Ancient%20Rome:

1

• Ancient Rome
• The Spirit of Empire

2
The Drama of Roman History

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

3

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

4
Imperial Rome

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

5
The Art of an Empire

• Statues and buildings political advertisements
• Augustus Augustus of Primaporta (fig. 4.15),
  Ara Pacis (fig. 4.16)
• Trajan Forum, Column of Trajan (fig.4.17)

6
The Architecture of Rome

• Buildings for practical purposes
• Basilicas, baths,, libraries
• Innovations concrete and the arch
• Arch flexible construction
• Barrel vault, cross vault, dome
• Concrete quick and inexpensive allowed for fast
  construction

7
Roman Buildings

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

8
The Pantheon

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

9
Roman Art and Daily Life

• Family basis of social identity paterfamilia
• Women had confined social roles, but could own
  property, divorce their husbands, and could
  inherit their husbands wealth.

10
Pompeii

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

11
Roman Theater and Music

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

12

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

13
Roman Music and Dance

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

14
Roman Poets

• Catullus lyric poet who studied Sappho, wrote
  love poems
• Ovid poet, wrote Metamorphoses, and became a
  source for many other European writers, such as
  Chaucer and Shakespeare

15

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

16
Roman Satire

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

17
Roman Philosophy

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

18
Romes Division and Decline

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