Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Rome
Urban Life and Imperial Majesty
Etruscan Roots
Most of what we know of the Etruscans comes from their art --no literature survives --scholars unable to translate their epigrammatic texts
Etruscan Sarcophagus
Terra cotta, 6' 7" length, ca. 520 BCE
She-Wolf
Bronze, 33", ca. 500-480 BCE Etruscan founding myth twins Romulus and Remus found on the banks of the Tiber by a she-wolf The two brothers decided to build a city on the Palatine Hill and argued over who would name the city. Romulus won by killing Remus, and the city was named after him The date, legend has it, was 753 BCE
Republican Rome
In 510 BCE the Romans expelled the last of the Etruscan kings and decided to rule themselves without a monarch
Unlike Greece, not every free citizen enjoyed equal privileges. In the Etruscan manner, the Roman free males were patricians (landowning aristocrats) and plebians (the poorer class) The Senate was exclusively patrician
A Roman Man
Marble, life-size, ca. 80 BCE
Imperial Rome
In 27 BCE, Octavian, grandnephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar, reluctantly accepted the Senates appointment of imperium and the title Augustus, the revered one, in gratitude for his defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra in 31 BCE and the reunification of a Rome divided by civil war Augustus ruled Rome from 27 BCE to 14 CE. His new title gave him semidivine status
Augustus of Primaporta
This idealized and propagandistic sculpture was displayed at the home of Augustuss wife, Livia, at Primaporta, on the outskirts of Rome The military garb announces his role as commander-in-chief
Cupid riding a dolphin at his feet recalls the Julian familys claim to be descended from Venus and Aeneas
Augustuss extended arm points toward an unknown, but presumably greater, future
Augustus of Primaporta
Marble, 6' 8", ca. 20 BCE
Spatial depth is created by depicting figures farther away from the viewer in low relief and those closest in high relief.
The Colosseum
The Colosseum was built by the emperor Vespasian (r. 69-79 CE) between 72-80 CE He named it after the Colossus, a 120-foot high statue of Nero that stood in front of it A giant oval, 615 feet long, 510 feet wide, and 159 feet high, it could accommodate audiences estimated at 50,000 who could enter and exit its 76 vaulted arcades in a matter of a few minutes
Arch of Titus
Rome, ca. 81 CE
In 70 CE Tituss army sacked the Second Temple of Jerusalem. In this interior detail from the arch, Tituss soldiers carry the Ark of the Covenant and a menorah from the temple.
Trajans Column
Trajan was one of the Five Good Emperors who ruled Rome after the Flavian dynasty (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius) His column narrates in a spiral of 150 separate scenes his defeat of the Dacians (what is now Hungary and Romania) Laid out end to end, the complete narrative would be 625 feet long This ceremonial column has symbolic meaning; it is suggestive not only of power but also of male virility
Trajans Column
Marble, 125' (including base), 106-113 CE
Forum of Trajan
110-112 CE, Restored View
The Pantheon
Hadrians Pantheon ranks with the Forum of Trajan as one of the most ambitious building projects undertaken by the Good Emperors The Pantheon is a temple to all the gods (Greek pan, all, and theos, gods)
Its interior consists of a cylindrical space topped by a dome, the largest built in Europe before the twentieth century
The whole is a perfect hemispherediameter of the rotunda is 144 feet, as is the height from floor to ceiling. The 30-foot circular opening at the top, the buildings sole light source, is the oculus, or eye
The Pantheon
118-125 CE
It was oriented to the street along a central axis that extended from the front entrance to the rear of the house
At the center of the Roman domus was the garden of the peristyle courtyard, with a fountain or pond in the middle
Domus
House of the Silver Wedding, Pompeii 1st century BCE
Peristyle Garden
House of the Golden Cupids, Pompeii, 62-79 CE