1.
Basilica
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The Latin word basilica has three distinct applications in modern English. The word was used to describe an ancient Roman public building where courts were held, as well as serving other official. To a large extent these were the halls of ancient Roman life. The basilica was centrally located in every Roman town, usually adjacent to the main forum, later, the term came to refer specifically to a large and important Roman Catholic church that has been given special ceremonial rights by the Pope. Roman Catholic basilicas are Catholic pilgrimage sites, receiving tens of millions of visitors per year. In December 2009 the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City set a new record with 6.1 million pilgrims during Friday and Saturday for the anniversary of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Roman basilica was a public building where business or legal matters could be transacted. The first basilicas had no function at all. The central aisle tended to be wide and was higher than the flanking aisles, the oldest known basilica, the Basilica Porcia, was built in Rome in 184 BC by Cato the Elder during the time he was Censor. Other early examples include the basilica at Pompeii, probably the most splendid Roman basilica is the one begun for traditional purposes during the reign of the pagan emperor Maxentius and finished by Constantine I after 313 AD. In the 3rd century AD, the elite appeared less frequently in the forums. They now tended to dominate their cities from opulent palaces and country villas, rather than retreats from public life, however, these residences were the forum made private. Seated in the tribune of his basilica, the man would meet his dependent clientes early every morning. A private basilica excavated at Bulla Regia, in the House of the Hunt and its reception or audience hall is a long rectangular nave-like space, flanked by dependent rooms that mostly also open into one another, ending in a semi-circular apse, with matching transept spaces. Clustered columns emphasised the crossing of the two axes, the remains of a large subterranean Neopythagorean basilica dating from the 1st century AD were found near the Porta Maggiore in Rome in 1915. The ground-plan of Christian basilicas in the 4th century was similar to that of this Neopythagorean basilica, the usable model at hand, when Constantine wanted to memorialise his imperial piety, was the familiar conventional architecture of the basilicas. In, and often also in front of, the apse was a platform, where the altar was placed. Constantine built a basilica of this type in his complex at Trier, later very easily adopted for use as a church
2.
Roman Forum
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The Roman Forum is a rectangular forum surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancient city referred to this space, originally a marketplace, as the Forum Magnum, here statues and monuments commemorated the citys great men. The teeming heart of ancient Rome, it has called the most celebrated meeting place in the world. Many of the oldest and most important structures of the ancient city were located on or near the Forum, the Roman kingdoms earliest shrines and temples were located on the southeastern edge. Other archaic shrines to the northwest, such as the Umbilicus Urbis and this is where the Senate—as well as Republican government itself—began. The Senate House, government offices, tribunals, temples, memorials, over time the archaic Comitium was replaced by the larger adjacent Forum and the focus of judicial activity moved to the new Basilica Aemilia. Some 130 years later, Julius Caesar built the Basilica Julia, along with the new Curia Julia, eventually much economic and judicial business would transfer away from the Forum Romanum to the larger and more extravagant structures to the north. The reign of Constantine the Great saw the construction of the last major expansion of the Forum complex—the Basilica of Maxentius and this returned the political center to the Forum until the fall of the Western Roman Empire almost two centuries later. This is the case despite attempts, with success, to impose some order there, by Sulla, Julius Caesar, Augustus. By the Imperial period, the public buildings that crowded around the central square had reduced the open area to a rectangle of about 130 by 50 metres. Its long dimension was oriented northwest to southeast and extended from the foot of the Capitoline Hill to that of the Velian Hill, the Forums basilicas during the Imperial period—the Basilica Aemilia on the north and the Basilica Julia on the south—defined its long sides and its final form. The Forum proper included this square, the buildings facing it and, sometimes, originally, the site of the Forum had been a marshy lake where waters from the surrounding hills drained. This was drained by the Tarquins with the Cloaca Maxima, because of its location, sediments from both the flooding of the Tiber and the erosion of the surrounding hills have been raising the level of the Forum floor for centuries. Excavated sequences of remains of paving show that sediment eroded from the hills was already raising the level in early Republican times. As the ground around buildings rose, residents simply paved over the debris that was too much to remove and its final travertine paving, still visible, dates from the reign of Augustus. Excavations in the 19th century revealed one layer on top of another, the deepest level excavated was 3.60 metres above sea level. Archaeological finds show human activity at that level with the discovery of carbonised wood, an important function of the Forum, during both Republican and Imperial times, was to serve as the culminating venue for the celebratory military processions known as Triumphs. Victorious generals entered the city by the western Triumphal Gate and circumnavigated the Palatine Hill before proceeding from the Velian Hill down the Via Sacra, from here they would mount the Capitoline Rise up to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the summit of the Capitol
3.
Tuff
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Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is compacted into a rock in a process called consolidation. Tuff is sometimes called tufa, particularly used as construction material. Rock that contains greater than 50% tuff is considered tuffaceous, Tuff is a relatively soft rock, so it has been used for construction since ancient times. Since it is common in Italy the Romans used it often for construction, the Rapa Nui people used it to make most of the moai statues in Easter Island. Tuff can be classified as either sedimentary or igneous rocks and they are usually studied in the context of igneous petrology, although they are sometimes described using sedimentological terms. The material that is expelled in a volcanic eruption can be classified into three types, Volcanic gases, a mixture mostly of water vapour, carbon dioxide. Lava, the name of magma when it emerges and flows over the surface, and tephra, chunks of solid material of all shapes and sizes ejected and thrown through the air. Tephra is made when magma inside the volcano is blown apart by the expansion of hot volcanic gases. It is common for magma to explode as the gas dissolved in it comes out of solution as the pressure decreases when it flows to the surface and these violent explosions produce solid chunks of material that can then fly from the volcano. When these chunks are smaller than 2 mm in diameter they are called volcanic ash and it is made of small, slaggy pieces of lava and rock that have been tossed into the air by outbursts of steam and other gases. Among the loose beds of ash that cover the slopes of many volcanoes, in addition to true ashes of the kind described above, there are lumps of the old lavas and tuffs forming the walls of the crater, etc. In some great volcanic explosions nothing but materials of the kind were emitted. The ashes vary in size from large blocks twenty feet or more in diameter to the minutest impalpable dust, the large masses are called volcanic bombs, they have mostly a rounded, elliptical or pear-shaped form owing to rotation in the air before they solidified. Many of them have ribbed or nodular surfaces, and sometimes they have a crust intersected by many cracks like the surface of a loaf of bread, any ash in which they are very abundant is called an agglomerate. But many volcanoes stand near the sea, and the ashes cast out by them are mingled with the sediments that are gathering at the bottom of the waters, in this way ashy muds or sands or even in some cases ashy limestones are being formed. As a matter of fact most of the found in the older formations contain admixtures of clay, sand, and sometimes fossil shells. The showers of ashes often follow one another after longer or shorter intervals, the coarsest materials or agglomerates show this least distinctly, in the fine beds it is often developed in great perfection
4.
Marble
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Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Geologists use the marble to refer to metamorphosed limestone, however. Marble is commonly used for sculpture and as a building material and this stem is also the basis for the English word marmoreal, meaning marble-like. In Hungarian it is called márvány, Marble is a rock resulting from metamorphism of sedimentary carbonate rocks, most commonly limestone or dolomite rock. Metamorphism causes variable recrystallization of the carbonate mineral grains. The resulting marble rock is composed of an interlocking mosaic of carbonate crystals. Primary sedimentary textures and structures of the carbonate rock have typically been modified or destroyed. Pure white marble is the result of metamorphism of a very pure limestone or dolomite protolith, green coloration is often due to serpentine resulting from originally magnesium-rich limestone or dolostone with silica impurities. These various impurities have been mobilized and recrystallized by the intense pressure, examples of historically notable marble varieties and locations, White marble has been prized for its use in sculptures since classical times. This preference has to do with its softness, which made it easier to carve, relative isotropy and homogeneity, construction marble is a stone which is composed of calcite, dolomite or serpentine which is capable of taking a polish. More generally in construction, specifically the dimension stone trade, the marble is used for any crystalline calcitic rock useful as building stone. For example, Tennessee marble is really a dense granular fossiliferous gray to pink to maroon Ordovician limestone that geologists call the Holston Formation. Ashgabat, the city of Turkmenistan, was recorded in the 2013 Guinness Book of Records as having the worlds highest concentration of white marble buildings. According to the United States Geological Survey, U. S. domestic marble production in 2006 was 46,400 tons valued at about $18.1 million, compared to 72,300 tons valued at $18.9 million in 2005. Crushed marble production in 2006 was 11.8 million tons valued at $116 million, of which 6.5 million tons was finely ground calcium carbonate and the rest was construction aggregate. For comparison,2005 crushed marble production was 7.76 million tons valued at $58.7 million, of which 4.8 million tons was finely ground calcium carbonate, U. S. dimension marble demand is about 1.3 million tons. The DSAN World Demand for Marble Index has shown a growth of 12% annually for the 2000–2006 period, the largest dimension marble application is tile. In 1998, marble production was dominated by 4 countries that accounted for almost half of production of marble
5.
Roman Republic
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It was during this period that Romes control expanded from the citys immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world. During the first two centuries of its existence, the Roman Republic expanded through a combination of conquest and alliance, by the following century, it included North Africa, most of the Iberian Peninsula, and what is now southern France. Two centuries after that, towards the end of the 1st century BC, it included the rest of modern France, Greece, and much of the eastern Mediterranean. By this time, internal tensions led to a series of wars, culminating with the assassination of Julius Caesar. The exact date of transition can be a matter of interpretation, Roman government was headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and advised by a senate composed of appointed magistrates. Over time, the laws that gave exclusive rights to Romes highest offices were repealed or weakened. The leaders of the Republic developed a tradition and morality requiring public service and patronage in peace and war, making military. Many of Romes legal and legislative structures can still be observed throughout Europe and much of the world in modern nation states, the exact causes and motivations for Romes military conflicts and expansions during the republic are subject to wide debate. While they can be seen as motivated by outright aggression and imperialism and they argue that Romes expansion was driven by short-term defensive and inter-state factors, and the new contingencies that these decisions created. In its early history, as Rome successfully defended itself against foreign threats in central and then northern Italy, with some important exceptions, successful wars in early republican Rome generally led not to annexation or military occupation, but to the restoration of the way things were. But the defeated city would be weakened and thus able to resist Romanizing influences. It was also able to defend itself against its non-Roman enemies. It was, therefore, more likely to seek an alliance of protection with Rome and this growing coalition expanded the potential enemies that Rome might face, and moved Rome closer to confrontation with major powers. The result was more alliance-seeking, on the part of both the Roman confederacy and city-states seeking membership within that confederacy. While there were exceptions to this, it was not until after the Second Punic War that these alliances started to harden into something more like an empire and this shift mainly took place in parts of the west, such as the southern Italian towns that sided with Hannibal. In contrast, Roman expansion into Spain and Gaul occurred as a mix of alliance-seeking, in the 2nd century BC, Roman involvement in the Greek east remained a matter of alliance-seeking, but this time in the face of major powers that could rival Rome. This had some important similarities to the events in Italy centuries earlier, with some major exceptions of outright military rule, the Roman Republic remained an alliance of independent city-states and kingdoms until it transitioned into the Roman Empire. It was not until the time of the Roman Empire that the entire Roman world was organized into provinces under explicit Roman control
6.
Augustus
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Augustus was the founder of the Roman Principate and considered the first Roman emperor, controlling the Roman Empire from 27 BC until his death in AD14. He was born Gaius Octavius into an old and wealthy equestrian branch of the plebeian gens Octavia and his maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, and Octavius was named in Caesars will as his adopted son and heir, then known as Octavianus. He, Mark Antony, and Marcus Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate to defeat the assassins of Caesar, following their victory at the Battle of Philippi, the Triumvirate divided the Roman Republic among themselves and ruled as military dictators. The Triumvate was eventually torn apart by the ambitions of its members. Lepidus was driven into exile and stripped of his position, in reality, however, he retained his autocratic power over the Republic as a military dictator. By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including supreme military command, and it took several years for Augustus to develop the framework within which a formally republican state could be led under his sole rule. He rejected monarchical titles, and instead called himself Princeps Civitatis, the resulting constitutional framework became known as the Principate, the first phase of the Roman Empire. The reign of Augustus initiated an era of peace known as the Pax Romana. Augustus dramatically enlarged the Empire, annexing Egypt, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Raetia, expanding possessions in Africa, expanding into Germania, beyond the frontiers, he secured the Empire with a buffer region of client states and made peace with the Parthian Empire through diplomacy. Augustus died in AD14 at the age of 75 and he probably died from natural causes, although there were unconfirmed rumors that his wife Livia poisoned him. He was succeeded as Emperor by his adopted son Tiberius, Augustus was known by many names throughout his life, At birth, he was named Gaius Octavius after his biological father. Historians typically refer to him simply as Octavius between his birth in 63 until his adoption by Julius Caesar in 44 BC, upon his adoption, he took Caesars name and became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus in accordance with Roman adoption naming standards. He quickly dropped Octavianus from his name, and his contemporaries referred to him as Caesar during this period, historians. In 27 BC, following his defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra and it is the events of 27 BC from which he obtained his traditional name of Augustus, which historians use in reference to him from 27 BC until his death in AD14. While his paternal family was from the town of Velletri, approximately 40 kilometres from Rome and he was born at Ox Head, a small property on the Palatine Hill, very close to the Roman Forum. He was given the name Gaius Octavius Thurinus, his cognomen possibly commemorating his fathers victory at Thurii over a band of slaves. Due to the nature of Rome at the time, Octavius was taken to his fathers home village at Velletri to be raised. Octavius only mentions his fathers equestrian family briefly in his memoirs and his paternal great-grandfather Gaius Octavius was a military tribune in Sicily during the Second Punic War
7.
Gaius Caesar
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Gaius Caesar, formally Gaius Julius Caesar, was the adopted son and heir of Augustus along with his brother Lucius. It was intended that they rule the Roman Empire together, Gaius was born the son of Augustus trusted friend and general, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. His name at birth was Gaius Vipsanius Agrippa, but it changed to Gaius Julius Caesar following his adoption out of the Vipsanii. Gaius was adopted together with his brother, Lucius, following his birth in 17 BC, in 1 BC he was given command of the eastern provinces. During his command, he concluded a treaty with King Phraates V of Parthia on an island in the Euphrates. The following year he was made consul, the year after his consulship, his brother Lucius died at Massalia in February. Two years later, Gaius died at Lycia, though he was married to his second cousin, Livilla, the marriage had no issue. Gaius was born in Rome in 20 BC to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and he was apart of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, and was related to all the Julio-Claudian emperors. On his mothers side, he was the oldest grandson of emperor Augustus and he was the brother-in-law of Tiberius by his half-sister Vipsania Agrippina, and Claudius by his sister Agrippina the Elders marriage to Germanicus. Gaius nephew was the last emperor of the dynasty, Nero, an annual sacrifice on his birthday was granted in pursuance of a decree. In 17 BC, his brother Lucius was born, immediately after, the emperor Augustus adopted his brother and him from their father by a symbolic sale, and named the two boys his heirs. Their adoptive father initiated them into life when they were still young. Augustus taught Gaius and Lucius how to read, swim, shortly after their adoption in the summer, Augustus held the fifth ever Ludi Saeculares. The adoption of the boys coupled with the served to introduce a new era of peace - the Pax Augusta. That year his family left for the province of Syria, because his father was given command of the provinces with proconsular imperium maius. Four years later, in 13 BC, Gaius took part with his brothers Lucius, also in 13 BC, his father returned to Rome and was promptly sent to Pannonia to suppress a rebellion. Agrippa arrived there that winter, but the Pannonians gave up their plans, Agrippa returned to Campania in Italy, where he fell ill and died soon after. The death of Gaius father made succession a pressing issue, the aurei and denarii issued in 13-12 BC made clear the Emperors dynastic plans for Gaius and Lucius
8.
Alaric I
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Alaric I was the first King of the Visigoths from 395–410, son of chieftain Rothestes. Alaric is best known for his sack of Rome in 410, Alaric began his career under the Gothic soldier Gainas and later joined the Roman army. Alarics first appearance was as the leader of a band of Goths. In 394 he led a Gothic force of 20,000 that helped the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius defeat the Frankish usurper Arbogast at the Battle of Frigidus, despite sacrificing around 10,000 of his men, Alaric received little recognition from the Emperor. Disappointed, he left the army and was elected reiks of the Visigoths in 395 and he then moved southward into Greece, where he sacked Piraeus and destroyed Corinth, Megara, Argos, and Sparta. As a response, the Eastern emperor Flavius Arcadius appointed Alaric magister militum in Illyricum, in 401 Alaric invaded Italy, but he was defeated by Stilicho at Pollentia on April 6,402. A second invasion that year also ended in defeat at the Battle of Verona. During Radagaisus Italian invasion in 406, Alaric remained idle in Illyria, in 408, Western Emperor Flavius Honorius ordered the execution of Stilicho and his family, amid rumours that the general had made a deal with Alaric. Honorius then incited the Roman population to massacre tens of thousands of wives, subsequently, around 30,000 Gothic soldiers defected to Alaric, and joined his march on Rome to avenge their murdered families. Moving swiftly along Roman roads, Alaric sacked the cities of Aquileia and Cremona, the Visigothic leader thereupon laid siege to Rome in 408. Eventually, the Senate granted him a substantial subsidy, in addition, Alaric forced the Senate to liberate all 40,000 Gothic slaves in Rome. Honorius, however, refused to appoint Alaric as the commander of the Western Roman Army, Alaric lifted his blockade after proclaiming Attalus Western Emperor. Attalus appointed him magister utriusque militiae but refused to him to send an army into Africa. Negotiations with Honorius broke down, and Alaric deposed Attalus in the summer of 410, allies within the capital opened the gates for him on August 24, and for three days his troops sacked the city. Although the Visigoths plundered Rome, they treated its inhabitants humanely, having abandoned a plan to occupy Sicily and North Africa after the destruction of his fleet in a storm, Alaric died as the Visigoths were marching northward. Born on Peuce Island at the mouth of the Danube Delta in present-day Romania, the Goths suffered setbacks against the Huns, made a mass migration across the Danube, and fought a war with Rome. Alaric was probably a child during this period, during the fourth century, the Roman emperors commonly employed foederati, irregular troops under Roman command, but organized by tribal structures. To spare the provincial populations from excessive taxation and to save money, the largest of these contingents was that of the Goths, who in 382, had been allowed to settle within the imperial boundaries, keeping a large degree of autonomy
9.
Renaissance
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The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
10.
Arch of Titus
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The Arch of Titus is a 1st-century AD. honorific arch, located on the Via Sacra, Rome, just to the south-east of the Roman Forum. AD.82 by the Emperor Domitian shortly after the death of his older brother Titus to commemorate Tituss victories, including the Siege of Jerusalem. The arch has provided the model for many triumphal arches erected since the 16th century—perhaps most famously it is the inspiration for the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Based on the style of sculptural details, Domitians favored architect Rabirius, sometimes credited with the Colosseum, without contemporary documentation, however, attributions of Roman buildings on basis of style are considered shaky. The restoration was a model for the side of Porta Pia. The arch is large with both fluted and unfluted columns, the latter being a result of 19th century restoration, the spandrels on the upper left and right of the arch contain personifications of victory as winged women. Between the spandrels is the keystone, on which stands a female on the East side. The soffit of the archway is deeply coffered with a relief of the apotheosis of Titus at the center. The sculptural program includes two panel reliefs lining the passageway within the arch. Both commemorate the joint triumph celebrated by Titus and his father Vespasian in the summer of 71, the south panel depicts the spoils taken from the Temple in Jerusalem. The golden candelabrum or Menorah is the focus and is carved in deep relief. Other sacred objects being carried in the procession are the Gold Trumpets, the fire pans for removing the ashes from the altar. These spoils were likely originally colored gold, with the background in blue, in 2012 the Arch of Titus Digital Restoration Project discovered remains of yellow ochre paint on the menorah relief. The north panel depicts Titus as triumphator attended by various genii and lictors, a helmeted Amazonian, Valour, leads the quadriga or four horsed chariot, which carries Titus. Winged Victory crowns him with a laurel wreath, the juxtaposition is significant in that it is one of the first examples of divinities and humans being present in one scene together. This contrasts with the panels of the Ara Pacis, where humans, the sculpture of the outer faces of the two great piers was lost when the Arch of Titus was incorporated in medieval defensive walls. The attic of the arch was originally crowned by more statuary, the main inscription used to be ornamented by letters made of perhaps silver, gold or some other metal. The Arch of Titus measures,15.4 meters in height,13.5 meters in width,4.75 meters in depth, the inner archway is 8.3 meters in height, and 5.36 in width
11.
Arch of Septimius Severus
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After the death of Septimius Severus, his sons Caracalla and Geta were initially joint emperors. Caracalla had Geta assassinated in 212, Getas memorials were destroyed and all images or mentions of him were removed from public buildings, accordingly, Getas image and inscriptions referring to him were removed from the arch. The arch was raised on a travertine base originally approached by steps from the Forums ancient level, the central archway, spanned by a richly coffered semicircular vault, has lateral openings to each side archway, a feature copied in many Early Modern triumphal arches. The Arch is about 23 metres in height,25 metres in width and 11.85 metres deep, the three archways rest on piers, in front of which are detached composite columns on pedestals. Winged Victories are carved in relief in the spandrels, a staircase in the south pier leads to the top of the monument, on which were statues of the emperor and his two sons in a four-horse chariot, accompanied by soldiers. The Arch stands close to the foot of the Capitoline Hill, a flight of steps originally led to the central opening, as one still does to the Arch of Trajan at Ancona. By the 4th century erosion had raised the level of the Forum so much that a roadway was put through the Arch for the first time, so much debris and silt eroded from the surrounding hills that the arch was embedded to the base of the columns. The damage wrought by wheeled medieval and early modern traffic can still be seen on the column bases, above the bas-reliefs of the socles. The well-preserved condition of the Arch owes a good deal to its having been incorporated into the structure of a Christian church, half the Arch belonged to the Cimini family, who are also attributed for the preservation of the structure. The stronghold included a tower placed on top of the Arch itself, when the church was refounded elsewhere, the arch remained ecclesiastical property and was not demolished for other construction. The parenthesized section in the middle is text that replaced an original reference to his other son Geta, Arch of Septimius Severus photo gallery and virtual reality movie. Hinterhöller, Monika, Der Triumphbogen des Septimius Severus und die historischen Reliefs der Partherkrieg,2008, GRIN Verlag
12.
Arch of Constantine
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The Arch of Constantine is a triumphal arch in Rome, situated between the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill. It was erected by the Roman Senate to commemorate Constantine Is victory over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312, dedicated in 315, it is the largest Roman triumphal arch. The arch spans the Via triumphalis, the way taken by the emperors when they entered the city in triumph. Though dedicated to Constantine, much of the material incorporated earlier work from the time of the emperors Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. This earned it the nickname of Cornacchia di Esopo Aesops Crow. The arch is 21 m high,25.9 m wide and 7.4 m deep. It has three archways, the one being 11.5 m high and 6.5 m wide. Above the archways is placed the attic, composed of brickwork reveted with marble, a staircase within the arch is entered from a door at some height from the ground, on the west side, facing the Palatine Hill. The general design with a main part structured by detached columns, not only did the Roman senate give the arch for Constantines victory, they also were celebrating decennia, a series of games that happens every decade for the romans. In this occasion they also said many prayers, however, Constantine had actually entered Rome on 29 October 312, amidst great rejoicing, and the Senate then commissioned the monument. Constantine then left Rome within two months and did not return till 326, the location, between the Palatine Hill and the Caelian Hill, spanned the ancient route of Roman triumphs at its origin, where it diverged from the Via sacra. This route was taken by the emperors when they entered the city in triumph. During the Middle Ages, the Arch of Constantine was incorporated into one of the strongholds of ancient Rome, as shown in the painting by Herman van Swanevelt. Works of restoration were first carried out in the 18th century, the arch served as the finish line for the marathon athletic event for the 1960 Summer Olympics. Another theory holds that it was erected, or at least started, by Maxentius, ), whatever the faults of Maxentius, his reputation in Rome was influenced by his contributions to public building. This factor contributed to his ability to seize power, by contrast Maxentius concentrated on restoring the capital, his epithet being conservator urbis suae. Thus Constantine was perceived amongst other things as the deposer of one of the citys greatest benefactors, much controversy has surrounded the patronage of the public works of this period. The German philosopher, Walter Benjamin observed that history is seen through the eyes of the victor, issuing a damnatio memoriae he set out to systematically erase the memory of Maxentius
