The New Functions Of Sculpture Of Roman

THE NEW FUNCTIONS OF SCULPTURE OF ROMAN
ARCH ITECTURE AND SCULPTURE

Roman sculpture gradually gained a foothold in towns and cities in the form of public statues, some of them freestanding and others incorporated into buildings. Some were reliefs covering large areas of important monuments; others featured decorative plant or geometric motifs. Most architectural innovation took place in towns and cities, where urban planning led to the construction of new buildings, forums and grand colonnades. Roman architecture, which adopted the Done, Ionic and Corinthian orders of Greek architecture, frequently displayed a new aesthetic direction. Public buildings and monuments combined austere grandeur with technological innovation, thanks to the invention of rubblework; many of them were built by politicians and military commanders.

The desire for grandeur on the part of senior dignitaries was most clearly reflected in the architecture of the Forum in Rome. Caesar decided to expand the Roman Forum at the foot of the Capitoline by building a new one alongside it; work on this began in 51 BC. A wide square surrounded by porticos highlighted the Temple of Venus Genetrix, which was home to the votive statue by the neo-Attic sculptor Arcesilaus. The Forum of Augustus was inaugurated in 2 BC; this was a new type of forum which served as a commemorative monument. Sculpture played an essential part in it. Many fragments of statues have survived. In particular, the forum contained statues of princes and kings. Aeneas, together with his father and son, probably occupied the northern hemicycle, and Romulus the southern one. These hemicycles, decorated with polychrome marble, surrounded the temple built to commemorate Octavian’s victory at Philippi in 42 BC. The temple was dedicated to Mars Ultor (Mars the Avenger), and was richly decorated with statues of Mars, Venus, Romulus, Fortuna and Rome between the Palatine and the Tiber, as well as the famous votive group featuring Mars, Venus and the divine Julius Caesar. There was also a renowned quadriga of Augustus as Pater Patriae, though none of this has survived and it is hard to pinpoint its location. The theme of this iconography came in for renewed study as part of a famous German exhibition dedicated to the Emperor Augustus.

The two main buildings of the Italic forum were the temple and the basilica. The temple, with its high podium, was located axially, and the cella, as in Greek architecture, was situated behind the pronaos or porch at the end of the façade portico. The axial nature of the temple was also emphasized by its position at one end of the forum. The basslsea was a Roman innovation: a large rectangular meeting—hall with a roof borne on columns or pillars, sometimes on all four sides.

Triumphal monuments were the most obvious example of sculpture being used as propaganda to express the dominant ideology, either within the city or in some eases at its gates. Triumphal monuments were particularly ostentatious monuments. They had one or more spans, and were often built to commemorate military victories. The spans, as in the Arch of Trajan at Timgad or that of Septimius Severus in Rome, were flanked by columns, often arranged in pairs. The spaces between them were covered in reliefs depicting the event commemorated by the arch. The building of the Arch of Trajan at Benevento was approved by the Senate in 114 to mark the opening of the new Via Appia, but was completed under Hadrian. The city side depicted peaceful activities, while the side facing into the country showed military scenes and the Emperor’s actions in the provinces. The inside of the span

showed the institutio alimentaria (a state loan to landowners where the interest was reinvested in education), an act of Trajan’s considered worthy of commemoration. As with all arches, the reasons for its construction are stated in a long inscription at the top. The arch was originally crowned with free-standing statuary, often in bronze. Another example of urban propaganda was seen in the triumphal columns, whose sculpted decoration was essential to their meaning. Trajan’s Column in Rome, which is very similar in style to the reliefs on the arch at Benevento, depicts the Emperor’s conflict with the Dacians.

The theatrical architecture of buildings used for public entertainment was also highly characteristic of Roman art. The Colosseum epitomizes the architecture of the amphitheatre. Begun by Vespasian and completed by Domitian, this monument has become famous both for its external appearance and the fact that it has four storeys, featuring each of the three orders in the arcades and in the pilasters with demi-columns that frame them. The Done order appears on the ground floor, the Ionic above it, and the Corinthian on the third level. The windows on the fourth storey, which had no arcades, originally alternated with gilded bronze shields. In amphitheatres as in all other public buildings, statues, stucco reliefs and decorative sculpture of all kinds were omnipresent. The theatre, which created a truly monumental scene in front of the semicircular tiers, was the best example of this; the sculpted decor was part of the drama being played out on the

stage. This monumental decoration was also found in the architecture of public and private baths. These were one of the most important contributions of Roman architecture, which enlarged on the traditional functions of the Greek gymnasium. The public baths at Ephesus and Pergamon, for example, included a large rectangular hall ending with a palaestra, whose inside walls were decorated with columns and statues similar to those used on the façades of theatres and nymphaea. The great Roman baths of Caracalla and Diocletian were huge leisure centres, with libraries, meeting rooms, swimming pools, gardens and fountains, in addition to the various hot and cold rooms. The baths played an important part in Roman life. The only imperial baths in Rome whose sculptural decoration it is possible to reconstruct are those of Caracalla, where we can see how ideally suited the baroque style of Severinus was to the expression of monumental drama. There were many niches in the Baths of Caracalla, showing that it housed a large number of statues. These were mainly concentrated in the rooms around the palaestra and in the area of the large swimming pool, whose northern wall resembled a scaenae frons with two levels of columns and aedicules among which stood eighteen large statues. Study of the niches, bases and ground-level emplacements reveals that the ensemble included over a hundred free-standing sculptures. The giant head of Asclepius at the Museo delle Terme, the Farnese Hercules and many other mythological and imperial sculptures derive from this source.

The Roman love of pomp and show, set off by sculpture, is clearly evidenced by the residences and palaces of the wealthy, which we shall deal with more fully later. Analysis of the decor of imperial residences reveals the role played by sculpture: the tendency already evident in Nero’s Golden House was developed and came to full flower in Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli. There is often a striking contrast in buildings of this kind, as in the Roman baths, between the purely functional severity of the outside and the baroque profusion of the interior decoration.

Looking beyond his palace or residence, the Roman patrician also set great store by his last resting place, his mausoleum or tomb. Beginning in Republican times, impressive funerary monuments were erected on either side of the major consular routes, some built to a circular plan with a number of separate chambers and a vaulted roof. The Pantheon and the role played by statuary in its decoration immediately spring to mind, but equally deserving of attention are the many sarcophagi, stelae and altars we shall be reviewing in a later chapter. These monuments were set out in avenues at the gates of the town and, like the cemeteries of our own day, were veritable repositories of sculpture in all its forms. The sixty-three tombs at Pompeii’s Herculaneum gate are a case in point. It is clear that the purpose of these monuments was not so much to express preoccupations regarding the next life as to present the career, life and achievements of those with the means to pay for a sculpted tomb in this.

The reliefs from the funerary monument of the Haterii, conserved in the Vatican Museum, include realistic illustrations of the buildings erected in Rome under the Flavian emperors. Busts of gods, funeral scenes and busts of members of the family constitute an iconographic project reflecting the ambitions of the sponsor. They also bear witness to the place of sculpture in Roman architecture, as seen by a citizen who wanted it incorporated in his tomb. The image of Rome conveyed by the Haterii monument is that which appealed most to the men of the Renaissance: a capital city dominated by sculpture.