Recent excavations in Rome have demonstrated that the city created by the Kings and inherited by the Republic was a center of major importance, not only in the context of Italy but in the wider Mediterranean world as well (see also Chapter 4).2 Massive civil engineering work had created the public space we know as the Forum Romanum, and an impressive series of temples had been built, culminating in that of Jupiter on the Capitol, which is now known to have stood on a podium 72 x 54 m in length, even larger than previously suspected.3 The surviving so-called ‘‘Servian’’ walls of the city, which have normally been identified with the wall-circuit that, according to Livy (6.32), was begun in 378, are now thought, in part at least, to date to the sixth century.4 In either case, by the mid-fourth century Rome’s walls enclosed an area of over 400 hectares, making it a city on a scale comparable to that of celebrated Greek colonies such as Akragas and Syracuse.5
It is at the end of the fourth century, a period of major significance for Rome in many other ways too, that we can see a new phase of building activity taking place. In the years which followed the Latin war of343-341, the restructured Roman alliance was embarking on a series of long-term wars against their central Italian neighbors - Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, Sabines - which in less than a century saw them seize control of the whole of the Italian peninsula to the south of the Po valley.6 As Rome’s armies began to campaign overseas (beginning with the First Punic War in Sicily), the scale of the booty they brought back increased still further and so did the rivalries within the highly competitive Roman elite: funerary epitaphs recorded in literature and on stone from this period record the desire of individuals to be remembered as ‘‘first, best, and greatest.’’7 The culmination of an aristocrat’s military career was a triumph: awarded by the Senate, this was a celebratory ritual procession through the streets ofRome, the victorious commander following the magistrates, Senate, and soldiers: literary accounts describe graphically the display of captives and booty this might involve.8 The commemoration of victories extended beyond the occasion of the triumph, though: it became common practice from the late fourth century for generals to vow temples to the gods in the hope of achieving a successful outcome of the campaign in which they were involved. When they returned victorious to Rome, the temples would be constructed, the process overseen by the Senate (see also Chapters 4,10, and 24).9
Many of these temples were constructed in the Campus Martius and along the route traditionally followed by the triumphal procession (see Map 9 and also Chapter 23). This assembled in the Circus Flaminius and then passed through the Forum Boarium and the Circus Maximus before skirting the Palatine and following the Via Sacra through the Forum Romanum, finally climbing the Clivus Capitolinus to the temple of Jupiter.1 The choice of these locations stressed the association of the temples with the triumph, and those on the Campus Martius in particular could also have been visible from the Saepta, where the comitia centuriata assembled to elect the senior magistrates.11 The temples thus served not only to express the gratitude of the city, and of the generals who dedicated them, to the gods for a successful military campaign, but commemorated this success for posterity, in a way which contributed to the distinction of the general’s family and might be borne in mind by the voters when his descendants stood for public office.
In the second century, the number of temples built appears to have declined somewhat as other types of commemorative building were increasingly favored by the elite: arches, porticoes, and basilicas in particular. These also had a significant impact on the appearance of the city. Porticoes, such as the Porticus Octavia of 168 and Porticus Metelli of 146, were frequently erected adjacent to temples in places with triumphal associations, as were arches, such as those set up in the Circus Maximus and Forum Boarium by L. Stertinius in 196, even though he did not even request a triumph (Livy 33.27.3-4). By contrast, the basilicas that came to surround the Forum Romanum - the Porcia of 184, the Fulvia of 179, and the Sempronia of 169 - were normally constructed with public funds by the censors, by whose names they came to be known (see also Chapters 4 and 24).
Elite rivalry was not expressed only through officially sanctioned public buildings, however: houses and tombs were likewise used to reinforce the eminence of the aristocratic family. The location, design, and contents of the house all played a part in this (see also Chapter 24).13 A location close to the Forum itself, in the nearby Subura, or on the Capitol was particularly appropriate for the ambitious politician; but the nearby Palatine Hill was the predominantly favored place of residence for the Roman aristocracy. To own a strikingly grand or unusual house afforded welcome publicity for the aspiring candidate, as Cn. Octavius, a novus homo, discovered when his success in achieving the consulship in 165 was ascribed to the impressive appearance of his residence (Cic. Off. 1.138). Equally, the atrium of an aristocratic house might be filled not only with masks depicting the owner’s ancestors but also depictions of their achievements, archives, and family trees.14 Even the exterior of the house reflected the distinction of its occupant: a general who had celebrated a triumph was entitled to display armor captured from the enemy on the doorposts of the house, visible to passersby, and these spoils could not legally be removed even if the house was sold to someone else (Pliny HN 35. 6-7; see also Chapter 18). Archaeological investigations in recent years have helped cast light on the aristocratic houses of Rome in the Republic, which had otherwise largely been known indirectly, by means of the better preserved houses of Pompeii. Excavations on the Palatine have revealed the remains of a series of domus on the slope leading down to the Forum: one is identified with that of M. Aemilius Scaurus, aedile in 58, but four earlier atrium houses have also been discovered on the site, dating back to the sixth century.15 Their location on the Via Sacra places these, too, in close relation with the traditional route of the triumph.
The family tombs set up by Roman nobles on the outskirts of the city again contributed to reinforcing the distinguished image of their family, and indeed the whole complex of ceremonies relating to the burial of the dead also constituted a focus of aristocratic rivalry. The funeral ceremony began at the aristocrat’s house, where he would be laid out in the atrium and then carried in procession to the Forum, accompanied by actors wearing the wax masks depicting his ancestors. His nearest male relative would deliver a funerary oration from the Rostra, the speakers’ platform, and afterwards the body would be carried to the family tomb and there buried or cremated.16 Typically, an aristocratic funeral would conclude with a banquet and (from the mid-third century) with gladiatorial combats, which usually took place in the Forum (see also Chapters 17, 23, and 25). One area of the city particularly notable for aristocratic tombs was the Via Appia, just outside the Porta Capena: here could be found the tombs of the Metelli, Servilii, and Cornelii, including the monument of the Scipiones, which was excavated in the eighteenth century (Figures 24.7 and 24.9a-b).17 This contained the sarcophagus of L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus (cos. 298), his son L. Cornelius Scipio (cos. 259), and several other members of the family.18 Indeed, this area of the city was characterized by aristocratic rivalry in several different respects. Although the location of the temple of the Tempestates (vowed by the last-mentioned during the first Punic war) is not precisely known, it was in this general area of the city and quite possibly close to the family tomb; in the same way, the temple of Virtus dedicated in 205 by the son of
M. Claudius Marcellus, the conqueror of Syracuse, was close to the family mausoleum near the Porta Capena (Livy 27.25.6-10; 29.11.13). Another notable aristocratic tomb, identified by some scholars with that of Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus, who won several notable victories over the Samnites in the late fourth and early third centuries, has been found on the Esquiline: inside it are depicted images of Roman and Samnite warriors (Figures 25.19a-b; see also Chapter 25).19
One particularly striking feature of these manifestations of aristocratic competition is the way in which they presuppose an audience. The triumph was a ceremony which involved not only the victorious general himself but also the army, who marched in the triumphal procession, the Senate and magistrates, and the Roman People as a whole, who watched the spectacle. Polybius described triumphs as occasions on which ‘‘the generals display their achievements clearly before the eyes of the citizens’’ (6.15.8). The aristocrat’s house was not a private space, but a quasi-public one, where he would meet his clients and hold meetings with political associates (Vitr. De arch. 6.5.2); and even passersby could see the spoils displayed outside houses and tombs located close to main roads. In the same way, the aristocratic funeral was an occasion at which the presence of the Roman public was an important element: Polybius explicitly draws attention to this when he notes that the speech delivered before the crowd: ‘‘the masses. . . are affected with such feelings that the occurrence appears to be a loss for the whole state, not just those mourning the dead man’’ (6.53.3). The banquet and gladiatorial games that followed provided another occasion on which the family’s generosity to the People could be manifested. Many of those watching the gladiators from the limited number of spaces available in the temporary stands erected around the Forum are likely to have had particularly close links to the family of the deceased, but their presence was significant nevertheless; likewise the fact that these ‘‘family’’ occasions took place in the public spaces of the city, the Rostra and the Forum.
The quest for glory among the aristocrats was therefore one which was played out before a popular audience in the city - quite appropriately, as they depended on the votes of the People for election to the magistracies which allowed them to achieve distinction within the Roman state. Roman nobles were thought to have a distinct advantage in electoral contests:20 drawing attention to the victories that their distinguished ancestors and they themselves had won and the offices they had held was something that took place not only in the course of political canvassing but on many other occasions. Victory temples and other public monuments, the display of records in the atrium, and commemoration at funerals made the family’s achievements visible for all to see.
Although the political and social structures that encouraged this close relationship between individual ambition and public and private building can be traced back to the late fourth century, there are indications that the competitiveness that lay behind it increased to a significant degree in the years after the Hannibalic War and then again in the first century. The early second century saw hitherto unparalleled quantities of wealth coming into Rome, much of it spent on public building - infrastructural works such as warehouses and aqueducts as well as monuments linked with elite display and public life. One symptom of the increase in the level and scale of competition in this period is the way in which temples built in the latter half of the second century - the ‘‘aedes Metelli’’ and ‘‘aedes Mariana,’’ for example - tended to be known by the name of their builder rather than by the deity to which they were dedicated;21 likewise the way in which new materials and architectural styles began to be employed in temple building. For example, the first temple entirely constructed in marble at Rome was the Temple of Jupiter Stator, built in the Circus Flaminius in 146, while the use of the Ionic and Corinthian orders can be seen in the surviving temples of the Forum Boarium. Although the earliest aristocratic tombs appear to have been comparatively modest in terms of public display - the inscribed sarcophagi of the Sci-piones were contained within the walls of the tomb - more ostentatious styles of funerary monument can be seen to emerge in the second century.22 In the middle of that century the exterior of the tomb of the Scipios was refurbished and decorated with paintings and statues; similarly the tomb of the Claudii Marcelli was rebuilt in the same period with statues and a boastful external inscription honoring ‘‘three Marcelli, nine times consuls’’ (Asc. 12C). 3 In the first century, the scale of competition became even more dramatic: Pliny observed that although the house of the consul of 78, Aemilius Lepidus, was the finest in Rome at the time, it was not even in the first hundred just 35 years later (Pliny HN 36.109). At the same time, expenditure on funerary banquets and gladiatorial games became gradually more and more lavish, with the number of combatants involved increasing steadily.24
The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few exceptionally wealthy and ambitious individuals in the first century - Sulla, Crassus, Caesar, Pompey - also had a significant effect on the appearance of the city. Individual temples and other monuments were still being built, but increasingly these were subordinated to large-scale projects that were to transform the cityscape of Rome: the theater and portico of Pompey, and the complex initiated by Julius Caesar, to include the Temple of Venus Genetrix and a new senate-house and Forum (see also Chapters 4 and 24). The monuments of the city were thus both a stage for and a product of the political struggles of the Republic, reflecting the increasing levels of competition within the Roman elite and the central importance of their relationship with the Roman People for the aristocracy (see also Chapter 18). It was only really with the advent of the dynasts that Rome achieved a monumental setting appropriate for its international importance, however, as disparate initiatives by individual members of the aristocracy gave way to a more coherent and centralized approach to Rome’s civic space.25
World History
