Certain typical building structures such as fora, basilicas, baths, aqueducts, amphitheaters, and theaters (to name some of the most outstanding) existed in most cities above a certain size around the Roman Empire, and may often be taken as markers, at least in the west, of specifically Roman social ideals (MacDonald 1982, 1986; Edmondson, this volume). It is important to remember that these buildings functioned as status markers in addition to playing a functional role. Local patrons (and sometimes the emperor), always commemorated by an inscription, donated the buildings, supplied aspects of their decor, or underwrote repairs to them. Let us look more closely at fora, amphitheaters, baths, and aqueducts.
The forum was the administrative and commercial center of a city. The planned fora of the provincial cities were often axial and fairly symmetrical, surrounded by Roman-style buildings (for Merida in Spain, see Edmondson, this volume). These buildings served as offices, shops, and venues for conducting the public business of the courts and city council (the role of broader public assemblies declined through the imperial period). One of the most important of these structures was the basilica, a building type that only came into use in the Roman period (Welch 2003). In its Roman sense, the term basilica refers to a building form with a wide central space flanked by one or more colonnaded aisles. An apse at the end could provide focus and proved to be well suited to representing hierarchical relationships. The basilica was a simple but effective design for providing fairly open interior spaces suitable to tribunals, meetings, civil administration, and the like. Its associations with power explain why aristocrats of late antiquity sometimes incorporated a large basilicashaped hall into their most public suites (Ellis 1988). This building form, eminently suitable for indoor assemblies, and not directly associated with pagan religion, was later adopted for early churches.
The advent of Roman power often meant the addition of a capitolium, a temple to the tutelary deities of the city of Rome: Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, as worshipped on the Capitoline hill. Provincial capitolia were modeled on the one in Rome, using an imposing podium to elevate the temple and emphasize its frontal aspect over all others. Three cult chambers or niches housed the three divinities. In the forum of Gorsium in Pannonia, created under Trajan, a head ofJupiter was found in the central chamber (Fitz and Fedak 1993).
In addition to supporting administrative functions, the insertion of a planned Roman forum into an existing native city also sent a political message. Even in the east, where the traditional forms of urban culture could more easily absorb Roman structures, the Roman forum was sometimes placed in a different location from the preceding agora, as at Athens. Carthage and Simitthu in North Africa provide striking examples of the erasure of indigenous structures as part of the advertisement of the connection to Rome.
In 29 BCE Octavian sent colonists to reoccupy Carthage, which had been largely unoccupied since its sacking in 146 bce at the end of the Third Punic War. For the forum of the new Carthage, Roman town planners chose the citadel of the city, the Byrsa hill. Not content simply to build over the rubble of the Carthaginian buildings there, including the temple of Eschmoun, Roman town planners ‘‘bulldozed’’ an estimated 4-5 meters off the apex of the hill, pushing the earth over ruined buildings at the sides to create a new wider plateau at the top (with far-reaching archaeological implications: the buildings from the top of the hill were completely eradicated, but the redistribution of earth at the sides of the hill preserved aristocratic housing districts under sweeping strata of earth) (Lancel 1995: 151, 430). The Roman forum of Carthage, which soon became the capital of the province of Africa Procon-sularis, rose atop this artificial mesa. Although the memory of particular buildings had probably diminished in the several generations that had passed between 146 and 29 BCE, the changed contour of the Byrsa hill would nonetheless have been visible as an announcement of Roman presence and power around the bay of Tunis.
Some 165 kilometers from Carthage, ancient Simitthu (modern Chimtou) was an important Numidian city, and a major landmark in its pre-Roman topography was a cluster of large aristocratic tombs (Figure 4.2). Two circular tombs in particular must once have stood to a considerable height. In the early Roman period these tombs were razed to foundation level and covered over by the pavement of the Roman forum (Rakob 1993: 5). In this case, sizable markers of the city’s former power were completely obliterated, replaced by a symbol of the administrative power of the new regime.
The single most famous symbol of Rome is the Flavian amphitheater, better known by its colloquial later name, the Colosseum. Like most Roman buildings, the Flavian amphitheater functioned on many levels and illustrates a different kind of deliberate urban erasure of the preceding regime. At the time of its construction (72-80 ce) over the spot where Nero’s much resented private park and artificial lake had been, it was a monumental symbol of the new regime’s intent to restore the center of Rome to the use of Roman citizens, a public benefaction to offset Nero’s selfish private grandeur. Its construction was bankrolled by the spoils of Vespasian’s suppression of the revolt in Judaea (66-73 ce), a provincial rebellion that official sources preferred to call the Jewish War. The amphitheater format itself, linked to military culture
Figure 4.2 Roman forum at Chemtou, with foundations of Numidian tombs exposed at the center. These were paved over in Roman times. A basilica appears behind the tombs. Photo: L. M. Stirling, by permission
(Welch 1994), reflected Vespasian’s gratitude to the armies who had supported him in the recent civil war. Gladiatorial games and beast hunts were themselves significant symbols of imperial lavishness and Roman rule over the distant lands that supplied the animals and slaves. Vespasian (69-79 ce) did not live to see the completion of this building, but his son Titus (79-81) held a hundred-day extravaganza of inauguration for it in 80 CE. Although the building seems not to have been fully finished at that point, Titus’ decision may have stemmed from a wish to emphasize his connection to his father or expiate the memory of the disaster around Pompeii in August of 79.
The virtuosity and renown of the Colosseum rather than its absolute typicality make it a good example from which to discuss the amphitheater (Figure 4.3). Built from the quintessentially mouldable medium of concrete, the building was sheathed entirely in gleaming marble and decorated with statuary and engaged columns. Citizens entered the building through 76 numbered entrances, and were conducted to their appropriate seats with minimal contact between social ranks. From these seats, arrayed hierarchically, some 50,000 inhabitants of Rome could view both games and emperor. Fights and beast hunts took place in the arena, below which was a complex network of corridors, cages, and shafts for moving animals, people, and props around with speed and safety. The emperor Titus famously flooded the arena and held naval battles during the inauguration ceremonies, but these seem to have occurred before the substructures of the arena were complete. Nets, rollers, and other safeguards around the sides of the arena prevented animals from escaping into the ranks of spectators (Bomgardner 2000).
Figure 4.3 The Colosseum at Rome, constructed 72-80 ce. Sestertius of Titus (RIC Titus 438n ANS 1954.203.170). Photo courtesy of the American Numismatic Society
Although the Colosseum is the most famous Roman amphitheater, nearly 200 others survive archaeologically throughout the former Roman Empire, mostly in its western provinces (Golvin 1988). Factors of urban topography or available building materials create variations and regional groupings among surviving amphitheaters. Architects in Britain and other northern provinces used turf-and-timber construction - but this cheaper construction material did not lessen the building’s status as a prestige project or a symbol of connection to Rome (Welch 1994). Specialized structures to control wild animals appear only in North Africa and sites on the shipping routes from North Africa to Rome, not in the rest of the empire. Thus, the amphitheaters at Capua and Pozzuoli (south of Rome) have extensive subterranean passages and other features for handling animals, while the equally luxurious amphitheaters at Arles and Nimes do not (Bomgardner 2000: 73, 115). In the east, there was less need for purpose-built gladiatorial structures since preexisting theaters and stadia could be adapted to the same purpose. Once again, eastern and western provinces show different forms of adaptation to Roman rule.
Public baths were another form of indulgence provided by emperors and members of the elite in celebration of a political order that enabled even the common person to enjoy the pleasures of otium (Fagan, this volume). The baths were about more than getting clean - a basin of water and a cloth would suffice for basic hygiene. Rather, baths were a social institution that offered the inhabitants of a city the chance to network and socialize in a spacious environment that might well be considerably more opulent than their own. Every city possessed bath-houses on a multitude of scales: smaller, less sumptuous structures with irregular layout known as balneae, and much larger, axial structures referred to as thermae or imperial-style baths (see Fagan, this volume).
Given that baths represented an extension of aristocratic pleasure, it is not surprising that their decoration - marble veneers, mosaics, frescoes, and statues of all types - likewise involved a public display of opulence in which all might participate. By and large, statuary in baths emphasized divinities and other figures associated with health, fitness, and water; baths were also a venue for honorific statuary of local patrons, governors, or emperors. As an example, we may turn to a statuary collection built up over time at the civic thermae in Gerasa (Jordan). Portraits dedicated by prominent citizens stood just outside the entrance, while inside were two groups of mythological sculpture, one equestrian statue, and a colossal portrait of Caracalla (Friedland 2003). Such decorations would send many messages to the patrons of the bath. The donors of the portraits emphasized their identification with the ruling power by choosing togas rather than the Greek himation for their dress. Dedications inside the building were made by the city, and in one case, by a governor. With figures such as a satyr and a nude male portraying Apollo or Dionysus, the mythological statuary emphasized the leisure and cultural pursuits of the baths. The portrait of Caracalla reminds us that the imperial presence permeated public spaces. Indeed, some baths in Asia Minor housed an opulent chamber for the imperial cult (Yegul 1992), and other shrines or religious centers appeared within baths. Decor of baths could also reflect the perils of mass association, as we see from mosaics warning bathers to wear slippers on a hot floor or offering protection from demons and the evil eye (Dunbabin 1989).
Layout and decoration are not the only significant aspects of bathhouses. Refuse reveals much about the clientele and their habits. Hairpins and feminine jewellery found in the main drain at the baths inside the legionary fortress at Caerleon (Wales) make it evident that women and children (presumably the unofficial ‘‘wives’’ of the legionaries) also frequented the baths, their numbers (or at any rate, their loss of accessories) increasing over time (Zienkiewicz 1986). A few milk teeth were found in the later layers, possibly indicating not just the presence of children, but also of a dentist. A ceramic admission ‘‘ticket’’ also in the late layers may likewise indicate greater access to the public. Portable refreshments such as chicken joints, mutton chops, and shellfish left bones and shells in the drain. Over time these grew in size from finger foods to larger (but still portable) cuts of meat. The ceramics mainly comprised small dishes and cups, again items suited to small snacks. Drinking cups are a common find at Caerleon, as in baths everywhere.
A team of specialists built a small bathing structure at Sardis to evaluate aspects of fuel, firing, and heat circulation (Yegul and Couch 2003). They found, among other things, that the hollow tubes ( tubuli) typically built into the walls of a bath building allowed the building to heat more efficiently, evenly, and safely to a high temperature and also reduced the rate of fuel consumption considerably.
Aqueducts were a related form of aquatic benefaction that served both utilitarian and prestige purposes (Adam 1992; Hodge 2002). These symbols of affluence and control of the natural environment served largely to supply baths and extravagantly decorated fountain-houses (nymphaea) within cities. They might also serve more practical purposes, such as supplying fountains, some wealthy homes, and occasionally industry or agriculture (A. Wilson 1999b), but these needs could be met through wells and cisterns, as they would have been in the decades or centuries prior to the city’s attainment of the wealth and status needed to acquire an aqueduct. An aqueduct brought a continuous flow of water from a source that was higher than the city it served. The vast majority of aqueduct channels ran at ground level, where construction and maintenance were easiest and safest. The channels had to maintain a steady downward slope to keep the water moving; thus tall arcades maintained the height of the channel as it crossed valleys or approached a city across a long, level plain. An extreme example ofthe possible difficulties involved in maintaining a gradient is seen in the 50 kilometer-long aqueduct of Nimes (which included the famous Pont du Gard). Over this distance, the change in height from the source of the water to the distribution tank it served in the city was only 17 meters, that is, a miniscule 34 cm/km.
The aqueduct-borne water supply ran day and night without cease (Hodge 2002). Thus, its recipients in the cities had to accommodate this steady flow. Public water fountains, often with a catchment basin below, ran steadily. It seems that the overflow from these may have sluiced the street surfaces and then the sewers (in cities that had them). Continuously flowing water must have cleaned out the networks of pools in baths overnight, as well as running beneath their multi-seater public latrines. The ceaseless flow of water enhanced the glamour of nymphaea, such as one at Miletos, whose three-storey aedicular facade resembled a theater, right down to the statuary decoration between the columns. Here the stream of water was a performance in itself. The enormous size of the civic cisterns of some North African cities suggests that they may have tried to store or manage some of this continuous flow, but these are exceptional in the empire as a whole.
Along with a good water supply, another urban feature that was both decorative and utilitarian was green space in the form of parks and gardens. Formal plantings added color and shade to Vespasian’s Forum of Peace. At Pompeii, Wilhelmina Jashemski identified the cavities in the ground left by decayed roots by pouring plaster into them (Jashemski 1979). From this evidence, she was able to show that a considerable space within the walls of the city was under cultivation, including vineyards near the amphitheater, and that even formal gardens in peristyles usually contained herbs and plants for food alongside flowering plants (see also Ciarallo 2001; Jashemski and Meyer 2002).
World History
