Rome

1. Rome Ancient Rome: The Spirit of Empire

2. The Drama of Roman History The Rise of Republican Rome: • City founded in 753 B.C. (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. 146 B.C. Romans conquered Corinth and the entire Hellenistic world and culture. • Julius Caesar(100-44 B.C.) conquered Gaul (France) and had himself named dictator for life in 46 B.C. Assassinated in 44 B.C. • Octavian (63 B.C.-A.D. 14) defeated Mark Antony in 31 B.C.

4. Imperial Rome • Romans rude farmers compared to cultured Athenians • Culture began under Octavian (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,Ara Pacis • Trajan: Forum, Basilica Ulpia, Column of Trajan

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 salon, library, shopping mall • Basilica of Constantine • Baths of Caracalla • Colosseum

8. The Pantheon • Only building from Antiquity entirely preserved.Dedicated to the 7 planetary gods • Built by Hadrian in A.D. 120 • Interior is perfect hemisphere • 30 ft. opening:oculus for light

9. Roman Art and Daily Life • Family: basis of social identity. Paterfamilias • Women: confined social roles, but could own property, divorce their husbands, and could inherit husband’s wealth.

10. Pompeii • Destroyed in 79 by eruption of Mt. Vesuvius • First excavated in the 18th century: offers glimpse of Roman household & decoration • atrium; wall paintings; mosaic • 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. Greeks easier to mock. • 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. Up to 60,000 spectators • Masks and wigs: Men still 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. Metamorphoses: Source for many other European writers, such as Chaucer and Shakespeare

15. Vergil: epic poet. Aeneid celebrated traditional Roman values; propaganda for Roman imperialism • Story of Aeneas, Trojan warrior’s adventures. • Unifying theme: destiny • Dido and Aeneas

16. Roman Satire • Superior over the Greeks • Satire: 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 controlled the universe. Happiness was in social duty. • Marcus Aurelius: Meditations (stoic Roman character)

18. Rome’s Division and Decline • Diocletian: Empire had grown unwieldy. Divided into East and West. • In the third century, Constantine moved the capital to the East, in Constantinople or Istanbul, Turkey.