Good morning. The title of today's lecture is, Home Town Boy. Honoring an Emperor's roots in Roman North Africa. And who was that home town boy? We met him before. We met him in the last lecture. His name was Lucius Septimius Severus. And he was emperor of Rome between 193 and 211 AD. And we saw him in this extraordinary round painting on wood that comes from Egypt. And is now in in the museum in Berlin. That depicts Lucius Septimius Severus with his family. You see Septimius Severus on the right hand side of the screen. You see his wife, Julia Domna, on the left. With her famous wigs and pearls, wig and pearls. And then down below their two sons, Caracalla over here on the right. And Geta, whose face has been erased because of the Damnatio Memoriae, that was voted him by the Senate at his death. We learned that Julia Domna came from Syria. She was the wife she was the daughter of a priest by the name of Bassianus. And Septimius Severus came from North Africa. He was the third Roman emperor to be from somewhere other than Italy. You'll recall that Trajan and Hadrian came from Spain. Septimius Severus from North Africa. And after he ascended to the throne and after he began his, his reign. And with all the interesting things that he initiated as emperor. He was honored by his hometown, as hometown boys often are. And the city of Leptis Magna was renovated quite, quite significantly during his reign. And it's to that renovation and to the history of Leptis Magna in general, and its architecture. That I want to turn today. Before I do that however, it's important for us to get a sense of this part of the world. This part of the world before the Romans took over. And any of you who are working on term papers. That are on works of architecture in the provinces. Or are designing a Roman city, in anywhere other than Italy. Have definitely found out that in order to analyze those, in order to think about them and figure out what's happening. You have to not only look at what's going on in the center of the Empire, that is in Rome. And what may have been sent from the center out to the periphery. But you also have to understand what was going on in the local area in which that building was built. The local culture, the civilizations that preceded the Roman civilization. And what's fascinating about provincial Roman architecture, is the way in which those two things come together. That is what comes from Rome to the frontiers. But also the indigenous culture that mixes with what comes from Rome. To make something unique, in the case of each of these provinces. So it's absolutely critical for us to understand the area that we're looking at. And in this case Roman North Africa. Before the Romans got to the north, northern part of Africa. It was an area that was overseen primarily by Carthage. There was a very significant Carthaginian period in this part of the world. The language was Neo-Punic and Berber. Before it was Latin. And and Neo-Punic stays on even when Latin becomes important here. There was, the Greeks did have some impact. But they didn't have as strong a foothold in this particular part of the world, as they did elsewhere. And then eventually, the area is colonized by Rome. And begins to be and, and Roman colonies begin to be built here. in, all over the northern part of Africa. I show you here a, a map of the western empire. Where we see not only places that we've already studied. Rome, and Ostia, and Pompeii. But also down here the continent of Africa, you see it here. And the cities that we're going to be talking about, there was lots of, there were lots of Roman cities in this part of the world. But the two that we're going to be focusing on today. Are the city of Timgad, which you see over here. And then the city of Leptis Magna. And please note while the map is on the screen, that Leptis Magna is right on the coast. In fact, it was a, an extremely important seaport. Which is one of the reasons that it grew, grew to the size and significance that is did have in ancient times. Timgad, a little bit further into the mainland of North Africa. And you can also see of course the relationship, when you think of Leptis Magna as a port. You can see the relationship, the easy relationship in the sense that it had to other major ports in Roman times. Specifically Ostia. And how, how easy it clearly was to send things from one place to another. Which again led to the efflorescence of Leptis Magna. Now the reason I've chosen these particular cities. We're going to be talking primarily about Leptis today. But the reason that I've also chosen to look at Timgad, is because they make a very interesting contrast to one another. Both of them have extraordinarily well preserved Roman remains. But they're interesting to play off against one another, because the city of Leptis Magna. And this is extremely important in analyzing it. The city of Leptis Magna had a, a longer Roman history. It was already it too had a Carthaginian period. But most important in this regard was the fact that the Romans began to build there already in the first century BC, as we shall see. It was built up under Augustus, then under Hadrian. Renovated under Septimius Severus. So there's not only the local, the local structures and buildings and, and customs and so on, to contend with. But also earlier Roman architecture by the time we get to the time of Septimius Severus. In the case of Timgad, the city was built entirely from scratch. There was nothing on the site when Trajan founded the city, as a Roman colony in 100 and, 100 AD. And it was at that time that the Romans laid out their ideal plan. And what we're looking at here is a view from the air of Timgad. As it would have looked after it was laid out by Trajan in 100. As it continues to look today. We are looking down from the air, and we see here, one of the best examples that I have been able to show you this semester. Of the way in which the Romans, when they are left to their own devices, when there are no earlier structures that they need to contend with. No earlier customs on the site. No earlier temples and the like, that they need to contend with. This is what they do when they build their ideal Roman city. And you can see it is exactly as we described it in the mid fourth century BC, at Ostia. That is a castrum plan. It's laid out like a military camp. Very regular, either rectangular or square. As you see it here. It is surrounded by city walls. It has the two main streets, the Cardo and the Decumanus. Exactly in the center of the city. Intersecting with one another at the center of the city. And then, right at that intersection as was customary for Roman town planning of this castrum type. They have placed the forum right at the intersection of those two, and you could see it here also from the air. The forum has a great open rectangular space. It has a basilica, it has the temple on one short end. I'm not going to show you that that forum in any det-, eh. I'm not going to show it to you at all except for what you see here. But it is very, it is similar to others that we've seen. We can also see from the air, the theater of the city of Lepti uh city of Timgad. Also taking its customary shape and in this case again, very close to the forum. But as you look at the rest of this from the air, you can see again. Not only is it a regular, is the whole city a regular shape. But it has been laid out within the city in very regular insulae or blocks. With the streets very straight as again the Romans were wont to do. The city of Timgad, by the way, is located in the high plains of what is Algeria today. Just for you to get your bearings in terms of the modern location of this city. What, what I hope you can also see from this view from the air if you look very, very closely. At the individual streets and especially this one right here. You will see, perhaps it's clearest over here. You will see that one of the ways in which this however differs from a town like Ostia. In the way that Ostia was laid out. Is although the general layout is comparable, the city's streets are lined with columns. We talked about the fact that colonnaded streets. We never see colonnaded streets in Rome or in Italy. But we do see them quite extensively in the provinces. This is this is a, an area that is part of the western provinces. But we see them also even more extensibly in the eastern provinces. So you see this colonnaded, this very dramatic colonnaded street. And I can show you a detail of one of the colonnaded streets of the city of Timgad, as it looks today. And you can see the effect that putting those columns, the punctuation points of those columns, along the way. Which actually adds to, it makes the vista that one sees from one part of the street to another Very very interesting indeed. As those columns in the sense, march toward the arch that you see at the end here. I'm going to show you that arch, just as the one example of a monument. In the city of Timgad. It's very well preserved. It's usually called the arch of Trajan. Because Trajan was the one to have founded this particular city. But it is almost certainly not an arch of Trajan, since we believe it was put up in the late second century AD. But we still call it the arch of Trajan because that's its conventional name. And I can show you a detail of that arch as it looks today on the screen. And I think it's interesting to compare it to another, in this case early third century arch. The arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman forum. Put up for Septimius' Parthian victories in the eastern part of the empire, that we looked at last time. And I think you'll see immediately why I have chosen to pair those two. Not only because they are roughly comparable in date. But because both of them have a triple bay. A central, a very central large arcuated bay. Two small arcuated bays, one on either side. And since the building that you see here we believe dates to the late second century AD. And this building is not until the early third century AD, 203 AD to be precise. It is another example, I mentioned this last time. I talked about the fact that the arch in the Roman Forum, the arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman Forum. Is our first preserved Roman arch with a triple arcuated bay in Rome. But that there are, there is, there was an earlier example that I showed you, in the south of France. At a place called Orange, in what is now Provence. Where we seem to have a Tiberian arch. A Tiberian arch that is also triple bayed. So I raise the, the point with you that it, that while we usually think of ideas flowing from the center to the periphery. This may be an instance where certain ideas are developed first in the provinces. And then make their way to Rome. Or it is also possible that there may have been triple arcuated arches in Rome. That no longer survive today that we don't know about. That might have been earlier than the early 3rd century. But the fact that here we have another example in one of the provinces. A completely different part of the world, but, the Western provinces nonetheless. We have another example of a triple arcuated bay arch. That was put up prior to the Arch of Septimius Severus and the Roman Forum. So, it just, it just, it just makes us think even more so that there, that this idea was floating around the empire earlier. Clearly, than the time of Septimius Severus. And makes it more possible that the idea may have begun in the, in the provinces rather than in Rome itself. The other major difference between this arch and the arch of Septimius Severis in the Roman forum, well there are two. But, the main one is that it relies, for the most part. For its effects, for its visual effects on, on its architectonic elements. On its columns, on it's nitches, on it's pediments. The arch of Septimius Severus in Rome, yes has projecting columns and the like. But it relies for it's effects largely on the figural sculpture that decorates it. That decorates the panels over each of the smaller bays. The frieze, and so on and so forth. That is not true here. This may have had some sculpture. It probably had a [INAUDIBLE] Quadriga group or a group of statues on the attic. It probably had a statue or two in these niches. But it has no relief sculpture, no figural relief sculpture at all. And relies, instead, as I said, on the architectural elements to enliven the surface. And to make it an interesting billboard for whoever this was put up to commemorate. We see, for example, these large Corinthian columns on tall bases. The bases are not decorated. And we also see if we look very carefully that there were there were smaller columns. Their capitals still preserved on either side of the niches, so there were smaller columns here as well. An interesting contrast between the larger columns and the smaller columns. And then if you look very closely at the pediment above. You see that it is an arcuated pediment. Sometimes these are referred to as segmental, s,e,g,m,e,n, t, a, l, segmental. Or arcuated pediments. And you can see that it is not only an arcuated pediment, but it's a broken arcuated pediment. It has been, the bottom is not complete. It's broken on either side. We've seen an increasing taste for these broken triangular or segmental pediments in Roman architecture. This willingness to break the rules of traditional traditional columnar architecture. We see that here. So again it is, the surface is enlivened through architectural means entirely. Which is a, an interesting phenomenon for this part of the world. You can also see I think, that the stone that is used here, is a local limestone. A wonderful tan color that goes very well with the desert area in which this finds itself. So local stone used the so called Arch of Trajan in the city of Timgad.
