11 / The Urban Experience
| Artist / Origin |
Unknown artist(s), Rome
Region: Europe
|
|---|---|
| Date |
13–9 BCE
Period: 500 BCE - 1 CE
|
| Material |
Marble
Medium: Architecture and Planning
|
| Dimensions | W: approx. 35 ft. (10.7 m.) |
| Location | Museum of the Ara Pacis, Rome, Italy |
| Credit | Courtesy of Scala/Art Resource, NY |
expert perspective
| Lisa SaltzmanProfessor of History of Art, Bryn Mawr College | ||
| Lothar HaselbergerProfessor of Roman Architecture, University of Pennsylvania |
expert perspective
Lothar Haselberger
Professor of Roman Architecture, University of Pennsylvania
“backThe ancient city of Rome considered itself to be the center of the civilized world. But when Rome was about to reach world power under Caesar and then his adopted son Augustus, it became perfectly clear that Republican Rome was by no means living up to its new position as the first city of the world. Augustus had to express in the city, ‘You, Romans, rule the world.’ Rome needs to get a new visual stature. And that, of course, then ties into Augustus’s famous dictum: Let’s make it a marble city, one that can compete, in fact, is even superior to Greek marble cities. A city with public amenities: baths, athletic complexes, park landscapes, monuments, glorious buildings, and especially art. Augustus’s new Rome, the new heroic Rome.”