Wk I 250 Sbragia Thursday Lecture on Etruscans and Temple Architecture

Early Rome:

SERVIAN WALL : first set of city walls 6-4^th C BC named for King Servius Tullius
idea of walls first associated with Romulus on Palatine and
killing of Remus (fratricide = killing a brother)
PONS SUPLICIUS: first wooden bridge (= pons); pontifex = bridge builder, priest

POMERIUM: ritual boundary of city plowed annually by an ox and a cow

Major hills: Capitoline: Temple to Jupiter: triumphs or military processions end here
(3 parts) middle section: Tabularium (record keeping office)
Temple to Juno Moneta: Roman mint (coining money)
Palatine: first settlement, site of hut of Romulus
Aventine: associated with Remus and the plebeians (see Week 3)

Roads: Via Salaria = salt road, to Rome from east, cattle brought to salt flats at Tiber River
Forum Boarium (forum of cattle); origin of word “salary” (soldiers paid partly in salt)

FORUM: term means “outside” since forum was outside the Palatine settlement

civic center: public buildings, temples along Via Sacra (Sacred Road)

ROME AS URBAN PALIMPSEST: slide showing modern Capitoline Hill (Campidoglio)
during Middle Ages, city faces towards Tiber, source of water supply
Ancient:  Capitoline Hill: seat of Roman city government in medieval & modern eras
Medieval: Church of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli (Altar of Heaven) 8^th C. medieval church
13^th C. becomes Franciscan church; 14^th C stairway built after plague

Modern: Victor Emmanuel Monument: King of unified Italy (late 19/20^th C) white marble

SOURCES FOR EARLY ROMAN HISTORY:
1) written sources: mostly legendary, as Bk 1 of Livy; survive only from 2cd C BC
2) archeological sources: confirm some early legends, such as Hut of Romulus

9-8^th C BC: IRON AGE: inventions of iron, steel, writing (follows Stone Age and Bronze Age)
increase in wealth, urbanization = cities, emergence of an aristocratic elite

Map from Scarre Atlas, cremation (newer, urban) versus burial (inhumation)
Why would urbanization lead to cremation over burial?

HUT URNS: archeological finds in central Italy (Villa Novan culture)
used to hold cremated ashes, plus jewelry; built in shape of early huts
show thatched roofs, mud walls (slide of 8^th C. post holes on Palatine)

Romans as eclectic civilization, absorb other cultures: major influence are Etruscans

ETRUSCANS: ethnic group inhabiting area north of Rome called Etruria (Tuscany)
territory extends from the Tiber river to the Arno river in north
city states built on hill tops for defense; elite, aristocratic culture
economy: wealth based on mining (iron and copper) and trade
language: non-Indo European and not related to other Italian languages;
alphabet borrowed from Greeks; mainly short and formulaic inscriptions survive
legend of Eastern origins in Asia Minor; come to Italy under Tyrrhenus

Etruscan Religion:
highly ritualized, “disciplina etrusca,” local gods adapted from Greek Pantheon,

gods: Tinia=Zeus/Jupiter—thunderbolt; Uni =Hera/Juno (wife of Tinia)

Divination: interpreting the will of gods through natural phenomenon such as
lightening; elaborate map of the heavens showing good and bad outcomes;
Augury = reading flight of birds; Haruspicy = reading entrails of animals

Slide: liver of Piacenza: metal liver engraved with celestial map (sheep’s liver)

Cult of ancestors, pleasant afterlife shown in tomb paintings for aristocrats

Necropolis (city of the dead): above ground tombs in area north of Rome:
Cerveteri and Tarquinia as major sites; tombs carved out of
tufa = volcanic rock (soft to carve, hardens when exposed to air)

Romans borrow from Etruscans: fasces (next week), toga; road building

City planning as rectangle: cardo (north south axis) decumanus (east west)]

Sculpture in metal and terracotta (not stone as in Greece and Rome
Architecture: temple building

ART: Roman museum of Etruscan art:  Villa Giulia = must see if in Rome
bacchero pottery: shiny black pottery
votive offerings: voto = vow (promise to make offering to god in thanks for cure)
pottery figures in shape of eye, ear, breast, intestines, uterus left at temples

Funeral art:

Sarcophagus: coffins with carved figures of the dead on lids, some holding livers

slides of sarcophagi with married couples (women portrayed as equal)

Cerveteri:  Tomb of the Five Chairs: statues of seated ancestors (ancestor worship)
Tomb of the Shields and Chairs
Tarquinia:  Tomb of Leopards: paintings of eating on couches (triclinium)
Tomb of Augurs: naked men wrestling at celebration

Statues: mostly lost because statues done in clay (terra cotta = baked earth)
Apollo of Veii: temple roof sculpture 500 BC: clothed, animated, moving
compare archaic Greek kouros: naked, stiff, frontal “archaic smile”
Lars Pulena: holds scroll listing his life accomplishments
Aulus Metellus, L’Arringatore 90-70BC: Etruscan inscription, but Roman style
Etruscan Brutus: 1^st C BC bronze head: Etruscan sculptor, Roman style.

TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE IN ANCIENT WORLD (see Reader Vol II Art History)

TEMPLES: “house” for statue of deity; not for congregation or worship (unlike Christian churches)
Religious rites involved propitiating the gods: sacrifices were offered to maintain peace with gods, or pax deorum,
also to bind the gods which is source of the word religio.  Ritual as a body of rules or jus divinum (divine law),
ordaining what had to be done or avoided.  Emphasis on correct performance of ritual in order to control
events in the world (military and personal). No moral content and no concept of salvation, only fame.

GREEK TEMPLE: post and lintel construction: vertical columns with horizontal beam; built of marble/stone
            peripetal columns:  columns surround entire building, on raised platform (stylobate);
            interior cell (naos): housing for one deity only;

COLUMNS: GREEK all are fluted vertically: fluted means carved out in vertical grooves
capitals (tops of columns): Doric, Ionic (scroll), Corinthian (acanthus leaves)
ETRUSCAN: Tuscan = unfluted Doric ROMAN: use all of the above plus composite style (eclectic)

ETRUSCAN TEMPLE A tall podium, deep porch with two rows of Tuscan columns at front of building only.
A single entrance from the front, emphasis is frontal.  At the back of the temple, sanctuary to the god,
called cella (often 3 cellas), with statues of god/s inside.  Built in wood, mud brick, terracotta; none survive

ROMAN TEMPLES:

Capitoline Hill: Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (the Biggest and the Best!)
plan of first temple survives in works of Vitruvius, Roman architect 1^st C BC
columns are semiperipetal (see Art History readings)
Forum Boarium:
Temple of Portunus: Roman eclecticism (Etruscan and Greek elements) second half of 2^nd C BC,
Greek: pseudoperipetal: has “engaged columns”(Ionic) on exterior of cella wall; stone building
               Etruscan: high podium, deep porch, frontal approach up a flight of steps, cella in back of buildingi
Temple of Hercules: round, Greek style
Labors of Hercules include one in Rome wrestling
Largo Argentina: in modern era it has become a cat sanctuary
Four temples from Republican era, all in different style (see Art History reader)