ROME 250—CLASS NOTES FOR SBRAGIA, THURS, WEEK 3
Topics covered:
Literature: Nero and Tacitus;
Architecture: Arches & Concrete: Domus Aurea & Pantheon;
Roman
Insula (apartment bldg) & Domus (house);
Art: Roman Wall Painting, 4 Pompeian Styles.
The Julio-Claudian
succession descends from three main family branches:
a) Augustus through his daughter Julia;
b) Augustus’s sister Octavia through her various children;
c) Augustus’s wife Livia, grafted onto the Julian stock by marriage.
Last of the Julio Claudian
dynasty
NERO: (lived 37-68AD/ ruled 54-68AD) see Tactitus reading
on Nero
original
name:Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, becomes
Nero
Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus
49 AGRIPPINIA (daughter of Julia) marries CLAUDIUS (her uncle)
50 CLAUDIUS adopts NERO (Agrippina's son by prior marriage)
53 NERO marries Claudius' daughter Octavia
54 Agrippina poisons Claudius to assure Nero's succession
NERO becomes Emperor at age 17
55 Nero poisons his stepbrother Britannicus
54-59 First 5 years of Nero's reign uder tutors Burrus and Seneca
considered by historians as "golden
era" (aurum quinquennium)
but in 62 Burrus dies and Seneca forced
to retire
59 Nero has his mother Agrippina assassinated, then
62 Nero has his wife Octavia murdered (for her lover Poppea)
64 Fire in Rome (Nero fiddles while Rome burns)
Christians persecuted, scapegoated as cause
of fire
after which Nero builds
GOLDEN HOUSE (DOMUS AUREA):
see
diagram (link on Notes page)
65 Conspiracy against Nero discovered, leading to assassinations
and
forced suicides, including Seneca
67-68 Nero tours Greece and wins prizes for his poetry and music
69 Rebellion of generals in provinces, Nero commits suicide
at Nero’s death, damnatio memoriae
or erasure of memory by Senate
includes
destruction of his Golden House
Problem of Imperial
succession: (much of Nero’s drama concerns this issue)
1) Hereditary
succession vs 2) Military power; 3) later Adoption
69 AD = Year of the four emperors
struggle
for power: among rival military candidates
Army
enters politics, now Emperor doesn’t necessarily have to be made in Rome
TACITUS --
Publius Cornelius Tacitus (c 56-117AD)
Senator:
aristocratic, conservative, hostile to Empire
Historian: revises the myth of Augustus
emphasizes
his seizure of power, end of Republican liberty
Orator wrote
Dialogue on Orators, laments decline of oratory in
Roman culture, lost after end of Republic, no open debate
political
office during the Terror of Domitian (81-96)
Consulship
in 97 under Nerva; Governor of Asia under Trajan c 112
Historical Works:
AGRICOLA
on his father-in-law, Roman governor of Britan
GERMANIA
on German tribal society, contrasted with decadent Rome
HISTORIES
on Flavian period 69-96
ANNALES
on Julio Claudian period 14-68: reading on Nero for week 3
Other
Latin sources for Nero:
Suetonius
75-150 AD, private secretary to Hadrian,
biographies
of the 12 Caesars (De vita Caesarum)
Dio
Cassius 155-230 AD
Organization of the
Annales of Tacitus: by year and by place
Tacitus wrote under Trajan in an age of expansion,
but we are reading only Rome sections
DOMI ET
FORIS (at home in Rome and abroad) [we are reading at home sections].
Focus is on the private realm
of the all-powerful, decadent and sinister imperial court
Court is ruled by fear
and servility. Emperor’s vice infects Rome itself.
MORALIZING: Livy vs Tacitus
Livy’s
moralizing is positive: eg Lucretia
stress
on public realm of politics founded to protect virtue
Tacitus’ lessons almost
always negative: decline & disaster due to VICE,
focus
on corrupt private realm of the imperial court
AUTOCRAT as corrupting, causes moral degeneracy;
Tacitus
stresses evils of rule by one man.
Senate is weak and sycophantic. Oppressive rule causes and
is caused
Even
though writing under Trajan Tacitus is embittered and pessimistic.
RELIGION:
In Tacitus the emphasis falls on prophecy and portents of
evil.
Opposite
of positive view of supernatural in Augustan propaganda
FIRE IN ROME as perverted founding legend:
Nero's rebuilds Rome as his
private space; confusing the PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
GOLDEN HOUSE (DOMUS
AUREA): makes public Roman space private
Criticizes
its ARTIFICIALITY: rural villa in the center of Rome = wrong
Called
Domus aurea because gilded but also a reference by Nero to
his own golden age, with himself as sun god, Helios.
Suetonius describes it
as follows:
The palace had a vestibule, in which stood a colossal statue of Nero himself,
120 feet high.
The area it covered was so great that it had a mile-long portico with three
colonnades; it also
had a pool which resembled the sea and was surrounded by buildings which were
to give the
impression of cities; besides this there were rural areas with ploughed fields,
vineyards,
pastures, and woodlands, and filled with all types of domestic animals and
wild beasts.
The succeeding Flavian
emperors, as a political move, gave back Nero’s private expropriation
to the public: Vespasian had the Colosseum built where Nero’s artificial lake
had stood and
Trajan constructed public baths on the site. See Martial’s commentary in poem.
ARCHES AND CEMENT:
1) ARCH:
made of voussoirs (wedgeshaped blocks) + keystone.
supports
and distributes great weight; allows building on a more
massive
scale (Roman aqueducts for ex.).
Extend
an arch in either direction and you get a barrel vault.
Intersect
two arches and you get a groin vault.
2) CONCRETE (1st
century BC): lime mortar, volcanic ash/sand, water, small stones
more
economical than stone; allows shapes not possible with masonry
especially huge freestanding vaulted and domed ceilings.
Roman
architecture becomes an architecture of space.
GOLDEN HOUSE:
brick-faced concrete (for rapid construction).
Domed octagonal room in the center with its five rooms radiating from it symmetrically.
Oculus and diffusion of light. Slits let light; revolutionary potential of
concrete was later
realized
in Hadrian’s domed Pantheon and the great Bath complexes.
PANTHEON: Full
potential of concrete for the shaping of architectural space.
Immense concrete cylinder covered by a hemispheric dome 142 feet in diameter.
Intersection of two perfect circles: orb of earth and dome of heaven.
Thickness of dome decreases as it reaches oculus (30 ft in diameter).
Sunlight plays on the interior of the building through oculus at different
times of the day.
LIVING STRUCTURES:
Roman population over 1,000,000 inhabitants (1st C AD)
INSULA: MULTI-STORIED (4 to 5 stories) APARTMENT
COMPLEXES. 90% of pop.
Shops
on ground floor. Poorer people lived higher up
DOMUS (House): Private houses, which vary according to rank
in society.
Cicero:
domus as “sacred sanctuary” of each citizen, repository of his altars, his
hearth, his family gods.
The wealthier
a person is the more public his career is and the more elaborate his domus
should be
Rooms:
Typical
Roman house is entered through a fauces (throat), leads to atrium: large central
reception area,
which
received both light and air, and rainwater through a compluvium, which gathered
in an impluvium
below,
water could be stored in underground cisterns for household use.
Cubicula
or small bedrooms opened onto atrium, with tablinum (or main reception room).
Dining room
called
triclinium and a peristyle—or garden, was at the rear of the house surrounded
by more rooms.
WALL PAINTINGS:
--examples in Rome but the best and largest collection is to be found
in Pompeii and
adjacent cities
that were buried in ash and soot during the explosion of Vesuvius in 79 AD.
Roman wall painting
up to 79 AD divided into FOUR Pompeian STYLES
originally defined by the
German art historian, August Mau, at the end of 19th century:
1st style.
2nd century BC. Masonry, Encrustation, or Structural style.
Imitation,
using painted stucco relief, of expensive colored marbles.
Frescos,
colors applied while plaster was still damp, surface polished>
2nd style: (also
called Architectural style) begins about 80 BC
Opposite
of first style: dissolves walls of a room and replace them with the illusion
of a 3-dimensional world, principally architectural features.
Villa of the Mysteries: early
2nd style, articulated by pilasters with life size figures
Rite
of passage into the mystery cult of the god Dionysus.
Cubiculum of the Villa of Publius Fannius
Synistor at Boscoreale near Pompeii
Reconstructed
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: painter has opened up the walls
and
given
vistas of Italian towns and sacred sanctuaries. Solid grasp of single
point perspective,
in
which receding lines converge on a single point along the central axis of
the painting.
Houses of Augustus and Livia in Rome
are painted in second style.
House
of Augustus: room of the masks, painted like a scene front or theater stage.
Gardenscape
in House of Livia : ultimate example of 2nd Style picture window.
use of atmospheric perspective: depth is indicated by the
increasingly blurred appearance
of
objects in the distance, things up close are distinct, foliage in background
is indistinct.
3rd STYLE (or Ornamental style). Augustan age. With delicate
rectilinear and organic patterns against a
monochrome
background, it emphasizes the ornamental value of the designs. Columns of
the
Second
Style have been replaced by the insubstantial colonettes supporting featherweight
canopies.
Tiny floating
landscapes painted directly upon typically black, red or white backgrounds.
4th STYLE: (or Composite style, middle of 1st century). combination
of the 2nd and 3rd styles.
Most
paintings in Nero’s Golden House are 4th style (60s AD).
Wall
is broken up into different spatial levels with vistas upon more distant scenes
PORTRAITS in the
Roman Domus:
Husband
and wife, mid-1st century AD. Middleclass couple portraying themselves as
intellectuals
Mythological
scenes, still lifes
EROTIC ART: mythological personages (such as god Priapus) with enlarged
phalluses,
Roman talisman used to indicate fertility and prosperity and to ward off evil.