Roman Architecture by Gabriela Crespo

February 18, 2011Vol. I No. I

Coliseums, roads, & more! Which materials were used.

Pantheon

Some of the greatest buildings made!1

Go to page 11 to learn more about coliseums!

Page 8 – See the types of Roman columns & more!

Page 6

Roman Architecture

Page 8

Columns & Arches

Page 9

Domes & Bridges

Page 11

Roman Colosseum

Page 13

Roman Houses

Page 15

The Roads of the Romans

Page 17

Aqueducts

Roman Architecture A fascinating legacy from one of the greatest empires known in history The art and science of designing and making buildings and other structures is known as architecture. The architecture known today is more inclined to a modern style, but architecture can date back to thousands of years before Christ, like the New Stone Age. During this period, based on data, is when architecture began. Although it arose during the New Stone Age, architecture advanced during one of the greatest, if not the best, empires of all time, the Roman Empire. It is during this empire, where architecture took

a big leap from post and lintel, structure consisting of vertical beams supporting a horizontal beam, to arch and columns. Also, Romans invented other great architectural structures like aqueducts, bridges, amphitheaters, etc, that benefit people around the world up until today.

The Romans were the first people to treat architecture as a minister to the numberless needs of a great nation.

The columns and arches are two of the many great architectural inventions from the Romans. The difference is that these two structures were able to construct bigger temples and buildings than ever before. Three types of columns arose: the Doric, the Ionic, and the Cornithian. The Doric style is the most simple one. It has plain features that did not attract attention, but did serve to hold up enormous and heavy buildings. The Ionic style where more ornamented, having decorations in the base and the top, and increased the awe power of the building that it was used with. Lastly, the

Cornithian style was the best columns. It had fine and specific details and its size attracted more than the other two. The roman arches were used to glorify and support buildings; they were made from cement; and they allowed Romans to expand buildings. Thanks to this great invention, another roman structure was born, the dome and it was used to decorate other inventions like aqueducts and bridges.

A dome is a structural element that shows the upper half of a sphere. The Romans used this to shape large interior spaces of public buildings and temples. The Pantheon is an example of a building in Rome with a dome.

Bridges were also architectural methods that the Romans advanced. Roman bridges were the first large and lasting bridges built. They were made by stone and had arches as a basic structure. Pons Aemilius- oldest Roman stone bridge.

Inner view of the dome in the Pantheon.

Flavian Amphitheatre in Rome

When Emperor Vespasian took power in Rome, he used his share of gold gained after the First Jewish Revolt to pay for the construction of a new amphitheater. Since there was a new way of building in concrete, the amphitheatre was able to be built quickly and cheaply. It was named as the Flavian Amphitheater, now known as the Colosseum, and this new building, made Vespasian very popular in Rome. This coliseum was found in the heart of Rome and was a place where a lot of people could sit and watch for entertainment. The entertainment was mostly people killing animals, or people killing each other. It was built of concrete, marble, and limestone. There were no less than 76 numbered entrances and 4 additional entrances reserved for the Emperor, guests and the gladiators. The Colosseum was designed for easy crowd dispersal; the entire audience could exit the building in five

minutes. The interior was divided into three parts: the arena, the podium, and the cavea. A wooden floor covered subterranean chambers where the gladiators and animals were kept waiting to perform.

The audience, upon entering, climbed sloping ramps to their seats, according to gender and social class. Obviously, the higher one's social status, the better their seating arrangement would be. A lot of the seats were made of marble and people have stolen them away over the years and burned them in limekilns to make mortar and cement. The floor has also been taken away, so one can see the rooms in the basement where the Romans kept the animals and the equipment. The games played in the Colosseum are believed to have taken the lives of about 500,000 people and over a million wild animals.

The Ostium of a Roman house.

Roman house and courtyard.

The Roman houses were relatively modest and simple buildings before the conquest of the East, when the city became wealthier. Many houses of immense size were then built, adorned with columns, paintings, statues, and expensive works of art. The houses had seven principal parts. The vestibulum was a court surrounded by the house on three sides, and open on the fourth to the street. The ostium was the modern front hallway. From it a door opened into the atrium, which was a large room with an opening in the center of its roof, through which the rain-water was carried into a cistern placed in the floor under the opening. To the right and left of the atrium were side rooms called the alae, and the tablinum was a balcony attached to it. The passages from the atrium to the interior of the house were called fauces. The peristylium, towards which these

passages ran, was an open court surrounded by columns, decorated with flowers and shrubs. The floors were covered with stone, marble, or mosaics. The walls were lined with marble slabs, or frescoed, while the ceilings were either bare, exposing the beams, or, in the finer houses, covered with ivory, gold, and frescoes. The main rooms were lighted from above; the side rooms received their light from these, and not through windows looking into the street. The windows of rooms in upper floors were not supplied with glass until the time of the Empire. They were merely openings in the wall, covered with lattice-work. To heat a room, portable stoves were generally used, in which charcoal was burned. There were no chimneys, and the smoke passed out through the windows or the openings in the roofs. The wealthiest Romans used heated water

supplies from natural springs or through the sewer system. The rooms of the wealthy were furnished with great splendor. The walls were decorated with scenes from Greek mythology, landscapes, etc. In the vestibules were fine sculptures, costly marble walls, and doors ornamented with gold, silver, and rare shells. There were expensive rugs from the East, and everything that could be obtained likely to add to the attractiveness of the room. Candles were used in early times, but later the wealthy used lamps, which were made of terra-cotta or bronze. The common classes lived in apartment like buildings called the insula. These buildings covered an entire city block, with residential homes in the interior and commercial shops, restaurants, markets or various organized clubs around the street sides. 13

Rome was famous for its system of roads The road system of the Ancient Romans was one of the greatest engineering accomplishments of its time. It has over 50,000 miles of roads covered with flat stones or bricks, also known as paved roads. It was originally built to facilitate the movement of troops throughout the empire. The roads were used for trade, as were the waterways surrounding and connecting parts of the Roman Empire to itself and the rest of the known world. Romans built over 53,000 miles (85,000 kilometers) of roads to connect every part of their empire.

The roads were first examined to keep them straight, were dug three feet down and twenty-three feet across. It was then filled with a large mixture of small stones and sand for the foundation. A layer of smaller gravel was placed down and leveled. The sides were lined with blocks and hand-carved stones. Stones were often pentagonal in shape (five sided) and fitted together to make the top layer of the road. The roads were higher level from the center, so rainwater would drain off into at the sides of the roads. Stone mile markers would be placed along the roads to let travelers know how far is to the next city or inn.

The roads were mostly built by the army and were all done by hand. The system of roads connected together every province in the empire. The Romans had a saying "All roads lead to Rome."

One of the greatest achievements in the

ancient world is the great advanced Roman waterway system known as the Aqueducts. The running water, indoor plumbing and sewer system carrying away disease from the population within the Empire wasn't great or better in capability until very modern times. The Aqueducts, stand as a testament to Romans while being the most visible and glorious piece of the ancient water system. Some of these ancient structures are still used today. The aqueducts were built from a combination of stone, brick and the special volcanic cement pozzuolana. Even though now a day the aqueducts remains can be seen, during those days they were hidden underground. Channels were dug below the surface, and carried water where it was possible and convenient. The aqueducts were built only to carry the flow of waters in areas where digging, burrowing, or surface grades had problems, such as valleys. A continuous flow was maintained by the entire system that depended on some gradients and the use of gravity. The engineering at this time was remarkable. It would have been impossible to maintain the flow of water at proper grades, without the aqueducts.

When water reached Rome it flowed into enormous cisterns maintained on the highest ground. These large cisterns held water for the entire city and were connected to a vast network of lead pipes. Maintenance of the water system was a continuous task, and the Romans assigned a Curator Aquarum to take care of it. Eleven separate aqueducts supplied the city of Rome and were built over a span of 500 years. The first, the Aqua Appia, was built in conjunction with the great southern road the Via Appia in 312 BC. In the waning days of the western empire, invading Germanic tribes cut the supply of water into Rome and only the Aqua Virgo, which ran completely underground, continued to deliver water. During the middle ages, a couple of the lines were restored, but full access to running water wasn't reestablished until the Renaissance. At the height of the ancient city's population, the water system was capable of delivering up to 1 cubic meter of water per person in the city, more than what is commonly available in most cities today.

Roman aqueduct