topography

the city of rome was sited on

the tiber river as it was fertile, defensible and had access to the sea and salt feilds

the 7 hills

Capitoline, Aventine, Palatine, Esquiline, Quirinale, viminal, Caelian

• separated by marshes which flooded frequently

Ancient Urban planning had no

• concern for local transport needs, social concerns, economic parameters and environmental issues

• no socio-economic zones, ghettoizing of the lower class

a roman town had several features

walls, a forum, amphitheater, temples, water spply, paved streets, porticoes, baths, therature, a prison and a treasury

why have walls

fear of attack, confidence in the status and security of a city, to extend a customs barrier and control traffic

earliest evidence of settlement

1000 BCE cremations and inhumations on the palatine

early society evidence

• discovered on the palatine

• poor, mud and wood huts

• remains of an 8th century wall discovered

romans belief of the founding of rome

• 753 BCE

• by Romulus and Remus

• initial settlement on the palatine

7th C BCE

• early urbanization

  • forum was paved, monumental religious architecture, shops and houses

4th century BCE

• city was walled, first aqueducts and new temples

200 BCE (2nd C BCE)

because of colonization: wealth, art, slaves poured into the city

• increased economic benefits

• triumphal arches, porticoes, paves streets and marble temples

triumphal architecture

• when generals would build stuff to beautify the city and to remind ppl of rome’s triumph

  • popularizing their own names

consequence of quick turn over aedile

• difficult to plan an organized city with a vision

General Sulla

• reshaped rome’s monumental centre in the 80s BCE

• - temple to Jupiter, tabularium, curia, and marble paving

General Pompey

• first stone theatre in 55 BCE

• first public gardens

Julius Caesar and development

• repaved the forum

• public garden (the saepta Julia)

• his own forum (forum julium)

• temples to venus and mars genetrix

• new senate house

by the end of the republic rome had

1 million inhabitant crowded into 7 square miles

the imperial period and planning

• urbanism and planning were done by the emperors

• especially octavian/augstus

who built the pantheon

Agrippa

WHat did Agustus do

• reorganized the city into regions

• revived the office of the praefect

the flavians

• emperors after the julio-cualdians

the flavians and development

• public vgardens, fountains, amphitheaters, bath houses

building and propaganda

the more you built the more ppl liked you and you’d be rmembered as a great emperor

the flavians knocked down

nero’s golden house and built the colleseum (created something for society)

who lived on the palatine

the high class

subura

the red light district

forums

the center for political and legal life

markets

• specific markets (fish, meat) near the tiber river

• shops clustered in specific areas

apartment buildings tended to be

situated away from the city centre

the Campus Martius

• were crowded with temples and theratres

• outside city walls

building regulations in rome

• regulations unregulated and unenforced

• eventually became regulated and said that it had to be built of stone, baked bricks, tiles and concrete

Agustus limited the heights of builings facing steets to

70 feet, but didn’t care about the other ones

The palatine

• central hill where rome was founded by Romulus

• center of power

  • residence of the wealthy and elite and the emperors

  • origin of the word palace

Capitoline

• the steep, stronghold of rome where record and money were stored because they relied on punishment of the gods

• also a religious center

Aventine

territory of the plebians

the campus martius was where

the army would convene and commanders would be elected

• many temples and theatres were built by general

• a voting place

why were the Campus Martius outside city limits

because army or soldiers weren’t allowed in city proper

the pomerium

the religious city limits (barrier) that mostly matches up with the walls but doesn’t always

The roman forum

• the center of political and legal activity

• valley between capitoline, palatine and esquiline hills

the bow of the ships and the Rostrum

Rostrum (speakers platform)

• they would attach boat hulls to the front so speakers could make their declarations from there to show the political greatness of rome

the forum in the middle ages

became a cattle pasture