1. Imperial Rome: Bread & Circuses
The Culture of Cities
Wednesday, January 11/2006
SOSC 2730

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

3. Selected Civilizations

7. Other Engineering Achievements
road network
long-distance trade

13. Long-Distance Trade Pax Romanum (30 BCE-250) military control
highways & sea lanes relatively safe from bandits & pirates

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

15. The Second Triumvirate
Marcus Antonius Gaius Octavius Thurinus Marcus Aemilius Lepidus
(Marc Antony) (Augustus Caesar)

21. Long-Distance Trade trade flourished wealth creation
spread of urbanization

23. Comparative Advantage
economic specialization
efficiencies
spread of urbanization
more urban places
larger urban places
trade nodes

24. Wealth Creation more trade ––> greater accumulation of wealth
importance of agricultural surpluses
more people able to undertake non-agricultural occupations
artistic, religious, scholastic
consumer goods (well-to-do)

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

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

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

30. Crassus

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

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

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

39. Tenement Housing

42. Other Aspects of Roman Life
the bath
social gathering place
private, public, imperial
huge impact on urban landscape

54. Other Aspects of Roman Life
gladiatorial games
animals, humans
executions
criminals, ethnic/religious minorities
brutality of Roman culture