1.
Tiber Island
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The Tiber Island is the only island in the Tiber river which runs through Rome. Tiber Island is located in the bend of the Tiber. The island is boat-shaped, approximately 270 metres long and 67 metres wide, being a seat of the ancient temple of Asclepius and later a hospital, the island is associated with medicine and healing. The island has been linked to the rest of Rome by two bridges since antiquity, and was once called Insula Inter-Duos-Pontes which means the island between the two bridges. The Ponte Fabricio, the original bridge in Rome, connects the island from the northeast to the Field of Mars in the rione SantAngelo. The Ponte Cestio, of only some original parts survived. There is a legend says that after the fall of the hated tyrant Tarquinius Superbus. His body then settled onto the bottom where dirt and silt accumulated around it, another version of the legend says that the people gathered up the wheat and grain of their despised ruler and threw it into the Tiber, where it eventually became the foundation of the island. In ancient times, before Christianity spread through Rome, Tiber Island was avoided because of the stories associated with it. Only the worst criminals and the ill were condemned there. This however changed when a temple was built on the island, Tiber Island was once the location of an ancient temple to Aesculapius, the Greek god of medicine and healing. Accounts say that in 293 BC, there was a plague in Rome. Upon consulting the Sibyl, the Roman Senate was instructed to build a temple to Aesculapius, the Greek god of healing, the delegation went on board a ship to sail out and obtain a statue. Following their belief system, they obtained a snake from a temple and it immediately curled itself around the ships mast and this was deemed as a good sign by them. Upon their return up the Tiber river, the snake slithered off the ship and they believed that this was a sign from Aesculapius, a sign which meant that he wanted his temple to be built on that island. This location may have chosen for the Aesculapius Temple because it was separate from the rest of the city. The island eventually became so identified with the temple it supported that it was modeled to resemble a ship as a reminder of how it came to be. Travertine facing was added in mid or late first century by the banks to resemble a ships prow and stern, walls were put around the island, and it came to resemble a Roman ship
2.
Tiber
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It drains a basin estimated at 17,375 square kilometres. The river has achieved lasting fame as the watercourse of the city of Rome. The river rises at Mount Fumaiolo in central Italy and flows in a southerly direction past Perugia. However, it does not form a delta, owing to a strong north-flowing sea current close to the shore, to the steep shelving of the coast. The source of the Tiber consists of two springs 10 metres away from each other on Mount Fumaiolo and these springs are called Le Vene. The springs are in a beech forest 1,268 metres above sea level, during the 1930s, Benito Mussolini placed an antique marble Roman column at the point where the river arises, inscribed QUI NASCE IL FIUME SACRO AI DESTINI DI ROMA. There is an eagle on the top of this column, the first miles of the Tiber run through Valtiberina before entering Umbria. It is probable that the genesis of the name Tiber was pre-Latin, like the Roman name of Tibur, the same root is found in the Latin praenomen Tiberius. There are also Etruscan variants of this praenomen in Thefarie and Teperie, the legendary king Tiberinus, ninth in the king-list of Alba Longa, was said to have drowned in the river Albula, which was afterward called Tiberis. Yet another etymology is from *dubri-, water, considered by Alessio as Sicel and this root *dubri- is widespread in Western Europe e. g. Dover, Portus Dubris. According to the legend, Jupiter made him a god and guardian spirit of the river and this gave rise to the standard Roman depiction of the river as a powerfully built reclining god, also named Tiberinus, with streams of water flowing from his hair and beard. The Tiber was also believed to be the river into which Romulus and Remus were thrown as infants, according to legend, the city of Rome was founded in 753 BC on the banks of the Tiber about 25 kilometres from the sea at Ostia. The island Isola Tiberina in the centre of Rome, between Trastevere and the ancient center, was the site of an important ancient ford and was later bridged. Legend says Romes founders, the twin brothers Romulus and Remus, were abandoned on its waters, the river marked the boundary between the lands of the Etruscans to the west, the Sabines to the east and the Latins to the south. Benito Mussolini, born in Romagna, adjusted the boundary between Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna, so that the springs of the Tiber would lie in Romagna and it was later used to ship stone, timber and foodstuffs to Rome. During the Punic Wars of the 3rd century BC, the harbour at Ostia became a key naval base and it later became Romes most important port, where wheat, olive oil, and wine were imported from Romes colonies around the Mediterranean. Wharves were also built along the riverside in Rome itself, lining the riverbanks around the Campus Martius area, the Romans connected the river with a sewer system and with an underground network of tunnels and other channels, to bring its water into the middle of the city. Wealthy Romans had garden-parks or horti on the banks of the river in Rome up through the first century BC and these may have been sold and developed about a century later
3.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
4.
Arch bridge
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An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either side, a viaduct may be made from a series of arches, although other more economical structures are typically used today. Possibly the oldest existing bridge is the Mycenaean Arkadiko bridge in Greece from about 1300 BC. The stone corbel arch bridge is used by the local populace. The well-preserved Hellenistic Eleutherna Bridge has a corbel arch. The 4th century BC Rhodes Footbridge rests on an early voussoir arch, a more complete survey by the Italian scholar Vittorio Galliazzo found 931 Roman bridges, mostly of stone, in as many as 26 different countries. Roman arch bridges were usually semicircular, although a number were segmental arch bridges, generally, Roman bridges featured wedge-shaped primary arch stones of the same in size and shape. The Romans built both single spans and lengthy multiple arch aqueducts, such as the Pont du Gard and Segovia Aqueduct. Their bridges featured from an early time onwards flood openings in the piers, e. g. in the Pons Fabricius in Rome, Roman engineers were the first and until the industrial revolution the only ones to construct bridges with concrete, which they called Opus caementicium. The outside was covered with brick or ashlar, as in the Alcántara bridge. The Romans also introduced segmental arch bridges into bridge construction, trajans bridge over the Danube featured open-spandrel segmental arches made of wood. This was to be the longest arch bridge for a thousand years both in terms of overall and individual span length, while the longest extant Roman bridge is the 790 m long Puente Romano at Mérida. The late Roman Karamagara Bridge in Cappadocia may represent the earliest surviving bridge featuring a pointed arch, in medieval Europe, bridge builders improved on the Roman structures by using narrower piers, thinner arch barrels and lower span-rise ratios on bridges. Gothic pointed arches were introduced, reducing lateral thrust. The 14th century in particular saw bridge building reaching new heights, the bridge at Trezzo sullAdda, destroyed in the 15th century, even featured a span length of 72 m, not matched until 1796. Constructions such as the acclaimed Florentine segmental arch bridge Ponte Vecchio combined sound engineering with aesthetical appeal, the three elegant arches of the Renaissance Ponte Santa Trinita constitute the oldest elliptic arch bridge worldwide. In China, the oldest existing bridge is the Zhaozhou Bridge of 605 AD. The Zhaozhou Bridge, with a length of 167 feet and span of 123 feet, is the worlds first wholly stone open-spandrel segmental arch bridge, Bridges with perforated spandrels can be found worldwide, such as in China
5.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
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Giovanni Battista Piranesi was an Italian artist famous for his etchings of Rome and of fictitious and atmospheric prisons. Piranesi was born in Mogliano Veneto, near Treviso, then part of the Republic of Venice, from 1740 he had an opportunity to work in Rome as a draughtsman for Marco Foscarini, the Venetian ambassador of the new Pope Benedict XIV. He resided in the Palazzo Venezia and studied under Giuseppe Vasi, Giuseppe Vasi found Piranesis talent was beyond engraving. According to Legrand, Vasi told Piranesi that you are too much of a painter, my friend, from 1743 to 1747 he sojourned mainly in Venice where, according to some sources, he often visited Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, a leading artist in Venice. It was Tiepolo who expanded the restrictive conventions of reproductive, topographical and he then returned to Rome, where he opened a workshop in Via del Corso. In 1748–1774 he created a series of vedute of the city which established his fame. In the meantime Piranesi devoted himself to the measurement of many of the ancient edifices, in 1761 he became a member of the Accademia di San Luca and opened a printing facility of his own. In 1762 the Campo Marzio dellantica Roma collection of engravings was printed, the following year he was commissioned by Pope Clement XIII to restore the choir of San Giovanni in Laterano, but the work did not materialize. He combined certain ancient architectural elements, trophies and escutcheons, with a venetian whimsicality for the facade of the church and this was the only time he expressed himself in actual marble and stone. In 1767 he was made a knight of the Golden Spur, in 1776 he created his best known work as a restorer of ancient sculpture, the Piranesi Vase, and in 1777–78 he published Avanzi degli Edifici di Pesto. He died in Rome in 1778 after an illness, and was buried in the Church he had helped restore. His tomb was designed by Giuseppi Angelini, the idea of Enlightenment by theorists and artists traveled all over the Europe including Paris, Dresden, and London. The developing center of the Grand Tour was Rome, Rome became a new meeting place and intellectual capital of Europe for the leaders of a new movement in the arts. The city was attracting artists and architects all over the Europe beside the Grand Tourists, dealers. While many came though official institutions such as the French Academy, others came to see the new discoveries at Heraculaneum, Piranesi was not only aware of the engineering of the ancient buildings but also the poetic aspects of the ruins from his experience in Venice. One distinctive feature of Piranesis work is based on the interpretation of Classical antiquity by adding his imagination to increase the originality, through the works of Marco Ricci and particularly Giovanini Paolo Pannini, Piranesi became familiar with the architectonic values as well as the ruin fantasy. The remains of Rome kindled Piranesis enthusiasm, some of his later work was completed by his children and several pupils. Piranesis son and coadjutor, Francesco, collected and preserved his plates, twenty-nine folio volumes containing about 2000 prints appeared in Paris
6.
Herma
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A herma, commonly in English herm, is a sculpture with a head, and perhaps a torso, above a plain, usually squared lower section, on which male genitals may also be carved at the appropriate height. The form originated in Ancient Greece, and was adopted by the Romans, in the earliest times Greek divinities were worshiped in the form of a heap of stones or a shapeless column of stone or wood. In many parts of Greece there were piles of stones by the sides of roads, especially at their crossings, and on the boundaries of lands. The religious respect paid to such heaps of stones, especially at the meeting of roads, is shown by the custom of each passer-by throwing a stone on to the heap or anointing it with oil. Later there was the addition of a head and phallus to the column, before his role as protector of merchants and travelers, Hermes was a phallic god, associated with fertility, luck, roads and borders. The surmounting heads were not, however, confined to those of Hermes, those of gods and heroes. In this case a compound was formed, Hermathena, Hermares, Hermaphroditus, Hermanubis, Hermalcibiades, in Athens, where the hermai were most numerous and most venerated, they were placed outside houses as apotropes for good luck. They would be rubbed or anointed with oil and adorned with garlands or wreaths. This superstition persists, for example the Porcellino bronze boar of Florence, in Roman and Renaissance versions, the body was often shown from the waist up. The form was used for portrait busts of famous public figures, especially writers like Socrates. Sappho appears on Ancient Greek herms, and anonymous female figures were used from the Renaissance on. In 415 BC, on a night shortly before the Athenian fleet was about to set sail for Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War and this was a horribly impious act and many people believed it threatened the success of the expedition. Though it was never proven, the Athenians at the time believed it was the work of saboteurs, either from Syracuse or Spartan sympathizers from Athens itself, one suspect was the writer Xenophon. The J. Paul Getty museum in Los Angeles has a collection of Roman Herma boundary marker stones in its stored collection. An Aesops fable makes fun of statue of Hermes, when a pious dog offers to anoint it, the god hastily assures his worshipper that this is not necessary
7.
Cicero
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Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul, and constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy family of the Roman equestrian order. According to Michael Grant, the influence of Cicero upon the history of European literature, Cicero introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary distinguishing himself as a translator and philosopher. Though he was an orator and successful lawyer, Cicero believed his political career was his most important achievement. During the chaotic latter half of the 1st century BC marked by civil wars, following Julius Caesars death, Cicero became an enemy of Mark Antony in the ensuing power struggle, attacking him in a series of speeches. His severed hands and head were then, as a revenge of Mark Antony. Petrarchs rediscovery of Ciceros letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance in public affairs, humanism, according to Polish historian Tadeusz Zieliński, the Renaissance was above all things a revival of Cicero, and only after him and through him of the rest of Classical antiquity. Cicero was born in 106 BC in Arpinum, a hill town 100 kilometers southeast of Rome and his father was a well-to-do member of the equestrian order and possessed good connections in Rome. However, being a semi-invalid, he could not enter public life, although little is known about Ciceros mother, Helvia, it was common for the wives of important Roman citizens to be responsible for the management of the household. Ciceros brother Quintus wrote in a letter that she was a thrifty housewife, Ciceros cognomen, or personal surname, comes from the Latin for chickpea, cicer. Plutarch explains that the name was given to one of Ciceros ancestors who had a cleft in the tip of his nose resembling a chickpea. However, it is likely that Ciceros ancestors prospered through the cultivation. Romans often chose down-to-earth personal surnames, the family names of Fabius, Lentulus, and Piso come from the Latin names of beans, lentils. Plutarch writes that Cicero was urged to change this name when he entered politics. During this period in Roman history, cultured meant being able to speak both Latin and Greek, Cicero used his knowledge of Greek to translate many of the theoretical concepts of Greek philosophy into Latin, thus translating Greek philosophical works for a larger audience. It was precisely his broad education that tied him to the traditional Roman elite, according to Plutarch, Cicero was an extremely talented student, whose learning attracted attention from all over Rome, affording him the opportunity to study Roman law under Quintus Mucius Scaevola. Ciceros fellow students were Gaius Marius Minor, Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the latter two became Ciceros friends for life, and Pomponius would become, in Ciceros own words, as a second brother, with both maintaining a lifelong correspondence. Cicero wanted to pursue a career in politics along the steps of the Cursus honorum
8.
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
9.
Travertine
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Travertine is a form of limestone deposited by mineral springs, especially hot springs. Travertine often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, tan, cream-colored and it is formed by a process of rapid precipitation of calcium carbonate, often at the mouth of a hot spring or in a limestone cave. In the latter, it can form stalactites, stalagmites, and it is frequently used in Italy and elsewhere as a building material. Travertine is a sedimentary rock, formed by the precipitation of carbonate minerals from solution in ground and surface waters. Similar deposits formed from water are known as tufa. The word travertine is derived from the Italian travertino, itself a derivation of the Latin tiburtinus ‘of Tibur’ and its namesake is also the origin of Tivoli, a district near Rome. Modern travertine is formed from geothermally heated supersaturated alkaline waters, with raised pCO2, on emergence, waters degas CO2 due to the lower atmospheric pCO2, resulting in an increase in pH. Since carbonate solubility decreases with increased pH, precipitation is induced, precipitation may be enhanced by factors leading to a reduction in pCO2, for example increased air-water interactions at waterfalls may be important, as may photosynthesis. Precipitation may also be enhanced by evaporation in some springs, both calcite and aragonite are found in hot spring travertines, aragonite is preferentially precipitated when temperatures are hot, while calcite dominates when temperatures are cooler. When pure and fine, travertine is white, but often it is brown to yellow due to impurities, travertine may precipitate out directly onto rock and other inert materials as in Pamukkale or Yellowstone for example. The latter has a historic value, because it was one of the quarries that Gian Lorenzo Bernini selected material from to build the famous Colonnade of St. Peters Square in Rome in 1656-1667. Michaelangelo also chose travertine as the material for the ribs of the dome of St Peters Basilica. Travertine derives its name from the town, known as Tibur in ancient Roman times. The ancient name for the stone was lapis tiburtinus, meaning tibur stone, detailed studies of the Tivoli and Guidonia travertine deposits revealed diurnal and annual rhythmic banding and laminae, which have potential use in geochronology. Cascades of natural lakes formed behind travertine dams can be seen in Pamukkale, Turkey, in Central Europes last post-glacial palaeoclimatic optimum, huge deposits of tufa formed from karst springs. On a smaller scale, these karst processes are still working, travertine has been an important building material since the Middle Ages. Travertine has formed sixteen huge, natural dams in a valley in Croatia known as Plitvice Lakes National Park, clinging to moss and rocks in the water, the travertine has built up over several millennia to form waterfalls up to 70 m in height. In the U. S. the most well-known place for travertine formation is Yellowstone National Park, Oklahoma has two parks dedicated to this natural wonder
10.
Pope Innocent XI
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Pope Innocent XI, born Benedetto Odescalchi, was Pope from 21 September 1676 to his death in 1689. He is known in Budapest as the Saviour of Hungary, much of his reign was concerned with tension with Louis XIV of France. A conservative, he lowered taxes in the Papal States during his pontificate, because of this surplus he repudiated excessive nepotism within the church. Innocent XI was frugal in matters of governing the Papal States, once he was elected to the papacy, he applied himself to moral and administrative reform of the Roman Curia. He abolished sinecures and pushed for greater simplicity in preaching as well as greater reverence in worship—requesting this of both the clergy and faithful. Benedetto Odescalchi was born at Como on 16 May 1611, the son of a Como nobleman, Livio Odescalchi and his siblings were Carlo, Lucrezia, Giulio Maria, Constantino, Nicola and Paolo. He also had several descendants of note through his sister, her grandson Cardinal Baldassare Erba-Odescalchi, Cardinal Benedetto Erba Odescalchi. The Odescalchi, a family of nobility, were determined entrepreneurs. In 1619, Benedettos brother founded a bank with his three uncles in Genoa which quickly grew into a successful money-lending business, after completing his studies in grammar and letters, the 15-year-old Benedetto moved to Genoa to take part in the family business as an apprentice. Lucrative economic transactions were established with clients in the major Italian and European cities, such as Nuremberg, Milan, Kraków, in 1626 Benedettos father died, and he began schooling in the humane sciences taught by the Jesuits at his local college, before transferring to Genoa. In 1630 he narrowly survived an outbreak of plague, which killed his mother, some time between 1632 and 1636, Benedetto decided to move to Rome and then Naples in order to study civil law. He subsequently became legate to Ferrara, when he was sent to Ferrara in order to assist the people stricken with a severe famine, the Pope introduced him to the people of Ferrara as the father of the poor. In 1650, Odescalchi became bishop of Novara, in which capacity he spent all the revenues of his see to relieve the poor, with the permission of the pope he resigned as bishop of Novara in favor of his brother Giulio in 1656 and went to Rome. While there he took a prominent part in the consultations of the congregations of which he was a member. Odescalchi was a papal candidate after the death of Pope Clement IX in 1669. After Pope Clement X died, Louis XIV of France again intended to use his influence against Odescalchis election. On 21 September 1676, Odescalchi was chosen to be Clement Xs successor and he chose this name in honour of Pope Innocent X, who made him a cardinal in 1645. He was formally crowned as pontiff on 4 October 1676 by the protodeacon, immediately upon his accession, Innocent XI turned all his efforts towards reducing the expenses of the Curia
11.
Ancient Roman architecture
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Ancient Roman architecture adopted the external language of classical Greek architecture for the purposes of the ancient Romans, but differed from Greek buildings, becoming a new architectural style. The two styles are considered one body of classical architecture. Roman architecture flourished in the Roman Republic and even more so under the Empire and it used new materials, particularly concrete, and newer technologies such as the arch and the dome to make buildings that were typically strong and well-engineered. Large numbers remain in some form across the empire, sometimes complete, Roman Architecture covers the period from the establishment of the Roman Republic in 509 BC to about the 4th century AD, after which it becomes reclassified as Late Antique or Byzantine architecture. Almost no substantial examples survive from before about 100 BC, and most of the major survivals are from the later empire, after about 100 AD. They moved from trabeated construction mostly based on columns and lintels to one based on walls, punctuated by arches. The classical orders now became largely decorative rather than structural, except in colonnades, however, they did not feel entirely restricted by Greek aesthetic concerns, and treated the orders with considerable freedom. Innovation started in the 3rd or 2nd century BC with the development of Roman concrete as a readily available adjunct to, or substitute for, stone, more daring buildings soon followed, with great pillars supporting broad arches and domes. The freedom of concrete also inspired the colonnade screen, a row of decorative columns in front of a load-bearing wall. In smaller-scale architecture, concretes strength freed the floor plan from rectangular cells to a more free-flowing environment, factors such as wealth and high population densities in cities forced the ancient Romans to discover new architectural solutions of their own. The use of vaults and arches, together with a knowledge of building materials. Examples include the aqueducts of Rome, the Baths of Diocletian and the Baths of Caracalla and these were reproduced at a smaller scale in most important towns and cities in the Empire. Some surviving structures are almost complete, such as the walls of Lugo in Hispania Tarraconensis. The administrative structure and wealth of the empire made possible very large even in locations remote from the main centres, as did the use of slave labour. Especially under the empire, architecture often served a function, demonstrating the power of the Roman state in general. The influence is evident in many ways, for example, in the introduction and use of the Triclinium in Roman villas as a place, Roman builders employed Greeks in many capacities, especially in the great boom in construction in the early Empire. The Roman Architectural Revolution, also known as the Concrete Revolution, was the use in Roman architecture of the previously little-used architectural forms of the arch, vault. For the first time in history, their potential was fully exploited in the construction of a range of civil engineering structures, public buildings
12.
Ancient Rome
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In its many centuries of existence, the Roman state evolved from a monarchy to a classical republic and then to an increasingly autocratic empire. Through conquest and assimilation, it came to dominate the Mediterranean region and then Western Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa and it is often grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece, and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world. Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern government, law, politics, engineering, art, literature, architecture, technology, warfare, religion, language and society. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created a system of government called res publica, the inspiration for modern republics such as the United States and France. By the end of the Republic, Rome had conquered the lands around the Mediterranean and beyond, its domain extended from the Atlantic to Arabia, the Roman Empire emerged with the end of the Republic and the dictatorship of Augustus Caesar. 721 years of Roman-Persian Wars started in 92 BC with their first war against Parthia and it would become the longest conflict in human history, and have major lasting effects and consequences for both empires. Under Trajan, the Empire reached its territorial peak, Republican mores and traditions started to decline during the imperial period, with civil wars becoming a prelude common to the rise of a new emperor. Splinter states, such as the Palmyrene Empire, would divide the Empire during the crisis of the 3rd century. Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the part of the empire broke up into independent kingdoms in the 5th century. This splintering is a landmark historians use to divide the ancient period of history from the pre-medieval Dark Ages of Europe. King Numitor was deposed from his throne by his brother, Amulius, while Numitors daughter, Rhea Silvia, because Rhea Silvia was raped and impregnated by Mars, the Roman god of war, the twins were considered half-divine. The new king, Amulius, feared Romulus and Remus would take back the throne, a she-wolf saved and raised them, and when they were old enough, they returned the throne of Alba Longa to Numitor. Romulus became the source of the citys name, in order to attract people to the city, Rome became a sanctuary for the indigent, exiled, and unwanted. This caused a problem for Rome, which had a large workforce but was bereft of women, Romulus traveled to the neighboring towns and tribes and attempted to secure marriage rights, but as Rome was so full of undesirables they all refused. Legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins, after a long time in rough seas, they landed at the banks of the Tiber River. Not long after they landed, the men wanted to take to the sea again, one woman, named Roma, suggested that the women burn the ships out at sea to prevent them from leaving. At first, the men were angry with Roma, but they realized that they were in the ideal place to settle. They named the settlement after the woman who torched their ships, the Roman poet Virgil recounted this legend in his classical epic poem the Aeneid
Media related to Pons Fabricius at Wikimedia Commons
