CITY OF ROME: EXAM 1 Flashcards
3 key ideas
Rome means. Meaning changes. Change is always contested.
Spoliation
Recycling building materials for building other things.
Seas
Italy is bordered on the west by the Tyrrhenian, on the south by the Ionian, on the east by the Adriatic.
Mountains
Alps and Apennines
What do we put on the hills?
Rich people and temples. Anything that’s important. Things that don’t matter so much get put in the floodplains (the Tiber floods all the time).
Palatine
Where Rome began. Earliest inhabited areas, earliest points of worship, big houses of emperors, you can see everyone and everyone can see you.
Capitoline
Tallest hill. All the religion is here. “Head.”
Aventine
Religious practice that’s a little marginal.
Caelian
Entry from the south. One of the most important cemeteries.
What makes a city?
Shared religion, shared public spaces distinct from private ones, shared fortification.
Iron Age in Italy
Appearance of distinct cultural variations throughout Italy, gradual emergence of urban centers (religious purpose, protection from external threats and self).
Two roles of public spaces
Relieve territorial tensions, require preeminent political authority.
Villanovan burial practices
Cremated ashes placed in a biconical cinerary urn (made of terracotta), placed in a dolion along with grave goods. Hut urns replaced biconical urns over time, and give us a sense for what houses looked like.
Colonization of Magna Graecia
Motivations: population pressures, increasing trade networks. “Metropolis” means mother city and “apoikia” refers to the colony.
Features of Greek temples
Columns running entirely around, foundation (stylobate) with stairs running entirely around, pediment (usually home to sculptures), frieze (for other sculptures) - triglyph, metope.
Cella
House of the god to whom the temple belongs. Contained the cult statue. Fully roofed and enclosed. For the priests, not the worshippers. Not a participatory space.
Heroon
A building dedicated to a hero figure.
Etruscan burials
Tumuli (burial mounds), die tombs, carefully planned necropoleis, many tombs carved to look like houses (influenced by the hut urn concept).
Sarcophagi
Larger urns for full bodies. Show up in Etruscan burials, often with couples dining together.
Birds
Are used for augury because they have more aisthesis. They perceive with greater specificity and clarity than humans.
Things unallowed inside the pomerium
Burial, waste, keeping armies.
Lapis Niger
Involves cattle, sacred stuff, and Jupiter. It’s a marker of the king’s legal and religious rights to determine cattle fights, in a shared space. Shows that there are political structures making rules for shared space.
