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Art of the Roman Empire
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Trajan
Nerva (ad96-98), an elderly senator and the first of the Antonine
Emperors, introduced the system of adoption into the imperial
succession. This emperor had an aristocratic, asymmetrical elegance
to his face, an "inimitable" quality for which the last Ptolemies of
Egypt had striven in their portraits. His adopted successor. Trajan
(ad98-117) - who, born in southern Spain, was the first emperor born
outside Italy - went to the opposite extreme of the ambiguous
iconography of Domitian. His preference for solid, monumental
realism suggests the deep determination of this military leader in
its strict formal equilibrium. The Roman historian Tacitus observed
that innumerable descendants of freed slaves were among the noblemen
and senators living in the reign of Trajan. After a century of
victories and crises, the government embarked with renewed vigour on
a variety of enterprises whereby Rome was embodied, publicly and
privately - whether by the state, the emperor, or individual
citizens - in the form of a warrior. The military fringe haircut was
encouraged, and every artistic representation geared to promote the
sense of power.
Trajan's Forum (ad107-113) represented the marble heart of the
eternal city, an immense fortified encampment, the outpost of an
aggressive military machine. The basilica was positioned as the
principis (headquarters) of the castrum (fort), the
libraries as the archives of the legions, and the Column marked the
site in the parade ground where the standards were venerated. The
decorative scheme of the Column was charged with metaphor, with
commanders alternating with shields on the exterior, a triumphal
chariot over the entrance, a colossal equestrian statue of Trajan in
the centre of the square, and around him crowds of chained
barbarians, stunned witnesses and victims of this great glory. The
column, in a human touch, brings in its recounting of the two Dacian
wars, a certain sense of compassion for the victims.
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Bronze cipeus (roundel) of Trajan.
Archaeological Museum, Ankara.
Trajan
led the campaigns of ad113-116 against
the Parthians and died on the
wav home in Cilicia |
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TRAJAN'S COLUMN
Detail's of Trajan s Column, Rome
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Trajan's Column, Rome |
The column was erected as the centrepiece of the Forum of Trajan,
between the Basilica Ulpia and the Greek and Latin libraries
(ad110-113). The recess in its base housed a golden urn containing
the ashes of the emperor. The parian marble frieze of the column,
exceeds 200 metres (650 feet) in length and follows a spiral course
around the column, which is about 30 metres (100 feet) high.
Recounting the two wars against the Dacians (ad101-106). which on
the Column are separated by the image of Victory writing on a
shield, the narrative is based upon contemporary sketches made to
reconstruct the campaign in triumphal paintings. Just as Alexander
had his court artists. Trajan had a military engineer, Apollodorus
of Damascus, who used his avid eye for details of landscape,
animals, clothing, and weapons to document with technical precision
boats, engines of war. watchtowers. forts, city buildings, and
encampments. The events begin at the bottom of the column with the
signals of the sentries on the Danube. The tranquility is suddenly
shattered by the peasant tumbling from his mule in front of the
emperor: it is perhaps an omen, the meaning of which is lost because
the Commentaries of the Dacian War, compiled by Trajan
himself, have not survived, but this does not detract from the
satisfying effect. According to the ancient Greek style of historic
illustration, the different races, both among the Roman auxiliaries
and the allies of the Dacians. are scrupulously characterized. Jove,
armed with a thunderbolt, intervenes in support of his favourites at
the first battle of Tapae, just as Zeus does in a statuary group of
Alexander at Sagalassus (Turkey).

The glory of the victors is
dampened in this narrative by the cruelty of the massacre: for
example, an auxiliary grips the hair on the head of a decapitated
enemy between his teeth. Numerous scenes illustrate troops on the
move, addresses to the soldiers, field battles, infantry and cavalry
actions in various types of terrain, and sieges. Each of them ends
with the flight of the enemy and the capture or surrender of its
leaders. Various exemplary actions of the emperor are also depicted,
punctuated by ritual deeds that invite the observer to look beyond
the detail and recognize the reassuring values of the event and the
strength of the political structure behind it. The narrative
concludes at the top of the column with a flock of sheep passively
pushed on by the deported population; these animals vanish in the
last spiral of the frieze where the fluting of the huge column
reappears. The idyllic naturalism of the style of Alexandria is
realistically interpreted to provide a setting for contemporary
history in a show of inexorable might. Objective portrayal and epic
vision unite to produce an emotional atmosphere that is shared by
the artist, the figures, and, ultimately, the observers themselves
in its implication that the rule of Rome is rooted in the permanent
reality of nature.
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ANONYMOUS MASTER: "PORTRAIT OF A MAN AND WOMAN"
This fragment from a composition in the "fourth style" shows the
portraits of a man and woman viewed in the Etruscan-style pose. The
man, with his markedly Mediterranean features, is thought by some to
be the lawyer Terentius Xeus. Others believe him to be an unknown
magistrate dressed in his white toga and clutching a scroll, but it
is widely held that he is Paquius Proculus, a baker, whose shop lay
adjacent to the house containing the painting. The elevated quality
of life of the couple, which we could call upper middle class, is
shown in the refined dress and elegant hairstyle of the woman, who
has a stylus in her right hand and a two-leafed wax tablet on which
to write. According to longstanding convention, the skin of the male
is tanned while that of the woman is lighter.
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First century ad,
fresco from Pompeii.
National Archaeological Museum, Naples
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HADRIAN
Publius Aelius Hadrianus (ad76-138). successor to Trajan, was an
intellectual who during his 20 years of government expressed his
personal vision as writer, architect, and artist. With the technical
assistance of Decrianus (Demetrianus). he moved the Colossus of Nero
and built the Temple of Venus and Roma in its place. He also rebuilt
the Pantheon and designed his own funerary mausoleum (now the Castel
Sant'Angelo). In Britain, Hadrian planned the 120-kilometre
(75-mile) long wall that bears his name. His villa at Tivoli
perfectly embodied the imperial dream, evoking idyllic places such
as the Nile and the Vale of Tempe. It was a lavishly decorated
complex, made up of living quarters with reception rooms, porticos,
baths, a theatre, grottos, vistas, and underground storerooms. He
also recreated parts of famous buildings such as the Erechtheum at
Athens and the Temple of Aphrodite at Cnidos. Hadrian fell ill in
about ad137 and moved to Baiae, where he died.
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Bust of Hadrian.
Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Ostia.
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Hadrian
The supposed architect of Trajan's Forum, Apollodorus of Damascus,
fell from grace under Hadrian (ad117-138) for his severe criticism
of the emperor's plan for the Temple of Venus in Rome. The double
building, with colossal proportions, explicitly linked the sanctity
of Rome to the goddess whom Caesar and Augustus claimed presided
over the city's fortunes. Hadrian's other lasting tribute to Rome's
immortality was the rebuilding of the Pantheon with its marvellous
dome.
The massive circular interior (spanned by a dome with an
opening in the centre) was punctuated by the "houses" of the
planetary deities, and the pediment, with the bronze eagle inside a
crown, combined the symbols of Aion (eternity). Naturally, grandiose
monuments such as these advertised the prestige of Rome, but the
emperor (like Trajan, of Iberian origin) also enhanced its
reputation by his frequent travels and his desire to bring unity to
his dominions. As the emperor's image became more familiar, it
developed in the many lines of coinage with different
representations according to each province. The highest expressions
of these personifications are in the reliefs surrounding the Roman
temple at Rome dedicated to Hadrian after his death by his successor
Antoninus Pius (AD138-161).
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Interior of the Pantheon, Rome |
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Gold coin (aureus) depicting Hadrian in profile.
Museo Civico Archeologico, Bologna |
LETTER TO THE EMPEROR
The personality of Hadrian has been maginatively encapsulated in
Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar (1951), a modern
"autobiography" ostensibly written by the emperor for his adopted
grandson Marcus Aurelius Hadrian's enlightened cultural policy
particularly in restoration, is reflected in a letter written to him
by the historian Arrian, then governor of Cappadocia, at the end of
a journey of inspection along the coast of the Black Sea (c.ad130):
"We arrived at Trapezus (Trebizond), the Greek city of which
Xenophon once spoke, and I was moved to see the Euxine Bridge from
the spot where Xenophon, and you yourself, looked down on it. The
aitars are still there, but the stone is so rough that the letters
are no longer distinct, and the Greek inscription was engraved with
several errors by the barbarians: so decided to rebuild them in
white marble and to provide them with a new epigraph in clear
letters. The situation of your statue, facing the sea, is fine, but
it does not look like you nor is it well executed. Arrange to send a
statue worthy of your name, in the same pose. The spot is absolutely
right for a lasting memorial."
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