Browsing by Subject "Republican Rome"

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An intangible border : Sulla’s Pomerium and destabilization in republican Rome
(2019-05-21) Fancy, Ashton Jeanne; Davies, Penelope J. E., 1964-; Clarke, John R
In 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.
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.