I CONSERVATION, RESEARCH AND THE MILLENNIUM

This survey article provides an update for the Journal's readers on research relating to the City of Rome in antiquity since ‘The City of Rome: from Republic to Empire’ appeared in 1992.Footnote ¹ Extensive archaeological investigations have continued to take place in the city in recent years, given additional impetus by special funding from the Italian state in preparation for the ‘Giubileo’ (or Millennium) in 2000; while more generally the topography of ancient Rome has continued to be central to the work of historians writing about the city.

Recent archaeological work in the city can be roughly divided into three categories: (i) the process of conservation and restoration of the individual monuments, under way since the 1980s; (ii) investigations in areas of the city due to be affected by new building or other infrastructural projects, and unexpected discoveries in similar circumstances; and (iii) research-led excavations in areas of the city hitherto not fully explored.Footnote ²

Perhaps most striking of the restoration projects, in terms of the debate it has generated, has been the work on the Arch of Constantine. The restorers concluded that the surviving monument had replaced a demolished Flavian arch on the same site, and was constructed in two phases, one dating to the Hadrianic period, and the other to the early fourth century a.d. The sculptural panels of Hadrianic date on the Constantinian arch might therefore come from an earlier phase of the same monument, rather than having been brought from elsewhere in Rome for re-use in Constantine's arch. Doubts about the chronology of the stratigraphic evidence for the supposed Flavian and Hadrianic monuments, together with stylistic and other considerations, have led to the reassertion of the traditional dating; but the investigations have also strikingly demonstrated that the Constantinian arch was built entirely from spolia, presumably derived from imperial buildings outside the city as well as within it.Footnote ³ Meanwhile, re-examination in preparation for the Millennium of the restoration work carried out on the Arch of Septimius Severus in the 1980s suggests that the measures taken to reduce the quantity of traffic in the vicinity of the central archaeological areas, and the decline in the use of oil-fired heaters, have together had an impact in reducing the level of air pollution in the historical centre of the city.Footnote ⁴

Works in preparation for the Millennium have also revealed archaeological remains in various locations of the city: for example, the construction of an underground parking facility close to the Vatican led to the discovery of a finely decorated residential building of the second century a.d. on the lower slopes of the Janiculum.Footnote ⁵ A particular challenge (and opportunity) for the city's archaeologists has been created by the expansion of Rome's Metropolitana underground railway system. The new Line C will cross the city from east to west passing beneath the Imperial Fora and the Campus Martius, with stations planned at the Colosseum, Piazza Venezia, and other locations en route, while Line D, planned to run from Piazza di Spagna to Trastevere, is also to pass below the Campus. Archaeological investigations have been under way for several years in those areas which will be affected by the building of the new stations.Footnote ⁶

It is the long-term research excavations taking place in central locations of the city which have, however, attracted most attention. Two key projects are: Carandini's investigation of the slope of the Palatine leading from the Arch of Titus down to the Temple of Vesta at the eastern end of the Forum,Footnote ⁷ and the Fori Imperiali excavations, which have been exploring those areas of the Fora of Julius Caesar, Augustus, Nerva, and Trajan, and the Flavian Templum Pacis, which lay below the gardens which bordered the Via dei Fori Imperiali.Footnote ⁸ On the Palatine, Pensabene has since 1977 been excavating the area around the Temple of Magna Mater, while consolidation of, and further research on, the various monuments has taken place elsewhere on the hill.Footnote ⁹ Panella's study of the area around the Meta Sudans (1996–2003), subsequently extended to the north-west slopes of the Palatine Hill (2001– ), has revealed not only the remains of the Flavian monumental fountain, demolished in 1936, but also its Augustan predecessor, and a sanctuary identified as the Curiae Veteres associated with Romulus.Footnote ¹⁰ On the Caelian, Pavolini examined in the 1980s and 1990s the hitherto unexplored area underneath the former military hospital and the nearby Piazza Celimontana, enabling him to update Colini's classic study of the ancient topography of the hill.Footnote ¹¹

A further consequence of the initiatives taken to ensure that the cultural heritage of the city was displayed as effectively as possible for the millions of pilgrims and other visitors expected for the Millennium was that several existing museums (some of them closed for many years, such as the Museo Palatino) re-opened to the public; others were reorganized and redisplayed. The collections of the Museo Nazionale Romano are now displayed in the Palazzo Massimo (near Termini station) and Palazzo Altemps (near Piazza Navona) as well as in its traditional home at the Baths of Diocletian, where the epigraphic collections are housed. Sculptures from the collections of the Comune di Roma have been placed on display at the Centrale Montemartini, a former power station close to the Via Ostiense, in a setting which combines classical art with industrial archaeology. New museums have been set up at the Crypta Balbi and in Trajan's Markets, close to the Imperial Fora, to display finds from those sites and the results of the excavations there, while a new gallery at the Musei Capitolini displays the recently investigated podium of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.Footnote ¹² At the same time, the publication of an extensive series of catalogues and guidebooks (not discussed individually here) has made the holdings of these museums, and the archaeological sites of the city, much more accessible to the scholar working at a distance as well as to those visiting in person. Many of these books are available in English and other languages, as well as in Italian.Footnote ¹³

II NEW RESOURCES FOR THE STUDY OF ANCIENT ROME

A wealth of new scholarly resources for the study of the city has become available over the past eighteen years. One valuable recent innovation is that since 2008 the Papers of the British School of Rome has been publishing an annual review of archaeological discoveries in the city under the title ‘Notes from Rome’, which has already established itself as an essential resource for scholars working on ancient Rome in the English-speaking world.Footnote ¹⁴ Not one but two topographical dictionaries about the city have appeared, to replace Platner and Ashby's Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, which nevertheless remains useful, especially for its detailed collection of the ancient sources.Footnote ¹⁵ Pride of place goes to Steinby's Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, which has now become the fundamental work of reference on the city, with plentiful illustrations and entirely new articles reviewing the current state of knowledge not only in relation to sites from classical antiquity, but up to the seventh century a.d.Footnote ¹⁶ The author has justly been honoured with a Festschrift containing papers about Roman topography.Footnote ¹⁷ Meanwhile the smaller scale and more reasonable price make Richardson's New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome particularly accessible for individual anglophone readers.Footnote ¹⁸ A project to map the Augustan city of Rome by Haselberger and his team of collaborators at the University of Pennsylvania has resulted not just in excellent new maps at scales of 1:6000 and 1:3000 (for the central area of the city), but also an up-to-date catalogue of sites in the Augustan city with critical commentary.Footnote ¹⁹ The entries often incorporate material published after the appearance of the Lexicon, and extend beyond the urban centre to include the continentia (‘extra-urban sprawl’) and the cemeteries on the roads leading out of the city.Footnote ²⁰ Several new editions of Coarelli's classic Laterza guide to Rome have appeared, the most recent in 2008,Footnote ²¹ and an English translation is now available, which also incorporates elements of Coarelli's Italia Centrale and Dintorni di Roma guides.Footnote ²² A new guidebook, which focuses on the central archaeological areas of the city — Forum Romanum, Palatine, Capitol, Imperial Fora, Colosseum and Domus Aurea — has been published by La Regina.Footnote ²³ Meanwhile, Claridge's volume on Rome in the Oxford Archaeological Guides series draws on the author's own involvement (as Assistant Director of the British School at Rome) in the upsurge of archaeological activity in Rome during the 1980s and 1990s, and is an invaluable introduction to the topography of the ancient city, as well as its primary function as a guidebook.Footnote ²⁴ To Dudley's still useful but now rather dated Urbs Roma can be added Aicher's Rome Alive,Footnote ²⁵ and the publication of a further new sourcebook on ancient Rome is eagerly anticipated.Footnote ²⁶ The literature reviews compiled by Andreussi and Cimino which periodically appear in the Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma under the title ‘Notiziario bibliografico di Roma e suburbio’ continue to provide accessible summaries of topographical studies, organized both thematically and according to the Augustan regions of the city.Footnote ²⁷

To the traditional print journals dealing with Rome can now be added the new periodical Workshop di Archeologia Classica (with its associated Quaderni), which in its first issues has highlighted the current body of work on the archaeology of the regal period in the city. However, many preliminary accounts of recent work have been published in conference proceedings or collective volumes, while exhibition catalogues also provide a means by which new information can be disseminated in advance of full publication.Footnote ²⁸ Recently debates about high-profile discoveries — for example the domed chamber beneath the Palatine identified in 2007 as the Lupercal — have also been played out in Italian newspapers. The summaries of these discussions represent an important feature of the new ‘Notes from Rome’, and one particularly useful for those without regular access to the Italian daily press.Footnote ²⁹

Since 1992, the internet has, of course, become a major means for the compilation and dissemination of archaeological research data, and the field of Roman topography is no exception to this. For example, the traditional printed format of Fasti Archaeologici has been replaced by the internet resource Fastionline, providing accounts of recent work in Rome and Italy (and indeed several other countries) in both Italian and English.Footnote ³⁰ The digital reconstruction of ancient Rome has also been a focus of recent research: an interactive plan of the Forum Romanum is now available online, with text resources drawn from Richardson's New Topographical Dictionary;Footnote ³¹ while the ‘Rome Reborn’ project has enabled a digital reconstruction of Rome in a.d. 320 to be made generally available via the Google Earth site.Footnote ³² A virtual reconstruction of the city based on the early twentieth-century relief plan of Rome at the University of Caen-Basse Normandie is now available in the form of a CD with accompanying book.Footnote ³³ Work on conventional mapping of the ancient city continues,Footnote ³⁴ while more than one current project seeks to map the topography of Rome using digital technology.Footnote ³⁵ Issues relating to digital mapping and reconstruction of the city were explored at a conference held in Rome in 2004.Footnote ³⁶

While information technology is allowing new ways of representing the topography of the ancient city and disseminating the results of research, the process by which the topography of the city came to be understood in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries continues to be a focus of interest. Two new volumes on the history of excavation in Rome between 1878 and 1975 have appeared, continuing the Storia degli scavi di Roma e notizie intorno le collezioni romane di antichità edited by Lanciani early in the twentieth century (and recently republished), with a third promised to bring the story up to the Millennium;Footnote ³⁷ meanwhile Lanciani's field notes preserved in the Vatican Library have been published, as have those of the twentieth-century archaeologist A. M. Colini.Footnote ³⁸ The series ‘Archeologia in Posa’ provides a dossier of archive photographs of the ancient monuments of the city.Footnote ³⁹ Drawings from Boni's excavations in the late nineteenth century have now been made available to a wider public,Footnote ⁴⁰ while general works on the rediscovery of ancient Rome include an accessible volume by Moatti; Barbanera deals with the archaeology of the city in the broader context of that of Italy more generally.Footnote ⁴¹ A series of more specific studies has cast light on excavation in the city from the time of Napoleon up to the 1930s.Footnote ⁴²

The Fori Imperiali excavations (for which see further below) have not only produced some thirty new fragments of the Severan Marble Plan of the city (including one referring to the Temple of Bona Dea Subsaxana on the Little Aventine), but also two fragments of other plans, one depicting part of the Forum of Augustus, and the other a commercial area with horrea.Footnote ⁴³ Recent work on the Severan Plan itself is reviewed by Najbjerg and Trimble,Footnote ⁴⁴ and images of its various fragments are now available online from a website based at Stanford University.Footnote ⁴⁵

In 1992 I noted the ‘increasing integration of the topographical and monumental history of the city of Rome into what might be termed “mainstream” ancient history’, and this is a process which has gathered pace subsequently. Just one symptom of this trend is the fact that, unlike the corresponding volumes in the first edition, volumes IX, X and XI of the second edition of the Cambridge Ancient History all include chapters specifically focusing on ‘The City of Rome’ and its inhabitants;Footnote ⁴⁶ another is that two new Companions to the City of Rome are currently in preparation, to be published by Cambridge University Press and Blackwell respectively. The influence of Zanker's ground-breaking Power of Images in the Age of Augustus has meant that studies of topographical and iconographical issues are now central to studies of the first Princeps;Footnote ⁴⁷ the catalogue of the recent bimillenary exhibition on Flavian Rome, similarly, foregrounds the monumental achievements of Vespasian, Titus and Domitian.Footnote ⁴⁸ Several influential studies have also looked, from different perspectives, at the representation of the city of Rome in ancient literature, notably Edwards's Writing Rome, which explores how ancient writers responded to the historical associations and physical environment of their city,Footnote ⁴⁹ and also looks at its ‘reception’ in later periods.Footnote ⁵⁰ A substantial number of more general studies on ancient Rome as a city has also appeared, in several European languages, either written by individual scholars or as collaborative efforts by teams of specialists.Footnote ⁵¹ Particular topics explored in monographs include the geological setting of Rome and the problems the city suffered from flooding in antiquity.Footnote ⁵² Some important publications have also appeared on specific areas of the city, which do not readily fit into the thematic structure below, but nevertheless deserve noting: for example, Steinby on the Janiculum;Footnote ⁵³ Coates-Stephens on the Porta Maggiore and surrounding area;Footnote ⁵⁴ Tomei and Palombi on the Velia;Footnote ⁵⁵ and Cozza's studies, over a period of more than fifty years, of the Aurelianic wall circuit of Rome.Footnote ⁵⁶

The vast quantity of publications on the city, in terms both of archaeological reports and of the historical and topographical studies which make use of these, means that even more severe constraints have had to be placed on the selection discussed here than last time. As in 1992, I have focused on the period from the mid-Republic to the mid-Empire, and the subdivisions adopted within the survey are the same as before. I have confined the discussion to the city within the Aurelianic walls, thus (unfortunately) excluding the suburbium.Footnote ⁵⁷ Discussion of numerous central topics, including religion,Footnote ⁵⁸ the administration of the city,Footnote ⁵⁹ tomb-monuments and burial practices,Footnote ⁶⁰ and building techniques,Footnote ⁶¹ has been particularly restricted, and inevitably some important pieces of work have been missed out. Likewise I have excluded work of a primarily architectural or art-historical nature (while being conscious of the artificiality of such distinctions). I am particularly conscious that the time-scale adopted entails the exclusion of work relating to the regal and early Republican phases of the city, and therefore some of the most striking (and often controversial) work in recent years.Footnote ⁶² Likewise, work on the late antique and early medieval city, which has been given an additional impetus with the opening of the Crypta Balbi museum, has not been discussed.Footnote ⁶³ What follows is a personal selection of important and interesting recent research; as before, it should be stressed that exclusion implies no adverse judgement.

III POLITICS AND THE CITY: THE FORUM

The Forum has naturally been a particular focus of recent debates over the nature of Roman politics, and the manner in which political activity was played out against the physical background of the city.Footnote ⁶⁴ There have also been radical re-assessments of some key locations in the Forum area: Carafa's examination of the Comitium is a case in point.Footnote ⁶⁵ This careful study of the topography of the area and the stratigraphy uncovered by excavations over the years suggests that the Comitium of the mid and late Republic continued to maintain a triangular shape as in earlier periods, rather than being rebuilt in the third century b.c. in circular form, as usually believed.Footnote ⁶⁶ Indeed, with the exception of the construction of a new speaker's platform in the early/mid-second century b.c., and the rebuilding by Sulla on a larger scale of the Senate House, the Comitium was (on Carafa's view) little changed from the early Republic until the major reorganization of the area initiated by Julius Caesar. A further aspect of the situation highlighted by Carafa's analysis is that the Senate House was located on a rock outcrop more than ten metres above the Comitium, rather than being immediately adjacent to it.Footnote ⁶⁷

This major reassessment of a central area of the city of Rome highlights the extent to which even those features of the city which might have been thought to be best understood are still open for discussion. Carafa's reading raises important issues of comparability between the political spaces of Rome in the mid-Republic, and those of Latin colonies in the same period, since excavation and geophysical survey of some of these (notably Alba Fucens, Cosa, Paestum and Fregellae) have produced evidence of circular structures adjacent to their fora, usually imagined to be imitating the centre of political activity at Rome. Coarelli and Mouritsen have debated in particular how the controversial rows of ‘pits’ or ‘post-holes’ identified in the Forum Romanum and in the fora of Latin colonies should be explained in relation to each other: should these be understood in terms of structures associated with political assemblies, or ritual activities, or did they have practical functions unrelated to religion and/or politics?Footnote ⁶⁸

Discussion has continued about the nature and rôle of the ‘popular’ element in Roman politics initiated by Millar's articles in the Journal during the 1980s, and in subsequent publications which include his The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic.Footnote ⁶⁹ One central aim of recent work has been to assess the numbers of people who could feasibly have participated in political gatherings in Forum and Comitium, and the size and layout of the Comitium are clearly important to this argument. Carafa's triangular Comitium would potentially be able to contain some 3,000 voters; estimates of the maximum capacity of a circular Comitium are around the 5,000 mark.Footnote ⁷⁰ On either estimate, the mismatch between the numbers of Roman citizens (and thus potential voters), and the numbers which could be present in the Comitium at any one time, is striking. The social and economic profile of those who attended contiones and voting assemblies is also disputed. Mouritsen, who believes that the Roman political system was ‘based on the few rather than the many’, suggests that they were predominantly drawn from the élite,Footnote ⁷¹ Morstein-Marx that they mostly came from those involved in economic activity in the vicinity of the Forum.Footnote ⁷² On Carafa's reading, the elevated position of the Curia, along with the limited space available for people to gather in the Comitium, can be seen as reflective of the authority of the Roman ruling class: as Cicero put it, the Curia ‘watched and pressed upon the Rostra’ (Flac. 57).Footnote ⁷³ On the other hand, it is clear that oratory directed to the Roman people was seen as a fundamental element in the public activities of the political class.Footnote ⁷⁴ The work of Morstein-Marx and Hölkeskamp in particular has also highlighted the way in which the statues and other monuments which crowded the Comitium and its environs, the Rostra in particular, served as a repository of historical memory on which speakers could draw.Footnote ⁷⁵ Here too, close to where the Roman people assembled, were the Carcer and other places of execution.Footnote ⁷⁶ It is also worth stressing how from 78 b.c. onwards, public gatherings in the Comitium and Forum took place in the shadow of the Temple of Juno Moneta on the Capitol, identified by Tucci as being located on the massive substructures conventionally known as the Tabularium, and initiated in all probability by the dictator Sulla.Footnote ⁷⁷

According to Cicero, the will of the Roman people was expressed not only by means of voting assemblies and contiones but also ‘in the audience assembled for shows or gladiatorial combats’ (Sest. 106). The importance of the latter has been emphasized by Welch, who, arguing that the origin of the amphitheatre should be sought not in Campania but in Rome, has persuasively demonstrated that the earliest stone amphitheatres owe their form to the temporary structures set up in the Forum Romanum to host gladiatorial combats (for which see e.g. Vitr., De arch. 5.1.1).Footnote ⁷⁸

One of the buildings equipped with maeniana (upstairs viewing platforms) from which spectators could observe these gladiatorial shows was the Basilica (now conventionally known as the) Aemilia, which lay along the northern margin of the Forum.Footnote ⁷⁹ Recent studies have allowed a better understanding of the early third-century tabernae which lay along the front of this building, and the architectural character of the basilica itself, which under Augustus had an exterior decorated with statues of barbarians, probably defeated Parthians, and imagines clipeatae, while the interior was adorned with relief panels depicting scenes of the mythical origin of Rome. Banking and finance emerge as central to the activities which took place in the basilica: the researchers suggest that the multiplicity of gaming-boards, close to the bankers’ booths, may even imply that one of the basilica's functions was as a ‘casino’!Footnote ⁸⁰

The Basilica Aemilia, rebuilt following a fire in 14 b.c., can be seen as one element in a developing series of Augustan buildings at the east end of the Forum. These included the Temple of Divus Julius, the Temple of Castor and Pollux, rebuilt in a.d. 6,Footnote ⁸¹ and the ‘Parthian Arch’ of Augustus. According to Nedergaard, it was on this triple arch, to the south of the Temple of Divus Julius (rather than on the Regia, the Fornix Fabianus, or on an arch to the north of the Temple of Divus Julius) that the Fasti Consulares and Fasti Triumphales were located.Footnote ⁸² The subsequent impact of Domitian on the Forum — a space which in the Flavian period still largely maintained its Augustan layout — has been underlined recently by Coarelli. His study of the equestrian statue of Domitian shows that, including the plinth, it would have stood some 18 m high, and was thus considerably larger than the surviving equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Capitoline: it can be seen as emulating the Neronian colossus, which would have been clearly visible above the Forum, on the site where Hadrian later constructed the Temple of Venus and Rome.Footnote ⁸³

IV THE CAMPUS MARTIUS

Fundamental to the study of the Campus up to the time of Augustus is Coarelli's monograph, which draws together his work over many decades on this area of the city, focusing on the origins of the Campus, the monuments ‘in Campo Martio’ and ‘in Circo Flaminio’, and the initiatives of Pompey and Julius Caesar.Footnote ⁸⁴ Several recent books have dealt with the triumph as an institution,Footnote ⁸⁵ which in general terms was clearly fundamental to the monumental development of the Campus and Circus Flaminius, though Beard's questioning of the notion of a standardized ‘triumphal route’ highlights the need for caution in relating specific monuments to the procession.Footnote ⁸⁶

Interest in, and investigation of, the Republican temples of the Campus has continued:Footnote ⁸⁷ debate has focused in particular on the temple of the Lares Permarini, commemorating the victory of L. Aemilius Regillus over the fleet of Antiochus III of Syria in 190 b.c., which has now been persuasively located by Zevi.Footnote ⁸⁸ As a result, the portico in which it stood — several of its columns survive adjacent to the Via delle Botteghe OscureFootnote ⁸⁹ — can be identified, following an earlier suggestion of Cozza, as the Porticus Minucia Vetus of 106 b.c. If this is the case, then another identification is needed for the temple in the Largo Argentina hitherto thought to be the Temple of the Lares Permarini — Zevi's suggestion is that this was the Temple of the NymphsFootnote ⁹⁰ — and also for the Porticus Minucia Frumentaria, which was associated with the corn-distributions of the Empire, and which we know was located in the same general area of the city.Footnote ⁹¹ Zevi's solution to the latter problem is to identify the Frumentaria with a monumental structure of imperial date in the Via di S. Maria de’ Calderari, which until the early 1960s was mistakenly identified as the Crypta Balbi. This attractive proposal would locate the Porticus Minucia Frumentaria in the area of the Circus Flaminius, which had itself been a location for the distribution of grain in the late Republic, suggesting a continuity of use; in practical terms, too, this site would have had some advantages, as it was closer to the river, and so more accessible for grain deliveries.Footnote ⁹² Meanwhile the excavations of the building now known to be the Crypta Balbi, a porticoed structure at the south of the Campus Martius adjacent to the theatre built by L. Cornelius Balbus in 13 b.c., have provided an exceptionally rich record of settlement in one area of the Campus Martius from the Roman period through to the present.Footnote ⁹³

New light is being cast on the central Campus by excavations in the Theatre of Pompey;Footnote ⁹⁴ meanwhile, study of the fragment of the Severan Marble Plan traditionally thought to represent the Temple of Venus Victrix at the top of the cavea of the Theatre of Pompey has shown that the fragment cannot in fact be related to that monument and must instead be linked with another curved building, perhaps the Circus of Domitian.Footnote ⁹⁵ Recent work on the Pantheon has focused both on the original, Augustan phase of the building,Footnote ⁹⁶ which now appears to have faced northwards (rather than southwards, as often thought), with a portico similar to that of the existing structure,Footnote ⁹⁷ and also on the design and chronology of the ‘Hadrianic’ building. Recent study of the brickstamps suggests that work on this later building began in the latter part of the reign of Trajan,Footnote ⁹⁸ while the apparent mismatch between the design of the portico and of the rotunda has been explained in terms of the unavailability of the 50 foot columns required for the original design; 40 foot columns had to be used instead.Footnote ⁹⁹

Augustus’ activities in the northern part of the Campus Martius have been a focus of particular interest in recent years.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ The area around the Mausoleum of Augustus has been transformed by the completion in 2005, to a controversial new design by American architect Richard Meier, of a new pavilion for the Ara Pacis, replacing that hurriedly constructed by the side of the Tiber in 1938.Footnote ¹⁰¹ Meanwhile a detailed study has been published of the architectural features and inscriptions of the Mausoleum itself,Footnote ¹⁰² together with a volume which traces the history of the monument from antiquity to the present, through its successive re-use as a sixteenth-century garden and collection of antiquities, bull-ring and concert hall.Footnote ¹⁰³ The Horologium of Augustus has been a focus of renewed interest: in particular, Heslin, drawing on earlier work by Rodríguez Almeida and Schütz, has presented a new study of the Augustan and Domitianic phases of the monument.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Rather than being an extensive sundial, as argued by Buchner, this is now shown to be a solar meridian with the principal aim of checking the accuracy of the calendar, which (according to Heslin) is to be associated with Augustus’ accession to the rôle of Pontifex Maximus. As a result, the idea that Augustus’ obelisk cast a shadow on the Ara Pacis on the Princeps’ birthday, widely accepted in the scholarly literature, has had to be abandoned. The visual inter-relationship of Horologium, Mausoleum and Ara Pacis remains clear, however, and Domitian, in rebuilding the Horologium, is seen to be reflecting Augustus’ achievement.

V ARISTOCRATIC (AND OTHER) HOUSING

The publication of the Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae — which lists over 500 domus by name — has illustrated the wealth of data surviving about aristocratic residences in the city. This information is derived largely from literary texts (in the case of the Republican examples) and epigraphic documents — the moulded inscriptions on lead pipes (fistulae) in particular — for the Imperial period.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ As yet, the proportion of these houses known archaeologically is quite limited, and in many cases the owners of this group of houses cannot be identified. However, ongoing archaeological investigation of the city means our knowledge of housing in the city continues to develop.Footnote ¹⁰⁶

Carandini's excavations on the slopes of the Palatine just below the Arch of Titus, highlighted in 1992,Footnote ¹⁰⁷ have now been published in two volumes, though his investigations have subsequently been extended towards the Forum itself, and a third volume is anticipated.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ The excavations explored an area occupied by warehouses post-dating the Neronian fire which appear to be related to the Flavian reorganization of this area of the city in connection with the building of the Colosseum. In the previous phase a series of aristocratic houses of the late Republic was discovered, one convincingly identified with that of M. Aemilius Scaurus (aedile in 58 b.c.); and subsequent research then revealed four houses, each laid out around a central atrium, which dated back to the late sixth century b.c., themselves built on top of the line of a wall which has been identified with that of Romulus’ first city. The longevity of these regal period houses (associated by the excavators with the kings themselves, and with aristocratic families close to them) is very striking, and suggestive of continuity within the leading families of Rome: their layout changed little until the late third century b.c. when the quarter was rebuilt with a different internal layout and using opera cementizia instead of opus quadratum masonry, a change perhaps to be associated with the fire that badly damaged the Forum and surrounding areas in 210 b.c. Investigation of the physical remains of the houses in this sector of the city has revealed underground quarters for slaves, private baths, and a compitum (neighbourhood shrine). Particularly notable is the frenetic pace of change which characterized the last decades of the Republic in this part of the city: houses were redesigned, redecorated and combined in a way which graphically illustrates Pliny's observation that the house of M. Aemilius Lepidus, the finest in Rome in 78 b.c., was only thirty-five years later not even in the top one hundred (HN 36.110). The literary evidence from the first century b.c. shows how (for example) the house of Scaurus had incorporated that of Cn. Octavius (cos. 165 b.c.) and perhaps that of L. Licinius Crassus (cos. 95 b.c.). In turn Scaurus’ property was acquired by P. Clodius Pulcher, who combined it with his own adjacent house.Footnote ¹⁰⁹

Excavation around other central public spaces has similarly added to our knowledge of aristocratic housing in the city. Remains of an aristocratic house of late Republican date were discovered during the excavations of the Forum of Nerva,Footnote ¹¹⁰ while investigation of the Vigna Barberini area at the north-east corner of the Palatine has revealed an affluent residence of the early Augustan era, itself apparently on the site of a late Republican house. It was seriously damaged by a land-slip in the latter years of Nero's reign.Footnote ¹¹¹ Nearby, on the north-east slope of the Palatine, a wealthy aristocratic house with late archaic, second-century and first-century b.c. phases, subsequently destroyed by the Neronian fire, has been identified with that owned by C. Octavius, and so the birthplace of Augustus. Suetonius (Aug. 5) tells us that this was located ‘ad capita Bubula’, close to the Curiae Veteres which were identified by the Meta Sudans excavations.Footnote ¹¹²

Not all the great men of the Republic lived in the immediate vicinity of the Forum, though: the house in the Cispian known for its frescoes depicting scenes from the Odyssey and the remains of a calendar, now dated to before the time of Julius Caesar, evidently belonged to a notable aristocratic family — the Papirii, according to Coarelli — and continued to maintain a traditional organization around its atrium into the Severan period.Footnote ¹¹³ Investigation of the house of the Valerii on the Caelian has similarly produced a wealth of epigraphic data about the family under the Empire, and also the unusual find of a bidental, a pit in which material destroyed by a lightning-strike on the house was ritually buried.Footnote ¹¹⁴ Other houses recently discovered (or published) include a second-century a.d. residence below the Janiculum,Footnote ¹¹⁵ a nymphaeum on the Aventine perhaps to be associated with the domus of the Pactumeii,Footnote ¹¹⁶ and another wealthy house, the ‘Casa Bellezza’, on the same hill.Footnote ¹¹⁷

One particular aristocratic house which is not known archaeologically but has nevertheless attracted a lot of attention is that of Cn. Calpurnius Piso, who in a.d. 20 was tried for murdering Tiberius’ adoptive son Germanicus and a range of other offences. The decree of the Senate listing the various penalties imposed posthumously on Piso, recorded on bronze copies found in Spain, states that ‘the structure which Cn. Piso senior built above the Porta Fontinalis to connect private residences’ was to be demolished.Footnote ¹¹⁸ The house of a Roman aristocrat, as the recent work of Flower in particular has highlighted, formed a significant element of his public identity,Footnote ¹¹⁹ and the Romans of the late Republic evidently believed that it was the custom in early Rome, as it had been in Greece, for the houses of those aiming at tyranny to be destroyed. The destruction of part of Piso's house should be seen in this context, and that of the treatment of those who in the late Republic were suspected of plotting against the state, such as M. Fulvius Flaccus, the associate of Gaius Gracchus, whose house was destroyed during the disturbances surrounding Gaius’ death. But there was also a topographical imperative: Tacitus tells us that the house was ‘foro imminens’ (Ann. 3.9): the celebrations held there to mark Piso's return to Rome were evidently visible to all. The Porta Fontinalis was located at the north end of the Forum of Julius Caesar, close to the modern Victor Emmanuel monument, so it also stood directly opposite the emperor's house on the Palatine: Piso's house could be seen as a rival locus of power.Footnote ¹²⁰

Interest in the imperial horti has continued to be a focus of attention, with the publication of a major conference on this theme,Footnote ¹²¹ and new work on the Horti Sallustiani in particular.Footnote ¹²² By contrast, our knowledge of the physical living conditions of those below the Roman élite is sadly limited, so the publication of the remains of what must have been a densely populated residential area between the Viminal and the city walls is a welcome acquisition.Footnote ¹²³ The volume (cataloguing an exhibition held in Rome in 1996) records the discoveries made in the general area of the modern Piazza dei Cinquecento, firstly during the 1860s, when Rome's first central railway station was being constructed on the former site of the Villa Montalto Negroni and the mound known as the Monte della Giustizia.Footnote ¹²⁴ Subsequent excavations in the area were linked with the construction of Rome's first underground railway, which was built to connect Rome with Ostia and EUR in the 1940s. The remains uncovered included a domus which was subsequently converted into an insula, a domus with an adjacent small but elegant suite of baths, tabernae with upstairs cenacula, and several insula-blocks. The whole complex is dated by brickstamps to the Hadrianic period, and was restored later in the second century a.d.; it recalls the celebrated letter of Seneca describing the annoyances involved in living above a bath-house.Footnote ¹²⁵

VI THE EMPEROR AT HOME: THE PALATINE

As an important centre of aristocratic housing in the Republic, and the seat of the emperor's palace under the Principate, the Palatine has unsurprisingly been a focus for a series of major research excavations. Initiatives have also been taken to stabilise areas liable to landslips (at the north-west and south-west corners of the hill for example) and these too have had interesting archaeological consequences. A number of important collective volumes and general books dealing with the Palatine and its residents have also been published in recent years.Footnote ¹²⁶

Pensabene's work on the south-west corner of the hill over more than twenty years has cast light on an area with exceptionally strong religious and historical associations: here were located the Temple of Magna Mater, the Temple of Victoria, and the Casa Romuli. While the site of the Magna Mater temple is clearly identified, the identity of the large podium to the east, and of the smaller imperial-date structure in brickwork built on a Republican nucleus between these two temples, remains controversial. For Cecamore, the large podium represents the remains of the temple of Jupiter Victor, and the smaller structure the shrine of Victoria;Footnote ¹²⁷ for Pensabene, the large podium is that of Victoria, but the identity of the smaller structure is still unclear.Footnote ¹²⁸ Following the fire of 111 b.c., the area in front of the Magna Mater temple was extended, which had the effect of allowing more space for the dramatic performances associated with the Ludi Megalenses: Plautus’ Pseudolus had first been performed in front of the temple in 191 b.c.Footnote ¹²⁹

There were close associations between these sites and the house (or houses) acquired and occupied by the first emperor, Augustus, which have been a particular focus of research and debate in recent years, given an additional impetus by the discovery below the hill in 2007 of an underground chamber, decorated with mosaics, shells and frescoes and the image of an eagle on the roof, which was at once identified as the Lupercal. Tomei had already drawn attention to the multiple dwellings within the Palatine residence of Augustus, and the corridors and passages which interlinked them;Footnote ¹³⁰ investigations by Iacopi and Tedone of the grandiose house conventionally known as the ‘House of Augustus’ adjacent to the Apollo Temple, originally excavated by Carettoni, revealed that rather than forming part of the same scheme as this residential complex, the Apollo Temple was built afterwards, and indeed partly cut across it.Footnote ¹³¹ Carandini and Bruno, in a recent monograph on the House of Augustus, have also argued for two main phases of development on the site, one associated with Octavian and the second with Augustus, which as well as the Temple of Apollo also included two matching houses, a library, and a portico overlooking the Circus Maximus built on a supporting structure six storeys high. This last, according to the authors’ interpretation, was used as quarters for the slaves and freedmen of the emperor. Underneath the whole complex was the domed chamber of the Lupercal.Footnote ¹³² This reconstruction has proved controversial: some doubt the identification of the domed chamber as the Lupercal, preferring to see the chamber as an unrelated palace nymphaeum,Footnote ¹³³ while the scale of the proposed Augustan structure seems incompatible (as indeed the authors themselves note: ‘una casa modesta?’) with Suetonius’ account of the supposedly frugal character of Augustus’ residence. Doubts have also been expressed about some features of the reconstruction, in particular relating to the substructures themselves and the supposed public and private wings of the palace. Wiseman has put forward an alternative reading of the evidence, in which the earlier phase of the ‘house of Augustus’ is to be linked with the properties acquired by Octavian in 36 b.c., to add to his existing residence, which had formerly belonged to Hortensius;Footnote ¹³⁴ this version would seem to be more compatible with Suetonius’ account, and not involve reconstructing a palace on such a scale as to dominate the Circus Maximus below. At the same time, studies of the monumental remains of the Temple of Apollo have shown that its capitals and other architectural features were painted in gold and other colours, combining with the white of the marble columns to make the temple even more conspicuous from a distance.Footnote ¹³⁵

Cecamore identifies a circular structure under the Domus Flavia as a Vespasianic rebuilding of the Temple of Vesta associated with Augustus’ house,Footnote ¹³⁶ and her book on the Palatine has highlighted the problem of the location of the Templum Divi Augusti, which we know to have been close to the Temple of Castor and Pollux, and which she locates on the corner of the hill above the Forum usually identified as the Domus Tiberiana.Footnote ¹³⁷ On the other side of the Palatine, recent work on the Domus Augustana suggests that building here may have commenced under Vespasian, rather than this being an entirely Domitianic structure, as usually imagined; and that the Flavian palace also extended to include the so-called Domus Severiana at the south-east corner of the hill.Footnote ¹³⁸ On the north-east side of the Palatine, the Vigna Barberini area has been subjected to careful examination since excavations began in 1984: the identification of the buildings in this area remains controversial, however. It seems that a Temple of Elagabalus on the site was after the death of that emperor replaced by a Temple of Jupiter Ultor, but what was there before the third century a.d. is more problematic.Footnote ¹³⁹

VII THE EMPEROR AND THE CITY: THE IMPERIAL FORA

After much debate,Footnote ¹⁴⁰ the excavations of the Via dei Fori Imperiali area got under way in 1984, with exploration of the area adjacent to the Curia Iulia and Basilica Aemilia. In 1995 the investigation was extended to the Forum of Nerva (or ‘Forum Transitorium’),Footnote ¹⁴¹ and excavations have subsequently taken place in the Forum of Caesar, the Forum of Augustus, Vespasian's Temple of Peace, and the Forum of Trajan. Additional impetus was given to the work by extra funding related to the Millennium, and the project concluded in 2007. The excavations have been undertaken in the gardens and open spaces which formerly lay alongside the road; the Via dei Fori Imperiali itself remains open to traffic. A series of interim reports has appeared, and a synthesis of the results of the project has already been published, in advance of the definitive publication of the various sites.Footnote ¹⁴² While much new information has been obtained about the individual fora, the overall impact of the work has been to emphasize the enclosed character of the Imperial Fora as a whole, and the limited interconnections between them. By contrast with the Forum Romanum, the activities which took place in the Imperial Fora were predominantly ceremonial, and the new fora were particularly important as locations for judicial and public business.Footnote ¹⁴³

Whilst the most striking results of the research in the Forum of Caesar have related to the protohistoric period — cremation burials from the eleventh to tenth centuries b.c. were discovered there — the excavations also revealed that Julius Caesar's project involved cutting into the side of the Capitoline hill, long before similar operations were initiated by Domitian and Trajan; the remains of a substantial boundary wall separating the Forum of Caesar and that of Augustus were also discovered.Footnote ¹⁴⁴ The location of a hitherto unknown honorary arch adjacent to the Curia, which provided a monumental link between the Forum Romanum and the portico surrounding the Forum of Caesar, has also been identified from the study of sixteenth-century manuscripts. This monument may have been associated with Marcus Aurelius.Footnote ¹⁴⁵

Meanwhile, investigations in the Forum of Augustus have revealed that in addition to the two hemicycles flanking the Temple of Mars Ultor, the design of the Forum originally included an additional hemicycle on the south-west side of the Forum, which was destroyed by the operations to link the Forum with that of Trajan in the early second century. There was presumably an equivalent hemicycle on the south-east side, similarly destroyed by work on the Forum of Nerva.Footnote ¹⁴⁶ Further light has now been cast on the situation in the north-east corner of the Forum due to the discovery of a fragment of an unfinished marble plan illustrating part of the north-eastern hemicycle and the Arch of Germanicus, which lay to the east of the Temple of Mars Ultor. This identifies a statue base in front of one of the columns in the portico alongside the hemicycle.Footnote ¹⁴⁷ Comparison with documentary texts preserved on wax tablets from Pompeii and Herculaneum (which also refer to the statues of the Forum) has allowed Carnabuci to identify the larger hemicycles as the tribunals of the praetors, and it has been suggested that the smaller ones were used as locations for the storage of archives.Footnote ¹⁴⁸

Of the various Imperial Fora, it is perhaps the Templum Pacis about which our knowledge has increased most dramatically as a result of the current excavations.Footnote ¹⁴⁹ In particular, we now know much more about the six, previously mysterious, linear structures depicted on the representation of the complex in the Severan Marble Plan. These are now revealed to be water-channels covered in marble facing, and flanked by rose-bushes planted in amphorae. Only the periphery of the Templum Pacis was paved in marble, the remainder having a beaten earth floor, which gave the complex the appearance of a garden. Works of art which had been collected by Nero for the Domus Aurea were subsequently put on display in the Templum Pacis by Vespasian (Plin., HN 34.84), and several bases for the display of individual pieces of sculpture by Athenian artists have been discovered, identified by the names inscribed on them.Footnote ¹⁵⁰

Debate continues about the function of the chambers adjacent to the shrine of Pax itself: one of these was used to display the Severan Marble Plan, and finds of statues of the Stoic Chrysippus and of Septimius Severus in philosophical pose may suggest that there was a library here too.Footnote ¹⁵¹ Many of the spoils taken from the Temple at Jerusalem were displayed somewhere in the Forum complex, perhaps in the aedes (cult-chamber) of Pax (Joseph., BJ 7.161).Footnote ¹⁵²

The Forum of Trajan complex, which prior to the recent excavations had already been the subject of a major monograph, is as a result one of the most closely studied major monuments in the city.Footnote ¹⁵³ Geological investigations in the vicinity have demonstrated the scale of the earth-moving operations which took place in the area in order to flatten the slope of the Quirinal and create enough flat space for Trajan's new forum, as the inscription on the plinth of Trajan's Column records: ‘to declare how high a hill and how much ground was removed for such great works.’Footnote ¹⁵⁴ Interestingly the Column itself appears to have been outside the area affected by these operations.Footnote ¹⁵⁵ The foundation trench for the equestrian statue of Trajan, which according to Ammianus was one of the features of the Forum which most impressed Constantius II when he visited Rome in a.d. 357, has been identified. According to the excavators the combined height of the plinth and the statue would have been some 10–12 m: smaller than that of Domitian in the Forum Romanum, but still very substantial.Footnote ¹⁵⁶

A particular topic of debate in recent years has been the location of the temple dedicated to the Deified Trajan after the emperor's death, which according to the Regionary Catalogues was located in the vicinity of Trajan's Column. Traditionally this has been located at the northern end of the Forum. The area in question is now largely covered by the renaissance Palazzo Valentini, the seat of the modern Provincia di Roma, but investigations there by Meneghini in the late 1990s located ancient remains which apparently belonged to residential buildings rather than the podium of the supposed temple. He therefore concluded that the temple was not located north of the Forum: the massive granite columns found in the vicinity of Palazzo Valentini, traditionally ascribed to the temple, should instead be seen as the remains of a monumental entranceway which connected the Trajanic complex with the Via Flaminia and the Campus Martius.Footnote ¹⁵⁷ Where the Temple of the Divine Trajan was in fact located, however, remains unclear. One suggestion was that the temple, envisaged as being on the lines of the Temples of Venus Genetrix or Mars Ultor in the Forum of Caesar or of Augustus respectively, might be located at the southern end of Trajan's Forum:Footnote ¹⁵⁸ the excavation of this area, however, produced no evidence of such a temple, but instead a small porticoed courtyard which allowed access from the Forum of Augustus to the Forum of Trajan. Another possible line of interpretation suggested was that the Column and adjacent courtyard were together designated as a templum.Footnote ¹⁵⁹

Recently, however, re-study of walls discovered under Palazzo Valentini has suggested to Packer that these may after all come from the podium of the supposed temple; and he also notes that more pieces of granite columns were discovered in the vicinity than would have been necessary for a propylon on the lines proposed by Meneghini.Footnote ¹⁶⁰ Subsequently, Claridge has suggested that the orientation of the Palazzo, which is set at an angle to the central axis of the Forum of Trajan, may, like that of many other buildings in medieval and renaissance Rome, be determined by the ancient topography of the area, and hypothesizes that the orientation may reflect the original location of the Temple.Footnote ¹⁶¹ Claridge, who had earlier argued that the frieze depicting Trajan's victories in Dacia had been added to a previously undecorated column after his death,Footnote ¹⁶² would see the group of buildings to the north of Trajan's Forum as similarly reflecting developments under his successor Hadrian as the Column became Trajan's burial place.Footnote ¹⁶³ The debate continues.

VIII THE EMPEROR AND THE PEOPLE

Gladiatorial and other spectacles have been the subject of extensive research and publication in recent years, dealing with the phenomenon as a whole,Footnote ¹⁶⁴ the social implications of the spectacles,Footnote ¹⁶⁵ Martial's collection of poems on the subject,Footnote ¹⁶⁶ and the design of amphitheatres.Footnote ¹⁶⁷ Hopkins’ and Beard's book on the Colosseum memorably explores not only the history of that site in antiquity, but its resonances in the modern world too.Footnote ¹⁶⁸ Perhaps the most striking new acquisition about the Colosseum is derived from the text of an inscription which, reconstructed from the holes for its bronze letters, reveals that the amphitheatrum was built [ex] manibis, presumably derived from Vespasian's and Titus’ victories in Judaea:Footnote ¹⁶⁹ in this context, it is worth noting that the monumental entrance to the amphitheatre is decorated with shields and a triumphal arch.Footnote ¹⁷⁰

In recent years, a programme of research on the structure of the Colosseum has significantly enhanced our knowledge of the monument and of its environs.Footnote ¹⁷¹ Indications of second- to first-century b.c. structures below the amphitheatre have emerged, presumably the remains of buildings destroyed by the fire of a.d. 64.Footnote ¹⁷² Detailed analysis of the fabric has allowed the restorations which took place following the major fire recorded by Dio in a.d. 217 to be identified,Footnote ¹⁷³ while the substructures of the amphitheatre have been the focus of detailed investigation. This has revealed that in its original phase the Colosseum had a removable wooden floor which was supported on a wooden framework.Footnote ¹⁷⁴ If necessary, for example when a sea-battle was being staged, the supports could be removed and the lower levels of the Colosseum flooded (as the water table was lower then than it is now, it appears that the water was supplied by means of a channel from the Aqua Claudia). Subsequently, probably under Domitian, stone walls were constructed to support the flooring. Thereafter it appears that flooding the arena was no longer a feasible option, but new facilities were now available to allow animals, scenery and other equipment access to the arena.Footnote ¹⁷⁵

An important monograph has recently appeared on the Circus Maximus,Footnote ¹⁷⁶ and among work on the baths (of which there has also been a substantial quantity),Footnote ¹⁷⁷ DeLaine's book on the Baths of Caracalla deserves particular mention, as it not only provides a detailed study of the building itself, but also explores the social and economic implications for the city's population (and the imperial finances) of a construction project which, though perhaps on a particularly exceptional scale, was just one of many initiated under the rule of the emperors.Footnote ¹⁷⁸