1. Imperial Rome: Bread & Circuses
The Culture of Cities
Monday, January 16/2006
SOSC 2730

2. Reading
Mumford
Chapter 8 (Rome)
Chapter 9 (Medieval Europe)

3. Selected Civilizations

6. Sources
art/architecture
archaeology
written records

8. Sources
art/architecture
archaeology
written records
problem?

9. Sources
art/architecture
archaeology
written records
problem?
sources

10. Sources art/architecture archaeology written records problem?
sources: literate elite

11. Sources art/architecture archaeology written records problem?
sources: literate elite
not truly representative

12. Housing high densities lowest levels most desirable
counter to the pattern we see in most cities today
commercial operations
along major roadways

14. The First Triumvirate
Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey) Magnus Gaius Julius Caesar Marcus Licinius Crassus

15. The First Triumvirate
Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey) Magnus Gaius Julius Caesar Marcus Licinius Crassus

16. Crassus

17. The House ground floor connected to water & sewer
built around court yards (atrium & peristylium)

20. The House ground floor upper floor
general purpose rooms, dining (triclinium), food preparation
upper floor
cubiculum small bedrooms (cubicles)

23. Social Stratification
patricians
1,800 families
middle class
government officials, merchants, industrial employers
proletariat
tenement housing

25. Tenement Housing

28. The Bath the bath social gathering place private, public, imperial
huge impact on urban landscape

40. Gladiatorial Combat gladiatorial games animals, humans executions
criminals, ethnic/religious minorities
brutality of Roman culture