Daily Updates
Week Six: Oct. 27
27 October. Ariel reporting: We had a beautiful sunny day today, just another gorgeous Mediterranean day where we can bask in the glow of the ancient Roman Empire. Today was a day of Forums, the Imperial kind. We headed first to the Forum of Augustus (otherwise known as Octavian, or Mr.-I-Started-The-Empire). The Forum of Augustus is only half excavated, but that half is phenomenal. The forum isn’t quite a perfect rectangle; in the back, a small triangular wedge of land is missing from the rectangle. Apparently, Augustus bought all the land for his forum fair and square from the people who were currently living on the land, unlike other emperors that sort of “apportioned” the land for themselves (cough cough, Julius Caesar). Augustus also included a temple to Mars Ultor, or Mars the Avenger, in his forum. This temple was absolutely enormous, extending over 100 feet into the air, completely covered in colored marbles. A few of the columns are still standing, holding up all that remains of Augustus’s glory. Some of the best preserved areas are the two large half circles on either side of the forum, called exedra, that held hundreds of statues in niches along the walls. These were essentially the “who’s who” of ancient Rome, as big shots paid to have their statues put into Augustus’s exedra. The beautiful colored marbles of the floor can still be seen on the bottom. Next we traveled to the Roman Forum to see all the major monuments of the early Imperial period. Basically, Augustus took tons of money and redid every single major temple in the forum, changing the temples from stone to marble (and having them all dedicated in the name of his family members). He added the Basilica Julia (named after good old Julius Caesar, his uncle), the Aedes Concordia, redid the Temple of Saturn, refaced the temple of Castor and Pollux, built an arch, rebuilt the Basilica Aemilia, completed the rostra, and built a temple to Julius Caesar (whew). Most important was the temple to Caesar, because he put it right in front of the old Regia and temple to the Vestal Virgins. He placed it right where old Julius was burned in a fit of rage by the people of Rome; when Caesar had his public funeral, Mark Antony read his will, stating that Caesar had left money to every citizen of Rome. The citizens, realizing what a benevolent person Caesar had just been (instead of a power-hungry dictator, as the Senate saw him) decided to give him an impromptu cremation ceremony…using all the benches from the senate house! Anyway, in reality, the end of the forum was now dominated by this enormous temple the Caesar as opposed to the temples of the most ancient cults of Rome. No one ever said Augustus wasn’t a smart builder! We checked out the rest of the forum, then had an afternoon off the prepare for all our presentations on Imperial monuments, which start tomorrow. After that, we have class morning and afternoon, running through 300 years of history in two weeks. Tune in tomorrow to hear about the Palatine Hill!
27 October. The Forum of Augustus
27 October. The Forum of Augustus: the Temple to Mars Ultor
27 October. The Forum of Augustus: the Temple to Mars Ultor
27 October. Matt and Brian survey the forum
27 October. The Forum of Augustus: paving
27 October. The Forum of Augustus: note the site worker for scale
27 October. The Imperial Roman Forum: lecture on site
27 October. The Imperial Roman Forum: lecture on site
27 October. The Imperial Roman Forum: modern Romans still leave flowers on the site of the cremation of Julius Caesar
27 October. The Imperial Roman Forum: the last commemoratiove monument erected in the forum- erected in AD 608 by Phocis the barbarian
27 October. Taking notes in the Roman Forum
27 October. My, aren't they diligent
27 October. The Roman Forum: the Temple of Castor and Pollux
27 October. The Roman Forum: discussing the Temple
27 October. The studious few take advantage of the Rome Center's study room
27 October. The center even has electrical outlets for computers...who says Italy isn't modern?