Arche to Architecture: The Forum in Republican Rome
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Acknowledgements:
To K,
The number of people who assisted me is too long to list. I am particularly grateful for the generous guidance, insightful comments and unfailing support of Peter Carl, my supervisor. His work continues to intrigue and inspire. I would also like to thank Peter Osbourne for his prompt and expert help, Ingrid Schroder for her timely advice and enthusiasm in Rome, and Max Gwiazda for his cheery and always useful assistance.
Katherine Helliwell was wonderful in Cambridge and Rome and deserving of more than praise.
All mistakes are my own.
This dissertation would not have been possible without the generous assistance of the Boas Charitable Foundation and the British School at Rome. I am grateful to them for being able to spend a summer in such a wonderful city
All mistakes are my own.
 
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Dissertation for Architecture Part II, March 2010
“Arche to Architecture: The Forum in Republican Rome”
Abstract:
This dissertation explores the role of the Forum (Romanum) in Republican Rome through an investigation into its formation and its reinterpretation in the Forum Iulium. The formation of the Forum is explored in conjunction with the foundation and growth of early Rome. This investigation takes into account the recent work of archaeologists and historians engaged in researching the foundation of Rome (namely Carandini, Coarelli and Grandazzi), as well as placing the formation of the forum in the context of the Mediterranean-wide process of urbanization. The Forum Iulium is taken as marking the endpoint of the Republican Forum and used to illuminate its development during the Hellenistic period. The investigation hinges upon the relationship between imperial expansion, institutional change and changing means of representation. The history of the Forum as a whole indicates a change in the relationship between architecture and civic order.
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Declaration of Authorship
I certify that this dissertation consists of my own work and that it contains no section copied in whole or part from any other sources unless explicitly identified by means of quotation marks and appropriate references. I declare that I have also acknowledged the work of others on which I have relied by providing appropriate reference to the source material.
Name: Morgan Lewis
Signature:
Morgan.lewis@cantab.net
Date: 26-03-2010
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Introduction: The Forum and the City
The Republican Roman Forum was the combined symbolic, institutional, economic and political centre of Rome from the seventh century BCE until beyond the Republic’s end.1 The diversity and openness of this central valley made it the principal venue within the city for ceremony, demonstration, entertainment, exchange and decision-making, as well as for a range of other commercial and private activities, from funeral processions to gladiatorial combats. Occasionally it was used as a common site of assembly. The aim of this dissertation is to examine the origins, the development and the eventual transformation of this diverse and active public space, and thus to further our understanding of the role that the Forum played in ancient Rome. (Figure 1.0)
This development is best examined through the analysis of the two periods of accelerated change that characterized the Forum’s historical trajectory.2 The first is its formation at the beginning of the Republic and the second is through the addition of the Forum Iulium at the end of the Republic. These periods of significant 1 What I have decided to call the Forum is occasionally named more specifically as the Forum Romanum 2 Grandazzi (1997) 165 and Rykwert (1988) 24. Rykwert draws attention to how these two periods characterise the wider city as well as the Forum during this period. Relating to the issue of how to analyse urban development Rykwert criticizes the too common assumption that cities are the result of continuous and almost imperceptible growith, but are actually often characterised by specific and accelerated periods of change.
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development had their roots in longer term cultural trends but it is hoped that through the focus on these two transformative periods that the relationship between these trends and the forum can be illuminated. The nature of the forum, both how it functioned and the role it played can be largely understood through the process by which it originated. In many ways the formation of the forum and the development of a mature city were synonymous.3
Archaeological developments over the last three decades,4 and the renewed emphasis on combining topographical, textual and archaeological understandings of Rome have transformed our understanding of the formation of early Rome.5 In addition there seems to be something of a convergence between classicists, archaeologists and scholars from the pertinent social sciences engaged in researching early urbanisation.6 There is also a willingness to understand the built environment and the practices it provokes as an active instrument and not passive backdrop in the social and cultural
3 Ammerman (1990), 643-645 4 See Coarelli (2007) for a general introduction into the last four decades of archaeology. Discoveries have been pioneered by predominantly Italian archaeologists such as Carandini (2006). "Recent research pertinent to the Roman Forum is well surmised in Purcell (1989). Developments have been extensive enough to lead to the updating of Platner and Ashby's magisterial 1929 volume, the most wide-ranging being that by Steinby (1993)" 5 See Grandazzi (1997) for the complex histories of Ancient Rome and a possible synthesis 6 Cowgill (1995) 530-547 provides a useful overview of the research currently pertaining to the origins of urbanism.
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developments of the city. 7 A renewed interpretation of the Republican Forum is thus long overdue.
The study of Ancient Rome is hostage to the veracity of the sources, and to an even greater degree the predilections of the interpreter. The disputed nature, age and provenance of the majority of the sources, and the numerous methods by which they can be cross-referenced all contribute to the diversity of opinions on the origins of Rome. The first histories were written five centuries after the foundation.8 They reveal a Rome in which there was an irresistible urge to legitimate their current condition through an interpretation of their origins. We are not so different. The 7 Favro (1976) 34, among others, urges historians to learn to “read not only the authors, but the city itself”. Edwards (1996) in turn gives a good account of the multiplicity of ways that Rome could be interpreted and the relationship between the city of Rome and Roman identity. Like much scholars, in increasingly specific fields, they appeal to ‘interdisciplinary’ study and hermeneutics to characterize ancient realities. Grandazzi (provides a fuller account of the historical trajectory of archaeological interpretation pertinent to Rome. Favro (1976) promotes the understanding of the physical and visual aspects of the city of Rome, and suggests historians need to learn to 'read not only the authors, but the city itself' Favro(1976) 34 . A much-discussed trend in the recent scholarship is the need for interdisciplinary and multi-angled views on Ancient Rome. Recently, efforts have been made to relate new discoveries to the built environment. Stambaugh’s (1988) book is a good introduction. 8 The history of Roman historians is complicated by the evolving debate on what constitutes a history - as opposed to an annalist account. The oldest extant sources that we possess that may be thought of as providing an historical account are those of Quintus Fabius Pictor (254 BCE). By the third century BC there was definite interest in recording an account Rome’s origins for more than reference purposes. This interest increased and matured with time, eventually producing such magisterial works as Cato (second century BCE) and Livy (first century BCE).
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classical world is still perceived as the origin of Western civilization and thus seductive to reinterpretation. The origins of Rome are, as Goethe writes of Greece, “a magic mirror in which, when living men and women seeking the image of a culture long dead, they see not un-returning ghosts but the half-veiled face of their own destiny”. 9 If we go back to some of the most influential narratives by writers such as Livy we indeed find a narcissist combination; an archaic tendency to mythologise history compounded by a desire in the Hellenistic period to re-present myth as history.10 In addition we must be aware that our understanding of the earliest myths was not just re-cast by Livy and Virgil but by Gibbon and Beard. Rome has, in the words of Horace Walplole, always been a landscape where "the memory sees more than the eyes" and great care must be exercised in the construction of such memories. Nonetheless archaeological evidence is showing some of those early histories, and even the myth of Vergil’s Aeneid to be accurate.
Current scholarship has been left with an accurate but inarticulate archaeological record and an eloquent but often conflicting textual and philological record that must be woven together imaginatively.11 Yet, in the words of the French essayist Claude Roy, "the truly clear things show the shadow of what they once were”12. The 9 Goethe (1992) 10 Livy (2002) 11 Storey, (1999) 34 urges for the creation of “thick descriptions” of Ancient Rome which combine archaeological, textual and topographical knowledge along with insights from contemporary scholarship. This approach can prove insightful but is often criticized for being too generous with its interpretations. 12 Roy (1958)
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complexities of the sources can provide, if not concrete assertions, their own insights into the contemporary mindset in which they were written, which is as valuable as an accurate relating of historical events.13 These texts should not be judged in the terms of a dichotomy of truth and falsehood but understood - both myth and history are a sophisticated gloss on reality.
The extent to which sources were recast and reread in the classical world gives us an insight into the significance with which the Romans held their foundations. The foundation of an urbs did not proclaim a development that was simply larger and more complex than alternative settlements. In all archaic polis societies the city was a mnemonic symbol of the cosmos14. To its citizens its foundation was synonymous with the founding of law, civilization and history. The classical world conceptualised all reality in a similarly compact manner, as Rykwert states: “everything in the ancient world was itself and something else as well”.15 The Gods provided a structure upon which a network of analogies could be constructed. For example, Janus could be the deity of doors (an object), the actions associated with entering and departing (a verb) and of looking forward and backwards (a more abstract act). This network of symbolic analogy was in a constant dialogue with ritual and daily experience. The Romans thus constructed their city, like their cosmos, in a constant movement
13 Grandazzi (1997) 14 Rykwert, (1988) 29 15 Rykwert (1988) 23
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between experience, ritual and symbolic analogy and imported concepts and themes, including that of the city, from older cultures.16
The nature of the early Forum is best understood through an examination of how it originally developed, which reveals the principal underlying influences of natural topography and the neighbouring civilizations of ancient Greece and Etruria.17 Its formation marked the maturation of Rome and allowed for much subsequent development during the life of the Republic. Its subsequent monumental interpretation by Caesar was reflective of a broader change in Hellenistic culture that had profound implications for the future of Rome. Rome’s expansion, particularly during the Hellenistic period, brought her into contact with new forms of representation and led to broad changes in her political and religious structure. The manner in which the Forum developed provides an insight into the nature of these changes and their more general affect on representation.
The reciprocal development of the Forum and Rome is best understood through an examination of the wider process of urbanisation. The Forum crystallised during the 16 Carl (1983) points out that city was understood, in some sense, by the III rd millennium BCE. Cowgill (2004) 525-545 provides an introduction into the swarm of competing definitions and causes suggested for urbanization. Osborne (2001) 13 critiques the confusion that often exists between the consequences and the causes of urbanization, stating simply that urbanization is not caused by “particular types of bureaucracy, literacy or footwear but by a relatively large population being gathered centrally”. It is clear that cities do allow for more complexity in social relationships, economic exchange and resource manipulation; these are not necessarily the causes. 17 Coarelli (1995)
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“long era of restrained experimentation”18 that was marked by a development in the self-awareness of society and by the formation of the democratic polis. The reciprocal relationship between urbanisation and the development of a higher order of civilization has not been missed. As Voegelin states: “The creation of a society in which common humanity beyond membership in a biologically determined group is accepted, as is clearly the case in town cultures, both leads to a more effective participation in the quest for meaning, and a level of experience that can motivate the creation of a more complex set of orders and symbols”19. Town-cultures are the necessary matrix for high-civilization, partly because they are conducive to negotiation and exchange which allows for the development of new concepts. Greek philosophy and Roman concepts of order are both undoubtedly creatures of the "world of the city, this properly human world where citizens deliberate and decide for themselves."20 The creation of the forum, like the agora, played a critical role in the development of abstract thought in the urbs. In turn, the development of more sophisticated ways of thinking transformed the way that space was conceived. Ultimately the ability to conceptualise matured to the point where it was possible for the Romans to objectify the practices that had initially structured the Forum, resulting in the Forum’s eventual marginalisation. An analysis of this process of will provide insights into the relationship between the Forum and Rome and more broadly between architectural representation and changes in the understanding of the city. 18 Snodgrass (1980) 217 successfully integrates a wide number of examples to illustrate how the process of urbanization, particularly during the 9th-7th century, was more complex and experimental than previously thought. 19 Voegelin (1974) 60 20 Vernant (1963) 85
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Chapter 1: The Formation of the Forum
Centuries after its inception Sempronius Grachhus in 125BCE still spoke of the Forum Romanum as a topographical mirror of the Res Publica21; the closest relationship between the placement of Rome’s key sites and its political and religious makeup indicate a shared and reciprocal process of growth. The significance of this relationship can only be understood by looking at the formation of early Rome as part of a Mediterranean wide process of urbanisation and experimentation that occurred from the ninth to the sixth centuries The transformation of pastoral tribal cultures into city-states seems to have occurred through a number of routes – synoecism, colonisation and conquest all played their part.22 A narrower focus upon the formation of the Forum, from its origins as a marshy necropolis, indicates how these factors structured a specifically Republican city.
Archaeological evidence points to settlements on the future site of Rome in the three centuries preceding the traditional date of foundation, 753 BCE and the establishment of a trading area in the Forum Boarium.23 (Figure 1.1) However, this is not the origin of a city, a term that implies a transformation in the self-identification of a settlement 21 Val. Max. 9.5.4, ext. 4, with P. Fraccaro, "Studi sull'età dei Gracchi II", StStorAntCl 1 (1913) 117 22 North, J. A. (1990) and others point out the divergent nature of the classical city-states make it difficult to draw cross-cultural comparisons. Nonetheless that there is a causal link between these more common processes and the resultant cultures and modes of representation is undeniable, if beyond the scope of this dissertation to fully chart. 23 Grandazzi (1997) 159
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as well as a change in settlement pattern.24 It is likely that the early inhabitants were a composite of Italic pastoral tribes and traders from Greece, Etruria and Phoenicia attracted by the woods, good pasture and the fresh water of Latium.25 Rome’s position at a nexus of trade-routes, one North-South across central Italy and one East-West along the Tiber, resulted in early contact with a wide range of cultures (Figure 1.2). Her position as the furthest point downstream at which the Tiber could be bridged whilst remaining deep enough for ship traffic made her territory particularly coveted. The history of early Latium is characterised by a series of battles between the Latin people of the plains and the Sabine and Samnites tribes who periodically breached the amphitheatre of hills surrounding Rome.26 Latium was not a geographically or tribally distinct area; it is best thought of as a borderland and therefore a site of potentially violent encounters between different cultures. By the eighth century BCE these early settlements had developed from their base along the left bank of the Tiber and the Palatine into a collection of pastoral villages on the various hills that would later comprise Rome.
Between the hill settlements the liminal and seasonally flooded area that would later become the Forum was used as a collective burial ground and thus lay outside the
24 Rykwert (1988) 194-196 and Mumford (1961) introduction 25 Heiken (2005) Heiken indicates how the conditions of Latium continuously structured Rome’s cultural development. The volcanic plate upon which Rome was constructed supplied the city with fresh water, fertile soil and abundant building material 26 Stambaugh (1988)
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boundaries of the surrounding villages.27 The changing distribution and number of tombs in the Forum and newly uncovered archaeological remains indicate the early supremacy of the Palatine most likely due to its strategic, and hence symbolic, position over-looking the Forum Boarium and the Tiber. 28 The traditional founding date corresponds with recent discoveries in Roman archaeology.29 It is unlikely we will ever ascertain the exact date or nature of the city foundation but the Palatine settlement, with its sacred centre in the Casa Romuli and its perimeter wall, contained all the necessary features of an archaic city and correlates with the extant texts.30 Whether the existence of a Romulus-like figure is verifiable should not dispel its significance as myth. Communal rites and heroic founders were a critical part of the establishment of divine sanction and unity of a new city; in a sense the birth of Rome gave foundation to Romulus.
The oldest rituals such as the Septimontium testify to an early existence of a religious association between the different settlements.31 The cessation of the Forum area as a 27 Coarelli (2007) suggests its early role as a ‘place of the dead’ was critical in provoking a form of synoecism. Mumford (1961) agrees that burial grounds may have given rise to an early form of communal settlement. 28 Grandazzi (1997) 158 This is also testified to in the myth of the founding of Rome by Romulu’s victorious standing on the Palatine 29 Coarelli (2007) 30 Grandazzi (1997) suggests that such a fortunate correlation of sources indicates clearly that the Palatine was indeed the source of Rome. Nonetheless Carandini (2006) p16 suggests the evidence is more ambiguous. 31 Platner-Ashby (1906) 34-38 The Septimontium was a religious festival when the inhabitants of the seven hills, or regions of Rome offered sacrifices simultaneously in their different districts. They were believed to have been instituted to commemorate
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common burial ground in the eighth century BCE points to the beginning of its collective use by the surrounding villages. However, the archaeological evidence of walled settlements atop the Capitoline, Esquiline and Palatine suggests the hill settlements were still partly divided and separate in the seventh century BCE. These separate settlements became unified through a series of conflicts and amalgamations that were often structured through rituals and myth, and therefore the rituals and myths of a later Rome are a key source in indicating how this came about. Within the ritual and institutional structure of Rome there is evidence of a long-standing duplication, with two clear groupings of shrines, cults, priestly colleges and temples. One group is based around the Palatine and the Velia, and the other upon the Quirinal and Esquiline hills.32 This suggests that at some point the different settlements had coalesced into two leagues; a city based upon the Palatine and the Caelian and a more tribal type of organisation composed of Sabines upon some of the opposing hills, most likely centered around the Quirinal. The unification of these two groups correlates with a period of Etruscan colonisation at the beginning of the seventh century and the reorganisation of Rome into four regions33
the enclosure of the seven hills of Rome within the walls of the city, but in fact suggest a time when the Capitoline, Quirinal, and Viminal were not yet incorporated within Rome. 32 Grandazzi (1997) 197 Grandazzi here draws attention to the work of Polish scholar Adam Ziolkowski in mapping the later temples of Rom. 33 Platner-Ashby (1906) 351. This event of amalgamation is also referred to in the infamous myth of the rape of the Sabines. Although the path is unlike it is likely that Etruscan domination is connected to the conflation of settlements
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The first indication of the collective use of the marshy valley bottom as a Forum, an open public space sustained by the surrounding differentiated institutions, is at the beginning of the seventh century BCE with the construction of the politically oriented Comitium on an outcrop of rock at the North West end, and a grouping of important sacred-domestic sites centered on the Regia and the Aedes Vesta at the South East end.34 The institutitons worked as a pair, marking the ends of the Forum and the Sacra Via, and express something of the productive tension implicit in Rome’s constitution between public, civic, family and personal duty. They both share elements oriented North-South,35 typically arising out of solar-geometry in ancient cultures, and it is striking how many of the principal state rites run between the two (Figure 1.0). The construction of both institutions around the edge of the Forum, and not upon any of the hills, suggests the basin had, by this point, attained the status of being common.36
The knot of political-sacred sites around the Comitium was the principal site of collective assembly that allowed for political negotiation and the dispensation of justice. The corresponding complex of institutions at the other end of the Forum should be conceived of as fulfilling a similar role to the temple-palace compounds in
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There is evidence these sites had once been unified into a type of temple-palace compound. It is difficult to ascertain the point
at which this temple-palace compound differentiated into the Regia, the Domus Regis Sacrorum, the Domus Publicus and the Aedes Vesta and where and when it corresponded with the growth of the Comitium, See Carandini (2004). It corresponds broadly with the opening up of the Forum and the reduction of the temple-palace cult to the sphere of the sacred-domestic. 35 I am indebted to Peter Carl for this observation. 36 Ammerman, (1990) 629
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earlier city-states.37 The house of the King, intimately connected, possibly physically, to that of the chief priest embodied the city in its centrality and thus provided the means of symbolic unity with the Gods.38 By the time the marsh basin had become a full Forum, as we understand it, it was likely Rome had become a type of Republic and the temple-palace compound had been reduced to more of a symbolic sacreddomestic cult. This movement from a city organised around a Royal cult to a city more institutionally arranged, although still with a domestic cult, echoes developments in Athens.39 The exact relationship of the foundation of the Republic with the rites, myths and genealogy of early Rome is uncertain – it would for instance probably be too optimistic, despite evidence in myth, to suggest that the development of the Comitium and the removal of the monarchy was directly tied to the unification of two or more settlement leagues. Nonetheless, this pair of institutions, because they arose in some way out of the process of unification of settlements and internal tensions concerning the distribution of authority, continued to be remarkably successful at stabilising future differences in Rome.
While we can be fairly certain that the establishment of the Comitium in tension with the domestic-sacred complex centred on the Aedes Vesta, indicates a full transition from marshy basin to Forum40 recent archaeological surveys provide a more nuanced 37 Vernant (1982) and Torelli (2001) 38 Carl (1983) 39
This is outlined by Vernant (1982) in his analysis of the Hestia. Vernant comments on the relationship between the
‘rationalisation’ of space and the changing nature of the hearth cult in Athens. 40 Stambaugh (1988) 96 and Coarelli (1973) 221
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explanation of the process of emergence and suggest an earlier paved proto-Forum along the valley bottom. There is evidence that a type of temple-palace compound centered on the Regia existed as far back as the mid-eighth century BCE, correlating and perhaps even marking the foundation of Rome.41 (Figure 1.3). The Comitium, originally an outcrop of rock above the marshy basin but beneath the augural line of site of the Capitoline, was levelled in the mid-seventh century BCE and paved at the end of the seventh century BCE42. The nearby Lapis Niger, in myth the tomb, or according to Coarelli the heroon43, of Romulus suggested the site was used in some capacity even earlier. Nonetheless, although it is difficult to know how formalised the meeting of tribal elders at the Comitium site was at this stage there is a certain preeminence of the temple-palace compound.44 Their location on the North-East corner of the Palatine suggests a connection to the precocious Palatine settlement as well as a claim over the whole Forum basin. In this context this proto-Forum, at some point paved and drained by the Etruscan Kings, should be interpreted as the temenos of the temple-palace compound with the Sacra Via serving as the sacred route from this complex to atop the Capitoline. Later sources suggest that prior to being public land the Forum had once been the place where the King, and the aristocracy who principally resided at the Southern side of the Forum, conducted their public business 41 Filippi, Dunia (2004). There is the possibility the King’s house was the largest out of a series of aristocratic houses. 42 Ammerman (1996) 43 Coarelli (1983), 189 44 Carandini (2004) suggests that the domus of the rex sacrorum was not equivalent to the domus Publica despite Servius' testimony that a single roof sheltered Rome's two most important religious leaders. Coarelli (1984) disagrees. The extent to which the houses were joined with each other or the Aedes Vesta should not disguise their collective role as a domestic cult.
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and it should not at this point be considered fully public. It is plausible that, like the Campus Martius, the movement from the regal to the Republican period entailed the partial transfer of Royal land to public land, including the Forum.
The development of the Forum as a common ground from its role as a temenos stretching beneath the Capitoline temples is therefore intimately connected to the development of the Comitium as the formal assembly site for the tribal senators, whom eventually ruled without a King. The means by which the Comitium gained significance can be chartered through examining its relationship with its neighbouring religious sites and myth, and more broadly illustrates the complex means by which sites could become institutions.45 The Comitium was constructed in close proximity to an older altar, the Volcanal with accompanying mundus, the Lapis Niger, and to the mythical site of reconciliation between Romulus and Titus Tatius after the Forum battle. It is plausible to suggest therefore, that the gathering of representatives from the various neighbouring settlements around a common altar was a type of protoComitium. The site was deeply connected to both the administration of time and to the dispensation of justice. Both acts required instruction and sanctification from the Gods, provided by it sitting in the augural line of sight of the neighbouring 45 Coarelli (1983) 189-98, Smith (2005) 109 and Grandazzi (1997) 207. The history of the Comitium is contentious. Coarelli takes the position that Romulus was only killed and not buried at the site, proposing that a heroon in honor of the founder was erected by King Servius. Archaeological evidence points to the precedence of the volcanal as an altar and mundus, and the site as an augural templum (Livy VII, 14, xii). It is in dispute whether it was the site for the negotiation between the different peoples on the different hills as suggested by Grandazzi or for the mediation between those living within the pomerium and those living beyond the ager Romanus as suggested by Smith.
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Auguraculum on the Capitoline. The institutionalising of a more informal type of assembly, which would have inevitably been both unifying and violent, into the Comitium occurred through these rituals. The Etruscan configuration of the Comitium suggests that this process began in earnest towards the end of the Regal period.
As the sanctified site of assembly, and of cyclic conflict and reconciliation, it is unsurprising that it attracted the most important acts of assembly and myth and was strongly connected with the creation of the Republic. Its role as an inaugurated assembly and mundus credibly suggests why it was one of the sites of Romulus’ death, this time at the hands of the Senate.46 The myth is both metaphor for the refounding of Rome in the wake of Regicide and a mark of the transition of authority from the Royal household to the Republican Comitium. It is, of course, impossible to fully unpick the relation of myth to history, action and symbol. The original altar for instance, may well have marked the site of a battle or the existence of an altar may have provoked or institutionalised a conflict. Ultimately for the early Romans it did not matter; the refraction of common action and historical event through myth allowed the site to embody an agonic role, at once a symbol of communal division and diversified unity for the good of the state beneath the eyes of the Gods.
Thus the early Forum can be described as a dense network of rituals engaging with a number of inter-related significant sites and anchored to the two principal symbolic centres at either end of the forum. The tension between these centres charged the routes such as the Sacra Via, which significantly ran between, and was in turn 46 Coarelli (1983) 188
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reinforced by rites, shown clearly in the example of the Triumph which articulates the tension between them in its circuitous route. It enters first the Forum’s West end , then circumnavigates the city’s periphery before returning to the Eastern end and ascending the Capitoline. (Figure 1.0) The city in its entirety lies between these two points and beneath the benefaction of the Capitoline. This configuration allowed for Rome to continue to negotiate division while expressing a unity and was a consequence of its process of growth. In turn as Grandazzi states, the rites, like myth, “made the past became present and made the present repeat the past, a reciprocal conjunction born of an eternity in process”47 and therefore allowed for these institutions, created out of the process of unification, to continue to provide the means through which change in the city could be reconciled by relating developments within the city to the foundation. To understand the full significance of this we must find a way to conceptualise the ritual action implicitly understood in the archaic period.48 Rites, through social participation, allow for particular transformations, institutions and objects to be presented in cosmic terms. The essential unity of the cosmos was experienced as a total series of tensionaly closed mutual analogies49 allowing for 47 Grandazzi (1997) 187 48 Rykwert (1988) 65 While the apposite conceptualization of archaic practice is not of principal concern, Rykwert warns against seeing rituals as superstition wrapped around a pragmatic motive, even if it is a later Roman writer such as Vitruvius arguing so. A common example would be interpreting haruspication as an attempt to detect a diseased liver, derived in the case of Vitruvius from the Euhemerism of early Hellenistic thought and in more contemporary authors from an inability to appreciate the sophistication of ritual. As Levi-strauss (1962) said of a different culture and time - certain animals were chosen as Totemic not because they were good to eat but because they were good to think (sic). 49 Voegelin (1974)
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every power and object to enter into association with the related powers of other objects and events. The cosmos thus understood was based upon the primary interpretation of natural conditions, and therefore stable through recurrence in the manner of the seasons or the stars; the manner in which rituals were conceived as cyclic repetitions of previous actions thus connected them to a deeper stability. Likewise, an association with the foundation of the city, an analogy of the cosmos was ultimately a reference to a more profound stability.
The repetition of the mundus throughout Rome, which mark the sites of Romulus’s death, are examples of how the expansion of Rome was always legitimated through connection to the foundation narrative.50 The development of Rome from a Palatine settlement, the Roma Quadrata, to an enlarged Rome encompassing the surrounding hills with the forum at its centre was legimated through a host of new myths, rituals and ritual sites that claimed that this new enlarged Rome had divine foundation. The importance of providing a mythical narrative, shown above as necessary to an archaic understanding of city, was particularly critical in the wake of such radical transformations which would have resulted in changes to both the territory, citizen body and political constitution of Rome. If the multiple rings of the city walls mark the the growth of Rome in time, the multiple graves of Romulus allow us to see these stages of Rome’s development as a series of Romes, as a series of successions.
It is also apparent from this example that, unlike the poleis of Ancient Greece, Rome’s foundation narrative and religion was fixated to a greater degree on the
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importance of ritual and site (the one requires the other), and less dependent on the narrative of an overarching myth. This may be because the foundation of Rome was the creation of a single heterogeneous people defined originally by their allegiance to the city, unlike the poleis of Ancient Greece where common inter-polis tribes rose above and before the polis.51 Whether this conjecture is truem or not, it is the sites and monuments of the city that dominate Roman mythology, from the lovingly preserved hut of Romulus to the imposing grandeur of the Capitoline triad.52 The character of the Roman religious systems is best examined through its comparison with that of Ancient Greece. Both the oracles of Greece and the Roman templum have the earth as the basis of their authority, but whereas in Greece divine communication is achieved through language, most famously in the cryptic prophecies of Delphi, in Rome it is through augury and sacrifice and thus through the divination of natural signs that theophanic discourse occurs.53 In a similar manner, while in Greece there is an elaborate development of logos as the city-states matured in Rome there was a persistence of ritual place.54 Although these societies would not take such an objective approach to their manner of their thinking the example of the mundus provides insight into how the forging of a new common identity for disparate peoples
51 De Polignac (1995) 52 Beard (1998) 11 53 Ehrenberg (1968) 54 Edwards (1996) eloquently provides examples of how Roman authors, well into the empire, repeatedly anchored their changing interpretations of Rome in the material fabric of the city to a greater extent than other classical cities. Beard (1998) and others place this literary tradition in the earlier cultural tradition that privileges site.
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under the term Rome was possible, as well alerting us to the significance of site and monuments, and their reciprocity with myth and ritual, within Roman culture.
It is likely that the establishment of the Forum did not solely evolve out of the process of unification but was influenced by ideas from the Greek colonies in the South of Italy (Magna Graecia) that had been present since the eighth century BCE55 that were simultaneously developing agorae. Archaeological and philological evidence points to extensive contact with neighbouring Etruscan and Greek civilizations.56 Both cultures exerted a profound influence on Rome as well as upon each other, making the exact path of cultural diffusion difficult to detect. In its political and religious orientation Rome displays many similarities with the aggressively urban Etruscans to the North, which may account for the brisk and sophisticated urbanisation of Rome. The early adoption of the forum however, was uncharacteristic of Etruscan settlements until the sixth century BCE. 57 The primacy of Rome in this respect may be due to its extended contact with the Greek colonies, which exhibit proto agorae much earlier.
Rome was thus part of a wave of city founding that swept across the Mediterranean from the ninth to the sixth century BCE. This urbanisation was achieved through 55 Smith (2005) 126. In addition it is generally assumed that the Phoenicians, also present in Rome from the eighth century BC and allies of Etruria, were more influential in myth than in civic practice and urban order. 56 Scullard (1998) debates the relative influence of the two civilizations on Rome. The debt to the Etruscans is clearer, although the influence of the Greeks is only slightly more opaque; the Greek styled Ara Maxima located in the Forum dates from the VIIIth C. BCE and reveals a profound Greek influence from Rome’s inception. 57 Barker (2000) provides a useful overview of the emergence of the forum in Etruria.
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colonisation, synoecism or settlement expansion and their compound combinations. There was a resultant expansion of mercantilism, population size and aristocratic culture. The extent of the cultural transmission between the older and largely extinct cities of Mycennae and this renaissance of urbanisation is difficult to determine. There is a correlation between areas that were previously under the control of the Mycenean civilization and the areas of Greece which later become urbanized58 and Vernant observes, principally from an analysis of Mycenean words that survived into ancient Greek, that Mycenean culture seems to have been most resilient at the village level.59 It seems therefore this resurgence of new city foundations was based partly upon a kind of long-standing cultural memory of Mycenean cities, but also, unlike previously could be brought about the unification of villages. The most significant innovation of this period was the appearance of democratic cities. The new polis was significantly different in its political ordering and settlement plan to the previous temple-palace cities. Rome, like Athens, retained the unifying power of kingship in symbolic and ritual form in the midst of republican practice. This expansion was a unique period of experimentation in urban form. It led to the foundation of over a thousand new cities extraordinarily divergent in their plan and their social, ethnic, political and colonial attributes.60
58 Snodgrass (2001) 59 Vernant (1982) 210. The causes behind the collapse of Mycenean civilization, and how far the collapse extended down the social strata are still largely unknown. 60 Smith (2005) 126
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It was in the middle of this period of experimentation in the seventh century BCE, that the formation of a centralised public area, a type of proto-agora, began.61 It became part of the matrix of town requirements across the Eastern Mediterranean during the course of the sixth century BCE. The forum/agora was not an inherent part of the polis initially but rather developed in tandem with the polis, and like the polis, these early sites of assembly exhibited a high degree of experimentation. From the sixth century many existing cities developed agora and new settlements would include them (Figure 1.4). They also began to become standardised in their scale, flat topography and approximately four-sided shape. These proto-agora are best characterised as clearings that allowed for the assembly of people for religious, political, social and market gatherings (not usefully differentiated activities at this point in history) and thus were often central and located near a herŏon. Naturally these early associations were often agonic which is why the agora retained its association with the making of decisions and the dispensation of justice. The development of these agonic rituals into the institutions of state was reciprocal with the development of the polis62 61 Carl (1983) also suggests that the agora and the forum of democratic societies were anticipated by the sites of exchange at the gates which lie between the temple palace compounds and the rest of the city, in much older Mesopotamian cities. If we understand the palace as the mediating structure between the sacrality of the temple and the order of the town, (alternatively explained as the place of negotiation between the realm which symbolizes the whole and the realm of everyday action) then its relationship to the agora can be more clearly seen. A critical difference would be the importance of agon in the forum/agora compared to the palace 62 The origins of the agora are as contentious as that of the polis. The term as originally used in Homer refers to an ‘assembly’; it does not refer to a specific site in the city and was often associated with a gathering of the citizens for military duties.
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The developments of institutions from archaic forms of communal assembly such as banquets, festival games and cultic activities is best examined through the development of theatre from ritual in Athens. 63 The quantity and sophistication of the evidence from Greece indicates the path of cultural change with a greater clarity than is evident in the extant documents from Rome. Roman institutions however, followed a similar trajectory. In Athens ritualised action began to engage more dialectically with the polis when the socially collective processions of the Khoreia, a rite of Dionysiac cult worship that was fundamental to the Athenian pedagogical ideal,64 began to periodically enter the central public space of the polis, the agora in Athens. It was the “adding of dialogos to ritual”65, because language is more articulate than the action of ritual, that allowed these performances to play a more participatory role in the political life of the polis. Over time these ritualised performances gained a more permanent site, the orchestra of the agora, and a regular set of procedures. Correspondingly rhetoric became the language of the polis, rising above specific dialects determined upon class and location and inherently dialectic. In Rome rhetoric was recognised as the principal asset for participation in public life. The early tragic participatory rituals were able to comment politically on the polis while retaining their roots in worship. The re-presentation of polis life in the Greek theatre furthered the 63 Schmitt-Pantel (1990) 201, persuasively argues that it is not just the distribution of political power that is transformed by the emergence of more democratic forms of political representation in the 5th and 4th century but also the institutions through which political power was expressed 64 Wilson (2000) and Euben (1986) 65 Athena Kavoulaki (1999) 293-320
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self-realisation of the polis as a common political and social body, and one in which the means of representation were critical to its operation.66 The political institutions of the Forum, such as the law courts and the assembly were rooted in earlier practices. Both the more traditional practices and the institutions were practiced in the same public spaces and part of a body of collective practices - the koinon -that structured the polis.
To Greek scholars such as Aristotle and Thucydides the polis was synonymous with rational discourse. During this period of urban development there is a concomitant transformation in the symbolisation of reality that can be illustrated by, and continues to be summarised as, the movement from myth to philosophy.67 The reciprocity 66 J. Peter Euben (1986) draws attention to Sophocles statement that tragedy was the only genre that could both teach and imitate the Polis. See also Gadamer, Truth and Method, Section 1.ii, in which he shows the reciprocal necessity of actors and spectators commonly oriented around the choric ground as a transitional experience between rite and agonic dialogue. 67 This summary is provided by Voegelin (1974) However, there is much debate over the principal cause for the abstraction of
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thought that it is assumed is necessary for the more rational action that is characteristic of the polis. A common explanation is to place the origins of abstract thought in the necessity of rationalisation in dealing with the complexity of organisation inherent in the administration of the city-state. (Vernant (1963) 24-28, 40-15). Vernant attributes this new complexity to the rising inequalities evident in the archaic city and the creation of a new non-aristocratic citizen class. He argues that the increasing conceptualisation of politics was reciprocal with an abstraction of space and a specialisation of religion, giving the example of the changing status of the cult of Hestia Koine during the Cleisthenetic reforms of Athens. Vernant thus believes that the rational thought used to command man politically was applied to the cosmogonies in the sixth century, resulting in the transformation of their understanding. Opposing, classicists such as Runciman (Runciman, (1990)) have placed the origins of this ability to conceptualise in the myths themselves, with the rationalisation of the polis arising as a consequence. Voegelin traces the Hellenic
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between the development of the polis and symbolic abstraction has its roots in the rites of assembly that are characteristic of the city and particularly of the agora - the location of the agon of dialogue, debate and dialectic. The development of the agora therefore accelerated a more abstract and thus rational type of thinking that sanctioned the maturation of the polis in philosophical, social, economic and political terms. The agora, like the forum, allows for the assembly of people and institutions of the polis to be open and their relationships explicit. They are open to dialogue and allow the citizens to recognise the polis as the common undertaking. The bringing of justice, writing and politics into the open allowed for the development of rhetoric and philosophy and more sophisticated political arrangements. The reforms of the Twelve Tables in Rome in 450BCE modified the traditional practice of justice, which previously had been determined by religious-colleges orally, with a written codification of law. The forum could anchor these new more abstract ways of thinking and more independent institutions both physically and in an expanded network of ritual associations. The manner in which the rituals and myths through which it was structured were anchored to its sites allowed all the different actions and ability to symbolize in the Homeric poetry of the eighth century. The realization that the aetiology of disorder lies within being itself, as expressed as a division in the council of the Gods, created the consequent act of poetry, and thus an act of transfiguration achieved a transcendence. In the wisdom that arises from suffering the fall became song and thus abstraction. Dalibor Vesely (2004) ultimately, might be the most useful in privileging the metaphoricity of language, as shown in his example of the choral ritual. The chorus was the ritual unity of event and place, a symbolic situation of becoming and being that both chorus and chora refer to equally. In the song of the chorus through the metaphoricity of language it was possible to relate the experience of simple movements and rituals with the experience of rhythms and concepts. This symbolisation of action paved the way for more abstract modes of thought
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functions that went on within the city to be experienced as a continuity of life, and thus as a common unity. Therefore the early agorae embodied the conditions for more abstract types of thought. The same can be said of the Republican Forum, even if Roman culture was generally more disposed towards ritual than philosophy. (Figure 1.0)
Ultimately the significance of the establishment of the Forum in relation to the development of Rome can be discovered through an awareness of its wider Mediterranean context matched with a better understanding of the conditions of its growth. In the foundation genealogy it was the draining and paving of the Forum along with the construction of the Capitoline complex68 that precipitated the expulsion of the Kings and the creation of the Republic. Arche no longer belonged to a single figure, but was instead distributed throughout the entire realm of public life spatially embodied in the Forum. Put another way, the development of Rome through synoecism led to the creation of a series of sites and processes through which decisions could be made, as well as a series of rituals and myths that guaranteed the city’s unity with the divine. As a result the principal roles of the King could be achieved without a monarch, but through architectural symbolisations such as the Regia and an awareness that the Forum as a whole embodied a common unity. The crystallisation of a newly enlarged and united Rome was achieved with the Forum, which in turn was reciprocal with the development of the city in the broadest sense.
68 Stambaugh (1988) 14 Here however the archaeological and mythical record do not correspond. The dates for the paving of the Forum range between 650BC and 575 BCE
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Chapter 2: The Transformation of the Forum
The structure of the early Forum was remarkably resilient and adaptable throughout the history of the Republic (Figure 2.1). The conservatism of Rome69 and the fragmented structure of the Forum allowed for the successful integration of new institutions and cults, from the temple of Saturn at the beginning of the sixth century BCE to the addition of the Basillica Aemilia in the second century BCE without compromising the experience of continuity70. New additions could, over time, be integrated into the rites of the Forum; of which the temples bequeathed by successful generals along the route of the Triumph, and thus integrated with the ritual, are the clearest examples. The openness of the Forum in turn allowed it to be continually responsive to the requirements of the wider city. The Forum Iulium however, was not a strengthening addition to the Forum matrix but a radical reinterpretation of the Forum, and undermined the manner in which the Republican Forum had previously worked71. It was illustrative of a different approach to public participation and architectural representation that has its roots in a more widespread cultural shift
69 Beard (1998) 18-30. The conservative nature of the Rome was much commented upon. A combination of piety, ancestor worship and aristocratic traditionalism resulted in a deep respect for the traditions of Rome and for the right to property Famously, Rome was rebuilt along her previous lines in the aftermath of the Gallic destruction of Rome in 390 BC. 70 Lynch (1960) 10 71 Ulrich (1993) 49-80 and Patterson (1992) provide useful overviews of the literature pertaining to the nature and significance of this transformation.
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apparent throughout the Hellenistic world72 that became increasingly pervasive in late Republican Rome. It is through an analysis of Caesar’s Forum Iulium and its architectural precedents73 that the impact of this cultural change on the relationship between the Forum Romanum and Rome can be understood.
Julius Caesar initially presented the Forum Iulium as a useful extension to the Forum (Figure 2.2), albeit one that bluntly reflected the political realities of 45 BCE in its celebration of his power74. It followed an increasingly opulent tradition of popular generals benefiting Rome through the gift of large public works75. Whether or not it was his original intention, Caesar did not expand but rather increasingly marginalised the Forum. Although the Forum Iulium was sited so as to be near to the symbolic heart of political power in Rome, its enclosed centralised form, whereby it was walled off from the Forum, meant that it was isolated in daily practice. In turn it contributed to the isolation of the Forum by cutting it off from the Campus Martius, which had 72 At least by the second century BCE Rome was a leader in a common Hellenistic culture. Peter Brown begins The World of Late Antiquity (London, 1987) with the remark that Hellenistic culture was so pervasive in the Mediterranean by the fifth century A.D. that a person could begin a conversation in Antioch and finish it in Spain . 73 The precedents are more than can be covered here. For its connection with the ruler-cult shrines of the Greek East, particularly the Ptolemaic shrines of Alexandria and Styrene see E. Gjerstad, "Die Ursprungsgeschichte der romischen Kaiserfora," OpArch 3 (1944) 40-72. 74 Weinstock 27 There is little doubt that the Forum Iulium was a complex that glorified its patron as a military hero, it was ever referred to as a heroon. 75 The most famous and contemporaneous example, which no doubt riled Caesar, was the immense theater complex to Venus Vitrix built by Pompeii in the Campus Martius.
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previously been an important artery to the Forum. The connection between the fora was instead primarily symbolic and no longer one of practice. The primary symbol and nexus between the fora was the new Curia Julia (Caesar’s reincarnation of the Republican Curia), which was symbolic of Republican senate and of the Caesar’s family – gens Julia. The Curia Julia re-oriented the Curia to conform to the Forum Iulium both removing its latent connection to the earliest rituals (which worshipped the solar cycle and therefore were concerned with the primary orientation) but also signifying its reorientation towards the Forum Iulium. Most significantly the Forum Iulium supplanted the Comitium, which had been sited at this junction, and indicates most clearly the political ambitions of Caesar in his urban re-ordering. The Comitium had traditionally been the intermediary between the people and the senate. Caesar, proud of his ability to appeal directly to the populus, coveted this role. The Forum Iulium signified his unity with the senate through the Forum’s proximity to the Curia (Figure 2.3) but it was the addition of an oratory platform, complete with altar, at the front of the temple of Venus Genetrix that revealed Caesar’s incomplete ambition76. Caesar planned for his forum to host grand crowds to whom he could speak directly, and thus to supplant any intermediary roles.
The treatment of politics as spectacle, which reached its apotheosis in Caesar’s forum, reveals a long trend towards representation over participation that was common to all of the significant public institutions of the Hellenistic world. The decline of the role of the Comitium in the Forum Romanum for instance, had been continuous since the third century BCE. A steady removal of popular functions, such as common 76 For ancient references see Platner-Ashby (1905) 103
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assemblies, funerals and games, from the Comitium to the Forum had been accompanied by a movement of political functions to the enlarged Curia resulting in a weakened Comitium. The notorious decision by populist politicians to reverse the position of the speaker’s platform in the first century BCE and address the populus in the Forum, highlighted the polarisation of the political order, allowing ultimately for Caesar to present himself as the unity between the Senate and the people. The removal and relocation of the Rostra, once an integral part of the Curia HostiliaComitium complex to their isolated, although still prominent position, at the west end of the Forum completed this transition. In addition it was recorded with great concern how the religious colleges of Rome, the foundation of Rome’s stability77, became less pious, more formulaic and thus more open to political manipulation during the late Republic.78 This was mirrored in the decline of rhetoric as the public language of the city. It became increasingly divided between a logic of topics, the preserve of a scholarly elite, and a more embellished language characterised by its appeal to heightened emotions.79 There is a correlation between these developments and the beginning of the treatment of the Forum as a single entity. The enclosing of basilicas along its length, the establishment of the Tabularium along its North West edge and
77 Orators such as Cicero often exclaimed the benefit of the Roman religious and political colleges, where the worship of the gods and the highest interests of the state were in the hands of the same men. 78 Beard (1998) 85 79 Pollitt (1986) 10
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the movement of the rostra to address the centre all contributed to the interiority of the Forum.80
This change in the character of the Forum is often presented as a practical response to the complexity of Rome’s increase in scale and its need to project a grandeur commensurate with its new status as a world power81. It is certainly true that the inequalities in wealth and the social changes brought about by imperial expansion and immigration destabilised Republican Rome. It was no longer possible for instance, even by the time of the Gracchi, to fit all the Roman citizens in the areas of Rome that had previously been the sites of assembly. In addition the expansion of the Empire brought with it a rationalisation and centralisation of administration. The dramatic rise in the quantity of record taking, mapping and bureaucracy inevitably brought with it a more objective, and possibly more distant relationship between the different classes of Rome.82 Like the Republic as a whole, Caesar presented the differentiated and complex Forum as being dysfunctional and ill suited to the practical and symbolic demands of empire.83 Nonetheless it is also apparent that the changes in the institutional structure of Rome and the means of architectural representation stretch 80 There are competing theories as to when this process of enclosure began. L.Richardson (1980) 51-62 suggests that the possible porticus extension at the base of the Capitoline in the early as the second century BCE reveals a precocious concern for visual unification. Overall, the evidence remains inconclusive but around the second century BCE with the movement of the rostra to address the length of the Forum marks the moment when the Forum is treated as an architectural unity 81 Pollitt (1986) 193 82 Taub (1993) 9-19 83 Favro (1992)
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back long before Caesar. 84 The Forum Iulium is illustrative of a Hellenistic culture that was more objective and less embodied, ie more concerned with modes of representation such as visual iconography than ritual participation, than its Republican predecessor. Ultimately the belief that culture could be fully represented led its manipulation through design.
The Hellenistic iconography, and plausibly therefore a more objective cultural approach, embraced by late Republican Rome can be traced back to Alexandria85. The city was a personal creation of Alexander the Great, and a conscious attempt to create a civic structure that, like his empire, unified the characteristics of the Greek Polis with those of the empires of the Near East. The cosmopolis of Alexandria characterized the cultural ecumene of the Hellenistic world, which arose out of Alexander’s conquest (a world which Rome would later join, then conquer), in its attempts to unify a collection of culturally variegated peoples that lacked any geographical, religious, ethnic or linguistic continuity86. There was an obvious need
84 Stambaugh (1988) 43 85 McKenzie (2007) Chapter 5 86 Voegelin (1974) 215. The history of the term “ecumene”, as defined by Voegelin, neatly summarizes the changing boundaries of self-identification. It was originally understood as describing all the peoples of the inhabited world drawn into the expansion of an empire. During the fourth century BC, primarily as a result of the conquests of Alexander the Great, it describes a people who followed an empire, and thus a leader who may be estranged from the traditions of their culture. Later on, during the late Republic, the term referred to the extent of mankind falling under Roman jurisdiction. Lastly, in the era when the imperium of Rome marks the boundaries of civilization it refers to mankind as a whole. For my purposes - analysing Hellenistic culture in the
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for a new common identity. Alexander’s elevation to semi-divine status,87 the idealisation of imperial conquest and the resultant claim, apply summarised by Voegelin, "to gain for all men harmony and peace and community among one another"88, were all attempts to create a common carrier of humanity beyond the tribal level, which justified the extensity and culture of Alexander’s empire. These crosscultural responses necessarily relied upon a more generalised iconography.
As well as being less rooted in particular practice this Hellenistic iconography was different from previous symbolisations of culture because the new understanding of imperial order was predicated upon a different understanding of the cosmos. Unlike the older civilizational empires, which were experienced as analogically ordered parts of a divinely ordered cosmos, the extensity of the empire was assumed to partially substitute for the traditional civilization’s reciprocity with the cosmos, as shown in the new pragmatic understanding of history advocated by Polybius.89 History was reframed; it was now the whole geographical and civilizational horizon of the Mediterranean that was conceived of as the theatre for action and not just the polis or late Republic - I take it to mean the inhabited extent of the world understood in both territorial and spiritual terms, in relation to a unitary vision of empire. 87 Pollitt (1986) illustrates Alexander’s debt to Middle Eastern precedents, and thus by extension reveals his remarkable syncretic capacity. 88 Voegelin (1974) 220 89 Voegelin (1974) draws attention to how Polybius magisterial work The Histories marked a decisive change in the understanding of the past that was rooted, not coincidentally given his original status as Roman captive, in an investigation into the nature of imperialism. It certainly brought early signs of euhemeristic thought characteristic of Hellenism to Rome.
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cosmos. The resultant insight that the self-interpretation of a society is part of the reality of its order reinforced a more abstract manner of thinking about culture. Moreover as the Empire as an institutionalised power was separate from the organisation of a concrete society its political order did not organically grow from everyday life. Thus it could develop no cosmological symbolism, nor a Platonic dialogue. Rather, it was through representational protocols, of which iconography, perspective and architecture are of principal interest here, that the cosmos -including gods, nature, individual psychology and the daily transactions of civic life - could be understood. This therefore resulted in a reliance upon a distinctively ‘top-down’ approach to culture and urban order and a transformation of cultural symbols into something more abstract and general rather than universal.
The reciprocity between these new representational protocols and the changing nature of institutions is best examined through the evolution of theatre and theatre sets. In Greece it was the development of participatory ceremonies, originally from tragic rituals, to spectacles controlled by professionals that gave birth to theatre90. The impact of this development upon representation can be seen in the role and nature of the setting for these performances. The early tragic public rites, such as the Kouros or the Triumph, upon which the later institutions were based, relied upon the city being understood in its full mythical significance for their backdrop. The first permanent constructions for these rites, the early Greek theatres, which marked the beginning of the institutional status of the theatre, were carefully positioned in the polis so that their horizon was open to both the city and the countryside and thus representative of 90 Beacham (1995) 1-26
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the status of their rites as concerned with both human and the divine world. In tandem with the rites, which became plays, and the institutions, which became professional guilds, the stage sets became increasingly elaborate until they were purely representational of a more general condition by being made symmetrical and perspectival.91 Such advances however, led to architectural compositions being judged according to their ability to act as suitable backdrops for a newly discovered theatre of public life. The introduction to Rome of these theatre sets, already symbolic of the city centre 92, caused them to be deployed everywhere. These additions coupled with a corresponding desire to judge architecture on its ability to act as part of visual composition instituted a pervasive theatricality to Roman cities, architecture and ornament. (Figure 2.4) Ultimately this allowed for the city now to be seen in representational terms, and thus as a visual unity.93
Yet the coherence of the representations of the stage set relied upon the depth of the original situations. The manner in which theatrical stage sets presented reality in a perspectival manner is analogous to the treatment of myth in the development of the 91 Beacham, (1995) 56 92 Vitruvius (1960). The positioning of the theatre in relation to the city was significant enough for it to be picked up and illustrated by Vitruvius. He notes that an exiting on one side of the theatre would take the audience to the centre of the city and an exit on the opposing side would take the audience out of the city. The theatre maintained its orientation as a boundary from its inception to at least the age of Augustus. 93 Augustus’ famous quip “I found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble” is an indication of the new importance of representation to the empire. In turn his famous death-bed quote "Did I play my role well? If so, then applause, because the comedy is finished!" shows the Hellenistic theatricalisation of civic life taken to new heights.
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Roman domus during the same period. Traditionally the domus provided the most intimate connection with the traditions of Rome. From the third century BCE, the mythical narratives represented in the decoration of the interior became richer and closer aligned with the functions of the rooms and could even be used to articulate an architectural sequence94. The introduction of the peristyle atrium in the second century BCE allowed for a more irregular arrangement of spaces, and was accompanied by a more eclectic selection of mythical representations with a correspondingly wider range of references95. This new architectural configuration and decoration was responding to the changing social structure of Hellenistic Rome96. The manner in which it was related to mythical representations allowed these new formulations to be justified through their appeal to reconstructed images of tradition97. (Figure 2.6 and Figure 2.7)
In turn the advances in representation pioneered in the theatre and the conscious reinterpretation of traditional narratives found in the domus prefigured a more speculative approach to the understanding of the city, as shown in Virgil's Aeneid.98 The poet aspired to provide an aetiology for Rome in the manner of a mythical foundation narrative, but reinterpreted tradition in a novel manner for political 94 Bergman (1994) 225-256 goes into great detail on how the specific myths articulated the nature of the room. 95 Brown (1976) 30 96 Andrew Wallace Hadrill (1997) 97 See Hobsbawm (1983) 9 98 Although Virgil (2008) was writing just after Caesar’s death, and with the advent of Augustus in mind, he provides a critical insight into Hellenistic culture
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advantage. In Evander’s tour of the future monuments of the Pallanteum, Virgil exploits the manner in which Roman myth was primarily topographical and could conflate past, present and future.99 Virgil however, is treating myth like a genre, albeit an authoritative one, but one ambiguously rooted in ancient tradition and decoupled from daily life and history and therefore open to scholarly operation.100 The evoking of myth was a search for a lost authority that was neither conceived, nor received, in the same manner as the mythical structures upon which it was based.101
Hellenistic culture and the contemporaneous and connected transformation of public institutions was simultaneously reviled and embraced within Rome. The introduction of Greek theatre to the Roman world from Tarrentum in 283 BCE for instance, was viewed with such concern by the more conservative members of the senate that it was banned within Rome’s sacred boundary.102 Roman society was still deeply attached to the rites and myths that had characterised her Republican existence. Yet, by the end of the Republic, Rome was at the head of a large Mediterranean empire, and as an imperial ecumene she began to face the same problems of uniting diversity as had 99 Virgil (2008). Stephen Hayworth (2008), draws attention to how this reliance on topography was common to Augustan poets using the example of Ovid’s Fastii; the continuity of the urban fabric of Rome could provide the stable base upon which a highly fragmented and complex narrative could rest. 100 Virgil was particularly concerned with establishing a Roman relationship Greece, in his case through a connection with Homer, the Aeneid reverses the order of the Iliad and Odyssey as well as the allegiance of the Trojans. For more references see Papaioannou (2003) 101 JJ Pollitt (1986) 230-249 102 Favro (1992)
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faced Alexander the Great.103 As a result the representational tools of the Hellenistic world became more seductive. The result was a process of engagement between this more conceptual approach to culture and the more embodied approach preserved in long-existing rituals. The dialogue was complex as rituals, through their repetition of highly prescribed actions, have always allowed for shifts of meaning while retaining an impression of continuity. Long-standing rituals were thus open to formulaic appropriation104 and could be reduced to being explained as practical. Correspondingly, language, religion and architecture could become transformed into systems of practice, applicable without content, context or genuine piety. This is illustrated in Vitruvius' presentation of theatre design as a matter only of choosing the correct geometry, classical order and Pythagorean sounding-jars, which provided instant iconography; there are strong formal similarities with earlier Greek theatres but without reference to either context, dramatic context or the nature of theatre. It is apparent that much Hellenistic architecture, like the narratives of Virgil which depended upon the original myths, depended upon the richness and depth of earlier forms and mythical content for its representational power.
The Forum Iulium depended on these more objective methods of representation, whether it was through pycnostyle proportional system or the representation of Gods on the facade. The result was a forum that attempted to embody the performance of rituals and practical action that took place traditionally within the civic arena in visual representation. However, a designed object could never rival the complexity of 103 Virgil encapsulated this in his term the imperium sine fine Rome as the endpoint of a teleological history 104 Brown (1976)
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relationships that arose out of the practical actions of real-life that characterised the Republican Forum. The attempt by Caesar to present the complexity of the city in the visual unity provided by a single architectural composition reduced the forum from its role as a continuation of the city to a single entity, more akin to a building or, in its interiority, even a room105. It was not open to the surrounding streets or to the other institutions but enclosed and specific in its symbolisations. The dense aggregation of Imperial fora that existed at the end of the Empire illustrates how the new type of forum was not able to engage in dialogue with other construction, but was rather closed to physical or symbolical change. (Figure 2.8)
The popular paroxysm that gripped Rome in the wake of Caesar’s assassination may give an indication why Caesar wished to explicitly marginalise the Forum. The crowds formed in Rome’s centre, as they had since the origins of Rome, and the Forum became the place, once again, for popular assembly at its most violent. This generated exactly the kind of uncontrollable action most feared by aspiring absolute rulers such as Caesar. It was the density and diversity of activity that occurred in the Forum, and not only its role as a collection of institutional symbols, that allowed it to be such a responsive centre for Rome. It was from the practical everyday life of the Forum, in participation with the historical monuments, which gave richness to the tensional network of analogy that characterised the archaic understanding of the city. The Forum Iulium in contrast to the Republican Forum was highly prescriptive and limiting in how it could be used. The removal of everyday acts, as well as many of the most participative institutions and significant monuments, prevented the creation of 105 Ulrich (1993)
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new assemblies and ultimately of new ritual interpretations of the most important state institutions. As Julius Caesar, and his imperial successors, slowly removed the functions of the Forum it became increasingly marginalised in the life of Rome. Ultimately the Forum Iulium, reveals the imperial ecumene to be a rather “miserable symbol”106, aware of its own finitude, lack of depth and inherent instability. The Forum Iulium and the later Imperial Fora are the architectural manifestation of a culture rather desperately, if not completely unsuccessfully, searching for a new identity stabilized through a reference to tradition.
106 Voegelin (1974)
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Conclusion: Roma Urbs et Orbis
The striking correlation between the life of the traditional Republican Forum and that of the Republican system of government is indicative of their close relationship. However, the Republic should not primarily be thought of as only a political ordering that the Forum facilitated, but of a profound change in the order of the city and society. The creation of the forum-urbs, or the agorae-polis in the Greek Mediterranean, was implicit with the removal of a central authority which had gained its authority through theophanic discourse. The city had paid observance to this authority through the temple-palace compound. In turn the transformation of the forum-urbs was instigated by the elevation of a central authority, Caesar, to semidivine status and the centralising of the Forum’s institutions. The Forum allowed the differentiation of institutions and authority with respect to the divine and was thus reciprocal with a Republican system of government.
It is worth examining this historical pattern in more detail from the perspective of theophanic discourse. If the divine is understood, at least as far as we can understand how it was understood in archaic societies, as the symbol of the unity of a Greater Whole which gained its authority through its remoteness, then it becomes apparent that the loss, or the violent removal, of a King-Priest was not the severing of theophanic discourse for the City but rather its development. The authority of the King-Priest became summarised primarily in architecture and ritual, as shown by the Regia Rome and the Acropolis in Athens. The city, understood since its earliest conception in Mesopotamia as a sacred precinct embodying the community, could
 
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nonetheless sustained a connection with the divine through the ritual life and myth of the community as a whole. Significantly the mutual exchange between the community and the divine implicit in a ritual did not necessarily guarantee an integrative result, but it did recognise that the power of the demos lay in the potential for communal activity to gain favour for all. The citizens could not guarantee a result from the Gods through religious practice but the ritual was a means by which the community, synonymous with the City, could affirm their relationship with the divine. The collective impotence of the citizens in the face of divine omnipotence consequently created a type of communal equivalence.107 As a consequence therefore different collectives and rituals, not only those ones channelled through the palace-temple, could be seen as serving the city as a whole and of being connected to the divine. Sophisticated Republican institutions were ultimately derived from these early collective rituals but nonetheless were perceived as serving the city as whole despite the absence of a single authority. Stated more clearly: the tension between the Comitium-Curia complex and the Regia-Vestal complex was sustained by their mutual connection through the Sacra Via, as well as by their collective separation from the Capitoline temples. Caesar’s attempts to import the Alexandrian style of semi-divine rulership turned theophanic discourse into a monologue controlled by the emperor and thus no longer entirely communal,108 led to the collation of the authority of house with that of communal debate into the Forum Iulium.
107 Calame (1999) 125 108 Athena Kouvlaki (1999) 319
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Thus the removal of a central authority was reciprocal with the differentiation of institutions. It was the differentiation of institutions and their ability to be symbolised in architecture that allowed for the open complexity of the Forum in contrast to the central temple-palace compounds of earlier cities. Critically the fact that the Forum allowed for differentiation while allowing the city to be understood as united also meant that the Forum allowed for sites of conflict. It is worth repeating that the ancient City was pre-occupied with its unity because it stood for the cosmos. The Forum was a particularly complex symbol of the city, and by extension therefore the cosmos, a unity made up of a diversity of actions and institutions.
However, the reinstating of central authority came not in the form of a king but an emperor. While it led to a collapse of agonic activity in the Forum it did not lead to the re-establishment of the previous configuration but rather to a new architectural formulation characterised by its visual coherence and iconographic sophistication. Rome’s critical transformation from a republican city to an empire brought about structural changes to the city along with the parallel changes in the symbolisation of reality109. These changes had not been effectively addressed in the traditional Republic or Forum, and had thus instigated a new search for stability that found its embodiment in a new centrality. During the transition from Republic to Empire, Rome therefore had to develop a vocabulary that could respond both to the demands of an imperial ecumene and engage with the symbols of Republican Rome, upon which it was dependent for its ontological depth.
109 Favro (1976) and Brown (1976) 30
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This transformation can be understood in different terms which illustrate more clearly the significance of this lack of ontological depth. Because Republican Rome’s institutions had grown slowly from common actions seen in mythological terms they had been profoundly influenced by the concrete conditions of everyday life, seen most clearly in their debt to the most fundamental physical and temporal, ie natural, conditions. A basic example would be that Rome’s citizen army originally gathered in the Campus Martius in summer, no doubt partly because it was flat, open and welldrained (or perhaps, equally, because summer was the season of war or the Campus Martius one of the earliest sites of public land etc) and this gathering had to be understood as part of a complex series of rituals and mythical connotations that required re-presentation and were also historically contingent (explained in greater depth in Chapter 1). Relating to this example the most significant would be the dance of the Salii, the Festival of the October Horse and the sitting of the Villa Republica. Even when such rituals/sites/institutions lost direct connection with the events upon which they were predicated they still retained meaningful connections with each other, ie the Villa Republica would retain its association with the militaristic October Festival and the exercising of military duties. They also retained a connection to the most fundamental conditions, examples of which are the seasons, physical site and some of the most profound symbolic constructs such as the origins of the city.
The result of these connection, and the principal of associative extension, meant that everything sacred could be understood as part of a greater whole, which is closer to how we interpret the world on a daily basis, and from which they could not be disentangled. Sites and actions generated in this context made for deep and complex
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symbols, and it can be seen that in the Forum there was the closest relationship between the different institutions of the city and the network of myths and rites that sustained the city. However, as Hellenistic culture relied upon a symbolic lexicon of mutated Republican practices and sites they were thus only connected to their fundamental conditions of existence at second hand. As a result they were less profound and less able to negotiation resulting always a practical tension between the superficial unity and the symbolic depth of the more archaic society the ecumene embraced.
The dual ability of architecture to be both progenitor of action and to be a complex symbol makes it the necessary companion of ritual and therefore a highly attractive vehicle for Republican Rome. Significantly because Republican Rome had invested its symbolic capital in ritual and architecture it was these that became the vehicles of transformation for Rome’s imperial idiom. As a result however, Imperial Rome too privileged an increasingly sophisticated architecture. In fact, the reconstituted Imperial Forum still acted as a symbol of Rome’s community, now a much wider community, but it was no longer in active dialogue with how the city was used and understood because it was now more emancipated from action. Interestingly, the question of whether the creation of a visually explicit coherence in architecture or urban planning is necessarily at the expense of ontological depth and richness, and thus how far a contemporary city can be rooted in its institutionalised sites of conflict, is one we still face.110 110 It is beyond the scope of this dissertation but we may reflect that while it was the perspectivised monumental architecture of imperial Rome that became paradigmatic of all classical achievements (and therefore of civilization) to Renaissance architects
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Ultimately, the correlation between the nature of theophanic discourse and the structure of the city in archaic and Republican Rome, and the relevance of the symbolisation of reality to architectural representation indicates the significance of the city in societies more compactly structured than ours. The symbolic structure of lived reality was characterised by infinite associative extension and thus required a constant re-presentation of reality as stable through recurrence111 to prevent a collapse into chaos, and thus also of the mediation by intracosmic Gods and men. If authority is proportional to its distance, stability and mystery, with the natural conditions as the most remote, and therefore authoritative, articulation of the cosmos, the city was a less distant, more historically contingent and more comprehensible structure of mediation between man and the more profound conditions.112 The city summarised the complexity of the cosmos from the perspective of man.
The current state of the Roman Forum suggests city partly maintains this resonance. Scholars, necessarily preoccupied with the accurate placement of the extant fragments in linear time, carefully move every rock and ruin forward and backwards through the centuries. Their journals reflect the more articulate and less compact state of contemporary culture. Equally, non-specialist tourists are attracted to the Forum in order to walk among the almost geological strata of human history to somewhat and theorists, the richer and more chaotic agorae and forum of the Republican cities probably gave rise to classical civilization’s more profound achievements, such as the work of Plato and Aristotle.
111 Carl (1983) 112 Carl (1983) explains this with greater perspicacity.
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mysterious ends. Both groups struggle with the incomprehensible heaviness of time with respect to human endeavour. Western culture and the city in time to a certain extent serve as comprehensible but only partially comprehensive symbols of each other; one hopes the Roman Forum continues to cast a profound hold and continues its service as the arena of specific enquiry into their entwined origins.
 
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Figure 1.1 The territory of Rome in the archaic period, identifying the major hills. The boundary of the City of the Four Regions is marked by dashes; the lines of dots and dashes identify the principal roads; the small circles indicate archaeological finds, in particular necropolises, dating to the end of the Bronze and Iron Age. After Coarelli (2007) 1
Figure 1.2 The environs of Rome. Left Rome was situated in a low lying plain within an amphitheatre of mountains. Right The Via Salaria running from the Apennine mountains inland to the salt plains at Ostia was the principal trade route for Central Italy. After Coarelli (2007) Preface
Figure 1.3 The Sanctuary of Vesta (area del santuario di Vesta) with the House of the King (domus Regia) the current excavations at the foot of the Palatine date back to the second half of the eighth century BCE. The darker area indicates the limits of the Sanctuary of Vesta, in which stood the house of the vestal virgins (one of the homes found is highlighted). After Marincola (2005). In the text this is collectively referred to as the temple-palace compound
Figure 1.4 Plan of Selinous The open space between the primitive streets of the city was likely a primitive form of agora. The plan suggests its instrumental role as the common ground between clearly defined different groups within the city. After De Angelis (2003) 129
Figure 1.5 Forum of the fourth century BCE, Clockwise from the southeast (upper right) Regia, Temple of Vesta, Atrium Vestae (plan), Lacus Juturnae, Temple of Castor, Tabernae Veteres, Temple of Saturnus, Temple of Concordia, Carcer (along road to the North), Curia, Comitium, Rostra, Shrine of Ianus, Shrine of Venus, Cloacina, Tabernae Novae. After Stambaugh (1988) 108
Figure 2.1 Forum of the second century BCE, Clockwise from Southeast (upper right), Tribunal Aurelium, Regia, Fornix Fabiorum, Temple of Vesta, Atrium Vestae (plan), Lacus Iuturnae, Temple of Castor, Tabernae Veteres, Basilica Sempronia, Temple of Saturnus, Basilica Porcia, Curia, Comitium and Columna Maeniana, Rostra, Shrine of Ianus, Shrine of Venus Cloacina, Tabernae Novae, Basilica Aemilia. After Stambaugh (1988) 112
Figure 2.2 Forum of the first century AD, Clockwise from Southeast (upper right): Temple of the Deified Iulius, Regia, Fornix Fabiorum, Temple of Vesta, Atrium Vestae (plan), Temple of Vesta, Arcus Augusti, Lacus Iuturnae, Temple of Castor, Basilica Iulia, Rostra, Temple of Saturnus, Porticus Deorum Consentium (plan), Temple of the Deified Vespasianus, Temple of Concordia, Carcer, Curia Iulia, Basilica Aemilia. After Stambaught (115)
Figure 2.3 The Forum Iulium (a reconstruction) - The Temple of Venus Genetrix stands at one end of the Open plaza. After Beard (1997).
Figure 2.4 The faรงade of the Curia Senatus, in the Forum on the reverse of a denarius of Augustus. After British Museum
Figure 2.5 Pompey’s theater and porticoes. This three-dimensional reconstruction, based on nineteenth-century drawings, shows the Temple of Venus Victrix overlooking the auditorium; beyond the porticoes, gardens and a sculpture gallery. The theatricalisation of public life is the most characteristic feature of the Hellenistic Age. It is not surprising therefore that it was the Theatre of Pompey, intended as a venue for the senate as well as for theatrical performances, that was the closest precedent in Rome for Caesar’s forum.
Figure 2.7 House of the Labyrinth, Pompeii, Right Hand Wall is well named. The real and represented columns play a sophisticated architectural game. The style is known equally appropriately as Alexandrian. After McKenzie (90)
Figure 2.6: Clockwise: Plan with decorative panels of the House of the Tragic Poet, Pompeii VI.8.3/Reconstructed 3-dimensional model of atrium/Watercolour unfolded section of paintings/Axonometric showing colour coding of house. Yellow in the decorative panels corresponds with the most public parts of the house and red denotes the most private. After Bergman (1994), Sweezy (1994)
Figure 2.8 The imperial fora The Forum Iulium spawned ever more grand imitations. Eventually the diffuse character of the Republican Forum was transformed into an intricate organism of stone and mortar. After Stambaugh (1988) 120