Download - Cities of the Roman Empire
Roman versus Greeks
Not as playful or moderate as the Greeks
Inclined toward violence, exploitation and gross excesses of consumption
Their greatest achievements often bear the mark of excess but also considerable engineering skill
Rome was basically supported by forced tribute & taxes
Conquered Greek isles by 133 BC and cloned many of their urban design concepts Theater Amphitheater Temples built on the Greek
model, with prominent colonnades
Agora was appropriated and became the forum
Cities as instruments of empire
Rome expanded beyond Italian peninsula in 133BC
Romans played their enemies off each other, then planted colonial cities to administer conquered lands
The “castra” or army camp was walled and laid out in a grid → planned cities (< 5,000 pop.)
Empire’s maximum extent by 211AD, collapsed after 250AD
The Romans were very practical but they also carried remnants of an older, mystical view of the city
Augury (an animal was cut open in order to examine its entrails for signs that it was a good or bad place for a city)
At founding of a city, a priest would plow the outline of the city to ritually mark it off from the surrounding wilderness
The city was divided into quarters by the creation of two perpendicular streets: the Cardo and the Decumanus
Grid (or gridiron) plan served practical purposes, as well Easy to lay out Easy to administer Breezes could flow through for natural
ventilation Easy to defend if walled
The Forum was their version of the agora
(this one is in Pompeii, a city preserved in volcanic ash of Mt. Vesuvius from the 1st century BC)
The Forum
Bordered by everything important: temples, offices, jails, butcher shops
Public processions and ceremonies took place there
For a mainly pedestrian population, the surrounding colonnade was a very important urban design feature
What do these artifacts “tell” us?
Found in Pompeii
Suggests the attention and care given to handicrafts in cities
Shows importance of food storage
Roads
When it came to roads, the Romans understood the highway better than the city street (like us)
The intersection of the cardo and the decumanus created a terrible traffic jam in the middle of the city
Wheel rims on stone streets made a terrible racket (1st known traffic law was a ban on wheeled traffic during daylight hours imposed by Julius Ceasar)
Night-time noise was reported to be deafening
How civilized were the Romans?
For a few hundred years their aggressive, exploitative culture appeared to be eternal
“Pax Romana” (the Roman peace) was a form of civilization
The core of the empire, the city of Rome Roman “insula” (apartment bldgs.) often burned or fell
down, had no air conditioning, plumbing or heating Sewers were often open-air, and were not connected
to housing above the 1st floor; dismal for a city of 1 million
Depraved entertainment Stagnant economy
The Colosseum Colosseum < colosseus < colossus (something
extremely huge) Altered in English to “coliseum” Held between 60,000 and 90,000 Dwarfed by the “Circus Maximus” (lost) Over a mile of plumbing pipes supplied public
drinking fountains and lavatories Was used by the Romans for everything from
naval competitions to gladiatorial competitions Was used in the Middle Ages as a living space,
grazing space, and fortress
Bread and circuses“Now that no one buys our votes, the public has long since cast off its cares; the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things -- bread and circuses”Decimus Junius Juvenalis (ca. 60 A.D. - 140 A.D.) a Roman satirical poet
200,000 residents of the city of Rome depended on bread handouts! (perhaps 1/5 of the population)
Roman entertainment
Mass slaughter as entertainment Up to thousands of human an animal lives taken in
one “game” day “Performers” included Christians & lions, gladiators,
exotic wild animals, captives & prisoners Bodies dumped unceremoniously in enormous
stinking pits at edge of town 175 game days a year by end of the empire
People left the colosseum by the “vomitorium,” named after the special-purpose room in a house dedicated to purging (after typical Roman bingeing)
Subterranean levelHeld persons and animals prior to their use in “contests” and spectacles
Many oil lamps have been found: what do you think it was like waiting in these passages?
Practicality
seems to be embodied in a cleverly constructed environment
Their aqueducts may remind us of our own reservoirs and pipelines
Their carefully-designed streets and roads may remind us of our paved roads, freeways, and sidewalks
Their use of a street grid may remind us of our own regularly laid out urban landscape
Odd (but familiar) mix of practicality and impracticality Their passion for size and excess pushed
them to unsustainable levels of consumption and territorial expansion
They aqueducts were not strictly needed; they were as much about demonstrating imperial power as about gaining access to water
City of Rome had 1352 fountains and 967 free baths
Public baths,Pompeii
Romans took public bathing to an extreme: hot, cold, and lukewarm pools, places to get a massage or work out, even reading rooms
Residential fountain in Pompeii
Outside the city of Rome the empire probably seemed very good, because its fundamental unsustainability and unjust behavior was less visible there
If the Romans could visit America I suspect they would love:1. “Supersize” food
& drinks2. SUVs3. Big pickup
trucks4. Water parks5. Minivans6. Football7. Harley Davidson
motorcycles8. The Hoover
Dam9. Big-screen TVs