Roman Art for Dummies

Question 1

Etruscan History

Answer 1

• 8th century B.C. - Foundation of a confederation of city-states formed Estrucia (in modern central Italy); they never united into a nation or empire.
• 6th century B.C. - Dominated most of Italy and even ruled Rome staring in 616 B.C.
• 509 B.C. - Etruscan King Tarquinius Superbus was king of Rome until overthrown by Brutus and others (possibly an ancestor of the Brutus who helped murder Julius Caesar 450 years later)

Question 2

Etruscan Culture

Answer 2

• Etruscan culture starts about the same time that the Greeks founded colonies in southern Italy and Sicily.
  
  • Adopted and adapted the Greek alphabet.
  • Borrowed Greek art styles and techniques
  • Incorporated a handful of Greek gods into their religion

Question 3

Answer 3

• Almost nothing remains of Etruscan architecture.
• According to Vitruvius (roman writer), temples were:
  
  • almost square, with an equal amount of space between the porch and the interior of the temple.
  • Built of mud bricks
  • Featured simple columns, topped with an entablature and pediment similar to Greek Doric temples
  • Have a main entrance in the front
  • Proportions are squatty, with heavier rooflines than their Greek neighbors.

Question 4

Decline of Etrucian Culture

Answer 4

• Late 5th century B.C.- Romans conquered Etruria city by city, erasing their aboveground culture.
• 1st century B.C. - all that was left were their tombs.

Question 5

Charactericsts of Etruscan Cemeteries

Answer 5

• Often built like houses for the living.
• Some Etruscan cemeteries were designed like underground towns and even had streets connecting the tombs, presumably so the dead could visit each other.
• Tomb statues smiled
  
  • Similar concept to Greek archaic statues (kouros and kore)
• Early Etruscan tomb decoration didn’t feature death’s dark side
  
  • Birds flit across tomb walls, dolphins swim through painted seas, half-naked dancers gyrate joyously and erotically, banqueters feast, fishermen fish, and hunters pursue their prey.

Question 6

Charasterists of Later Esctrucian Tombs

Answer 6

• Greeks influenced later Etruscans with their dark view of death
  
  • Hades, which the Greek poet Homer called the “joyless kingdom of the dead”
• Tombs beame grim and some of the murals feature demons.
  
  • One late Etruscan tomb mural includes an image of the three-headed Greek hell hound Cerberus, who stands sentinel at the gates of Hades, making sure no one ever leaves

Question 7

Roman Republic Government

Answer 7

• 753-509 - Rome was not a republic
• Two consuls, the senate, two assemblies, and later a group of ten tribunes.
  
  • The consuls were elected annually and served one-year terms.
  • The Roman Senate was made up of wealthy, upper-class Romans (similar to the British House of Lords) who were known as patricians.
  • The two assemblies, the comitia curiata and the comitia centuriata, consisted of plebeians (commoners) — plebes for short.

Question 8

Role of Patricians in Roman Government

Answer 8

• Patricians controlled both assemblies (pretty much ran the show in the early republic.)
  
  • Why?
    
    • Republican Rome didn’t pay its elected officials, so only the rich could afford to serve.
    • Of the republic’s 108 consuls, 100 came from the patrician class.

Question 9

Evolution of Tribunes

Answer 9

• Imbalance provoked several civil wars
  
  • Usually followed by bloody “reigns of terror”
    
    • Proscription = Civil War victors murdered their political enemies by the hundreds and even thousands. Many committed suicide to avoid being butchered
• After each civil war, power was redistributed a little more fairly, but never enough to satisfy the plebeians.
  
  • In 494 B.C., the government invented another class of government officials called tribunes to appease the plebes. The tribunes were elected to promote plebeian interests and had extraordinary veto powers, but in practice they were often manipulated by wealthy patricians

Question 10

Roman Republic’s History of One Man Rule

Answer 10

• Power struggles, combined with economic imbalance, and centuries of conquest, had suggested perhaps Rome grew too large for republican rule.
• In 82 BC, Roman Senate appointed General Lucius Cornelius Sulla as dictator for life
  
  • He resigned two years later after strenghtening conservative senate and weakening the tributes.
• In 48 BC, senate elevated Julius Ceasar for life
  
  • Ceasar was the only winner of a cival war that didn’t proscribe
    
    • Was killed by pro-republic conspirators Brutus and Cassius in 44 BC
• Two ciliv wars later and the Republic was ended
  
  • Victor - Ceasars heir and grand-nephuw Octavain (Augustus) - Rome’s first Emporer

Question 11

Orgins of veristic style

Answer 11

• Roman realism is called the veristic (truth) style.
• Romans prayed to the spirits of their forefathers and foremothers, known as ‘manes’ (good ghosts)
• Lares, wax versions of ancestors, stood guard over the family hearth. On feast days, the lares got to wear garlands. On the holiday Parentales (ancestors days held from February 13 through February 21), family members wore wax or terracotta masks (imagines) of their dead relatives in memorial processions.
• Gradually these masks became more and more realistic, paving the way for Roman realism in sculptural portraiture, which sprang up suddenly around 100 B.C.

Question 12

Augustus’ Role in Realism

Answer 12

• When Julius Caesar’s great-nephew Octavian took over the government, not everyone was ready for one-man rule, so he eased Rome into the idea
  
  • Octavian was afforded great power by a toothless senate
  • Octavian was granted the title princeps, or “first citizen”
  • Changed name to Augustus, “venerable” and launched the Roman Empire in 27 B.C.
• The new “emperor” had to train the Romans to accept one-man rule; so he spruced up his image and idealized it, making himself appear godlike and superworthy of his job

Question 13

Answer 13

• Augustus of Primaporta
• Pointing the way to Rome’s imperial future
• The contrast between the statue’s metal breastplate and the crumpled toga around his waist has at least two purposes:
  
  • The softness of the fabric underscores the hardness of the armor and vice versa.
  • Augustus’s outfit shows his dual nature: The armor represents his military side as a great general, the toga his administrative side as the first citizen, or princeps, of Rome
• Augustus of Primaporta is the embodiment of Roman virtues:
  • youthful vigor, moral rectitude, and unflappable confidence.
  • It also expresses Rome’s and Augustus’s imperial dignity. Even the boy-god Cupid, straddling a dolphin at Augustus’s side, looks up in awe at the godlike Augustus. Cupid’s presence is also an allusion to the Caesar clan’s supposed descent from the goddess Venus (Cupid’s mom). Julius Caesar often claimed descent from Venus — that’s how he justified his political dominance of Rome

Question 14

Augustus’ Miliatry Achievments as Emporer

Answer 14

Augustus’s recovered of Roman military standards lost to the Parthians (early Iranians) in 53 B.C.

Augustus defeated the legions of Crassus (a member of the first Triumvirate with Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great).

The Parthians were Rome’s most resilient enemy. The fact that Augustus could beat them elevated his status as commander-in-chief enormously.