The Architecture Of The Roman Triumph

This book offers the first critical study of the architecture of the Roman triumph, ancient Rome's most important victory ritual. Through case studies ranging from the republican to imperial periods, it demonstrates how powerfully monuments shaped how Romans performed, experienced, and remembered triumphs and, consequently, how Romans conceived of an urban identity for their city. Monuments highlighted Roman conquests of foreign peoples, enabled Romans to envision future triumphs, made triumphs more memorable through emotional arousal of spectators, and even generated distorted memories of triumphs that might never have occurred. This book illustrates the far-reaching impact of the architecture of the triumph on how Romans thought about this ritual and, ultimately, their own place within the Mediterranean world. In doing so, it offers a new model for historicizing the interrelations between monuments, individual and shared memory, and collective identities.

It followed every major military victory in ancient Rome: the successful general drove through the streets to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill; behind him streamed his raucous soldiers; in front were his most glamorous prisoners, as well as the booty he’d captured, from enemy ships and precious statues to plants and animals from the conquered territory. Occasionally there was so much on display that the show lasted two or three days. A radical reexamination of this most extraordinary of ancient ceremonies, this book explores the magnificence of the Roman triumph, but also its darker side. What did it mean when the axle broke under Julius Caesar’s chariot? Or when Pompey’s elephants got stuck trying to squeeze through an arch? Or when exotic or pathetic prisoners stole the general’s show? And what are the implications of the Roman triumph, as a celebration of imperialism and military might, for questions about military power and “victory” in our own day? The triumph, Mary Beard contends, prompted the Romans to question as well as celebrate military glory. Her richly illustrated work is a testament to the profound importance of the triumph in Roman culture—and for monarchs, dynasts and generals ever since. But how can we re-create the ceremony as it was celebrated in Rome? How can we piece together its elusive traces in art and literature? Beard addresses these questions, opening a window on the intriguing process of sifting through and making sense of what constitutes “history.”

“A fascinating insight into the mind of the Roman emperor.”—Sunday Telegraph (London) Born in A.D. 76, Hadrian lived through and ruled during a tempestuous era, a time when the Colosseum was opened to the public and Pompeii was buried under a mountain of lava and ash. Acclaimed author Anthony Everitt vividly recounts Hadrian’s thrilling life, in which the emperor brings a century of disorder and costly warfare to a peaceful conclusion while demonstrating how a monarchy can be compatible with good governance. What distinguished Hadrian’s rule, according to Everitt, were two insights that inevitably ensured the empire’s long and prosperous future: He ended Rome’s territorial expansion, which had become strategically and economically untenable, by fortifying her boundaries (the many famed Walls of Hadrian), and he effectively “Hellenized” Rome by anointing Athens the empire’s cultural center, thereby making Greek learning and art vastly more prominent in Roman life. By making splendid use of recently discovered archaeological materials and his own exhaustive research, Everitt sheds new light on one of the most important figures of the ancient world.

A Companion to the City of Rome presents a series of original essays from top experts that offer an authoritative and up-to-date overview of current research on the development of the city of Rome from its origins until circa AD 600. Offers a unique interdisciplinary, closely focused thematic approach and wide chronological scope making it an indispensible reference work on ancient Rome Includes several new developments on areas of research that are available in English for the first time Newly commissioned essays written by experts in a variety of related fields Original and up-to-date readings pertaining to the city of Rome on a wide variety of topics including Rome’s urban landscape, population, economy, civic life, and key events

Western culture saw some of the most significant and innovative developments take place during the passage from antiquity to the middle ages. This stimulating new book investigates the role of the visual arts as both reflections and agents of those changes. It tackles two inter-related periodsof internal transformation within the Roman Empire: the phenomenon known as the 'Second Sophistic' (c. ad 100300)two centuries of self-conscious and enthusiastic hellenism, and the era of late antiquity (c. ad 250450) when the empire underwent a religious conversion to Christianity. Vases, murals, statues, and masonry are explored in relation to such issues as power, death, society, acculturation, and religion. By examining questions of reception, viewing, and the culture of spectacle alongside the more traditional art-historical themes of imperial patronage and stylisticchange, Jas Elsner presents a fresh and challenging account of an extraordinarily rich cultural crucible in which many fundamental developments of later European art had their origins. 'a highly individual work . . . wonderful visual and comparative analysis . . . I can think of no other general book on Roman art that deals so elegantly and informatively with the theme of visuality and visual desire.' Professor Natalie Boymel Kampen, Barnard College, New York 'exciting and original . . . a vibrant impression of creative energy and innovation held in constant tension by the persistence of more traditional motifs and techniques. Elsner constantly surprises and intrigues the reader by approaching familiar material in new ways.' Professor Averil Cameron,Keble College, Oxford

First edition published in 1998 by Oxford University Press with the title Imperial Rome and Christian triumph: the art of the Roman Empire, AD 100-450.