Justine Cesar R.

Desamero III- Mahogany

People on Roman Empires Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (July 12, 100 BC - March 15, 44 BC) was a Roman military and political leader. He played an important part in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest military geniuses of all time, as well as a brilliant politician and one of the ancient world's strongest leaders. He was proclaimed dictator for life, and he heavily centralized the government of the Republic. He was assassinated on the Ides of March in 44 BC. The murder of Caesar was followed by a decade of civil war that ended with the birth of the Roman Empire. After the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra in a sea battle near Actium, in 31 BC, Octavian became the unchallenged master of Rome and the entire Mediterranean. On January 13 of 27 BC, the Senate awarded Octavian the name of Augustus establishing the imperial monarchy that would endure for five centuries. It was the end of the Roman Republic (509-27 BC).

Augustus Emperor Augustus of Rome was born with the name Gaius Octavius on September 23, 63 B.C. He took the name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (Octavian) in 44 B.C. after the murder of his great uncle, Julius Caesar. In his will Caesar had adopted Octavian and made him his heir. Octavian was a shrewd, brilliant and astute politician. He was able to achieve a great power in Rome. At the time of Caesar's assassination, Octavian held no official position. Only after he marched on Rome and forced the senate to name him consul, was he established as a power to be reckoned with. Rome achieved great glory under Augustus. He restored peace after 100 years of civil war; maintained an honest government and a sound currency system; extended the highway system connecting Rome with its far-flung empire; developed an efficient postal service; fostered free trade among the provinces; and built many bridges, aqueducts and buildings adorned with beautiful works of art created in the classical style. Literature flourished with writers including Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Livy all living under the emperor's patronage. After his death, the people the Roman Empire worshipped Augustus as a god.

Tiberius to Claudius Augustus had done so much that his successors Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius had a relatively easy time. They all contributed to extend the boundaries of the empire and also to embellish the city of Rome. They repaired the odd public buildings and undertook further work on the Tiber, Rome's lifeline to the sea. Under Tiberius the Praetorians moved to a large fort, the Castra Praetoria, later incorporated to reinforce the city's defences. Caligola and Claudius brought about the construction of two new aqueducts (the Claudia and the New Anio), but otherwise they concentrated their attention on the imperial palaces and other residences. Unfortunately many fires, a phenomenon that occurred very frequently, have destroyed lots of their constructions. Nero (54 - 69 AD) Nero is famous mostly for his cruelty, especially evident in occasion of the great fire of AD 64, the martyrdom of Peter (67 AD), and the persecution of the early Christians. The Great Fire, lasted nine days and razing to the ground three regions of the city, though a disaster gave the unprecedented chance to rebuild whole quarters on completely different lines. Nero, well known for his lavish tendency and excesses, was quick to seize the opportunity. To prevent the dangers of the fires, streets were to be made wider, with large open squares, buildings were to be of limited height and use as little wood as possible and to be protected by outer walls of Alban and Gamine stone (hard peppering stuff), and imperial funds paid for porticoes along the facades of the new apartment blocks. Far from the modesty that had characterized the imperial rule of Augustus, Nero also erected for himself his own imperial residence, the Golden House.

Vespasianus (69 - 79 AD) Vespasianus was a general of simple origins who, after his successful campaigns in Judaea, acquired the status that brought him to imperial power. Vespasianus and his sons, known as the Flavians, restored the stability in the Empire and continued the urban programme of renewal inaugurated by Nero. Together with his sons he also established his habitation in Nero's Golden House, but one after the other, all the Vespasian emperors notably changed its original aspect. Vespasian celebrated his victory in Judaea with three great monuments in the republican manner: the Temple of Peace, the Amphitheatre (Colosseum), and a rebuilding of the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline. The greatest and most famous of these monuments is for sure the Amphitheatre Flavius, planned by the emperor in AD 72 on the model of the Theatre of Marcellus.

Titus (79 - 81 AD) The most important architectural legacy of the short reign of Titus is the Arch of Titus, erected in 81-2 AD at the point where the road leading up from the Colosseum valley met the Via Sacra. The inscription on the east face is original and reads 'The Senate and People of Rome, to Divus Titus, son of Divus Vespasian, Vespasian Augustus', to celebrate the victorious campaigns of the Emperor in Jerusalem and his early death. That is why his deified figure appears, riding heavenwards on the back of the eagle, in the centre coffer of the coffering on the underside of the archway. The relieves carved on the archway illustrate two scenes from the triumph that he had celebrated with his father in AD 71, the procession travelling over this very spot on its circuitous route from the Campus Martius to the Capitoline Hill. The scene on the south side shows the procession as it approached the Triumphal Gate at the beginning of the route. The scene on the north side is dominated by Titus riding in his chariot drawn by four horses, with the goddess Roma holding on to the bridle of the leading horse. Much of the arch, originally constructed entirely of Pentelic marble, has been restored in travertine.

Domitianus (81 96 AD) Domitianus commissioned Rabirius, one of the few Roman architects we know by name, to erect his own residence, the Domitian's palace, built between 81 and 92 AD. The main body is composed around two peristyle courtyards. The entrance on the west side (in line with the old front door of the House of 'Livia', Augustus' wife) leads first into an octagonal vestibule, with an extraordinary sequence of curvilinear waiting rooms on either side. Then comes the first court, once enclosed on all four sides by a portico of the fluted columns of Numidian yellow marble, whose fragments are scattered here and there. The open area of the court was almost entirely occupied by a pool as big as a lake, with a large octagonal island in the middle, where fountains played water down steps and channels. Everything was once veneered in marble. Domitianus also commissioned the erection of a big Stadium, designed for athletic contests in the nude Greek fashion.

Nerva (96 98 AD) In AD 97, Nerva inaugurated a new Imperial Forum, the Forum of Nerva. Although inaugurated by him, the forum had been actually built by his predecessor Domitian. At the north end, as in Caesar's and Augustus' forums, there was a temple dedicated to Minerva, one of the Capitoline triad, goddess of both craftsmanship and war, a rival to Mars. The forum was also known as the Forum Transitorium (the passage-way forum), presumably because, besides forming a vestibule to the buildings on either side, it remained a thoroughfare from end to end, having transformed but not abolished the major street called the Argilentum.

Trajan (98 117 AD) Trajan ruled in exemplary fashion, largely extending the boundaries of the Empire though successful military campaigns. Under him, the Roman Empire reached its widest extent. He personally commanded the campaign in Dacia, beyond the Danube, which brought military glory and huge amounts of new wealth, both to him and to the city. The new wealth is particularly evident in the large amount of surviving monuments. Trajan completed the projects left unfinished by Domitian, built a huge forum and Basilica, endowed the residents of the Esquiline Hill with the largest Public Baths yet seen in the city, and led in Rome's tenth aqueducts, the Traiana, to serve the Transtiber. The Tiber side docks at the emporium were rebuilt to a new plan as was the harbour at the Tiber mouth. The complex of buildings erected on the Quirinal Hill belongs to the Trajan's Markets. At the foot of the Market hemicycle runs the basalt-paved street that separated it from the peperino tufa perimeter wall of the Forum. The Forum square was of powerfully triumphal characters. The architect was Apollodorus of Damascus, an accomplished military engineer who had designed a remarkable bridge across the Danube that launched the Dacia (Romania) campaigns. The two long porticoes, modelled on those in the forum of Augustus, were 112 metres long and 14, 8 metres wide; the floor raised three steps of marble above the level in the open square. The square itself was paved in huge blocks of Italian marble. In the centre stood a colossal statue of Trajan, in military dress and on horseback. One side of the square was filled by the great Basilica Ulpia, the central section of which can be seen in the excavation in front of the Column of Trajan, marked by the forest of grey granite columns. The Forum was the centre of Roman public life. It included a big market, the Basilica Ulpia for the administration of the justice, the Latin and Greek libraries, and the Column of Trajan. This column, that was also the tomb of the Emperor, was a celebration of the military successes of the Roman army under Trajan.