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21.6 Funerary and Commemorative Architecture
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From the course by Yale University
Roman Architecture
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From the lesson
Making Mini Romes on the Western Frontier
Romanization was meant to provide amenities to Rome’s new colonies while, at the same time, transforming them into miniature versions of Rome. The focus here is on western frontier sites in what are now North Italy, France, Spain, and Croatia. Highlights include: the Theater at Orange, the Maison Carrée and the Pont-du-Gard at Nîmes, and the Trophy of Augustus at La Turbie.
Meet the Instructors
Diana E.E. KleinerDunham Professor of History of Art and Classics at Yale University
History Of Art
I want to show you the last group relatively quickly, just to dip into
Istria as I said I would, to the uppermost part of what is today Croatia, to look at
one more arch in a different part of the Roman world, but during the same period.
The end of the first century BC, an arch at Pula.
I show you the location here of Pula, at the very uppermost part of Croatia.
Very close exactly at, when I went there once,
you literally you go across the border and there you are.
The Italian border, you're in Pula.
And you see the rest of Croatia here with the other great site of Split,
which we'll look at next time.
And of course the famous city of Dubrovnik at the base.
You see the arch, extremely well preserved.
Another typical Augustan arch, single bayed, two columns,
Corinthian order on a shared base.
If you look at the attic, the attic is interesting.
Local stone once again.
Look at the attic you'll see bases that are inscribed at the top.
And those bases are very helpful in terms of telling us something
quite extraordinary, and that is that this arch was put up by a woman.
We know her name, Salvia Postuma.
Salvia Postuma, S-A-L-V-I-A P-O-S-T-U-M-A.
Salvia Postuma, who put this monument up, to three male members of her family,
who were involved in military operations at this particular time,
died and then were honored by this monument.
[COUGH] I'd show you a reconstruction of what the uppermost part probably
looked like when there were statues of those three male members of the family,
possibly in their military costumes, although we don't know for sure.
At the apex of the structure, here's a detail of it also over here,
where you see victories in the spandrels, you see the Corinthian capitals,
you see cupids carrying garlands, all the kind of decoration,
you see some acanthus leaves, very much like those in the Ara Pacis.
All the kinds of decoration that have been transported from Rome,
to be used in this case, in the north of former Yugoslavia for this arch.
We see the Corinthian capitals here, we see the victories here,
we see the cupids with the garlands over there, we see a chariot scene here.
Chariot scene is interesting reference to the race of life,
in reference to victory and athletic competition, as well as victory over,
you see the bucrania there also, clearly another touch of Rome, of the Ara Pacis.
But this interesting, we've seen this throughout the semester,
the close correlation in the minds of the Romans between victory in battle,
victory in athletic competition, victory in the hunt and also victory over death.
And all of that comes together well in the arch here.
If you look up into the vault, it's very well preserved in the center.
A representation of an eagle with a serpent, holding a serpent.
This is probably a reference to death and rebirth.
And remember this is Agustan in date, so
it predates the vault of the Arch of Titus in Rome.
But this whole idea of placing the vault, a scene of death and
rebirth, leads ultimately I think to that divinization scene of Titus.
I want to take you very quickly to show you an important
tower tomb in the city of Saint-Remy, we're back in the South of France.
Saint-Remy, the ancient Glanum, G-L-A-N-U-M, ancient Glanum, which was
a very highly developed town, also in the Greek period, so here we see some overlay.
We have local Celtic custom, the Greeks were infiltrated here, then the Romans.
All of that piled, one on top of the other to make a very distinctive city.
You can also see from the remains, there are extensive remains at Glanum.
More than most of these ancient French towns, where you can see baths, and
temples, and parts of houses, and Paris styles and so on, quite well preserved.
I show you here, for example, some honorific bases and alters, and
over here a hypocaust from one of the baths,
looking very much like a hypocaust we would see in Pompeii of like date.
I also want to mention in case any of you are making your way to the South of France
any time soon, it is located the city of Glanum located very close to the wonderful
town of le Beau.
In fact, Glanum is in the shadow of le Beau,
that lies in the mountains on the top.
Fabulous place, it's nothing to do with Roman antiquity, but
just a great place to wander, as you can see here.
And everyone of the caves, and there are a lot of them,
have places for wine tasting, so it's a fun place to go.
Here are the two monuments, we saw the arch already, this is the tower tomb,
these are referred to by the locals as les Antiques, the arch, the antiquities,
the arch and the tower tomb, and the fact that they are in close proximity.
I mentioned, the arch may have well been a city gate.
The Romans always buried their dead outside the city gates.
City gate, cemetery right outside, extremely well preserved tower tomb.
Tower tomb, because it's taller than it is wide.
This area of France is particularly famous because of Vincent van Gogh, once again.
Van Gogh spent his last years in an insane asylum,
as many of you may know in Saint-Remy.
This insane asylum which you can see this is a van Gogh painting of that asylum,
in which he spent those last days,
is located exactly across the street from les Antiques.
So if you make the pilgrimage there, I hope you'll make the pilgrimage
not only to see van Gogh, [LAUGH] but I hope that you're aficionados now.
In fact, I hope that you go to see les Antiques and
then also go to see the asylum of van Gogh.
Here's the monument of the Julii, a tower tomb that
was put up in Saint-Remy in 30 to 20 BC.
So the cusp, this late Caesarian, into the Augustan period.
And we think the Julii represented here,
are in fact veterans of Julius Caesar's army who have taken his name.
Julius Caesar in all of his great military exploits in Gaul,
referred to here by his veterans who have taken his name and have settled
here on land [COUGH] that they were given in reward for their good work.
Again it's a tower tomb, taller than it is wide, a stepped base,
a socle with sculptural figural frieze, a quadrifrons up here, Corinthian columns.
And then at the very apex, a tholos that has two statues inside that tholos.
This is pretty much the best preserved Roman tomb that we have,
everything is intact here.
We believe, remember I mentioned way at the beginning that we think that a lot of
these Roman ideas came to the South of France via North Italy, and
we think this was indeed the case.
In North Italy,
we know they put up a lot of these tower tombs, and we think it's likely that
this sort of thing imitates some of those tower tombs in the North of Italy.
I show you a detail of two of the figural friezes from the socle of the monument,
which you can see represent battle scenes, and you can also see those deep outlines,
just as we saw at the O'range arch, which once again suggest to us,
that these artists are looking at drawings of this kind of thing that come
from the Greco-Roman world, and they are copying what they see.
I don't have time to go into it here but, if you look with care at
some of these when you're studying this monument, [LAUGH] you will see that
there are some figures while for the most part it makes sense.
There are some figures in this crowded scene that don't work.
For example, here's a figure on the ground with a shield above his head trying to
protect himself obviously from a combatant, but
there is no combatant there.
And that seems to underscore again that they are using copy books.
That they're looking at these things, they're copying what they like,
they're copying the scene for the most part throwing in some other figures
that they like that sometimes don't even make any sense.
The detail up here of the tholos with the two statues.
I spent about six weeks at this monument at one point, and
in that area at Saint-Remy in a little place near les Antiques.
And I remember when I was there that there was this wonderful headline
in the local newspaper that said there was a huge storm with lightning and so on.
And the next morning there was a headline that said, has Gaius's lost his head?
Because the locals want to believe that this is a monument not of local army
veterans, but of the Augustan family.
And that the two figures at the upper most part were Gaius and Lucius Caesar.
Well, they were not Gaius and Lucius Caesar, they were local veterans,
but nonetheless, the myth has continued on.
I want to show you lastly for just a minute or so that remains,
to try to underscore that point that the North of Italy may have been a source for
this kind of tower tomb that we see at Saint-Remy.
Just by showing you one example, it's by no means exactly the same, but
it's the best I can do.
Because most of these tower tombs no longer survive, but it is a tholos tomb
from Aquileia in the North of Italy, that dates to the early Augustan period.
And you can see that it has a large base with a figural sculptural decoration here,
this aisle so the best kind of imagery.
With a tholos at the top that includes a statue, and
then a pyramidal roof with a decorative element at the uppermost part.
And then, as you can see, some lion statues out in front to guard that tomb.
It's by no means the same thing as what I've shown you, but
it gives you an idea that these kind of tholos tombs on decorated
bases were popular in the North of Italy, and the idea may have made
its way to the South of France via these North Italian examples.
And lastly, just one last monument because we've tended to be looking at
tombs in isolation, individual tombs rather than tomb complexes,
because it's the individual tombs, and
not the complexes themselves that are well preserved.
But I want to show you one excellent example from the North of Italy,
again from this wonderful town called Aquileia.
An early Augustan set of altar tombs,
that are still preserved in the actual original burial plots.
Which give you a very good idea of what one of these plot would have looked like.
These are of course not monumental tombs, but small tomb markers in the shapes of
altars, and then other smaller items as you can see very well here.
But it shows you the way in which the Romans had, just as one has today,
these burial plots for the family, these family burial plots that have
individual markers of different family members in them.
And then has a kind of a stone fence that encircles and
protects their plot, and you can see that stone fence down here.
A stone fence that should immediately remind you of
some of the stone fences that we saw in second style Roman wall painting, for
example, that it were omnipresent in second style Roman wall painting.
And the last point I'll make today is just to underscore once again,
I think there were lots of examples of it today, the tholoi for example,
the tholos, and these fences.
As well as the theatrical architecture we saw at O'range,
that underscore once again the close association between architecture and
painting, from the Republic all the way up to the Augustan age and still beyond.
Thank you, all.
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