NUGAE

The Golden Age of Rome: Augustus’ program to better the Roman Empire

By Matthew Bowser

Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 2013

Abstract: In the “Aeneid,” Vergil dramatically announces through the character of Anchises that Caesar Augustus is destined to bring the Golden Age to Rome, an era of great peace, security and prosperity. The concept of this “Golden Age” pervades the Augustan period of Roman history, heralded especially by the great poets Vergil and Horace. However, did Augustus truly have a program to bring about this “Age of Gold” for Rome, or was he just a power-hungry dictator, using persuasive propaganda to gain approval?

In his Annals, Tacitus explains how Augustus appeased the people while distracting them from his accumulation of power, and characterizes his peace as earned with bloodshed. Argument continues among historians to this day whether Augustus should be considered the benefactor that Vergil portrays, who restored virtue and order, or as the tyrant Tacitus describes. This dispute has become known as the “Debate about Augustus.”

The final revised paper and the supplement are linked to on the right.

Abstract. The Romans were perhaps the most impressive exponents of water resource management in preindustrial times with irrigation and virtual water trade facilitating unprecedented urbanization and socioeconomic stability for hundreds of years in a region of highly variable climate. To understand Roman water resource management in response to urbanization and climate variability, a Virtual Water Network of the Roman World was developed. Using this network we find that irrigation and virtual water trade increased Roman resilience to interannual climate variability. However, urbanization arising from virtual water trade likely pushed the Empire closer to the boundary of its water resources, led to an increase in import costs, and eroded its resilience to climate variability in the long term. In addition to improving our understanding of Roman water resource management, our cost–distance-based analysis illuminates how increases in import costs arising from climatic and population pressures are likely to be distributed in the future global virtual water network.

Roman concrete (the version with volcanic ashe in it) possibly superior to our modern concrete? Impossible? Think again!

Research at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source Reveals Key to Longevity of Imperial Roman Monuments

The concrete walls of Trajan’s Markets in Rome have stood the test of time and the elements for nearly 2,000 years. They have even survived a major earthquake in 1349. (Photo courtesy of Marie Jackson)

No visit to Rome is complete without a visit to the Pantheon, Trajan’s Markets, the Colosseum, or the other spectacular examples of ancient Roman concrete monuments that have stood the test of time and the elements for nearly two thousand years. A key discovery to understanding the longevity and endurance of Roman architectural concrete has been made by an international and interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers using beams of X-rays at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

This is an excellent resource to read up on the excavation. This tomb is from the time of Alexander the Great. It will be a while before we know who is buried there.

A new 3D digital representation of the Amphipolis tomb at Kasta Hill, reveals stunning details of the unique and recently discovered ancient Greek tomb.

The video, created by ‘AncientAthens3d’ studio, achieves a full digital reconstruction of Kasta Hill, the sphinxes that guard the tomb’s entrance, the caryatids of the second room, as well as the mosaic that decorated the floor before the main room.

The reconstruction is an artistic representation, based on the details published so far by the Greek Ministry of Culture.

- See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/12/14/amphipolis-tomb-animated-in-new-breathtaking-3d-video/#sthash.IRae9wGw.dpuf

The unexpected kind we like perhaps the best.

Roman Buildings Grow Up

Gabii, Italy

By JASON URBANUS

(Courtesy Anna Gallone/The Gabii Project)

At Gabii, outside Rome, archaeologists found the earliest evidence of Roman large stone–block construction.

Eleven miles east of Rome, in the ancient city of Gabii, archaeologists unearthed a building complex that may represent the earliest instance of Roman monumental architecture. This enormous structure, dating to the fourth or third century B.C., was excavated by a team from the University of Michigan and predates most of the grand monuments of Rome itself. The large stone–block construction sprawls across three man-made terraces, enveloping a space of more than 22,000 square feet—roughly an entire ancient city block. The exceptional design features colonnades, geometrically patterned floors, wall paintings, and a grand staircase.

http://archaeology.org/issues/116-1401/features/top10/1578-roman-architecture-gabii-rome-monumental

If you have access to the New York Times this article you will find delightful.

Granted that Rome was not built in a day, the unresolved question among scholars has been just how long did it take. How early, before Julius Caesar came, saw and conquered, did Romans begin adopting a monumental architecture reflecting the grandeur of their ambitions?

Most historians agree that early Rome had nothing to compare to the sublime temples of Greece and was not a particularly splendid city, like Alexandria in Egypt.

I don't know about you but I can read about this all day. Very timely post, I know.

How did the Romans celebrate ‘Christmas’?

It is today associated with decorations, gift giving and indulgence. But how did the Romans celebrate during the festive season? Dr Carey Fleiner, a senior lecturer in classical and medieval history at the University of Winchester, looks back at Saturnalia, the Roman mid-winter ‘festival of misrule’

Q: What was Saturnalia, and how was it celebrated?

A: It was the Romans’ mid-winter knees up!

DIRK OBBINK Why is the discovery important, what do the poems tell us about Sappho, and how do we know they are genuine?

Draft of the formal publication is available here.

http://papyrology.blogspot.com/2014/02/tls-new-poems-by-sappho-by-dirk-obbink.html

Saturnalia by Ernesto Biondi, 1899 Depicts 10 life-size figures, who each represent a different social class in Rome, from the gladiators and slaves to the patricians during the Saturnalia.

WHEN Saturnalia was an Roman festival held in honor of Saturn from December 17th to December 23rd. FOR WHO Saturn was the Greek equivalent of Cronus. Saturn/Cronus was the father of the Olympians. He was the patron god of the Capitol, generations, plenty, wealth, agriculture, liberation, and time.

Temple of Saturn

WHERE The holiday was celebrated at the Temple of Saturn with a sacrifice and then a public banquet in the Roman Forum.

I have never seen so many spongiae..

http://www.pinterest.com/flaviagemina/roman-toilet-habits/

Do you self a favor and follow the link that you will find at the end of the article - it will bring you to the site of Edith Hall, a London based writer and lecturer.

While suffering from concussion earlier this summer I agreed to be in three places at once this week:  introducing the great Orlando Patterson at a conference on slavery in Indiana, co-relating classics and social class in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and interpreting ancient dream interpretation in Poland. So I have chosen according to personal loyalty on the conference front (Poland) and sent video talks to the other two (something I may do more of now, it being nicer to the planet than planes).

Fortunately for my hosts, virtual and actual, and for my own sanity, there is a link between all three talks: our one surviving ancient handbook of dream interpretation, by Artemidorus of Daldis, who recorded the colourful dreams experienced by his customers—mostly Greeks—under the Roman Empire.  His book, The Interpretation of Dreams, enthralled Sigmund Freud, who borrowed the title for his own most famous work,Traumdeutung, in 1899/1900.

http://edithorial.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-ancient-greeks-knew-about-slaves.html

Roman Businesswomen. I: The case of the producers and distributors of garum in Pompeii

By Piotr Berdowski

Analecta Archaeologica Ressoviensia, Vol.3 (2008)

Introduction: This paper is intended to be a beginning of a series of texts about the economic activity of women in Rome. We still do not have a comprehensive monograph referring to the issue; however, one can find a number of contributory papers. During the last three decades, gender studies have been marked by a true explosion of works referring to different aspects of females’ life in antiquity and providing invaluable facts. The studies on the economic aspects of females’ activity in Greece and Rome have emerged as a relatively new field for researchers against the background of this knowledge. This state is in a way understandable and filling the gaps in our knowledge is a postulate which is urgent and at the same time difficult to complete. The substantial difficulty arises due to the state and character of the sources accessible for scholars. Much has been written about the sparseness of the evidence referring to Greek and Roman women; also it has been underlined that the few sources there are represent the male point of view. As rightly remarked by Neville Morley what we have is not ‘the real lives of real ancient women’ but rather ‘just representation and images of them’. Happily our analytical tools are progressively more and more advanced: the heuristic nature of the present methods does not at all resemble the older works, whose authors had a quite naive attitude to the source material.

A dour garrison, perhaps - but certainly the one with the most interesting piles of garbage with finds that are quite unique. 

A dour garrison

On the early frontier between the province of Britain and the unruly Scots (Caledonii) stood the Roman fort of Vindolanda.  By the late 80s CE, it was a permanent turf and timber fort, with a stone headquarters building, an officer's house, and a small bathhouse. The weather there was terrible.  Tacitus (56-c.120 CE) said, the climate in Britain was "pretty foul, with frequent rain and fog...." It hasn't changed since.  Today's weather report: it's raining now, it's raining tomorrow, and it will alternate rain and low clouds all the rest of the week.  The temperature right now (in late summer) might reach a high of 16° C (about 60° F) during the day.  Winter doesn't bear thinking about.

http://judithweingarten.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-literate-lady-in-vindolanda.html

Roman Bath.

I'll be returning to Italy next summer - this time I'll be taking my youngest son.

Pompeii exerts a strange power over devotees of ancient history. I am fortunate to have been to the ancient Campanian city gradually being being exhumed from under a thick 10 metre layer of pumice. You can never quite avoid the crowds of twentieth century tourists. It attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, thousands visit every day. But it is possible to find quiet spots, places where the guided tours have yet to reach or have already departed from. It makes quite an impression to wander down cobbled streets, to peer into shops and private houses and to stand in its forum with the profile of brooding Vesuvius in the distance.

A virtual tour of Hadrian's Villa using a 3D digital model of the villa created under the direction of Dr. Bernard Frischer. Speakers: Dr. Bernard Frischer and Dr. Beth Harris The ruins of Hadrian's Villa, in the town of Tivoli, near Rome, is spread over an area of approximately 250 acres. Many of the structures were designed by the Emperor Hadrian who ruled from 117 until his death in 138 C.E. This virtual rendering is based on current archeological research and has been created in consultation with art historians, archaeologists, and museum curators with expertise in this area. Please note, a few features are necessarily assumptions based on the best available evidence.

http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/hadrians-villa-a-virtual-tour.html?q=hadrians-villa-a-virtual-tour.html