-style administration well into the Imperial era. This tradition might have been actually based on the city’s new life when it became one of the important cities of the Decapolis, a loose confederation of semiautonomous cities in Syria organized in 63 bce under Pompey the Great. The shaping of its urban structure as we know it belongs to the first and second centuries of the empire. Gerasa spreads over gentle hills on both sides of the “Golden River” (the ancient Chrysorrhoas), its source for water. The residential area seems to have been the flatter east bank, now occupied by the modern village while the public buildings were more dramatically situated on the west bank. Draped informally across the land, the city walls run circa 3,400 meters and cover an area of 210 acres. The Roman city follows a loose grid in place only by the early first century ce. The main north-south colonnaded street, the cardo, traverses 750 meters between the North and South Gates (see Figures 11.5 and 11.17). A pair of decumani cross the cardo 763

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figure 11.57 Plans of Bostra (left) and Philippopolis, Shahba (right); rendered by Rui Xiong (Ball after Butler).

and continue east over the river across bridges. The Trajanic North Gate had a single arch between a pair of tall, pedimented aediculae; the two-tiered arched niches inside the giant, engaged order alleviates to some extent the solidity of the structure. What is remarkable about this gate-arch is its trapezoidal plan devised to adjust to the slight angular approach of the extramural road meeting the cardo at the gate (thus, on both faces the gate meets the road straight on as does the monumental, Severan arch at Palmyra, see later). The South Gate and the so-called triumphal arch, some 240 meters south of the former, are both Hadrianic creations, and appear to have followed the same generic triple-arch triumphal arch design formula (Figure 11.63). The latter, better preserved, has a wide central arch surmounted by a pediment that occupies the first stage of a tall, two-tiered attic. There are small, decorative, pedimented aediculae above the side arches. 764

The four engaged columns of the façades carry Corinthian capitals; they are raised on pedestals and display ornate acanthus drums between their bases and shafts. Soon after its construction, the triumphal arch was extended and incorporated into the extended fortification system, a passage up in the attic allowing communication between the two sides. Built to honor Hadrian’s visit in 129/130 ce, this arch, like Hadrian’s famous arch at Athens, and similarly carrying a dedication on the city face, served as a civic gate in anticipation of a new southern district beyond that, however, never materialized. More dynamic as spatial waystations in the city’s powerful network of thoroughfares are the north tetrapylon near the west baths and the tetrakionion inside the circular plaza which mark, respectively, the intersections of the northern and southern decumani with the cardo (see Figures 11.4 and 11.9). The circular plaza was

The Roman Near East

figure 11.58 View of the colonnaded street (decumanus) with cryptoporticus windows (under the columns), Bostra; Photo by Diane Favro.

lined with shops and paved in blocks of stone whose crazy mosaic pattern – no doubt the result of successive repaving – set off the four large podiums arranged in a perfect square in the center, each podium itself carrying four tall Corinthian columns. Like the better preserved tetrakionion at Palmyra (see later, Figure 11.8, Plate 11.30A), these monumental but fairly elegant urban towers, like oversized chess pieces, must have created the perfect setting for a formal plaza – classically defined signifiers embracing, at the same time, the native and informal lifestyle of a busy market town. Seemingly simple is the oval plaza at the southern end of the colonnaded cardo, which has become an iconic example for an exciting public space in popular modern surveys of the city (see Figures 11.4, 11.10, and 11.11). Its columnar sweep, replicated by strong shadows and echoed in the strong curve of its raised sidewalk, achieves a simple and sumptuous elegance. The purity of the space is contrasted by the irregularly curved texture of its paving; the oval is deceptively easy to understand, hiding its visual sophistication. We do not know the talented architect who perceived this design, but behind it lies the long urban traditions of the Empire such the sweeping curves of the Windrose Plaza of the upper forum at Dougga or the Severan plaza at Lepcis Magna (see earlier, Figures 8.31 and 8.47).

Possibly occasioned by the southern extension of the cardo colonnade and creation of the oval plaza was construction of a large macellum around the first half of the second century ce (Uscatescu and Martín-Bueno, 1979). The Gerasa market had an octagonal plaza (c. 25 m in diameter) with prominent exedrae at four corners. A colonnade of Corinthian columns framed the central open space which boasted a middle decorative fountain. On the exterior, shops aligned with the cardo and the street to the south. In general the plan recalls western markets such as those at Puteoli, Lepcis Magna, and Hippo Regius, but with differences reflecting local needs and preferences. Nearby the oval plaza acts as an effective urban connector between the south end of the cardo and the Sanctuary of Zeus, elevated on a hill and approached by several flights of steps directly from the plaza. It was finished in 163 ce but the project must have taken a long time in coming because an inscription from the reign of Tiberius (ruled 14–22 ce) informs us that the name of the original architect was Diodorus, son of Zebsaos, a native. Facing northeast, set obliquely to the city grid, it might reflect the orientation of the Hellenistic city. The temple, with unfluted, stocky Corinthian columns, has a fairly traditional plan: a frontally approached peripteros on a 765

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 11.59 Plan and reconstruction façade of the nymphaeum and the kalybe at the crossing of the decumanus and cardo, Bostra; Butler (1921)

podium (8  12), except for its thick front wall hiding the stairs to the roof. There is a curious row of small, semidomed niches high on exterior walls aligned between peripheral columns and a secondary side door to the cella. 766

The most imposing religious complex in Gerasa, and perhaps one of the most impressive settings in all of the Near East, is the Sanctuary of Artemis, honoring the city’s patron deity. Raised on a hill west of the cardo in the city center, the Corinthian temple, a hexastyle

The Roman Near East

figure 11.60 Plan and section of the so-called palace, Bostra; Butler (1914)

peripteros (6  11) rises atop a podium with frontal steps. The structure stands in the middle of a large, rectangular peristyle enclosure (161  121 m) entered by an imposing columnar propylon (Figures 11.64–11.66; see also Figure 11.4). Although the deep frontal porch (without columns in antis) signifies a patently Italian preference for deep porches in temple design, the high adyton at the back of the cella clearly responds to the needs of local ritual. The individual elements of architecture – deep niches framed by multiple moldings,

half-columns, pilasters, broken and split pediments – all provide memorable images of the Roman baroque, but the total approach to design, the bold exploitation of the topography and setting, the molding of land to formal ritual, distinguish this project from others more elaborate and larger. The temple temenos is approached at the far end of a long processional way starting at a bridge across the river (see Figures 11.4 and 11.64), by way of a series of columnar malls, gateways, forecourts, porches and sets of stairways – this is not a 767

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 11.61 View of the “palace,” Bostra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 11.62 View of the kalybe, Philippopolis/Shahba; © foto Marburg/Art Resource, NY.

temple placed in a city, it is a temple that becomes the city. The junction at the cardo is marked by a trapezoidal court with deeply projecting lateral, apsidal exedrae; across the colonnaded street four gigantic columns mark the entrance to the Temple of Artemis complex. A grand propylon opens to the monumental rise of steps leading up to the temple forecourt (see Figure 11.65). Climbing, just out of breath, the visitor faced another monumental rise across the entire 99meter width of the temple court, and finally, the heraldically placed temple itself. As in the Sanctuary of Jupiter at Ba’albek, this is an axially ordered architecture of processional movement along passages and stations, all carefully timed to the sequences and rhythms of ritual, hiding and revealing, a rich visual journey to a predestined goal. The busy junction of the great sanctuary on the cardo was further enhanced by the notable façade of the nymphaeum, located immediately south of the gateway, next to a row of shops on the west side of the street (Figure 11.67). Its four tall columns (now mostly gone), rising much higher than the cardo colonnade, and carrying an ornate Syrian pediment, announce its presence.

Behind them rises the great, cavernous apse of the nymphaeum flanked by two shorter, straight wings. The interior of the semidomed apse is richly articulated with two tiers of columnar aediculae framing niches, alternating rectangular and semicircular. In front, accessible from the shady sidewalk, is a broad pool receiving cascades of water to be enjoyed and used. Larger than the similarly designed nymphaea at Bostra and Petra but smaller than the triple-apse model at Amman (Philadelphia), the second-century Gerasa nymphaeum represents the apsidal type compared to the rectangular nymphaeum recesses often preferred in Asia Minor. Apart from the two Western style theaters, the large South Theater behind the oval plaza, and the North Theater (probably, a roofed theater or odeum), located directly on the north decumanus and opening into a large plaza, other notable public buildings in Gerasa are two large bath complexes, the East Baths and West Baths (see Figure 11.4). Both display handsome ashlar walls and vaulting in local stone. Compared to the shallow domes and domical vaults in light volcanic scoriae, or caementae, typical in the Hauran (such as at the baths at Bostra and Shahba), the perfectly 769

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figure 11.63 Triumphal Arch of Hadrian shown with reconstructed attic and side, Gerasa; Diane Favro, photo by Sean Leatherbury/ Manar al-Athar.

semispherical ashlar vaults and domes of the Gerasa baths appear more classical, and closer to the solid brick or ashlar vaults in Asia Minor, such as those from the Large Baths of Hierapolis. Located directly at the tetrapylon junction of the cardo and the north decumanus, and accessible directly from the cardo by way of a deep, columnar porch that wraps around the building like an antebellum mansion, the West Baths are distinctly an urban monument. Probably Antonine in date, with a total area of circa 3,000 square meters, the bath is large by local standards (almost three times larger than South Baths at Bostra, slightly larger than Bath C of Antioch; see earlier, Figures 11.19 and 11.20), but still a baby compared to the Imperial bathgymnasium at Sardis, which is almost four times bigger (see earlier). The design, a formal and symmetrical composition set about a strong cross-axis, is characterized by few but relatively large spaces: a rectangular, barrel-vaulted frigidarium (37  19 m), a square, dome caldarium (15 m diameter), and numerous small, domed side chambers. These are welldefined, well-articulated, and display structural lucidity resulting in a plan with diagrammatic clarity. Like Bath C of Antioch or the South Baths of Bostra, the 770

design of the West Baths at Gerasa appears to be outside the Western canon but serves bathing as an important and long-lasting item on the Roman social agenda with equal rigor. With a cathedral, many churches, and other ecclesiastical buildings, Gerasa prospered as a Christian city into the seventh century. Some of this prosperity came by recycling old pagan monuments for the new faith. It is instructive to note that among the many religious and civic establishments that came under the physical and cultural orbit of the Church in late-antique Gerasa, bathing continued to be important: a mid-fifth-century bishop named Placcus constructed a bath (not found) that included, in addition to the usual heated rooms and social spaces, an atrium and even an open courtyard with a swimming pool.

PALMYRA, THE CARAVAN CITY Palmyra, the rich caravan city of Syrian desert, lives in its hauntingly beautiful ruins, endless colonnaded streets, and fabled past, documented by the mid-eighteenth-century drawings in Wood and Dawkins’s

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figure 11.64 Plan, Sanctuary of Artemis, Gerasa; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after Lytellton, Figure 8).

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figure 11.65 View of the propylon and stairs, entrance into the Sanctuary of Artemis, Gerasa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 11.66 General view of Temple of Artemis, looking northwest, Gerasa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 11.67 General view, Nymphaeum looking west, Gerasa; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

The Ruins of Palmyra (Figure 11.68; see also Figures 11.6 and 11.7). Following the slow crumbling of Rome’s power through the middle years of the third century, Bat Zabbai, the beautiful wife of the powerful Palmyrene ruler Odaenathus, better known to history as Queen Zenobia, confronted Rome’s authority upon her husband’s death in 269 ce. She was resourceful, capable, and ambitious in challenging the Empire and successful in capturing not only Syria but also Egypt and parts of Anatolia. Her ambition and remarkable short success was not sufficient to win the Desert Queen a well-deserved place at the grand banquet table with history’s other great women in the feminist artist Judith Chicago’s famous installation at the Brooklyn Museum in New York (The Dinner Party, 1974–1979); instead she received only an inscription on the floor. Like many before her, Zenobia had misjudged Rome’s crushing power even when at its weakest. In 272–273 ce, her forces were repeatedly defeated by the Emperor Aurelian, who destroyed her city, captured her, and possibly took her to Rome to participate in his triumph – or, she was killed before she reached Rome. Subsequently Palmyra lost its nominal independence and its very real wealth; it was made a mere garrison town and never recovered its past glory – and more

recently suffered ignominious and wanton destruction in the hands of the ignorant and intolerant. The international communities’ outpouring of sympathies and material help in restoring the damage is our comfort. Palmyra’s glory rested upon its rich water sources and its strategic desert location on the trade route halfway between the Euphrates and Mediterranean ports. Controlling and policing the long-distance trade from Asia, Palmyra levied taxes upon people and goods that passed through its territory and offered a safe and orderly place for rest and exchange. The city and its spectacular ruins were discovered for the Western world by the two English explorers mentioned above, Robert “Palmyra” Wood and James Dawkins; accompanying them was the talented Italian architect and draughtsman Giovanni Battista Borra. They spent the winter of 1749–1750 on the site measuring and studying the remains. The publication of The Ruins of Palmyra in 1753 had a profound effect on the architectural taste and understanding of classicism in England comparable to the publication of J. Stuart and N. Revett’s Antiquities of Athens in 1762. Although human settlements on the site going back to the early second millennium are recorded, Palmyra (Tadmor in modern, local usage) as an urban entity, is 773

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figure 11.68 General view looking northwest from the Temple of Bel, Palmyra; engraving by J.B. Borra for R. Wood and J. Dawkins, The Ruins of Palmyra (1753).

new. It was never a Seleucid city and everything that testifies to its rich past – the colonnaded streets, monumental buildings, and great sanctuaries – belong to the first three centuries of Roman rule. The site was strategically important as a buffer between the Romans in Syria and the growing Parthian power in the East. Although there is epigraphical evidence for Roman interests in Tadmor through the first century bce, it is only a century later that we begin to see signs of real Roman presence with impressive building activity and the adoption of, at least superficially, Greek institutions with Greek names – as the pathway to being Roman first required becoming Greek. Palmyra is a textbook example of a city shaped by one major colonnaded thoroughfare, an urban backbone stretching some 1.2 kilometers southeastnorthwest from the great sanctuary enclosure of Bel (or Ba’al) to the crossroads at the northwest end of the town (see Figure 11.6). A broad southern extension of the colonnaded avenue is terminated by an oval plaza at the Damascus Gate, an urban element reminiscent of the oval plaza of Gerasa, but not so fully and grandly conceived. Enclosed by the southwest extension of city walls, on slightly higher ground, is Diocletian’s Camp, or the Praetorium, an orderly military establishment serving as the headquarters of the late third century governors. Approached by a handsome gate from the 774

south avenue, the camp is shaped by a pair of crossing colonnaded streets, the via principalis, leading up to a forecourt and a monumental flight of steps confronting axially the so-called Temple of Signa, or the shrine of military standards. Palmyra does not really have a regular grid layout. It was not planned according to an academic or theoretical system; it was shaped by a series of long streets on both sides of the colonnaded avenue, meeting it more or less at right angles, and more or less parallel to each other, creating exceptionally elongated insulae. Responding to its growing needs and fortunes, urban building expanded over time, stretching from the Sanctuary of Bel at the older part of the town, westward along the colonnaded avenue in an orderly but not a strictly regular manner. The long circuit of walls that enclose the city in a roughly oval shape is either for protection of men and camel caravans, or for custom and tax purposes, or most probably both. The southern section, built more hastily, seems to have been added during Zenobia’s desperate stand against Aurelian. The city is on mainly flat, well-irrigated land; towards the north and northwest in middle distance are softly rising, low rolling hills and dusty valleys against which the tall, hard-edged funerary towers of the Necropolis stand in picturesque clusters (see Figure 11.76).

The Roman Near East The main colonnaded avenue was constructed over several centuries and conceived in three sections each with slightly different alignments, or “bends.” The section between the propylon of the Sanctuary of Bel on the east and the double-faced monumental Severan arch, a stretch of circa 250 meters, was wider than the rest but was never finished (see Figures 11.12 and 11.13, Plate 29B). The handsome and ornate triple-arch, strictly a city gate, marked the beginning of an urban journey, and served as a focal point at the end of a long line of stately columns. No doubt, it also commemorated the honored stay of the Emperor Septimius Severus at Palmyra during his successful Parthian campaign, although no direct allusions to military victory is depicted on it in word or symbol. Architecturally, the triple openings and the wedge-shaped plan of the arch mask and articulate the position of the first bend in the street (see Figure 11.14; as in the North Gate in Gerasa; see earlier, Figure 11.17). The middle section of the street, between this arch and a roughly circular plaza featuring a monumental tetrakionion, traverses the densely built urban zone (see Figures 11.6–11.8, and Plates 29A and 30A). South of the colonnaded avenue, there is a small temenos for the local deity Nebo, the theater, a large peristyle building, and between them the Senate house and the vast, rectangular agora enclosure. Along the north side are the Baths of Diocletian (probably replacing an earlier public bath), and a small, apsidal nymphaeum. The western section of the street, with a slight bend at the tetrakionion, is the longest, circa 500 meters, but quite free of urban articulations except for a small, colonnaded exedra. Looking down the great colonnaded avenue toward the Severan Arch must have offered a memorable vision of urban sequences (see Figure 11.12). On the left, the rhythm of the street colonnade is broken by the minor protrusion of the tetrastyle façade of the nymphaeum with a basin of cooling, murmuring water opening into public space. Further along the stronger projection of the monumental porch columns announces the entry to the Baths of Diocletian (see Figure 29A). On the right several smaller streets join the thoroughfare; simple arched gates with decorated archivolts break the serial monotony of the colonnade, framing lateral vistas. One of these arches, just past the theater, offers a view of a row of smaller columns curving around the semicircular back wall of the auditorium and leading to the so-called Tariff Plaza – probably the forum where customs taxes were levied on caravans. The colonnade of the main avenue diminishes in the distance against the central opening of the monumental Severan arch, the latter surmounted by a tall attic and pediment, offering the appearance of a triumphal arch cum city gate (see Figure 11.13, Plate 29B).

All this, a finely choreographed urban landscape, is composed of the familiar elements of classical architecture made in honey-colored local limestone embroidered by ornament. It is a layered creation achieved over time, an unfinished urban canvas of process and growth, not the frozen imprint of a single master plan. Palmyra offers a good example for W. L. MacDonald’s famous discourse on urban armatures and the significance of “passage architecture” which is not only a system of visual links but, “a system of signs with both cultural and topographical content. Most important (passage architecture) was articulate, partitioning armatures into comprehensible . . . segments and so answering the need to be able readily to envision city quarters and districts in the mind” (MacDonald 1986, 107). The sum of these visual links and images must have created an integrated sense of a city of comforting familiarity and challenging uniqueness. The larger picture of Palmyra’s public architecture – its fascination with the Corinthian order, its rich columnar displays, arches, and gates – underlines the familiar classicism of the Empire. By contrast, the taste for ebullient surface decoration and a preference for flat, linear, geometric ornament, reminiscent of textile patterns still evident today, reveals the influence of a dominant regional ornamental style and local craftsmanship in stone. The grand layout as well as its smallest details express their time and place, the hybrid culture of the region and its people – not the mandate of an imperial directive from Rome. To take one important example, a particular detail specific to Palmyra and a few other Near Eastern cities – but found as far down south as Cilicia – is the bracket. These curious forms project from about two-thirds up the height of column shafts, undoubtedly for the display of public statuary. One remembers the improbable story of Lady Hester Stanhope, an adventurous, fearless, extraordinary English woman and follower of the indomitable Zenobia in spirit, who in 1812 arranged to enter Palmyra on camel back in a grand public spectacle. She and her retinue of hundreds of Arab horsemen rode down the colonnaded avenue: As they neared the Arch they noted on the brackets jutting out from the pillars [columns] young girls had been placed in the most graceful postures . . . their elegant shapes slightly concealed by a single loose robe . . . and white crepe veil covering their heads. . . . When the party arrived at the Arch all the girls jumped down and danced around her, leading her towards the Temple of Bel (Browning, 1979, 70)

– an instance where the object and the place, the physical reality of a monumental arch, and the physical 775

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SANCTUARY AND TEMPLE OF BEL The Temple of Bel at Palmyra is placed in the center of a very large square temenos (210  205 m, c. 44,000 sq m) (see the plan in Figure 11.6). The high temenos walls constructed in fine ashlar blocks are articulated inside and outside by beautiful pilasters in low relief framing small, shallow niched-aediculae crowned by pediments (Figure 11.69), reminding us of the subtle artistry of pilasters in a changing play of light and shadow: columns are the work of engineers, pilasters belong to architects. The initial effect, the use of rich but discreet ornamental motifs upon broad expanses of good, plain ashlar, is richly classical (Figure 11.70). The entrance to the temenos is from the west, the city side, by way of a monumental propylon with eight tall Corinthian columns supporting a broad pediment broken by an arch. Leading up to this imposing façade is a cascade of 34-meter-wide stairs. The temple proper was finished by 32 ce; the temenos enclosure and the propylon were long-term projects whose construction continued well into the late second century. All four sides of the interior enclosure are colonnaded, displaying Corinthian columns with standard brackets on their shafts (Figure 11.71). The west, entrance side

portico is deeper than the rest and it is given a monumental treatment with taller columns and a central arch aligned on the propylon axis. Although the placement of the temple inside a walled sacred precinct follows long tradition that was valid in the Semitic East as well as Hellenistic West, the nature of the ceremonial use of this vast enclosure, “god’s own home,” as a kind of performance space filled with thousands of Palmyrene watching and honoring their gods, participating in the ritual – as the images of deities looked down upon this scene from their columnar brackets – was very much in native spirit (Ball 2000, 325). The temple proper, a Corinthian, octastyle, pseudodipteros, rising on a stepped platform, from a distance appears like a traditional Greek temple (Figures 11.72–11.74). Closer up, the image changes: the entrance, facing the temenos gate, is from the long, west side, up a stepped ramp. Both of the short ends of the cella, north and south, are solid, without porches, articulated by half columns carrying delicate Ionic capitals. Facing the ramp is a massive and elaborately wrought ornamental portal jammed between the temple’s external columns, in alignment with the temenos propylon, but not quite in the middle of the temple’s long side. Entering the cella, all expectations of a traditional arrangement for a classical god gives way for the specific needs of a local, Semitic cult; on opposite ends of the boxlike interior stairs rise up to deep shrines, or adytons, facing each other (Figure 11.75; see also earlier Figure 11.41).

figure 11.69 General interior view of the temenos of the Sanctuary of Bel, Palmyra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 11.70 Detail of wall with pilasters and cornices, interior, Sanctuary of Bel, Palmyra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity They are covered by flat, saucerlike, richly carved domes, one of them representing the signs of the Zodiac with Bel in the center. Elsewhere, ornate and polychromatic roof beams, slabs and coffers decorated by classical motifs, such as the meander pattern applied with gusto and joyous profusion, are typical. Three corners of the cella, framing the adytons, are built as stair towers leading up to a flat roof terrace hidden behind classical looking pediments and rows of crowstep merlons, an element borrowed from the AchaemenidPersian decorative vocabulary (see Figure 11.74). Here, too, like the Temple of Jupiter-Ba’al in Ba’albek, but to a far greater degree, the requirements of the ancient local cult and preferences of local building traditions resulted in an architecture of transparent, superficial classicism, but one that relied on the visual display of very rich ornament – in effect this approach challenges classicism and revitalizes the classical temple form. Yet, it might be useful to stop and ask, what is a “classical temple,” after all? Many Greek temples of great renown had side entrances or ramps, such as the Temple of Apollo at Bassai, or the Temple of Zeus at Olympia; Doric temples of Sicily were veritable laboratories in unorthodox experimentation, many with stairs to their roofs, a device also used in the very unorthodox Hellenistic Temple of Apollo in Didyma. The Temple of Artemis at Sardis displays a wondrous and creative amalgamation of past and present memories of design, which also challenges classicism. And, what exactly was traditional in the form or function of the Erechtheion, a gem of the high classical period that graced the Acropolis of Athens? There is no “Greek” temple that represents an ideal model frozen in time. The Greek and Roman temples were works in progress, responding to the requirements of the site, the climate, the cult, and local culture and traditions in varied and creative ways. Seen in this light, the Temple of Bel in Palmyra is a building of its time and place successfully fusing the ideal with the practical, at home in a Greek-inspired East, created by and serving a mixed Syrian population who worshipped a Semitic god under the administrative umbrella of the Roman Empire – and jubilantly tinkering with the tenets of orthodox classicism on the eastern edge of the empire. Much the same story can be told for the small but important Sanctuary of Ba’al Shamin, located in the city some 200 meters north of the tetrakionion (see Figure 11.6). The prostyle-tetrastyle temple is Corinthian and oriented southeast-northwest, its cella hemmed in between a pair of rectangular peristyle courtyards. The construction lasted from the middle of the first century ce through much of the second. The main temple has a deep pronaos with a pair of columns in antis. The exterior walls, which would have been 778

partially masked by the porticos of the unusual side courtyards, are decorated with pilasters. The far end of the cella is designed as an adyton between a pair of small chambers. The refined interior with an altar screen, small shell-headed niches, and delicate ornament is dramatized by light from two windows placed high on side walls. A few of the Corinthian columns of the exterior courtyards and the temple porch have brackets carrying statues. Some also carry inscriptions in Palmyrene and relief statues of wealthy patrons in local dress. They portray the Semitic tribal world behind Palmyra’s false classical façades well: we are informed that the temple was built during Hadrian’s visit (129 ce) by one Malé, son of Yarhai, and the sacerdote of the god, to honor Ba’al Shamin, Lord of Heaven and God of Storms and Rains. Paralleling the peculiar classicism of Palmyrene architecture, the city’s fairly rich record of civic euergetism, the public-mindedness of its citizens, is noteworthy. While there are many epigraphic instances of wealthy merchants recording their donations to buildings and colonnades, the inscriptions do not declare civic pride, so commonly and overtly expressed in Asia Minor and the West, but singular religious devotion. People like Maliksu and his son Mokimu, even when they donate their money and help create civic buildings and colonnades, dedicate these monuments to the gods who own them, such as the “Basilica of the great God Arsu.” There is a benefaction to the city baths that actually belonged to the Sanctuary of Malakbel and Agribol; and to a colonnade that was “explicitly connected to the cult of (certain) Arab gods” (Yon 2001, 175). The theater and the agora are devoid of dedicatory inscriptions and curiously have no references to the Imperial family or the Imperial Cult. This is a world that accepted euergetism but interpreted its principles in its own way. Southwest of Palmyra, tower tombs like proud sentinels of a forgotten world rise in the Valley of the Tombs across the gentle slopes of the hill known as Umm el Belkis. Bold structures of square formation, they are remarkable less for their design than their profuse decorative carving in stone (Figure 11.76). Funerary architecture, free of functional restrictions, can be creative and idiosyncratic whether it is in Campania or Palmyra. However, there are a few unusual and instructive instances: one of these is a temple-tomb (or, house-tomb) Number 36, built c 210 ce by a wealthy citizen of Parthian origin (Figure 11.77). The square plan with a peristyle court in the center combines, as noted by A. Schmidt-Colinet, indigenous Palmyrene traditions of burial with a Persian plan and elements of “elite Hellenistic-Roman residential architecture” (Schmidt-Colinet 1997, 165–166). Yet, it is the rich

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figure 11.71 Interior columns with brackets, Sanctuary of Bel, Palmyra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 11.72 General view of the southeast side, Temple of Bel, Palmyra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

columnar façade of this tomb (superficially like the popular Roman aedicular façades), with its awkward groupings of aediculae, strange mixing of classical elements, and jarring differences in scale – or, its “. . .arrangement of deep wall niches, with filigran framings, on several stories, (which) are clearly related to oriental constructions, for example the façade of the Parthian palace at Assur” – that testifies to a fusion between Rome and the Near East, but one that is edgy and disruptive, but still a creative blending of traditions (Schmidt-Colinet 1997, 167, fig. 6).

DURA-EUROPOS, THE DESERT FRONTIER Nearly a week’s ride on the caravan route east of Palmyra, situated on a high bluff on the west bank of Euphrates, Dura-Europos was the last military bastion of the Roman Empire on the Eastern desert frontier (Figure 11.78). The city’s advantageous location both for military and economic purposes, controlling trade from the Persian Gulf on to Palmyra and the Mediterranean coast was recognized early. It was founded in 300 bce under Seleucos I following a strictly Hellenistic version of the grid plan with blocks exactly twice as 780

long as wide (70  35 m) and no dominant axial streets (Figure 11.79). It was accessible from the western Syrian plateau through the Palmyra (or Damascus) Gate. Dura was taken by the Parthians in 114 bce and came under Roman control under Lucius Verus in 165 ce. Increasingly militarized in the third century the city was finally captured and destroyed by the Sassanian forces of Shapur I in 257 ce. The Byzantine Emperor Julian is reported to have hunted lions among its ruins. Dura’s cultural profile appears more complex than Palmyra’s, although it shared some of the same fortunes in long distance trade. While the early and strong presence of a Greek-Seleucid population and the persistence of Greek as the official language suggests the existence of favorable conditions for genuine classical values, the fast erosion of these values under the long Parthian rule, only marginally restored during the Roman military presence, demonstrates how thin the veneer of classicism could be in a lone outpost surrounded by a world committed to its older Mesopotamian culture. There are no extensive colonnaded avenues, no great apsidal city fountains, no theaters with rich stage decoration, no large open paved agoras, no orderly rows of shops, no temples rising in the middle of colonnaded enclosures in Dura. The Hellenistic

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figure 11.73 Detail of columns looking up, southeast side, Temple of Bel, Palmyra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 11.74 Reconstructed plan and axonometric of the Temple of Bel, Palmyra; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Ward-Perkins).

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figure 11.75 Interior view, north adyton, Temple of Bel, Palmyra; Photo by Diane Favro.

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figure 11.76 General view of the tower tombs on the slopes of Umm el Belkis near Palmyra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

agora, indeed designed as a large, open space in the center of the city, filled up with a seemingly haphazard mixture of shops and dwellings, and a crooked maze of streets by the beginning of the Parthian rule. Over the next few centuries, the oriental bazaar effect of dense and irregular buildings spread across and over the neat artificial classical grid. One must understand, however, that there is no logic and meaning in subscribing to an artificially imposed and ephemeral classicism. These deviations from the classical system need not be considered negatively: narrow and irregular streets offer better protection from the sun in a very hot climate; the mixed use of civic space, domestic, commercial, and recreational tends to vitalize neighborhoods and improve the quality of life, as many of our modern city planners and zoning experts have realized too late. Most buildings at Dura are of mud-brick, with thick, well-insulating walls; their low and flat roof tops must have offered a cool and breezy place to sleep. An occasional street front of shops might have been glamorized by short stretches of colonnades, but commonly canvas or straw mats must have been stretched over shop stalls and whole streets, as they do today in many old shopping streets of Turkey and the Middle East. Dura followed a natural lead toward the ecologically sensible. 784

If classically inspired temples (with or without pediments) had been intended, they were never realized. The typical Durene temple follows the SemiticSyrian type of a square, houselike structure composed of a transverse vestibule opening into the cult chamber behind; sometimes, the cult chamber is subdivided into three units, the central one being the adyton. The temple proper and its subservient spaces are located within an enclosed courtyard appearing like the deity’s home among the many other homes in a residential neighborhood of flat roofs – no topographical or architectural eminence is sought. One is aware how far one has come from the Nabataean world of Petra and the Hauran, whose similarly planned temples were transformed by a classical garb of peristyle porches and pedimented fronts, where mixed cultural heritages resulted in the skillful integration of systems and testified to the need for and pleasure in creating new idioms. The Temple of the Palmyrene Gods (or Bel, restored in the early third century) is situated in a modest courtyard entered through a small gate or propylon, a rudimentary colonnaded porch on one side of the court, and secondary units on others (Figure 11.80). The temple, backing against the rear wall of the compound (and built directly against the city wall), faces the entrance, perhaps with a simple

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figure 11.77 Reconstruction façade of the House Tomb # 36, Palmyra; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after C. Müting-Zimmer and A. Schmidt-Colinet).

projecting porch of four columns. This arrangement curiously resembles a typical Aegean Bronze Age megaron complex. Considering that the strange and wonderful mixing of the domestic and the sacred in both instances, the similarity may not be misplaced. The Roman period at Dura saw a few changes that could be characterized as Western developments. These started especially after the garrison was enlarged under Septimius Severus, when the military and veteran population of the city swelled and the northern quarter was largely taken up by military structures. Increasing use of Latin in public life is one such change. The establishment of typical Roman institutions such as an amphitheater and a few public baths is another. The Roman foot, instead of the Semitic cubit, came to common use. Three small baths from the first half of the third century (E-3, M-7, and C-3) all display intercommunicating vaulted roofs aligned in a row terminating in small, square caldaria with apsidal projections. Several unheated units, such as apodyteria, frigidariums, and lounges are placed parallel to the heated core. The row type Pompeian plan, the frequent and competent use of vaults and semidomes, had been

observed by Frank Brown, the excavator, to represent “exclusively military baths (and to be) a step in the intense Romanization of municipal life characteristic of the city’s last half century” (Brown, “Dura-Europas,” 1936, 103–104). While we beg to differ from the nature and certainty of “intense Romanization,” the military nature of the baths and their close dependence on Western, Italian models are irrefutable, as it is true for many comparable baths of the late Roman period from Cilicia, Antioch, and northern Syria. Also Western in form, and probably also in content, is the splendid residence of the military commander, the Palace of the Dux Ripae, built only a few decades before the city succumbed to the Sassanian offensive, never to recover. Dominating the city and the river from its high position on the north end of the walls, the palace is a very large building composed of an exterior peristyle court for official functions and ceremonies (Figure 11.81). The inner northern courtyard for private use opened to the view through an arcaded gallery and a wide terrace protected by projecting wings; an axially placed apsidal hall was probably for formal dining and entertaining. We could imagine the last Roman sentry stationed at 785

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figure 11.78 Aerial view of Dura-Europas looking north toward the Euphrates River; Yale Art Gallery, Dura Collection no. 78, 1932.

this superb and precarious lookout on the acropolis, watching the distant and mysterious world beyond the Euphrates, and wonder about what his background was, what languages he spoke, what gods he worshipped, whether he had ever been to Rome or Antioch, and what his thoughts were, if any, about the tired, mighty Empire whose last, crumbling Eastern bastion he was defending.

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE IN SYRIA Domestic or residential architecture, naturally smaller in size and more perishable in materials, often does not last as well as monumental public buildings. Therefore, the subject often does not receive the attention it deserves. The Near East in general and Syria in particular is unusual in providing a relatively large number of examples admirably documented in Howard Crosby Butler’s volumes on several remarkable Princeton Expeditions he directed in Syria, 1899–1909 (Butler 1903, 1919, and 1920). This is largely due to the exceptional quality and the durability of the principal building material – the fine limestone of northern Syria and 786

the hard, dark basalt of southern Syria and Judea. In Mesopotamia, however, the less durable but traditional mudbrick, or kiln-baked brick, supplemented by imported timber for beams and roof construction, were the norm, and thus were less well preserved. For small spans vaults or domes in pitch-brick technique also saw limited use. Since wood was scarce across the Near East, except for the fine imported Lebanese cedar, stone beams or long slabs cut to perfection were the traditional substitutes for timber roofing. The relatively high tensile strength of basalt and other volcanic stones allowed for spans up to 8–9 meters, which, for most domestic use, was sufficient. A practical way to reduce spans when necessary (or to create a large, formal room) was to divide the space laterally into a series of parallel transverse arches upon which stone slabs could be placed. Another simple way was the use of corbels or cantilevered stone brackets. This is almost exactly the same system still in use in Cappadocia, a region of volcanic stones and long masonry tradition in central Anatolia. The handsome mid-nineteenth-century restoration drawing of the socalled Praetorium in Mismiyeh by M. Duthoit for M. De Vogüé, shows a more sophisticated system where the spans are reduced by the combined use of

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figure 11.79 Plan, Dura-Europos; rendered by Diane Favro (after Rostovtzeff ).

elegant columns carrying arches and transverse vaults, while the square center of the room had a cut-stone domical vault, perhaps backfilled by light volcanic scoriae (Figure 11.82). A large proportion of houses in Syria represent the inward looking Mediterranean variety, often with several small units grouped around an interior courtyard or sharing an irregular outside semipublic space. Unlike the typical Greco-Roman house (a big generalization that), the use of a colonnade or a peristyle courtyard is rare. Since two-story, even three-story, houses were common thanks to the exceptional strength of local stone, relatively deep, uncolonnaded interior courts offered shade and protection against the summer heat and winter winds and provided culturally appreciated privacy. The houses, without exception, are rectangular following the structural logic of ashlar. Their boxy appearance is enhanced by flat, terraced roofs providing a desirable place to sleep during hot summers. As it is true for traditional village houses in the region today, the ground floor

(often with packed earth floors) was used for animals, storage, and cooking, possibly with a room or two for the reception of male visitors, while the upper floors were for living. In grander city houses rectangular units following a simple, additive geometry clustered around a paved courtyard; a larger room sometimes opened into this court through a wide arch prefiguring the popular eyvan arrangement of Islamic-Arab houses centuries later. On the exterior, houses are simple; those of the Hauran are particularly austere in dark basalt. In northern Syria, especially the well-populated region of villages and towns (known as the “Dead Cities,” see later) the same stone aesthetic was applied on softer local limestone. The boxy shapes of the houses were regularly alleviated by small, square windows and perfectly cut circular openings – for which the region had a penchant. Frequent use of exterior stone stairs, cantilevered out into space, provided powerful diagonal accents to façades and would please modern architectural tastes. At a few, well-preserved, larger 787

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figure 11.80 Reconstructed plan and axonometric, Temple of the Palmyrene Gods, Dura-Europos; rendered by Diane Favro (after Ward-Perkins and Rostovtzeff ).

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figure 11.81 Axonometric reconstruction (cut-away view), Palace of the Dux Ripa (commander’s residence), Dura-Europos; rendered by Youssef Maguid (after Ward-Perkins, Figure 11.229).

houses from Bostra, Umm el Jemal, and Inkhill the fine, plain texture of stonework is contrasted by discreet decorative moldings around doors and windows, sometimes rising as perfect arches over them (Figure 11.83; see also Figures 11.60 and 11.61). Floors are often delineated on the outside by

horizontal string courses; an occasional exterior niche (plain, or decorated with a shell head classical motif ) was probably intended to signal personal wealth and public ambition. Overall, the story of Syrian residential architecture is the story of superb native craftsmanship in stone. Singly or in groups the 789

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figure 11.82 So-called Praetorium at Mismiyeh; drawing by M. Duthoit for M. De Vogüé M. De Vogue, Syrie central, architecture civile et religieuse du Ier au VII siècle, 2 vols. Paris, 1865–1877 (Wikimedia public domain).

austere elegance of these houses underscores their sense of urbanity. To the seminomadic tribes who lived inland but had commercial contacts with cities, these tall stone dwellings must have appeared impressive and epitomized the idea and standards of city living, though most residents might have preferred their nights under open starry skies. 790

DEAD CITIES AND AGRARIAN COMMUNITIES OF NORTHERN SYRIA The study of the barren region west and southwest of Aleppo, or within the rough triangle defined by Antioch and Aleppo on the north and Apamea on

The Roman Near East the south, is interesting not only because of the extraordinary richness and excellent state of preservation of its ruins, but because of the theories put forth by modern explorers to explain its modest wealth. Comprised of nearly seven hundred closely spaced villages surrounded by small farmsteads and picturesque country roads, the region seems to have supported a thriving agrarian community of an astonishing estimated rural population of around three hundred thousand (covering roughly 5,000 s km, which gives a density of about sixty people per s km). Across rolling limestone hills and iron-rich red soil plains, the distant view of thousands of small, cubical, all-stone buildings, churches, and monasteries, some preserved up to two or three stories high, is as evocative as it is mysterious (Figure 11.84; see also Figures 11.21 and 11.22). Untouched for over one thousand years, many look like ghost towns whose inhabitants left only yesterday. Romantically called Dead Cities, they were more an agricultural community of small villages, very much alive, but not cities. Although some of the architecture from these villages dates as early as the end of the first or the second centuries ce, the region prospered through the fourth to the sixth centuries and slowly collapsed by the end of the seventh. The first modern explorer of the region in 1861 was Count Melchior De Vogüé, a member of the French Mission to Syria, whose interest in the region originated from the desire to protect the local Christian population under Ottoman rule. De Vogüé interpreted the ruins as the country estates of rich and sophisticated urban aristocracy – a community of Christians whose civilized life was snuffed out after 636 ce by the “scourge of Islam.” De Vogüé’s Christian mission no doubt colored his views. Some four decades later, Princeton’s Howard Crosby Butler, an ardent admirer of De Vogüé, and also a Christian gentleman, conducted several well organized and extensive survey explorations in Syria (1899–1900 and 1905–1905), and arrived at similar conclusions, although without the strong Christian bias; for Butler all the evidence of ruins reflected the life of a middle-class population of wealth and refinement. This was a community of urban elite rather than village rustics whose successful existence suffered defeat, Butler reasoned, due to the severe deforestation and erosion of their fertile land following destructive Sassanian invasions. A more recent and objective study of the region was achieved by the Russian architect-scholar George Tchalenko in the 1930s, whose extensive work was published in three volumes Villages antiques de la Syrie du nord (1953–1958). Tchalenko’s more inclusive interpretation evoked a

world of rural peasantry as well as urban aristocracy, villages, market towns, farmsteads, and elegant villas – a pocket of civilization that owed its wealth and sophistication mainly to the successful cultivation and exportation of olives and olive oil. It was, Tchalenko also assumed, brought to an end by the disruption of trade by the Sassanian invasions and the following waves of Islamic occupation. These views, all from surface surveys and armchair theorizing, have been significantly altered by the first full scale excavations and intense explorations undertaken by George Tate of the French Institute of Archaeology in Damascus between 1976 and 1978. Based on an admittedly still short and restricted fieldwork (although it did include forty-six villages and forty-seven hundred rooms) this research determined that the “dead villages” were entirely populated by peasants. Some 90–95% of the buildings were houses, which were small, predominantly two-story stone structures occupied by nuclear families. The lower floors were reserved for farm products and animals, the airy upper floors for living. There were no elegant villas for urbanites, but some houses were larger, probably for bigger, wealthier families. There was no running water, no indoor toilets, no indoor private baths, no flower gardens, no view terraces for sipping wine. Most importantly, there were no regularized street system, no formally conceived agoras, no village centers. As we still see in Serdjilla, and Kir Bize, houses were irregularly placed creating common functional spaces like courtyards between them with some walled-in enclosures for animals (see Figure 11.84). Growth, as in any village, appeared piecemeal and organic. Villages were surrounded by gardens and orchards, which were divided and protected by low walls marking boundaries and stretching out to include fields in the country. There were no defense walls except occasional watchtowers at the edge of villages, some still standing up to 20 meters high. The two types of public institutions emphasized over others by size and complex groups were public baths and Christian churches. The architectural appeal of these sites derives primarily from their fine stonework. Houses are built in finely crafted ashlar, their prismatic masses and gabled roofs standing in sharp relief against hills of natural limestone – a classical look which might have misled the explorers to believe them to be more sophisticated than they were. Still, there is an element of solidity and comfort in these dwellings as seen in the excellent typological study by Tchalenko: most are composed of a few, rectangular rooms; handsome porches in

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figure 11.83 Plan, elevation, and section of House #3 at Umm el-Jemal; H.C. Butler (1907).

sharply cut stone or upper level balconies created by simple stone columns or square uprights articulate their façades; many open in front and back into walled-in yards. Stone creates its own sense of natural ornament by its color, texture and coursework.

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Volcanic basalt, the king of stones, especially, creates a hard, crisp and polished surface almost oily in appearance that might as well be in black titanium – and win the approval of architect Frank Gehry. In addition, many buildings display bold and simple

The Roman Near East

figure 11.84 General view, town, Serdjilla, one of the “dead cities,” northern Syria; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

moldings around doorways, windows and arches; there are primitive corner pilasters and discreet rosettes in low relief (Figure 11.85). At Rafasa, a perfect half-round balcony or stairwell projection contrasts against the plain stone wall as pure plastic abstraction of architectural form (Figure 11.86). For the owners of those properties, there must have been enough disposable income to indulge in domestic aesthetics. Among the larger buildings public baths occupy a special category. Functionally and simply built through the third to fifth centuries, many of these baths were associated with annexed inns or hostels, such as the one at Serdjilla (see Figures 11.21 and 11.22). These baths were built in 473 ce by a wealthy citizen and his wife, who expressed in a mosaic inscription their joy in giving and hoped that they would bring “great happiness” to their town (Yegül 1992, 329). With their skillfully composed prismatic volumes, finely proportioned rooms and excellent ashlar work, the Serdjilla baths symbolize the civic- mindedness and pride of this Early Christian community worthy of its best classical forerunners. The Large Baths at Babiska (c. 50 km

northwest of Serdjilla), is a more elaborate establishment with several interconnected courtyards. These annexed spaces served social and recreational functions along with bathing, important for the lodging and entertainment of patrons, perhaps local itinerant merchants, whom the village honored. Some of these baths included annexes that can be interpreted as hostels or inns. The modest bathing facilities of Syrian villages, no doubt followed the urban models emanating from regional centers such as Aleppo (ancient Beroea), Antioch and Pompeiopolis in Cilicia, thus providing the impetus for the transference of the bathing culture from Roman to Byzantine and Islamic civilizations. More than any other frontier contact, the Islamic hammam of future generations was shaped along the fringes of these north Syrian steppes. If the well-built houses, well-tended orchards and well-designed public baths of the Dead Cities reflect the astonishing but modest levels of comfort and stability achieved in this quiet corner of the Near East, the dozens of churches and monasteries rising among the ruins reflect its greater hidden wealth and piety – as

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figure 11.85 Detail of arched doorway, Serdjilla; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

the married couple who contributed the Serdjilla baths illustrate (see earlier). This was, indeed, as De Vogüé envisioned, a Christian society, but one whose values were ensconced in the country. The churches, some very large, predominantly followed the Early Christian basilica model: a tall nave with an apse flanked by aisles, no transepts, all covered by a timber-trussed roof. The basic post-and-beam system was ubiquitous, stone lintels were used for colonnaded porticos and other short spans, imported timber for the larger spans. Two of the largest and best preserved of these churches are the basilica at Qalb Luzeh and the Cathedral and Monastery of Saint Simeon Stylites. The latter, one of the grandest and most splendid example of early Christian architecture anywhere, is a late-fifth century complex of several basilicas built around the octagonal hall where the famous column of the eccentric saint stood or sat (expecting his meals to be prepared and brought to him by his womenfolk). Covering an area of 5,000 square meters, it could hold some ten thousand worshippers at one time. Although located in the country, many of these

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impressive churches were designed by architects with metropolitan aspirations (and possibly experience) who proudly signed their names on the buildings. This kind of pride in formal, upper-end design is also evident in the bold and creative forms and the blossoming of stone in ornamental detail of funerary architecture typical of the region, such as the pyramidal tomb towers of al-Bara and Ain Dana (Figures 11.87 and 11.88). The example we chose to illustrate among dozens is a sixth-century pyramid tomb from Ain Dana, which demonstrates a masterful combination of primary geometries of mass in stone whose natural permanence seems enhanced by the disciplined austerity of its carved ornament. The evidence gained from the last few decades of survey and excavations indicate that the region’s wealth was primarily derived from the north Syrian countryside. As often is the case, intelligent water management and agriculture, and what we now like to call sustainable use of natural resources paid its dividends. There was dry farming of grains in fields, and more profitable cash crops, fruits and vegetables closer to the villages and in moist valley bottoms. Olive and olive oil for export, as Tchalenko maintained, also contributed to local wealth. The village of Qalb Luzeh with an estimated population of 250–300 had twenty-three olive presses. As in the Hauran, contact and trade between peasants and the semi-nomadic tribes with their flocks, was probably peaceful and mutually profitable. Villages appear to have produced more than they consumed. While lateral contacts among villages and local markets in small towns must have underpinned the slow, sure basis of the economy, hierarchical trade relationships with more distant urban centers and regional emporia such as Antioch probably provided the surplus – and the architects for the more ambitious churches. The larger, better-built and better-decorated houses attest to the existence of families who had grown richer, and besides their own finer homes, could afford to contribute to the building of baths and churches. They were not wealthy urbanites buying in the country; they belonged in the country. It seems that life in these remarkable agrarian communities was not extinguished by violent outsiders (much less by the fictional marauding Islam forces) but declined slowly through the eighth and ninth centuries. Perhaps their sheer success led to growth that could no longer be sustained by what the region could provide. It is important to underline that archaeology produced better knowledge in understanding this distant corner of Syria compared to a century of theorizing. We

The Roman Near East

figure 11.86 Stone residential building with half-round balcony, Rafasa, northern Syria; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 11.87 General view of the “pyramid tomb,”Ain Dara, northern Syria; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

concur with Clive Foss, who observed that, “visitors [to these sites] must now envisage common peasantry tending their livestock and olive groves instead of togate aristocrats dining on verandas overlooking distant vineyards” (Foss 1996, 53). And add, perhaps, that the humble sophistication of this self-sufficient rural community may be historically more interesting than the common spectacle of urban elite buying into the countryside. We also agree with W. Ball that “what makes the Dead Cities so remarkable is not so much

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their large size but their smallness, their very ordinariness, nothing more than unassuming, everyday, small country towns such as can be found the world over” (Ball 2000, 233). Considering the present problems of this region where even the most basic, unassuming happiness (and, indeed, life) of everyday towns and people is in peril, we view the past happiness and ordinariness the Dead Cities with admiration and hope that they could, one day, reappear as paradigms of wisdom, common-sense and peace – and ordinariness.

The Roman Near East

figure 11.88 Detail of ornament, corner of the “pyramid tomb,” Ain Dara, northern Syria; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity REFERENCES

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THE LATE EMPIRE IN ROME AND THE PROVINCES FROM THE SEVERANS TO CONSTANTINE

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The assassination of Commodus in 193 ce initiated the transition from the Antonines to the Severans. Septimius Severus, the military governor of Pannonia (Hungary), was the first to march and reach Rome among several contenders to the throne, each proclaimed emperor by the armies they commanded. This was not the first time the making of an emperor was based on military power rather than approval by the ranks of Roman aristocracy and the Senate, but it firmly established the questionable system that continued into the third century and contributed to, if not caused, the long period of civic and economic instability that characterized the Late Empire. THE SEVERANS (193–235

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Septimius Severus was born to a wealthy local African family in Lepcis Magna in Tripolitania (western Libya; see earlier) and served as a senator and consul in Rome before taking the throne. His rule marked the crucial moment in the cultural history of the Empire looking back to the liberal philhellenism of the classical past and forward to the military ideologies of autocratic rulership. This was a period when the spiritual and mystical world of personal religion, along with the expanding influence of Christianity, confronted and challenged the shell of classical beliefs. Septimius, reputed to speak Latin with an African accent, lavished his home town and other African cities with unparalleled generosity, but he resided in Rome on the Palatine, treated the Senate with adequate respect, and sought to legitimize his rule by retroactively adopting the good Antonine emperors as his ancestors, causing sharp tongues to quip that the young man from Africa had wasted no time to “find a father.” A significant part of Septimius’ success as 800

an emperor might have been owed to his choice of a wife in Julia Domna, the intelligent and aristocratic daughter of the hereditary high-priest of the local sun god Elagabal from Emesa (Homs, northern Syria). It is likely that she was very much responsible for softening her husband’s militaristic edge and helped to create the semblance of a genteel court to promote artistic and cultural endeavors. After the short hiatus of building during the late second century, the Severan Age is distinguished by its almost frenzied building activity in Rome and the provinces, some of it following the tradition of renewing and restoring earlier monuments of political and cultural significance (for a wide variety of views on the Severan period see Swain, Harrison and Elsner, eds. 2007). When Septimius Severus died at York in 211 ce during the British campaign, his son Caracalla (named Marcus Aurelius Antoninus) murdered his younger brother Geta and became the sole emperor; he also condemned his brother’s memory (damnatio memmoriae), resulting in the breaking up of his portrait images and chiseling out of his name from inscriptions. The brutality apparent in this callous fratricide (although not the first time among Roman aristocratic ranks) was the hallmark of Caracalla’s reign until 217 ce. With his short army haircut and stubbly beard, his harsh rule in image and in fact gave a foretaste of the devastating half-century of military anarchy that blighted the late Roman era, 235–285 ce (see later in this chapter). A cruel but capable general, Caracalla dealt with increasingly bold and bloody uprisings in the Western and Eastern frontiers effectively, even pushing the eastern borders of the Empire furthest into Mesopotamia and Parthia. All this came to naught. He was assassinated in 217 by the Praetorian Prefect Macrinus. More significant and lasting than his military

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine campaigns was his granting of Roman citizenship to all free men of the Empire, a final step in a series of social reforms going back to the Republican era of the Gracchi brothers (see earlier) that ultimately privileged the provinces at the expense of Rome and Italy. Macrinus’ fledgling ambitions as Emperor were short lived: the troops at Emesa declared as emperor Elagabalus, the fourteen-year-old grandson of Julia Maesa (sister of Julia Domna) and priest of the sun god. For the moment the new boy-emperor’s Syrian relatives were successful, but given his colossal incompetence, bizarre religious fanaticism, and his taste in what was considered as “Oriental perversions” (they were perversions all right, without the descriptive need for “Oriental”), Elagabalus lost all support of the army and the powerful women of his family. He was murdered in 222 ce by the Praetorian Guard (obviously experienced and useful in deposing emperors) at the behest of his aunt Julia Mammea, whose own son Alexander Severus was conveniently elevated to the throne at the age of thirteen. Growing up and sharing power with his domineering mother, Alexander’s reign as emperor was a period of relative calm and normalcy when the Senate’s counsel and authority were restored to keep the potentially troublesome legions in check. Alexander was even able to control the newly rising native Persian dynasty in the East, the Sassanians, and after successful campaigns returned to Rome triumphant in 233. Yet, problems in Germany resulted in a mutiny and the murder of the young emperor and his mother in 235. Proclaimed emperor by his soldiers, the legionary commander Julius Maximinus initiated the fifty-year period of “soldier emperors.”

SEVERAN ARCHITECTURE IN ROME Writing nearly five decades ago, J. B. Ward-Perkins suggested that architecturally the “forty-odd years of Severan rule may be classified as an age of consolidation . . . rather than of important new experiment” (Ward-Perkins 1970, 126–127). We agree with this tempered opinion, partially. To be sure, by the end of the second century Roman architecture in form and content had fully matured with little need or space for the experimentation in new typologies and technologies that had characterized its previous two or three centuries of development. Unlike new departures in painting and sculpture favoring abstract and symbolic forms of representation over classical naturalism, architecture, a functional art, appeared largely immune to such late Roman tendencies; yet, the long quest in transformative experimentation in the classical

vocabulary, a creative and eclectic endeavor inherent to Roman architecture, continued unabated. The Severan Age witnessed on the one hand some of the boldest experiments in vaulted, concrete structures (to wit the southeast extensions of Palatine terraces), and on the other, the widespread acceptance of a new and creative aesthetic in rich and rugged ornament, loosely referred to as Severan baroque (the following discussion is limited to Severan building in Rome; for the provinces, especially Lepcis Magna; see earlier). Furthermore, Septimius Severus and his followers were as adept as their Imperial predecessors in promoting their legitimacy, power, and self-image through art and architecture. The architectural narratives of the Severans were in no manner less engaging (nor more convincing) than those of earlier periods. The visitor to Rome who takes a walk along the great public park that once was the Circus Maximus is often not aware that the impressive sight of vaulted substructures rising like a wall on the south and southeast flanks of the Palatine are not a part of Domitian’s famed palace, but largely Severan additions that extend by some 300 meters beyond the wide exedra and the stadium of Domus Augustana and continue along the east side of the hill (see earlier). These soaring, interconnected systems of brick-faced concrete cross-vaults once supported Severan residences and thermae occupying the entire east and southeast corner of the hill (Figure 12.1; see Figures 6.21 and 6.23). Little remains of these baths or the Domus Severiana, but the latter was a large peristyle structure whose individual elements must have been inspired by, and in a sense continued, Rabirius’ creations next door. It was, in fact, a project undertaken as a part of the more-or-less continuous modifications and restorations to Domitian’s Domus Flavia, which also had suffered from fire and old age (see earlier). Another Severan addition to the Palatine was the great temple precinct of the Syrian Sol Invictus (and probably a bevy of other Syrian deities) occupying the entire northeast spur of the Palatine on the steep road called the Clivus Palatinus. The platform (c. 160  110 m), commonly called “Vigna Barberini,” now occupied by the Convent of San Sebastiano, was raised on vaulted substructures and rose at its northeast corner some 16–18 meters above the Colosseum Valley. This massive construct was actually also a Domitianic extension of the palace proper designed as a vast enclosed garden with a wide apsidal end and surrounded by multistory colonnades, marble walkways and waterworks (Figure 12.2; see also Figure 6.21). It was redesigned under Hadrian, and later under the Antonines, but it was Elagabolus who introduced the Oriental cult into Rome and built in the middle of what he must have thought of as a convenient enclosure, the 801

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figure 12.1 View of Severan terraces, southeast end of Palatine Hill, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül. A B C D E F

Temple Precinct of Sol Invictus/Elagabalus Area Palatina Domus Flavia Domus Augustana Upper Level Domus Augustana Lower Level Garden Stadium

C i r c u s F E

M a x i m u s

D C

A B

freestanding temple to Sol Elagabalus. Raised on massive blocks of marble (not on top of a conventional high podium), the temple was a 6  12 peripteral, Corinthian, and probably had a vaulted cella with interior row of columns standing against its thick walls. A coin of Alexander Severus (c. 222 ce) provides a simplified but credible image of the temple and its precinct; it was axially approached from the west by way of a vaulted gate structure, raised on a broad flight of stairs. Not surprisingly, the cult did not outlive its notorious founder; the temple was rededicated to Jupiter Ultor (Avenger) by Alexander Severus, the memory of the “Oriental” practices and excesses of the era justifying the revenge extracted by the most Roman of all the gods. Another Imperial residence following the tradition of aristocratic suburban villas was the so-called Sessorium Palace, sometimes as the Villa ad Spem veterem (meaning “near the old Temple of Spes/Hope”) in the southeast quarter of Rome started by Septimius but completed under Elagabalus. The complex consisted of, besides residential quarters, an “atrium” or 802

figure 12.2 Simplified reconstruction of the Flavian Palace with the sanctuary of Elagabalus (built over the Domitianic terrace), front left; Rendered by Marie Saldaña.

audience hall, a bath, a large circus (for races) and a small amphitheater, all connected by a cryptoporticus (Figure 12.3; see also Figure 6.6). The best and most conspicuous remains are those of the Amphitheater Castrense, whose handsome brick-faced concrete Corinthian half-columns and pilasters alternate with arches can be seen as a curving wall next to S. Croce in Gerusaleme (Figure 12.4). The arches were filled in the later third century ce when the structure was incorporated into the Aurelian Walls of Rome. The brickwork, which includes a specially molded entablature, is excellent. The baths were later named the Thermae Heleniane, following restoration by Helena, the Emperor Constantine’s mother. They are known only from a plan by Palladio, representing a type described as the half-axial with a prominent, cross-vaulted frigidarium and a natatio. Only a few curved walls, arched piers and foundations of the Circus Varianus have been excavated at different times. With a length of 577 meters (only 3 meters less than Circus Maximus) although much narrower, this was a surprisingly large

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.3 Plan of the Sessorium Palace (“Villa ad spem veterem”), south of Rome; rendered by Diane Favro.

structure in which, according to the Historiae Augustae, Elagabalus watched camel and elephant races. The Sessorium Palace appears to have combined some features of the Flavian Palace on the Palatine with those of elaborate country villas (shades of Nero). It is an early and important example of a late antique palace, such as that in Trier, Antioch, and Constantinople, which include circuses and hippodromes among their topographical features, underlining the political and ceremonial dimensions in villa design. Its best-known progeny is the better preserved early-fourth century villa complex of the Emperor Maxentius on Via Appia Antica on the outskirts of Rome (see later in this chapter). T HE R M AE O F C AR AC A L LA

The impressive but largely utilitarian demonstration of vaulted terracing, which provided the structural skeleton of the Palatine, was orchestrated into a complex and active system of usable and grand spaces in the Thermae of Caracalla, the flagship of the Imperial thermae of Rome. Occupying an area of almost 30 acres, the Thermae Antoniniane (as the name is recorded in the Mirabilis Urbis Romae) is located on the Via Appia Antica in the southeast quarter of the city. The bath block (210  130 m) is placed in the middle of a vast precinct (c. 350  330 m) of gardens, peripheral structures, meeting rooms, exedrae, libraries, and a “stadium” raised on a gigantic, multicellular cistern (Figure 12.5). The latter was supplied directly by the Aqua Antoniniane, a branch of the Aqua Marcia. The design of the bath block – a symmetrical, axial composition – follows closely the cross-axial model established by Apollodorus in Trajan’s Thermae

(Figure 12.6). The geometry and arrangement of spaces, with a pair of internalized palaestrae, are clearer and better balanced, the scale larger. The projecting caldarium terminating the main axis is a round hall with a tall, brick-faced concrete dome raised on a ring of arched windows, 35 meters in diameter and 44 meters high (only 9 meters less than the Pantheon’s in width, but slightly taller). Even more impressive as a structural feat was the frigidarium, an immense oblong hall divided into three bays, the central bays (or “nave”) covered by tall triple cross vaults expanding into six barrel-vaulted side units; four of these contained cold water pools (Figure 12.7). The cross vaults sprang from colossal monolithic granite columns and spanned the 24-meter-wide hall and rose to 33 meters in the center; the actual carrying elements were, of course, the massive concrete piers defining the bays; visually, however, these giant columns defining one continuous line of force from floor to ceiling appeared to do the lifting. The barrel-vaulted side units served as threedimensional buttresses for the main space, counteracting the great thrust of the central cross vaults. This sophisticated system perfected for the frigidariums of Imperial thermae provided, even on a grander scale, as a direct model for the Basilica of Maxentius completed around 310 ce (see later in this chapter). Unobserved by the ordinary visitor there was a remarkable “underground city” serving the thermae. Apart from the extensive network of water supply and drainage systems, the underground facilities subsumed four interconnected, vaulted corridors along the heated southwest front of the building containing the major heating stations (furnaces and boilers) that served directly the long row of heated halls, four on 803

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figure 12.4 Exterior brick arcade (filled in), Amphitheater Castrense, east end, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

each side of the caldarium. There was also a waterpowered grain mill operated with the abundant runoff water of the baths – an early example of renewable resource application. Typically, the same runoff water 804

in large baths was used continuously to flush public toilets, while the urine from the latter was used in wool processing often located on the premises. Likewise, laundry services, an enormous undertaking that

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.5 Precinct plan of the Thermae of Caracalla, partially restored, Rome, W. S. Smith (Yegül Collection)

supplied several thousand bathers with fresh towels every day, must have been located somewhere on the grounds of the establishment (while the drying of massive load of laundry must have been done on the copious roof terraces paved in mosaic and accessible through numerous stairs; some of these roof terraces were undoubtedly also used by the patrons for lounging, recreation, and sun-bathing). Thus, the Thermae of Caracalla, and other large baths, were not only the product of expert knowledge in building technology and construction methods, or exalted institutions for hygienic, social, and recreational concerns. They were, with their army of attendants, servants, and specialists working behind the scenes, also among the most effective labor and economic operations of the Roman world. A valuable study by J. Delaine of the costs of building and decorating the Thermae of Caracalla

reveals that an estimated 14 million kastrenses modii (KM: a comparative value unit based on standard wheat costs) was spent over a period of six to seven years, which was 3–3.5 times the expense of the annual grain dole for Rome. This indicates that building a major thermae was strictly a state undertaking outside the capacity of even the wealthiest individuals (De Laine 1997, 207–224). It is remarkable that the construction of large thermae continued unhampered well into fourth century ce. In addition to the Thermae of Caracalla, several large bathing establishments were built during the Severan era; in less than a century, the former was challenged in size and the complexity of services by the Thermae of Diocletian (see later). The status of baths as popular symbols of a powerful and caring state may explain the primacy of Imperial thermae as building projects even during hard economic times. 805

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figure 12.6 Plan of the the Thermae of Caracalla, bath block, Rome; rendered by Fikret Yegül (after Krencker).

TH E S EP T IZ O D IU M A ND TH E NY MP HA EU M O F A LEXA N DE R SEV ERU S

One of the most eye-catching monuments of the Severan era must have been the Septizodium, a tall (29 m), three-story fountain masking the steep, southeast corner of the Palatine below the towering new Severan additions (Figure 12.8; see also Figures 12.37, 6.21). It was dedicated in 203 ce along with the Arch of Septimius Severus in the Forum to celebrate the emperor’s decennalia (tenth year of rule) and his Parthian triumph. The Septizodium has always attracted interest and caused considerable controversy among scholars, although the basic appearance of the monument seems clear enough. Based on a partial representation on the Marble Plan and sixteenth-century drawings of the then still-standing eastern corner of the Palatine, the building is restored as a three-story aedicular Corinthian façade with three wide apsidal recesses (two of them preserved on the Marble plan) between projecting columnar end pavilions (Figure 12.8). The columns and apses rose on an exceptionally high podium (5.70 m), forming a backdrop for a large pool and the ubiquitous display for statuary – at least, one fragmentary river god has been found. Although certain iconographic links to Roman Africa have been suggested, neither the scheme in toto nor in details is specific to a particular region or monument; rather it belongs to a broad typology of 806

aedicular façades ultimately derived from the columnar decorations of scaenae frons. Sometimes referred to as “Asiatic façades,” they were very popular during the Imperial era, adorning as backdrops from city gates to audience halls, from Spain to Syria (see earlier). The scheme has architectural affinities with the nymphaeum at Side (now under full reconstruction) as it equally has with the scaenae frons of the theater at Sabratha (see earlier). While commonly restored as a triple-apsed, 100 RF long façade, in a recent study E. Thomas, following an earlier suggestion by S. Settis, argues for a seven-apse, 150 RF long façade dominating the plaza in front of the Porta Capena, the entrance gate for those approaching the city and Severan Palace from the south and east, that is pointedly from Africa (Thomas 2007, 364). The significance of this dynastic geography was underlined by the author of Historiae Augustae, who was lucid in his observation that “when (Septimius) built the Septizonium he had no other intention that this work should make an impression on those who were coming from North Africa . . .” and indicated that it would have been a preferred entrance to the new palace (SHA, Severus 24.3–5). Either scheme (we prefer the three-apsed, shorter façade) would have served brilliantly in combining function and ideology, masking and decorating a particularly steep slope, and focusing vision like a giant billboard on the new locus of power in the capital. The broad dynastic message would have

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.7 General view of the frigidarium, Thermae of Caracalla, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

far exceeded the restrictions implicit in an interpretation as a “recognizably ‘African’” monument (Thomas 2007, 364), but one which greeted all provincial tourists in this busy plaza in front of the fountain, and welcomed and refreshed them in a blazing display of water, color, light, and sound – a kind of Trevi Fountain experience. Although it may be far-fetched, we would like to recall that there is a reference in Dio Cassius that among the omens predicting the good fortune of the superstitious emperor as the legitimate successor to the Antonine dynasty, one described “water gushing from his hands like a spring” (Dio Cassius 74.3, 1–3). Thus, as underlined by S. Lusnia, the impressive water display of the Septizodium, probably with a colossal statue of the “emigrant” emperor in the central apse, was ultimately a celebration and commemoration of his success and the realization of his African dream (Lusnia 2004, 539; 2014, 124–132). Not in the same league in its scenographic and political brilliance as the Septizodium, the Nymphaeum of Alexander Severus located at the junction of the ancient Viae Labicana and Praenestina outside

the Esquiline Gate was almost as impressive in presenting an emperor mastering Rome’s waters. Now dominating the center of the large and commercial Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, the great brick-faced concrete mass known popularly as the Trophy of Marius, is an 18-meter-tall structure in two stories featuring a high, wide semidomed apse (possibly for a seated statue of Alexander Severus) flanked by a pair of arches between freestanding Corinthian columns (Figure 12.9). As depicted in sixteenth-century drawings and the Gatteschi reconstruction (1916), victory trophies of Domitianic date were displayed between the columns. Although the monument must have presented a triumphal character, there was no real connection to a triumph. The misassociation with the victorious Republican general Marius and the allusion to his trophies grew in the Middle Ages. The reuse of sculpture to create favorable associations and establish fictional narratives was nothing new in Roman Imperial practice but acquired greater currency from the Severan period onward. The trophies were removed to the entrance of Campidoglio at the end of the 807

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 12.8 Reconstruction of the Septizodium, plan and elevation; C. Huelsen (1886).

sixteenth-century, where they can be seen now. Supplied by a branch of Aqua Claudia (the aqueduct which brought water to the Palatine restored and improved under the Severans), the water cascaded and crashed down to successive levels of pools, the great semicircular lower one further articulated by a series of fountains. The handsome composition like a triumphal arch must have served as a model for numerous fountains and nymphae of post-Classical Rome, such as the Aqua Paola on the Janiculum Hill. Like the “good emperors” before him, a significant part of Septimius’ building activities in Rome were directed toward the restoration and renovation of 808

earlier works, upon which he, like earlier donors, preserved the names of the original builders (SHA, Severrus 23.1). A prominent issue of Severan coinage bears the legend “Restitutor Urbis” alluding to the emperor’s attempt to win legitimacy and popularity through such efforts. It should be emphasized that a lot of such restorative work was apolitical in nature, necessitated by aging as well as by the devastating earthquake of 191–2 ce, which left many buildings in need of repairs. Severan restorations included some work on the Pantheon (probably mostly decorative), the Temple of Vespasian, the Round Temple of Vesta and the House of the Vestal Virgins in the Forum, the

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.9 Reconstruction of the Nymphaeum of Alexander Severus with Domitianic trophies, Rome; engraving by A. Ridolfi (1916); American Academy in Rome – Photographic Archive (Gatteschi collection 104).

last specifically by Julia Domna in keeping with the tradition of good empresses as the natural patrons of the venerable cult. In the Campus Martius the Porticus Octaviae, also a venerable Republican sanctuary with the temples of Juno Regina and Jupiter Stator, was renovated with a new gate carrying an imposing pediment. Of special interest, however, was the restoration of Vespasian’s Forum or Temple of Peace, damaged in the earthquake and fire of 191 ce. In the hall south of the central Templum Pacis was installed a detailed Marble Plan of contemporary Rome (the best documented of similar stone maps). This Severan example composed of 151 marble plates covering an area 13 meters high and 18 meters wide approximately 4 meters above the floor (see Figures 6.4 and, 6.3). Depicting almost every street and building in the city roughly at a 1/240 scale (though important buildings were represented larger), some with identifying inscriptions, only about 10% of this impressive cartographic record on marble has been preserved; but what survives (and can be restored) provides scholars with invaluable topographical

evidence of vanished or partially known monuments, such as the Septizodium as previously discussed. Furthermore, in conjunction with the archaeological record, the Marble Plan provides a useful idea of how the capital changed and grew over time. The display in the specially arranged room almost certainly served greater symbolic and political aims than functional. After all, more technical, more detailed, and more easily consulted cadastral maps must have existed in city offices. The public display of this map was, in essence, the concretization of the idea of Rome in all its mythical and historic glory made accessible to all in a beautiful precinct sacred to Peace. Although foreign policy in the Severan age was primarily one of responding to a growing number of external threats, and at best resulted in a few successful efforts to consolidate the borders, Severan emperors made the most of their triumphs and erected in Rome and in the provinces many triumphal arches, or civic gates with triumphal connotations. The massive and handsome triple arch built at the west end of the 809

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity Forum in 203 ce is the most substantial embodiment of these efforts, in this case Septimius’ successful eastern campaign of 197–198 ce against the Parthians belatedly celebrated on his decennalia, although there is question if he formally accepted the honor of a triumph (see Figures 1.14, 12.10, 10.12). The Sacra Via entering the Forum at its east end, next to the Arch of Titus, traversed the venerable public space and left it at its west end through the wide, central opening of the Arch of Septimius Severus, joining a road ramping up the steep hill to terminate in front of the Capitoline Temple. A handsome and massive gatekeeper, the Arch of Septimius Severus was made more imposing by its elevated location with flights of steps for its side arches and a ramp in the middle. The square bulk of the monument (23.30 m wide, 20.90 m high) was topped by a plain, continuous attic bearing its dedication in gilded bronze letters, to Septimius, and his

sons Caracalla and Geta (Geta’s named later erased due to damnatio memmoriae). Crowning the attic was the massive six-horse bronze chariot carrying the triumphant emperor and his sons. The eight freestanding columns (front and back) with Composite capitals, raised on tall pedestals, and decorated with the customary reliefs of barbarians and captives, lent an air of lightness to the blocky structure. Four large, square relief panels (two on each side) depicting the attacks on and the surrender of major Mesopotamian cities, in abstract Late Antique style, occupy the area above the side arches. Below each panel are narrow bands depicting heavily loaded wagons and soldiers marching toward a seated Roma, rather than an actual triumphal parade (Favro 2010, 2011). The primary structure and all ornament is in gray-veined imported Proconnesian marble; the foundations and core construction are in travertine.

figure 12.10 Digital reconstruction of the Arch of Septimius Severus, Forum, Rome; Experiential Technologies Center, UCLA © Regents of the University of California.

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The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine Lacking the imposing scenography of the Forum arch, but serving a different purpose, is the so-called Arch of the Argentarii (money changers) erected in 204 ce at the approach to the Forum Boarium, Rome’s cattle market. A modest structure (only 6.9 m high) with a single flat-topped opening surmounted by a broad cornice, it was no “arch” at all (Figure 12.11). As its inscription declared, the structure was dedicated by the bankers and cattle merchants to honor the Severan family. The lower podium is plain and constructed in travertine (against which the cattle might have rubbed); the upper part is in Proconnesian marble

and entirely crammed with sculptural reliefs and deeply-carved, coarse ornament. Relief panels include Hercules, the patron deity of the market (and also of Septimius Severus), and scenes of cattle driven by herdsmen, a realistic subject probably specifically commissioned by the merchant patrons of the arch. There are also scenes of Septimius and Julia Domna sacrificing before an altar opposite Caracalla and his wife Plautilla. Even the pilasters articulating the corners of the structure are richly decorated in acanthus scrolls and military symbols in a style imported from Asia Minor, as was the marble itself. Only the victories on

figure 12.11 Photograph (1860s) of the Arch of the Argentarii, Forum Boarium, Rome; Metropolitcan Museum of Art.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity the upper register link this unusual monument to the notion of triumph indicating that by the Severan age, even in Rome, the functions and forms of civic, honorific gates and triumphal arches were conflated with broad, overlapping themes. Two good provincial examples of such juxtaposition of a civic arch with vague notions of military triumphalism and dynastic solidarity are the Severan tetrapylon (four-way arch) in Lepcis Magna and the triple gate-arch with a wedgeshaped plan at the bend of the grand colonnaded avenue at Palmyra (see earlier). THE ANARCHIC PERIOD (235–285 AND THE TETRARCHY (285–305 CE )

CE )

The killing of Alexander Severus marked the beginning of a half-century of military and civic chaos often described as the Anarchic Period (235–285 ce) – or the era of the “soldier emperors.” Some twenty emperors ratified by a weakened Senate, and many pretenders who were not, appeared in power during this period. Some stayed in office only a matter of months, or even days, before they were tumbled down; few died a natural death. Almost all came from a military background and from the provinces. Many were capable and ruthless commanders but had little or no experience in civil administration. The dismal pattern of succession became a hopelessly familiar one: no sooner was a military leader declared emperor by his troops (who were clearly motivated by the generous dole they would receive at the accession of their man), than he was challenged by the favorites of other legions, and even if successful in dispatching his rivals, would in short time be murdered by dissatisfied soldiers, or officers, even treacherously by his own. The luckier ones ruled an average of two years and were killed gallantly in action in the nearly nonstop military campaigns that characterized the period. Names such as Gordianus, Decius, Philippus Arabicus, Trebonnianus Gallus, and Claudius Gothicus emerge, but even a determined student of Roman history has difficulty to keep track of the full roster of these hard men who came and went like mere appearances on a shifting stage leaving behind little more than the memorably hard, expressive portraits of themselves. Yet, a careful study of their lives and times reveal that many were good soldiers and brave fighters determined to save Rome in the only way they knew at a time when Rome’s authority was challenged by mutiny and unrest across all its vast borders and its economy was devastated by war, inflation, and devaluation. Their harsh, aggressive portraits, with their brutally chiseled, short military style hair and beard, reflect the times: the 812

Antonine, even Severan, “pretensions to theatrical beauty of locks and beards were abandoned . . . (and) the mood of thoughtful deliberation yielded to worried suspicion” (Hanfmann 1975, 98). And, despite the hopelessly unfavorable conditions created by the rebellious borders from Upper Panonia to Mesopotamia, they were largely successful against their many opponents in keeping the Empire more or less intact. The legions routinely toppling their emperors with treacherous ease also proved in this late and dismal era surprisingly resilient and powerful against Rome’s enemies. This was the case in Aurelian’s (270–275 ce) victory against Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, who had rebelled against Rome initially with remarkable success; she formed an independent kingdom and overran Syria, Egypt and most of Asia Minor (see earlier). At the end, the crushing power of the legions changed all that: Palmyra was destroyed; Zenobia captured and put in chains, and probably killed or paraded in Aurelian’s great triumph in Rome. With the perspective of history, we see weakness and flaws in all these constant disruptions, but at the time, to the cheering spectators at victory parades, it might have seemed like the good old days under Trajan. Even during this troubled era, there were moments of normalcy like the fifteen-year reign of Gallienus (253–268 ce) and his philhellene wife Salona when a tolerant civic administration and even the semblance of a refined court culture returned. Fashioning himself after Augustus (and intermittently Alexander the Great), Gallienus was supportive of arts and philosophy, especially the movement known as Neo-Platonism; its leading proponent Plotinus flourished in this atmosphere. Toward the end of his rule the situation at the borders deteriorated, and while fighting the Goths in the Balkans, Gallienus, too, was killed by his own officers. It was clear that the Empire had grown too large and fractious to be governed by one man from one center. Rome and Italy had been losing power and importance since the time of the Severans in favor of numerous provincial centers. Diocletian, a native of Dalmatia (now Croatia) who was declared emperor by his troops in Nikomedia (Izmit in Bithynia, northwestern Turkey), devised a solution. Displaying remarkable organizational skills, Diocletian achieved an official administrative decentralization of the Empire. In 286 ce, he appointed Maximianus as his senior co-emperor, or Augustus, to be in charge of the Western provinces while he controlled the East. In 293 ce, he expanded the system into a “rule of four” – which came to be known as the Tetrarchy – by appointing two junior partners, or Caesars (Caesares): Galerius ruled the Danube and the Balkans and Constantine Chlorus, who with Maximianus, took over the

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine Western provinces, Gaul, Spain, and Britain. Each of these rulers chose a different capital for his administration, but none selected Rome: Diocletian ruled from Nikomedia; Maximianus from Milan; Constantine Chlorus resided in Trier, and Galerius in Thessalonike. It was expected that in good time the two Augusti would step down peacefully to allow the Caesares to replace them, while two new junior emperors would be chosen. This stiff, compartmentalized administrative and military formula was supplemented by even stiffer economic measures to defeat runaway inflation including the devising of an exhaustive list of prices for goods and services (known as “Diocletian’s Price Edict”) applied with draconian rigor across the realm from the Swiss Alps to Syrian sands – a solution that would have been an anathema to the market-based economies in favor today. But it worked, for a time. As the economy improved by weeding out flagrant speculation, both political control and a semblance of stability returned. In 305 ce, the Tetrarchs commemorated their tenth year of joint rule (and the Augusti their twentieth) by erecting a decennial seven-column monument in front of the Basilica Julia in the Forum (Figure 12.12; see also

Figure 1.14). The same year, Diocletian surprised the Roman world by apparently voluntarily stepping down from power and retiring to the palace-fortress he had hastily built in Split/Spalato on the Adriatic coast of modern Croatia, only a few kilometers south of Salona, his birth town. One of the sculpted bases of the decennalia columns show Diocletian peacefully making a sacrifice in a traditional Roman setting while being crowned by victory. But, neither peaceful victory nor the Tetrarchy survived his retirement. Civil War immediately broke out when Maxentius, son of Maximianus, revolted against his father and the two newly elected Caesars. He was able to rule as emperor, at least in Rome and the West, between 306 and 312 ce. Maxentius, seen as the last pagan emperor, was challenged by Constantine, the son of Constantine Chlorus, who invaded Italy, and eventually defeated Maxentius in the famed Battle of the Milvian Bridge outside Rome in 312/313 ce. According to a popular belief, Constantine’s troops included large numbers of Christians (although this was probably true for Maxentius’ troops also), and he had a vision during the battle that inspired him to abandon the persecution of Christians

figure 12.12 Digital reconstruction of west end of the Forum, Rome, showing seven Tetrarchic commemorative columns in front of the Basilica Julia (left), with the Julian Rostra (center) and the Arch of Septimius Severus (right); Experiential Technologies Center, UCLA © Regents of the University of California.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity and eventually accept the faith himself. Within a year, he and his co-emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan establishing Christianity as a legal religion of the Empire equal to a myriad of pagan beliefs it had sought to displace. It would take only another decade or so for Christianity to triumph as the official religion of the empire with the declaration of the Council of Nicaea (Iznik in Bithynia, Turkey) in 325 ce. Constantine’s epithet “the Great” might have been occasioned by his final victory in 324 ce over his onetime ally Licinius, but it is better deserved for the momentous and durable reforms he set to motion in political, social, and religious life. The transition from pagan to Christian beliefs and values shook the foundations of the classical world and changed art and culture in deep and meaningful ways – including, of course, the reciprocal persecution of the pagans and pagan monuments. Countless books can be written, and have been written, on this subject, but we have here the scope to articulate only the mere summary of the events and their consequences. Constantine completed the compartmentalization process Diocletian started by officially dividing the Empire into two halves, the East and the West, and dedicating Byzantium on the Bosphorus in 330 ce as the “New Rome” or Constantinople (the polis of Constantine), as the capital of the Eastern empire. He moved there himself and was baptized on his deathbed in 337 ce. His city emerged as the capital of the Byzantine Empire, continued to grow and prosper for well over a millennium, then fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, and became Istanbul. Rome followed a different path. Submitting its position to Milan as the seat of the Western emperor, “the urbs Romuli yielded once for all its primacy and became a repository for a tradition while European history moved in new directions” (Pollitt 1966, 211). The Western Empire finally succumbed to external pressures and invasions in 476 ce. The city of the Caesars ultimately emerged as the city of the Popes, and like Istanbul remained as a great European center, the two cities separated by one-tenth of a degree in latitude (41.90 vs. 41.00), and today less than a twohour flight.

ARCHITECTURE IN ROME DURING THE ANARCHIC AND TETRARCHIC PERIODS Buildings, especially large and complex projects such as an Imperial forum or a temple precinct, are expensive and a take long time to complete. Given the instability and economic hardships of the anarchic period few 814

emperors had the means or the opportunity to undertake major construction projects. Few stayed in office long enough to realize them. It is therefore not surprising that compared to the second century ce few building projects are known in Rome and the provinces which can be attributed to the “soldier emperors.” As the ability to realize real projects waned, the desire to dream of them increased. These architectural schemes reflect soaring aspirations of the leaders and their public, known to us by exaggerated narratives, but cut short by reality. One such aspiration reported in the Historiae Augustae was a 1000-foot-long portico planned by Gordian III (ruled 238–244 ce) in the Campus Martius of Rome, “with the intention that another portico also one thousand feet long, should be built opposite it, and an open space five hundred feet wide should be between them” (SHA, The Three Gordians 32.1–2). Lavishly planted in myrtle and boxwood, flanked by marble and mosaic walkways adorned with statues, basilicas, and baths, this complex would have added to Rome’s grand public landscapes like Agrippa’s Gardens, also in the Campus Martius. But, it was never to be, as the area was entirely taken over by the people, and occupied by ordinary ramshackle buildings, as our source gloomily reports. Gallienus (ruled 253–268 ce) also dreamed to build a very long portico along the Via Flaminia with four rows of columns (“others say with five rows”) lined with statues. This would have been an ideal place for philosophers who were welcomed in his court to hold discourse, but also was never realized (SHA, The Two Gallieni 38.2–5). The emperor might have preferred to spend his money on a colossal statue of himself, twice the size of Nero’s Colossus, to be placed on the summit of the Esquiline Hill “but, the project seemed foolish to Claudius [“Gothicus” ruled 268–270 ce]” who succeeded him. We would have liked to admire the Goth-slaying emperor for his good sense, except that that sense seemed not apply to himself: he had the Roman people “set up a gold statue (of him) ten feet high in front of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus,” and another colossus weighing 1500 pounds set on a column (SHA, The Divine Claudius 3.27). We should, however, remember that our only source for these stories, the Historiae Augustae, often invented, embellished, and exaggerated. Still, the outlandish nature of these stories expressing outlandish aspirations tells something about the age. The most substantial and realistic building project of the anarchic period in Rome is the Aurelian Wall, a mighty defensive circuit of 19 kilometers covering all municipal areas and incorporating many large structures, such as the Amphitheatrum Castrense (Figures 12.3 and 12.4; see earlier and also Figure 6.6), along its path.

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine Begun in 271 ce as a response to Germanic incursions into northern Italy, and in realization that Rome could no longer be safe without its own defenses, these walls illustrate well the needs and the mood of the times. They were completed in great haste in about ten years (Figure 12.13). In earlier days, Rome’s frontiers were where its furthest legionary outposts were stationed, thousands of miles away in Scotland or Syria; now these frontiers shrank to the city’s edges. Yet, the same emperor who started the walls in 271, two years later won a resounding victory against the rebel Kingdom of Palmyra and Zenobia, two thousand miles away. No monument can portray the volatility and vulnerability of this period as well as its urban pride in a more poignant, symbolic, yet concrete manner than these endless red-brick walls. The original walls were 7–8 meters high, 3.5 meters thick, and strengthened every 29.6 meters (100 RF) with square towers, some 381 in all. There were eighteen major gates flanked by twostory semicircular towers each with one or two stone archways. The main construction was in brick, almost entirely reused, with repairs in stone and rubble. There were two major rebuilding phases, first under Maxentius circa 300 ce, and under Honorius and Arcadius circa 401–03 ce, when the height was almost

doubled and many gates rebuilt. One of the better preserved, the Porta Ostiense (Porta San Paolo) was the start of the Via Ostiense leading south, which connected the city to Ostia, Rome’s harbor and the location of great emporia or wholesale markets. Originally constructed with two arched entrances under Maxentius, the half-round towers heightened under Honorius in early fifth century; a century later, circa 530 ce, the outer (southern) double-arched entrances were reduced to a single arch for security purposes (see Figure 1.20, Plate 1A). At Porta Appia (now called Porta San Sebastiano), another important gate by which the Via Appia entered the city, the same reduction of entrance arches from two to one was undertaken and the semicircular towers were heightened during its 403 ce remodeling; the encasing of their lower portions in square constructions in stone may belong to a later intervention. The austere and simple structure of the walls was lightened on the inside by continuous open walkways and vaulted ramparts connecting the towers. Some better-preserved portions of the well-articulated vaulting can be seen between the Porta Appia and Porta Latina, and the nearby Porta Pinciana. Momentarily safe and proud behind their strong walls, the Romans could indulge in at least some

figure 12.13 View of the Aurelian walls, southeast section, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity accustomed recreational activities. Prominent among these whose enjoyment did not abate even through troubled times was the bathing habit. Public baths, whose numbers counted in the hundreds, continued to be used and maintained; some new ones were built. The Thermae of Trajanus Decius, located on the Aventine Hill, could hardly be finished during the short, two-year reign of its imperial patron (ruled 249–251 ce). It is known only from fourth-century literary sources, the Regionary Catalogue, and some inscriptions. However, a measured plan by Palladio reveals that the axially and symmetrically disposed bath block (77  44 m) was the smallest of Rome’s Imperial thermae. The largest of the Imperial baths, the Thermae of Diocletian, were begun by Maximian in 298 ce and finished by him in record time in 305/306 (although the decorative scheme must have taken longer) but dedicated to Diocletian and all of the Tetrarchs. Occupying the high ground on the Viminal Hill, the area inside its precinct is 120,000 square meters, about the same as the Thermae of Caracalla, but the bath block is larger (Figure 12.14). According to Olympodoros, a fifth-century source, these baths could accommodate some three thousand bathers at a single time, not an exaggeration for a change (in the course of a full day it would have accommodated a lot more). The scheme follows in its general lines the planning of Caracalla’s baths, but its peripheral zone with its many fractured elements lacks the order and monumentality of the former (compare, Figures 12.5 and 12.6). The bath

block, by contrast, appears structurally and spatially simplified, with repetitious, modular rows of crossvaulted units opening up through columnar screens to immense, unobstructed vistas (Figure 12.15). The strongly projecting rectangular caldarium with three apses follows the type established in the Thermae of Trajan, lacking the impact and spatial fluidity of the domed caldarium of the Thermae of Caracalla. But the natatio, a swimming pool over three times larger than its predecessor, must have been truly monumental, the scale and complexity of its aedicular back wall captured well in a superb Piranesi drawing. The frigidarium, preserved almost intact with great triple cross-vaults and eight colossal red granite columns, was converted into the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli by Michelangelo in 1561 with the traditional basilical entry on the long axis from the southeast. In the eighteenth century, architect Vanvitelli moved the entrance 90 degrees to align with the original tepidarium. Although this soaring hall is still impressive, the experience of the original when it was a part of a whole system of similar spaces, with open vistas in all directions, must have been more so: one realizes how much the grandeur, what we call true monumentality, of a Roman interior was created by its expansions beyond itself through permeated walls and colonnaded screens into seemingly endless array of outlying spaces. Substantial remains of the brick peripheral wall and its dependent units are still visible (such as the round, domed units at its corners), and were more so before the nineteenth-century urban developments

figure 12.14 Restored perspective of the Thermae of Diocletian precinct, Rome; Edmond Jean-Baptiste Paulin (1890)

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The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.15 Restored cutaway perspective through natatio and frigidarium, Thermae of Diocletian, Rome; Edmond Jean-Baptiste Paulin (1880)

and the construction of Rome’s Termini train station demolished them; the great exedra of the peribolus is still retained in the familiar curved façade of the Piazza dell’Esedra fronting Santa Maria degli Angeli.

TETRARCHIC ARCHITECTURE OUTSIDE ROME Besides public baths as “people’s palaces,” real palaces, villas and country estates for wealthy local leaders and rulers can be singled out as one type of building activity that continued through and characterized the late Roman period. Many new administrative centers that emerged with the Tetrarchy, especially the capitals such as Trier, Milan, Thessaloniki, Spalato, Nikomedia, Antioch, and later Byzantium-Constantinople, needed new palaces as a requirement of their bureaucratic functions and a reflection of their newly assumed official dignity. Some, such as Nikomedia, Diocletian’s eastern capital, or Antioch, offer little by way of archaeological record; others, like the extensive palace complex of the emperors in Constantinople, were developed mainly during the Byzantine era and remain outside our scope. We will focus on Spalato (Split), Trier, Thessaloniki, and Maxentius’ great villa-circus complex on the Via Appia Antica in Rome with a

digression on the early-fourth-century country villa in Piazza Armerina. DI O CLE TI AN ’S P A L AC E A T S P L IT / SP ALA TO

Split on the Dalmatian coast was not one of the Tetrarchic capitals. It was the site of the palace (and production center) where Diocletian retired after abdicating his position as the senior tetrarch, in 305 ce. Located not far from Salona, the small town where he was born, the large complex rising on the sea coast must have been under construction for less than a decade before the emperor somewhat hastily moved in. That explains a lot of the unfinished elements and details of the construction, often completed competently, but awkwardly on the site. Following a rigid, four-square plan, with high walls, square and octagonal towers and gates, the complex looks like a fortress, and was arguably inspired in a general way by the standard castrum plan, although with its towers permeated by many doors and windows, not a real fortress in the full military sense (Figures 12.16 and 12.17; Plate 32B). It is an irregular rectangle (216  175–180 m) and occupies an area of 9.5 acres, slightly larger than the bath block of Diocletian’s Thermae (but smaller than the whole precinct). In the middle of the three land sides there are gates flanked by octagonal towers. The main, north 817

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figure 12.16 Plan of the Palace of Diocletian at Split/Spalato; Jerko Marasovic´, updated by Katja Marasovic´ (courtesy of G. Nicšic´).

gate, called Porta Aurea, was decorated with two tiers of arcaded aediculae and shallow niches housing statuary supported on brackets (Figures 12.18 and 12.19). The design has a facile charm, but with its lower level niches invading the space of the upper level, appears awkward and unsolved. The south side overlooking the Adriatic, opens to the sea view by a stupendous, 150-meter-long arcaded gallery accentuated in the middle and ends by loggias crowned with arcuated pediments. Although vintage restorations show the waves lapping the palace walls, and a private boat access (as in Figure 12.17; Plate 32B), recent excavations have shown a more practical arrangement: a wide platform with a stone sea wall (and docking facilities for the city) existed between the building and the sea. 818

A pair of axial, arcuated streets (decumanus and cardo) connecting the gates crossed at the center under a fourway arch, dividing the palace into four roughly equal quadrants. The northwest and northeast quadrants designed as great peristyle enclosures, are traditionally thought to be accommodations for guards, attendants, servants, and ample space for workshops and storage. Copious water was supplied to the complex by an independent aqueduct entering the building from the northeast. Following Libanius’ reference to a “new city” as a part of the palace at Antioch, S. C´urc´ic´ suggested that the palace area in Spalato was also accessible to the public. This may have been so in a limited way. Given the formal character of the quadrants, like courtyards, such a “city” can be viewed as a settlement for palace functionaries, industrial workers,

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.17 plate 32b Aerial view, reconstruction, of Diocletian’s Palace at Split/Spalato; E. Hébrard (1912)

and lodgings for the “friends of Diocletian,” like the extensive apartments for special visitors and aristocracy in the Louvre of Louis XIV (Libanius, Or. 674; C´urc´ic´ 1993, 69–70). As observed by J. Belamaric´, “the question (is) whether Diocletian’s residence should be classified as a palatium, villa, castrum, urban settlement (‘city’) . . . in comparison with genuine imperial palaces like those in Constantinople, Antioch, Philippopolis and Ravenna” – a question which had earlier been asked by N. Duval in 1961 (Belamaric´ 2004, 141). In addition to these functions, which are fairly common to Imperial residences, the palace at Split and its elaborate quadrants and vast vaulted basement, could have been intended as a production center, possibly a textile center, or a “gynaeceum, a clothes manufacturing center for the army,” a fitting activity for the needs of an emperor who took an “early retirement” and found still much to do to hold together the collapsing Tetrarchy (Nicšic´ 2011, 187; also Belamaric´ 2003; 2004; and G. Nicšic´ in private conversations, 2013, 2017). Furthermore, emperors who were lucky to retire must have needed a source of income to retain them and their retinues in a style they to which they were accustomed. This may also explain the elaborate waterworks and the independent aqueduct which supplied more water to the palace (c. 129,000 cu m a day!) than supplied by an aqueduct to Salona, the capital of the ancient province of Dalmatia, a city which then had a population of about sixty thousand - possibly an exaggeration

(Belamaric´ 2012, 70–72; 2004, 142–143). Goran Nicšic´, the chief restoration architect and research scholar for the complex in a far-reaching observation noted that the northern peristyles of the composition comprising a perfect square might have been the original scheme intended as an independent textile workshop, which was extended (in a kind of imperial afterthought) to include a glorious residence overlooking the sea when Diocletian rather hastily retired. The southeast quadrant contained an enclosed octagonal mausoleum for Diocletian (Figure 12.20). Recently restored, it is distinguished by its small, double-shell dome fashioned in a superimposed pattern of imbricated brickwork; a masterpiece of workmanship, it is a creative variant of similar pitched brick vaults and domes familiar from Asia Minor and the East. The southwest quadrant, also within a colonnade enclosure, housed a pair of columnar tholoses and a small, Corinthian, prostyle Temple of Jupiter, the emperor’s patron deity. The temple is distinguished by its vigorous architectural ornament and perfectly preserved cella with a cut stone barrel vault decorated with square coffers (Figure 12.21). Administrative units and the residence proper occupied the entire south side along the sea front. The sloping ground required the terracing of the south end of the complex and raising of the private apartments on a very spacious basement of massive limestone piers connected by brick and mortared-rubble cross-vaults (Figure 12.22). 819

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figure 12.18 Plan and façade reconstruction of Porta Aurea (North Gate), Diocletian’s Palace, Split/Spalato; rendered by Diane Favro (after Hébrard (1912)).

The southern continuation of the north-south street (the cardo) flanked by Corinthian arcades (graceful arches raised directly on columns, compare to the “Canopus arcade” of Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli, see Figure 6.76) is a slightly lowered courtyard now called, somewhat inappropriately, “the Peristyle” (Figure 12.23). It faces a tall propylon (or, a “temple 820

front”), consisting of an arcuated pediment rising on four red granite columns. Framed by this imposing gable, Diocletian in retirement, but still in purple, might have greeted official guests and envoys much like the patron of a stately home standing at the head of his tablinum did in the salutatio ceremony. Continuing on the main axis, and ascending the frontal steps of the porch,

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.19 Detail view of Porta Aurea looking up, Diocletian’s Palace; Split/Spalato; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

one entered into a round, domed vestibule, and beyond that a vaulted, rectangular reception hall. On either side of this hall were other larger public halls, an apsed basilica on the west and a domed suite, probably for

state banquets, on the east. Beyond these, on either side were baths and private apartments, all connected on the outside by the long gallery. The Imperial quarter was clearly designed to enjoy the broad sea view even 821

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figure 12.20 Reconstruction cutaway of the Mausoleum, Diocletian’s Palace, Split/Spalato; courtesy of Lynne C. Lancaster.

though the waves did not lap its feet of ashlar (see Figure 12.17; Plate 32B). Approached from the water, the view offered by this block of gleaming white and rosehued Dalmatian limestone, powerful towers, and lacelike arcades, must have been no less magical. While no match for the soaring concrete vaults and grand spaces of Diocletian’s Thermae, then near 822

completion in Rome, this was no humble retirement home. The peristyle domus on the Palatine where Augustus lived to the end of his days, or the more elaborate seaside villas of the rich, even when the Empire’s reach and power was at its zenith, appear as distant and quaintly informal settings when compared to the kind of rigid geometry Diocletian surrounded himself with in

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.21 Ashlar ceiling vault with coffers, Temple of Jupiter, Split/Spalato; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

his provincial hometown. This “palace” that looks like a fortress combined the traditional pleasures of otium in retirement with the continuing official functions expected from the architect of the Tetrarchy, plus

probably the economic and industrial functions of a factory. Although comparisons have been made to examples such as Diocletian’s military camp at Palmyra, the Praetorium of the Third Legion in Lambaesis, or 823

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figure 12.22 Basement level piers and vaults (ashlar, brick and mortared rubble), Diocletian’s Palace, Split/Spalato; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

even the city of Timgad itself, the complex at Spalato is not a simple imitation of a military model; it appears to be a military complex only at the level of superficial geometry. With its graceful architecture and expensive details, it certainly did not look like a real one, or function as one, though there is ample room for a reasonable sized imperial guard. Why would Diocletian, retiring in this distant location, need a fortress? Hadrian’s sprawling and un-walled villa at Tivoli probably had just as many troops and offered just as much security. We have to understand the self-contained, hard geometry of the Spalato complex not as the reflection of a military mentality, but the reflection of an orderly and trained mind which perceived in this rigid order a sense of aesthetics, just like the designers of the Renaissance who found order and perfection in the geometries of circles and stars that inspired schemes for ideal cities. It is this love of formality and “form” that allowed (necessitated) the ceremonial northern stretch of the colonnaded cardo unceremoniously to march through the middle of the textile workshop. Therefore, although formal comparison to castrum architecture is useful, the design and experience of Diocletian’s palace should not be explained as military or industrial exigencies. One easily imagines in 824

the axially disposed halls and courts of the complex there occurred rigid rituals and stiff receptions; along the Via Principalis the changing of the guard by muscular legionaries grounding their spears hard on the handsome stone paving; while, on the other side of the same complex, in the northeast and northwest quadrants, and below ground, the organized industry of a trained workforce and their supervisors labored and resided. One must also imagine the retired, disillusioned emperor’s quiet enjoyment of a sunset under the elegant gallery arcade, looking toward Italy, perhaps with a sense of distain, but still Virgil in hand, dreaming of a Europe that would someday combine the clamor of the battlefield, the energy of production, and the whisper of the cloister, a dream still struggling to be fulfilled. T HE S U BU R B A N V IL L A A T P I AZ Z A A R M E R I NA

As Diocletian was moving into his retirement home at Spalato, a rich aristocrat was planning a residence in southern central Sicily displaying a very different approach to design. In vivid contrast to the formal planning and rigid symmetry that characterized Diocletian’s

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.23 General view of Peristyle (forecourt of the reception hall), Diocletian’s Palace, Split/Spalato; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

palace, the inland Sicilian villa, some 5 km from the modern town of Piazza Armerina (ancient Casale), is an informally planned complex of low-lying clusters loosely related to one another (Figure 12.24). Sprawling across a landscape of low hills and a gently running stream covered by oaks and scrub brush, this must have been the perfect place for peaceful country living in relative seclusion. The Piazza Armerina villa is particularly famous among the historians of Roman art for its rich, polychromatic, figural mosaics depicting the usual mythological scenes, lives of the Olympians and mortals, and enjoyable hunting parties, all about 3500 square meters of it in a stiff and vigorous Late Antique style. The villa was also richly decorated in colorful marbles brought from all over the Mediterranean and embellished with statuary. Early archaeological studies on skimpy evidence suggested that the owner might have been none other than Maximian, Diocletian’s mate in the West, but recent work, admittedly not based on any significantly firmer ground, suggests that the sprawling complex was built at a later date, circa 310–320 ce, perhaps for a wealthy aristocrat who owned estates also in North Africa – the latter, somewhat overreaching observation deduced by stylistic similarities between North African

mosaic workshops and the Piazza Armerina, but not by any convincing historical or architectural consideration. The entrance from the west is by way of a monumental triple-arched gate into a horseshoe-shaped forecourt connected obliquely to a slightly warped rectangular peristyle with living quarters along its two long sides and a reflecting pool shaped by creative curvilinear geometries in the middle. The far (east) side of the peristyle was developed as a 70-meter-long corridor with apsidal ends to which three independent building groups are attached. The apsidal “basilica” in the center (30  14 m), much like a miniature version of the Basilica at Trier (see later in this chapter), was a formal reception hall for the master of the villa. The group of rooms to the south is distinguished by a sigma courtyard (C-shaped) with an apsidal triclinium flanked by bedroom suites. Outside this cluster, set at an oblique angle to the peristyle, is a ceremonial wing composed of an ovoid forecourt (an oval with its base flattened) placed on axis with a large, triple-apsed hall, a triconch (a form of triclinium), for formal dining and entertainment opening into the ovoid peristyle and tripleapsed nymphaeum in the center of the far site. Connected at the northwest corner of the main entrance forecourt is a bath suite whose small, vaulted, domed, and semidomed 825

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figure 12.24 Plan of the suburban villa, Piazza Armerina, Sicily; rendered by Marie Saldaña (after Wilson).

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The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine rooms represent a spatial vibrancy and shape-geometry distinctive even in bath architecture. With its deliberate irregularities (some of it shaped by topography), unfamiliar spaces, fractured masses, shifting axes, and vistas, the Piazza Armerina villa deserves to be included among the foremost examples of the large category of creatively designed Italian country villas, such as Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli (see earlier). As it is in Tivoli, the tight clustering of building groups, loose and delightfully free from each other, follow their own internal order and symmetry. But, unlike the free components of Hadrian’s Villa, which famously open to near and far landscapes, the Piazza Armerina complex is basically inward looking and engages internal vistas; it makes little

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attempt to create distant external vistas and reach out to its natural setting. Even the irregular spaces between building groups are not treated as a landscape foil to architecture, but as negative space or, perhaps, service yards. A comparison of the stiffly orthogonal planning of the retirement palace at Split and its sprawling, loosejointed, near-contemporary in Sicily may also underline the variety and vibrancy of architectural approaches and expressions available to the architects of the Late Empire and to their sophisticated patrons. Among these we can count the large and sprawling fourth-century villa at Desenzano, on the southern shores of Lake Garda in northern Italy; or, the country mansion at Montmaurin north of the Pyrenees in France (Figures 12.25). The latter,

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figure 12.25 Plan of the country villa at Montmaurin, France; rendered by Diane Favro (after Fouet).

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity in its last fourth-century stage with its grand entrance exedra, peristyle courtyards, atriums, and apsidal halls, combines the informality that results from long-term piece-meal growth with the strict formal order and axiality of a pretentious country establishment while grandly imitating (and deconstructing) the traditional elements of a traditional Roman house. One admires a society that valued artistic choice, allowing privileged members to enthusiastically choose and experience different aesthetic worlds at a time when their political opportunities were restricted and stifled.

military outpost at the strategic river crossing, the town acquired importance from river trade, especially of its famed wine. The grid plan and the first blocks of the insulae were established early on, but major development came in the second century ce with a large, centrally-located forum of the Gallic type (see earlier), a new stone bridge, a large thermae (the Barbara Thermae), and an amphitheater that could seat twenty thousand partially dug into the slopes of a hill. By the late third century, responding to the increasing threat by German tribes, the city was encircled by a generously laid circuit of walls incorporating the amphitheater into its eastern stretch, and four major gates. Described as the quintessentially Roman military gate, the north entry, or Porta Nigra, is characterized by its somber mass in grey sandstone blackened by the ages (Figures 12.27 and 12.28). The double-arch gateway is surmounted by a two-story gallery and flanked by a pair of towers (the western one is three stories high).

T R I E R ( A U G U S T A T R E V E R O R UM ) A N D CO N S T A NT I N E CH L O R U S

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figure 12.26 Plan of Trier (Augusta Treverorum), Germany; rendered by Michael Rocchio.

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The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.27 General view northeast exterior of Porta Nigra, Trier; Berthold Werner via Wikimedia.

Between the outer and inner gates (the former had only a metal portcullis, no swinging door), there is a rectangular courtyard open to the sky. The military typology had been well established in Gaul and northern Italy by the end of the first century ce, as a comparison to the Porta Palatina in Turin affirms (see earlier). At a later date, the massive structure, with the addition of a roof over the central courtyard and an apse, became a church, which may account for its good state of preservation. What is most striking about the Porta Nigra is the rough masonry and decoration of its exterior: three stories of arched openings framed by half-columns with simple, quarry-hewn, blocky capitals of no particular order, separated by unornamented entablatures (see Figure 12.28). Comparison to the Porta Maggiore in Rome is inevitable. However, there was no opportunity at Trier for the “rusticated” look as a deliberate, artistic choice: this was simply a conservative, hastily constructed, unfinished building – or, finished only as far as its functional essentials were concerned. Yet, in its unintentional roughness, the Porta Nigra projects a sense of brutal majesty not entirely inappropriate for a military gate that imminently faced military threats. Trier’s eminence as a regional capital belongs to the reigns of Constantius Chlorus and his son Constantine, during the first decade or so of the fourth century.

The establishment of a palace complex spearheaded overall development. Few of the parts of the palace were finished due largely to the turbulent end of the Tetrarchy, and partly to the continuing incursions of border tribes. Occupying much of the northeastern quarter of the city, the palace included at the eastern end of the decumanus an elaborate Imperial thermae, popularly known by its German label as the Kaiserthermen. Defined by the city grid, the overall design of the palace complex and its components must have conformed to the orthogonal order. This is borne out by the severe geometry of the audience hall, the Aula Palatina, better known as the Basilica, preserved largely intact (Figures 12.29 and 12.30). Probably Constantinian in date and conception, this is a rectangular hall with hypocaust floor heating against the cold northern winters. It is entered on the south by a large vestibule and flanked by a pair of narrow courtyards, now gone. Measuring 67 meters long, 26 meters wide, and 32 meters high (think of a ten-story building!), the boxy immensity of the interior is terminated on the north by a tall, spacious, apse housing the emperor’s throne framed by a “triumphal arch” formed by the opening in the wall separating the two main spaces). Two tiers of round headed windows along the side walls and the apse, all under a flat, wooden, coffered 829

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 12.28 Detail of engaged half-column and portculus, Porta Nigra, Trier; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 12.29 Plan, section and reconstruction perspective, Aula Palatina (“Basilica”), Trier; rendered by Rui Xiong and Diane Favro.

ceiling (naturally, supported by wooden trusses), leave a memorable sense of space akin to, but different from, the great vaulted Roman halls, such as those in the Imperial baths. The plain brick walls are now devoid of polychromatic marble revetment and the floor of its black-andwhite opus sectile paving. The abundant light is the only element that defines volume: there are no columnar rows, no structural divisions, and no plastic articulation of space except for some minor wall niches around the apse. The visitor is inside a stark, glorified, giant shoe-box (see Figure 12.30). Scholars have often noted that the impression of depth and distance is enhanced because the windows in the apse are slightly shorter, and on the upper tier 1.20 meters lower than those of the nave. This is interpreted as a deliberate and cunning optical trick, which “on the unsuspected eye . . . has the effect of making the apse seem deeper” (Wightman 1970, 104).

This may be an impression received by some – although upon repeated viewings in the building we could not detect it – but, was it an intentional refinement? We think not. The apse windows are smaller because the curved interior surface area of the apse is restricted. The upper tier windows are placed lower because the apse ceiling is 3 meters lower than the nave ceiling due to the structural geometry of the connection between the apse and the nave roofs (see Figure 12.29). This explanation is based on simple practicalities of building; yet, the optical illusion idea is more interesting and once published, hard to dislodge in scholarship. The solid, red-brick walls of the Basilica’s exterior today are striking, but originally they were faced in white stucco. The tall, blind arcades that frame the window surfaces provide a vertical accent. This blind arcade motif was used also on the contemporary 831

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 12.30 View of interior, Aula Palatina (“Basilica”), Trier; Photo: Berthold Werner via Wikimedia.

exterior of a pair of two-story warehouses built along the Moselle. At the Basilica, the verticality would have been mitigated since the original building was encircled by a pair of wooden balconies running just below the window line (see Figure 12.29). Although solid brick wall construction is similar to practice in Asia Minor (rather than “brick-faced concrete” common in the West), this should not lead to the easy assumption that the architects were from the East or had any specific inspiration from the all-brick structure of Pergamon’s Kizil Avlu/Serapeion (see earlier), admittedly a cogent comparison. By the end of the third century ce there was a great deal of variety and openness among regions which resulted in a marketplace of goods, ideas, and methods, all mildly modified by local traditions. We will never know who built this impressive audience hall, or the other components of the palace at Trier, but it is reasonable to imagine that army engineers and architects played a major role; such technicians would have been common at a Tetrarchic capital, and many among them might have been trained in, or familiar with Eastern construction practices. There is yet another, practical explanation. Brick-faced concrete was typically used for vaulted construction. The brick walls of the Basilica, only 2.60 meters thick 832

(and in the recesses of the blind arcade dropping down to 1.70 meters) could not have supported a concrete barrelvault of 26-meter span at a height of 33 meters. Using solid brick, Roman engineers were able to keep the walls relatively thin but strong enough to meet the challenge of a demanding timber-trussed roof, rather than a concrete one which would have cost a lot more and taken much longer to finish (and produced a far greater lateral thrust). We could further compare the great hall of Kizil Avlu in Pergamon with Trier’s Aula Regia: the former was about 10 meters shorter, 7 meters lower, and 4 meters narrower than the Trier hall, whereas its 1.80-meter-thick solid brick walls were about 0.60–0.80 meters thinner. Not surprisingly, neither had a masonry vault. Complex and interconnected vaulted halls of Roman baths might have offered the right kind of spatial and visual variety for the mixing and mingling of thousands, but the simple severity of a unified space, where vision was focused on the apse, might have been judged more effective for an audience hall, pagan or Christian. There were venerable and dignified precursors of this kind of unified, boxy space. The Curia in the Roman Forum where the Roman Senate met, with its stark, boxy interior (25  17.5 m, c. 23 m high), large windows punched into its solid brick walls, and flat,

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.31 Reconstruction of interior of Diocletian’s restored Curia, Forum, Rome; Experiential Technologies Center, UCLA © Regents of the University of California.

timber roof, was just such a building (Figure 12.31). Dedicated by Augustus in 29 bce, but severely damaged by fire in 283 ce, it was completely rebuilt by Diocletian within a decade or so of the Trier Basilica. The Kaiserthermen, an Imperial bath complex occupying the southern edge of the palace, represents a very different notion of space making than the Basilica – one that was rooted in the general vocabulary of Imperial bath architecture emphasizing the vaulted curvilinear aspects of space making. Arranged on a powerful east-west axis, the handsome composition enfolds no fewer than thirteen apsidal, projecting units and a circular hall in the center, the tepidarium (Figure 12.32 and 12.33). In one way of looking, the plan of the Trier Imperial Thermae – divided distinctly into a porticoed palaestra and a bath block of vaulted halls, and dynamically composed spaces – follows the bath-gymnasium model of Asia Minor. But, unlike the practice in Eastern provinces, the palaestra at Trier could not have been intended to serve as a gymnasium proper; it was merely an exercise court for bath goers. Comparison of the Trier thermae to the fluid composition of the contemporary Thermae of Constantine in Rome, or in a more specific way, to some North African baths, such as the Large Baths at Djemila, or the Baths of Licinius at Dougga, might be more cogent (see above). The complex was never

finished as planned, the construction slowing to a halt upon Constantine’s departure from the city in 315 ce. When completed by the middle of the fourth century, the Kaiserthermen was a smaller and simpler building. Omitting the great, triple cross-vaulted frigidarium, it was limited to the heated nucleus of rooms around the caldarium. The latter, with its walls of petit appareil and bands of brick, and great apses and arched windows preserved in two stories, is still a handsome presence in Roman Trier. Judged by its large size and location, the original building was probably planned for use by the Palace as well as the public. T H E S S AL O N I K I , GA L E R I U S ’ C A P I T AL

Like Trier, Thessaloniki, Galerius’ Eastern capital, was laid out following an orderly grid of streets parallel and perpendicular to the Aegean shoreline (Figure 12.34). The major east-west street was the Via Egnatia, the allimportant military highway that linked Italy to Byzantium and points East, passing through the city as its decumanus. Galerius’ Palace was on the eastern edge of the town, directly on Via Egnatia. The crossing of the streets was marked by a massive tetrapylon with a dome over the crossing. Its two principal façades, east and west, straddling the colonnaded Via Egnatia at this junction had triple arches with the main arch over 833

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 12.32 Plan of the Imperial Thermae, Trier; Krencker (1929).

the road flanked by a pair of smaller openings over pedestrian sidewalks. The four-sided monument, an effective linkage element between the north and south portions of the Palace, celebrated Galerius’ victory over the Persians in 297 ce. Superimposed marble relief panels over the rubble core construction 834

illustrated episodes from the campaign, many quite well-preserved, including views of the emperor in battle or arriving on horseback or carriage and depictions of the enemy (“barbarians”) in baggy long trousers, as well as camels, and elephants, signifying the Eastern context of the triumph.

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.33 Reconstruction perspective, exterior, Imperial Thermae looking west, Trier; Krencker (1929).

At the end of a colonnaded avenue extending some 100 meters to the north, rising and in the middle of its own enclosed precinct, was the great Rotunda, probably intended as Galerius’ mausoleum, although never used for that purpose. To the south, a longer stretch of the colonnaded avenue connected the Rotunda and tetrapylon to the palace complex, which consisted of residential quarters, baths, an octagonal, domed building almost as large as the Rotunda, and an apsidal audience hall, all next to a hippodrome confirming the importance of the Roman tradition linking palaces and villas with circuses and hippodromes (e.g., Palatine Palace, Sessorium Palace, the Tetrarchic Palace in Milan, Diocletian’s Palace in Antioch and Maxentius’ Villa on the Via Appia, et al.). Although framed within the orthogonal order of the city grid, the Palace at Thessaloniki presents a loose and disjointed character, its various elements held together by a system of architectural linkages and junctions that define urban interfaces – while the tetrapylon, acts as the principal architectural connector around which the dynamic composition is centered. The Rotunda is remarkably well-preserved, thanks to its continued use as the Church of Saint George (Figure 12.35). The superb mosaic decoration of the dome interior depicting Christian saints in front of the two-story rolling façade of heavenly colonnaded aediculae, much like real-life pagan examples of the type such as the numerous scaenae frons of classical theaters, belongs to the building’s later use as a church; it is a fine example of the often revoked continuity of

pagan architecture and decoration in Christian contexts (Figure 12.36). The circular building has an interior diameter of circa 24 meters (and exterior diameter of 36 m), with 6-meter-thick walls relieved by eight deep rectangular niches, the one on the south being the entrance (see Figure 12.35). The thick walls are constructed in a mixed system of brick, small squared blocks, and brick-faced mortared rubble. The main dome is in conventional radially laid brick, but the vaults covering the deep niches are done in part in pitch-brick panels inviting comparison to a number of similarly fashioned brick vaults in Asia Minor. The curvature of the dome varies: the upper half has a steeper angle as a precaution against collapse (shallow domes are more difficult to build and less stable). Thus, this clever system reduced the span of the upper portion of the dome effectively from 24 meters to 19 meters without any major visual discordance. Illuminated, almost spotlit, by eight great arched windows (shaped like thermal windows) over each niche, Galerius’ Rotunda is impressive in a somber, heavy way, despite its shimmering, gilded mosaic intrados. Devoid of any columnar screens that would have softened the periphery of the interior and introduced a classical order and scale – as best illustrated inside the Pantheon – the interior of the Rotunda, now having lost all surface revetment in marble, is expansive and stark. Having rejected any traces of familiar classicism (except the two-dimensional mosaic representation of the dome), it is strangely reminiscent of the boxy simplicity of the Basilica in Trier. Uncommonly large, 835

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figure 12.35 Plan and section of the Mausoleum of Galerius (“The Rotunda”), Thessaloniki; rendered by Diane Favro.

figure 12.34 Plan of Galerius’ Palace complex on Via Egnatia, Thessaloniki; rendered by Diane Favro.

without a crypt for burial, and strongly illuminated, the Rotunda has always been judged to offer a poor setting for a mausoleum. It could have been conceived as a heroon honoring Galerius and his family as a kind of “city founder,” an appropriate symbolic gesture. Recent investigations have identified two smaller mausolea outside the ancient city of Romuliana, named after Galerius’s mother, the city of his birth (modern Gamzigrad in eastern Serbia). The larger one, with a dodecagonal base surrounded by a colonnade (like Diocletian’s mausoleum in Spalato) might well belong to the emperor; the smaller, an octagon on a square base, could be for his mother (Johnson 2009, 74–82).

MAXENTIUS IN ROME As the Tetrarchy began to unravel with Diocletian’s abdication, Rome became once more the center of 836

dynastic interests. When Maxentius was not selected as a Caesar upon the forced retirement of his father Maximian in 305 ce, he returned to Rome and occupied his family estate on Via Labicana. Contrary to the rules of the Tetrarchy, Maxentius had clearly expected some sort of dynastic succession and must have been frustrated when these hopes were shattered by Diocletian, who appointed outside candidates for the two posts as Caesars. Even then, his claims for the throne came only after Constantine, Constantine Chlorus’ son, equally desirous of the purple, was declared emperor by his troops. This gave the soldiers and civilian supporters of Maxentius in Rome the opportunity and justification to take the lead and declare him Augustus in 306 ce. His short reign of six troubled years of intermittent warfare was largely spent in Rome, the city with which he identified. Despite considerable military turbulence, he was able to build prodigiously; like the “good emperors” of the second century he left a distinctive legacy of architecture. Although Rome’s historic and symbolic significance was reluctantly acknowledged during the Tetrarchic period, and even a brisk program of renovation and some new building was underway, the city that had once

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.36 Mosaic decoration representing colonnaded aediculae from the interior view of the Mausoleum of Galerius, Thessalonike; Photo: Destinygreece via Wikimedia.

represented the world and civilization itself was pushed to a secondary position and rank – or, perhaps to no position and rank. Diocletian, the patron of the great thermae which bears his name (unfairly), did not even come to its opening. The complex was really and entirely built by Maxentius’ father Maximian, who had been in charge of Italy. When Diocletian finally came to Rome for the first and only time in 303 to celebrate his twentieth anniversary of rule (Vicennalia), he was not sympathetically received by the Romans and left in haste. The citizens of Rome would have appreciated the political and economic stability brought by the Tetrarchy, but it is hard to imagine that the changes were fully appreciated from their angle; significant groups expressly resented the policies that brought their city’s stature to a new nadir. Diocletian’s economic and tax reforms had empire-wide advantages but affected Italy negatively. In the distribution of wealth and power these policies tended to favor the new, swelling ranks of state bureaucracy and some new local aristocracy at the expense of small land owners and farmers, Italy’s agricultural backbone. The heavy taxation was debilitating. It is even possible to view Diocletian’s rigid

economic and land reforms as the first steps toward the feudal system that later plagued medieval Europe. Against such a backdrop of public discontent and delusion, Maxentius’ assertion of the historic and mythical primacy of Rome and Italy, his conservative stance in upholding old social and religious values, and his devotion to Romanitas, and the urbs Roma, genuine or calculated, was in popular parlance just what the doctor ordered. As observed by J. Curran, “Maxentius [was] swept into power by a movement which was, however crude, Roman in its outlook” (Curran 2000, 54). The time-honored Roman viewpoint required a double-pronged Imperial agenda: the revival of pious rituals and ceremonies which anchored the bleak present to the glorious past; and, the revival of major construction that affirmed the Republic’s belief in private piety and public responsibility. During his short, turbulent tenure as Rome’s emperor, Maxentius did just that – and left behind a volume of building not only impressive in its breadth and power but also in its architectonic and symbolic meaning. First on the agenda was improvement of the Aurelian walls. While such a task appears 837

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity commonplace in its practicality, considering that the entire circuit was almost doubled in height, and many gates were modified and rebuilt, it was a colossal undertaking that must have been comforting as well as plainly visible to Romans (see Figure 12.13). Maxentius’ building activities on the Palatine – mainly extending the Severan substructures on the southeast corner of the hill, and adding a new bath – were competent but routine. The new baths must have partially replaced and partially restored the Severan baths and residence at this location (Figure 12.37). Poorly preserved in the form of several pools, apsidal rooms, an octagonal domed unit, the Maxentian complex rose over a small terrace at the edge of the cliff, a corner of its great vaulted roof still standing (see Figure 12.1) Roughly 1500 square meters, it was about the size of the Small Baths in Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli

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but displayed a more conservative, half-axial design scheme. Still, in accordance with the curvilinear aesthetic which infuses most bath planning, the new establishment is characterized by a cluster of creatively shaped vaulted rooms (circle, half-circle, octagon, apsidal) joined about a powerful axis to the rectangular frigidarium with apsidal ends and covered by a single, bold cross-vault. Maxentius’ most ambitious restoration project in Rome was the rebuilding of Hadrian’s Temple of Venus and Roma which had been severely damaged in the fires of 283 and 307 ce (see Figures 6.51 and 6.52). The decision to rebuild this important temple whose precinct occupied a very large area between the Forum and the Colosseum valley (c. 136  86 m) might have been demanded by need, but it was also a choice that underscored Maxentius’ pious association

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figure 12.37 Hypothetical reconstruction of the southeast corner of the late Imperial Palatine, Rome; rendered by Alex Maymind (after Wulf ).

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The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine with the two deities particularly meaningful in the founding of Rome and the origins of the Romans. Roma Aeternae (“Eternal Rome”) and Venus Felix (“Felicitous Venus”) represented the Golden Age of Rome, and in their back-to-back cellas, these pagan deities continued to be venerated and worshipped well into the Christian era. While keeping the original temple’s basic footprint and organization – a Corinthian dipteros, ten by twenty columns on a low, stepped podium in Greek style – the Maxentian scheme introduced a substantially new and quintessentially Roman architectural scheme. Instead of the cella division by a thin, straight back wall, deep back-toback apses were introduced; instead of thin side walls which had been sufficient to carry a flat, wooden roof, heavier walls articulated by deep niches between columnar aediculae were built to carry a concrete barrel vault. The curved, carved, cavernous nature of the interior was enhanced by the deep niches between engaged columns articulating the side walls, and the deep coffering of the vaults, square-shaped for the barrel vaults and lozenge-shaped for the apses. Maxentius’ architect must have felt that the transformations ensured these special deities finally had the Roman setting they deserved – which would have been, one likes to imagine, Hadrian’s choice, too, if the philhellene side of his complex personality (or the unwanted design interventions of Apollodorus) had not won out.

R E S I DE NT I A L CO M P L E X O N T H E VI A APPIA: PALACE, CIRCUS, MAUSOLEUM

Maxentius lived in the traditional palace of the Caesars on the Palatine, thus restoring the establishment to its former glory as the Imperial palatium. However, soon after his proclamation in 306 ce, he started a suburban residential complex on the Via Appia like the old Roman aristocrats of the Republic. This complex sprawling over gentle, rolling countryside less than two miles from the Porta Appia (Porta San Stefano), consisted of a residential wing on the north stretched along a low hill overlooking a circus in the valley, and a large precinct enclosing a mausoleum entered directly from the road (Figures 12.38). The combination of a residence, mausoleum and a circus followed some recent precedents set by the Tetrarchs in their provincial capitals, although again it was on the Palatine in Rome that the idea of integrating an Imperial residence with a circus (the Circus Maximus, no less), had been established. Besides offering a pleasant suburban get-away, the estate was intended to be a dynastic complex with political, strong funerary and heroic connotations. In all of these slightly divergent groupings of early-fourth-century Imperial residences with tombs and circuses, the emperor might have been seen as a “heroic” city-founder in some distant “Alexandrian sense” (Frazer 1966, 388). The civic and religious implications of these architectural ensembles could call to

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figure 12.38 Plan of the Villa of Maxentius on the Via Appia Antica outside Rome; rendered by Diane Favro.

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Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity mind the labors of a divinely inspired emperor establishing civic order and alluding to the civilizing mission of Rome itself, a mission taken seriously even as late as the fourth century ce. Not much is knowable about the architecture of the residential wing on the hill; opening to the delightful view of the circus and Roman campagna are the fragmentary remains of a large basilical hall, or audience hall, whose well-preserved apsidal end with its prominent coffers set in brick-faced concrete still dominates the ruins. These elements were served by a cryptoporticus, an earlier feature of the residence, which was extended eastward to connect to the Imperial box of the circus. The hillside was the site of a succession of earlier aristocratic residences going back to the late Republican era, but by the third quarter of the second century ce the area had come into the possession of the wealthy Greek philosopher and philanthropist Herodes Atticus, a friend and one-time tutor of Marcus Aurelius, through his wealthy and aristocratic Roman wife Annia Regilla. The marriage of this well-born Roman lady to an erudite, immensely wealthy but tyrannical husband (described by one modern scholar as an “overpoweringly creative and [destructive] force” Pomeroy 2007, 3–4) must have been anything but harmonious; though unprovable, a good case can be made that Herodes or his agents actually murdered the pregnant Annia Regilla. The serious court case brought against him in Rome for this alleged atrocity was squashed with the help of his prestigious connections, including the emperor. We have met Herodes in relation to his generous donations in Athens and Greece, and the exquisite heroon or cenotaph he built for his Annia Regina on this suburban estate near the Via Appia Antica, north of Maxentius’ villa, some say to quell his guilty conscience (see earlier). Little, however, remains of Herodes’ and Regilla’s Roman country home, or tripolia, as it was named, except some ornament and sculpture which were reused by Maxentius. Maxentius’ circus, oriented east-west on low ground, was large enough to serve public racing events, allowing for twelve teams of chariots at the start (503 m long, 75–79 m wide), but, with an estimated seating capacity of only ten to twelve thousand, it offered no competition to the Circus Maximus. As J. Humphrey simply put: “Maxentius, like the other tetrarchs, felt it essential to have his own circus” (Humphrey 1986, 602) (see Figure 12.38). However, in this case it was a real, functioning circus, not a hippodrome-garden for the emperor’s pleasure as that on the Palatine. With twelve starting gates (carceres) arranged on a curve between tall, starting towers (oppida) at the west end, this is one of the smaller, but better preserved, well excavated, and 840

technically advanced circuses (Figure 12.39). The 1000RF- (296-m-) long spina dividing the center around which the chariots turned (seven times to complete a three-mile race) was decorated with the customary statuary and dominated by a false “Egyptian” obelisk (now gracing the middle of Bernini’s fountain in Piazza Navona in Rome). The uneven outer walls and the varying width of the race track is a refinement to allow more space for the crowding of the chariots at the beginning of the race, a feature not found in the earlier circuses. There is an Imperial box on the north side with direct connection to the Imperial residence, which had a good view of the start; the judges’ box was on the opposite side close to the finish line. Giovanni Ioppolo’s handsome restoration of the Tribunal Iudicum, arranged on several levels with symmetrically disposed stairs, gives us both an idea of the superb design sensibilities of a fourth century Roman architect, and the fine perception and presentation of his work by a modern Italian one (Figure 12.40). The seats were raised on a concrete quarter-vault, resulting in a 45-degree slope, which of course offered unobstructed views but would have been too steep for modern audiences. The entire circus structure (and most of the residence) was built in opus vittatum, concrete faced by alternate rows of small tufa blocks and brick courses, typical of the period. Notably, numerous hollow terra cotta jars (visible in the vaulting of the ambulatory and the fallen vaulting for the seats) provided light but strong and cheap filler in the concrete (see Figure 3.20). Immediately west of the circus starting gates, placed at a strong diagonal, is a high-walled rectangular enclosure (120  105 m) surrounding the circular mausoleum (see Figure 12.38). The arcaded portico rests on small brick piers accentuated by flat pilasters. An inscription found on the site confirms the connection of the estate to Maxentius and the mausoleum to “the Deified Romulus,” the emperor’s infant son who died in 309. However, the tomb was almost certainly intended for the family. It can be restored as a domed structure raised on a podium and entered by a columnar porch with steps, following in essence the universal model supplied by the Pantheon (Figure 12.41). The basement chamber, all that is now preserved, has alternating square and semicircular niches, possibly intended to hold sarcophagi; there is a massive central pier encircled by a wide annular barrel vault (interior diameter 23.50 m, or 80 RF; outer diameter c. 33 m with 4.5-m thick walls; Figure 12.42). The cavernous sense of this underground space recalls the vaulted substructures of the great apsidal rotunda in the Asclepion of Pergamon, albeit in different materials and serving a different purpose (see Figures 10.67 and 10.68). This comparison, though far-fetched, helps to illustrate the cogency of structural

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.39 Starting gates of the circus at the Villa of Maxentius outside Rome; Photo: Lalupa via Wikimedia.

logic and unity in Roman architecture in diverse projects across time and place, even as we acknowledge the existence of regional differences. The missing “cella” or the upper domed chamber can be reconstructed along the general lines of a well-preserved, but much smaller, contemporary mausoleum called the Tor di Schiavi near Rome (Figure 12.43). The Tor di Schiavi, an element of the sprawling Imperial Villa Complex of the Gordians on Via Praenestina (a dynasty that ruled c. 238–244 ce), is a circular, domed building (internal diameter 13.8 m), also raised on a podium with a pedimented porch and frontal steps. The porch is grafted onto the rotunda, but unlike the Pantheon, there are continuous cornices at the podium and pediment levels that visually and structurally integrate these separate parts of the rotunda. Also unlike the Pantheon, there is no

oculus in the dome, but several round, clerestory windows at its base – a feature that might have been true for the Mausoleum of Maxentius. Built within a decade or so of each other, the Gordian Villa and its mausoleum was associated with a basilica intended for Christian burials, pointing to a robust sharing of architecture and iconography between pagan and Christian communities during this transitional period. Among the various well-preserved remains of the sprawling villa, a monumental octagonal pavilion – probably a part of the villa baths (with alternating rectangular and apsidal niches inside) – is eye-catching for its superb brickwork and fine circular windows, reminding us that many Roman buildings of the mid-third century show no flagging in the boldness of their design and quality of workmanship (Figure 12.44). 841

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figure 12.40 Axonometric reconstruction study of the “judges’ tribunal” at the Circus of the Villa of Maxentius by the architect Giovanni Ioppolo

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figure 12.41 Reconstruction elevation of the “Mausoleum of Romulus/Maxentius” in the Villa of Maxentius; rendered by Marie Saldana (after Rasch).

T E MP LE OF D E I F I E D R O MU L U S I N T H E R O M AN F O R U M

Another Maxentian building of kindred typology and iconography is the so-called Temple of Deified Romulus, located in the Forum Romanum, immediately on the southwest corner of Maxentius’ great 842

basilica (Figure 12.45). This is a small, domed rotunda (c. 14.8 m or 50 RF in interior diameter) flanked by a pair of long, apsidal halls, united in the front by the sweeping curve of a concave porch projecting on to the Sacra Via. Four tall (24 RF) Corinthian columns of green marble (cipollino) once stood in front of this porch framing the original bronze door of the rotunda

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine may be, the creative and enjoyable reality of this little architectural ensemble, described aptly by A. Claridge as “a gem of Late Roman passage architecture,” speaks for itself (Claridge 2010, 113). BASILICA OF MAXENTIUS (BASILICA NOVA)

figure 12.42 Interior view of the annular vault with central support, basement structure of the Mausoleum at the Villa of Maxentius; Photo: Lalupa via Wikimedia.

placed between a pair of smaller red porphyry columns (Figure 12.46). Some of the architectural ornament, and the door, are now thought to be reused pieces, a practice common to the era. The rotunda is connected by doors to the lateral apsidal halls and to a larger rectangular hall behind them (now the Church of Cosmos and Damianos) and originally led directly to the great marble precinct of Vespasian’s Temple of Peace. If this ensemble had been intended as an elegant passage element from the Forum Romanum to the Forum of Peace, the domed, circular hall would have acted as a good connector hiding the shift in their alignments. The identification of the unusual building is based on several Maxentian coins struck in memory of “Divus Romulus” which show a domed, circular structure but with variants, some with columnar, others with plain façades, but always with an eagle (a symbol of deification) and a prominent central door. Considering the generalized nature of representations of architecture on coins, some of these might have been intended to show the mausoleum on the Via Appia. Others, especially those which include images of the Dioscuri, as argued by F. Coarelli, might have represented another temple dedicated to the Penates – the deities who protected households – known to be in the area, probably near or under the great apse of Maxentius’ great basilica (see later in this chapter); or, as we prefer, the structure under discussion on the Sacra Via. If the latter, the rotunda temple combined the venerable cult of the Penates with that of Maxentius’ deified son “making the process all the more poignant, and powerful” (Curran 2000, 60). One should also appreciate that Maxentius’ naming his only son Romulus after the mythical founder of Rome is meaningful: in some traditions the tomb of the more famous mythical Romulus was alleged to be in the Forum. Whatever the rich and convoluted associations and interpretations

While the small rotunda temple was under construction, a far larger crew must have been busy immediately east of it, across on the eastern slope of the Velia Hill encroaching on the southeast corner of the Forum of Peace. They were erecting one of the largest and most impressive buildings the Romans (or the post-Classical Western world) ever undertook – the Basilica of Maxentius, or Basilica Nova as it was then known (Figures 12.47 and 12.48; see also Figure 6.6). It has been suggested that Maxentius had actually intended to build a forum for himself in this area rich with allusions to Rome’s mythical past; instead, he transformed the space west of the Temple of Venus and Roma he had rebuilt with the construction of a gigantic new basilica, rising like a dynastic custodian of multiple sacred memories. Maxentius’ Basilica did not follow the typical “large apsidal hall” models such as the Aula Regia of the Flavian Palace on the Palatine; or the contemporary, flat-roofed, boxlike basilicas, such as the Basilica in Trier; or, the columnar nave-and-aisles basilicas, such as the Basilica Ulpia in Trajan’s Forum, or the Basilica Julia (rebuilt during this time) in the Forum Romanum (see earlier). Composed of an immense nave (80  25 m) covered by triple crossvaults in concrete, and expanding along its long sides into three interconnected, barrel-vaulted exedrae, or aisles, this super hall of brick-faced concrete has been commonly viewed as a creation modeled after the central halls, or the frigidariums, of Imperial thermae (Figure 12.49; compare plan of the Thermae of Caracalla, Figure 12.6, or that of the Thermae of Diocleatian, Figure 12.15). This logical assumption needs some explanation, and qualification. The basic scheme of these two entities is indeed quite similar, but the difference, or the originality of Maxentius’ creation, lies in isolating such a complex configuration of spaces which were entirely embedded within the multicellular structural armature of the thermae, into a freestanding, independent building. The new entity also emphasized the long axis by adding a large apse at one end of it and blew up the already gigantic thermal model to even a more impressive scale. The frigidarium of the Thermae of Diocletian, the largest specimen of the type, covers an area of circa 3,000 square meters; the Basilica of Maxentius would have covered some 6,500 square meters, over twice the size – which is also over four times the area of the Pantheon! There is magic in sheer 843

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figure 12.43 Nineteenth-century view (top) and reconstruction (bottom) of the “Tor di Schiavi” at the Villa of the Gordians on the Via Nomentana outside Rome; C.E. Isabelle (1855)

size of this magnitude, but the structural challenge that was overcome to achieve the size adds to the magic and appreciation. The cross vaults of the nave spring actually from massive concrete piers but appear to be supported by eight monolithic columns of Proconnesian marble, four on each side. At 60 RF (17.5 m) these 844

are among the largest monolithic shafts in antiquity. One was later erected in the Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore in 1613 where it still stands. Arching high above them, the vaults of the nave reached 35 meters. Sturdy brick buttresses, exterior extensions of the nave piers, counteracted against the immense thrust of the cross

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.44 Detail of brick construction at the “Octagon” (from a bath?) of the Villa of the Gordians; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

vaults; their triangular shapes can be seen on the roof of the preserved northern side. The sense of spatial unity and magnificence achieved by the Basilica’s integrated clusters of volumes must have been enhanced by light and color. The floor and the walls were veneered in geometric patterns of dazzling marble panels – yellow, red, green, purple, and white – sent from major quarries in Greece, Asia, and Africa. Light flooded through gigantic thermal windows above the nave, and the two-tiered, equally large windows of the aisles (see Figures 12.47 and 12.48). The immensity of the space can be appreciated from outside by the still standing triple barrel-vaulted aisles of the north side as sunlight penetrates the great arched windows, slants across barrel vaults, illuminating its deep octagonal coffers in patterns of light and shade (Figure 12.50). Small concerns were heeded as well: because the new building would have blocked the street between the Forum and the neighborhoods on the north, a tunnel was cut under its northwest corner in order to preserve the convenient connection. The Basilica was entered from a relatively narrow vestibule on the east side through five doors, the space squeezed by the west end of the Temple of Venus and

Roma which was simultaneously undergoing a major reconstruction (see Figure 12.49). On the west end, culminating the long axis of the building, is a large apse intended to receive a statue of Maxentius – which never happened. However, according to F. Coarelli, Maxentius’ statue was recut to represent Constantine seated in the west apse. The scale of the work (c. 15 m high, sitting) is evident in the head, hands, and feet displayed in the courtyard of the Conservatori Palace at Rome. The colossal building was conceived, designed, and completed by Maxentius in one phase; it was a single architectural entity, but altered by his successor in circa 310–312 ce. Constantine added a new entrance on the south side from Sacra Via, an imposing porch with four red porphyry columns, approached by stairs. Opposite the new entrance, in the middle of the north aisle, a broad but low apse was grafted. Decorated by rectangular niches and columns, the new apse could be separated from the main space by a screen and serve as a judicial tribunal. It looks from the outside rather awkward like the late architectural graft that it is. Sandwiched in time between two notable emperors – Diocletian who established the Tetrarchy and achieved a semblance of order and stability, and Constantine who achieved the final division of the Empire and changed the course of history – Maxentius is often given short shrift. His efforts to turn the tide of events in order to bring Rome back to its old preeminence, are generally misunderstood and undervalued, especially since the history of the Late Empire is mainly viewed from the angle of Christianity triumphant. As the last pagan Roman emperor, one who truly identified with the city and strove for a quintessentially “Roman” vision of architecture characterized by inventive compositions, dynamic and moving spaces, and bold structures – Maxentius created an architecture in the grand Roman manner which Rabirius would have understood and approved.

CONSTANTINE THE GREAT On the attic inscription of the Arch of Constantine (finished in 315 ce), a handsome arch erected between the Colosseum and the Forum to commemorate Constantine’s victory, and his alleged tenth anniversary as emperor, Maxentius is referred to as “the tyrant.” It is ironical that the victory celebrated on a triumphal arch was for the first time a victory over a fellow Roman, not a barbarian; consequently, it is tempting to speculate if the course of events would have changed much if it were Maxentius, not Constantine, who was 845

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figure 12.45 Partial plan of east Roman Forum, Rome, with the “Temple of Deified Romulus”; rendered by Diane Favro.

victorious at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 ce. In the long run, probably not. The glory of a pagan Rome was already a dream of the past, and Maxentius’ efforts to revive that dream were scarcely appreciated by the Roman people except for the senatorial class, which resisted change. Constantine’s populist Christian sympathies, his carefully cultivated image as a divinely inspired ruler, and the new Christian order that arose, represented the masses and the future. Only a decade after the completion of the Thermae of Diocletian, Constantine was responsible for the construction of Rome’s last great baths, the Thermae Constantinianae, circa 320 ce. This project is mildly surprising because: first, Rome at that point might not have needed another great thermae; second, these baths were located on a fairly tight site on the Quirinal Hill right against the precinct of the colossal Temple of Serapis, a location known to be an aristocratic neighborhood, not exactly effective for a populist gesture. Of course, to indulge Rome’s bathing habit at any level was a good political move, and Constantine might have calculated that a reconciliation gesture toward the upper classes early in his Roman tenure might have 846

been just what was needed. Furthermore, although the rich and elegant decoration suggests that the new thermae, a relatively small one at that, might have been mainly intended for upper class appreciation, the use of an Imperial bath was never exclusive to any class. The remains of the Baths of Constantine were erased by the sixteenth century, making way for the great Renaissance palaces that occupy the area. We are lucky to know the plan, mainly from a measured Palladio drawing, which shows that the bath block was developed in the north-south direction limited by the narrow hilltop (see Figure 6.94B). The south end of the main axis was accentuated by a slightly projecting, circular, and probably domed caldarium with three horseshoe apses. On the north end, the natatio expanded into the sweeping curve of a semicircular garden wall, echoed on the south by a large exedra with seats, the only known feature of the peripheral establishment. The layout with a generous use of curves displays certain contemporary planning tendencies and reflects a reaction to the severe linearity of the Thermae of Diocletian. No monument bears a stronger material witness to Constantine’s presence and association with Rome than the previously mentioned fully-preserved massive

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.46 View of the “Temple of Deified Romulus,” Roman Forum, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

triple arch, located in the valley of the Colosseum (Figures 12.51 and 12.52). The handsome structure (25.6 m wide, 21 m high) mainly follows the design of the Arch of Septimius Severus (see Figure 12.10).

Although it was almost entirely built in reused materials, including its sculptural reliefs, the overall appearance is one of unity and harmony. For the student of Roman sculpture, it is a veritable gallery of artwork 847

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figure 12.47 General view of the Basilica of Maxentius-Constantine (“Basilica Nova”), north aisle, Roman Forum, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

and ornament taken from monuments from Trajan to Constantine. The reliefs that are original to the arch, although relatively minor, encircle the structure as a band at mid-level; they are conspicuous in their abstract and flat simplicity, typical of Late Antique sculpture, in sharp contrast to the classical naturalism of others on the structure. There are statues of standing barbarians taken from the Forum of Trajan decorating the attic, but the reliefs of enemy captives, on the front and back column pedestals, and the victories filling their usual position in the spandrels, are Constantinian. The special message of Constantine’s arch resides not only in its transitional position between pagan and Christian worlds as displayed through art, but in its manifest inversion of the notion of victory from one achieved by Romans over their barbarian enemies to one achieved by Romans over other Romans as declared in its dedication. But true triumph belonged to Christianity. And this triumph underlined the need, almost overnight, of places of worship for the newly liberated Christian communities. Building churches, loosely based on models provided by Roman civic basilicas, such as the basilica in Pompeii or Basilica Ulpia in Trajan’s Forum in Rome, became Constantine’s major architectural mission. 848

Considering its elementary architectural outline and form, the Christian basilica can be defined as a rectangular hall entered on the short side, internally divided into a nave and aisles by rows of columns or arcades and culminating visually and functionally upon an apse at the end of the building’s longitudinal axis. Basilical plans with their spacious nave and aisles for the congregation, and a wide apse as the theatrical focus for the celebration of Mass, were strongly preferred by clergy. Ordinarily, the basilicas of the Early Christian period had higher naves flanked by lower side aisles, a configuration that allowed clerestory lighting and timber-trussed roofs, though masonry or vaulted roofs also existed. Many of these churches were built during Constantine’s reign, some in Rome, but also in Constantinople and Jerusalem. Most were basilical in plan, naturally not all planned by his architects. His foremost achievement was Old Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, a gigantic structure located over an ancient Roman cemetery on the Vatican Hill atop the spot where Peter, the first apostle, was believed to have been buried. The timber-roofed basilica, with a 90-meter-long nave and double aisles (the Basilica at Trier, by comparison, is 88 meters long) separated by rows of columns (some one hundred of them in the

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.48 Reconstruction perspective of the Basilica of Maxentius, Roman Forum, Rome; Experiential Technologies Center, UCLA, © Regents of the University of California.

figure 12.49 Plan of the Basilica of Maxentius, Roman Forum, Rome; DF

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figure 12.50 View of the coffers of a north aisle vault seen through the exterior windows of Basilica of Maxentius, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

building) remained in use until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when the present Mannerist-era structure with its landmark dome by Michelangelo replaced it. Fortunately, details of the original structure are known from many fine Renaissance drawings (Figure 12.53). The legacy of antiquity – or, some edited version of it – lived on in these Early Christian churches, which utilized in a massive way, columns, capitals, and other architectural ornament from disused and discredited pagan monuments.

SOME LATE ROMAN IMPERIAL TOMBS, ROTUNDAS, AND CENTRALIZED BUILDINGS Compared to these Constantinian basilicas with their columnar, trabeated structures, thin walls, timbers, ceilings, and flat roofs, late Roman and Constantinian era tombs with circular plans and domes supported by thick, brick-faced concrete walls represent a significantly different approach to architecture. Basilicas are characterized by their long axes, which compel a movement forward toward a visual terminus, an apse, an altar, and an episcopal throne. Their plans are “directional.” The rotundas display what is referred to as “centralized” plans; that is, they do not have a prominent or discernible axis or direction of movement, unless it is the “vertical axis” that rises through the center of the dome. If a visual climax is to be sought, it is in the center under 850

the dome, focused upon an altar or a font, the latter signifying their preferred Christian function as a baptistery. The form was widely exploited for martyria marking the locus of a commemorative event, or for tombs or heroons following a long pagan tradition. The first of these Imperial Christian tombs is the Mausoleum of Helena, Constantine’s mother (c. 320 ce), located just outside Rome on the Via Labicana (Figure 12.54). Like the Mausoleum of Maxentius on Via Appia Antica or the Tor di Schiavi discussed earlier (see Figures 12.38, 12.41, 12.43), Helena’s Tomb belonged to the traditional type of centralized buildings ultimately relatable to the Pantheon as domed rotundas, with or without columnar porches, a fairly common late Roman form of Imperial tomb. But, unlike the examples mentioned earlier, Helena’s Tomb was not a freestanding building, and did not have an exterior porch. The rotunda is directly connected to a vestibule on the flat east end of a “funerary basilica” (a sort of covered Christian cemetery) with a curved west end. The mausoleum has an internal diameter of 20.18 meters, with thick walls (3.78 m) relieved by eight alternating rectangular and semicircular niches, one being the doorway into the basilica. The dome, preserved up to the springing at circa 25.50 meters, is raised on a tall drum with eight arched windows set in the scalloped niches of the exterior (comparable to the exterior upper zone of the round caldarium of the Thermae of Caracalla). The interior walls were decorated with colorful marble revetment up to the bottom

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.51 General view of the Arch of Constantine, north side, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

of the dome, the juncture marked by a continuous cornice. The construction is entirely in brick-faced concrete, but also features large, hollow jars, or pignatte (from which the tomb takes its popular Italian name as Tor Pignattara), and ribs of brickwork radiating from a brick ring at the apex of the dome, the wedge-shaped areas between them filled in opus caementicium. Various forms of brick ribbing, dividing a vault or a dome into wedge-shaped, or latticelike, horizontal compartments, is fairly common in third and fourth century ce vaulted architecture, although the same structural notion of compartmentalized concrete construction by brick ribs or arches was already utilized with skill in some Trajanic and Hadrianic buildings. The structural value of such ribs have been discussed at length (see earlier), the main question being whether they were intended to transfer loads down to particular areas or points of support, like piers, as in the true ribs of Gothic architecture. As analyzed by L. Lancaster and other scholars, it appears that “ribbing played a large part in the regularization of the construction sequence of domes by creating both horizontal and vertical divisions so that vaults could be built in stages”

(Lancaster 2005, 110; Lancaster 2015, 152–172; Amici 2016, 105–127). In other words, ribs were useful particularly during the construction stage of vaults and domes to minimize the need for heavy formwork and scaffolding, and during the period of curing and setting of concrete (when dangerous cracks are likely to occur), after which their structural purpose was eliminated. Just the same, perception is an important part of intention, and given how regularized the armatures of brick ribs appear, we would be justified to suspect that original builders perceived lasting structural merit and comfort in ribbing. MA U S O L E U M O F CO N S T A NT I A – S AN T A CO S TA N ZA

The second tomb, the Mausoleum of Constantia, intended for Constantine’s daughter, and better known as Santa Costanza, is excellently preserved as a church (Figure 12.55). It offers a more sophisticated variation on the rotunda type than examples discussed above. The complex, which included a funerary basilica in honor of St. Agnes on the Via Nomentana, was started 851

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figure 12.52 Detail view of the southwest corner of the Arch of Constantine, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

figure 12.53 Renaissance drawing of the interior of Old St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome; Giovanni Ciampini (1693)

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figure 12.54 Plan and axonometric reconstruction of the Mausoleum of Helena connected to the funerary basilica of SS Marcellinus and Petrus, Rome, c. 320; rendered by Diane Favro (after Rasch).

under Constantine, but completed around circa 340–350 ce, a decade after his death in 337 ce. The round building (29 m diameter) is entered by way of a vestibule with apsidal ends. It is composed of a barrel vaulted outer ring, or an ambulatory, with sixteen semicircular and rectangular niches carved into the thickness of the wall (3.50 m); the entrance and the main axes of the building are emphasized by their larger niches. Surrounded and buttressed by this

annular vaulted corridor is the central dome (11.5 m diameter), raised and carried by a circle of twelve pairs of columns connected to each other by arches (Figures 12.56 and 12.57, Plate 32A). The tall drum of the dome is pierced by twelve windows that flood the core rotunda with light; the ambulatory is darker, illuminated dimly by the borrowed light from the center. Although a Christian building, brightly colored and brilliantly gilded mosaics depicting both New and Old 853

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figure 12.55 Plan and cross-section of the Mausoleum of Santa Costanza, Rome; rendered by Diane Favro (after Kraus).

Testament themes alongside pagan subjects (and a portrait of Constantia among putti and vines) decorate the annular vault and originally the dome as well. This type architecture with a domed core and secondary vaulted space appeared as if the architect were “placing the cylinder and hemispherical dome of 854

the Pantheon up on piers or columns . . . and surrounding [it] with a lower vaulted ring” (MacDonald 1976, 105). Characterized as “double-shell buildings,” such distinctive spatial configurations continued through many creative iterations in the Byzantine and Medieval periods, and beyond.

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.56 plate 32a Interior axial view of the Mausoleum of Constantia, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

“ T E M P L E O F M I N E R V A M E D I CA”

Our third example represents one of the most creative experiments in Late Roman rotundas whose complex spatial design might have pointed the way to the double-shell configuration of Santa Costanza. It is the so-called Temple of Minerva Medica, an earlyfourth-century recreation and dining pavilion in the Licinian Gardens (Figures 12.58). These expansive gardens (Horti Liciniani) occupying a large area east of Rome, north of Via Labicana, originally belonged to the Emperor Gallienus (who was part of the family of the Licinians, reigned 253–269 ce), and included residential and recreational facilities and baths. Like many such luxury estates in the city, they were used to entertain the emperor’s court and friends (SHA, The Two Gordians, 17.8). The rotunda-pavilion, still largely standing just southeast of the train tracks of Rome’s Stazione Termini, is a ten-sided hall. The central space is encircled at ground level by a continuous ring of expanding semicircular apses, one of them being the entrance (Figure 12.59). Two pairs of these apses on the transverse axis were articulated by columns carrying arcades and opened to spaces beyond. Soon after construction, a pair of large exedrae, probably enclosed garden courts housing nymphaea, were

added. Above the billowing ring of the apses rises an impressive concrete dome 25 meters in diameter, its tall drum pierced by ten large round-headed windows (Figure 12.60). The minimal mass with slender piers between apses and large openings gives the plan – and, of course, the building itself – a lacelike elegance. Soon after construction structural problems compelled the builders to add structural support, in the form of external projecting piers or buttresses between the apses (see Figure 12.58); hence, the building as seen today has lost some of its lightness. The builders also opted for an exceptionally thin-shelled dome using a fairly complex system of vertical brick ribbing with horizontal links that encircle the cupola in concentric rings and compartmentalize the concrete mass. As discussed earlier, these ribs, structurally inconsistent and somewhat erratic, reveal the Roman lack of theoretical knowledge of a true rib system, nonetheless they were effective in strengthening the concrete (especially during construction) and successful in achieving a light dome surrounded by a ring of windows instead of the more solid walls of earlier, heavier domes. The latter type utilizes the oculus as a device for illumination and structure (essentially, a horizontal compression ring) to counter bending stresses and shies away from opening circumferential 855

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figure 12.57 View of the annular vault, interior ambulatory, Mausoleum of Santa Costanza, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

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figure 12.58 General exterior view of the “Temple of Minerva Medica,” looking northeast (buttresses are later additions), Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

windows. The best proof of the ribs’ effectiveness is to be found in some eighteenth-century drawings showing the brick ribs meeting at their tips like a radial armature of flying buttresses, while the fillings between them are entirely gone. To an ordinary visitor, the rotunda’s extraordinary central space is obvious and what matters. Then come more complex realizations. Standing under the great dome lit by a circle of windows and surrounded by a ring of apsidal extensions, even now one feels the mounting sense of spatial hierarchies expanding, rising, billowing, and rippling out into secondary and tertiary territories beyond the round building, as if variations in visual and kinetic comprehension. Equally powerful is the subservience of the peripheral to the central, affirming the natural order of an expanding universe (Figure 12.59). Further developed in Santa Costanza, and culminating in a new power and complexity in Justinian’s Hagia Sophia in Constantinople/Istanbul (532–547), this kind of hierarchical ordering and layering of space around a core goes back to the formative, revolutionary years of Imperial architecture, whose closest enunciation was spelled out in the

Octagon of Nero’s Golden House (see Figures 4.43–4.45; see also Figure 12.56, Plate 32A). This was, in essence, the beginning of a conceptual break from the classical understanding of space, a break from the containment of the circle of walls and their clear and static volumetric unity – as ultimately exemplified in the Pantheon. The argument is not that there was no sense of formal unity and discipline in the kinetically conceived and experienced space in these double-shell buildings; rather it is that ever-changing views and angles, light and dark passages, opening and closing vistas, seeing one thing through the frame of another nurtured an incipient sense of surprise, ambiguity, even mystery. To the pagan guest dining at this exquisite pavilion in the Licinian Gardens, the changing light and views through the deep apsidal and columnar recesses into the great lateral exedrae, the fluid awareness of the pools and fountains, were but a part of a passing sense of a luxurious, but ordinary, experience of worldly pleasures. To the worshipper at Hagia Sophia, two centuries later, moving through the complex and superimposed array of peripheral spaces and galleries, the 857

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15 m

N figure 12.59 Plan of the “Temple of Minerva Medica,” Rome; reconstructed and rendered by Fikret Yegül.

vision through dark, monumental archways of the great dome rising in a blaze of light and gold, was epiphany – as might have been in its own way, the sudden experience of the vast interior of the Pantheon (see Figure 12.61). To echo an idea expressed by the late American master architect Louis Kahn, these buildings and others like them from other times and cultures, were good because they were immeasurable beyond their own time and narrow, particular purpose; they provided the inspiration for dreams and served needs unknown when they were built. What strikes us about Late Roman architecture is its productiveness and proficiency often in the face of great political and economic hardships – perhaps, as a way of justifying legitimacy and projecting power and stability through architecture in a world in which these were in short supply. In Rome, Italy, and the Tetrarchic capitals, architects and building technicians trained in Imperial methods of construction produced some of the most monumental and creative buildings ever attempted in the Empire’s history. Whether they were the products of the utilitarian brick-faced concrete architecture of soaring, light-filled interiors, such as in the Basilica of Maxentius, or the superb brick architecture of the octagonal bath hall in the Villa of the Gordians; or the large, boxy spaces with loadbearing walls and flat timber roofs, as in the Basilica at Trier; or traditional construction in Hellenistic 858

ashlar, as in the mind-numbing complex of JupiterBa’al and Bacchus at Ba’albek, these buildings and their builders were masters of their art, and this art was derived from different traditions, some going before and beyond the Romans, squarely anchored in the know-how from a rich and varied past. Local contexts and broadly shared technical knowledge informed and enriched Roman architecture over centuries and across vast territories. The triumph of Roman concrete and its regional varieties aside, innovative design was not restricted to any one place or mode of building: the creative synergies at play in the design of the tiny, all-stone Temple of Venus at Ba’albek were also at play 2000 miles away in Roman Forum in the brick-and-concrete “gem” of Maxentius’ “temple” to his deified infant son Romulus. The architectural sensibilities that gave shape to the expressive and experimental geometries of the Tetrarchic villa at Piazza Armerina go back to the sensibilities expressed in the restless genius of Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli. The dynamic rhythms and concatenations of the columnar natatio wall of Diocletian’s Thermae that delighted Piranesi must seek their inspiration in the dynamic façade compositions of second style painting as at the Republican villa at Oplontis, or in the countless experiments in alternative classicisms of columnar, aedicular façades from Perge to Petra, or in the disjunctive harmonies achieved in Tomb 35 of Palmyra.

The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine

figure 12.60 Interior of central domed space, “Temple of Minerva Medica,” Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

Roman Architecture and Urbanism: From the Origins to Late Antiquity

figure 12.61 Interior view of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople/Istanbul; Photo: Andreas Wahra [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

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The late empire in Rome and the provinces: from the Severans to Constantine Throughout all this, Roman architects and their patrons often served traditionally proven political ends but also showed sensitiveness to local and provincial conditions, cultures, resources, opportunities, and restrictions – all against a backdrop of distant cosmopolitan models, sometimes only dimly understood. The architect and planner is routinely faced with the obligation (even “moral” and existential obligation) to perceive and understand the best that exists or that is offered, J.-P. Sartre’s ephemeral “privileged situations,” given by nature and the human-made – land, topography, climate, view, light, materials, technologies, traditions, historical and legal conditions – and to develop them into “perfect and permanent moments” (of design). Reviewing their record as a whole in three continents, Roman builders and city planners had success in realizing this obligation. REFERENCES

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General Bibliography Fentress, E. and S. Alcock, eds. 2000. Romanization and the City: Creations, Transformations, and Failures (JRA Supplement 38). Finley, M. I. 1977. Atlas of Classical Archaeology. New York: McGraw-Hill. Frazer, A., ed. 1998. The Roman Villa: Villa Urbana. Philadelphia: The University Museum. Freeman, R. W. M. 1993. “Romanization and Roman Material Culture.” JRA 6: 438–445. Gates, C. 2003. Ancient Cities. London: Routledge. Ghedini, F. and G. Rosada, eds. 1997. Via per Montes Excusa: Strade in galleria e passagi sotterranei nell’Italia romana. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. Giuliani, C. F. 2012. Archeologia oggi: La fantasia al potere (Quaderni di archeologia e di cultura classica, 2). Tivoli: Tiburis Artistica. Golvin, J.-C. 1988. L’amphithéatre romain. 2 vols. Paris: De Boccard. Grimal, P. 1954, rep. 1983. Roman Cities, trans. G. M. Woloch. Madison: University of Wisconsin. Gros, P. 1996. L’architecture romaine. 2 vols. Paris: Picard éditeur. Gros, P. and M. Torelli. 1988. Storia dell’urbanistica il mondo romano. Rome: Laterza. Gruen, E. 2010. “Romans and Others.” In N. Rosenstein and R. Morstein-Marx, eds. A Companion to the Roman Republic. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell: 459–477. Hales, S. 2003. The Roman House and Social Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hammond, M. 1972. The City in the Ancient World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard. Hanson, J. A. 1959. Roman Theater-Temples. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Holleran, C. and A. Claridge, eds. 2018. A Companion to the City of Rome. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell. Hollingshead, M. B. 2015. Shaping Ceremony: Monumental Steps and Greek Architecture. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Hönle, A. and A. Henze. 1981. Römische Amphitheater und Stadien. Basel: Atlantis. Hopkins, J. N. 2016. The Genesis of Roman Architecture. New Haven: Yale University Press. Hornbostel-Hüttner, G. 1979. Studien zur römischen Nichenarchitektur. Leiden: Brill. Hufschmid, T. 2009. Amphitheatrum in Provincia et Italia. 3 vols. (Forschungen in Augst, 33). Augusta Raurica: Amphitheatrum in Provincia et Italia. Humphrey, J. H. 1986. Roman Circuses. Berkeley: University of California. Jenkins, J. 2013. God, Space and City in the Roman Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnson, M. J. 2009. The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kolb, F. 1984. Die Stadt im Altertum. Munich: Beck. 864

Lancaster, L. C. 2005. Concrete Vaulted Construction in Imperial Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Langfellow, B. 2011. Roman Imperialism and Civic Patronage: Form, Meaning, and Ideology in Monumental Fountain Complexes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lançon, B. 2001. Rome in Late Antiquity: Everyday Life and Urban Change, AD 312-609. New York: Routledge. La Rocca, E. and S. Ensoli, eds. 2000. Aurea Roma: Dalla città pagana alla città Cristiana. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. Laurence, R., S. E. Cleary, and G. Sears. 2011. The City in the Roman West, c. 250 BC–c. AD 250. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Liebeschuetz, J. H. W. G. 2001. The Decline and the Fall of the Roman City. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lyttelton, M. 1974. Baroque Architecture in Classical Antiquity. Ithaca, NY: Cornell. MacDonald, W. L. 1965, rev. 1982. The Architecture of the Roman Empire, I: An Introductory Study. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1986. The Architecture of the Roman Empire, II: An Urban Appraisal. New Haven: Yale University Press. MacMullen, R. 2000. Romanization in the Time of Augustus. New Haven: Yale University Press. Marzano, A. and G.P.R. Métraux eds. 2018. The Roman Villa in the Mediterranean Basin: Late Republic to Late Antiquity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Mattingly, D. 1997. “Dialogues of Power and Experience in the Roman Empire.” In D. Mattingly, ed. Dialogues in Roman Imperialism: Power, Discourse and Discrepant Experience in the Roman Empire (JRA Supplement 23): 7–24. 2004. “Becoming Roman: Expressing Identity in a Provincial Setting.” JRA 17: 5–25. 2013. Imperialism, Power and Identity: Experiencing the Roman Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mattingly, D., ed. 1997. Dialogues in Roman Imperialism: Power, Discourse and Discrepant Experience in the Roman Empire (JRA Supplement 23). Mazzolani, L. S. 1970, 1972. The Idea of the City in Roman Thought, trans. S. O’Donnell. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. McKay, A. G. 1975. Houses, Villas and Palaces in the Roman World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Mertens, D., ed. 2008. Stadtverkehr in der antiken Welt (Pallia 18). Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag. Millett, M. 1990. “Romanization: Historical Issues and Archaeological Interpretation.” In T. C. Blagg and M. Millett, eds. The Early Roman Empire in the West. Oxford: Oxbow.

General Bibliography Mühlenbrock, J. 2003. Tetrapylon: Zur Geschichte des viertorigen Bogenmonumentes in der römischen Architektur. Paderborn: Scriptorium. Nash, E. 1961. Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome. 2 vols. London: A. Zwemmer. Nünnerich-Asmus, A. 1994. Basilika und Portikus. Cologne: Böhlau Verlag. Pelletier, A. 1982. L’urbanisme romaine sous l’empire. Paris: Picard. Pensabene, P., M. Milella, and F. Caprioli, eds. 2011. Decor: Decorazione Architettonica nel Mondo Romano 1–2 (Thiasos Monografie 9). Rome: Edizione Quasar. Percival, J. 1976. The Roman Villa. Berkeley: University of California. Platner, S. B. 1926. A Topographical Dictionary of Rome, rev. T. Ashby. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Popkin, M. L. 2016. The Architecture of the Roman Triumph. New York: Cambridge University Press. Price, M. J. and B. L. Trell. 1977. Coins and Their Cities. London: Vecchi. Prag, J. R. W. and J. C. Quinn, eds. 2013. The Hellenistic West: Rethinking the Ancient Mediterranean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Raja, R. 2012. Urban Development and Regional Identity in the Eastern Provionces, 50 BC–AD 250. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen. Ramage, N. and A. Ramage. 1995, rev. 2005. Roman Art. Romulus to Constantine. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Revell, L. 2009. Roman Imperialism and Local Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2014. “Romanization.” In R. B. Ulrich and C. K. Quenemoen, eds. A Companion to Roman Architecture. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell: 381–398. Rich, J. and A. Wallace-Hadrill, eds. 1991. City and Country in the Ancient World. London: Routledge. Rivoira, G. T. 1925, repr. 1972. Roman Architecture. New York: Hacker Books. Rosenstein, N. and R. Morstein-Marx, eds. 2007, 2010. A Companion to the Roman Republic. Chichester: WileyBlackwell. Rüpke, J., ed. 2011. A Companion to Roman Religion. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Scheithauer, A. 2000. Kaiserliche Bautätigkeit in Rom. Das Echo in der antiken Literatur. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Sear, F. 1983. Roman Architecture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Senseney, J. R. 2011. The Art of Building in the Classical World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, J. T. 1997. Roman Villas. A Study in Social Structure. London: Routledge. Stambaugh, J. E. 1988. The Ancient Roman City. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Stamper, J. W. 2005. The Architecture of Roman Temples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Steinby, E. M., ed. 2000. Lexicon Topigraphicum Urbis Romae. 6 vols. Rome: Quazar. Stillwell, R. and W. L. MacDonald. 1976. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton: Princeton University. Stone, D. L. 2013. “The Archaeology of Africa and the Roman Republic.” In J. D. Evans, ed. A Companion to the Archaeology of the Roman Republic. Oxford: WileyBlackwell, 503–521. Thomas, E. 2007. Monumentality and the Roman Empire: Architecture in the Antonine Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thomas, M.L. and G.E. Meyers, eds. 2012. Monumentality in Etruscan and Early Roman Architecture: Ideology and Innovation. Austin: University of Texas Press. Ulrich, R. B. 1994. The Roman Orator and the Sacred Stage: The Roman Templum Rostratum (Collection Latomus, 222). Brussels: Latomus. Ulrich, R. B. and C. K. Quenemoen, eds. 2014. A Companion to Roman Architecture. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Versluys, M. G. 2013. “Material Culture and Identity in the Late Roman Republic (c. 200-c.20).” In J. D. Evans, ed. A Companion to the Archaeology of the Roman Republic. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 429–440. Von Hersberg, H. 2005. Römische Baukunst. Munich: Verlag C.H. Beck. Von Hersberg, H. and P. Zanker, eds. 2009. Storia dell’ architettura Italiana: Architettura romana, I grandi monumenti di Roma. Rome: Electa. Wallace-Hadrill, A. 2008. Rome’s Cultural Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ward-Perkins, B. 1984. From Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Urban Public Building in Northern and Central Italy, AD 300-850. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ward-Perkins, J. B. 1970, 1981. Roman Imperial Architecture. New York: Penguin. 1974. Cities of Ancient Greece and Italy: Planning in Classical Antiquity. New York: Braziller. Webster, J. 2001. “Creolizing the Roman Provinces.” AJA 115: 209–225. Welch, K. E. 2007. The Roman Amphitheater. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Welles, C. B. 1964. “The Romanization of the Greek East.” BASP 2: 42–77. Wilson Jones, M. 2011. Principles of Roman Architecture. New Haven: Yale University Press. Woolf, G. 1994. “Becoming Roman, Staying Greek: Cultural Identity and the Civilizing Process in the Roman East.” PCSP 40: 116–143. 865

General Bibliography Yegül, F. K. 1992, 1996. Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity. New York and Cambridge, MA: The Architectural History Foundation and MIT Press. 2010. Bathing in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2015. “The Classical Column: A Fundamental Notion in Architecture.” In D. Favro, F. K. Yegül, J. Pinto, and G. Metraux, eds. Paradigm and Progeny: Roman

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Imperial Architecture and Its Legacy (JRA Suppl demolition / deconstruction 101): 215–230. 2016. “The Question of Romanization: To Be or Not to Be (Roman) – An Introductory Study” Seleucia 6: 11–20. Zanker, P. 2000. “The City as Symbol: Rome and the Creation of an Urban Image.” In E. Fentress, ed., Romanization and the City: Creation, Transformations and Failures (JRA Supplement 38), 25–41.

GLOSSARY

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Greek and Latin designations for different parts of the classical orders and ornament are vast, see extensive diagrams and designations in Adam (1994). For specialized terms for baths and bathing, see Yegül (1994; 2012); for terms particularly useful for Greek architecture, see Dinsmoor (reprint 1975). Terms are given in their Latin or Greek form (sometimes both) depending on the usage preferred in the text. abacus: acropolis:

acroterium (-a):

adyton (or, adytum):

aedes:

aedicula (-ae):

The flat slab forming the upper member of a column capital. Literally a “high city,” referring to a citadel either of military nature and/or where the sanctuaries of the settlement’s important deities were located. A sculptural figure or ornament on the highest point or exterior corners of a temple, such as on the corners and the peak of a pediment. Inner shrine of a temple; typically used in Syrian temples, such as the Temple of Bacchus at Ba’albek or a large interior space for oracular purposes as in the Temple of Apollo at Didyma. The place where a god resides such as a sanctuary or shrine; the word could be used to mean a temple. Literally means “small aedes;” it also refers to small columnar or pilastered tabernacles or niches used ornamentally. Facades composed of such projecting and receding columnar pavilions, sometimes in multi-stories as scaenae frons of theaters, are sometimes referred to as “aedicular architecture,” or as “Asiatic facades.”

agger:

agora:

agrimensores:

ala (-ae):

ambulacrum (-a):

A defense system in the form of a rampart and ditch made in the earth (fossa); or, in general, territory, land outside the pomerium boundary of a city. Greek term for an open market and meeting place of a town where some of the important civic and religious buildings were located. Although it is only roughly the same as the Roman forum, the term “agora” continued to be used in Greekspeaking areas under Roman rule. A specialist who measures the land; Greek or Roman land surveyors who were instrumental in laying out city and country grids or centuriation. Alcoves or wings at the rear of the atrium in a Roman house; often they flanked the tablinum; sometimes used to refer to any “wings” or projections of a building, such as temples. A long hall or gallery associated with Roman baths and bathgymnasia in Asia Minor and North Africa. Ambulacra could 867

Glossary have served widely varying functions including as indoor athletic halls, meeting and ceremonial spaces, and galleries for promenading. See also basilica thermarum. ambulatio (or Walkways or corridors associated ambulacrum): with plantings or colonnades as in Roman baths and gardens. ambulatio sine postico: See sine postico amphitheater: Theater in the round for viewing entertainment from all sides; large audience venue with tiered seating facing central arena usually oval in shape used for gladiatorial games and various other spectacles. Early Roman examples were recessed into the ground, as at Pompeii, to provide support for the seats. Most imperial examples, like the Flavian amphitheater or Colosseum, were impressive free-standing buildings. anathyrosis: A smooth, flat outer band around the side of a stone block to provide contact with the adjacent block; the central area is roughly cut away and slightly recessed. andron: A part of the Greek (and occasionally Roman) house reserved for men or a room for entertaining male guests. Vitruvius uses it to describe the passageway between two peristyles (De Arch. 6.7.5). It was also used loosely to refer to a hall or paved interior courtyard for community use in late Roman baths in Syria. annular vault: A barrel vault in the form of a partial or whole circle, such as the outer vault (ambulatory) of Santa Costanza in Rome. anta (-ae): The projecting side walls of a temple cella usually terminating in a pilaster or pier. Columns placed between the two antae are said to be “in antis.” antefix (-es): A vertical decoration at the end of the covering tiles or joints in flat tiles of a roof; sometimes they also are found on the crest

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anthemion:

apodyterium (-a):

apophyge:

apse:

aqueduct:

ara (-ae): arcade:

architrave:

archivolt:

arcuated lintel:

of the roof ridge. Vegetal ornaments and heads of protective figures were common motifs. A form of palmette used in classical decoration, especially the sima of the cornice. The changing room of a bath, often with niches for the storage of garments and benches. The concave curve at the top or bottom of a column’s shaft, usually coupled with an astragal. A semicircular recess in a wall, ordinarily terminating in a semidome; sometimes used interchangeably with “exedra.’ A water-supply system with water carried from a distant source in conduits buried in the ground or, more dramatically, raised on a series of piers and arches to cross low-lying land and valleys. An altar; a famous example is the Ara Pacis Augustae in Rome. A series of connected arches in a building either on the exterior façade or around interior spaces, normally carried by columns or piers; could also be independent of other buildings; and usually roofed. A stone beam or lintel; the lowest horizontal element of the classical entablature; it spans the interval between two columns. The term is also applied to the lintel of windows or doors in classical architecture. An architrave, usually stone or marble, in the form of an arch; the outer face of a barrel vault. An entablature with an arch in the center. Although its origins are not known, when surmounted by a pediment, the form is also called a “Syrian arch” (or frontone Siriaco) and became popular in the imperial period in the East, such as at the Temple of Hadrian at Ephesus, or the Severan Propylon of

Glossary

arena:

arx:

ashlar masonry (opus quadratum):

astragal: atrium (-a):

attic:

aula:

balneum (-ae);

barrel vault:

the Temple of Jupiter at Ba’albek. The central, interior floor of a Roman amphitheater where action took place. The Latin word means “sand,” good for absorbing blood. Citadel in Latin. The northern spur of the Capitoline Hill was the Arx of Rome. Stone masonry cut into blocks (usually rectangular) and laid horizontally with staggered vertical joints. A small, rounded molding with a convex section. The main, usually partially roofed space of an Italic or Roman house through which one had access to other parts of the house (see alae). Vitruvius carefully articulated five different types, including the tuscanicum with beams supporting a roof with a square opening (compluvium) to the sky, the tetrastylum with columns supporting the beams at the four corners of the compluvium, and testudinatum which was completely roofed. In atria with compluvia, water was often directed from the roof to a small rectangular pool or impluvium below. The upper story of a building situated above the cornice. On monumental arches the attic often displayed large inscriptions and supported statuary. Large hall or reception room (or “throne hall” in an Imperial context) of a villa or palace, such as the Aula Regia of the Flavian Palace in Rome, or the Aula dei Mercati (Market Hall) of Trajan’s Markets. balaneion in Greek: small baths, usually privately owned, as distinct from the great public baths (thermae). Tunnel-shaped or semicircular vault.

base:

basilica:

basilica thermarum:

basis villae:

bath-gymnasium complex:

baths:

An architectural element that forms the lowest portion of a column, anta, or wall that occurs in the Ionic and Corinthian orders, and only rarely in the Doric. An important, multipurpose Roman building type consisting of a large rectangular hall forming a tall colonnaded central nave with upper galleries and clerestory windows; side aisles are often lower. Sometimes the long axis is terminated by an apse or a tribunal. Basilicas can be found in many sizes, materials, and configurations throughout the Roman world and are often a part of the forum or agora. Among the activities associated with basilicas were banking, lectures, and legal hearings. A civic shrine was often included in the tribunal (Vitr. De Arch. 5.1.7). A term that denotes a large hall displaying the architectural characters of a secular “basilica” connected with baths and often roofed in wood. It must have had multiple uses, including as a social meeting place, or an indoor “palaestra” for exercise. Large foundation terraces supporting extensive villa constructions on sloped and hilly terrain, like some of the Republican era villas on the Bay of Naples. A building type that combines some of the elements of a traditional Greek/Hellenistic gymnasium (especially the colonnaded palaestra) with a vaulted Roman bath. The most notable examples come from Asia Minor, where the type probably was developed by the early first century ce. See also gymnasium. See balneum or thermae.

869

Glossary bibliotheca:

bipedales:

bonding course:

bouleterion:

brick stamp:

bucranium (-a):

caementa:

caldarium:

870

A library. Roman libraries often had separate rooms or buildings for Latin texts and Greek texts. A square brick measuring two Roman feet each side recommended by Vitruvius for use as the suspensurae of Roman baths. One or more horizontal courses of stone, more commonly brick, that run the whole length of a wall, whose function seems, in addition to probably marking about a day’s masonry work, to establish a structurally compartmented section that would aid in the uniform drying of concrete or mortared rubble and prevent long vertical cracks across the whole height of the wall by arresting the cracks’ movement. A public building for the meeting of the council in Greek cities. An imprint on brick with lettering (mostly naming the consul in office) that helps to establish the date of the manufacture of the brick, although not its use in a building since bricks were commonly stored several years to dry . The practice was widespread in Rome and Italy during the Imperial period, but not used in Greece, Asia Minor, and the East. Decorative motif in the form of the head or skull of a bull or ox, often linked by garlands as on the Ara Pacis Augustae, Rome. Irregular chunks of stone or terracotta used as aggregate in Roman concrete (opus caementicium). By mixing caementa of different weights, domes (such as the Pantheon) could be constructed with heavy (and stronger) bases and lighter crowns. The main hot room, or rooms of Roman baths.

capital:

carceres: cardo (cardines, pl):

caryatid:

castellum aquae:

castrum (-a):

The upper member of a classical column and a distinguishing feature of the columnar orders (Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Composite). The starting gate in a circus or hippodrome. Commonly used in the postancient period to denote the main north-south main street of grid cities. Its larger, ancient meaning is related to the laying out of the countryside grid (centuriation) with the cardines generally running north-south and the decumani (plural of decumanus) running east-west. See also decumanus. Sculpted female figure used in place of a column or pillar to support an entablature. The famous examples from the Erectheion in Athens (fifth century bce) were copied in buildings at Rome and the provinces. The male version of a human-shaped support is called a telamon. A major reservoir served by aqueducts from which water was distributed to different parts of a city. Rome had a total of 247 castellae. A military defensive position or camp that could be established for a few days or for much longer periods. In theory, castra were square or rectangular, although in practice many had trapezoidal plans. Two layouts were common: either with two parallel transverse streets (via principalis and via quintana) or with the two main streets intersecting at right angles adjacent to the commander’s headquarters. The plural castra was used for single establishments such as the Castra Praetoria in Rome. The diminutive term castellum usually described smaller forts used by auxiliaries.

Glossary cavea (-ae):

cavetto: cella (-ae):

cenaculum (-ae):

centering:

centuriation:

chalcidium or chalcidicum: channeled hypocaust:

chryselephantine:

circus:

Slopped, curved spectator seating in a theater, circus, or amphitheater. Horizontal divisions (baltei see also diazoma) defined sections assigned to different social classes; stairs running vertically defined wedge-shaped sections (cunei). A rounded, concave molding. The inner main rectangular chamber of a temple where the cult image of the deity was displayed; Greek, naos. It is also used for rooms in tombs. Based on the word cena (meal), the term referred initially to a dining room but also came to describe an attic and subsequently an upper apartment in a multifamily building such as an insula. See also medianum. Wooden framework built to support an arch or vault during its construction; once the arch is stable, centering could be removed. The surveying of land into rectangular measured units for taxation and the distribution of agricultural land to colonists theoretically denoting 100 small lots. Roman centuriation began as early as the fourth century bce, it extended throughout Italy and some provinces. A part of a basilica, often a vestibule or a room near the tribunal (Vitr., De Arch. 5.1). An early and simple form of hypocaust that uses a system of channels for the circulation of hot gasses under the floor instead of a fully “hollow” floor supported by pillars. See also hypocaust. Statuary (usually in cult buildings) in which the flesh is represented by ivory and the drapery in gilded gold. A long narrow arena usually curved at one end for chariot or horse racing as with the

clerestory:

clivus:

Cloaca Maxima:

cocciopesto:

coffer:

colonia:

columbarium:

comitium:

compluvium:

Composite capital:

enormous Circus Maximus at Rome; hippodrome in typical Greek usage. A higher level of windows above an arcade or loggia that allows light into a structure, typically over a lower roof, as in a basilica. A Roman street running up an incline. Often the street name was changed from vicus to clivus when a level street began ascending a slope. Great Sewer of ancient Rome. Originally built as an open ditch by the Etruscans, it was constructed in the sixth century bce as a large, vaulted canal carrying all drainage and sewage into the Tiber. Its construction involving forced labor is described by Livy (ab urbe condita 1.56). Italian word for waterproof or water-resistant mortar, called opus signinum in Roman usage (see Pliny, NH 35.46). Decorative recesses in a ceiling, vault, or dome that lightens the weight of the roofing mass, as in the Pantheon. Wooden coffers were common for flat, timber roofs. More ornate coffers were decorated with moldings and rosettes. Also “coffering.” Originally a military colony of Roman or Latin citizens; later a privileged municipal status. A tomb chamber with many small niches or recesses resembling a dove-cote used to hold the cremation urns of the deceased A building for civic assembly, many, as in Rome, were located at or near the forum. They often contained circular seating. The open roof of an atrium in a Roman house which typically slopes inward to catch rainwater. See also impluvium, atrium. An order consisting of a hybrid of Corinthian and Ionic elements, normally with the acanthus motifs of the

871

Glossary

consoles:

corbel, corbelling:

Corinthian order:

cornice:

corona:

cross vault:

cryptoporticus:

cubiculum:

872

Corinthian order surmounted by Ionic volutes at the four corners. Projecting elements, or brackets, with structural or decorative purpose. The small consoles of the Roman Corinthian cornice are called modillions. A course, or bracket that projects out over the one below it with the intention of decreasing the span and supporting a roof element, often decoratively treated. A series of corbels can cover a span of 4–5 meters (a simpler or stylistic alternative to a true arch; “corbelled arch” is a misnomer). The most famous example of a massive corbelled opening is the Bronze Age Lion Gate at Mycenae, Greece. One of the three major Greek orders (Romans added the fourth, Composite; see also Tuscan below) distinguished by its ornate, acanthus leaf capitals. It was particularly popular during the Roman Imperial period. The uppermost element of the classical entablature or the crowning element of a roof, which projects away from the vertical surface of the wall. The projecting part of the classical cornice, with a vertical face. Vault formed by the right-angled intersection of two barrel vaults; generally referred to as groin vault in medieval architecture. Usually a slightly sunken arcade or a fully underground barrelvaulted gallery or storage area. Architecturally, they may also function as buttressing for larger, adjacent structures; customarily they are lit by openings or windows cut into the upper part of the vault. Related to crypta, which is a covered corridor, a crypt. A bed chamber in a Roman house and by extension applied

cunei:

curator aquarum:

curia:

cursus honorum:

curvature:

cyma recta:

cyma reversa:

dado: decumanus (-i):

dentil:

diaeta (-ae):

to any of the smaller rooms of the atrium house. In a theater or amphitheater, the wedge-shaped areas of seating separated by radiating steps. Highest level official or overseer of public water systems in Rome, as Frontinus who served under Trajan. A governing civic body and name of the building that housed it. The Curia was a meeting place for the Senate or the town council of a Roman town. Typical career structure followed by Roman patricians and politicians with service expected in military and civilian posts. Slight, intentional curve introduced to the stylobate of a classical temple, sometimes also reflected on the entablature. A refinement which added much to the cost of construction, possibly for aesthetic and architectonic reasons. A molding consisting of double elements, concave above, convex below. A molding opposite of the cyma recta, here concave below, convex above. The lowest part of a wall, sometimes treated decoratively. The ancient use of the term denotes the east-west running boundaries in a country grid of intersecting lines (limites). A modern usage of the term commonly describes the main east-west street in a Roman city. See also cardo.) A molding consisting simply of a row of small rectangles resembling teeth (hence, “dentil”). Normally found in Ionic style entablatures under the cornice; decorative motif of rectangular blocks in the bedmold of a cornice A room looking out to a garden.

Glossary diazoma:

dipteral:

domus:

Doric order:

drafting:

dromos:

drum:

egg-and-dart:

egg-and-tongue:

emblemata (pl):

The horizontal passage that separated several tiers of seats in the Greek theater (also baltei, see cavea). Temple surrounded by two rows of columns instead of the usual one. See also peripteral. The Roman word for house, a single-family dwelling such as those from Pompeii, not necessarily freestanding. See also atrium. One of the three main Greek orders (others being Ionic and Corinthian) that evolved in the Dorian and western part of Greece. The Romans used the Doric sparingly, often substituted their own variation – as the severe-looking Tuscan order used on the first floor of the Colosseum. An ashlar technique denoting a recessed band around the outer edges of the rectangular block with a slightly raised middle; the middle panel could be smooth or rusticated. Drafting has the functional purpose of hiding the joint and the aesthetic purpose of creating a texture or shadow pattern. Also referred to as masonry with “drafted edges.” A long, narrow passage or corridor (in a Greek city) or commonly leading to a tumulus or tholos tomb. A cylindrical section of a column shaft; a column composed of drums is much easier to make and transport than a monolithic shaft. A molding consisting of an eggshaped element alternating with an arrowlike element. A molding consisting of an eggshaped element alternating with a downward pointing tongue (or spear without an arrow tip). Easily confused with egg-anddart. A central mosaic panel, usually with a figurative scene, made of

engaged order:

entablature:

entasis:

euthynteria:

euripus:

exedra:

extrados: eyvan (also iwan):

finer tesserae that was inserted in the middle of a larger, general mosaic carpet. Emblemata were often the work of a special workshop. Decorative order projecting from but forming an integral part of the wall against which it stands (to which it is “engaged”), typically in the form of half-columns or pilasters. The horizontal elements carried by a colonnade, or over a wall, consisting of architrave (lintel), frieze, and cornice. Sometimes referred to as “epistyle” in older texts describing Greek architecture. The slight swelling of the profile seen on some column shafts, resulting in the largest diameter about one-third the height of the shaft; generally believed to be an aesthetic and visual refinement. A Greek term for the top course of a foundation, a leveling course on which a wall or a column sits - easily confused with stylobate. A canal; there was a famous Euripus constructed by Agrippa in the Campus Martius, Rome, connecting the Tiber to a large pleasure pool called the Stagnum. A semicircular niche or hemicycle; or a semicircular or rectangular recess open on one side to a lobby or courtyard sometimes with seats. The curved outer face of an arch, vault, or dome. A rectangular exedra or room in Near Eastern and ancient Mesopotamian architecture vaulted over and entirely open on one side to a plaza or garden. Appropriate to warm climates, it was widely used in public and private buildings in Persian, Arab and Turkish architecture.

873

Glossary fascia (-ae):

fastigium:

fauces:

fillet: flat arch:

Forma Urbis Romae (FUR): fornix:

forum:

fossa (-e):

frieze:

frigidarium:

guilloche:

874

A simple, plain molding of a thin, horizontal band, usually part of the Ionic or Corinthian architrave. A Latin term that generally refers to a pediment or the triangular-shaped end of a sloping timber-trussed roof. An entryway or passage in a Roman house (literally means ‘throat’ in Latin), typically leading to the atrium. A flat, plain, ribbon-like band used in classical decoration. A lintel built up of bricks or stone voussoirs laid flat but acting as an arch. see “Marble Plan” An early term for a Roman arch or vault; hence also to the arched opening (“stoke-hole”) of a furnace. Main square or market- and meeting place of a Roman town. In Greek lands, Roman towns usually used the Greek term agora. The forum was generally surrounded by the most important governmental institutions such as a curia building, temple to Jupiter Capitolium, and basilica. A ditch or trench; often a part of the agger defense system (mound-and-ditch). The section of an entablature between the cornice and the architrave. It can be decorated with reliefs (as in the Ionic order), divided into metopes and triglyphs (as in the Doric), or left plain or filled with an inscription (as in the Corinthian favored by the Romans); or it could be omitted altogether. The main cold-water bathing hall in Roman baths, often containing one or several large unheated pools. A braided ornamental pattern often used to decorate the torus of a column base.

gymnasium or gymnasion (Greek):

heliocaminus:

hemicycle:

Hippias:

hippodrome: horrea (horreum, sing.): hortus: hypocaust:

The primary educational and athletic training institution of the Greek-speaking world. By the beginning of the first century bce, the gymnasium was gradually merging with the Roman bath. In Asia Minor this process resulted in the bathgymnasium combination, which was normally referred to as a “gymnasion.” See also bathgymnasium. A special room for sunbathing believed to have been a part of some Roman baths. These rooms enjoyed a southern or southwestern exposure and received the sun through large, possibly unglazed, windows. The word, however, is never found in direct connection with a bath. See also solarium. A semicircular enclosure, or structure, usually large in size not to be confused with an “apse,” seen often in large Roman baths. The hemicycle of Trajan’s Markets in Rome is also a fine example. The skillful fictional architect who designed the small baths much admired by Lucian in his rhetorical essay “Hippias, or the Bath.’ See circus. Roman warehouse, such as the Horrea Epagathiana in Ostia. A garden. A hortus conclusus is a walled-in garden. The major heating system of Roman baths, although it is also used for special rooms in villas. Hypocaust literally means “a furnace that heats from below.” In the fully developed hypocaust the floor of the room is supported on short pillars (pillae, suspensurae); the hollow space is heated by the circulation of hot gasses produced by a furnace (praefurnium) stoked from the outside. The best ancient

Glossary description is given by Vitruvius (De Arch. 5.10.2–3). hypogeum: Underground chamber, usually in connection to a tomb. impluvium: A depression or shallow pool in the atrium of a Roman house; it collected the rainwater from the compluvium, or opening in the roof, and often channeled it to an underground cistern. See also compluvium. impost: A blocky element used above some capitals whose projecting profile reduces the span; usually used supporting arches in late Roman or Byzantine architecture. insula (pl insulae): Meaning an “island” or a city block; also, an apartment-style building or tenement with many domestic units, typically with many floors. Insula Tiberina: Tiber Island, the large and only island on the river within the boundaries of Rome. Significant in the early history of Rome, it was the only easily fordable location in the river connecting to both banks, the Etruscan and the Roman, by two bridges. By the early third century bce, the island housed a temple and sanctuary dedicated to the healing god Asclepius. interaxial: See intercolumnation. intercolumnation: Space or distance between two columns, often measured from the central axis of one to the other. intrados: The curving interior surface of an arch, vault, or dome. Ionic order: One of the three main Greek orders, distinguished by its handsome capital with curving volutes. Probably created in Ionia of western Asia Minor. Iwan: See eyvan. Kaisersaal A modern term first used by the (“imperial hall,” or Austrian excavators of Ephesus “marble hall”): to describe the richly decorated marble halls of the bathgymnasium in the city. This type of ceremonial space, often

kalybe:

keystone: labrum (-a):

laconicum:

lararium:

Lares: lateres:

lintel:

articulated by an apse and multistory colonnades opening into the palaestra of the complex, is fairly common in Asia Minor bath-gymnasia and may have been associated with the Imperial Cult in its secular, popular, honorific context. One of the largest and most impressive examples is the fully reconstructed “Marble Court” of the imperial bath-gymnasium in Sardis (a dedicatory inscription honors the emperor Septimius Severus, his wife Julia Domna, and sons Caracalla and Geta). A semiopen, stagelike building with a wide apsidal back wall opening into a prominent urban space creating a theatrical enclosure and strong backdrop for ceremonies and entertainment; found only in major cities of the Near East (e.g., Bostra, Amman and Philippopolis/Shahba). See voussoir. A basin often placed inside an apse sometimes elevated on a pedestal in Roman baths (also called schola labrum). The hot, dry-steam sweat chamber in Roman baths, often circular in shape as recommended by Vitruvius (De Arch. 5.10.5). The shrine area in a Roman house, usually at the back, where household gods, the Lares were worshipped and their images housed. See also Lares. The protective spirits of Roman family ancestors; household gods. Roman bricks. These could be fired clay (coctus) or simply dried mud like adobe (crudus) see Vitr. De Arch. 1.58. Horizontal structural member that spans between two supports; an architrave in classical Roman usage, epistyle in Greek; ordinarily, a beam.

875

Glossary lunette: macellum:

maenianum:

Magna Graecia:

Marble Plan (Severan Marble Plan, or Forma Urbis Romae):

Marble Style:

meander:

medianum:

merlon:

876

See thermal window. A market building furnishing meat, poultry and other provisions. Balcony, seen especially on the exterior of high-rise tenements; or it could indicate the mezzanine, or half-floor, typically on the upper floor of an atrium or in a shop where the shopkeeper lived. “Great Greece” in Latin, referring to Sicily and much of the coastal areas in southern Italy and Campania colonized and populated by Greeks as early as the eighth and seventh centuries bce. Magna Graecia exerted a significant influence in the culture of ancient Rome. A plan of Rome carved on marble plaques in the early third century ce, which, at circa 1/250 scale, depicted all urban features of the city in considerable detail (c. 18 by 13 m). Displayed in one of the side rooms of the Templum Pacis (Forum of Peace) in Rome, it was a showpiece probably based on more detailed and professional architectural plans of the city kept in an archive. Ornament style associated with the widespread sale and diffusion of marbles in the Mediterranean basin in the second century ce; because the masons usually traveled with their stone, they were instrumental in the transmission of carving and ornamental styles. A decorative pattern, with continuous and interlocking fret or key shapes. A central hall or space in a shared apartment from which access to other spaces is gained. Roof parapet shaped as crenellation (sometimes in typical “sawtooth” pattern) in fortresses but adapted widely for the

meta:

modillion:

monopteros:

mundus: Musaeum (-a):

naos: narthex:

natatio (-iones):

naumachia:

classical decorative canon in Roman Syria, such as the roof crown of the Temple of Ba’al in Palmyra. The turning point for chariots in a Roman circus. The first turn was called the meta prima, the second the meta secunda. Also, a tall tapering marker, used in groups of three as turning posts at the ends of the spina of a circus. A sort of decorative bracket supporting the cornice, normally with a double scroll motif (consoles): the brackets supporting the projecting part of a Corinthian cornice. A building whose roof is supported by columns but has no cella; also existing in circular form, often sheltered a statue (see Vitr., De Arch. 4.8.1). A good example is the monopteros honoring Roma and Augustus on the Acropolis of Athens. “World” in the Roman sense of the word, or “universe.” Room or hall for the Muses, dedicated to artistic display and study, sometimes used in reference to a nymphaeum. Some might have been part of Roman baths, although this is not substantiated by ancient authority. A shrine, or cella of a temple in Greek usage. The enclosed portion of a church before the nave; a sort of entrance area or covered porch. Ordinarily, a large unheated swimming pool, open or roofed, as the large swimming pool in Roman baths. The term is also used loosely to refer to the hall of the swimming pool itself. Used to describe mock sea battles and the large pools to house them as a part of Roman public entertainment. Both Julius Caesar and Augustus built naumachia in the flat areas of

Glossary

navalia:

nymphaeum (-a):

oculus:

odeum:

oecus:

opisthodomos: opus Africanum:

opus caementicium:

Rome close to and perhaps connected with the Tiber River to contain overflow. Ship shed or shipyard. Extensive navalia are found in Trajan’s harbor at Portus, while the identification of the Porticus Aemilia in Rome as a navalia is questionable. In general use, an elaborate or monumental fountain structure. Originally, a cave or grotto with running water source sacred to the nymphs, a sanctuary of the nymphs. Circular opening in a roof, such as the oculus (means “eye”) in the center of the dome of the Pantheon. When placed in the center of the dome it served as a compression ring. Also odeon, odeion. A small, roofed theater, usually for musical recitals or lectures; sometimes, as in Pompeii, referred to as a theatrum tectum. The living room of a Greek house. In the Roman usage it is often a room for dining or for entertaining. Vitruvius distinguished four types: Tetrastyle, Corinthian, Egyptian, and Cyzicene (De Arch. 6.3.8–10). See also triclinium. The porch at the rear of a temple cella; back porch. Masonry style common in North Africa in which a framework of stone uprights and horizontals is filled in by small coursed or random rubblework. Roman concrete: chunks of stone, brick fragments and loose aggregate (caementa) are laid in a thick mortar of sand, lime, and in Central Italy and Campania a volcanic dust known as pozzolana, all mixed together with water. In Asia Minor the popular local variety of opus caementicium is described as “mortared rubble” in which

opus incertum:

opus latericium: opus mixtum:

opus quadratum: opus quasireticulatum: opus reticulatum:

opus sectile:

opus signinum:

opus spicatum: opus testaceum: opus vittatum:

orchestra:

pozzolana is replaced by lime. Opus caementicium with pozzolana was first appreciated for its technical property of setting under water and extensively used in harbor works. Facing of concrete with irregular stones, commonly used in Italy from the second century bce onwards. A slightly regularized pattern is referred to as opus quasi-reticulatum. Brick work. Mixing of a variety of wall building or wall facing techniques, such as brick alternating in bands or panels with small, squared stonework, opus incertum, or opus reticulatum. Opus mixtum may include ashlar blocks or building corners in ashlar quoins. See quoin. Ashlar; stones laid in regular, horizontal courses. See opus incertum. Facing of concrete with regular small, squared blocks laid in diagonal pattern, successor to opus incertum. Decorative floor paving or wall incrustation made by multicolored stone (often marble) or tile pieces cut in geometric shapes. Waterproof mortar floor lining made with crushed brick and chips of terra-cotta and marble; it is commonly used in floors and walls of pools and cisterns (Vitr. De Arch. 7.1.2-3). Also referred to as cocciopesto in Italian. Brick paving in herringbone pattern. Facing of concrete with kilnbaked brick. Commonly used term for concrete facing with courses of small, squared stones alternating with courses of brick. The circular center of a Greek theater originally used for

877

Glossary

orders:

orthogonal:

orthostat:

ovolo:

parados (-oi):

palaestra (-ae):

parastade:

pediment:

878

dancing, music or performance; it developed into a semicircular space in the Roman theater where the performance was on the elevated stage (proscenium). Three distinct systems of classical columnar architecture, distinguished mainly by their capitals and entablatures: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. The Romans added a fourth, the Composite order which is a mix of Ionic and Corinthian. Another Roman variation of the Doric was the “Tuscan,” described by Vitruvius under the subject of tuscanicae dispositiones (De Arch. 4.7.1–5). See these orders also under their specific headings. At right angles. In city planning the right-angled intersection of streets, or the grid plan was described as being orthogonal. Vertical slabs of stone or marble used at the lower part of a wall often in vertical blocks; typical in Greek or Hellenistic masonry construction. A rounded, curved convex molding in classical ornament, such as the profile of an eggand-dart. Side entrances to a Greek theater, between the scene building (scaenae frons) and the cavea; the high, side walls terminating the cavea are also known as parados walls. A colonnaded enclosure for athletic exercise and wrestling; originally a part of the Greek gymnasium, in Roman usage it was the exercise courtyard of baths. A flanking wall, or side wall such as the side walls of porches in a Greek temple, or side walls of a staircase. Triangular end of a gabled roof as in a temple. The pediment typically makes a closed form composed of two raking

pendentive:

peripteral:

peripteros sine postico: peristasis: peristyle:

petit appareil:

pila (-e):

pilaster:

piscina:

cornices connected by the lower horizontal cornice. The central part is the tymphanum; its sloping cornice is called “raking cornice;” the ends and apex are often decorated by acroteria (-ion). See also tymphanum and fastigium. Concave, triangular section of a sphere, used to transfer from a square ground plan to a circular dome above. See also squinch. Having a continuous, outer ring of columns, used often to refer to the temple type encircled by a freestanding ring of columns. See sine postico. The colonnades of a peripteral building. A court or garden (as at Pompeii) surrounded by porticos with columns; a colonnade surrounding a building (as in “peripteral”). Conventional term for facing a wall in small, squared blocks following more or less regular courses; the core of the wall could be proper opus caementicium, or any of its provincial variants, such as “mortared rubble” in Asia Minor. The type was popular in the provinces, especially in Roman Gaul (hence the modern name in French). Small, vertical support or column as the supports of a hypocaust floor. Similar to an engaged column, but a rectangular strip projecting out slightly from a wall. In colonnades, pilasters are often “reflections” of freestanding columns in front of them and share their decorative features. Column shafts may have entasis but pilasters ordinarily do not. A pool (or “fish-pool”). It is sometimes referred to as piscina natatoria, a swimming pool often part of a Roman bath. A very large cistern like the one in

Glossary

pisé:

pitched brick:

platea: plinth:

podium:

pomerium:

Pompeian (or Campanian) bath type:

Misenium, in the Bay of Naples, was nicknamed in the postclassical period as the Piscina Mirabile (Miraculous pool/ cistern). Solid mud wall construction; clay mixed with straw (instead of individual mud-bricks) is laid between wooden forms and compacted. Brickwork laid on ends following the curve of an arch in the construction of a vault instead of the usually radiallylaid brickwork. More common in the East (where it is still used in making mudbrick vaults), it has the advantage of eliminating the use of wooden formwork. A wide street or avenue; from the Greek plateia. A pedestal supporting a column or the lowest flat, square, element of a classical column base. Any solid, or vaulted, masonry base or platform for a building; Roman temples were often raised on podiums for greater visibility and often approached by frontal steps; hence “podium temple.” The religious boundary around Roman cities (best-known for Rome) established at their founding and typically delineated by a plow-line. With special permission the extent of a city’s boundary could be extended as it was for Rome several times in its history. Everything outside the pomerium was territory, or agger controlled not by the local city but by Rome. Any of the relatively small baths displaying a plan with a row of vaulted bathing halls arranged next to a palaestra courtyard (also referred to as the “row type”). Earliest examples date from the late third century bce or early second century bce. Many of the recorded examples,

portico, porticus:

porticus basilicata:

pozzolana:

praefurnium (-a):

praetorium:

princeps:

principia:

pronaos:

propylaeum (-a):

such as the Stabian Baths, come from Pompeii; however, the type was probably concurrently developed in Latium as evident from the baths at Fregellae. A passageway defined by columns or piers on one side and a wall on the other; a colonnade. Porticus also denotes a building composed mainly of colonnaded or arcaded spaces, such as a warehouse, for example, Porticus Aemilia, in Rome. See also quadriporticus, stoa. An Eastern type of basilica typically with a long, colonnaded side (like a stoa) open to the agora or forum, as in the Augustan basilica in the State Forum in Ephesus. The volcanic ash, found in central Italy around the town of Pozzuoli (modern Puteoli), which was a crucial component (“binding agent”) in Roman concrete, giving extraordinary strength and the ability to set under water. Furnace of a Roman bath. The term may denote only the stoke hole (fornix) of the furnace, or the larger area of the furnace or furnaces. The residence of the Governor of a Roman province or Legion Commander, usually in a castrum. Denotes “leading citizen” in Roman usage; mainly a title adopted by Augustus in mock modesty (instead of Imperator) and followed by the other emperors. In a Roman castrum or permanent military camp it was the headquarters building where the Standard of the Legion was kept; also a place of meeting. The entrance porch in front of the cella (or “naos”) of a temple; front porch, usually defined by columns. Entrance structure, or gate to a sanctuary or other

879

Glossary

proscenium:

prostyle:

pseudodipteral:

pseudoperipteral:

pteroma:

pteron: pulpitum:

purgatorium (purgatory):

qasr (also kasr):

quadrifons:

quadriga:

880

large building; commonly referred to as propylon. Elevated stage of a Roman theater, in front of the stage building (scaena). See scaenae frons. With columns in front; with a projecting, columnar façade (or porch) as opposed to a plan with columns all around (peripteral) in temple design. As dipteral configuration but with the inner row of columns removed resulting in wide, halllike space (pteroma) between the peripteral colonnade and the cella wall. As in peripteral, but with the columns on the sides and back of the temple engaged instead of freestanding. The passage, or corridor between the exterior columns of a temple and the cella walls. The side colonnade of the temple. In Greek or Roman theaters, the raised platform of the stage; in medieval English usage a stone screen which divides the nave from the choir. In Catholic Christian belief place where souls wait to undergo purification before achieving heaven – an intermediate state after death. The term and concept may have been derived from early pagan religions such as the “purgatorium” of the Temple and Sanctuary of Isis in Pompeii. A castle or fortified dwelling or palace complex, especially in Eastern usage (derived from Arabic). Four-way arch with two intersecting passages and four façades, usually placed at the crossing of roads. Also tetrapylon. A four-horse chariot used in racing, a common emblem of triumph, seen on the apex of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus; also typically placed on the attic of triumphal arches.

quadriporticus:

quoins:

raking cornice: relieving arch:

respond:

revetment:

Rhodian peristyle:

ribbing, ribbed vault:

rinceau:

Roman Foot (RF):

General name given to a courtyard enclosure with colonnades (porticos) on all four sides. Blocks of ashlar that construct the corner of a building in order to strengthen the corner structurally and visually. Sometimes even bricks were used to imitate corner quoins. The sloping cornice of a pediment. An arch built into a wall without an opening (a “blindarch”) to distribute the stresses mainly during the construction period. Some relieving arches came in pairs with a semicircular one over a flat or segmental-arch. The flat, slightly projecting, wall elements of an order, typically the entablature, “responding” to (or reflecting) the true, freestanding elements of a colonnade and its entablature. Decorative facing of a wall with an applied material as terracotta, mosaic, marble; a veneer. A colonnade or peristyle with one side taller than others, requiring an interesting detail where the tall and shorter columns meet. Ribs in brick or stone believed to aid the construction process of a vault or dome, such as the brick ribs of the Temple of Minerva Medica in Rome, or the basement ribs in stone of the agora basilica in Smyrna. Because often Roman ribs did not connect, they could not have served a true structural function as do ribs in Gothic architecture. Spiraling acanthus leaf decoration typically of the classical frieze. The basic unit of Roman linear measurement was the pes or “Roman Foot” that varied from around 0.294 to 0.297 meters

Glossary

rosette:

rostra (plural of rostrum):

rotunda: rustication:

sarcophagus:

scaena:

scaenae frons:

scholae labrum (-i):

scoria (e):

segmental arch:

with a mean of 0.296 meters (11.65 in). It could be further divided into twelve (uniciae) or sixteen (digiti) smaller units. A roselike ornament with petals, typically used to decorate the interiors of coffers in vaults and domes. Speakers’ platform in a forum named after the metal “beaks” of ancient ships which were often put on display. Rostra could be freestanding or attached to the front podium of a Roman temple; this type of temple is loosely referred to as the “rostrum temple.” Domed building, circular in plan, such as the Pantheon. Crude, quarry-dressed stone work, mainly used intentionally for aesthetic or stylistic purposes, such as at the Porta Maggiore in Rome. Stone coffin (directly translated it means, somewhat gloomily, “flesh eater”). The stage building of a theater, consisting of a raised stage and a decorated back wall. See also scaenae frons. Decorative façade of the scaena. In the Roman Imperial period the term typically denotes a multistory arrangement of columnar aediculae, projecting and receding in a dynamic, baroque manner. In Roman baths, an apse in which a shallow, round basin was placed (Vitr., De Arch. 5.10.4). Volcanic or basaltic rock with extremely small holes, a property which makes it a good ingredient as a light aggregate in Roman concrete; known popularly as pumice or lava rock in modern usage, it is usually dark in color. An arch with a nearly flat curvature which is not

selce:

sima:

sine postico:

soffit:

solarium:

solium:

spandrel:

specus: spina:

squinch:

semicircular but the segment of a large circle; it is often used in combination with semicircular and flat arches. A hard, dark, volcanic lava, usually used for road or street paving. Top member of a cornice often with a cyma recta profile, and decorated with palmettes (small palm leaves), or a combination of palmettes and lotus flowers. Vitruvian term describing a temple with columns on the front and sides, none in the back (De Arch. 3.2.5). Sometimes the temple backs into a wall, with short side wings (alae) aligned with partial side columns. The arrangement is typical of central Italian and Roman Republican temples. The term is also used as peripteros sine postico or ambulatio sine postico. The underside of an architectural member, such as an architrave or arch. A sun roof or sun terrace, sometimes a part of baths. See also heliocaminus. A hot-water tub in baths. In Celsus and some other sources, the term denotes a hot bathing hall with heated pools comparable in meaning and usage to the cella solearis; occasionally mistaken for a “solarium,” or sun room. Roughly triangular surface area the back side of an arch makes when joining with a wall or another arch; in triumphal arches spandrels are usually decorated with flying victory reliefs. The channel of an aqueduct typically carried on its top level. The center strip or divider running down the middle of a circus, finished with metae at either end. A diagonally positioned arch or corbelled blocks across the

881

Glossary

stadium:

stagnum:

stele:

stereobate:

stibadium (-da):

stoa:

882

interior corner of a room used to support an octagonal or circular dome. Like the “pendentive” (but simpler, without the double curvature of a true pendentive), it is a method to convert a square plan to circular roof structure, such as a dome. A race course 600 feet long (as in Olympia), from stadion, a unit of length in Greece. Stadiums were more common in the Greek East. In the Roman West, the term often referred to a sunken garden arrangement in the shape of a Greek stadium, as in the “stadium” of the Flavian Palace in Rome. A pool or pond; any enclosed stretch of water. Agrippa’s Thermae in the Campus Martius in Rome were located near the famous Stagnum of the Gardens of Agrippa. The canal called the Euripus connected the Stagnum with the Tiber. Nero reportedly built a stagnum at Baiae to collect the waters of all the thermomineral sources. An upright Greek tombstone, and by extension any upright stone slab used for inscriptions, decrees, and dedications. The top course or the foundation course above which a temple or other building rises in classical architecture. See also euthynteria. A sloping or reclining seat or couch used by diners in the triclinium. It could be designed as a large semicircular couch indoors or outdoors to accommodate a group of people, the center, perhaps, reserved for the host or the guest of honor. Once described by one of our students as a “glorified shed,” it is a long, colonnaded building in Greek; the term is common in Asia Minor and the east during the Roman era, but its Western

Roman equivalent is the porticus. Stoas can have multiple colonnades, backed by rooms, and are often multistory. The term also alludes to “stoics,” Greek philosophers who enjoyed walking and discoursing in stoas. strigil (strigilis, L.): A metal blade with a slightly curved end used by Greek athletes or Roman bathers to scrape the excess oil from the body. stylobate: The top step or platform of a temple or colonnade on which the columns stand. sudatorium (-io): A sweat chamber with “wet heat” as distinct from the “dry heat” of the laconicum, their technical difference often merely speculative. The term may have been derived from assa sudatio the simple, rustic caldarium of the Italian farmhouse. See also laconicum. suspensura (-a): In the Vitruvian description of the hypocaust, the term means “hanging floor” or “suspended floor” (De Arch. 5.10.2–3); more correctly, it denotes a floor supported by the small pillars (pilae) of the hypocaust. Syrian arch or Generally used to denote an arch Syrian pediment: cut into a pediment; an arcuated lintel. Although the earliest examples seem to come from second style Pompeian paintings, or the mid-firstcentury ce façade of the socalled Purgatorium in the Sanctuary of Isis in Pompeii, the wide popularity of the motif in the East accounts for its name (sometimes used in its Italian version: “frontone Siriaco”). In the true or developed Syrian pediment the profile of the pediment and the arch were connected and continuous, as in the Marble Court of the imperial bath-gymnasium in Sardis. taberna (-e): A small shop or other commercial unit often opening

Glossary

tablinum:

tegula (-ae):

tegulae mammata (-ae):

telemon (-es):

temenos:

templum (-a):

tepidarium (-a):

terra-cotta:

directly into a street, as in Pompeii and Ostia. A central room off the atrium of a Roman house, originally used as master bedroom and records room, later the main reception space for friends and clients. Roof tile; flanged or flat (“pan”) types are common. Joints between tiles are covered by curved or triangular pieces called imbrices (sing. imbrex), or “cover tile.” Standard sizes include bipedalis (two RF), sesquipedalis (one-and-a-half RF), and pedalis (one RF). Although typically made in terracotta, very important buildings such as some temples had marble tegulae. Large square tiles with projecting bosses (mammatae or “nipples”) at their corners and attached to the wall by clamps, terra-cotta spacers or studs. As an intercapillary wallheating elements in baths, tegulae mammatae represent an earlier and less practical alternative method to the tubuli. Roman term for a male figure, often a giant, serving as architectural support, like caryatids. The Greek equivalent term is “atlantes.” Sacred area surrounding a temple; temple precinct, sometimes walled off from surroundings. A sacred space defined by ritual auguries and auspices, sanctuary; many templa did not include an aedes, or building (a temple as we know it). The warm room or rooms in Roman baths. In the context of the imperial thermae, it has been interpreted to be the relatively small heated room (or a “heat lock”) between the caldarium and the frigidarium. Baked earth, as in kiln-baked bricks, tiles, or pottery. See also lateres.

terra-cotta studs:

tessera (-ae):

testudines alveolorum (or testudo):

tetrakionion (-ia):

tetrapylon:

tetrastyle:

theatrum tectum: thermae:

Cylindrical terra-cotta spikes used to attach plain tiles or tegulae mammatae on the wall instead of the usual metal clamps to create intercapilary wall space for heating, used typically in baths (in modern publications the German name Tonnägel is sometimes used). Individual pieces of a wall or floor mosaic made of marble, colored stones, or glass, even gilt glass in special cases. The latter was especially popular in the decoration of churches in early Christian period. A semicylindrical metal container open at one end and closed at the other designed to heat the water in bath pools and keep it warm (Vitr. De Arch. 5.10.1); seldom preserved. Another general meaning of “testudo” is a pitched roof with a ridgepole (testudinate), the word playfully referring to a turtle’s curved back. A monument with four columnar pavilions, placed at the crossing of two major street intersections in a Roman town or city, as at Palmyra. The term is sometimes confused with tetrapylon. A four-way arch often at a major street intersection created by two crossing vaults, four supporting pylons, and four arched faces, such as the Severan tetrapylon at Lepcis Magna. See also quadrifons. A façade, temple front, or gate with four frontal columns; or an atrium with four columns around the impluvium supporting the roof. see odeum. Exceptionally large Roman baths that embraced a variety of secondary functions – sportive, educational, and social – in addition to bathing. Unlike the smaller bathing establishments,

883

Glossary

thermal window:

thermopolium (-ia):

tholos:

tintinnabulum: toichobate: torus:

trabeated:

884

the balneae, which were often privately owned, thermae were owned and operated by the city or the state and were free for all. Thermae of the “Imperial type” (as defined by Daniel Krencker in 1929), are exceptional in their formal and grandiose plans, characterized by bilateral symmetry about a main axis created by the frigidarium, tepidarium, and caldarium. See also balneum. A large window with an arched head, a lunette, usually placed at the open end of a barrel or cross vault. This was the common window type for illuminating the great halls of Roman thermae, the frigidaria and the caldaria; its varieties were later called “Palladian windows.” A taberna that served food, a restaurant or bar, often with a marble counter directly opening into the street; good examples come from Pompeii and Herculaneum. A round structure or room often roofed by a dome. Temples in this shape usually had a single outer row of columns around a cella, though some were more like pavilions with no interior cella (see monopteros). The term also refers to circular rooms in the Roman baths, especially sweat chambers (see laconicum). The bell that announced the opening of the hot baths. Stylobate in Greek usage. Rounded, convex molding, typically an element of the base of a classical column. The term generally refers to column-and-beam or post-andlintel structural systems (hence typical of Greek architecture) as opposed to the arcuated, vaulted systems of the Romans. From the Latin trabs (= beam). Nero’s building

travertine:

tribunal:

triclinium (-ia):

triconch (triconchos):

tubuli:

tufa:

codes after the Great Fire specified sine trabibus (“without beams”) construction, loosely interpreted to signify, without wooden beams. A light gray or beige limestone with a characteristic sprinkling of small holes. It was (and is) quarried extensively near Tivoli but many varieties exist across the Mediterranean region. Able to take a high polish (or left rough), it was an attractive alternative to marble. A celebrated modern use is the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, by the architect Richard Meier. A raised speaker’s platform upon which a general or emperor addressed the troops; also found in many basilicas denoting an area for legal procedures. Dining room of a Roman house (domus), consisting of three couches (klinai, or stibadia) around the three sides of the room upon which diners would recline. Larger houses had several triclinia, summer and winter ones. See also stibadium. Three-lobed or triple-apsed (like a clover leaf ) plan, typically popular in late Roman or early Byzantine domestic architecture, as in the Villa at Piazza Armerina. An intercapillary wall-heating element in Roman baths made up of continuous hollow terracotta tiles, normally boxshaped (“box tiles”) and connected at one end with the hypocaust. Seneca called them “pipes let into the wall” (Letters, 90.25). See also tegulae mammatae. A volcanic stone type whose many varieties with different hardness and colors was readily available in central Italy and

Glossary

tumulus (-i):

Tuscan order:

tymphanum:

umbilicus:

unctorium:

extensively used in Republican and early Imperial buildings. Because tufa is generally friable, it was normally used for foundations; otherwise, it was covered by stucco, or revetted with stucco or another more expensive material. It is typically the stone used in opus incertum and opus reticulatum. Its many types include: peperino, capellaccio, Fidene, Monte Verde, Grotta Oscura, and Gabii stone. Tuff in common English usage. A tomb in the shape of an earth mound that hides somewhere inside a burial chamber and is sometimes encircled by a low wall, as in typical Etruscan tombs as at Cervetri. The tombs of Augustus and Hadrian are monumentalized versions of traditional tumuli. Less established and simpler than the Greek Doric order, it is a Roman version with a plain circular capital, unfluted shaft and base (as opposed to proper Doric which has a fluted shaft and no base). The triangular, slightly recessed surface defined by a pediment (rather by the two sloping and the bottom horizontal cornices of a pediment); left plain or decorated with statuary, iconic Roman eagle, wreath or other feature. See also pediment. Meaning “naval”; was identified as the center of a human body (Vitr. De Arch. 3.1.3) and by extrapolation to other forms including the earth and ancient cities. A monument (the Umbilicus Urbis Romae) in the Forum Romanum in Rome marked the symbolic center of the city and state. Known to be a room for oil massage in a Roman bath (sometimes “aleipterion”) but rarely identifiable as a space.

ustrinum:

velum, or velarium:

via:

vicus:

vestibulum:

volute:

vomitorium (-ia):

voussoir:

wattle-and-daub:

Location for cremating the dead, often on a funerary pyre associated with important persons. In Rome, the ustrina of emperors marked the location of their apotheosis and were memorialized with sanctified permanent monuments. The awning stretched above a theater or amphitheater to protect spectators from the sun. The best known was the great velarium over the Colosseum, which seems to have required a naval division to operate. A broad public road; within Rome during the Republican period only two streets carried this designation, the Sacra Via and Nova Via. A street of ordinary width with a relatively flat course; or an officially defined neighborhood in Rome. See also clivus. The passage from the street to the atrium of the Roman house, a vestibule (also fauces). A decorative motif composed of spiraling scrolls as they typically appear in pairs on two sides of an Ionic capital, or on the four corners of a Corinthian one in much reduced form. Entrance ways in a theater of amphitheater, they could be open or vaulted. A wedge-shaped stone composing the elements of an arch (or vault if built in depth). The two end voussoirs are called springers (the arch “springs” from them), the critical one on the apex, which locks the arch and establishes its stability is the “keystone.” The latter is often larger and features a decorative design when exposed as in monumental stone arches such as those of the castrum gatehouse at Lambaesis. A simple and cheap type of construction where mud is built into a framework of interwoven

885

Glossary

xystus, xysta:

886

branches or twigs, “wattlework” (Latin name opus craticium, rarely used), found especially in England and the northern provinces. The long colonnaded, hence “roofed,” running track of the Greek gymnasium to be used in winter or unfavorable weather. Vitruvius differentiates the xystus from the plural form xysta, which is used for the unroofed running track (De Arch. 5.11.3–4). In Roman usage, and generally in the context of villas and gardens, xytus and xysta came to denote open or porticoed promenades planted as a garden and shaped by hedges. The

zoomorphic capitals:

xystus of Pliny’s Laurentian villa was “perfumed by violets” (Letters, 2.17.17); a form of ambulatio. Capitals decorated with busts of gods or humans, or the front parts of animals, probably originated in the East; good examples are the bull-headed Ionic capitals of the Augustan basilica in Ephesus. A variety of zoomorphic capitals are known as “head-capitals” where heads of deities appear among the foliage, as in some of the capitals from the Marble Court of the Imperial Bath-Gymnasium Complex at Sardis.

INDEX

-

Italicized numbers refer to the pages with related illustrations. Plates are only referred to in the text. Achaea, 556 Actium, 557, 572 Adada, 603, 667 agora with monumental steps, 667 bouleterion, 667 temples, 637, 645 theater, 667 Adamklissi, Romania Trophy of Trajan (Tropaeum Traiano), 429, 435 aedicular architecture (Asiatic facades), 479, 558, 561, 571, 673, 691, 754 Aezane, Phyrgia Bath-Gymnasium, 687 market, 666 Temple of Zeus/Cybele, 634, 640, 641, 705 theater-stadium, 682 agrimensores (surveyors), 13, 34, 115, 616 Agrippa, Marcus, 120, 149, 161, 170, 175, 194, 213, 358, 580 Ain Dara, Syria tomb towers, 794 Alatrium (Alatri), 11, 13, 128 aqueduct, 128 walls, 20, 33 Alba Fucens (Fucentina), 44 forum, 46 walls, 44 al-Bara, Syria tomb towers, 797 Alcantara, Spain (see bridges) votive temple, 156, 156 Alexander Severus, 227, 801, 812

Alexandria, 376, 488, 490, 492, 690, 752 Kaisereion (Sebasteion), 191 Pharos, 172, 174 tombs Mustafa Pasha Complex, 490, 490 Shatby Hypogeum A, 490 Alexandria Troas bath-gymnasium, 610 Alinda, Caria market hall (multi-storied stoa), 667 residences, 703 Alonnes (Le Mans) baths, 474 Amman (Philadelphia) colonnaded street, 715 nympheum, 769 theater, 721 Anarchic Period, 812 Anazarvus, Cilicia amphitheater, 682 aqueduct, 163 arch (South Gate), 671, 676 use of opus caementicium, 608 Ancona Arch of Trajan, 438, 446 harbor, 335, 413 Anemurium, Cilicia baths, 690 Ankyra (Ankara) Temple of Augustus and Roma, 597, 641 Annia Regilla, 144, 431, 589–590, 840, See Rome, tombs, Annia Regilla (cenotaph)

Anthony, Mark (Marcus Antonius), 192, 575 Antioch-in-Pisidia colonnaded street, 640 nymphaeum plaza, 670, 672 Sanctuary and temple of (Deified) Augustus, 640 propylon, 640, 670 Southwest Gate, 670, 672 Temple of Augustus-Men, 647, 648 Antioch-on-the-Orontes, 159, 213, 712–713 baths, 725, 729 Bath C, 725 Bath E, 726 colonnaded street, 728 Antiphelos (Kaş), Lycia theater, 681 Antonine Wall, Scotland, 483–484 Antoninus Pius, 399, 482, 581, 587, 644 Aosta (Augusta Praetoria), 415 arch, 440, 447 Porta Praetoria, 447, 719 theater/odeum, 451, 453, 457 Apamea, Syria, 715 colonnaded street, 713, 715 theater, 721 Aphrodisias, 602, 617 Atrium House north of Sebasteion, 702 basilica in South Agora, 653 Bishop’s Palace (so-called), 702 Hadrianic bath-gymnasium, 689 odeum, 592 Sebasteion, 484, 662

887

Index Aphrodisias (cont.) stadium, 682 theater, 602, 677 Theater Baths, 607 Aquae Neri (Neris-les-Bains) thermal baths, 476 aqueducts, 113 Alinda, 163 Anazarvus, 163 Aqua Appia, 20 Aqua Augusta, Bay of Naples, 159, 213 Aspendos, 165, 613 Lincoln (mechanical pump), 165 Los Milagros near Mérida, 163, 166 Olba, Rough Cilicia, 181 Pont du Gard near Nîmes, 161, 162, 165 Saldae, Algeria, 181 Segovia, 161, 140 Sextius Pollio near Ephesus, 163, 602 siphons and inverted siphons, 164 Arcadius, 815 arches (see city name for urban examples) Arco Felice near Puteoli, 153 Donnas near Aosta, 149, 150 architects and engineers, 115 Anthemius of Tralles, 179, 351 Apollodorus, 114, 123, 145, 151, 221, 334–336, 343, 351, 750, 803 Cornelius, Lucius, 23 Cossutius, 114, 587 Decrianus, 351 Dionysius of Sardis, 114, 120 Hermodorus of Salamis, 13, 114 Hermogenes, 121, 630 Hippodamus of Miletus, 13, 614 Isidorus of Miletus, 179, 351 Lacer, C. Julius, 157 Nonius Datus, 181 Rabirius, 114, 178, 310, 321, 329, 335 Severus and Celer, 114, 227, 324 Vitruvius (Marcus Vitruvius Pollio), 9, 12, 113, 116, 120, 125, 137, 161, 248 Zeno, 673 Ardea, terrace walls, 176 Argos Hadrianic fountain, 559 Ariassos, Pisidia arch, 670, 674 residences, 702 temple tombs, 605 Aristides, Aelius, 2, 557, 601

888

Arles amphitheater, 469, 470 Constantinian Baths, 471 Arpinum walls and corbeled gate, 128 Arycanda, Lycia, 603, 623, 629 agoras (commercial and state), 661 baths, 690 Large Baths, 623, 690 Small Baths, 623 residences peristyle villa, 696 stadium, 623, 682 temple tombs, 605 theater, 623, 631, 682 Asiatic facades. See aedicular architecture Aspendos, Pamphylia aqueduct and water tower, 161 basilica, 610 theater, 673 Assos, Troad market hall (multi-storied stoa), 667 Athens, 557 Agora, 559, 580, 587 Agora of Caesar and Augustus (Roman Agora), 582, 582 aqueduct, 587 Arch of Hadrian, 583, 585 baths north of Temple of Zeus Olympos, 561 Horologion of Andronikos (Tower of the Winds), 582, 583 library of Hadrian, 587, 590, 696 nymphaeums Agora, 559, 587, 589 Lycabettus with reservoir, 559, 560, 587 odeums Agrippa in the Agora, 580, 581 Herodes Atticus, 590, 591 stadium of Atticus, 590 temples Ares in the Agora, 579 circular on the acropolis (monopteros), 579 Zeus Olympos (Olympeion), 82, 131, 133, 583, 586 tomb of Philopappos, 592, 593 Augst (Augusta Rauricarum), 420, 420 theater, 456 Augusta Bagiennorum near Turin forum, 414 Augustus, 18, 191, 266, 557, 574–575, 579, 582, 602, 631, 713, 828, 833

Aurelian, 773, 812 Autun (Augustodunum), 429 Porta Saint Andre, 447 Aventicium (Avenches), 425 Ba’albek (Heliopolis), 736 Sanctuary of Jupiter Heliopolitanus, 736, 739 propylon, 737 temples Bacchus, 736, 742, 745 Jupiter/Ba’al, 736, 741–742 Venus, 743, 749 Babatha Archives, 2, 710 Babiska, Syria Large Baths, 793 Badenweiler thermal baths, 476 Baiae stagnum, 882 Temple of Mercury (so-called), 240, 240 Temple of Venus (so-called), 391, 392 thermo-mineral complex, 364 villa at Punta dell’Epitaffio (submerged), 285 Balboura in Lycia, 666 agora, 666 arch of Septimius Severus, 666 Temple of Nemesis, 666 theater, 681 Banaqfur, Syria, 261 baroque. See also aedicular architecture (Asiatic facades) Asian, 479, 620, 656, 745, 753 Flavian, 321 Roman, 450, 542, 559, 561, 673, 767 Severan, 801 basilicas, Christian, 848 Bath (Aquae Sulis) Temple of Sulis Minerva, 410, 429, 432 thermal complex and sanctuary, 429, 476 bath-gymnasium, 684 Beneventum, Arch of Trajan, 334 Bostra, Syria, 759, 764 amphitheater, 721 colonnaded street, 715, 765 colonnaded street with cryptoporticus, 759 East Gate (Nabataean), 719, 726 kalybe, 761 nymphaeum, 759 palace (so-called), 761

Index South Baths, 726, 730, 761 tetrakionion, 759 theater, 721, 728, 761 West Gate, 719 Brescia (Brixia), 416 forum and temples, 414 bridges Alcantara, Trajanic, 156, 157, 334 Ariccia viaduct, 153 Arsameia (Kâhta) Severan, 155, 610 Danube, Trajanic (Apollodorus of Damascus), 151, 152 Eurymedon River (Aksu), 156, 625 Ponte d’Augusto at Narni, 153, 157 Ponte St.Martin near Aosta, 155 Puente Romana near Mérida, 152 Brindisium (Brindisi), 335 Trajanic harbor monument, 335 Bulla Regia, Tunisia, 259 baths, 120 House of the Hunt, 260, 262 Caerleon (Isca Augusta) amphitheater, 460 castrum baths, 474 Caerwent (Venta Silurum), 261 Caesar, Julius, 186, 266, 557, 582, 598 Caesarea Maritima, Israel amphitheater, 721 fortifications, 728 harbor (Sebastos), 173–174, 176, 181, 213, 732 North Gate, 719 Promontory Palace, 732 Temple of Roma and Augustus, 728 theater, 721 Caligula, 217, 288 Capri, 285, See also villas: Jovis on Capri Capua, 8, 14 amphitheater, 463 tombs La Conocchia, 435, 440 Le Carceri Vecchie tomb, 431, 436 Caracalla, 358, 404, 509, 517, 534, 737, 800, 803, 810 Carpentras (Carpentoracte), southern France arch, 440 Carthage, 487 Antonine Baths, 178, 543 aqueduct and cistern, 163, 552 castrum (military camp), 34, 35, 169, 217, 338, 411, 496, 542 Caunos, Lycia, 514

Harbor Baths, 690 Cemenelum (Cimiez), southern France baths, 473 West Baths (Temple of Apollo), 475 North, East and West baths, 473, 475 Chester (Deva Victrix) elliptical building, 215, 218, 579 fort, 482 classicism, 7, 12, 95, 197, 204, 225, 350, 376, 425, 556, 570, 751, 773, 778 Claudius, 171, 219, 222, 285, 295, 687 Colchester (Camulodunum) theater, 456 colonnaded streets in the Near East, 712–716 Commegene Kingdom, Turkey, 155, 592 Conimbriga, Portugal forum, 415 House of the Skeletons, 258 South Baths, 475, 478 Constantine, 814, 833, 845 Constantinople/Istanbul, 814 Hagia Sophia, 179, 857, 860 Yerebatan Sarayi cistern, 159 construction errors, 179–182 construction techniques, 124–183 ashlar, 128–129 Asia Minor, 603 mortared rubble, 134, 145, 603 opus Africanus, 514 opus caementicium, 23, 134, 558, 580, 607–608 opus craticium, 124 opus incertum, 23, 410, 609 opus latericium, 609 opus mixtum, 126, 410, 608 opus quadratum, 20, 128, 603 opus quasi-reticulatum, 139, 574 opus reticulatum, 139, 561, 608 opus testaceum, 126, 139 opus vittatum, 139 petit appareil, 145, 410 post-and-beam, 136 consuetudo Italico, 9 Cori Temple of Hercules, 92, 98 Corinth, 557, 566, 569 agora, 568 basilicas, 568 baths Great Baths on Lechaion Road, 558, 561, 564, 565 Captives Façade, 571

colonnaded street, 568 Lechaion Road, 567–568 propylon, 571 odeum and peristyle, 571 Peirene Fountain, 559, 568, 570 Roman Forum, 567 temples agora temples, 568 agora, 568 Apollo, 571 theater, 571 Cosa, 38, 39, 158, 412 Arx, 39–40 Capitolium on Arx, 40, 85, 85 forum, 39, 412 arch, 40 basilica, 40, 412 Curia-Comitium, 40 House of Diana, 40 Cremna, Pisidia, 620, 624 arches, 669 central plaza/agora, 620 colonnaded street, 621, 659, 669 Doric agora, 620 forum-basilica (Hadrianic), 620, 659, 664 Hadrianic temple, 620 propylon, Severan with monumental stairs, 621, ,625 residential zone, 701 Severan Ionic temple, 621 theater, 681 curatores viarum, 151 Cyrene, 488, 488 agora, 491 Caesareum, 488, 489, 491 temples Augusteum, 491, 492 Capitolium, 491 Cyriac of Ancona, 587 Damascus Temple of Jupiter, 738 Via Recta (Straight Street), 715 dams. (See also al-Makkoura water system) Aezane region, 167 Cornalvo near Mérida, 168, 168 Gabes, Tunisia, 167 Homs, Syria, 168 Dead Cities of Syria, 790 Decapolis, 708, 747, 763 Demirci (Imbriogon), Rough Cilicia temple-tombs, 647 demolition/deconstruction, 179, 182 Derventum (Drevant) baths, 473

889

Index Didyma, Temple of Apollo, 117 Diocletian, 812, 833 Dion, Greece bath complex with odeum, 561, 566 Djemila (Cuicul), Algeria, 496, 507, 508 arches, 512 Caracallan arch, 512 cardo, 507 colonnaded streets, 507 conical fountain, 511, 513 Large Baths, 511 Markets of Cossinus, 509 Old Forum, 507, 509 Severan Plaza and Capitolium, 509, 511, 513 theater, 512 Domitian, 114, 178, 240, 289–290, 310, 315, 329, 337, 801 Donnas road cut and arch, Val d’Aosta, 149 Dougga (Thugga), Tunisia, 512 Baths of Licinius, 513, 515 forum and Windrose Plaza, 514, 514 temples Capitolium, 514, 515 Celestis, 515 Liber Pater, 515 Saturn (or Ba’al), 515 tower tomb, 514 Douiret, Tunisia irrigation system, 495 Dura Europos, Syria, 159, 713, 780, 786 agora, 784 amphitheater, 785 baths, 785 Palace of the Dux Ripae, 785, 789 residences, 786 temple of the Palmyrene Gods (or Bel), 784 El Djem (Thysdrus), Tunisia, 543 amphitheater, 543, 543 Elagabalus, 801 Elaiussa Sebaste, Cilicia agora, 661, 665 baths, 608, 610 opus reticulatum, 608 residential terrace, 696 Eleusis, 206 Outer Propylaea of Demeter Sanctuary, 579, 580 Eleutheropolis, Israel amphitheater, 721 Emporiae (Ampurias), Spain forum, 415 harbor, 171

890

Ephesus, 619, 620 Arkadiane (marble avenue), 619, 622, 672 baths East Bath-Gymnasium, 611 Harbor Bath-Gymnasium, 610–611, 687 Vedius Bath-Gymnasium, 610, 687, 688 colonnaded streets, 620, 661, 669 Embolos (Kuretes Street), 620, 622 gates Hadrianic Gate, 623, 670, 671 Harbor Gate, 669 South Gate (Gate of Mazaeus and Mithridates), 661, 670 Library of Celsus and plaza, 610, 623, 691, 693 residences Insula I, 697, 699 Insula II, 697 peristyle villa, 702 terrace houses (Hanghäuser), 697, 698 stadium, 682 State Agora with Augustan basilica, 652, 660 temples Deified Hadrian, 620 Domitian (Flavian Cult), 610, 635, 656 Julius Caesar and Roma, 652 Sanctuary of Artemis, 602 Sebasteion, 656 Serapis (so-called), 610, 646, 655, 692 Tetragonas agora (commercial agora), 661 tetrakionion, 715 theater, 672, 676 urban armature, 620 Vibius Salutarius procession, 602 Es-Sanamen, Syria, 750 Etruscans, 5, 8, 14 city planning, 14 euergetism, 13, 600 Euromos Temple of Zeus, 637 Évora (Ebora), Spain, 423, 425 Temple of Diana, 423 Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum) castrum baths, 474 Falerii Novi, 34 walls and gate, 34, 128, 176 Fanum (Fano), 12, 121, 123 basilica of Vitruvius, 12, 122

Gate of Augustus, 447 Ferentinum, 34, 349 gate/bastion, 128, 130 Market Hall, 351 walls, 128, 176, 177 Forma Urbis Romae. See Rome: Marble Plan Fregellae, 41, 41, 43 baths, Republican, 42, 44 domus, 42 Fréjus (Forum Julii) theater, 451 Frontinus, Sextus Julius, 112, 120, 127, 159, 180, 334, 670 frontone Siriaco (Syrian pediment), 75, 651, 666, 670, 750, 761, 769, 820 Fucine Lake, 220 Gabii, 35 theater-temple complex of Juno, 35, 96, 100 walls, 9 Gadara (Umm-Qais), Syria colonnaded street, 715 Gallienus, 812 Gamzigrad. See Romuliana Gerasa (Jerash), Jordan, 716, 763 Arch of Hadrian, 720, 770 baths East, 769 West, 769 circular plaza with tetrakionion, 715, 764 colonnaded street, 715, 717, 765 gates North Gate, 719, 764 South Gate, 719, 764 macellum, 765 nymphaeum, 769, 773 Oval Plaza, 715, 721, 765 Sanctuary of Artemis with propylon, 766–767, 771 Sanctuary of Artemis, 766, 771 Sanctuary of Zeus, 765 tetrapylon, 764 theaters North Theater, 769 South theater, 721, 769 Gisacum (Le Vieil-Évreux) Double Baths, 473 Glanum (Saint-Rémy-de-Provence), 414 arch, 440 Monument of the Julii, 431, 437 Small Baths, 473 Gordian I, 543 Gordian III, 814

Index Hadrian, 335, 351–352, 373, 399, 482, 506, 583, 587, 628, 644, 646, 656, 669–670, 736, 764, 778, 801 Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli, see villas Hadrian’s Wall, Scotland, 479, 481 Hama, Syria, 159 Helena, mother of Constantine, 802 Heraklia-on-the-Latmos residences, 703, 703 Herculaneum, 49 residences House of Opus Craticium, 124, 125, 267 House of the Samnites, 250 Villa of the Papyri, 278, 279 Herdonia (Ordona), 419, 419 Herod the Great, 173, 181, 290, 713, 715, 727 Herodes Atticus, 589–591, 840 Hierapolis, Phyrgia, 604, 663 Frontinus Gate and Street, 656, 670 House of the Ionic Capitals, 701 Large Baths, 604, 604 nymphaeum, 656 public latrines on Frontinus Street, 656 State Agora (plateia), 656 stoa-basilica, 656, 663 tombs, 431 Hippodamian grid, 614, 616, 712 partial grid (imperfect grid), 616 Honorius, 815 Hosn Suleiman (Baetocece) Sanctuary of Ba’al/Jupiter, 743 Housesteads fort on Hadrian’s Wall, 482 Iasos, Caria agora, 661 residences, 702 Ilium, Troad agora baths, 679 theater, 679 Isola Sacra, 431 Istanbul. See Constantinople Isthmia Hadrianic-Antonine baths, 562 Sanctuary of Poseidon, 562 Italica, Spain amphitheater, 462, 463 Temple of Deified Trajan, 425, 429 Izmir. See Smyrna Jerash. See Gerasa Jericho Herod’s Winter Palace, 732, 733

Jerusalem Herod’s royal palace, 730, 737 Herodian palace (tomb?), 735, 738 Jewish Temple, 730 theater, 721 Julia Domna, 800, 809 Kaisersaal (Imperial cult hall), 490, 652, 695 Khan al-Makkoura water system, 169, 172 Kos Sanctuary of Asclepius, 103, 106 Kula (Katakekaumene), Turkey, 608 La Turbie, southern France Trophy of the Alps, 129, 372, 429, 433 Lambaesis, Algeria, 496, 497 arches, 496 baths, 497 colonnaded streets, 496 military hospital, 497 Praetorium, 498–500, 498 Sanctuary of Asclepius, 539, 542 Lampsacus in the Troad, 602 Laodicea, Phrygia stadium, 683 stadium baths, 611, 626 larch (larix decidua), 123 Lepcis Magna, 517, 524 amphitheater, 522 aqueduct, 525 arches, 523 Severan tetrapylon, 523, 530 Trajanic tetrapylon, 523 baths Hadrianic, 530 oval plaza-palaestra, 525 Hunting, 546, 550 Chalcidium, 522 circus, 522 colonnaded street, 530 exedra on trapezoidal plaza, 531, 531 fora Old Forum, 520, 525 basilica, 520 curia, 520 temples, 520 Severan Forum, 511 basilica, 531, 532, 538 Severan Cult temple, 532 harbor, 530 market (macellum), 521, 526 nymphaeum on Harbor Avenue, 530–531, 531

Severan Harbor Avenue and plaza, 526, 531 Temple of Ceres-Augusta, 522 theater, 522 Wadi Lebda canal and embankment, 525 Lex Sempronia Viaria, 147 Luna (Carrara), 12, 413, 415, See quarries Lyrbe-in-Pamphylia agora, 667 library, 667, 691 meeting hall, 667 Mactar Harvester, 2, 496 Magna Graecia, 5, 9, 13 Magnesia-on-the-Meander Temple of Artemis, 121, 630 Marathon Villa of Herodes Atticus and Annia Regilla, 561 baths, 561, 563 Marble Style, 534, 558, See aedicular architecture, baroque Marcus Aurelius, 399, 579, 673 Marzabotto, 9, 12, 14 Masada Herod’s North Palace, 732, 736 Maxentius, 178, 815, 836, 845 Megara Hyblaea, 13, 615 Mérida (Augusta Emerita), Spain, 424 Imperial cult precinct, 422 Temple of Diana (Roma and Augustus), 424, 427 Puente Romano, 152 theater-amphitheater complex, 451, 455, 460, 461 Metapontum, 13 Midas City in Phrygia residences, 703 Miletus, 614, 616 baths, 616 Faustina, 611, 614, 689 Vergilius Capito, 606, 608, 687 bouleterion, 581 columnar harbor gate, 616 gymnasium, 616 Hippodamian plan, 614 North and South Agoras, 658 North Gate of South Agora, 616 Minturnae, 412 forum, 412 theater, 454 Misenum, Piscina Mirabile cistern, 159, 552 Mismiyeh, Syria Praetorium, 786 Monumentality, 84–85

891

Index Mount Sipylus near Manisa, Turkey residences, 703 Munigua, Spain, 257, 430 House 1, 257 terrace sanctuary, 425, 430 Narni. See bridges Nemi Lake with Roman ships, 219 Nero, 173, 225, 266, 288, 317 Nerva, 333 Nicaea, Bithynia baths, 180 theater, 180 Nicomedia, Bithynia, 180 Nikopolis, Greece, 250, 572 aqueduct, 572 baths Large Baths and cisterns, 573, 574 Proasteion, 561, 573 Campside Memorial for Actium Victory, 574, 576 North theater, 573, 575 nymphaeums, 560, 572 odeum/theater, 572 opus reticulatum, 561, 572 West Gate, 572 Nîmes (Nemausus), 469, 478, See aqueducts, Pont du Gard amphitheater, 469 forum, 424 Maison Carrée temple, 422, 423 Sanctuary of the Nymphs and Temple of Diana, 476–477, 479, 692 Norba acropolis and walls, 128 Nysa, Caria, 179, 686 agora, 683 baths, 606, 683 gymnasium, 683 library, 692, 695 ravine bridges and tunnels, 683 stadium, 683 theater, 610 Octavian. See Augustus Oenoanda, Lycia agora, 666, 666 baths, 690 Olympia, Sanctuary of Zeus Nymphaeum of Herodes Atticus, 559, 589 Orange (Arausio) arch, 440, 448, 720 theater, 451

892

Ostia, 36, 37, 143 Baths of Neptune, 472 Capitolium, 36 Claudian harbor, 174, 220 lighthouse, 172, 175 Porticus of Claudius, 221 forum, 36 Horrea Epagathiana, 145 residences Garden Apartments, 267 House of Diana, 145, 264, 265 House of the Muses, 261, 264 Temple of Hercules, 36 Trajanic harbor at Portus, 171, 173–174, 220, 334 Oued Athmenia, Algeria Baths of Pompeianus, 548, 551 Paestum (Poseidonia), 13, 42, 45 Capitolium, 43 Comitium, 43 Forum, 43, 94 Temple of Peace (Pace), 94, 99 paideia, 3, 600, 690, 709 Palmyra (Tadmor), 718, 770, 774, 812 agora, 775, 778 baths of Diocletian, 775 circular plaza and tetrakionion, 715, 719, 775 colonnaded streets, 715, 718–719, 774 Damascus Gate, 774 funerary towers, 774, 778, 784 Number 36, 778 nymphaeum, 775 oval plaza, 774 Praetorium (Diocletian’s Camp), 774 Senate house, 775 Severan arch/gate, 719, 723, 775 Tariff Plaza (so-called), 775 temples Nebo, 775 Sanctuary and temple of Ba’al Shamin, 778 Sanctuary and temple of Bel, 776, 776, 780 propylon, 776 Signa (shrine of military standards), 774 theater, 775, 778 Valley of the Tombs, 778 Paris (Lutetia Parisiorum) Cluny Baths, 471 Patara, Lycia arch/gate of Mettius Modestos, 670, 673

baths, 690 odeum, 114, 120 temple tomb, 605, 605 Pergamon amphitheater, 682 aqueducts and siphons, 164 Asclepion, 653–654 apsidal rotunda (Cult Building), 654, 840 library, 691 temple of Asclepius (Zeus), 646, 691 Hellenistic library of Eumenes II, 691 Temenos (Sanctuary) of Athena, 691 temples Deified Trajan (Trajaneum), 354, 642, 649 Dionysus-Caracalla by the theater, 650 Egyptian Gods (Serapeum, Kizil Avlu), 609, 610, 832 Perge, Pamphylia, 618 colonnaded avenue with waterway, 617, 628, 639 commercial agora with tholos (Hermes?), 664, 665 nymphaeum at north end of colonnaded avenue, 629 residential zone, 701 South Baths, 617 South Gate, plaza, arch and pool of Plancia Magna, 629 stadium, 682 theater, 683 waterworks, 170 Perugia Porta Augusta, 128, 131 Pessinus street canal, 170 temple-theater with monumental steps, 667 Petra, 746, 751, 751 colonnaded street and arch, 747, 752 Large Theater, 748 Temple of Qasr al-Bint, 747, 753 tombs, 747, 757 Corinthian Tomb, 759 ed-Deir, 753, 757, 757, 762 Khazne (Treasury), 753, 758 Urn Tomb, 750 Peutinger Table, 151 Phaselis, Lycia, 626, 637–638 agora basilica, 626 aqueduct, 626 baths and latrine, 626

Index colonnaded street, 626, 669 East (city) harbor, 626 Gate to South Harbor, 669 nymphaeum, 626 residences, 702 theater, 626, 638, 681 West harbor and Hadrianic arch, 628 Philippi, 575, 577, 577 Christian basilica church, 575 Corinthian temples, 575 forum and Via Egnatia, 575, 578 market (macellum), 575 palaestra (so-called), 576 stoa-basilica, 575 theater, 576 Pietrabbondante Samnite sanctuary, 96, 100 Pompeii, 49, 51, 54, 158 amphitheater, 61, 63 aqueduct, 67 baths, 65 Central, 67, 69 Forum, 67, 68 Stabian, 65, 66, 68, 159 Suburban, 67 Forum, 56–57, 59–60, 69 basilica, 59, 60 Capitolium, 57 Comitium, 57 Eumachia’s complex, 69, 72 Market Building (macellum), 61, 71 Portico of Popidus, 57 precinct for imperial cult (Temple of Vespasian), 70, 70 Sanctuary of the Lares (Lararium), 70 shops (tabernae), 56 palaestras Great, 63, 65 Samnite, 55, 61 residences, 56 House of Ariadne, 246 House of Loreius Tiburtinus, 74, 256 House of Lucretius Fronto, 278 House of Pansa, 52, 55, 246 House of Sallust, 247, 249, 250 House of the Faun, 52, 55, 246, 252, 253–254, 257 House of the Golden Cupids, 255, 257 House of the Labyrinth, 55 House of the Menander, 74, 251

House of the Mosaic Atrium, 256, 258 House of the Stags, 256, 258 House of the Surgeon, 247 House of the Vetii, 74 House or Paedia of Julia Felix, 69, 579 Villa of the Mysteries, 281, 282 temples Apollo, 50, 69, 108 Capitolium in Forum, 56, 71 Doric, 50 Fortuna Augusta, 67 Imperial cult (Temple of Vespasian), 71, 145 Sanctuary of Isis with purgatorium, 74, 75 theaters Large with peristyle court, 55, 57, 61 Small (odeum, teatrum tectum), 61 tombs, 74 Triangular Forum, 50, 61 Portus. See Ostia, Trajanic harbor at Portus pozzolona, 40, 135, 607–608, 732 Praeneste (Palestrina) Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia, 103, 106, 109, 116, 128, 129, 139, 178 Priene, 614 Procopius, 4 Ptolemais, 491 Palazzo delle Colonne, 491, 493 Pula amphitheater, 464, 468, plate 18 Arch of the Sergii, 438, 443 Puteoli (Pozzuoli), 149, 220 amphitheater, 305 colonnaded street, 171 harbor, 170–171 market (macellum), 74 Qalb Luzeh, Syria Christian basilica, 794 quarries Chemtou, Tunisia, 133, 133 Luna (Carrara), 12, 131, 133–134 Parian, 133 Pentellic, 133 Proconnesus, Sea of Marmara, 133, 534 travertine near Tivoli, 128 Rafasa, Syria residences, 793

Rimini (Ariminum) arch, 438 roads Via Aemilia, 147 Via Appia Antica, 13, 20, 98, 124, 141, 148, 147–149, 334, 815 Via Aurelia, 39, 85 Via Domitiana, 149, 153 Via Egnatia, 575, 833 Via Flaminia, 147–148, 148, 153, 155 Via Latina, 41–42, 135, 149 Via Mansuerisca, 149, 149 Via Ostiensis, 36, 815 Via Portuensis, 220 Via Salaria, 147 Via Tiburtina, 102, 105, 178 Via Traiana, 335 Roman manner, temples, 640 Romanization, 1, 115, 308, 494–495, 498, 500, 599–600, 602, 710, 785 Rome, 4, 9, 14, 189 administration, 32 Altar of Augustan Peace (Ara Pacis), 193, 209, 212 amphitheaters Castrense, 145, 802, 814 Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheater), 117, 297, 300, 303–307, 307, 366, 757 aqueducts Anio Novus, 159, 219, 222, 222 Aqua Alsietina, 213 Aqua Antoniniane, 803 Aqua Appia, 13, 20, 159 Aqua Claudia, 159, 220, 222, 222, 808 Aqua Julia, 213 Aqua Marcia, 803 Aqua Traiana, 336 Aqua Virgo, 170, 213, 224 arches Argentarii (Severan), 811, 811 Augustan Actium, 198 Augustan Parthian, 198 Constantine, 339, 847, 851 Septimius Severus, 25, 806, 809, 810 Titus, 310, 810 Area Palatina, 317 Area Sacra of St. Omobono, 86, 87 temple of Fortuna, 86 temple of Mater Matuta, 17, 86 Atrium Libertatis, 340

893

Index Rome (cont.) Auditorium and gardens of Maecenas, 32, 213, 227 basilicas Fulvia-Aemilia (later Paulli), 13, 21, 194, 195, 217 Julia, 187, 188, 194 Maxentius (Nova), 803, 843, 848–849 Old Saint Peter’s, 848 Porcia, 21 Sempronia, 21 Ulpia, 23, 123, 320, 338–339, 340–341 baths (thermae) Agrippa, 212, 353 Caracalla, 141, 180, 803, 805 Constantine, 404, 846 Diocletian, 141, 816, 816, 817, 837, 843 Helena, 802 Maxentius on Palatine, 838 Nero (later known as Thermae Alexandrianae), 226 Septimius Severus, 180 Severan on Palatine, 801 Titus, 308, 309 Trajan, 309, 336, 337 college of athletes from Asia Minor, 642 Trajanus Decius on Aventine, 816 bridges Pons Aelius (Ponte Sant’Angelo), 155 Pons Aemilius (‘Ponte Rotto’), 27, 86, 153 Pons Agrippae, 213 Pons Milvio, 813 Pons Neronianus, 226 Pons Subiacus, 151 Pons Sublicius, 27 Castra Praetoria, 217 circuses Gaius, 217 Maximus, 28, 318, 324, 327, 333, 335, 403 Nero, 226 Varianus, 802 Cloaca Maxima, 16, 112, 113 Colossus of Nero, 228, 297, 351 columns Antoninus Pius, 403 Marcus Aurelius, 403 Phocas, 25 seven-column monument in Forum Romanum, 813 Trajan, 338–339, 341

894

Comitium, 9, 16, 19, 188 Curia, 19, 188, 832 Curia Hostilia, 16 Diribitorium, 212, 219 Euripus, 170 fora Forum Boarium, 21, 22, 27, 88 Forum Holitorium, 21, 22, 87, 91 Forum of Augustus, 12, 128, 203, 204, 209, 338, 353 Forum of Caesar, 188, 188–200, 190, 194 Forum of Peace (Templum Pacis), 295, 298, 809 Forum of Trajan, 336, 338, 848 Forum Romanum, 15–16, 18–19, 18, 187, 188, 194, 196 Forum Transitorium (of Nerva), 312, 314 Imperial Fora, 296, 337 fortifications/walls, 9, 16, 20, 32 Aurelian Walls, 802, 814, 815, 837 Servian Walls, 16, 17, 20, 128 gardens Horti Liciniani, 855 Horti Sallustiani, 315, 385 nymphaeum-triclinium, 388 gates Porta Appia, 815 Porta Maggiore, 30, 159, 222, 223 Porta Ostiense (Porta San Paolo), 815 Horologium Augusti (so-called), 206, 212 latrine on Clivus Argentarius, 190 libraries Apollo Palatinus, 202 Baths of Caracalla, 803 Baths of Trajan, 336 Forum of Peace, 295 Ulpian, 341, 342, 691–692 Ludus Magnus, 310 Macellum Magnum, 226 Marble Plan (Forma Urbis Romae), 23–24, 92, 116, 219, 244, 295, 809 Markets of Trajan, 145, 343 Aula dei Mercati, 347–351, 350 hemicycle, 343–347, 344–348 Via Biberatica, 344, 347 Minerva Medica garden pavilion in Horti Liciniani, 141, 855, 857 Naumachia Augusti, 212–213 Navalia, 23

Navalia (see also Porticus Aemlia), 23 Neronian city plan (Urbs Nova), 240 Nymphaeum of Alexander Severus, 807, 809 pomerium, 16, 28, 30, 295, 373 porticos Apsidata, 314 Danaids, 202, 202 Gallienus, 814 Gordian III, 814 Metelli, 13, 23, 30, 87, 194 Octaviae, 13, 87, 194, 809 Porticus Aemilia warehouse, 23, 24, 138, 221 Regionary Catalogue, 816 residences, 318 archaic house on Palatine, 246, 247 Domus Aurea (Golden House), 227–240, 230–232, 234, 329 Cenatio Rotunda (rotating dining room), 238, 239 Esquiline Wing, 229, 232, 234 Octagon Suite, 230, 233, 235 Domus Palatina, 315, 319 Area Palatina, 318 basilica, 318 Domitianic vestibule and ramp, 318 Domus Augustana, 178, 317, 321, 325–326, 332 Pelta Court, 324, 326 Domus Flavia, 178, 228, 317–318, 323, 801 Aula Regia (throne room), 318, 378, 743 Cenatio Iovis (triclinium), 321 Domus Severiana, 801 Garden Stadium, 327–328, 331 Rabirius’ genius, 328–333 Severan and Maxentian additions, 317, 801–803, 838, 802, 838 Domus Regia (Royal House), 15, 15 Domus Tiberiana, 217, 316, 317 Domus Transitoria, 227, 228–229, 231, 317 House of Augustus on the Palatine, 202, 202 hut of Romulus, 9, 244, 247 Palatine House 1, 249 Sessorium Palace (villa ad Spem Veterem), 802, 803

Index Rome (cont.) Villa of Gordians (Tor di Schiavi) near Rome, 841, 844 Villa of Herodes Atticus and Annia Regilla on Via Appia near Rome, 840 Villa of Maxentius, 839, 839 circus and tribunal, 139, 839–840 Mausoleum (Rotunda) of Maxentius and family), 839, 840–841, 842 Villa of Sette Bassi, 139 rostra, 19 Rostra Julia, 25, 195, 813 Rostra, Republican, 574 Saepta Julia, 187, 194 Septizodium, 806, 808 Stagnum, 170, 213 streets Argiletum, 313 Clivus Argentarius, 190 Clivus Palatinus, 318, 801 Clivus Victoriae, 178, 202, 318 Sacra Via, 228, 295, 353–354, 401, 810, 842 Via Biberatica. See Markets of Trajan Vicus Iugarius, 86 Tabularium, 23, 25, 128, 294 temples Apollo Palatinus, 202, 210, 242 Apollo Sossianus, 204 Area Sacra of Largo Argentina, 87, 88 Area Sacra of St. Omobono, 86 temple of Mater Matuta, 86 Castor and Pollux, 23, 197, 199, 204, 217–218 Concord, 19, 196, 198, 217 Deified Augustus, 217 Deified Claudius (Claudianum), 224, 224, 229, 295 Deified Faustina and Antoninus Pius, 399, 401, 402 Deified Hadrian (Hadrianeum), 399, 400 Deified Julius Caesar, 197 Deified Romulus (Penates?), 842, 846 Deified Trajan and Plotina in Trajan’s Forum, 336, 343, 353, 360 Deified Vespasian, 310, 311 Diana on the Aventine, 16, 33 Hercules near Circus Maximus, 22

Hercules Victor (Round Temple) in Forum Boarium, 89, 94, 129 Isis and Serapis sanctuary, 217, 219 Janus Quadrifons, 314 Jupiter Capitolinus, 12, 16–17, 82, 82–83, 131, 294, 310 Jupiter Stator, 13, 87, 92, 129 Jupiter Ultor, 802 Magna Mater-Cybele, 178, 201 Mars Ultor in Forum of Augustus, 203, 205 Minerva in Forum Transitorium (of Nerva), 313 Pantheon, 139, 213, 216, 355, 357, 360–362, 365, 367–368, 645, 735 Peace in Forum of Peace (Templum Pacis), 295, 587, 809 Portunus (Fortuna Virilis) in Forum Boarium, 88, 92 Saturn, 18, 25, 195, 197 Serapis, 404 Syrian Sol Invictus on the Palatine, 801–802 Templum Divorum (Porticus Divorum), 219, 311 Venus and Roma, 123, 178, 351, 353, 353, 404, 838 Venus Genetrix in Forum of Caesar, 188, 191–192, 335 Venus Victrix, 25, 30 Vesta in the Forum Romanum, 18 Victoria on the Palatine, 178, 201 theaters Marcellus, 141, 187, 194 Pompey, 27, 96, 139 Scaurus (temporary), 133, 212 Scribonius Curio, 27, 28 temporary, 27 tombs, 30 Annia Regilla (cenotaph), 144, 145, 431 Caecilia Metella, 30, 124, 129, 132, 206 Cestius, 30 Eurysaces (Baker’s Tomb), 30, 31 Haterii, 117 Mausoleum (Rotunda) of Maxentius and family, 141, 839–840, 842 Mausoleum (Rotunda) of the Gordians (Tor di Schiavi), 841

Mausoleum of Augustus, 206, 210, 215, 371, 735 Mausoleum of Constantia (Santa Costanza) and funerary basilica, 851, 854 Mausoleum of Hadrian, 370, 370, 372–373 Mausoleum of Helena and funerary basilica, 850, 853 Tor Pignattura, 141 Trebius Justus, 135 Ustrinum, Julio-Claudian, 206 Romuliana (Garmzigrad) Galerian mausolea, 836 Romulus, 4–5, 15–16 Rusellae, 9 residences, 12 walls, 9 Sabratha theater, 522, 527 Sagalassus, Pisidia, 2, 621, 627 agoras Lower Agora, 621, 621 Upper Agora, 621, 621 arches/gates Caligula, 669 Claudius, 669 Tiberian Gate, 669 bath-gymnasium, 689 bouleterion, 621 colonnaded street, 636 heroon, 621, 640, 640 Library of Neon, 692 Lower Agora, 621 market (macellum), 621, 666 nymphaeum Antonine, 621, 627, 628 Hadrianic, 627 residential zone, 702 temple, Antonine (Hadrianic), 621, 636 theater, 681 Saint Simeon Stylites Cathedral and Monastery, near Aleppo, 794 Saint-Romain-en-Gal House of the Ocean Gods, 258 Sanctuary baths Greece, 563 Sardis arch/gate, 605 Bath-Gymnasium, 182, 608, 610–611, 614, 687, 689 Marble Court, 689, 689, 691

895

Index Sardis (cont.) colonnaded street (Marble Avenue), 697 houses south of Marble Avenue, 697, 699 model Roman bath for NOVA (WGBH TV), 127, 359 stadium and theater, 682 Temple of Artemis, 181, 644, 651, 778 ‘Talking column’, 645 Sbeitla (Sufetula), Tunisia, 539 Capitoline temples, 539, 540 forum, 539, 540 scaenae frons, 27, 451, 522, 590, 673, 679, 689, 748, 761, 835 Sebaste (Samaria) fortifications, 728 sebasteion (kaiserion, caesareum), 488 Sebastos harbor. See Caesarea Maritima Second Sophistic, 600, See Aristides, Aelius Segovia aqueduct, 161, 410 Selge, 625, 633 arched gate, 625 baths, 625 large public bath, 625 colonnaded street, 625, 667 market hall (multi-storied stoa), 667 nymphaeum, 625 residences, 626, 702 stadium and theater, 636, 682 Stoa Plageia, 667 temples Ionic peripteros temple, 625 podium temple, 625 Tyche, 667 Zeus? on acropolis (Kespedion), 625 theater, 625, 636 Upper Agora, 625, 635, 667 Septimius Severus, 178, 358, 525, 800 Serdjilla, Syria, 261, 793 baths, 726, 793 inn, 731, 793 residences, 791, 794 Servius Tullius, 16 Shahba (Philippopolis), 763, 764 kalybe, 763 Si (Seia), Syria Sanctuary of Ba’alshamin and Dushara, 750, 757 Side, Pamphylia, 619 Building M, 696

896

Center City Baths, 662 colonnaded streets, 619, 650, 679, 701 commercial agora with tholos, 659, 661 mausoleum in West Necropolis, 647 nymphaeum, 806 public latrine, 662 residences R1 and R2, 701, 702 temples Dionysus by the theater, 650 half round (temple P), 650 N1 (Apollo?), 650, 657 N2 (Athena?), 650 Tyche, 662 theater, 679 tombs mausoleum precinct in West Necropolis, 647 temple-tomb, 604 Simena, Lycia theater, 681, 682 sine postico temple type, 19, 25, 83, 87–88, 196, 404, 520 siphons. See aqueducts Smyrna (Izmir) Antonine agora and basilica, 605, 605, 656 Sparta Gymnasium of Eurycles, 560 Split (Spalato) Diocletian’s Palace, 817, 818, 824 administrative units, 819 aqueduct, 818 baths, 821 colonnaded street, 824 mausoleum, 819 Peristyle, 820, 825 Porta Aurea, 818, 821 Residence, 819 Temple of Jupiter, 819, 819 textile center (gynaecium), 819 tholoses, 819 Stabiae, 173 Stanhope, Lady Hester, 775 Strata Diocletiana frontier, 711 Stratonicea, Caria Augustan cult temple, 635 Susa (Segusium) arch, 435, 442 Tarquinius Superbus, 8 Tarraco (Tarragona), 421, 421 Arch of Bara in periphery, 438, 445 circus, 421 cryptoporticus, 421

forum complex, 421 sacred plaza, 422 temple to Imperial cult, 422 theater, 456 tomb tower of the Scipios, 432, 438 Termessus, Pisidia bath-gymnasium, 603, 604 Large Corinthian Temple (N1), 637, 644 theater, 677, 681 Terracina (ancient Tarracina), 148, 149, 412 forum, 413, 414 Sanctuary of Jupiter Anxur (Venus Osequens?), 98, 100, 178, 413 theater, 454 Trajanic road cut, 334 Tetrarchy, 812 Thenae, Tunisia Small Baths, 548 Thessaloniki (Salonica), 833 colonnaded street, 833 hippodrome, 835 Palace of Galerius, 833, 835 Rotunda (Mausoleum of Galerius), 835, 836 Tetrapylon of Galerius, 833 Thuburbo Majus, Tunisia Capitolium, 537, 539 Tiberius (city), Israel South Gate, 719 Tiberius, 120, 178, 193, 217, 285, 713, 765 Tiddis (Castellum Tidditanorum), Algeria cistern and baths, 159 Timgad (Thamugadi), Algeria, 257, 496–497, 501 Arch of Trajan (West Gate) and decumanus, 506, 506 baths Large East, 506 Large North (thermae), 505 Large South, 505 Small Central, 505 Capitolium, 498 curia, 499 forum and basilica, 499, 502 library, 501 markets East, 501 Sertius, 498 residences, 498 Temple of the City Cult, 507 theater, 497, 502 Titus, 149, 295, 308

Index Tivoli Hadrian’s Villa. See villas: Hadrian at Tivoli Sanctuary of Hercules Victor, 99, 104, 178 Temple of Vesta, 90, 96 Tlos, Lycia, 690 Large Baths, 690 Trajan, 167, 173, 181, 333 Tralles, Caria Üç Göz Bath-Gymnasium, 611 Trier (Augusta Treverorum), 828, 828 Albachtal Sanctuary nearby, 429 amphitheater, 828 baths Barbara, 828 Imperial (Kaiserthermen), 829, 833, 834 Igel Monument nearby, 432, 439 palace, 829 Basilica Aula Palatina, 123, 152, 320, 829, 831 Porta Nigra (North Gate), 828, 829 walls, 828 Trophy of the Alps. See La Turbie tunnels Crypta Neapolitana at Puteoli, 149 Seleucia near Antioch-on-theOrontes, 149 under Serapeum (Kizil Avlu), Pergamon, 609 Turin (Augusta Taurinorum) Porta Palatina, 447, 450 Umm el Jemal, Jordan houses, 261, 787, 789 urban armatures, 511, 619, 668, 713, 775 Vaison-la-Romaine residences House of the Dolphin, 258, 260 House of the Silver Bust, 257–258, 260 Velleia, 414, 417 forum and basilica, 414 Verona, 170 amphitheater, 464

gates Porta dei Borsari, 448 Porta dei Leoni, 448 theater terrace complex, 454, 458 Verulamium (St. Albans) theater, 456, 459 Vespasian, 294, 308, 315, 414, 423, 496, 567 Vetera (near Xanten) ludus or earth amphitheater, 460 Vibius Salutarius, procession in Ephesus, 602 villas (excluding those near Rome) Blankenheim, 274, 275 Contrada Mirabile, Sicily, 275 dell’Odeon near Silin (Lepcis Magna area), 283 Desenzano, Lake Garda, 827 Dominus Julius and wife near Carthage, 274 Domitian at Castelgondolfo near Albano, 289, 329 du Magny near Port-sur-Saône, 270 Fishbourne, 281, 283 Frocester Court, 275 Gadebridge Park, 274, 274 Hadrian at Tivoli, 139, 373, 375 baths Large, 379, 380 Small, 379, 381 Canopus, 381, 386 Court of the Doric Pillars, 377, 377 cryptoporticus, 379, 415 Garden Stadium, 380, 384 grotto pavilion (Serapeum), 383, 387 Island Enclosure, 395, 397, 735, 739 Piazza d’Oro, 389, 391, 393 Poikele, 378 Residence, 376 tholos temple, 376 Tri-lobed Triclinium, 379, 383 Vestibule, 378 Jovis on Capri, 158, 217, 285, 287 Köln-Mu˝ ngersdorf, 274

Lixus, Morocco, 290, 290 Lockleys, 275 Mayen, 274, 274 Montmaurin, 827, 827 Nennig, 274, 276 Oplontis Villa Poppea, 279 Piazza Armerina, 825, 826 Primaporta, 203 Punta dell’Epitaffio (Claudian) near Baiae, 285, 289 San Marco at Stabiae, 279 Settefinestre near Cosa, 270, 272 Stahl, 274 Subiaco east of Tivoli, 288 Tabarka porticus villa, 273 Tiberius at Sperlonga, 285, 287 Torre Astura, 278 Tuscan villa of Pliny, 285 Val Catena on Brijuni Island, Dalmatia, 281, 284 Via Gabina, 269, 270 Villa Arianna near Stabiae, 231 Vindonissa, Switzerland castrum baths, 474 Volubilis, Morocco, 259, 515, 519 Arch of Caracalla, 517 Capitolium, 517 colonnaded streets, 515 forum, 517 residences, 515 House of Gordian III, 517 House of the Venus Mosaic, 259, 261, 517 Xanten (Colonia Ulpia Traiana) amphitheater, 460 Xanthos, Lycia Northeast House, 702 Zaghouan, Tunisia, 552–553 aqueduct, 164 water sanctuary (nymphaeum), 164, 551–553, 552 Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, 773, 812 Zeugma, Turkey, 599, 628

897

plate 1a View of Pyramid Tomb of Cestius, in front of the Porta Ostiense (known as Porta San Paolo), Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 1b View of the Large Theater and palaestra (partial on right) at Pompeii; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 2 Interior vaulting of Tabularium gallery facing the Forum, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 3a View of the east hemicycle and detail of the opus caementicium annular barrel vault with coffers at the Sanctuary of Fortuna Virilis, Praeneste; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 3b Oil painting of aqueducts outside Rome: Römische Aquädukte: Die Wasserversorgung im alten Rom (1914) by Michael Zeno Diemer; © Deutsches Museum, Munich, Archive, BN31047.

plate 4 Road cut through mountain rock for the Via delle Gallie, Donnaz in Val d’Aosta, Italy; Photo: Lysippos via Wikimedia.

plate 5a Bridge over River Tagus at Alcántara, Spain; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 5b Detail of engaged columns and entablature, Maison Carrèe, Nîmes; © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro via Wikimedia

plate 6 Digital reconstruction of a side room in the Octagonal suite, Domus Aurea; Progetto Katatexilux (2011).

plate 7a Reconstruction perspective of the Forum of Augustus with Temple of Mars Ultor, looking northeast, by Inklink; Archive of the Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali, Imperial Fora, courtesy of Eugenio La Rocca.

plate 7b Details of the Porta Maggiore, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 8a Mosaic representation of a villa with end towers, Tabarka, Tunisia (Bardo Museum).

plate 8b Room 15 of the Villa at Oplontis with painted monumental colonnades in two stories; © Paul Bardagjy. Courtesy the Oplontis Project.

plate 9a Reconstruction of the Forum Transitorium with the Temple of Minerva, Rome, by Inklink; Archive of the Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali, Imperial Fora, courtesy of Eugenio La Rocca

plate 9b Reconstructed perspective of the Forum of Trajan looking toward the Basilica Ulpia; original landscaping would have been in containers rather than in the ground as shown; courtesy of James Packer and Gilbert Gorski.

plate 10 Reconstruction of the western library of the Forum of Trajan; courtesy of James Packer and Gilbert Gorski.

plate 11a Detail of recessed columns in polychrome brick, Heroon of Annia Regilla outside, Rome; Photo by Diane Favro.

plate 11b Forum Romanum, Rome, general view looking west; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 12 View of Pantheon dome and oculus, view of Pantheon interior showing reconstructed segment of original ornament; Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 13 Restored corner view of the Court of the Doric Pillars, Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 14a Reconstruction study of Roman Tarraco (Tarragona); courtesy of the Museu Nacional Arqueològic de Tarragona.

plate 14b Interior view of side wall with niches, “Temple of Diana,” Nîmes; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 15 Construction detail of mixed opus caementicium and ashlar, Trophy of the Alps, La Turbie; photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 16 Detail view of La Conocchia tomb, Capua; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 17 View of the Arch of Sergii (east face), Pula, Croatia; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 18 View of exterior wall looking west from inside the amphitheater at Pula, Croatia; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 19 Detail from the scaenae frons from the theater at Sabratha; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 20a Severan basilica, view toward the north apse, Lepcis Magna; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 20b Exterior of the Hunting Baths, Lepcis Magna; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 21 Detail of the entablatures of the middle (Jupiter, right) and south (left) Capitoline temples, Sbeitla; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 22 Upper level detail of the Arch of Hadrian, Athens; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 23a View of the gatehouse of the Praetorium at Lambaesis, looking southwest; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 23b Detail view of the support structures for seating at the amphitheater, El Djem; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 24a General view of the colonnaded avenue with canal, Perge, looking south toward South Gate; Photo by Fikret Yegül

plate 24b Reconstruction of major monuments and gorge at Nysa; Experiential Technologies Center, UCLA, © Regents of the University of California.

plate 25 View of reconstructed Temple of Deified Trajan on the acropolis at Pergamon; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 26a Restored Antonine Nymphaeum, Sagalassus; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 26b General view of the theater at Termessus with stage wall, looking south; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 27a Detail of pediment and entablature with Medusa frieze, Antonine Temple (to Athena?), Side; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 27b Temple of Artemis, aerial view toward the east with acropolis, Sardis; courtesy of Sardis Archaeological Expedition.

plate 28 View of the Marble Court, Imperial Bath-Gymnasium of Sardis; Photo by Fikret Yegül

plate 29a General view of the main colonnaded street, Apamea; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 29b General view of the west façade of the Severan Arch, Palmyra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 30a Tetrapylon at colonnaded crossroads, Palmyra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 30b View of the south colonnade, Temple of Jupiter/Ba’al, Ba’albek; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 31 General view of the Khazne, Petra; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 32a Interior axial view of the Mausoleum of Constantia, Rome; Photo by Fikret Yegül.

plate 32b Aerial view, reconstruction, of Diocletian’s Palace at Split/Spalato; E. Hébrard (1912).