death in motion. funeral processions in the roman forum

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Death in Motion: Funeral Processions in the Roman ForumAuthor(s): Diane Favro and Christopher JohansonSource: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 69, No. 1 (March 2010), pp.12-37Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural Historians

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Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 69, no. 1 (March 2010), 12–37. ISSN

0037-9808, electronic ISSN 2150-5926. © 2010 by the Society of Architectural Historians.

All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce

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site, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/jsah.2010.69.1.12.

diane favro

University o Caliornia, Los Angeles

christopher johanson

University o Caliornia, Los Angeles

Death in Motion

Funeral Processions in the Roman Forum

The calendars o republican and imperial Rome were

overfowing with a plethora o religious and state

events, many o which were marked by animated

parades that wound through the city. Interspersed among

these were melancholy processions that carried the deceased

rom home to a nal resting place outside the walls o the

capital. For members o the elite, the route and activities o the Roman uneral oered a valuable opportunity to display

and increase their symbolic importance.1 Previous studies

have considered the long history o unerals in antiquity,

commemorative activities such as the burning o the pyre

outside the city limits, or specic eatures such as the carry-

ing o death masks.2 Few have contextualized the unerary

procession ( pompa funebris ) with specic spaces or in relation

to the intricately constructed Roman experience o a uneral.3

Rome’s most illustrious and ambitious citizens choreo-

graphed their unerals with memorable activities in the

Forum Romanum, yet the eect o this symbol-laden public

venue on the honoric imperial uneral parades and activities

has not been critically evaluated.4

Three uneral parades will be analyzed and illustrated

contextually using interactive, immersive digital models o

the Forum Romanum that have been specically designed to

represent spatial and urban relationships.5 The examples,

one rom the mid-Republic and two rom the imperial pe-

riod, demonstrate changes in the interplay between Roman

unerary practices and a specic urban space and provide a

platorm or the use o phenomenological analysis. This re-

search lays the groundwork or a comparison o the use and

manipulation o architecture and imagery in the Republicand Empire.

The experiential aspects o any event in the orum re-

quire an understanding o that entire space as well as o those

parts o the surrounding cityscape that are connected visually

and aurally to the orum. With only ragmentary physical

remains, the orum has rarely been reconstructed in toto as

it existed in any specic period, although there are general-

ized reconstructions representing entire eras (e.g., the repub-

lican orum) and simplied representations devoid o texture,

color, artwork, people, and other rich sensory-stimulating

eatures.6 The late imperial orum has most requently been

reconstructed because the archaeological remains rom this

era are the best preserved.

In general, scholars have avoided making either pictorial

or three-dimensional physical reconstructions o the orum

as an urban space, or obvious reasons. The scientic recre-

ation o larger scale environments is extremely time consum-

ing, requiring extensive research, which detracts rom a

scholar’s ocus on particular issues.7 In addition, there are dis-

ciplinary deterrents. The ashioning o an entire urban space

requires hypotheses and assumptions about many unknown

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D e a t h i n M o t i o n : F u n e r a l P r o c e s s i o n s i n t h e r o M a n F o r u M 13

aspects, including the upper foors o buildings, the place-

ment and scale o art, colors, textures, and ephemera (such as

plantings, scaolding, and banners). Too oten reconstruction

images or models do not make variations in level o accuracy

visible. Such indeterminacy, no matter how well reasoned, is

unpalatable to many scholars, but especially to archaeologists,

who are trained to appreciate accuracy, not speculation.8

The close experiential reading o historic processions

such as the Roman uneral has also been hampered by the

scarcity o specic details o these events. Only a ew impe-rial unerals are described at length by ancient authors; even

ewer by contemporary eyewitnesses. Furthermore, these

accounts by male elite voices generally serve specic agen-

das and oten use the description o a uneral or calculated

eect.9 Few detail the setting o the uneral or mention the

sensorial impact o the sights, sounds, and smells o the

emotionally and politically charged event, perhaps because

they considered such perceptual inormation too obvious to

merit comment. The same amiliarity may explain the rela-

tive silence about uneral activities.10 Depictions o ancient

processions in art tend to ocus on the participants and oer

only limited representation o the physical context, which

would inorm an assessment o the experiential impact. Gra-

ham Zanker has perceptively noted that the omission o

architectural environments in ancient art provoked viewers

to complete the picture in their minds, an act o supplemen-

tation that engaged ancient observers, but rustrates modern

historians (Figure 1).11

The situation is exacerbated or the Forum Romanum.

The geographical touchstone o the Roman world, this

urban space was well known; throughout the vast empire,

Romans constructed complex mental pictures o this site,

which were inormed by reerences in texts, depictions o

individual buildings, word o mouth, and actual visits.12

Given this collective amiliarity, it is not surprising that the

orum was rarely represented holistically in Roman art.

Two notable exceptions are the marble imperial relies

known as the Anaglypha or Plutei Traiani/Hadriani, which

were ound in the orum in 1872.13 Although their exact

placement and date are disputed, scholars agree that the

scenes represent events occurring in the orum. On one anemperor (either Trajan or Hadrian) stands on the Rostra Au-

gusti (speaker’s platorm) while giving a public address or

adlocutio backed by six lictors (Figure 2); on the other an em-

peror seated on the opposing rostra oversees the burning o

debt books (Anaglypha) (Figure 3).14 Behind the gures rise

the Basilica Iulia and other buildings on the southwest side

o the orum. Although the relies may not have been seen

together in their original disposition, they show a continuous

architectural setting. The myth-laden g tree (Ficus Rumi-

nalis) and the statue o Marsyas appear in both relies, arm-

ing the coincidence o the setting; one depicts the area east

o the statue and the other, the west.

The overall representation is quite revealing about the

Romans’ experience o public events in the orum. The carv-

ings selectively mix accurately represented eatures (such as

the blank segments that correspond to the streets that entered

the orum) with inaccurate building orientations.15 All o the

structures are seen rontally, regardless o their actual posi-

tioning. For example, in the Debt Burning relie, the Temples

o Saturn, and o Divine Vespasian are shown side by side,

though they actually stood at right angles (see Figure 3). Such

Figure 1 Late republican or early imperial relief depicting a funerary procession from Amiternum, Italy. Museo Nazionale d’Abruzzo, L’Aquila (photo

by Christopher Johanson)

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14 j s a h / 6 9 : 1 , M a r c h 2 0 1 0

an unrealistic arrangement was not solely a result o the

pragmatic restrictions o the relie ormat, but owed also

to Roman experiential interpretations that were ltered

through cultural ideas o viewing and processing.16

Ancient texts and pictorial representations arm that the

Romans believed buildings o importance should be viewed

rontally, ideally rom an inerior position.17 Vitruvius spe-

cically recommended that temples along “the sides o public

roads should be arranged so that the passers-by can have a

view o them and make their reverence in ull view.”18 Such

hierarchical positioning was regularly employed to indicate

the status o depicted individuals. In the Adlocutio relie, the

emperor is elevated atop a speaker’s platorm; all gures look

up to him both literally and metaphorically (see Figure 2).

Action occurs below and leads the eye toward the emperor

either by the directional movement o the gures or the turn

o their heads. In the Debt Burning relie, soldiers carry theheavy account books toward the seated emperor atop the

Rostra Augusti. The re consuming the records is appropri-

ately set beore the Temple o Saturn, site o the state treasury,

and at the eet o the seated emperor on the rostra. In reality,

Saturn’s temple stood arther west, at a higher elevation and

behind the speaker’s platorm. In the Adlocutio relie the men

orming the crowd lean slightly orward toward the emperor,

their garments clearly identiying status: the toga or senators

toward the ront o the crowd, the paenula or poor citizens

Figure 2 Adlocutio relief of the Anaglypha (Plutei Traiani), showing events in the imperial Forum Romanum with the buildings on the southwest side as

backdrop; late 2nd century. Currently located in the Curia of the Forum Romanum, Rome (photo by Diane Favro). See JSAH online for high-resolution,

zoomable image with buildings of the Forum identied

Figure 3 Debt Burning relief, from the same monument as the Adlocutio relief, showing action in front of the opposing Rostra just visible in the

lower right corner. Currently located in the Curia building of the Forum Romanum, Rome (photo by Diane Favro). See JSAH online for high resolution,

zoomable image with buildings of the Forum identied

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pushed to the rear (see Figure 2). Gestures clariy the action,

with the standing emperor raising his arm in a amiliar signal

o address. Overall, the emphasized body language under-

scores the importance o visual cues in an open space where a

speaker’s words quickly wated away.19

The relies also demonstrate the active role o statues

whose location in the visual hierarchy is equal (or superior)

to that o the human participants in orum events.20 In this

case the artist selected, rom among all the statues in the

orum, a depiction o Marsyas, which was associated with

libertas, and a group with Italia, her children, and the seated

Trajan, which celebrated the alimentary program. The relies

reinorce the closed topographical experience o the imperial

Forum Romanum, which aorded limited views o the sur-

rounding city, ocusing inward on the two opposing rostra

that dened the space and action.

Despite their useulness in explicating the interactionbetween public events and the orum, the Plutei Traiani leave

many questions about the experience o the events unan-

swered. How did accompanying sounds reinorce the activi-

ties? Did lighting and temperature aect the participants’

comort? Was color used to attract the eye? Did the smell o

the burning books drive the audience away? Where did spec-

tators stand? Were women and slaves allowed to watch?

What route to the orum was taken by participants?

Unortunately, the established methodological appara-

tus or analyzing the symbiotic exchange between kinetic

ceremonies and urban orm is not especially useul or an-

cient specialists. Modern anthropological and urban analysesare usually based on rst-person documentation, interviews,

and cognitive mapping; such approaches are not applicable

to periods when voices are ew and primarily o the elite.

Techniques developed to convey kinetic progression, such as

the serial views and cognitive maps popular with urban plan-

ners in the 1960s, have rarely been included in the architec-

tural historian’s toolbox.21

During subsequent decades, the popularity o reception

theory led to increased interest in the “gaze.” In Roman stud-

ies, a number o publications dealt with viewing in situ. Most

considered intervisuality in elite artworks and environments,

usually the Roman house.22 A ew employed semiotic ideasto consider the experiences o urban buildings as linked to-

gether to orm narratives.23 While some authors explored

kinetic viewing, the majority emphasized what could be seen

rom xed positions, a preerence that minimized the impact

o peripheral viewing and the ull-bodied, synergistic inter-

play o all the senses.24 Beyond sight, sensorial analyses o

Roman environments have been ew.25

In part, the available representational tools have been

deterministic. Sketches, measured drawings, and physical

models have or decades been the primary instruments or

making reconstructions o historic environments, yet these

can be costly and require skills not developed by scholars.

Furthermore, the necessity to present scholarship in text-

based publications has avored simplied, static visual repre-

sentations, which are in many ways antithetical to theexperience o events such as ritual processions. In the ormu-

lation o research, as well as its publication, lively parades with

futtering banners, cacophonous sounds, and animated danc-

ers are distilled into static lines on two-dimensional plans

(Figure 4).26 Such depictions disguise the realities o topogra-

phy, three-dimensional sequencing, temporal changes, and

the ease (or diculty) o movement, among other actors,

while emphasizing particular aspects (sequencing), experi-

ences (static viewing), and approaches (semiotics). Verbal or

cinematic attempts to recreate the experience o moving

through a historic city can be evocative, but are oten devalued

by the scholarly community as too anciul or entertaining. Today researchers interested in the experiential aspects

o the ancient uneral—its sights, movement, sounds, and

smells—have more data, improved tools, and advanced

methods with which to work. New technologies and ap-

proaches to “knowledge representation,” a term borrowed

rom the sciences, acilitate the reconsideration o historic

events that were situated within sensorially rich, kinetically

experienced environments. Digital recreations visually and

experientially aggregate current knowledge about the

Figure 4 Diagram of triumphal route from Campus Martius, moving

counterclockwise around the Palatine, through the forum, and up to

the Capitoline (image by Diane Favro)

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16 j s a h / 6 9 : 1 , M a r c h 2 0 1 0

environment. Digital technologies have made possible the

ashioning o more dynamic and fexible depictions o ancient

spaces or use in research, teaching, and presentation, allreadily linked to metadata that documents the level o accu-

racy o restored components.27 Scholars can now reconstruct

historic environments that allow observers to move in real

time through careully constructed topographic contexts. A

rich range o sensorial stimuli can be added to kinetic viewing

to shape more robust recreations o the original environmen-

tal experience. Depictions o actual times o day, year, and

century rearm the essential temporal aspects—the ourth

dimension. Various experimental scenarios can be presented

to ascertain the impact o alternative reconstructions, climatic

conditions, and hypothetically distributed ephemera.28

Every sensorial layer requires a method o citation andanalysis, and a large measure o scholarly caution. How can

it be proved that ancients experienced light in the same way

as moderns? How does one add scholarly rigor to the simula-

tion o smell or sound? Various sensorial additions to a sim-

ulation can detract i they are included as an aterthought,

even i an illustrative one.

Roman environments have been among the rst to be

extensively recreated digitally. The attraction refects aware-

ness o the experiential richness o Roman design. Not sur-

prisingly extensively designed rooms, such as those preserved

at Pompeii, are cited as early immersive “simulations.”29

Given the ancient evidence and the current technologicaltoolset, Roman spatiality oers the greatest opportunity or

serious scholarly investigation.

The Mid-Republican Funeral Procession (183 BCE–145 BCE)

Ancient accounts o unerals during the mid-Republic de-

scribe the movement o the aristocratic pompa funebris through the city to the Forum Romanum. Unortunately,

specics about the route are ew.30 There is no description

o the parade path beore it arrived in the orum, and the

purpose o the procession can only be speculated. It wouldseem that it unctioned both as a means o gathering the

participants, who would later crowd the orum during the

uneral oration, and as a way o displaying the popularity

o the deceased and the amily.31 Hence, the more circu-

itous the route, the better the attendance or the event, an

important actor at least during the Republic when uner-

als had to vie or attention rom citizens who continued to

conduct their daily business in the orum.32 The reality o

housing distribution in Rome urther complicated mat-

ters. The aristocracy lived along the streets that led into

the orum (including the Sacra Via) and on the nearby

Palatine Hill.33

Thereore, most aristocratic uneralsbegan only a ew hundred meters away rom the orum

itsel. In order to lengthen the parade route and attract a

larger audience, processions rom residences near the

orum may have diverted to side streets to extend the route

to the orum (Figure 5).34

Parades most likely entered along the Sacra Via in the

mid-republican period, a symbolically potent route ollowed

in numerous ritual processions, including the triumphal pa-

rade, which was an event that the uneral procession mim-

icked in many ways.35 Upon entering the orum, the pompa funebris crossed the central open plaza to the rostra, where

the deceased was put on display (Figure 6).36 From atop therostra the primary heir gave a eulogy, fanked by members o

the cortege who wore ancestor masks (imagines ) and sat in a

row o ivory chairs that aced the assembled crowd. Scholars

have underlined the obvious potential or symbolic manipu-

lation in the content o the speech (laudatio funebris), the

ancestor masks, and the composition o the crowd.37 Less

analyzed, but equally signicant, are the sights, kinetic

sequences, and interaction with the physical environment

experienced by the uneral parade.

Figure 5 Diagram of extended funeral

routes at Rome in 160 BCE (image by

Christopher Johanson)

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Physical and textual evidence demonstrate that the

orum during the mid-republican period was radically dier-

ent in appearance than its imperial descendants.38 Sadly,

there is a severe lack o robust archaeological data about the

buildings in the orum during the rst hal o the second

century BCE. In situ evidence or the third (vertical) dimen-

sion is particularly dicult to nd. Today’s researchers can

bring into play additional inormation, including high-reso-

lution satellite imagery, citywide cadastral maps, and GPS

coordinates that precisely situate veriable archaeologicalremains within a geographic coordinate system, yet they still

lack sucient data to create academically justiable hyper-

realistic reconstructions.39

In most cases, only the general massing o buildings and

architectural monuments can be modeled with any certainty.

For this research the models are schematic, shaded or legibil-

ity, but necessarily textureless.40 They are knowledge repre-

sentations o the current evidence—more oten textual than

material—and can approximate only one o many interpreta-

tions o the mid-republican orum’s appearance.41 Strict care

must be taken to map out the parameters or each exploration

and to explain its experimental nature (Figure 7).42 Within

these working parameters, however, valuable investigations

can be undertaken about the experiential and propagandistic

impact o the uneral on the processors and audience mem-

bers, and in particular the importance o the critical intervis-

ibility between buildings in and near the Forum Romanum.

The multilayered visual eects o the parade route re-

quire three-dimensional analysis, but an in situ examination

o the viewshed and relationship between the Capitoline Hill

and the republican orum is impossible due to present-day

conditions. The current paving in the modern archaeological

park lies 2 to 4 meters above the republican orum foor.

Major buildings rom the mid-Republic period are repre-

sented by scattered ragments oten immured or obliterated

by subsequent rebuildings.43 The republican remains o the

great temple to Jupiter atop the Capitoline are today encased

within the Palazzo dei Conservatori, its visual connection to

the orum blocked by post-antique construction.

Experiential understanding has been urther compro-

mised by the inaccurate siting o buildings on publishedplans. For example, no readily available plans use a uniying

geographic coordinate system to demonstrate and validate

the precise location o the Temple o Jupiter Optimus Maxi-

mus in relation to the buildings o the mid-republican orum.

Three-dimensional paper-based reconstructions, hampered

by modern in situ viewshed diculties, only approximate the

original visual relationship between Capitoline and orum;

urthermore the majority o reconstructions depict the state

o the orum in the imperial period and adopt an omniscient

god’s-eye view.44 The most accurate three-dimensional re-

constructions represent the area during either its Augustan

or late imperial phases, and even these requently exaggerate

the elevation inormation to such an extent that perceptions

have been powerully inormed by the image o Jupiter’s

temple looming majestically over the city (Figure 8).45

Case Study 1: The Funerals of the Cornelii

The unerals o the mid-Republic (183–145 BCE) provide

a useul case study o republican unerary practices.46 The

Cornelii were a prominent aristocratic amily o the middle

Figure 7 Schematic representations overlaid on a geographic coordi-

nate system (image © and courtesy of the Regents of the University

of California, Christopher Johanson, and the Experiential Technologies

Center [ETC], UCLA)

Figure 6 Schematic representation of the funeral eulogy (image © and

courtesy of the Regents of the University of California, Christopher

Johanson, and the Experiential Technologies Center [ETC])

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alteration o the Cornelii’s processional route oers a poten-

tial key to understanding the choreography o this mid-sec-

ond-century event. The case study places the evidence or the

uneral into the reconstructed topographic context o 183–

145 BCE (Figure 10).

Ater the imago o Scipio Aricanus was placed in the

Temple o Jupiter Optimus Maximus, uneral processions or

the Cornelii clan began at the house o the deceased amily

member, moved through the orum, and then turned away

rom the gathering crowd to ascend the Clivus Capitolinus

(Figure 10a).53 Once the cortege moved past the Temple o

Saturn, visual contact with spectators in the low-lying orum

plaza was severed. How the imago was collected rom the

temple has not been recorded, but presumably the event oc-

curred atop the Capitoline Hill beore the south-acing

Temple o Jupiter, where an actor wearing triumphal regalia

donned the mask (Figure 10b). The action would have been visible rom the aristocratic houses on the northwestern

Palatine or those with an unobstructed view and good eye-

sight, yet most o the nobility would have already joined the

awaiting audience in the low-lying orum.54 Some curious

spectators may have ollowed the musicians, mimes, and

dancers as they proceeded up the hill to the Capitoline tem-

ple, but the Clivus Capitolinus, and even the much larger

platorm on the hill above, oered only limited room to turn

a large procession. Doubtless, most spectators preerred to

secure good viewing spots or the oration in the orum. How

did the Cornelii connect this unique segment o their amily

uneral with the more traditional program o the republicanuneral? To what degree were the symbolic connections be-

tween the unerary activities at the rostra and those on the

Capitoline magnied by spectacle?

Digital reconstructions acilitate the experiential ex-

amination o the connections between the orum and the

Temple o Jupiter Optimus Maximus in this period (Figure

10c).55 Unortunately, without inormation on sounds,

smells, and haptic responses, the exploration remains vision-

centered, an emphasis that must be constantly kept in mind.

Static and kinetic viewsheds are predicated on the accurate

depiction o an environment and o building massing in par-

ticular. In this instance, the height and ootprint o the Temple o Jupiter Optimus Maximus remain somewhat con-

troversial. The dispute centers on whether the measure-

ments given by Dionysius o Halicarnassus and conrmed

by recent archaeological work can reer to the temple’s po-

dium, as asserted by Einar Gjerstad in the 1960s—a recon-

struction that produces intercolumniations substantially

larger than even those o the Pantheon—or to a platorm on

which a smaller structure rose, as championed more recently

by John Stamper.56

The two reconstructions give notably dierent results

when viewed virtually rom the mid-second century BCE

orum as reconstructed. With Gjerstad’s version, whose

dominating orm is seen in most reconstructions, the temple

pediment looms over the city, clearly visible to spectators

standing at ground level in the eastern end o the orum (Fig-

ure 10d). From elsewhere in the orum, observers would have

seen the entablature and roo o the temple, but caught only

glimpses o its podium (Figure 10e). The ortunate ones who

had staked out desirable positions near the rostra were well

situated to see the bier and the actors wearing ancestor masks

line up in ront (see Figure 7). They could readily hear the

eulogies and see other activities associated with the uneral,

but except or those positioned directly in ront o the rostra,

the view to the açade and area in ront o Jupiter’s distant

temple was almost entirely occluded.

Stamper’s reconstruction reduces the temple’s overallsize and prole, eliminating nearly all views o it rom the

ground level o the orum (Figure 10). Viewsheds rom

more elevated positions would not have been much better.

Observers who jockeyed successully or viewing spots in the

upper balconies (maeniana) above the shops in ront o the

Basilica Sempronia on the west side o the orum had good

views o the rostra and the central open space, but not o the

Capitoline (Figure 10g). Only those on the upper level o the

shops ronting the Basilica Fulvia across the open space could

readily see the Temple o Jupiter and, at a lower level, the

Cornelii uneral parade as it re-entered the orum (Figure

10h). Furthermore, in a culture where seeing and being seen were both important, most o these spectators would not

have been visible to those clustering around the rostra.57 Cu-

riously enough, in the two reconstructions only the Comi-

tium, the natural cavea to the northwest o the rostra, aords

clear views o the Temple o Jupiter (Figure 10i).

Clearly, an understanding o the Roman uneral neces-

sitates knowledge o the context o the event. Just as there are

alternative reconstructions o the built environment, there

are likewise alternative reconstructions o the perormance,

including most importantly, the orientation o the primary

speakers. One interpretation is based on the later unerary

customs o Ciceronian Rome in the late rst century BCE;the other is shaped by an appreciation o the oratorical prac-

tices o the mid-Republic over a century earlier. An assess-

ment o the visual impact o the uneral parade o the Cornelii

claries the dierences between these two scenarios.

Alternative 1: Orators Face the People

Since their view was blocked by many o the surrounding

buildings (Figure 11), the audience gathered in the orum

would have gauged the approach o the Cornelii uneral

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20 j s a h / 6 9 : 1 , M a r c h 2 0 1 0

Figure 10 The Forum in 160 BCE, with views 10a–i marked on the map (image by Christopher Johanson; 10a–i © and courtesy of the Regents of the

University of California, Christopher Johanson, and the Experiential Technologies Center [ETC], UCLA). See JSAH online for a bird’s-eye view of a

real-time, three-dimensional model of the republican Roman Forum (160 BCE) set in its geographic context. 10a Elevated view from the northeast

corner of the Forum looking toward the Capitoline Hill; 10b Bird’s-eye view of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The northwest corner of the

Roman Forum is visible on the right; 10cView of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (based on Gjerstad) from the north side of the Forum plaza;

10d Partly occluded view of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (based on Gjerstad) from the southern side of the Forum plaza; 10eView of the

Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (based on Gjerstad) from the area in front of the Rostra; 10f Occluded view of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus

Maximus (based on Stamper) from the Lacus Curtius; 10g Panoramic view of the occluded Capitoline Hill (left) and the Comitium (right) from the bal-

cony of the Basilica Sempronia; 10hView from the balcony of the Basilica Aemilia of the Rostra with the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (based

on Gjerstad) clearly visible in the background; 10iView of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus from the steps of the Curia Hostilia

10d 10e 10f

10g 10h 10i

10a 10b 10c

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11a 11b 11c

11d 11e 11f

11g 11h

Figure 11 Schematic view of the Forum with views labeled (image by Christopher Johanson; 11a–h © and courtesy of the Regents of the University

of California, Christopher Johanson, and the Experiential Technologies Center [ETC], UCLA). See JSAH online for a bird’s-eye view of a real-time, three-

dimensional model of the republican Roman Forum set in its geographic context. 11a View from the area in front of the Rostra, populated by hypothet-

ical bystanders, looking toward the Temple of Saturn and the Clivus Capitolinus, the main road leading down from the Capitoline Hill; 11b View of the

orator, bier and ancestors atop the Rostra; 11c Elevated view from the balcony in front of the Basilica Sempronia; 11d View of the Basilica Porcia (to

the left of the Curia Hostilia). The Basilica is represented in schematic form omitting the colonnaded lower and upper levels; 11e Privileged view of

the Rostra from the northern side of the Comitium; 11f Bird’s eye view of the Forum illustrating the intimacy of the Comitium in comparison to the

open Forum plaza; 11g View from the Comitium of the imago of Scipio Africanus as it returns from the Capitoline Hill; 11hView from the Comitium

of the imago of Cato entering or leaving the Curia Hostilia. See JSAH online for an analogous view keyed to a real-time, three-dimensional model

set in its geographic context

AH6901_03.indd 21 2/2/10 5:20 PM








22 j s a h / 6 9 : 1 , M a r c h 2 0 1 0

procession down rom the Capitoline by the smoke rising

rom torches and the sounds (Figure 11a). The accompanying

music and chants became gradually louder, reaching a cre-

scendo as the cortege

rounded the Temple o

Saturn at the lower ter-

minus o the Clivus Cap-

itolinus and burst into

ull view o the awaiting

crowd.58 At this potent

moment the sound level

escalated, reed rom the constraints o the narrow, building-

lined street. (O course, wind, weather, and ambient noise

would have diminished this aural eect.) The elevated imago o Scipio Aricanus was prominent, along with the ancestor

masks o the deceased and other illustrious Cornelii. The pro-

cession stopped at the northwest corner o the orum andmounted the rostra where the body o the departed was dis-

played (Figure 11b). The jostling audience at ground level

looked up to the amous ancestors represented by actors wear-

ing death masks who were seated among the statues crowding

the platorm; behind them the Curia Hostilia ormed a monu-

mental backdrop.59 The ancestors, in turn, looked down on

the majority o the audience—the inverse o the spatial ar-

rangement in Greek oratory. Only the spectators on the upper

foors o the basilicas could look down on the speakers, but

their viewing status rom a position on high was diminished

by a lack o visual clarity due to distance (Figure 11c).60

As appropriate or Roman viewing conventions, the u-neral participants on the rostra saw senators and other elite

citizens positioned close by, identiable by their garb and

placement, an important actor since no clear physical

boundary separated them rom the masses on the orum

foor. The son o the deceased, i there was one o suitable

age, aced the orum and the crowd to give the laudatio and

then praised, in chronological order, the ancestors arrayed

behind him.61 Ater the speech the group descended rom the

rostra and, amid mourning wails, carried the deceased to his

nal resting place outside the city.62 Funerary games (ludi funebres and munera), most likely held in the orum ollowed,

completed the ceremony.

Alternative 2: Orators Face the Senate

As recognized by modern scholars, the rostra became the ora-

torical stage or the orum in the late Republic. Only in 145

BCE did the orientation reverse when a tribune rst turned

his back on the Curia to address the people directly, a populist

move meant both to appease the masses and annoy the mag-

isterial classes.63 Thus the interpretation given in Alternative

1 is based on a retrojection rom a later period. Prior to the

mid-second century, orators aced the Comitium and the

Curia, not the orum.64 The implications o this original, re-

versed staging have not been ully explored. Was the unerary

laudatio originally congured in the same way?

The topography o the area acilitates a reconstruction

with a Curia-centered oration. Until at least 184 BCE the

Cloaca Maxima, which ran through the middle o the orum,

was apparently uncovered.65 It would have ormed a natural

partition between the large eastern portion o the orum’s

central plaza and the western hal, occupied by the political

nucleus o the Curia, the Comitium, the senaculum, and the

Graecostasis.66 The natural topography o the area ormed a

theatrical cavea centered on the rostra. The Comitium lies in

a small depression surrounded by gentle upward slopes on all

sides save the orum plaza.67 The Temple o Saturn oered a

lengthy stepped approach that would have served as a con-

venient tiered viewing area. M. Porcius Cato’s decision ascensor to buy up land near the Curia to build the rst named

basilica in Rome (the Basilica Porcia) implies that this was a

space that, among other things, would benet rom a public

porticoed structure, that is, a shaded viewing area (Figure

11d).68 The masses would have gathered in the orum plaza

and at the southwest end o the orum in ront o the Temple

o Saturn, but the elite would ll the Comitium, line its steps,

and command the privileged views next to the seat o magis-

terial power, the Senate House (Figure 11e). The speaker

would be elevated above many o the people, but the elite

could demonstrate their own station by being in clear sight

o the speaker and by orming the backdrop seen by the sur-rounding audience.

I political oratory required the speaker to ace the

Curia, one must contemplate the practical ramications o

this substantially dierent staging. While the amous beaks

o the rostra pointed toward the orum, in which direction

did the statues ace? Imperial relies always depict the speaker

and the statues acing the same way. It seems unlikely that the

majority o political oratory in the mid-Republic would be

ramed by the backs o those commemorated in stone.69

What o the audience? A Curia-centered oration would have

taken place in a relatively intimate setting. Because o the

naturally sloped and stepped viewing area, the audiencecould both see and be seen more eectively. Many would be

close enough to hear the speech clearly. Moreover, assem-

bling in the western end o the orum would mitigate the

intererence caused by the open shops and the ongoing busi-

ness surrounding the orum plaza (Figure 11). O course,

or those arther removed rom the rostra and who could not

hear, gestures would still convey the meaning, although it

would require a skilled orator to use gestures that even an

audience acing his back could interpret.

See JSAH onlinefor a re-creation of Roman

funeral music and ritual

lamentation based on

experimental archaeology.

AH6901_03.indd 22 2/2/10 5:20 PM








The grouping o the spectators on the western side o the

orum also alters the potential symbolic viewsheds, or in this

location the speaker and the audience can share the same de-

ictic reerences to the Temple o Jupiter Optimus Maximus.70

As the procession o the Cornelii began to ll the Comitium

and the surrounding space, a branch o the parade moved up

the slope o the Clivus Capitolinus, in clear view o the major-

ity o the more privileged spectators, those in the cavea to the

west o the Comitium (Figure 11g). Such attendees were

situated well or the upcoming laudatio and could also view

the ceremony that was occurring on top o the Capitoline, in

either the Gjerstad or Stamper reconstruction o the Temple

o Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Even many o those outside the

Comitium would be able to witness the spectacle above. The

value placed on such intervisuality explains why the Cornellii’s

revered ancestor Scipio Aricanus was transported in such a

way that he emerged rom around the corner o the Templeo Saturn, thus clariying the symbolic association. Even the

uneducated (and the non-Latin speakers) would immediately

understand that this relative o the Cornelii’s clan had been

communing with the most powerul god in the city. Perhaps

it was in emulation o the Cornelii’s bold symbolic association

with the Temple o Jupiter Optimus Maximus that the amily

o the novus homo, Marcus Porcius Cato, installed his imago in

the Curia Hostilia, whence it was retrieved during unerary

events.71 This amilial competition would have been not only

symbolic, but spectacular. Rather than remain hidden rom

the audience by the rostra, the imago o Cato would have

emerged rom the Curia in ull view o the parting crowd and would have served as a reminder o this particularly admirable

ancestor (Figure 11h).

Ancient sources note the exceptional uneral choreog-

raphy o the Cornelii. Having two parades enter the orum

certainly drew attention to the event and helped dierentiate

this uneral rom others—a necessary goal given the number

o distractions in the city o Rome. Experiential analysis a-

cilitates a consideration o the link orged between the Cap-

itoline and the orum by the procession. The eect o this

visual connection, in turn, permits reevaluation o the textual

evidence and reconsideration o the conguration o the

event. By emphasizing movement rom the orum up to the Temple o Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the program recalled

the triumphal parade, an association reinorced by the garb-

ing o the actor who wore the mask o Scipio Aricanus in

triumphal regalia. Yet the directional change o the proces-

sion, coming down rom the hill rather than moving up to

the temple, underscored another connection even more

strongly. The amous conqueror o Hannibal was acknowl-

edged by some Romans to be the son o Jupiter, and his u-

neral mask was thus kept in the “residence” o his progenitor.

The parade route rom Jupiter’s temple to the orum sug-

gested a direct connection between Scipio Aricanus, his

descendants, and the great god by highlighting a genetic and

a spectacular topographic descent.72

The visual connection with the Temple o Jupiter was

desirable, but not essential. As the most important shrine in

the Roman world, its appearance was amiliar to all specta-

tors. They did not have to see the connection; the wisps o

smoke, the echoes o processional music, and the entrance o

the cortege rom the direction o the temple were enough to

orge the associations desired by the Cornelii. It is clear,

however, that in one possible conguration most o the audi-

ence could have seen the event on the hill, and that an un-

derstanding o the visual impact o the Cornelii’s procession

helps to clariy the organization o the event below. The

oratorical stage o the mid-Republic prior to 145 BCE was

dierent than that o the rst century, and the earlier con-guration both better accommodates the evidence and better

solves practical logistical problems.

The Imperial Funeral and the Roman Forum

In the imperial era, power was ocused in the hands o single

individuals, but republican traditions and governmental

structures continued, at least supercially.73 Beginning with

the commemorations o Augustus, unerals or the emperors

became iconic, with grand events in the orum. The choreog-

raphy still included a parade and eulogies rom the rostra, but

the ancestors who marched were largely stand-ins, not a col-

lection o genetically related ancestors, but an assembly o amous persons rom Rome’s history. The body o the de-

ceased, too, was oten represented symbolically rather than

actually included. The speeches, like the event in general,

addressed a world audience, since the death marked a change

in state leadership.74

Imperial unerals were characterized by their great size,

magnicence, and especially by the inclusion o participants

and eatures rom throughout the empire.75 At the rostra the

emperor’s body (or its simulacrum) lay on display in a shrine-

like structure recalling the baldachins o Eastern Hellenistic

rulers. The pompa funebris began at the imperial residence on

the Palatine, descended the Clivus Palatinus, then moved intothe orum. While no exhaustive description o an imperial

uneral exists, accounts written around 200 CE provide a

number o visual details about the events in the Forum Ro-

manum. In 193 CE the emperor Septimius Severus organized

a lavish uneral in honor o his predecessor Pertinax and him-

sel was honored by an extravagant event at his death in 211

CE. Cassius Dio gave an eyewitness account o the irst;

Herodian, who resided in Rome during this period, com-

mented on the uneral o Septimius and others o his day.76

AH6901_03.indd 23 2/2/10 5:20 PM








and geographic extent o the Empire. Racehorses and a pano-

ply o uneral gits alluded to the elaborate games to ollow.

The procession climaxed with a portable golden altar be-

decked with ivory and precious stones.

Notably, the actual remains o the deceased were not in

the uneral parade. Pertinax, who had died months earlier

and had been cremated, was represented by a wax egy,dressed in triumphal regalia and placed on view in a small

building with columns o gold and ivory erected atop a tem-

porary stage in ront o the rostra.82 To maintain the ction

o a traditional uneral with a corpse, and to displace the

memory o Pertinax’s bloody beheading, a slave boy waved a

an o peacock eathers as i to keep fies away rom the de-

composing body. The new emperor, now called Lucius Sep-

timius Severus Pertinax, not the deceased’s son, gave the

uneral oration, conrming his role as heir.

A participant in these unerary ceremonies, Cassius Dio

provided a detailed description. Septimius rst moved across

the orum to the speaker’s platorm (Figure 13). Behind him

came Cassius Dio and other senators dressed in somber togas

o mourning; their wives ollowed, having eschewed colorul

garments or respectul white.83 Elite male attendees took

seats in the open air near the Rostra Augusti, where they were visible to all; the women moved to less-exposed loca-

tions out o the sun in the shadowy porticos o the fanking

basilicas.84 In solemn anticipation, the patrician audience

awaited the procession. Hearing a muddled cacophony o

sounds coming rom the walled portion o the sacred road

between the Basilica Aemilia and the Temple o Divus Iulius,

all looked to the southwest. As the uneral parade passed the

podium o the temple the sounds distilled into the distinctive

dirges sung by the unerary chorus that accompanied the

Figure 13 The Roman Forum of 191/92 CE (image by Christopher Johanson; 13a–b © and courtesy of the Regents of the University of California,

the CVRLab, and the Experimental Technologies Center [ETC], UCLA). See JSAH online for a bird’s-eye view of a real-time, three-dimensional

model of the imperial Roman Forum (191/92 CE) set in its geographic context. 13a View from the northwestern corner of the Temple of Divus

Iulius looking toward the Rostra Augusti and Temple of Concord; 13b View looking up at the Rostra Augusti with the Temple of Concord and Tabu-

larium behind. In reality the Temple of Vespasian and Titus to the west had not yet been repaired after being damaged in the re of 191/92 CE

13a 13b

AH6901_03.indd 25 2/2/10 5:20 PM








26 j s a h / 6 9 : 1 , M a r c h 2 0 1 0

statues o viri illustres at the head o the pompa (see Figure

11b).85 From their elevated position, the sculpted representa-

tives o Rome’s history carried alot in the procession looked

directly toward the Temple o Concord, symbol o harmony among the classes, rising majestically behind the rostra (Fig-

ure 13a). As the procession extended into the sunlit open

space, attention was drawn to the egy o the deceased in his

purple robes ensconced in a glittering golden shrine clearly

visible above the heads o the seated senators. Behind this

tableau rose the towering açade o the Tabularium.86

Once the parade had passed the infuential spectators,

Severus mounted the rostra and gave the laudatio with the

statues on the platorm behind him bearing silent witness and

the crowd shouting in approbation.87 The senators seated

near the Rostra Augusti craned their necks upward, their eld

o vision lled by the gesticulating emperor, surrounding

retinue, and statuary (Figure 13b). One can imagine that the

laudatio included gestures toward the Temple o Concord,

where Pertinax had rst met the senate ater being proclaimed

emperor, or to the Temple o Jupiter, where the ather o the

gods would welcome the newest member o the Roman pan-

theon.88 At the end o the speeches the senators proceeded

out o the orum toward the tomb. They marched ahead o

the bier amid beating o breasts and cries o lamentation, with

the emperor and the egy o the deceased ollowing.

Septimius used the uneral o Pertinax to validate his

claim to the throne. Traditional and reverential in nature, the

choreography refected the continuation (or ossilization) o

the established model or unerals, which emphasized the em-

peror as representative o the collective. In Pertinax’s uneral,

participants carried statues representing illustres viri rom

Rome’s history, not the illustrious ancestors o the deceased.

The staging refected the realities o the imperial govern-

ment, assigning the senators to a more symbolic and passive

role than that played by their republican predecessors. They

sat as spectators awaiting the action and responded on cue

with moans and lamentations. A hint o their attitude is given

in an aside by Cassius Dio about the eulogy by Septimius:

“We shouted our approval many times in the course o his

address, now praising and now lamenting Pertinax, but our

shouts were loudest when he concluded.”89 The orum provided a amiliar, history-laden background or the action.

Once in power, Septimius Severus and his wie Julia

Domna began to imprint their identity on the Forum Roma-

num.90 Among the sculpted monuments that they added was

a large equestrian statue, the Equus Severi, which recalled

the equestrian statue o Marcus Aurelius whom Septimius

also claimed as his ather.91 In the southern orum they re-

paired various structures ravaged by an earlier re in 191/192

CE.92 Arming her role as matrona and wie o the pontifexmaximus, Julia Domna assumed responsibility or rebuilding

the Temple o Vesta.93 At the opposite end o the urban space

Septimius and his sons restored the Temple o Vespasian and

added an inscription commemorating their work. Honoric

columns placed on top o the rostra date to the Severan pe-

riod as well (Figure 14).94

These interventions paled beside the addition o a mag-

nicent new arch. Signicantly, this was the rst large, com-

plete building added to the central area o the orum since

the Temple o Divus Iulius over a century earlier.95 In 202

CE Septimius celebrated the tenth anniversary o his reign

(decennalia) and returned rom successul eastern campaigns

against the Arabs, Parthians, and Adiabeneans. He declined

a triumph, but along with his sons was voted an arch by the

senate and people o Rome completed by 203 CE.96 The

massive monument still stands north o the Rostra Augusti,

near the Comitium, a spot chosen in part to arm the locus

o a prescient dream o Septimius (Figure 15).97 The inscrip-

tion honored the emperor as “Pertinax” and “son o Mar-

cus” or having achieved “the restoration o the state and the

extension o the empire.”98 Detailed relies recounting the

successul campaigns embellished the two acades, and an

impressive sculptural display o the emperor in a chariot

fanked by his sons originally stood atop the monument

Figure 14 Oration relief from the Arch of Constantine depicting the Rostra Augusti with columns. Behind rise the Basilica Iulia and Arch of Tiberius

and Basilica Iulia on the left, and the Arch of Septimius Severus on the right

AH6901_03.indd 26 2/2/10 5:20 PM









(Figure 16). The style and complex iconography o the

carvings and sculpture have been thoroughly explored.99

The monument was obviously a counterpoint to the

arch located southwest o the rostra, which Tacitus described

as propter aedem Saturni .100 That memorial celebrated the

Germanic successes o the emperor Tiberius, who was also

strongly associated with Parthia.101 A third Parthian memory

was evoked by the Arch o Augustus that fanked the Templeo Divus Iulius. The large size o the new Severan arch, and

the inclusion o stairs in the central opening, impeded ve-

hicular access to the Rostra Augusti and Clivus Capitolinus

thereby necessitating adjustments to the area, including the

reworking o the surrounding paving and the street ap-

proaching rom the east.102

Case Study 3: The Funeral of Septimius Severus

In 211 Septimius died in Eboricum (York) at the age o sixty-

six. His wie and their two sons Caracalla and Geta brought

his ashes to Rome and placed them in the Mausoleum o

Hadrian. Herodian records that an egy o the dead em-

peror was ashioned out o wax and laid atop an ivory couch

displayed beore the imperial residence.103 For seven days

doctors attended the egy beore proclaiming him ocially

dead; an apotheosis ceremony ollowed shortly. Dressed in

purple, the combative sons o Septimius led the uneral pro-

cession down rom the Palatine and into the orum. Es-

teemed young senators and equestrians ollowed, carrying

the ersatz corpse to the Rostra Augusti. The voices o women

garbed in white rang out rom temporary bleachers on one

side o the “body,” those o children similarly dressed rose

rom bleachers rom the other side.

Such a generalized description only partially conveys

the symbolic and physical complexities o the processional

experience. The insertion o the Arch o Septimius Severus

into the orum substantially altered movement along the

main imperial processional route, advancing straight romthe Temple o Divus Iulius along the ront the Basilica

Aemilia northwest toward the Severan arch.104 The stairs on

the southeast side o the monument prevented the choreog-

raphy o wheeled trac passing through the dynastic arch.

Instead, the elite participants in the uneral procession were

now compelled to leave their vehicles and walk uphill

through the arch to approach the rear stairs o the rostra, or

to climb to the rostra by means o temporary wooden stairs

on the ront; the latter was perhaps the better alternative.105

Alternative 1: Entry North of the Temple of Divus Iulius

Two possible scenarios can be suggested or the parade chore-

ography (Figure 17). According to the rst, the procession

entered the orum along the north side o the Temple o Divus

Iulius (Figure 17a). Ater passing the temple’s fank, wheeled

vehicles lined up in ront o the Basilica Aemilia or parked

temporarily in one o the side streets (Argiletum or Clivus

Argentarius). The new co-emperors Geta and Caracalla, as

well as others who needed to ascend the rostra, walked

through the Severan arch, turned let along the Clivus Capi-

tolinus, and then climbed the curved stairs o the Rostra

Figure 15 Reconstruction model of the Arch of Septimius Severus;

the surmounting bronze sculptures of the emperor and his sons arenot shown (image © and courtesy of the Regents of the University

of Ca lifornia, the CVRLab, and the Experimental Technologies Center

[ETC], UCLA). See JSAH online for an analogous view keyed to a real-

time, three-dimensional model set in its geographic context

Figure 16 Arch of Septimius Severus as it appears today (photograph

by Diane Favro). (See JSAH online for an analogous view keyed to a

real-time, three-dimensional model set in its geographic context)

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28 j s a h / 6 9 : 1 , M a r c h 2 0 1 0

17a 17b 17c

Figure 17 Roman Forum of 211 CE. Alternative 1 ( image © and courtesy of the Regents of the University of California, the CVRLab, and the Exper-

imental Technologies Center [ETC], UCLA) . See JSAH online for a bird’s-eye view of a real-time, three-dimensional model of the imperial Roman

Forum (211 CE) set in its geographic context. 17aView from in front of the Basilica Aemilia looking toward the Rostra Augusti and Arch of Septimius

Severus (17 a–c: images © and courtesy of the Regents of the University of California, the CVRLab, and the Experimental Technologies Center

[ETC], UCLA); 17b View of the Rostra Augusti from the north side of the Arch of Septimius Severus in front of the Temple of Concord; 17c View

from in front of the Temple of Saturn toward the Rostra Augusti and Arch of Septimius Severus

Augusti (Figure 17b). This choreography, however, was not

ideal, since it hid these notables rom the audience’s view or

a signicant amount o time at a key moment in the event. A

temporary wooden stairway may have provided direct access

to the rostra ront or to an adjacent temporary stage such as

that constructed or the uneral o Pertinax.106 Other parade

participants dispersed into the crowd that gathered behind

the senators who, dressed in black, congregated (or sat) be-

ore the rostra. Alternatively, the parade may have passed

beore the ront o the rostra and then around the southwest

end o the speaker’s platorm to reach the stairs at the rear

(Figure 17c).

Alternative 2: Entry South of the Temple of Divus Iulius

It is also possible that the parade entered the orum on the

southwestern side o the Temple o Divus Iulius moving

through the Arch o Augustus and then along the road in

ront o the Basilica Iulia (Figure 18).107 Following this path

the procession turned right in ront o Tiberius’s arch

(viewed to the let between the basilica and the Temple o

Saturn), to approach the rear stairs o the Rostra Augusti.

Elite participants mounted the platorm, later rejoining the

unerary retinue gathered below or the march to the

tomb.108

The kinetic viewsheds along these two possible proces-

sional routes dier signicantly. Each aected the parade

participants by drawing their attention to dierent reerents.

The rst processional route along the Basilica Aemilia o-

ered internal views o the orum. The Temple o Jupiter

Optimus Maximus, which had loomed above the smaller,

more recessed basilicas fanking the orum in the mid-repub-

lic, was now hidden rom view by the towering verticality o

the enormous Basilica Iulia. The Arch o Septimius Severus

directly ahead dened the end o the imperial Sacra Via, its

ront-acing billboard-like açade celebrating not only the

emperor’s military successes, but also the dynasty he estab-

lished (see Figure 17a).109 As they moved arther into the

orum, the imperial heirs at the head o the cortege would

have been drawn toward the rostra, attracted in part by the

mournul songs and white robes o the singers on the

AH6901_03.indd 28 2/2/10 5:20 PM












Figure 18 Roman Forum of 211 CE. Alternative 2. See JSAH online for a bird’s-eye view of a real-time, three-dimensional model of the imperial

Roman Forum (211 CE) set in its geographic context (18a–e: images © and courtesy of the Regents of the University of California, the CVRLab, and

the Experimental Technologies Center [ETC], UCLA). 18a View through the Arch of Augustus looking toward the Basilica Iulia and the Temple of

Saturn; 18b View from in front of the Basilica Iulia. Beyond the Temple of Saturn rises that of Vespasian and Titus, with the Severan inscription

(see inset); 18c View from the south corner of the Rostra Augusti looking north toward the Arch of Septimius Severus with “parthico” inscription;

18d View from the balcony of the Basilica Iulia looking north toward the Arch of Septimius Severus with the statue of Trajan atop his honoric column

visible in the distance; 18e View from in front of the Rostra Augusti looking up toward the Arch of Septimius Severus

18c 18d 18e

18b

18a

AH6901_03.indd 29 2/2/10 5:21 PM








30 j s a h / 6 9 : 1 , M a r c h 2 0 1 0

bleachers. The sea o black-garbed senators in ront o the

choir provided a neutral base above which they could see the

honoric columns erected by Septimius on the rostra, the

Temple o Saturn housing the state treasury, and arther

back, the Temple o Vespasian restored by the deceased.

I the pompa funebris ollowed the second route, entering

the orum through the Arch o Augustus south o the Temple

o Divus Iulius, however, a related but dierent panorama o

imperial imagery unolded beore the viewer. Those who

passed along the road in ront o the Basilica Iulia would have

aced the Temple o Vespasian; the Temple o Saturn partially

blocked the view o the acade, leaving visible a potent word

in the lowest line: severus (Figure 18b).110 The visually and

programmatically rich Rostra Augusti to the right would

soon draw their gaze, with the broad Temple o Concord

rising behind, evoking Severan claims o state and dynastic

harmony. Simultaneously the great Severan arch loomed toward the north.111 In act, to view the rostra rom this route

demanded that one view the arch as well. Although too dis-

tant to be read in detail, the great panels on the arch evoked

the well-known spiral narratives on the columns o Trajan

and Marcus Aurelius (Figure 18c). This association was re-

inorced or viewers on the southwest side o the orum in

ront o the Basilica Julia; ar in the distance they could see

Trajan’s statue atop his column (Figure 18d).112 Moving to-

ward the rostra this visual link was soon obstructed by the

impressive Severan arch (Figure 18e).

Following the disruptions that preceded his accession to

power, Septimius had been anxious to secure his position by associations with revered past dynasties and to lay the

groundwork or uture stability.113 By erecting his monument

ater a long hiatus in new building additions to the orum, he

established a clear association with earlier Julio-Claudian

projects. The Severan arch responds directly to the Arch o

Augustus that stood diagonally across the orum, south o the

Temple o Divus Iulius, and which similarly honored suc-

cesses in Parthia.114 Just as Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, and Lu-

cius Verus, Septimius was given the name Parthicus. A

literate observer viewing the unerary events at the rostra

would doubtless note the bronze inscription parthico re-

peated on the upper corners o the arch attic. Like the tri-level relie, the reerence was a verbal extension o the

Column o Trajan in the distance (see Figure 18d). Whereas

the column depicted the Dacian conquest, the arch reminded

knowledgeable viewers that Trajan’s Parthian conquest was

short-lived and that it was Septimius Severus who ultimately

completed the task begun years beore. The recorded date

or Severus’s Parthian triumph was 28 January 198 CE, the

same day as the dies imperii o Trajan (when he was ocially

proclaimed emperor in 98 CE, one hundred years earlier).115

The views o the arch observed by the procession were

compelling, suggesting that the monument was specically

designed to interact with the uneral, a hypothesis that requires

a urther investigation o its place in imperial history. The death

o an emperor always entailed great diculties, and it was Au-

gustus who rst decided to plan ahead in monumental ashion.

As early as 28 BCE, in his sixth consulship, Octavian, not yet

Augustus, established a dynastic unerary tradition by building

a monumental amily tomb, the so-called Mausoleum.116 But

it was much more. In name and orm it recalled unerary mon-

uments o the east and in so doing advertised his victory, oper-

ating as a Mausoleum-Tropaeum, a “tomb and trophy.”117

In the rst century CE Domitian erected a commemo-

rative arch or his elder brother, the emperor Titus, south-

east o the orum. Although not specically celebrating a

triumph, the memorial drew upon triumphal associations,

while simultaneously underscoring dynastic continuity andreminding viewers o the donor’s quasi-divine status as

brother o a god. Celebrating the achievements o the de-

ceased, the arch echoes the unerary practice o presenting

a res gestae (list o accomplishments).118

While the unerary unction o the Arch o Titus is ques-

tionable, that o the Column o Trajan is not. Whether it was

envisioned as a tomb rom the beginning, this memorial o

the successul Dacian campaign certainly unctioned as one

when Trajan’s ashes were placed within a chamber in the

base.119 The Arch o Septimius Severus ollows the tradition

started with these imperial memorials. It was built as a tri-

umphal trophy, but this unction was compromised by thestairs on the orum side, which prevented a triumphing gen-

eral in his gilded chariot rom passing through the central

opening. The arch also served specic propagandistic pur-

poses: it was both an advertisement or dynastic continuity

and a visual res gestae in the style o the Column o Trajan.120

During the Republic, Romans visually represented con-

tinuity by parading their revered ancestors rom various

centuries. Roman emperors continued to honor illustrious

predecessors with displays o the state’s viri illustres at their

unerals. On other days o the year, they relied on orged

visual connections among imperial monuments, especially

among unerary memorials, to arm their ties to past rulers.For example, an elite observer who climbed the Column o

Marcus Aurelius exited the door on top to ace the mausolea

o Augustus and Hadrian.121 While no ancient reerences

describe exactly who was allowed to ascend to such heights

and see the visual lines that were drawn between Rome’s

imperial unerary monuments, the architectural accommo-

dation o such elite viewing arms its signicance.

The Arch o Septimius Severus participated in similar

visual interconnectivity. An internal stair led to chambers in

AH6901_03.indd 30 2/2/10 5:21 PM








the attic and to an external walkway at the same level protected

by a metal balustrade.122 From this vantage point, a privileged

imperial observer had a view over the entire Forum Roma-

num, a panorama almost on a par with that seen by the gods.

He could easily observe the Arch o Titus to the southeast and

the Column o Trajan to the north. However, his view o the

Temple o Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline was

ragmentary and oblique (Figure 19). Ater all, since that tem-

ple had originated in the Republic and undergone numerous

rebuildings by various patrons, it did not belong among the

visually interconnected imperial memorials that honored in-

dividuals and dynasties. Looking up at the Severan arch, mor-tal observers in the orum might have seen a live gure moving

along the narrow elevated walkway at a height associated with

the divinities who were represented in nearby temple pedi-

ments. In act, spectators who were standing at the north cor-

ner o the Basilica Aemilia’s upper portico saw the pediment

o the Temple o Concord rising above and behind the arch to

rame the triumphal chariot atop the arch (Figure 20).123 Un-

ortunately, there is no inormation revealing which Romans

could enjoy this potent prospect, or their reactions.

The Arch o Septimius Severus continued the tradition

o Mausoleum-Tropaeum begun by the Mausoleum o Augus-

tus and extended the visual web o associations woven by thecommemorative columns o Trajan and Marcus Aurelius. Yet

with his arch the so-called son o Marcus went urther than

his predecessors, boldly imposing his memorial on the rituals

held in the orum. The Arch o Septimius dictated the cho-

reography o uture triumphal processions and dominated

the viewshed o those who participated in and observed the

unerary parade. While these conclusions could be made by

analyzing a plan o the orum, the three-dimensional model-

ing o the arch in its imperial setting has made the signicance

o the siting and program ully comprehensible. In particular,

the orientation o the arch approximately parallel to the rostra

is seen to have created a ormal tableau that concretized the

status-associated rontal view appreciated by the Romans.

The result is evident in a relie on the Arch o Constantine

(see Figure 14). The artist shows the emperor perorming an

oratio rom atop the rostra, fanked by the Arch o Tiberius to

the let and the Arch o Septimius to the right. The two impe-

rial memorials orm potent bookends that eliminate the need

to represent other buildings.124 Signicantly, the Basilica Iulia

is added to this panorama, an armation o both the build-

ing’s impact on the peripheral vision o Roman spectators,and the artist’s need to counterbalance the scale and power o

the large Arch o Septimius.

Conclusion

Computer visualizations replete with movement, sound,

light, and other eatures are changing the way we think about

reconstructions. A digital laboratory acilitates experimenta-

tion by allowing consideration o alternative reconstructions

o both human actions and the environments in which they

occur. In creating digital reconstructions o events and places,

scholars can yoke together disjointed archaeological sites intoa holistic environment, united by a common coordinate sys-

tem. The experimental insertion o ritual events in these

environments can restore human activity to the context it

once inhabited. Although the topographical picture and the

granularity o the reconstructed evidence have changed, the

means o reinterpretation is the same. The exploration o a

historical event within its context and the reading o the

interrelationship among reconstructed digital orms that are

tied to more scientically accurate topography can give rise

Figure 19 View from walkway on the Arch of Septimius Severus toward

the Capitoline (image © and courtesy of the Regents of the University of

California, the CVRLab, and the Experimental Technologies Center [ETC],

UCLA). See JSAH online for an analogous view keyed to a real-time,

three-dimensional model set in its geographic context

Figure 20 View from upper portico of the Basilica Aemilia looking

toward the Arch of Septimius Severus and Temple of Concord (images

© and courtesy of the Regents of the University of California, the CVR-

Lab, and the Experimental Technologies Center [ETC], UCLA). See

JSAH online for an analogous view keyed to a real-time, three-dimen-

sional model set in its geographic context

AH6901_03.indd 31 2/2/10 5:21 PM









32 j s a h / 6 9 : 1 , M a r c h 2 0 1 0

to new questions and conclusions. The visualization o his-

torical phenomena temporally and topographically prompts,

in turn, the reassessment o literary and material evidence.

The digital recreations are not post-research presentations,

but integral research tools.125

The study o digital experiential models o the Forum

Romanum during the mid-Republic period conrms the

clear visual interconnection between the Capitoline Temple

o Jupiter Optimus Maximus and the Comitium. The inter-

active reconstructions also demonstrate the striking concur-

rence between textual allusions to the oratorical stage and

the schematic, reconstructed topography. An enriched inter-

pretation o the spectacle is the result. The contextualized,

three-dimensional analysis o viewsheds underscores the

Cornelii’s exploitation o sight lines between Jupiter’s temple

above and the ceremonial actions below, inorming the much

discussed question o speaker orientation.For scholars o the high imperial period, immersive

digital models acilitate the testing o hypotheses regarding

buildings, topography, and processions. The consideration o

events in situ illustrates how the Romans choreographed their

processions to exploit the scale, orientation, sequencing, and

symbolic associations o structures and places. The Severan

building program in the orum reocused uneral activities. Its

architecture, inscribed propagandistic texts, and sculptural

program redirected both the processional route and the gaze

o the audience and participants. The result was an imperial

panorama that reied the res gestae o the emperor and con-

rmed through visual associationism the symbolic connectionbetween the deceased and revered earlier rulers.

Notes We would like to thank Hilary Ba llon, David Brownlee, the Society o

Architectural Historians, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation or the

opportunity to publish born-digital research in the rst online issue o the

JSAH . Abbreviations o ancient sources and related texts ollow Simon

Hornblower and Antony Spaworth, ed. The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxord: Oxord University Press, 1996), xxxix–liv.

1. Egon Flaig, Ritualisierte Politik: Zeichen, Gesten und Herrschaft im Alten Rom. Historische Semantik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003), vol.

1, 49–68. Polybius specically cited the wearing o ancestral masks and giv-

ing eulogies at unerals as evidence o Roman superiority; Polyb. 6.52–54;see also Sallust Iug. 4.5–6; the merits o various orms o symbolic capital are

discussed in Sallust Iug. 85, passim.

2. For a broad overview o Roman unerary practices see J . M. C. Toynbee,

Death and Burial in the Roman World (London: Thames & Hudson, 1971),

43–64; or unerary spectacles see Keith Hopkins, Death and Renewal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 201–56; or the use o

ancestral imagery see Harriet Flower, Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (Oxord: Clarendon Press, 1996), 91–158.

3. The most detailed analysis o the experience o the Roman uneral is ound

in John Bodel, “Death on Display: Looking at Roman Funerals,” inThe Art of Ancient Spectacle, ed. Bettina Ann Bergmann and Christine Kondoleon

(Washington D.C.: National Gallery o Art, 1999), 259–80; and Javier Arce,

Memoria De Los Antepasados: Puesta En Escena y Desarrollo del Elogio Funebre Romano (Madrid: Electa, 2000).

4. The major modern works on unerals o the emperors are by Javier Arce,

Funus Imperatorum: los funerales de los emperadores romanos (Madrid: Alianza,

1990); Paul Zanker, Die Apotheose Der Römischen Kaiser: Ritual Und StädtischeBühne (Munich: Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stitung, 2004); and S. R. F

Price, “From Noble Funerals to Divine Cult: the Consecration o Roman

Emperors,” in Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies ,ed. David Cannadine and S. R. F. Price (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1987), 56–105. The distinction between unerals at public expense

( funus publicum) and other privately unded events, as well as the process or

allowing unerals in the Forum Romanum, remains uncertain.

5. The real- time digita l models o the Forum Romanum used in these

analyses were created at UCLA over a number o years; http://www.etc.ucla.

edu. This study conta ins two distinct types o models , each built with

related, but not entirely similar, goals and methodologies. The two types are

clearly distinguished by surace material. The ully textured, highly detailed

models showing imperial Rome in the ourth century CE were developed

in a multi-university project directed by Bernie Frischer and Diane Favro;the construction o the models was overseen by Dean Abernathy initially at

UCLA and later at the University o Virginia. For a ull list o participants

and data, see http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Forum . Scholarly scientic

committees vetted each building reconstruction. The original models were

rebuilt by Itay Zaharovits (UCLA ETC), Steven Guban (UCLA ETC), Tom

Beresord (UCLA ETC), and Brendan Beachler (UCLA ETC) under the

direction o Christopher Johanson (UCLA) in order to urther rene the

geographical accuracy o the models and to accommodate the demands o

internet-based distribution. The schematic, textureless models depicting

republican Rome were based on the doctoral research o Johanson, who

oversaw development by Tom Beresord (UCLA ETC) and Kathryn Fallat

(UCLA ETC); Philip Stinson (University o Kansas) worked on sections o

an initial investigation o the Curia and Comitium complex.

A graphic representation is a bearer o meaning. In creating the mod-els o the Forum Romanum, two general operating principles were imple-

mented. First was the decision to convey the level o evidence on which it is

based through graphical means. Since data or the orum in the republican

period is limited and oten controversial, the buildings are depicted as sim-

ple masses without detail. The models represent possible, but not denitive

reconstructions o the orm and location o individual monuments. In con-

trast, the richer archaeological and textual inormation or the imperial

period allows (i not encourages) a higher level o detail, including material

textures and colors and architectural details and inscriptions, as well as

increased specicity about building heights. The result has a greater sense

o verisimilitude, but is consciously mediated by the second operating prin-

ciple. The modeling team members decided not to aim or a hyperrealistic

digital representation. Instead, they conceptualized the digital reconstruc-

tion models as knowledge representations based on documented archaeo-logical inormation, period-specic analogs, and valid secondary inormation

such as Renaissance drawings o lost building components. Features that

cannot be recreated or located with c ertainty are not included. At times

technological and resource limitations restricted development. Thus there

are ew statues, no people, little vegetation, and no grati; building suraces

do not show age or wear. Structures whose orm and placement are contro-

versial are not shown. The result occupies a precarious position between the

hyperrealistic renderings amiliar rom contemporary lms, with historic

environments recreated in toto, and rigorously documented archaeological

reconstructions oten depicted as a sanitized (i inormative) line drawings

without textures or color.

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http://www.etc.ucla.edu./



http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Forum




http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Forum






6. For well-executed line drawings o the reconstructed orum see those by

Elizabeth H. Riorden in John E. Stambaugh, The Ancient Roman City (Bal-

timore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988); Cairoli Fulvio Giuliani and

Patrizia Verduchi, L’area centrale del Foro Romano (Florence: L.S. Olschki,

1987), 163, g. 233. For a discussion and bibliography o two- and three-

dimensional reconstructions o ancient Rome, see Lothar Haselberger,

“Mapping Augustan Rome: Introduction to an Experiment,” in Mapping Augustan Rome, ed. Elisha Ann Dumser, Journal of Roman Archaeology, suppl.

series 50 (2002), 9–28. Zanker’s infuential book Forum Romanum: Die Neug-estaltung durch Augustus considered over six hundred years o the orum’s

history, but provided only two reconstructions or the Imperial period: a

simplied black-and-white sketch and a tightly cropped photograph o the

amous plaster model o Rome at the time o Constantine built at approxi-

mately 1:250 scale; Forum Romanum: Die Neugestaltung durch Augustus (Tübingen: E. Wasmuth, 1972).

7. It is only in rare cases that researchers possess the technical and scientic

skills to execute complex restoration drawings, models, or ull-scale building

reconstructions; Fikret Yegül and Tristan Couch, “Building a Roman Bath

or the Cameras,” Journal of Roman Archaeology16, no. 1 (2003), 153–77.

8. Diane Favro, “In the Eyes o the Beholder: VR Urban Models and Aca-demia,” Journal of Roman Archaeology, suppl. series 61 (2006), 321–34.

9. The most deta iled description o the Roman uneral remains Polybius

(6.52–54) who was writing in the rst hal o the second century BCE. His

aim, however, was not to describe the uneral; rather he used certain aspects

o the uneral institution as examples to illustrate why Romans are braver

than their Carthaginian oes.

10. Flower, Ancestor Masks , 97.

11. Graham Zanker, Modes of Viewing in Hellenistic Poetry and Art (Madison:

University o Wisconsin Press, 2004). In the Roman unerary context, the

patron (the amily o the deceased) may have prevented the representation

o buildings in the orum because they were associated with other clans.

12. Catharine Edwards, Writing Rome: Textual Approaches to the City (Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Andrews Burnett, “Buildings

and Monuments on Roman Coins,” in Roman Coins and Public Life under the Empire: E. Togo Salmon Papers II,ed. George Paul and Michael Ierardi (Ann

Arbor: University o Michigan Press, 1999).

13. Diana Kleiner, Roman Sculpture(New Haven, Yale University Press, 1992),

248–50; Mario Torelli, Lexicon Topigraphicum Urbis Romae ( LTUR), ed. Eva

Margareta Steinby (Rome: Quasar, 1999) vol. 4, 95–96. The building identi-

cations are or the most part agreed upon by scholars, though the arch depicted

on the Debt Burning relie remains variously identied either as the Arch o

Tiberius equated with the arch joining the Basilica Iulia and Temple o Saturn

over the Vicus Iugarius or as an unveried arch on the Clivus Capitolinus. A

procession o sacricial animals (the souvetaurilia)is carved on the back o each

relie which led early restorers to place the Analgypha as opposing balustrades

atop the rostra; however, the archaeological evidence is inconclusive.

14. The Rostra Augusti was a speaker’s platorm usually reserved or popu-

lar assemblies, political campaigning, and imperial rituals. In the Julio-Claudian age it was common or speeches to be delivered across the orum,

with the emperor on the platorm a t the Temple o Divus Iulius and the

presumptive heir on the Rostra Augusti as at the unerals o Octavia Maior

and Augustus; Dio Cass. 54.35.5; Suet. Aug . 100. The depiction o Roman

speakers atop a simplied dias was an established artistic trope and in these

relies substitutes or a more realistic representation o the rostra.

15. On the Debt Burning relie the Temple o Castor and Pollux and the

Basilica Iulia are accurately sited in relation to one another. The Temple o

Saturn is shown in alignment, but actually juts ar orward; the Temple o

Vespasian and Titus is also aligned rontally, though in the orum it sits at

right angles to the other buildings depicted.

16. The ollowing interpretation o the building depictions on the Anagly-

pha relies runs contra to Richardson’s proposal that their placement was

arbitrary; Lawrence Richardson Jr., A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 292–93.

17. Visuality reers to the cultural constitution o vision. While the concept

o the period eye has been explored or post-antique painting and artwork,

it has only recently been considered in relation to Roman architecture,

urban design, and processional events. Paul Zanker wisely cautions scholars

not to over generalize by imaging ancient viewers are imbued with the

knowledge o all antiquity, rather than the specics o a particular period,

class, and gender; “In Search o the Roman Viewer,” inThe Interpretation of Architectural Sculpture in Greece and Rome,ed. Dianna Buitron-Oliver (Wash-

ington, D.C.: National Gallery o Art, 1997), 179; Diane Favro, “Ancient

Rome through the Veil o Sight,” in Sites Unseen: Landscape and Vision, ed.

Dianne Harris and Dede Ruggles (Pittsburgh: University o Pittsburgh

Press, 2007), 111–30; Diane Favro, “The Festive Experience: Roman Pro-

cessions in the Urban Context,” in Festival Architecture,ed. Sarah Bonnemai-

son and Christine Macy (New York: Routledge, 2007), 10–42.

18. De arch. 4.5.1. Vitruvius also told architects to locate altars “on a lower

level than the statues in the temples, so that those who are praying andsacricing may look upwards towards the divinity;” De arch. 4.9.

19. Gregory S. Aldrete, Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome (Baltimore:

The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999); Richard Brilliant, Gesture and Rank in Roman Art: The Use of Gestures to Denote Status in Roman Sculptureand Coinage (New Haven: The Academy, 1963).

20. Roman statues could depict both deceased and living people. The numer-

ous sculpted works in Rome ormed a second population, as evident in a uner-

ary relie showing the deceased shaking hands with a sculpture; Kleiner, RomanSculpture, 236. In republican-period uneral processions the actors or amily

members wearing ancestral masks imitated motionless statues in chariots; by

the time o the Principate actors were more animated, interacting directly with

the audience; Jörg Rüpke, “Triumphator and Ancestor Rituals: Between Sym-

bolic Anthropology and Magic,” Numen 53, no. 3 (2006), 251–89.

21. Especially infuential in architectural and urban design circles wereDonald Appleyard, Kevin Lynch, and John Myer, The View from the Road (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1964); and Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City

(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1960). The diagrams and notational systems

explored in these works, however, did not gain wide popularity. In a ew cases

these representational strategies were applied to the analysis o historical

environments, but generally by practitioners, not historians; G. E. Kidder

Smith, Italy Builds: Its Modern Architecture and Native Inheritance(New York:

Reinhold, 1955); Rob Krier, Urban Space, trans. Christine Czechowski and

George Black (New York: Rizzoli, 1979).

22. Heinrich Drerup, “Bildraum und Realraum in der römischen Architek-

tur,” Römische Mitteilungen66 (1959), 145–74; Daniela Corlita Scagliarini,

“Spazio e decorazione nella pittura pompeiana,”Palladio 23–25 (1974–76),

3–44; Lise Bek, “Towards Paradise on Earth: Modern Space Conception in

Architecture, a Creation o Renaissance Humanism,” Analecta romana Istituti Danici , suppl. 9 (Rome, 1980); Franz Jung “Gebaute Bilder,” Antike Kunst 17 (1984) 71–122; John R. Clarke, Houses of Roman Italy, 100 B.C.–A.D. 250: Ritual, Space, and Decoration(Berkeley: University o Caliornia Press, 1991),

1–77; Bettina Bergmann, “The Roman House as Memory Theater: The

House o the Tragic Poet in Pompeii,” Art Bulletin 76, no. 2 ( June 1994),

225–56. For consideration o urban sightlines see Francesca Bocchi, “Nuove

metodologie per la storia delle citt: La citt in quattro dimensioni,” in

Medieval Metropolises , Proceedings o the Congress o Atlas Working Group,

ed. Francesca Bocchi (Bologna: Gras, 1999), 11–28; S. J. R. Ellis, “The

Distribution o Bars at Pompeii: Archaeological, Spatial and Viewshed

Analysis,” Journal of Roman Archeology17, no. 1 (2004), 371–84.

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34 j s a h / 6 9 : 1 , M a r c h 2 0 1 0

23. Diane Favro, “Reading the Augustan City,” in Narrative and Event in Ancient Art , ed. Peter Holliday (New York: Cambridge University Press,

1993), 230–57; Michael Koortbojian, “ In Commemorationem Mortuorum:

Text a nd Ima ge Along the ‘Streets o Tombs’“ in Art and Text in RomanCulture, ed. Ja´ s Elsner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

24. The domestic architecture preserved around the Bay o Naples is the most

common subject o kinetic, as well as stationary, visual analyses, though

research is expanding; Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); G. P. Earl,

“Wandering the House o the Birds: Reconstruction and Perception at Roman

Italica,” The 6th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology

and Cultural Heritage VAST (2005), http://public-repository.epoch-net.org/

publications/VAST2005/shortpapers/short1056.pd (accessed 30 July, 2007).

Fixed sightline analysis is problematic or ancient processional events where

the audience members, as well as the parade participants, were requently in

motion; Favro, “The Festive Experience,” 10–42.

25. Research on the senses in historical contexts is expanding in tandem with a

surge o publications about sensorial contemporary architecture; Michael Bene-

dikt, “Coming to Our Senses,” Harvard Design Magazine26 (Spring/Summer

2007), 83–91. For example, olactory stimuli are mentioned or the Romanuneral (specically the need or perumes to mask the smell o death), but such

discussions rarely consider the architectural context; Herodian 4.2; Constance

Classen, Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell (London: Routledge, 1994), 13–50.

26. In eect, illustrations are used to present ndings o research rather than

operating as part o the research; Diane Favro, “The Street Triumphant:

The Urban Impact o Roman Triumphal Parades” inStreets: Critical Perspec-tives on Public Space, ed. Zeynep Çelik, Diane Favro, and Richard Ingersoll

(Berkeley: University o Caliornia Press, 1994) 151–64.

27. Seamless access to archaeological and modeling data about a digital

reconstruction is essential. Experiments are underway to make the veracity

parameters o reconstructions evident either graphically (e.g., digital water-

marks) or with accompanying graphs (e.g. veracity sliders); Kim Veltman,

“Developments and Challenges in Digital Culture,”Proceedings of the Moscow

EVA Conference (Moscow: Russian Ministry o Culture, 2001), http://www.sumscorp.com/articles/pd/2001%20Developments%20in%20Digital%20

Culture.pd (accessed 30 June 2007); John Pollini, “The Problematics o

Making Ambiguity Explicit in Virtual Reconstructions: A Case Study o the

Mausoleum o Augustus,” abstract, http://www.chart.ac.uk/ 21st Annual

Conerence o CHArt: Computers and the History o Art http://www.chart.

ac.uk/chart2005/abstracts/pollini.htm (accessed 30 June 2007).

28. Such phenomenological experiments acknowledge a greater scholarly

comort level today with uzzy logic and indeterminacy.

29. Oliver Grau, Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersiontranslated by Gloria

Custance (Cambridge MIT Press, 2003), 25–26.

30. For short reerences to uneral processions o the middle and late Repub-

lic period, see Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 5.17.2; 11.39.55; Horace, Serm. 1.6.43;

Plutarch, Lucul.43. For the speech on the rostra see Polybius 6.53.1; “in oro,”

Cicero, De Orat . 11.84.341; the ancient sources are collected in Friedrich Vollmer, “Laudationum unebrium Romanorum historia et reliquiarum edi-

tio,” in Jahrbücher für classische Philologie, Suppl. (1891), 445–528.

31. The crowd may have already gathered in the orum since, by the late

Republic, some unerals were announced in advance; see Cic.de Leg. 2.24.61.

32. Court cases did not adjourn or a unerary parade; Cic. De Or . 2.225. To

compensate, unerals were loud; see Horace Sat . 1.6.42–44 where an orator is

said to have such a loud voice that he could drown out three concurrent unerals.

33. The housing situation or Roman senators is examined in J. P. Guilhembet,

“Les résidences urbaines des sénateurs romains des Gracques Auguste: La

maison dans la ville,” L’Information historique58, no. 5 (1996), 185–97. Useul

case studies are Steven M. Cerutti, “The Location o the Houses o Cicero and

Clodius and the Porticus Catuli on the Palatine Hill in Rome” American Jour-nal of Philology 118, no. 3 (1997), 417–26; M. Medri, “Fonti letterarie e onti

archeologiche: un conronto possibile su M. Emilio Scauro il Giovane, la sua

domus magnica e il theatrum opus maximum omnium,” Mélanges d’archéologieet d’histoire de l’École française de Rome 109, no. 1 (1997), 83–110; E. Papi,

“Domus est quae nulli villarum mearum cedat (Cic. Epist . 5.6.18). Osservazioni

sulle residenze del Palatino alla met del I secolo a.C.,” in Horti romani: atti del convegno internazionale, Roma, 4–6 maggio 1995 , ed. Maddalena Cima and Euge-

nio La Rocca (Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 1995), 45–67. The exact

route o the Sacra Via is controversial. Some scholars argue the name reers to

a processional path rather than to a specic street, a distinction that is sup-

ported by the discrepancies between the textual and archaeological evidence,

and by changes in denition over time, most specically ater the re o Nero;

Filippo Coarelli, LTUR, vol. 4, 223–28; Richardson, New Topographical Diction-ary, 338–40. Debates over the pre-Neronian route are explored by Adam

Ziolkowski in Sacra Via: Twenty Years after , Journal of Juristic Papyrology Supple-ments 3 (Warsaw: Fundacja im. Raała Taubenschlaga, 2004).

34. Possible but not necessarily probable entries existed along the Argiletum

to the north, the Vicus Iugarius and the Vicus Tuscus to the south, the Clivus

Argentarius to the northwestern entrances that connected to the Sacra Viaand the southeastern entrances to the orum along the road paralleling the

northern course o the Sacra Via. Parades could be quite long. By the late

Republic, Sulla’s uneral was remarkable even or a funus publicum; in addition

to the countless horn and fute players, the proessional mourners and the

amily, priests and priestess, the senate, all magistrates including their lictors,

many knights, and all o his legions joined the parade; App. B. Civ. 1.14.106.

35. The similarity was noted in antiquity; Sen. Consolatio ad Marciam 3.1

reers to the uneral o Drusus as “very much like a triumph;” Hendrik

Simon Versnel, Triumphus: an Inquiry into the Origin, Development and Meaning of the Roman Triumph (Leiden: Brill, 1970). Understanding o the triumphal

route implicitly guides the discussion o the pompa funebris .36. See above, note 2; Polybius 6.53–54 contains the ullest description.

37. See above, note 3. Jörg Rüpke, contends that the parade o ancestors is

actually a parade o living statuary; “Triumphator and Ancestor Rituals,” 272.38. Nicholas Purcell, LTUR, vol. 2, 325–36 describes the sta te o the evi-

dence and provides bibliography. For a relatively recent three-dimensional

reconstruction o the republican orum, see Karthryn Welch, “A New View

o the Origins o the Basilica: The Atrium Regium, Graecostasis, and

Roman Diplomacy,” Journal of Roman Archaeology16, no. 1 (2003), 5–34.

39. Mark Gillings, “The Real, the Virtually Real, and the Hyperreal: The

Role o VR in Archaeology,” in Envisoning the Past, ed. Sam Smiles and

Stephanie Moser (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2004), 229–30.

40. Siting validation is obtained through the use o a GIS base layer. 1:500

geo-reerenced cadastral maps o the modern archaeological site created by

S.A.R.A. Nistri, Srl. unction as the glue that holds the individual archaeo-

logical studies together. All maps and plans were geo-reerenced in ESRI

ArcMap, exported to Google Earth via Arc2Earth, and then imported into

Google Sketchup.41. Randall Davis, Howard Shrobe, and Peter Szolowits, “What Is a Knowl-

edge Representation?” AI Magazine14, no. 1 (Spring 1993), 17–33.

42. Each type o model (rom schematic to the more detailed) is limited.

The nature o the evidence or the orum o the mid-Republic invites con-

troversy. The most in-depth examination o the republican orum is Filippo

Coarelli’s two-volume work Foro Romano (Rome: Quasar, 1983–85), but

many o its conclusions have been challenged. For example, Coarelli’s recon-

struction o a circular Comitium has been repeatedly questioned, and por-

tions o the reconstruction seem to dey archaeological evidence. No

satisactory alternative, however, has been proposed. The approach taken in

this study is to work within research boundaries already established by

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http://www.chart.ac.uk/

http://www.chart.ac.uk/chart2005/abstracts/pollini.htm







http://www.chart.ac.uk/









archaeologists, classicists, and historians, ocusing on experiential analysis

and avoiding topographical debate. Where easible, alternatives are consid-

ered. Above all, the use o a GIS as a base layer ensures that the reconstruc-

tions adhere to real-world constraints.

43. For temples o the mid-Republic the plans and positions may be known

as with those o Opimian Concord, Castor and Pollux, Vesta, and Saturn,

but the height and exact conguration in the Republic era remain uncertain.

For the Temple o Saturn, only the podium may relate to the republican

version o the structure; the rest o the temple, which would have aected

the view rom the orum, has been obliterated. The Basilica Porcia and the

Curia Hostilia exist only as ragmented oundations o questionable identity.

While signicant portions o the Basilica Iulia survive, its orm and elevation

would have diered drastically rom the earlier Basilica Sempronia.

44. Republican reconstructions are ound in Peter Connolly, The Ancient City: Life in Classical Athens & Rome(Oxord: Oxord University Press, 1998)

108 and Welch, “A New View,” 29 g. 11 (by Stinson), though with distort-

ing views elevated above eye level.

45. Not only do most pictorial reconstructions place the observer high

above ground level, they also exaggerate the topography as with the depic-

tion by Alberto Carpiceci in Rome 2000 Years Ago (Florence: Bonechiedizioni, 1981), 8–9 (g. 8). The same is true or the plaster o paris model

o Rome (generally reerred to as the Plastico) begun in the 1930s, which

elevated major hills in Rome by 15 to 25 percent to make them more visible;

Giuseppina Pisani Sartorio, “Le plan de Gismondi,” in Rome: L’Espace urbainet ses repr é sentations, ed. Francois Hinard and Manuel Royo (Paris: Presses

de l’Université de Paris–Sorbonne, 1991), 264. For the infuence o Jupiter’s

temple and the Capitoline Hill on the mental image o the city, see Cathe-

rine Edwards,Writing Rome: Textual Approaches to the City(Cambridge: Cam-

bridge University Press, 1996) 69–95.

46. The ollowing case studies explore hypothetical unerals o the Cornelii

dating roughly to 183–145 BCE. There is no direct evidence rom these

unerals. Instead, we use the unerals as a point o departure to ollow the

hypothetical routes that such events must have taken.

47. Flower, Ancestor Masks , 48–52; Val. Max. 8.15.1; and App. Iber . 23.48. For an alternate view on this manipulation, see Flower, Ancestor Masks ,48–52, who notes (48): “Although our sources are not explicit on this point,

they imply that the whole procession started at the house and continued up to

the temple o Jupiter on the Capitol to pick up Aricanus, beore making its

way to the Forum.” Appian and Valerius Maximus both note the retrieval o

Scipio Aricanus’s imago rom the Temple o Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Vale-

rius Maximus writes (“Whenever the gens Cornelia need to hold a uneral, the

imago is sought rom [the Temple o Jupiter Optimus Maximus].”) Most likely,

Valerius Maximus is ignoring the details o the stemma o the Cornelii. While

it is possible that every branch o the Cornelii brought out the imago o Arica-

nus—the Sullae did—one wonders whether the Cornelii Lentuli did the same.

49. For a comprehensive collection o the ancient sources see Flower, Ances-tor Masks, 185–222.

50. Ancient sources do not speciy why or when the imago o Scipio Arica-nus was placed in the Capitoline temple. Certainly, Scipio had always dem-

onstrated a special relationship with the temple; Liv. 38.51.12; and 26.19.7;

J. R. Fea rs “ The Cult o Jupiter and Roman Imperial Ideology” II .17.1

Aufsteig und Niedergang der römischen Welt (1981), 44; Ann Vasaly, Represen-tations: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory (Berkeley: University o

Caliornia Press, 1993), 73. The similar mythologies o Scipio and Alexander

the Great underscore the particular diculties o republican evidence;

James S. Ruebel, “Politics and Folktale in the Classical World,” Asian Folk-lore Studies 50, no. 1 (1991), 17–18.

51. On the Cornelii and the Tomb o the Scipios, see Toynbee, Death and Burial , 39–40.

52. Livy (44.16.10–11) notes that the house, which probably stood on the

Vicus Tuscus, was purchased and demolished by Tiberius Sempronius Grac-

chus in 170 BCE to build the Basilica Sempronia; Richardson, New Topo- graphical Dictionary, 134; E. Papi, LTUR, vol. 2, 88. Thereore, the purely

pragmatic need to compensate or the extremely short march to the rostra

by extending the parade to the Capitoline Hill would have been obviated

within thirteen years o Scipio’s death.

53. Did the main procession move up the Capitoline to retrieve the mask? Or

was it a separate processional element? Appian reports that theimago o Scipio

was still being etched rom the temple during his own time; App. Iber . 23. He

implies that the imago was incorporated into the ull procession, but compares

it to other imagines that are brought “rom the Forum.” Rather than consider

“rom the Forum” an egregious error, recall that Appian was writing during

the rst third o the second century CE. While the orm o the uneral and

the representation o the imagines had changed drastically since the Republic,

the tradition o manipulating the conveyance o the imagines continued.

54. They may have been sitting in bleachers that were built in anticipation o

the upcoming games; E. J. Jory, “Gladiators in the Theatre,”The Classical Quar-terly, new series 36, no. 2. (1986), 537–39. See below or the imperial model,

which included bleachers that served a dierent purpose; Herodian 4.2.5.55. It must be underscored that such abstracted models are experiments. As

a result they should be treated as hypotheses or investigations much like the

trials undertaken within a scientic laboratory. These models represent an

aggregation and 3-D visualization o the published work o others. They

address the question, “I the orum had looked like this, how might we re-

read the rest o the evidence?”

56. Dion. Hal. Rom. Ant. 4.61.3; Einar Gjerstad, Early Rome III: Fortica-tions, Domestic Architecture, Sanctuaries, Stratigraphic Excavations (Lund: C.

W. K. Gleerup, 1960); John W. Stamper, The Architecture of Roman Temples:The Republic to the Middle Empire(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2005). For a ull discussion o the reconstruction problem see, Mantha Zar-

makoupi, review o Stamper,Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 4:22, 2006, and the

review o Stamper by John Senseney, American Journal of Archaeology 111,

no. 2 (April 2007), 384. Cairoli Giuliani notes that in the Gjerstad recon-struction the dimensions o the Temple o Jupiter would have exceeded

those o the Parthenon in its 12-meter central intercolumniation; L’edilizianell’antichita (Rome: La Nuova Italia Scientica, 1990), 16–17.

57. The Capitoline temple was requently mentioned in speeches given in

the orum, underscoring the crucial intervisuality between these urban

nodes. Livy notes that Manlius Capitolinus was not convicted or sedition

because the site o his trial in the Campus Martius aorded magnicent

views o Jupiter’s temple; Livy 6.20.5; or a ull discussion see Vasaly, Repre- sentations , 15. While elite speakers in the Comitium could have seen the

Temple o Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the audience could not. They relied

on their knowledge o its location rather than an actual prospect.

58. The Roman uneral procession included bands o musicians and, oten,

persons singing dirges in praise o the dead; John G. Landels, Music in

Ancient Greece and Rome(London: Routledge, 1999), 179–80. The recreationo both the basic sounds and the music o ancient instruments is extremely

problematic; as a result, only generalized interpretations o sound can be

inerred rom the architectural context. New attempts to simulate Roman

perormances are underway by experimental archaeologists; see or example

http://www.soundcenter.it/synauliaeng.htm and http://www.musica-

romana.de/ (accessed 30 June 2007).

59. Pliny mentions the statues on the rostra; NH 34.23–25. For a hypothe-

tical plan o statue placement in the Comitium and on the rostra, see Markus

Sehlmeyer, Stadtrömische Ehrenstatuen der republikanischen Zeit: Historizität und Kontext von Symbolen nobilitären Standesbewusstseins (Stuttgart: Franz

Steiner, 1999), map 2.

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36 j s a h / 6 9 : 1 , M a r c h 2 0 1 0

60. Though Roman spectators in elevated locations (such as the poor in the

highest seats in theaters) may have had totalizing views o events, their sight

was compromised by distance and lack o precision, especially without ocu-

lar aids. Regarding ancient spectator seating and associated legislation see

Elizabeth Rawson, “Discrimina Ordinum: The Lex Julia Theatralis,”Papers of the British School at Rome 55 (1987), 83–114; F. Pina Polo, Contra ArmaVerbis: Der Redner vor dem Volk in der späten römischen Republik(Stuttgart:

Franz Steiner, 1996), 23–25; c. Robert Morstein-Marx, Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2004), 51, esp. note 57.

61. On the eect o the chronological arrangement, see Maurizio Bettini,

Anthropology and Roman Culture: Kinship, Time, Images of the Soul (Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 167–83; and Bodel, “Death on Dis-

play,” 264.

62. Cic. De leg 2.23.58. Elite Roman women could also receive similar uner-

ary honors; Cic. De orat . 2.11; Suet. Iul . 26, Suet. Calig . 10.

63. Cic. Amic. 25.96; Varro, Rust . 1.2.9.

64. Plut. C. Grach 5.3; or a ull discussion o the evidence, see Morstein-

Marx, Mass Oratory, 45–7.

65. Plautus Curc . 475–6 reers to a canalis in the orum and archaeologicalexplorations have conrmed the existence o second-century vaulting; John

N. Hopkins, “The Cloaca Maxima and the Monumental Manipulation o

Water in Archaic Rome,” Aquae Urbis Romae: The Waters of the City of Rome 4 (March 2007), 9.

66. The senaculum was the area where senators congregated beore being

summoned to enter the Senate House; Varro, Ling. 5.156. The Graecostasis

was a raised tribunal or ambassadors rom oreign states; Varro, Ling.5.155.

67. For the general topography o the area, see Paolo Caraa, Il comizio di Roma dalle origini all’etá di Augusto(Roma: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 1998).

68. On the Basilica Porcia, see E. M. Steinby, LTUR, vol. 1, 187; and Liv. 39.44.7.

On porticoed viewing at unerals during the Empire, see Cassius Dio 75.74.4.

69. Though it is possible statues aced dierent directions, the majority o

examples ound in situ were oriented in the same direction; Peter Stewart,

Statues in Roman Society: Representation and Response (Oxord: Oxord Uni- versity Press, 2003), 262.

70. For a discussion o Cicero’s amous reerence to the Capitol, see Vasaly,

Representations, 83–84.

71. The evidence is hardly clear. Valerius Maximus in the paragraph subse-

quent to his description o Scipio’simago recounts that an efgies o Cato was

placed in the Curia, but makes no direct unerary association; Val. Max.

8.15.2.

72. Valerius Maximus notes that Scipio allegedly did not participate in busi-

ness without rst having spent some time in the Temple o Jupiter on the

Capitoline and or this reason was considered by some to be the god’s prog-

eny; Val. Max. 1.2.2, Raymond Marks, From Republic to Empire: Scipio Afri-canus in the Punica of Silius Italicus (New York: Peter Lang, 2005), 169, 187.

73. Price, “From Noble Funerals,” 57–58.

74. For example, Herodian records that at the uneral o Septimius Severusthe Roman magistrates gave up their authority; 4.2.

75. Price emphasizes the role o the deceased emperor’s apotheosis as a

dening act that separated him rom his mortal republican orebears; “From

Noble Funerals,” 57–105.

76. Dio Cass.75.4–5, Herodian 4.2, SHA Sev. 7.

77. Dozens o statues stood in the orum, including republican remnants

such as the statue o Marsyas. By the late second century CE the new sculp-

tural additions were predominantly o the imperial amily; Stewart, Statues (see note 69), 5, 87–8, 134.

78. Dio Cass. 43.49.

79. Suet. Iul. 84–85; Aug . 100.

80. The high podium o this building was identied as “rostra aedes divi

Iuli;” Pierre Gros, LTUR, vol. 3, 117. At his uneral Augustus was eulogized

at the opposing rostra; Roger B. Ulrich, The Roman Orator and the Sacred Stage: The Roman Templum Rostratum, Collection Latomus 222 (Brussels:

Latomus, 1994), 186–87.

81. Cassius Dio includes the description o the uneral ater a list o dreams

as part o Septimius’s propaganda to legitimize his rule; 75.4–5; Timothy

Barnes, “The Composition o Cassius Dio’s ‘Roman History,’” Phoenix 38,

no. 3 (Autumn 1984), 245; Price, “From Noble Funerals,” 59–61.

82. The uneral given by Septimius compensated or the numerous disre-

spectul acts against Pertinax ater he was murdered; SHA Pert . 11, 14; Dio

Cass., 74.13.1–2.

83. The traditional dress o mourning was the grayish toga pulla; Juv. X.245.

In addition, Roman men put aside all ornaments and did not cut their hair;

Herodian, 4.2; Terent. Heaut. II.3.47; Suet. Jul. 67, Aug. 23, Cal. 24.

84. Evidence on the time o day or imperial Roman unerals is scant. Presum-

ably the uneral procession did not arrive at the rostra until the sun ell on the

platorm at mid-morning. It exited the orum in mid-aternoon to allow

enough daylight to complete the activities at the burial site; Plut.Vit. Sull.38.

85. Roman uneral music and ritual lamentation has been reconstructed by composer Walter Maioli. His “Neniae,” perormed by Synaulia Research

Group, is recorded on Synaulia, Music of Ancient Rome, Volume 1: Wind Instruments (Amiata Records 1996). Regarding the signicance o music in

unerals o the Imperial era see John R. Levison, “The Roman Character o

Funerals in the Writings o Josephus, Journal for the Study of Judaism33, no.

3 (Sept. 2002), 274–76.

86. Damaged in the re o 191/192 CE, the condition o the temple o

Vespasian and Titus directly south o Concord’s temple is uncertain or the

time o Pertinax’s uneral; Dio Cass. 72.24.1.

87. The Rostra Augusti was embelli shed with statues, including one o

Augustus (Tac. Ann. 4.67), as documented by ancient texts and the oration

relie on the Arch o Constantine (see Figure 14).

88. SHA Pert. 3.4.9.

89. Dio Cass. 75.5.90. Septimius may have undertaken more extensive reworking o the Forum

Romanum in lieu o creating an imperial orum. The addition o his great arch

visually, i not literally, closed in and dened the space with monumental gateways

at the our main entries. Septimius Severus is also associated with the creation o

the Forma Urbis Romae, a great marble map o the entire city. A comprehensive

study o Severan building in Rome is underway by Susann Lusnia.

91. Though not ocially adopted by Marcus Aurelius, Septimius reerred

to him as “ather;” Dio Cass. 76.7. The equestrian statue also refected the

impact o the gigantic Equus Domitiani that stood in the center o the orum

until Domitian suered damnatio memoriae; Stat. Silv. 1.1.

92. A re in the late second century ravaged the Palatine slopes and Temple

o Vesta, as well as the Forum Pacis; the extent o destruction in the central

orum is uncertain; Dio Cass. 73.24.

93. Charmaine Gorrie, “Julia Domna’s Building Patronage, Imperial Fam-ily Roles and the Severan Revival o Moral Legisla tion,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte53, no. 1 (2004), 65–68.

94. Restoration work on the Temple o Vespasian is thought to date to

beore 203 CE; CIL VI.938. Archaeological evidence arms the erection o

the columns as part o the Severan reworking o the area around the rostra;

Patrizia Verduchi, “Rostra Augusti,” LTUR, vol. 4, 216.

95. In the intervening years numerous sculptures had been added to the

orum, including the large relies o the Plutei Traiani/Hadriani. Most major

buildings had been restored or renovated. The new Temple o Antoninus

and Faustina to the southeast, erected in the mid-second century CE, stood

just outside the main open part o the orum.

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96. The SPQR dedication reers not only to Septimius’ oreign conquests,

but also obliquely to the deeat o his political rivals, though he did not want

to overtly celebrate a triumph or a victory over other Romans. One source

records Septimius declined a Parthian triumph claiming ill-health; SHA Sev.

9; 16,6; Simon Swain, Stephen Harrison, Ja´ s Elsner, Severan Culture (Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press), 202–6. Nevertheless, the honor o the

triumph was acknowledged in various events as memorialized in a rieze

above the side arches depicting the pompa triumphalis.97. The bronze Equus Severi commemorated a dream o Septimius that

oretold his succession. In the dream a horse threw o Pertinax and then

lited Septimius on his back; the event took place at the spot where popular

assemblies met during the Republic just to the east o the site selected or

the arch; Herodian 2.9.6.

98. The original bronze letters are not extant, but the inscription can be read

rom the cuttings into the stone; CIL VI.1033, c. 31230.

99. Richard Brilliant, The Arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman Forum,

Memoirs o the American Academy in Rome 29 (1967); LTUR, vol. 1, 103–5.

100. Ann. 2.41.

101. Through the loca tion o the arch o Tiberius remains controversial,

many ollow Coarelli, who identies it with the buttressing arch betweenthe Temple o Saturn and the Basilica Iulia; Coarelli, LTUR, vol. 1, 107–8.

In line with Roman pictorial conventions the arch is depicted rontally on

the oration relie rom the Arch o Constantine (see Figure 14).

102. Early scholars argued that stairs and a small open space were cut into

the rostra’s northern side to provide access ater the construction o the

Severan arch; Christian Hülsen, The Roman Forum, Its History and Monu-ments, trans. Jesse Carter, 2nd ed. (Rome: Loescher, 1906), 62–64. Such an

adjustment has been called into question by subsequent excavations; Verdu-

chi, LTUR, vol. 4, 216. The remains o the nearby Umbilicus also seem to

date to the Severan period. Ater the restoration o the central pavement o

the orum, Septimius emphasized his reverence or Rome’s history by pre-

serving the Augustan-era inscription o L. Naevius Surdinus. On the com-

plex archaeology o the area see Giuliani and Verduchi, L’area central e,

38–50. The Roman exploitation o architectura l design to exclude wheeledtrac is evident at Pompeii where the higher level o the orum prevented

vehicles rom entering.

103. SHA Sev. 7; Herodian 4.2; Toynbee, Death and Burial , 59–61.

104. Many modern sources identiy this as the route ollowed by the Sacra

Via ater the devastating re o Nero; Coarelli, LTUR, vol. 2, 227.

105. A third alternative would have the processional vehicles drive around the

Arch o Septimius on the east. The exact conguration o the paving in the

area during the Severan age complicates assessment o this route; urthermore,

the circumvention o the emperor’s arch seems unlikely or symbolic reasons.

106. The break in the ront balustrade o the upper rostra shown on the

oration relie on the Arch o Constantine may indicate the position o a

temporary stair; Hülsen, The Roman Forum, 70.

107. The procession could also have entered the orum north o Caesar’s

temple and then moved across the ront to rejoin the southern street that paralleled the Basilica Iulia, but this route would have omitted passage

through the Parthian arch o Augustus.

108. The parking o processional vehicles (such as those carrying the gits

to the deceased) remains problematic in every scenario. In this case the space

behind the rostra was especially tight, compelling the parade participants

and vehicles to line up along one o the streets to the east.

109. Facing southwest, the açade o the arch was lit by the sun or most o

the day, increasing its visual attraction. The triumphal procession has gener-

ally been given as the raison d’être or the si ting o the arch. The argument

is ar rom secure. The exact entry point o the triumph into the orum is

contested. Furthermore, the choreography o the triumph is currently called

into question by comprehensive digital reconstructions indicating that the

large triumphal retinues could not easily navigate certain spaces such as the

arch with steps and the sharp turn onto the Clivus Capitolinus, necessitating

a transer rom vehicles to oot transport.

110. Beneath this was added a second line (impp. caes. severus et antoni-

nus pii felices augg. restituerunt), which indicates a restoration, probably

not extensive, by Severus and Caracalla; CIL VI.938.

111. Brilliant argued persuasively that the iconographic program on the

arch was meant to be read by moving around the structure beginning at the

south corner acing the orum; Arch of Septimius , 169, 220–50.

112. The amiliar let to right narrative o the triumphal register as well as the

larger relie panels encouraged viewers to move their gaze toward the north.

113. Regarding the dynastic emphasis o Severan architecture in Rome see

Susann Lusnia, “Urban Planning and Sculptural Display in Severan Rome:

Reconstructing the Septizodium and Its Role in Dynastic Politics,” American Journal of Archaeology108, no. 3 (Oct. 2004), 534.

114. Brilliant, Arch of Septimius , 87–88; LTUR, vol. 1, 104. The new Severan

arch directly aced another monument spanning the road between the

Basilica Aemilia and the Temple o Divus Iulius; this arched structure

remains controversial, identied either as part o the Porticus Gaii et Luciior, less convincingly, as Augustus’s Parthian arch; Richardson, New Topo- graphical Dictionary,313; Filippo Coarelli, Il Foro Romano II (Rome: Edizioni

Quasar 1985), 269–308.

115. Dies Imperii o Trajan: CIL VI.42–44; ocial date o the Parthian Tri-

umph o Septimius Severus: Feriale duranum col. 1, lines 14–16.

116. For the name and date see, Suet. Aug. 100.4; or the name alone see,

Strabo 5.3.9; c. Mart. 2.59.2. On the mausoleum and uneral o Augustus

see Price, “From Noble Funerals,” 67–70.

117. Penelope J. E. Davies, Death and the Emperor: Roman Imperial Funerary Monuments, from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-

versity Press, 2000), 49–67.

118. The unerary associations o commemorative arches in or near the orum

have been noted by scholars; Karl Lehmann-Hartleben, “L’Arco di Tito,”Bul-

lettino della Commissione archeologica del Governatorato di Roma62 (1934), 107–11.119. Davies, Death, 32–34.

120. Cornelius Vermeule speculated that the arch o Septimius was intended

as a dynastic unerary monument with chambers to house the deceased;

“Review o The Arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman Forum by Richard

Brilliant,” American Journal of Archaeology 72, no. 3 (July 1968), 296. The

roughly nished suraces and dicult access o the chambers probably pre-

cludes such an interpretation.

121. Viewing platorms in commemorative columns and arches were only

accessible by narrow stairs that passed by or through interior chambers

possibly holding valuables. This, as well as the lack o wear, indicates these

belvederes must have been used only occasionally by privileged viewers.

Regarding the Column o Marcus Aurelius, a construction date ater the

emperor’s death indicates a unerary association; Aur. Vict.Caes. 16; Davies,

Death, 42–48.122. Signicantly, images o the Arch o Septimius Severus on coins empha-

size the balustrade thus reinorcing the signicance o the walkway; BM Coins, Rom. Emp. 5.216n.320; RIC 4.124 no. 259.

123. The great bronze sculptures on top o the arch may have been so large

as to obscure the pediment o the temple o Concord depending on their

orm and scale, and on the exact height o the temple.

124. The artists working or Constantine, the rst Christian emperor, may

have purposely omitted the temples rom this depiction o the orum.

125. Richard Bayliss, “Archaeological Survey and Visualization: The View

rom Byzantium,” in Theory and Practice in Late Antique Archaeology, ed. Luke

Lavan and William Bowden (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 288.

death in motion. funeral processions in the roman forum

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