Roman Architecture

Frank Sear

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781351006163
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

In this fully updated new edition, Frank Sear offers a thorough overview of the history of architecture in the Roman Empire.

Arranged logically in six historical sections interspersed with material on Roman architects and their techniques, the building types found in Roman cities and the different buildings found in the Roman provinces, this volume now contains the latest insights into Roman architecture and takes account of the past 20 years of scholarship. This seminal work covers the architecture of the Republic, the Age of Augustus, the imperial period, Pompeii and Ostia, the eastern and western empire, and the Late Antique period, exploring subjects such as patronage, building techniques and materials, Roman engineering, town planning and imperial propaganda in a concise and readable way.

Illustrated with nearly 300 photographs, maps and drawings, Roman Architecture continues to be the clearest introductory account of the development of architecture in the Roman Empire.

1 Republican Rome

Etruria was the area north of Rome, bounded on the south and east by the river Tiber and on the north by the Arno Valley and the Apennines. Its land was very fertile, it was excellent cattle country and its forests abounded in deer and wild boar. Its many lakes, such as Lake Bracciano, and the sea gave good fishing. Perhaps most importantly, it had metal resources: iron, copper, silver, tin and lead. The Etruscans seem to have become dominant in the region by the eighth century bc. Their origins are still unknown, but they were clearly a gifted people. They built road cuttings to improve communications; they were efficient metallurgists and built open-cast mines, shafts and galleries; they were good agriculturalists who understood something of crop rotation; and, they were skilful at building drainage tunnels to prevent their land from flooding. By 750 bc they were making contact with the newly arrived Greeks of Cumae. Soon a number of powerful cities dominated: Caere (Cerveteri), Veii, Tarquinia, Vulci, Volsinii (Bolsena), Clusium (Chiusi), Perusia (Perugia) and Volterra. As these cities grew stronger, they began to expand outside Etruria, establishing the towns of Verona, Mantua and Cremona. By the late seventh century bc there was an Etruscan dynasty ruling Rome, and Etruscan influence began to be felt in Latium, for example at Praeneste (Palestrina). By 600 bc the Etruscans had established Capua, their first colony, and by about 540 bc expanded as far south as Salerno. In 535 bc they allied with the Carthaginians to oust the Greeks from Corsica and in 524 bc they attempted to invade Cumae. However, they were defeated and thereafter Etruscan power in the south declined.

Etruscan temples probably derived from the simple hut form but began to be influenced by Greek architecture in the sixth century bc, when a columnar porch was added in front. Etruscan temples usually rested on a podium and the emphasis was frontal. The back wall was closed and usually there were columns only at the front (Figure 1.1b). To judge by rock-cut tombs, especially at Caere, large Etruscan houses had the rooms grouped around a large hall or atrium. The second century bc tomb of the Volumnii at Perusia (Figure 1.2a) had a layout reminiscent of that of a Roman atrium house like the House of the Surgeon at Pompeii (Figure 1.2b), except that it had a staircase leading down into the tomb instead of a doorway and fauces (entrance passage). The main rooms were symmetrically grouped around a hall with a beamed ridged roof, which in a house would be termed a testudinate atrium. Opposite the doorway was the tablinum (reception room) with a coffered ceiling. As for Rome itself, Cicero praises the natural advantages of its site (de Rep. 11). It is only 25 kilometres from the coast, and because of its river combines the advantages of a safe inland position with easy access to the sea (Figure 1.3). The river Tiber, rising in northern Etruria, as well as the river Anio provided easy communications with the centre of Italy. An island in the middle of the Tiber facilitated the crossing, and the hills of Rome, especially the Palatine and Capitoline, offered good natural defence (Figure 1.4).

Figure 1.1 (a) Rome, Capitoline Temple: plan. (b) Typical Etruscan temple: drawing.

Figure 1.2 (a) Perusia (Perugia), Tomb of the Volumnii, second century bc: plan. (b) Pompeii, House of the Surgeon, fourth/third century bc, plan.

Figure 1.3 Central Italy showing the position of Rome and the rivers Anio and Tiber: plan. (After M. Grant, The Roman Forum [London: Spring Books, 1974], 31.)

Figure 1.4 Rome showing the hills, the Tiber and the roads leading out of the city: plan. (After M. Grant, The Roman Forum [London: Spring Books, 1974], 30.)

The traditional date for the foundation of Rome is 753 bc, although there were settlements there before that date. The Palatine, a steep naturally defensive hill at the centre of the hills on which Rome is built, has from time immemorial been associated with the legendary foundation of Rome by Romulus. The importance of the foundation legends is that, whether Romulus existed as a historical figure or not, the Romans themselves believed in them and venerated the places associated with them. The story of Romulus became part of folklore, and in the 4th and 3rd centuries bc, following contact with Greece, the Romans began to assimilate the legends of Romulus with those of Troy. The result was that in the minds of the Romans the foundation of their city was one of the turning points of history. As Livy put it: ‘The Fates decreed the founding of this great city, and the beginning of the mightiest Empire next to that of the gods’ (Livy, 1.4.1).

It may be useful here to summarise these legends, which have so much bearing upon the building history of Rome and which shaped the subsequent development of the city. Livy began his history with the flight of Aeneas after the fall of Troy, an event which archaeology places at the beginning of the 12^th century bc. Aeneas, whose mother was the goddess Venus, had a son, Ascanius or Iulus, who founded Alba Longa and established a dynasty. Many generations later Rhea Silvia, a daughter of one of the kings of Alba Longa, was ravished by Mars and gave birth to the twins Romulus and Remus. The twins were suckled by a she-wolf in a cave (lupercal) at the foot of the Palatine Hill and were found under a fig-tree (ruminal). Romulus, following a quarrel which resulted in the death of his brother Remus, founded Rome. This legend was an axiom of Roman belief and assumed particular importance at the time of Augustus, who, as the adopted son of Julius Caesar, claimed descent from Venus through his familial links with Iulus.

The discovery in 1948 of Iron Age huts on the Palatine Hill confirms the statement of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant.Rom. 1.79.11) that one of them still survived in his day (late first century bc) and was constantly kept in repair. The largest of the huts measured 4.90 × 3.60 metres and its floor was excavated into the tufa along with the post-holes. The huts were supported on seven posts, one at each corner and one in the middle of three of the walls. On the fourth side there was an entrance porch, as shown by four smaller post-holes. There was also a post-hole in the middle of the hut, to support the roof. The walls were probably made of reeds and mud, and the roof of thatch. The town was laid out according to religious rites within a sacred boundary, the postmoenium or pomerium (Varro, Ling.Lat. 5.143). The earliest pomerium of Rome seems to have taken in only the Palatine and a generous space around, so that the sacred area was almost a square, perhaps the Roma Quadrata of tradition (Tacitus, Ann. 12.24). Soon walls were built around the base of the hill and later extended to include the Capitoline. The construction of drains began which made the valley bottoms habitable, and under the early kings the city grew to include the Caelian, Velian, Viminal, Quirinal and Esquiline hills. Tradition attributes the Temple of Vesta in the Forum, a circular building perhaps originally a thatched hut where the sacred fire was kept, to the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius (715–674 bc). He is also said to have built the first Regia (royal palace).

The reign of Ancus Marcius (640–616 bc) was of great importance for the early growth of the city, which he expanded to include the Aventine (Livy, 1.33.1–2). He also built the first bridge over the Tiber, the Pons Sublicius, to connect the city to the Janiculum Hill, on the other side of the Tiber (Figure 1.4), which had been annexed, not for expansionary reasons, but to deny Rome’s enemies a stronghold (Livy, 1.33.6). The bridge was built on wooden piles or sublica, its religious significance reflected in the name of the College of Pontiffs who were in charge of it (pontifex means ‘bridge-builder’). The period around 630 bc marked the beginning of the transformation of the Forum into a public and political area. It was also a period during which public buildings began to be built of more permanent materials. In the period 625–620 bc hut after hut was pulled down and the area which was to become the Forum was levelled and then paved in pebbles.

In the period 616–509 bc Rome was ruled by three Etruscan kings whose military, engineering and architectural achievements raised Rome to be the leading city of Latium. It was also the largest city in central Italy, the ‘great Rome of the Tarquins’.¹ Tarquinius Priscus (616–578 bc) began the vital work of dredging the Cloaca stream and its tributaries, which crossed the low-lying, swampy area destined to become the Roman Forum, into a stone-lined culvert. Priscus then apportioned building sites in the Forum (Livy, 1.35.10) and surrounded it with shops and porticoes (Dion.Hal., Ant.Rom. 3.67.4). He marked out the ground for the Circus Maximus and presumably made some provision for drainage there too, as the area is prone to flooding. Retaining walls were built around the Capitoline Hill because of its steepness and it was levelled for the building of a huge temple, but Priscus died before he could begin it (Dion.Hal., Ant.Rom. 3.69.2).

Rome’s population had grown rapidly, and in 578 bc, when Servius Tullius became king, the pomerium was extended to include the Quirinal, Viminal and Esquiline hills. He built a defensive wall around the extended city with an agger (embankment) between the Esquiline and the Quirinal (Dion.Hal., Ant.Rom. 4.13). The substantial remains of tufa walling which can be seen near Rome’s railway station (Figure 1.5) were thought to belong to the Servian Wall, until it was discovered that the blocks were made of Grotta Oscura tufa from Veii, which was available to the Romans only after the fall of Veii in 396 bc. Therefore, the wall must have been built after that date. However, some parts of the wall in the vicinity of the Palatine and Capitoline seem to have incorporated portions of an older circuit in cappellaccio, a material which was available from the seventh century bc. This opens up the possibility t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Republican Rome
• 2 Roman Building Types
• 3 The Age of Augustus
• 4 Roman Architects, Building Techniques and Materials
• 5 The Julio-Claudians
• 6 Two Roman Towns: Pompeii and Ostia
• 7 The Flavians
• 8 Trajan and Hadrian
• 9 North Africa
• 10 The European Provinces Spain
• 11 The Eastern Provinces
• 12 The Late Empire
• Glossary
• Authors and passages cited
• Select Bibliography
• Index