city.html

THE CITY OF ROME

Physical Setting

Ford in R. Tiber: = trade
Seven (+) hills: = protection & safety

Capitoline: political center
Palatine: later site of imperial palace

Inland site: security but also drawback

Pomerium: religious boundary of city

Periodically pushed outward
Tombs must be outside pomerium

Early Rome

Servian Walls (4th c.)
Tiber Island & Forum Boarium (cattle market)
Original forum (Forum Romanum) between Capitoline and Palatine
Campus Martius
(original) Circus Maximus
Cloaca Maxima (underground sewer)

Rome: Public Building

Mid/Late Republic

Appian Way (Via Appia) & Aqua Appia
Theater of Pompey
Forum of Julius Caesar (Temple of Venus Genetrix)
Lack of central planning

Augustus (31 BC- AD 14)

Temple building & restoration
Forum of Augustus (Temple of Mars Ultor)
Repairs to infrastructure: Agrippa
Theater of Marcellus
Residence on Palatine (first palace)
Mausoleum of Augustus

"Since the city was not adorned as the dignity of the empire demanded, and was exposed to flood and fire, he so beautified it that he could justly boast that he had found it built of brick and left it in marble."
Suetonius, Augustus 28.3

Tiberius (14-37)

Praetorian barracks
Expansion of palace complex

Claudius (41-54)

Harbor at Ostia
Aqua Claudia (over Porta Maggiore)

Nero (54-68)

Fire (64) & subsequent rebuilding
"Golden House" (Domus Aurea)
Use of concrete, focus on interior space

Flavian Dynasty (69-96)

Flavian Amphitheater ("Colosseum")
Arch of Titus
Stadium of Domitian (-> Piazza Navona)
Imperial Palace

Trajan (98-117)

Column of Trajan
Forum complex: Basilica Ulpia, markets
Portus: new harbor at Ostia
Baths of Trajan

Hadrian (117-138)

Pantheon (architect: Apollodorus of Damascus)
Temple of Venus & Rome
Mausoleum of Hadrian (-> Castel S. Angelo)

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NB: Photographs on this page courtesy of Leo Curran: http://www.wings.buffalo.edu/AandL/Maecenas/