roman empire

ROMAN EMPIRE

ARJUN NAYYERYAJUR MARWAH

INGIT DATTAAKASH FOGLA

Rome: Its Location

Rome: Republican Phase: 750-500 BC Rome: Maximum Extent of Empire, AD 63

Latins invaded the peninsula in 1000 BC By 800 BC, founded Rome at the lower valley

of the Tiber River, central locus for control of the rest of Italy

Other ethnicities migrated to the region: Etruscans, Phoenicians, Greeks

Unlike the other villages, Rome encouraged other ethnic groups to migrate there

Rise of Rome

Phoenicians contributed maritime and

commercial skills and phonetic alphabet Etruscans brought urban planning, chariot

racing, the toga, bronze and gold crafting—and the arch

Greeks: the pantheon of gods and goddesses, linguistic and literary principles, and aesthetic

Multiethnic Contributions to Rome

Etruscans ruled the Latins but were

overthrown in 509 BC Gradually, monarchy gave way to

government by the people (res publica) Predominately comprised the patricians

(aristocrats) and the plebians (farmers, artisans, and other common folk.

Slaves formed a third category as the empire expanded

The rise of the republic was a slow process

Roman Republic: Roots

MODEL OF ROME

Elements of Roman architecture show very

significant Greek influence.

However, Roman functional needs sometimes differed, resulting in interesting innovations.

The Romans were less attached to “ideal” forms and extended Greek ideas to make them more functional.

ORIGINS OF ROMAN ARCHITECTURE

Roman Innovation

The Romans were the great engineers of the ancient world.

Their structures, particularly of public works, were often massive in scale.

Ruins of the Basilica of Constantine

The Roman ability to build massively was

largely determined by their discovery of slow-drying concrete, made with pozzolana sand.

This allowed not only bases, but also walls to be constructed of mainly concrete or concrete and rubble.

Facings could be made of more expensive stone or inexpensive brick.

The result was strong structures that could be formed in any desirable shape.

Roman Innovation

Special importance for the internal space Integral view of the art combining:

Beauty and sumptuosity with Utility and practical sense

Buildings are integrated in the urban space

General Characteristics

Building systems:

Lintelled: Copied from the Greeks Spaces are closed by straight lines

Vaulted Taken from the Etrurian Use of arches Barrel vaults

Use of domes Strong walls so that they do not use external

supports

General Characteristics

Materials:

Limestone Concrete Mortar

Arches: They used half point or semicircular arches They could use lintels above these arches Pediments were combined with them

General Characteristics

Opus incertum Opus testaceum Opus reticulatum

Opus spicatumMortar in the foundations Barrel Vault

General Characteristics:

Building techniques

Walls were made in one of these ways:

General Characteristics

Ashlar Masonry Brick

Material combinations in walls:

General Characteristics

Composite Walls

Note the use of a brick outer facing and a fill of concrete and rubble.

Greek shapes assimilation:

Architectonical orders were used more in a decorative than in a practical way Order superposition The use of orders linked to the wall created a decorative element They used the classical orders and two more:

Composite Tuscan

General Characteristics

Cities were the centre of Roman life

Need for infrastructures Water and sewer system Transport and defence Public spaces and markets

Psychological effect: power and control There was a need of linking them throug

paved roads

Roman Town Planning

Roman Town Planning

The plan of the city was based on the camp

It had two main axes Cardus E-W Decumanus N-S

Where the two converged was the forum

The rest of the space was divided into squares in which insulae or blocks of flats were built

The most important part of the city was the

forum, where political, economic, administrative, social and religious activity were centred.

Main buildings were in this forum In big cities there were theatres, circuses,

stadiums, odeons.

Roman Town Planning

Caesar Augustae (Zaragoza) plan

Roman Innovation – The Arcuated Arch

Romans did not invent this form, but they used it well in bridges, within buildings, and to allow aqueducts to span rivers and gorges.

Bridges Roman engineers were true masters building them, since constructions were

essential elements for reaching places and cities often situated at the bank of rivers.

This location was due to defensive and infrastructural reasons -supply and drainage.

They are characterised by: Not pointed arches. Constructions of ashlars masonry often with pad shape. Route of more than 5 m. wide. Route of horizontal or slightly combed surface "few curved". Rectangular pillars from their basis with lateral triangular or circular

cutwaters that end before the railings.

Roman Public Water Supply

The Romans transported water from far away to cities via aquaducts.

Cities themselves were plumbed, providing private water for the rich and for baths and communal supplies for poorer neighbourhoods.

Aqueducts

Aqueducts were built in order to avoid geographic irregularities between fountains or rivers and towns.

Not only valleys were crossed by superposed cannels, but also mountains were excavated by long tunnels, pits and levels of maintenance.

They were used to bring water to cities.

Roads The need to move

legions and trade goods in all weather led to the development of the best roads in the world (to the 19th century).

Roads The roads were made with strong foundations Different materials were put into different layers To meassure the distance they created the

Milliarium or stones located in the sides

Section of a Roman paved road

Roads

Roman Roads Spanned the Empire

Ports and Lighthouses

Roman ships and those for commercial trade should travel from port to port with the speed and security adequate to the life of a great Empire.

In these ports every necessity for the execution of the usual works in a port ensemble should be found: gateways with stores

and bureaux, shipyards for stationing

ships, roads for taking ships to

earthly ground, drinkable water

fountains and machinery for loading and

downloading merchandises. Indeed, a system of

indication was necessary in order to mark the right access and exit to the port i.e. lighthouse

Religious: Temple

It copied the Greek model It has only one portico

and a main façade It tends to be

pseudoperiptero The cella is totally closed It is built on a podium Instead of having stairs all

around, it only has them in the main façade

Religious: Temple

There were other kind of temples:

Circular: similar to the Greek tholos

Pantheon: combined squared and circular structures and was in honour of all gods.

The Maison Caree @ Nimes

The Maison Caree @ Nimes

Romans needed interior space for worship, whereas the Greeks worshipped outside.

Their solution was to extend the walls outward, creating engaged columns, while maintaining the same basic shape.

It was built c. 16 BC. The Maison Carrie is an ancient building

in Nimes, southern France; it is one of the best preserved temples to be found anywhere in the territory of the former Roman Empire.

The temple owes its preservation to the fact that it was rededicated as a Christian church in the fourth century, saving it from the widespread destruction of temples that followed the adoption of Christianity as Rome's official state religion.

The Maison Caree @ Nimes

The Maison Carrée is an example of Vitruvian architecture Raised on a 2.85 m high podium, the temple dominated

the forum of the Roman city, forming a rectangle almost twice as long as it is wide, measuring 26.42 m by 13.54 m. 

It is a hexastyle design with six Corinthian columns under the Pediment at either end, and pseudoperipteral in that twenty engaged columnsare embedded along the walls of the cella

Above the columns, the architrave is divided by two recessed rows of petrified water drips into three levels with ratios of 1:2:3. Egg-and-dart decoration divides the architrave from the frieze. The frieze is decorated with fine ornamental relief carvings of rosettes and acanthus leavesbeneath a row of very fine dentils

The Maison Caree @ Nimes Architecture

The Maison Caree @ Nimes Architecture

A large door (6.87 m high by 3.27 m wide) leads to the surprisingly small and windowless interior, where the shrine was originally housed. This is now used to house a tourist oriented 3-D film on a series of heroes that arose through Nîmes' history. No ancient decoration remains inside the cella

The Pantheon

The Pantheon is a building in Rome, Italy, commissioned

by Marcus Agrippa as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome  The name comes either from the statues of so many gods

placed around this building, or else from the resemblance of the dome to the heavens.

The building is circular with a portico of three ranks of huge granite Corinthian columns (eight in the first rank and two groups of four behind) under a pediment. A rectangular vestibule links the porch to the rotunda, which is under a coffered, concrete dome, with a central opening (oculus) to the sky

Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon's dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome

The Pantheon

The Pantheon The magnificent

interior space of the Pantheon was achieved by: Employing a

dome over a drum.

Coffering the dome to reduce weight.

Placing an occulus to allow light to enter.

The Temple of Fortuna Primigenia

The Temple of Fortuna Primigenia was a massive structure, made possible by concrete construction.

The Temple of Fortuna Primigenia

Baths of Caracalla

Roman baths were the recreation centers of Roman cities, incorporating pools, exercise facilities and even libraries.

They could serve hundreds or thousands at a time.

Baths of Caracalla

The entire bath building was on a 6 metre (20 ft) high raised platform to allow for storage and furnaces under the building

The libraries were located in exedrae on the east and west sides of the bath complex. The entire north wall of the complex was devoted to shops. The reservoirs on the south wall of the complex were fed with water from the Marcian Aqueduct.

The "baths" were the second to have a public library within the complex. Like other public libraries in Rome, there were two separate and equal sized rooms or buildings; one for Greek language texts and one for Latin language texts

The baths consisted of a central 55.7 by 24 metre (183x79 ft) frigidarium (cold room) under three 32.9 meter (108 ft) high groin vaults, a double pool tepidarium(medium), and a 35 meter (115 ft) diameter caldarium (hot room), as well as two palaestras (gyms where wrestling and boxing was practised). The north end of the bath building contained a natatio or swimming pool.

Basilica The Latin word basilica w

as originally used to describe a Roman public building, usually located in the forum of a Roman town

Basilica were first built to house audience facilities for government officials.

When Christianity became the state religion, this kind of building was adapted to Christian worship.

The Roman basilica was a large roofed hall erected for

transacting business and disposing of legal matters. Basilicas often contained interior colonnades that divided the

space, giving aisles or arcaded spaces on one or both sides, with an apse at one end (or less often at each end), where the magistrates sat, often on a slightly raised dais. The central aisle tended to be wide and was higher than the flanking aisles, so that light could penetrate through the clerestory windows

The oldest known basilica, the Basilica Porcia, was built in Rome in 184 BC by Cato the Elder during the time he was Censor. Other early examples include the basilica at Pompeii (l

Basilica

Basilica

A large nave is flanked by side aisles behind a row of supporting piers.

An Apse draws attention in the direction of the altar.

Public Entertainment Public spectacles –

be they gladiatorial combat or theatrical – were given public venues.

Theatres and arenas were built to hold multiple thousands of people and were engineered so as to allow quick and effective entry and exit.

Colosseum

The Colosseum, or the Coliseum,

originally the Flavian Amphitheatre is an elliptical amphitheater in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire. It is considered one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and Roman engineering.

its construction started in 72 AD under the emperor Vespasian and was completed in 80 AD under Titus

Capable of seating 50,000 spectators, the Colosseum was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles such as mock sea battles, animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, and dramas based on Classical mythology.

Colosseum

The Colosseum is roughly elliptical in shape, with

its long axis, oriented WSW-ESE, which measures 188 m and the short one 156.

The building stands on a base of two steps; above it there are three floors of arcades built in travertine stone and a fourth storey with windows. There were eighty arches on every floor, divided by pillars with a half column

The ground floor half columns are doric in style, those of the second floor are ionic and those of the upper floor Corinthian

Colosseum Architecture

The arches are 4.20 m. (13’9") wide and

7.05 m (23’1") high on the ground floor, while on the upper floors they are only 6.45 m (21’2") high. Including the cornices between the floors and the attic, the overall height of the building is 48,5 m

The arena where the shows took place measures 76 by 44 metres, it had a floor made with wooden planks covered with yellow sand taken from the hill of Monte Mario.

All around the top there were the sockets for 240 wooden beams which supported the awning (velarium) that covered the spectators from the sun and was manoeuvred by a unit of sailors of the imperial fleet, stationed nearby

Colosseum Architecture

Roman Innovation

Entertainment – Ampitheater at Nimes

Roman Public Water SupplyPont de Garde Aqueduct, Nimes

Houses: Insulae There are urban houses In order to take advantage

from the room in cities, buildings up to four floors were constructed.

The ground floor was for shops -tabernae- and the others for apartments of different sizes.

Every room was communicated through a central communitarian patio decorated with flowers or gardens.

Houses: Domus

It was the usual housing for important people in each city.

It was endowed with a structure based on distribution through porticated patios: the entry -fauces- gives access to a small corridor -vestibulum-. It leads to a porticated patio -atrium-. Its center, the impluvium, is a bank for

the water falling from the compluvium. At both sides -alae- there are many

chambers used as rooms for service slaves, kitchens and latrines.

At the bottom, the tablinum or living-room can be found, and close to it, the triclinium or dining-room.

This atrium gave also light enough to next rooms.

At both sides of the tablinum, little corridors led to the noble part of the domus.

Second porticated patio peristylium, was bigger and endowed with a central garden.

It was surrounded by rooms -cubiculum- and marked by an exedra used as a chamber for banquets or social meetings.

Houses: Villa Houses far from cities, were

thought for realizing agricultural exploitations -villae rustica-, or else as places for the rest of important persons -villae urbana-.

Entertaining villa was endowed with every comfortable element in its age as well as gardens and splendid views.

Country villae got stables, cellars, stores and orchards apart from the noble rooms.

Palaces There were the

residence of the emperor

They consisted of a numerous series of rooms

Their plan tended to be regular

Diocleciano’s Palace at Splitz

Romans were imperialists first and republicans second Even the Republican era was one of conquests in the

Italian peninsula—much like manifest destiny in the United States during the 19th century

Much of the themes emphasize war and conquest The arts mostly had a practical side Toward the end of the era, wealth mattered more than

duty that had marked Rome’s earlier years The insecurity of the latter years also opened the

populace to new ideologies: mystical cults, revivals of older beliefs from Egypt—and Christianity

Conclusion