moving on to our second half of the ancient rome lecture as a reminder we have moved on from the roman republic to the roman empire so this is the colosseum also known as the flavian amphitheater you've probably seen images of this building before it has become quite ubiquitous with representations of the city of rome itself um it was this massive amphitheater to accommodate over 50 000 spectators that's five zero thousand spectators which is a massive amount of people even by today's standards you can imagine that two thousand years ago this was an absolute spectacle so
this building was constructed to host these elaborate spectacles mostly reenactments of famous battles gladiator matches fights with wild beasts as well as executions so the the romans were really into fighting and bloodshed this was a really big part of their culture so they often times celebrated it by having these massive spectacles take place in these public places so there's actually an area below the amphitheater which is visible today i've actually been to the coliseum there's a little bit of reconstruction where the original floor um used to be um and then these are the subterranean vaults
that were places that the gladiators would typically get ready it was also a place where the wild beasts would be kept before they were released out onto the main floor um when we look at the coliseum we can see that arches barrel vaults and groin vaults are used quite liberally so there are 76 entrances to the coliseum and there's these tiers of of arches that are leading up towards the top each of these levels has columns um that are engaged into the surface that means they're not weight bearing they're just kind of like a decoration
on the outside and each of these tiers has different column capitals on them there are also flagstaffs at the top of the coliseum at one point in time and they were actually used to support this canvas roof that was um that would be pulled over the coliseum and used as shade on hot days if you've ever been to rome in the summer you know that it gets very hot and this is all made of stone so you can imagine again very very hot so there was actually this massive like structure called the valarium that would
um start off in the middle right here it was like a ring of string and then they would have all of these long vertical sails that would reach out towards the center and there are members of the roman navy that would sit by here and actually um like pull the the sails out to cover the amphitheater so the colosseum was once faced in marble a lot of it was removed and recycled during the ages during the middle ages um this tends to happen with a lot of older buildings that are faced in nice material people
just show up and they're like this is nice marble i guess i'll take it so that's why it's in such a state of apparent disrepair is that people were coming in and taking pieces of the marble away so this is an artist rendition of the coliseum and its full glory we can see that it's this this massive oval structure and it was intended to be like full of full height on all sides this is an example of the valerium right here so there's all these strings going towards the center and these are the sails that
will be pulled over um the people who are seated in each of these archways there were plenty of statues of um gods and goddesses from the roman pantheon there were also lots of sculptures of roman emperors that were deified so here is another rendition of the coliseum i included this diagram specifically to show a cutaway of the coliseum you'll notice that it's not completely solid all the way through we have a kind of swiss cheese model that is being used here that's creating these large interior spaces so remember that barrel vaults are what happen when
you take an arch and you you stretch it into a tunnel and then a groin vault is when you have two barrel vaults and you're intersecting them so basically the entire foundations of the coliseum are built on these like intersecting barrel vaults so this is a video that was made by the history channel a couple of years ago um oh i guess it doesn't play anymore but it was talking about how the um the coliseum was funded primarily by war booty that was seized from the sacking of jerusalem and how a lot of the um
the people that they had conquered were actually forced to construct the coliseum itself which is why it was built so quickly so this massive structure only took eight years to build and it was because it was built on the back of slave labor this video also talks a little bit about the different kinds of things that would happen um as spectacles inside of the colosseum again the romans were quite eager to watch people being killed in mass people would often times bring their children and their wives to the event to watch the spectacle it was
like prime time television next work is the forum of trajan so trajan was rome's emperor from 98 to 117 ce and he's basically credited with being rome's most prolific successful and well-liked emperor so he basically expanded the roman empire to its greatest extent um and he was very much revered by the people for that so this complex was intended to show rome stability power and might over everything else it was a location where there were public spaces for gathering so this is called a forum there were also civic buildings like the basilica opia and there
were plenty of libraries too so this was a place where knowledge was kept there was a library with um with texts that were in the greek language and then there were was a library of texts in the roman language so this is indicating again that strong influence that ancient greece is having on the culture and art of ancient rome we also have this similar structure that we saw in ancient greece we called it the um not the forum we called it the agora right remember the agora this large um civic space that is being placed
in the center of a city so this is serving a similar purpose to the um greek agora right so this particular form right here was actually one of several within this section of rome um there's kind of a funny story behind this basically trajan wanted to build um his forum on top of the other emperor's fora but they wouldn't let him so there was this like 100 foot tall hill that was in the way of building this one so he just basically told the architect apollodorus like move the hill out of the way so they
did so that's the kind of person that trajan was if something's in something was in his way he would just move it to the other side so um one of the hallmark features of the form of trajan was the column of trajan which we can see peeking out right here in this reconstruction we're going to be talking about this in just a moment another common feature of ancient roman fora were these uses was the use of the equestrian statue so an equestrian statue is basically an image of the um of the person that is being
honored that's riding a horse often times the horse is shown like slightly smaller than real life to basically emphasize the the scale of the figure and that is kind of a demonstration of hierarchy of scale so we have the central plaza and then we also had this surrounding complex of buildings including the basilico opia so the basilica it would basically serve as the foundation for the christian cruciform church in later centuries and then we also had a set of markets on the side here so here's the main square or the plaza and this is a
digital reconstruction there's not much of the basilico opia left there are a couple of columns left but this is what it originally looked like here it was this massive columned interior space usually used to hold log quartz there are some human figures in here for scale you'll notice that it had two floors and had these walkways on either side so there was also this massive roof that was 80 feet across made of timber that spanned the top of the building to create an enclosed interior space are what remain of the markets of trajan we're again
seeing that similar kind of structure that we saw with the coliseum where we're having these repeated barrel and groin vaults that are arranged in a more or less circular pattern similarly to the coliseum as well the base of the building was made of concrete and then it was faced in something that was a little bit prettier in this case it was faced with brick this right here is the column of trajan this was the commemorative narrative that was basically the centerpiece of this entire forum um his it was also his place of burial so his
ashes were placed in the base after he died so the column is actually made out of hollow marble and there's an interior interior spiral staircase that leads all the way to the top of the column wrapped around the column is this 625 foot long freeze that wraps around and is basically telling the the narrative of trajan's defeat of the dacians so the dacians were basically um the people that occupy what is now romania so remember that the romans are really into conquering other people and they see it as a thing to celebrate when they do
so so one of the things that actually funded the the form of trajan itself was the conquest of the nations and taking all of their stuff and all of your people and forcing them to build new stuff so there's over 200 or 2500 figures carved and low relief into this narrative freeze and 150 different scenes so there's a lot of stuff going on and it's difficult to tell exactly what's happening in this image there was also a statue of trajan on top originally it was eventually replaced with the statue of saint peter when the catholic
church started gaining power and influence in ancient rome so this is a great little video that was produced by national geographic a couple of years ago that uses claymation to demonstrate the construction of the column of trajan in the heart of rome lies a mystery trajan's column is one of the most impressive monuments to survive the fall of the roman empire and researchers are still trying to understand how it was actually built if only we could go back in time we could watch this amazing feat of engineering come together the column was dedicated by the
roman senate in 113 a.d to honor the emperor trajan who had just conquered the dacians all but wiping them from the face of europe the architect was thought to be apollodorus of damascus who had already designed trajan's forum at 126 feet tall the column would require 29 blocks of solid marble each weighing from 25 to 77 tons these were brought from a quarry north of rome and floated up the tiber river to the work site within each drum was carved windows and a staircase allowing access to the top [Music] a current theory says the drums
were rolled into the base of a lifting tower a sophisticated scaffolding and pulley system for lifting the drums high into the air to grip the drums slots were carved into the marble for lewis irons which held the marble from the inside then ropes were attached to each lewis [Music] providing the power for lifting the drums was a series of cap stands working in concert each pushed by perhaps a dozen men as well as horses these were connected to ropes that wound through pulley blocks up and down the lifting tower in this way a marble drum
could be raised high above the streets below to see what's happening inside the lifting tower let's take away one of the outer walls of this model a drum is lifted and then lowered onto a trundling platform ropes are disconnected and the drum is moved horizontally then new ropes are attached the platform is removed and the drum is lowered and secured into place once the drums are set craftsmen smooth the surface and begin work on a 656-foot long freeze which tells the story of emperor trajan's war victory the freeze spirals up the column like a giant
comic strip in 155 different scenes and was probably painted with bright colors no evidence remains as to what the colors actually were a bronze statue of trajan was placed on top but in 1588 a pope installed a statue of saint peter instead the statue of trajan has been lost to history meanwhile the pedestal is made out of eight marble blocks and contains the tomb of trajan trajan's column has stood for more than 1900 years and was deeply influential over the centuries as the city's landmarks crumbled the column has continued to fascinate and inspired [Music] that's
one of my favorite videos that i show during the school year i think it's so charming all right moving on to our next piece this is the pantheon so you might recall in our ancient greece lecture that we had a work um that was similar a name called the parthenon with an r so remember that the parthenon and the pantheon are different buildings from different civilizations okay so the pantheon like its name suggests was a monument intended to honor all of the gods as well as a couple of deified emperors as well so when you
break down the roots of the word pantheon so pan means all and then theos or theon means god so basically the building's literal name is all gods there's also an inscription across the freeze at the entrance of the building that translates to marcus agrippa son of lucious consul thrice built which is intended to represent commissioned it so this is actually the second building in this location marcus agrippa commissioned the first pantheon but apparently emperor hadrian didn't find it unprecedented impressive enough so he replaced it around 125 ce and oftentimes actually help court inside of the
building when you look at this building you'll notice that there's a lot of elements of it that are very very similar to greek architecture we have a triangular pediment as well as a freeze and an architrave and corinthian columns right here so the facade is very very greek in nature and that was intentional you have to remember that the romans were very much influenced by the greeks and their culture and architecture on the inside however is something that's a little bit more roman and that involves the dome all right so this dome was this massive
i believe 47 meter diameter hemisphere that was located on the inside of this building a couple of things about it so this dome at the base had walls that were around 20 feet thick the thickness decreases with height as you go taller in the dome and the materials are actually lighter towards the top so you'll notice at the base here it's a lot thicker and then as you move towards the top the um the building is getting thinner interestingly the materials that were used in the concrete to build the um pantheon were actually different in
composition based on how high you went up so the stuff at the bottom for example um had a lot of travertine in it which is a very durable stone whereas this um the concrete at the top actually used pumice so those of you who have heard this word pumice before you've probably used a pumice stone to get rid of dead skin on the heels of your feet it's this fabulous volcanic stone that is very light and it's porous and it actually floats so the lightest kind of stone is used towards the top whereas the heavier
more durable stuff is used towards the bottom all right so one of the things that you'll notice about this dome is that it has a hole in the top so this is called the oculus so oculus is um latin for eye and this oculus it was intended to serve several functions one it was to let light inside of the building remember that this dome doesn't really have exterior windows except for these tiny little windows on the side here so this is the primary light source inside of the building what's super cool is that it also
actually functions as a sun dial so you can actually tell the time by the position of the light spot inside of the building it also allowed air to flood the space so the pantheon is one of the best preserved um buildings from ancient rome one of the reasons that it was so well preserved is that it was used by the catholic church for services um so they kept it really nice this building is extremely brilliantly inordinately decorated we have tiled floors using different kinds of colored marble the ceiling was painted at one point in time
there were these little niches here for statues of gods we don't really know what happened to them and inside of the coffers which are these squares that are on the inside of the dome right here there used to be these little um brass attachments that were kind of shaped like flowers that were placed with them so these coffers were basically these concentric squares that were intended to reduce the the amount of material that was being used in the dome remember that there's no steel or any sort of other material that is being used to reinforce
this concrete so they really need to rely on the the integrity of the material and not having it be so heavy one of the ways they do that is by cutting out some of the materials so you can kind of see in this cross section here how some of the material has been removed so the pantheon would actually go on to influence lots of artists and architects during the italian renaissance one of the things that we're going to be seeing in the next unit is that um artists and architects kind of forget about domes and
they forget how to do them for a couple of hundred years um and it's during the renaissance that people start to figure this out again and really have a newfound appreciation for the pantheon it was a place of such significance and importance in ancient rome actually that there are several italian kings buried there as well as the italian renaissance artist raphael so this is the interior of the pantheon you can notice that there's lots of different colors of marble that are being used inside of the building we're seeing that continued theme of pediments across these
rectangular spaces as well as corinthian columns here another thing you'll notice is this repeating motif of circles squares and rectangles throughout so this is really intended to create a sense of visual harmony when you look at the plan and elevation for the pantheon as well you're noticing like even within like the the broader general structure of the pantheon we have this perfect circle that is defining this interior space right here so this is a good piece to com actually compare to the parthenon ironically because there's this sense of like visual harmony and math and monumental
architecture our last piece of the unit is the ludovisi battle sarcophagus so this sarcophagus is actually um named based off of one of the former owners of the sarcophagus we don't actually know who it was used to bury what you'll notice when you look at the battle sarcophagus is an extremely crowded composition there are several dozen figures here in a row relatively smaller space so whenever we see a composition that has lots of stuff going on and it's very crowded and there's not really any empty space to be seen that's called horror evacuee we're going
to be seeing this term pretty frequently in art history so horror evacuee in latin means fear of emptiness so fear of like the absence of something so these figures are quite literally piled on top of each other in these ways that are not really naturally possible this was intended probably by the artist to emulate the confusion and the chaos of battle so we're seeing members of the roman army in this piece they're along the top portion of the battle sarcophagus they're pretty recognizable because most of them are wearing helmets and armor they're also mostly clean
shaven and by and large they're the ones that are faring better than the people that they are conquering on the bottom who are likely barbarians or other people that the romans are conquering and then subjugating so remember again the realms love conquering people it's a subject that they visit over and over again in their art so there's this dehumanization that is actually happening in this piece we have this glorification of the victors um they're obviously like doing pretty well for themselves they're very victorious um we even have this central figure that is raising his arm
and a gesture that's very similar to the one that we're seeing on the august of prima porter this orator's gesture and he's not even wearing a helmet so he's pretty cocky and in a sense he's intended to portray this this youth that is invincible he's also very large for his horse which is a common like design motif that happens in ancient rome as we saw with other artworks so one of the other things that you'll notice about the glutavisi battle sarcophagus is that the figures are not oftentimes well proportioned or abide by a consistent rule
of perspective so when we look at this figure for example his arm is quite large for the size of his head so this is also adding to the sense of confusion and also indicating to art historians that there's something happening during this period that is putting enough stress on artists that there must be some sort of like general anxiety of the time so at this point in time we're entering the late imperial period of the roman empire um we've passed the zenith of trajan um and things are starting to go downhill so this is when
we're starting to see this building sense of premonition and anxiety and art so at this point in time roma is kind of struggling to maintain its upper hand and and trying the best that it can to maintain a whole of its assets a couple of other things too this is a really large piece of marble that and the intricacy of the carving the amount of detail that the artist was able to get in this very high relief sculpture indicates that whoever commissioned this was probably very wealthy also the figures along the bottom are slightly smaller
than the figures along the top this is another example of hierarchy of scale albeit a little bit more subtle than other examples that we've seen it's also creating this um this visual illusion that we're looking down upon the figures so this is again very reflective of this this roman mentality of we are the best and everybody else is basically going to be conquered by us because they're inferior to us all right that concludes unit 2.
