Cities of the Roman Empire

Cities of the Roman Empire

Forum--Pompei

Roman versus Greeks

Not as playful or moderate as the Greeks

Inclined toward violence, exploitation and gross excesses of consumption

Their greatest achievements often bear the mark of excess but also considerable engineering skill

Rome was basically supported by forced tribute & taxes

Conquered Greek isles by 133 BC and cloned many of their urban design concepts Theater Amphitheater Temples built on the Greek

model, with prominent colonnades

Agora was appropriated and became the forum

Cities as instruments of empire

Rome expanded beyond Italian peninsula in 133BC

Romans played their enemies off each other, then planted colonial cities to administer conquered lands

The “castra” or army camp was walled and laid out in a grid → planned cities (< 5,000 pop.)

Empire’s maximum extent by 211AD, collapsed after 250AD

The Romans were very practical but they also carried remnants of an older, mystical view of the city

Augury (an animal was cut open in order to examine its entrails for signs that it was a good or bad place for a city)

At founding of a city, a priest would plow the outline of the city to ritually mark it off from the surrounding wilderness

The city was divided into quarters by the creation of two perpendicular streets: the Cardo and the Decumanus

A Roman “castra” or military camp and a typical Roman town

Grid (or gridiron) plan served practical purposes, as well Easy to lay out Easy to administer Breezes could flow through for natural

ventilation Easy to defend if walled

Pompeii shows that this was an ideal, not a rule

Source: http://www.pompeii.co.uk/cd/map.htm

The Forum was their version of the agora

(this one is in Pompeii, a city preserved in volcanic ash of Mt. Vesuvius from the 1st century BC)

The Forum

Bordered by everything important: temples, offices, jails, butcher shops

Public processions and ceremonies took place there

For a mainly pedestrian population, the surrounding colonnade was a very important urban design feature

temples law courts

senate chamberspublic records

Main forum in Rome

Roman Forum (artist’s conception)

Source: A.E.J. Morris, History of Urban Form

• Amphitheater• Theater• Baths

Important “furnishings” for a Roman city

Amphitheater, Pompeii

Large Theater, Pompeii

Small theater, Pompeii

What do these artifacts “tell” us?

Found in Pompeii

Suggests the attention and care given to handicrafts in cities

Shows importance of food storage

Roads

When it came to roads, the Romans understood the highway better than the city street (like us)

The intersection of the cardo and the decumanus created a terrible traffic jam in the middle of the city

Wheel rims on stone streets made a terrible racket (1st known traffic law was a ban on wheeled traffic during daylight hours imposed by Julius Ceasar)

Night-time noise was reported to be deafening

Cities thrive as part of anurban system

How civilized were the Romans?

For a few hundred years their aggressive, exploitative culture appeared to be eternal

“Pax Romana” (the Roman peace) was a form of civilization

The core of the empire, the city of Rome Roman “insula” (apartment bldgs.) often burned or fell

down, had no air conditioning, plumbing or heating Sewers were often open-air, and were not connected

to housing above the 1st floor; dismal for a city of 1 million

Depraved entertainment Stagnant economy

Colosseum, RomeThe grandaddy of all Roman public places

The Colosseum Colosseum < colosseus < colossus (something

extremely huge) Altered in English to “coliseum” Held between 60,000 and 90,000 Dwarfed by the “Circus Maximus” (lost) Over a mile of plumbing pipes supplied public

drinking fountains and lavatories Was used by the Romans for everything from

naval competitions to gladiatorial competitions Was used in the Middle Ages as a living space,

grazing space, and fortress

Colosseum, Rome: X-section

The Colosseum today: a grotesque skeleton

Bread and circuses“Now that no one buys our votes, the public has long since cast off its cares; the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things -- bread and circuses”Decimus Junius Juvenalis (ca. 60 A.D. - 140 A.D.) a Roman satirical poet

200,000 residents of the city of Rome depended on bread handouts! (perhaps 1/5 of the population)

Roman entertainment

Mass slaughter as entertainment Up to thousands of human an animal lives taken in

one “game” day “Performers” included Christians & lions, gladiators,

exotic wild animals, captives & prisoners Bodies dumped unceremoniously in enormous

stinking pits at edge of town 175 game days a year by end of the empire

People left the colosseum by the “vomitorium,” named after the special-purpose room in a house dedicated to purging (after typical Roman bingeing)

Subterranean levelHeld persons and animals prior to their use in “contests” and spectacles

Many oil lamps have been found: what do you think it was like waiting in these passages?

Still, something appeals to us…

Practicality

seems to be embodied in a cleverly constructed environment

Their aqueducts may remind us of our own reservoirs and pipelines

Their carefully-designed streets and roads may remind us of our paved roads, freeways, and sidewalks

Their use of a street grid may remind us of our own regularly laid out urban landscape

Typical Roman street, Pompeii

Pont du Gard, France (brought water to city of Nimes)

Odd (but familiar) mix of practicality and impracticality Their passion for size and excess pushed

them to unsustainable levels of consumption and territorial expansion

They aqueducts were not strictly needed; they were as much about demonstrating imperial power as about gaining access to water

City of Rome had 1352 fountains and 967 free baths

Public baths,Pompeii

Romans took public bathing to an extreme: hot, cold, and lukewarm pools, places to get a massage or work out, even reading rooms

Baths of Diocletian today

What they may have looked like in 300 AD

Love of luxury and comfort (for themselves)

A courtyard surrounded by a colonnade or portico (peristyle)

Residential frescoes in Pompeii

Residential fountain in Pompeii

Outside the city of Rome the empire probably seemed very good, because its fundamental unsustainability and unjust behavior was less visible there

If the Romans could visit America I suspect they would love:1. “Supersize” food

& drinks2. SUVs3. Big pickup

trucks4. Water parks5. Minivans6. Football7. Harley Davidson

motorcycles8. The Hoover

Dam9. Big-screen TVs

Lessons

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Lord Acton, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887