Browsing by Subject "Ancient Rome"
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Item An emperor for a master : slaves in the palaces of Augustus and Nero(2018-05) Harton, George Maurice, V; Clarke, John R., 1945-Traditionally, scholars portray the palaces of imperial Rome as spaces for interaction between the emperor and his elite guests while erasing the majority of the familia urbana that populated these sprawling structures: the slaves. Yet by examining the architecture and decorations of the palaces of Augustus and Nero in Rome, the lives of enslaved people can be reconstructed, restoring their centrality to the history of the early Principate.Item An intangible border : Sulla’s Pomerium and destabilization in republican Rome(2019-05-21) Fancy, Ashton Jeanne; Davies, Penelope J. E., 1964-; Clarke, John RIn the waning years of the Roman Republic, amidst an atmosphere of distrust and unease, Roman dictator L. Cornelius Sulla enacted a series of proscriptions that infamously left the streets of Rome running with blood, executing those who threatened his plans to re-concentrate power within an elite Roman class. While violence set a certain tone for his dictatorship, Sulla also conveyed his intentions to the public through subtler means, including a program of architectural restorations. This thesis will consider one such act of restoration—the expansion of the pomerium, or the boundary that marked a change in military and religious privileges within the city. While attested to by ancient authors, no physical remains of Sulla’s pomerium have been identified, meaning that the border was likely invisible and therefore largely unknowable to the uninitiated passerby. Over the course of his political career, Sulla would take advantage of the pomerium’s sacred and legal import by violating its ordinances on two occasions and subsequently reestablishing its bounds through an expansion of the border, effectively destabilizing the relationship of the city of Rome and its inhabitants by reasserting his control over space. It is my contention that Sulla capitalized on the boundary’s intangible qualities in order to unsettle what had previously been a stable, if benign, concept in the Roman imagination. This thesis aims to examine how architecture can communicate power in the absence of a physical structure, focusing on how the pomerium’s invisibility under Sulla’s dictatorship functioned as a malleable political tool for the state to exert control over its population. How the Romans related to the built environment and border spaces is of critical importance to this discussion, as the city and its architecture—visible or otherwise—conveyed important messages about political dynamics. I argue that the pomerium’s expansion under Sulla spoke volumes, as Roman spatial memory extended beyond that which was immediately visible to recall the past. As the city streets may have conjured memories of Sullan-spilt blood and its accompanying fear, so too may fragmentary knowledge of the pomerium have elicited a similar response, resulting in submission to the state’s authority.Item Dionysus unbound : reimagining space in the House of Jason at Pompeii(2017-05) Wood, Christopher, M.A.; Clarke, John R., 1945-Although over a century has passed since its rediscovery, the specific function of the center paintings from Pompeii’s House of Jason (IX.5.18) has continued to elude scholars as well as excite fervent debate. Among the many spectacular frescoes that once adorned the walls of the house’s west wing were those devoted to some of the most dangerous women of Greek myth: Medea the spurned enchantress of Colchis, Cretan Phaedra the scheming stepmother, and Helen of Troy, the most beguiling woman in the world. While some attention has been paid to what often has been seen as a rogue’s gallery of powerful women, little attention has been paid to linking them with center pictures in adjoining rooms many of which contain equally powerful mythic and archetypal figures—Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons, Europa and the Bull, Deianira and the brutish centaur Nessus, or even assigning meaning based on their domestic context. This produces an all too often abbreviated view of the owner’s intended visual narrative. The Roman domus, however, represents a complex nexus linking social, political, and religious spheres, as well as public and private space, which, at this location previous scholarship has ignored. This thesis attempts to both connect and place the center paintings within their proper context, namely that of the Roman convivium, and proposes that the overall artistic program seems to epitomize fears Roman patriarchal society has of powerful, foreign women. The scenes in the center paintings, many deriving from Greek tragedy, depict powerful eastern women who use guile and trickery to undermine traditional male dominated society. They also highlight male effeminacy, uncivilized creatures, and moments of fantastic transformation beyond one’s control and reason. Combined these with the numerous decorative elements such as satyrs, maenads, and ritual paraphernalia, and a connection between this space, and the cult of Dionysus slowly begins to emerge.Item The Latin Leaflet(University of Texas at Austin, 1939-08-08) University of Texas at AustinItem Momentary spectacle : timber's altered agency in late-Republican Rome(2021-05-07) Adkins, Amanda C.; Davies, Penelope J. E., 1964-Built spaces, and the materials they are comprised of, manipulate movement and evoke responses amongst people engaging with them. During the second and first centuries BCE in Rome, the relationship between the ancients and the city’s architecture grew more complex as new building materials, as well as new uses for familiar materials, were introduced. In this context, society began to heavily rely on the meanings and associations with which materials were imbued to infuse architectural projects with distinct messages. While the concept of materiality in ancient Rome has been prominent in discussions of concrete and stone, timber, a ubiquitous building material, has yet to receive such analysis. This thesis will consider the agency of timber throughout the Republic and its potential to change near the Republic’s end. Due to the scant evidence for timber in the archaeological record, my research is conducted through investigations of ancient sources, most notably Pliny and Cicero among others, and applications of materiality studies and sensory theory. The use of timber in the second and first centuries varied from everyday activities to industrial necessities. Although timber was arguably the most critical material for the creation of Roman architecture, its visibility was, in most cases, short-lived. However, between the second and first centuries, an increased desire for spectacles among the Roman populace increased the use of timber and led to innovations in temporary structures built for ludi. In contrast with the newly-introduced Greek marble and Roman concrete, a previously understated quality of timber – its pliability – came to the forefront and began to be overtly exploited in the forms of entertainment structures. In this thesis, I propose that the use of timber was challenged by new materials and the increased presence of ludi in Rome and gained traction in public projects through enticing momentary spectacles. This fascination, in turn, sparked a change in people’s perceptions of a material they had long considered mundane. With architectural and political changes in Rome providing a novel approach to timber construction, people began to create associations between the material and sensationalism.Item The origins of Augustan portraiture : typology and dissemination of the pre-Actium Types(2017-05) Topping, Sarah Charlotte; Clarke, John R., 1945-The following paper explores the provenance, typology, and significance of the pre-Actium Type portraits of Augustus Caesar. These types are the Béziers-Spoleto Type, Lucus Feroniae Type, and Type B. The provenance, when available, is traced to the location of origin and analyzed in historical context. A detailed typological analysis is offered for each type with a focus on Stirnlockenanalyse. Deviations from the ideal model are addressed and evaluated. Finally, the significance of the three types is reevaluated in light of the provenance and new typological analysis.Item Triumphal literature, or a literary triumph? : Caesar’s Commentaries and the Roman triumphal procession(2023-07-24) Welch, David George, Jr.; Riggsby, Andrew M.; Haimson Lushkov, Ayelet; Chaudhuri, Pramit; Damon, Cynthia; Ostenberg, IdaThis dissertation examines the relationship between Julius Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War and the Roman triumphal procession. I use the modern theory of intermediality, which posits the possibility of relationships of influence between works of different media, to argue that the Commentaries’ uniqueness in the ancient literary canon can be in part explained by recognizing the significant influence they draw from the triumph. The institution of the triumph meets modern theorists’ criteria for the “historical work,” and there was a long tradition of various forms of writing accompanying individual triumphs – this combination of factors meant that a literary production could not only easily imitate the communicative strategies of the triumph, but we might even say it could expectedly do so. In analyzing such a relationship between the triumph and Caesar’s Commentaries, I divide the subjects presented by these media into two broad categories – the vanquished foe and the victorious Romans. The treatment of the enemy focuses on leveraging their defeat for political clout. The threat posed by the various enemies, whether that be physical or ideological, was the object of concerted emphasis in both media and, in an entirely different vein, more neutral objects of ethnographic interest like local flora and fauna became the objects of lengthier treatments as time progressed. In presenting the victorious Romans, both media focus on instilling a sense of community in their various audiences. While the triumph accomplished this by leaning on the unifying forces of the Romans’ shared history and the fact that the Romans were all physically gathered together on the day of the procession, the Commentaries use the linguistic directness afforded to literary media to more directly remind their readers of their commonality with the Roman army. I conclude by discussing the impact that the environment of aristocratic competition had on the incorporation of triumphal elements in the Commentaries. I propose that Commentaries were a natural next step in the evolving field of Republican aristocratic competition, and that their inherently Republican nature guaranteed their lack of literary successors, given their publication in the final years before the fall of the Republic and the establishment of the principateItem What’s so Funny about Rome? A Look into Western Satirical Depictions of Ancient Rome(2022) Tidwell, Ryan; Clarke, John R.In this paper, I am delving into how A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), Fellini Satyricon (1971), Monty Python’s: Life of Brian (1979) and & “I, Carambus” from The Simpsons (2020), changed the western idea of ancient Rome from a conservative and strait-laced society to a liberal and nuanced. society. These satires caused this change by ridiculing the world of ancient Rome and the conservative ideals established by older depictions, like Ben Hur (1959), Quo Vadis (1953) or The Robe (1953). These older depictions used a masculine, conservative male protagonist to show what every Roman was like and what everybody should aspire too. But these satires challenged this notion by having the protagonist be a morally grey, sexually promiscuous, and generally liberal Roman through comedy. This paper will discuss how comedic techniques were used, what influenced the creation of the depiction and how contemporary and modern audiences reacted to the depiction. In conclusion, by having the Romans act ridiculous for the audience, the western audience came to accept the idea that ancient Rome was a flawed society and not something to be revered.