Etruscan Art
Greek Art
Egyptian Art

Roman Engineering 100BC to 300AD

A. Roman Architecture

By the first century the Romans had become the premier engineers and architects in the world. Building throughout the Empire, from Judea to Britain, seemed always in progress. Cities were built with civic centers called Forums, Temples to the Roman Gods, markets for distribution of goods, and Stadiums for public entertainment. Aqueducts to bring water, fountains to supply it, and public Baths. These were the essentials of a civilized Roman's life. Sewage and garbage collection still remained primitive. Large villas for the rich were constructed. Emperor's residences were especially magnificent. To celebrate and commerate emperors, generals, and other important civic individuals and their triumphs and contributions to the general good the state decorated cities with triumphal arches, temples, and memorial structures, both as art and as political propaganda.

B. Building Materials and Challenges

The Romans invented cement and used it extensively in building, for example the Coliseum in Rome.

The devotion of the ancient Greeks to the house built around a court led to an almost total disappearance of windows in their architecture, since each room was lighted by a door to the central, colonnaded court. In Roman imperial times, however, the glazed window first appeared, and fragments of glass in a bronze frame have been found in Pompeii, among other sites. It is obvious, moreover, that the great windows in the baths of Rome must have been enclosed in some way, in order to retain the heat. The general hypothesis is that these great clerestory openings were filled, originally, with frames of bronze which subdivided the whole into small areas, each of which held a pane of glass. In general, however, glazed windows were very exceptional in Roman times; thin marble, mica, and shell were most often used to fill window openings.

C. Water Works

The Romans mastered the art of providing water to towns. They were experts in the engineering and control of water flow, and it's distribution throughout a town.

C2. Aqueducts

To provide water for a town they built miles and miles of aqueducts. These included bridges and tunnels for the water. These are major construction projects built well enough to last thousands of years.

C3. Fountains and Nymphaenum

To distribute water to the middle class and poor people the Romans built Nymphaenia. A Nyphaenum is an arched grotto with a fountain and a pool to serve the water. The arched grotto would provide protection from the weather and functioned to delineate and identify the structure. People would come and fill water jugs and take the water home. Richer people would send their slaves for the water. The very rich had running water in their homes.

Fountains provided both a decorative and a water distribution function.

C4. Plumbing and Sewage

In general Roman cities are situated along rivers. While clean water was brought in by aqueduct, fowl water and sewage was channeled into the river. Often sewage was an open channel along streets. So that bed pans and garbage could be just dumped outside the house. The smell must have been unbelievable.

C5. Baths

The Roman's observed the standard Mediterranean work schedule, that is common even today. Work started about 6 to 7 AM and continued until about 11 AM. Then almost everyone took an afternoon break during the hot part of the day until 4 or 5 PM. Then an evening work period until 9 or 10 PM; a late dinner and then sleep. After a morning's work many Romans enjoyed spending the afternoon at the public bath, or thermae. Children were not permitted in the baths, and admission was charged. Men and women enjoyed coming to the baths to get exercise and clean themselves, but also to meet with friends, cruise for sexual partners, and read at the library. Swimming and gym clothes were not part of a Roman's wardrobe, so normally people were nude; they were always nude when exercising, or in the pools. Men and women were generally separated although in the 3rd and 4th centuries it became common to have bisexual baths.

The baths had hot, temperate, and cold pools, steam rooms, saunas, exercise rooms, hair cutting salons, restaurants, and reading rooms with collections of books. Generally, Romans would first go to the unctuarium where they had oil rubbed onto their skin and would then exercise in one of the exercise yards. The purpose of the oil and dirt, which quickly gathered on it, was to act as a sun screen. After exercise they would go indoors and scrape their skin with a strigil, a curved metal tool and then wash off.

From here they would move to the tepidarium or warm room. It would include a warm pool where they would lie around, in or out of the water, chatting with their friends, or new acquaintances. They would bounce back and forth between the caldarium, similar to a Turkish bath, hot and steamy, and the tepidarium or frigidarium. The caldarium was much too hot to stay in for very long. Attendants would wander among the customers and sell snacks and drinks. Massage was available in which oils and perfumes were rubbed into the skin. Feeling clean and relaxed, the Roman might walk in the gardens decorated with mosaics and sculptures.

The largest of all Roman baths was the Diocletian, completed in 305 AD and covered an area of 130,000 sq. meters, it could serve two thousand people at once. At one time, there were nearly a thousand public baths in ancient Rome. Small ones held up to 300 people, and the big ones could service many more.

Aerial View of the Ruins of the
Baths of Caracalla
about 216 AD
Rome, Italy

D. Roman Religion and Temples

For Romans the Church and State were one. At the beginning Roman religion was the Roman Olympian Gods and the sacrifices they required. Performing the rites regularly and properly was the center of religion. If one failed to due proper duty to a god, the god would find a suitable revenge. Omens from the gods were everywhere: earthquakes, the appearance of unusual birds (especially eagles -- the bird of Zeus), dreams, even odd behavior of animals. One could not go to war or attack unless the omens were good. Usually the chances of victory were obtained by killing an animal and checking out the state of the intestines. This practice of reading omes was not often practiced in Greece, it came from the Etruscans.

D1. Religion

The Roman state religion was an amalgam of gods and conventions from several cultures, but it was primarily derived from the Greek pantheon. These gods were given new roles, new rites, and new names as they migrated into the Roman culture. To call them the same gods is a little odd, but in some sense they were certainly associated with the Greek gods, at least in the minds of ancient Romans. For a discussion of the Roman gods and their relationship with other cultures .... you might ask the chief priest, the pontifix maximus. He really knows quite a bit -- I think he is standing over there between those two columns. He might not look too talkative, but if you tickle him with your mouse he might open up a bit.

D2. Roman Temples

Roman architecture of temples was pretty straight-forward and in general it followed the same pattern. Temples were a colonnaded porch with a pitched roof that covered both the porch and a box sanctuary. This architectural model fit well in a city organized in a rectangular pattern, and it could even fit nicely between other buildings.

Far less common were circular temples, which require space around them to make the architecture effective.

The temple of Hercules Victor has a circular pitched roof with a circular porch.

An unusual temple which was not just a box with a porch is the Roman Pantheon built by Hadrian for the worship of all gods. (see below)

D2a. Pantheon

Technologically in the first century AD arches were well understood. Public baths and temples often used barrel structures made using a series of arches to cover the space. But starting in the second century the Romans invented the dome. A dome exerts thrust all around its perimeter; this requires heavy supporting walls. The Pantheon, built for Hadrian in 125, was one of the first large domed structures to be built. It is still standing and is still used. It is called the Pantheon because it was built as a temple of the Olympian gods, where each was equal since they each had their own niche organized in a circle around the room. In the middle ages the building was converted for use as a Christian church.

Pantheon
Built for Hadrian in 125 AD
Rome, Italy

E. Rome: The Imperial City

Map of Imperial Rome

E1. The Roman Forum

The forum in a Roman city was the civic center of the town. In it were located the courts, the major state temples, and the Rostra where leaders addressed the people.

The Ruins of the Roman Forum

Etruscan Art
Greek Art
Egyptian Art