Art and Architecture in Ancient Rome [email protected]

Week One. Beginnings: An introduction to “the idea of Rome”: what uses does it have in today’s culture? Just like Heinrich Schliemann’s use of “Troy” in archaeology, the Renaissance painters and Jacques-Louis David used Roman history for contemporary political critique. Also: a brief overview of major Iron-Age societies, and a look at the archaeological evidence for early Rome. The wider blend of Villanovan, Etruscan and early Italic influences are explored by a look at votive figurines, jewelry, and craft. Literature: Virgil, The Aeneid. Artwork: Etruscan tomb murals, Villanovan funerary urns, early Italic archaeology.

Optional Journal Reading: • Andreas Kalyvas, ‘The Tyranny of Dictatorship: When the Greek Tyrant Met the Roman Dictator’, Political Theory, vol. 35, no. 4 (Aug., 2007), pp. 412-442. •

Clifford Ando, ‘Was Rome a Polis?’, Classical Antiquity , vol. 18, no. 1 (Apr., 1999), pp. 5-34.

• Andrew Meadows and Jonathan Williams, ‘Moneta and the Monuments: Coinage and Politics in Republican Rome’, The Journal of Roman Studies , vol. 91, (2001), pp. 27-49. • Nijboer, A.J.; Van Der Plicht, J.; Bietti Sestieri, A.M.; De Santis, A. (1999-2000). "A high chronology for the Early Iron Age in central Italy". Palaeohistoria, vol. 43/44 (University of Groningen: Laboratory for Conservation & Material Studies), 163–176. • Francesco Buranelli, ‘The Bronze Hut Urn in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’, Metropolitan Museum Journal , vol. 21 (1986), pp. 5-12, and Lawrence Richardson, A New Topography of Ancient Rome (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins Press, 1992), p. 74 (online at Google Books).

Week Two. Carthage: Magna Grecia and the Roman conquest of Spain give examples of a PanMediterreanean culture adopted by the emerging Romans, but the origins of Carthage show an alternative model of expansion. Perpetual debates about class lead to caste conflict, Plebs vs. patricians in civil war. Power in Rome was a dangerous business, as witnessed by the life histories of Marius and the Gracchi brothers. In a life-long conflict of values, Scipio Africanus and Cato showed two different sides of Roman life. Of the great general, and the great ethicist, whose is the more appealing character? Carthagian art shows a fascinating alternative to the Roman interest in realism. Literature: Livy, The History of Rome. Artwork: The Temples at Paestum, Greek vases, Carthagian sculpture, Celtic Iron Age coinage.

Optional Journal Reading: • Robin Osborne, ‘Why Did Athenian Pots Appeal to the Etruscans?’ World Archaeology , vol. 33, no. 2, Archaeology and Aesthetics (Oct., 2001), pp. 277-295. • Michael C. Astour, ‘Ancient Greek Civilization in Southern Italy’, Journal of Aesthetic Education , vol. 19, no. 1 (Spring, 1985), pp. 23-37. • John K. Papadopoulos, ‘Magna Achaea: Akhaian Late Geometric and Archaic Pottery in South Italy and Sicily’, Hesperia, vol. 70, no. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 2001), pp. 373-460. • Anthony S. Tuck, ‘The Etruscan Seated Banquet: Villanovan Ritual and Etruscan Iconography’, American Journal of Archaeology , vol. 98, no. 4 (Oct., 1994), pp. 617-628. • Marco Pellecchia and Riccardo Negrini et. al., ‘The Mystery of Etruscan Origins: Novel Clues from Bos taurus Mitochondrial DNA’, Proceedings: Biological Sciences , vol. 274, no. 1614 (May 7, 2007), pp. 1175-1179. • Marshall Joseph Becker, ‘Childhood among the Etruscans: Mortuary Programs at Tarquinia as Indicators of the Transition to Adult Status’, Hesperia Supplement , vol. 41 (2007), pp. 281-292.

Week Three: Caesar: The Invasion of Gaul. Roman imperial expansion was swift, brutal, and violent. Julius Caesaer’s genocide in Gaul wrought genetic, cultural and economic changes across western Europe. The fused, hybrid nature of Romano-Celtic art and religious belief shows the long-lasting influence of the Celtic world. Literature: Catullus. The most intensely personal, and sexually explicit, poet in the Roman tradition died young, at thirty. His verses evoke the sophisticated, luxurious world of the 1st-century Roman nobility. Artwork: The Pergamon Alterpiece shows the flowering of Hellenistic art among the Greek city-states of Asia Minor, but its history stresses the hegemonic potential of Roman authority.

Optional Journal Reading: • Glenn Markoe, ‘The Emergence of Orientalizing in Greek Art: Some Observations on the Interchange between Greeks and Phoenicians in the Eighth and Seventh Centuries B. C.’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research , no. 301 (Feb., 1996), pp. 47-67. • Ann Kuttner, ‘Republican Rome Looks at Pergamon’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology , vol. 97 (1995), pp. 157-178. • Veit Rosenberger, ‘The Gallic Disaster’, The Classical World , vol. 96, no. 4 (Summer, 2003), pp. 365-373. • Peter Forster and Alfred Toth, ‘Toward a Phylogenetic Chronology of Ancient Gaulish, Celtic, and Indo-European’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , vol. 100, no. 15 (Jul. 22, 2003), pp. 9079-9084.

Week Four : Augustus: Ovid. Under Augustus, Rome reached new heights of economic prosperity and military conquest. While re-found unity contributed to a sense of revitalization, corruption among imperial elites was a serious problem. Literature: Ovid. The Metamorphoses has had a profound effect on the visual, literary and dramatic spheres of “western” culture. From Kafka to Norval Morrisseau, La Fontaine to the PreRaphaelites, Ovid’s stories have had an incredible afterlife. Do they inspire us? Artworks: The Dying Gaul, imperial Roman portraiture, ruins in Tunisia, the Ara Pacis. Try the works of Rosemary Sutcliff, if you are sick of “dry journal articles!

• Valerie M. Hope, ‘Trophies and Tombstones: Commemorating the Roman Soldier’, World Archaeology , vol. 35, no. 1 (Jun., 2003), pp. 79-97. • Matthew Leigh, ‘Early Roman Epic and the Maritime Moment’, Classical Philology , vol. 105, no. 3 (July 2010), pp. 265-280. • Almudena Orejas and F. Javier Sánchez-Palencia, ‘Mines, Territorial Organization, and Social Structure in Roman Iberia: Carthago Noua and the Peninsular Northwest’, American Journal of Archaeology , vol. 106, no. 4 (Oct., 2002), pp. 581-599.

Week Five: Hadrian: Under a succession of hard-working administrators, Rome enjoyed unparalleled dominance over large stretches of Europe, northern Africa and the near East. Religious institutions like the cults of Serapis, Isis and Mithras show the syncretic, adaptable aspect of Roman belief systems. Artworks: The Antinous motif in Roman sculpture; Hadrian’s villa; the Nabateans at Petra. Literature: Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars. Suteonius mixes biography, history and titillation in one masterly volume, but there unexpectedly poignant scenes in his narrative, illustrating that the truth really is stranger than fiction! What are your favourites? Roman decadence explored: what is it about this world that is so fascinating?

Optional Journal Reading • Sara Paton, ‘Knossos: an imperial renaissance’, British School at Athens Studies , vol. 12 (2004), pp. 451-455. • Matthew B. Roller, ‘Demolished Houses, Monumentality, and Memory in Roman Culture’, Classical Antiquity , vol. 29, no. 1 (April 2010), pp. 117-180. • Basil Dufallo, ‘Appius' Indignation: Gossip, Tradition, and Performance in Republican Rome’, Transactions of the American Philological Association , vol. 131 (2001), pp. 119-142.

Week Six: Constantine: We leave Rome, not at its sack in the early 5th century, or even in the dawn of Rome’s spiritual and cultural successor, Constantinople. Instead, we go back to the early first century BCE, to the world of Plautus and Pompeii, of dramatic revolutions that reshaped the look of theatre, and the mystery religions painted on the walls of Roman houses. Literature: Apuleius, The Golden Ass. Artworks: Roman sarcophagi and their survival in Byzantine and Renaissance art. The Arches of the Forum. The Coliseum. The painting cycles of Pompeii. Optional Journal Reading: • Greg Woolf, ‘Beyond Romans and Natives’, World Archaeology , vol. 28, no. 3 (Feb., 1997), pp. 339-350. • Corrie Bakels and Stefanie Jacomet, ‘Access to Luxury Foods in Central Europe during the Roman Period: The Archaeobotanical Evidence’, World Archaeology , vol. 34, no. 3 (Feb., 2003), pp. 542-557. Paul Zanker, ‘The Domestic Arts in Pompeii’, pp. 135 – 207, in Pompeii : public and private life (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2000, ©1998) @ Google Books.