20/11/2019

III.3.3. Etruscan and Central Italian Bronze Sculpture

Etruscan Bronze Statuary:
- Etruscans producing bronze statues alongside terracotta
sculptures
- Few large-scale originals preserved:
- Often influenced by the Greeks and developing into own
regional schools
- Intended as ‘imitations’ of real humans and animals
- E.g. Mars of Todi:
- Exceptional hollow-cast votive from the Etruscan
sanctuary at Todi
- Idealised image of the warrior who dedicated the
statue to the god
- Originally wearing a helmet & holding a cup for libation
in his right hand and a spear in his left hand
- Greek influence:
- Made in the Classicising style: contrapposto;
proportions; idealised facial expression
- Etruscan characteristics:
- Details of the face
- Style of armour

Mars of Todi (ca. 400 BC) (H.: 1.41m), with inscription AHAL TRUTITIS
DUNUM DEDE (‘Ahal Trutitis gave [this/me as a] gift’)

- Smaller-scale votive statuettes in bronze and terracotta:

- Number increasing in the 4th c. BC (possibly connected with the threat of Rome, causing more religious activity)
- Mostly statuettes of deities

Bronze statuette of a nude youth (ca. Inscribed bronze statuette of Hercle (Hercules) (400-350 BC) (H.: 24.2cm); pose and
480-470 BC) (H.: 17.3cm) muscular structure in line with Greek Late Classical sculpture of the 4th c. BC

2
 20/11/2019

- Etruscan and Central Italian engraved objects:

- Large specialisation, presumably transferred from jewellery production
- Bronze mirrors decorated with complex engraved scenes:
- Found in tombs
- Showing Etruscan adaptations of Greek myths
- Cistae: Containers for cosmetics and jewellery):
- E.g. Ficoroni Cista from Rome:
- Inscribed
- Attesting the spread of Greek myths among women in Rome
- Following the style and proportions of Greek Late Classical art
Bronze mirror (ca. 425-400 BC),
showing a satyr and a Maenad
(24.3 x 15.3cm)

Novios Plautios Romai med fecid

Dindia Macolnia fileai dedit

‘Novios Plautios made me in Rome

Dindia Macolnia gave me to her daughter’

Praeneste, Ficoroni Cista (ca. 350-330 BC) showing scenes of the story of the Argonauts (H.: 76cm), detail and inscription

- E.g. Chimera from Arezzo:

- Killed by Bellerophon while mounted on Pegasos: Possibly part of a larger sculptural group
- Represented here as a monster: Front part of a lion, central part of a goat and snake tail
- Votive inscription on the right foreleg, dedicated to Tinia (Zeus/Jupiter): Functioned as votive object in a sanctuary

Chimera from Arezzo (4th c. BC) (H.: 80cm) with votive inscription

4
 20/11/2019

- Apart from votives in sanctuaries, presumably also statues produced for domestic, civic or funerary use:
- E.g. ‘Brutus’:
- Named after one of the founders of the Roman Republic
- Context unknown
- Representing a specific individual: Realistic portrait in the Italic tradition without clear Greek influence

Bronze male bust (‘Brutus’) (ca. 300 BC) ( H.: 32cm), original head placed in a 16th c. bust, seen from different angles

III.3.4. Roman Urban Planning and Architecture in the Early Republican Period
Fortifying the City:
- 390 BC: Rome attacked and sacked by Gallic invaders from the North
- Need to strengthen the city leading to the construction of new city walls:
- According to legends: First city walls built by Servius Tullius in the 6th c. BC
- Current archaeological remains dating back to the 4th c. BC: Wrongly named ‘Servian Walls’

H.P. Motte, Sacred Geese Kept as Guardians in the Temple of P. Jamin, Brennus and His City walls of Rome:
Juno, 1889 Share of the Spoils (1893) 6th and 4th c. BC ‘Servian Walls’
3rd c. AD ‘Aurelian Walls’

6
 20/11/2019

- ‘Servian Walls’:
- Few parts preserved
- Enclosing the 7 hills; 11km long; ca. 10m high; 16 gates
- Built of rectangularly-cut blocks of tuff (volcanic stones): built with the help of Greek masons (cf.
literary sources and mason’s marks on the building blocks)
- Following the pomerium: ritual border of the religious area that could not be accessed by soldiers
(exc. in the case of triumphs) and not be used for burials

City walls of Rome: Rome, Stretch of the ‘Servian Walls’ near the central train station
6th and 4th c. BC ‘Servian Walls’ (Roman Termini) (ca. 486 BC)
3rd c. AD ‘Aurelian Walls’

The Layout of Roman Cities:

- Rome: Built up in an irregular way
- Roman colonies: Mapped out regularly
- Settlements of Romans founded in
conquered areas
- Forming military presence in newly
controlled territory
- Playing an important role in the spread of
‘Roman’ culture

First Roman colonies in the area to the south and south-east of Rome (6th-5th c. BC)

8
 20/11/2019

- Roman Colonies and military camps sharing a similar layout:

- Characterised by a symmetrical arrangement of the space
- Rectangular/square area enclosed by walls
- Subdivided by a main N-S axis (Cardo Maximus) and a main E-W axis (Decumanus
Maximus), crossing perpendicularly and corresponding with 4 gates
- Forum (or military head quarters) located at the crossroad of the main axes in the
centre
- Taken over from the Greeks or via the ‘detour’ of the Etruscans who adopted it from
the Greeks
- E.g. Ostia at the Tiber mouth: harbour of Rome (founded in 338 BC)
Forum
N

Cardo Maximus
Decumanus Maximus

Model of a Roman town Ostia, Castrum (fort) (founded in 338 BC; projected on the plan of
the later city)

- Similar plans applied in different contexts:

- E.g. Cosa and Paestum, founded in 273 BC to control the Tyrrhenian Sea:
- Cosa:
- Located in Etruscan territory
- Newly founded colony
- Irregular city walls in accordance to the hilly terrain
- Orthogonal planning
- Citadel with Etrusco-Italic Capitolium (temple for Jupiter, Juno
and Minerva)

Cosa (founded in 273 BC) Cosa, Reconstruction drawing of the

Capitoline temple

10
 20/11/2019

- Paestum (Poseidonia):
- Greek city, existing since ca. 600 BC
- Transforming the existing town into a regular ‘Roman’ city by destroying existing buildings (esp. Greek political buildings),
building new constructions and renovating existing structures

Paestum, Plan of the Roman colony projected on the archaeological site Paestum, Excavated area with regular layout
and its environment

11

III.4. The Later Republic (211-30/27 BC)

III.4.1. The Start of a New Artistic and Architectural Phase

- 202 BC: Rome becoming the ruler of the Western Mediterranean after the victory over Carthago
- From an artistic and architectural perspective: 211 BC functioning as a breaking point:
- 212 BC: Sack of Syracusae by Marcus Claudius Marcellus during the Second Punic war
- Followed by a triumph: First time works of Greek art and architecture in large amounts
shown to the people of Rome

T.R. Spence, Archimedes directing the defences of Syracuse (1895)

12
 20/11/2019

=> Very strong presence of Greek art and architecture in Rome:

- Scale even more increasing with the gradual conquest
of the Hellenistic Eastern Mediterranean
=> Crucial changes in Roman art and architecture, resulting from
- Intensified contacts with Greek culture
- Own Roman innovations

The Eastern Mediterranean ca. 188 BC

13

- Late 2nd-late 1 st c. BC: Dominated by civil wars:

- Individual general and politicians trying to rule the Roman World
- Carrying out propogandistic art an building projects following the models of the Hellenistic
kings
=> Art and architecture increasingly used as a symbol of power

Gaius Marius (157- L. Cornelius Sulla

86 BC) (138-78 BC)

G. Iulius Caesar Cn. Pompeius M. Licinius Crassus (114- Octavianus (Augustus) M. Antonius (83-30 BC) M. Aemilius Lepidus
(100-44 BC) Magnus (106-48 BC) 53 BC) (63-14 BC) (89-13 BC)

14
 20/11/2019

III.4.2. Later Republican Developments in Urban Planning and Architecture

The introduction of Greek elements:
- Greek architectural elements added to the existing Roman
and Etruscan art forms
- E.g. Sarcophagus of general and official Lucius Cornelius
Scipio Barbatus (died in 280 BC):
- Dating to ca. 200 BC when the family tomb was
renovated
- Family of the Scipiones using Greek-style sarcophagi to
enhance their elite status
- Greek elements:
- Triglyph-metope frieze with carved rosettes in
the metopes
- Dentil frieze
- Volutes and acanthus
- Etruscan style:
- Lid in the shape of the cushion of a bed (cf. the
deceased reclining on a bed)
- Roman features:
- Made of local tuff stone
- Latin inscription
=> Made in a Roman workshop
Rome, Tomb of the Scipiones (ca. 200 BC), Inscribed
sarcophagus of L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus

15

Greek architectural influence in building types:

- Integration of Greek Hellenistic elements in traditional Italic architecture
- Greek-inspired building co-existing alongside traditional building styles
- Influence becoming apparent in different building types:
- Temples: Example of Greek influence that becomes visible in an existing building type:
- Some temples combining Greek elements with Etruscan-Italic features:
- E.g. Temple of Portunus at Rome:
- Traditional Italic temple: high podium; frontal stais; deep pronaos; made of local travertine and tuff
- Greek decorative elements:
- Ionic columns
- Pseudoptereral temple: Imitating peripteral colonnades by means of engaged columns (= separated by
wall sections and partly projecting from the wall surface)

Rome, Temple of Portunus (ca. 150 BC – Pseudodipteros), view on the front, side and back

16
 20/11/2019

- Other temples entirely Greek:

- E.g. Temple of Hercules Victor (‘Hercules the Conquerer):
- Probably dedicated by Lucius Mummius, the general who captured Corinth in 146 BC
- Earliest surviving marble building in Rome (marble: Greek/foreign material)
- Tholos temple on a steps, following Hellenistic models
- Corinthian columns

Rome, Temple of Hercules Victor (ca. 150 BC – Tholos) Detail of the Corinthian capitals

17

- Also outside Rome: Different combinations of Italic, Greek and Roman elements:
- E.g. Tivoli:
- Rectangular temple (ca. 100 BC):
- Italic high podium with frontal stairs
- Pseudopteripteral with engaged Ionic columns
- Round Temple of Vesta (a. 100 BC):
- Italic high podium, but round
- Greek: Corinthian columns; relief frieze (ox heads & garlands);
marble door and window frames

Tivoli, Aerial view on the round and rectangular temples G.B. Piranesi (1720-1778), Round Temple of Vesta (ca. 100 BC)
Front and side facades of the with Corinthian columns and frieze
rectangular temple

18