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12.1 The Year 68-69 and The Founding of the Flavian Dynasty
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From the course by Yale University
Roman Architecture
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From the lesson
The Creation of an Icon: The Colosseum and Contemporary Architecture in Rome
The Flavian dynasty of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. Vespasian linked himself to Divus Claudius by completing the Claudianum, distanced himself from Nero by destroying part of the Domus Aurea, filling in the artificial lake and replacing it with the Colosseum. Titus commissioned Rome's first preserved example of the "imperial bath type," characterized by grand scale, axiality, and symmetry.
Meet the Instructors
Diana E.E. KleinerDunham Professor of History of Art and Classics at Yale University
History Of Art
Good morning everyone. We are finally there.
We are finally at the Colosseum, the very icon of Rome.
And because I think of the Colosseum as the very icon of Rome, I've called
today's lecture The Creation of an Icon, the Colosseum and Contemporary
Architecture in Rome. But before we discuss the Colosseum I want
to say a few words, a few more words
about Nero, the last of the Julio Claudian emperors.
And I show you a portrait of Nero here ensconced in
his domiciliary with the fourth style wall of Fabullus behind him.
And I wanted to just say, and, and, and bring your attention to the fact
that it really is quite amazing that we have the names of so many of Nero's
artists and architects, and that can only attest to the fact that
he must have gathered around him truly the greatest artists of the day.
Artists whose accomplishments were so superb
that their names have been recorded for
posterity at a time when very few artist's and architect's names are recorded.
And I just want to remind you of that group.
Think of course of the painter, of Nero,
the man who was responsible for painting the
third style walls of Nero's Domus Aurea, Fabullus himself
and who also appears to have been the
innovator of the fourth style of Roman wall painting.
There was also Zenodorus, who was the most famous bronze caster of his
day, a Greek artist of great renown, whom Nero hired to make his colossal
statue, the Colossus Statue, 125 feet tall, out of bronze,
that depicted Nero in the guise of the sun god Sol.
And a statue that was referred to as the Colossus.
And lastly, but not least, by any stretch of the imagination,
were the two architects of Nero, Severus and Celer, Roman architects.
We believe, Severus and
Celer, who were responsible for the Domus Aurea itself, for all the
architectural innovations and experimentations at the Domus Aurea.
And it was they, who we believe, were the creators of the remarkable octagonal room.
As i mentioned last time probably the most extraordinary room we've seen thus
far this semester and one that's going to have lasting impact on later Roman
buildings and complexes.
So the, the octagonal room, and also I mentioned to you, other
things in the villa Including a banqueting hall with a revolving ceiling.
So these men also, great architectural innovators.
So when Nero is forced to commit suicide in 68,
we have to ask ourselves, what happened to those artists?
What happened to those innovations
after the, after Nero was discredited?
And I mentioned also last time that when Nero was, was committed suicide when
he was discredited he received an official damnatio memoriae from the Senate.
A damnation of his memory which meant that his portraits could not could
be and were encouraged to be destroyed and the same with his buildings.
So,
what is going to happen to the evolution of Roman
Architecture when one of its greatest patrons, someone who encouraged
the greatest architects and artist of the day when he
and his memory are annihilated and his buildings are destroyed?
What is going to happen to architectural innovation?
That's the main question we need to ask ourselves today as we look
at the buildings that were commissioned by his successors, by members of the
Flavian Dynasty, Vespasian, Titus and ultimately Domician.
We'll talk about Vespasian today, a bit on Titus,
and then more on Titus and Domician on Tuesday.
What happens to these innovations when they begin to
take over and when they begin to commission buildings.
And we're going to see, it's mixed.
We're going to see a certain move back toward a conservative vision.
But we're also going to see that Nero's innovations
live on and that's the most exciting piece of,
of this particular Flavian puzzle, as we shall see.
So we see again Nero here and when Nero, when Nero
died in 68 AD what happened was not only that he
received a damnatio memoriae, but there were no other Julio Claudians
to succeed him and Rome and the empire were plunged once
again into a very serious civil war. A civil war that was as
as profound profoundly, profoundly troubling
as the civil war that had followed Caesar's death.
And Caesar's death as you know in 44 BC. And what emerged after this Civil War
or during this Civil War was one of the most complicated and
difficult years in Rome's history.
The year 68 to 69, during which Rome had four emperors.
Not co-emperors as Rome was to have
much later in its history But competing emperors
in very quick succession, some of them holding onto power for only a few months.
These men were Galba, G A L B A, whose
portrait you see on a coin in the upper left.
Galba who becomes
Emperor right after Nero's death and you can see him in
the no nonsense realistic portrait on that coin in the upper left.
He is succeeded very soon after by a man by the name of Otho O T H O.
You see him on the gold coin on the right, Otho who saw Nero as a soulmate, and
had himself rendered very much with a Neronian hairstyle, as you can see.
And then third, a man by the name of Vitellius V I T E L L I U S.
Vitellius who seems to have had more chins than any other Emperor in the
history of Rome, as you can see in this wonderful portrait now in Copenhagen.
And then ultimately, Vespasian V E S P A S I A N who was
the only one of this four who was able to hold on to power long
enough to create a new dynasty.
A new dynasty that he called after his family name.
Flavius was his family name, the so called Flavian Dynasty.
And fortune was on his side, because he
had two sons to succeed him, Titus and Domician.
And because he had two sons to succeed him he
was able to create a, a quite successful dynasty as we
shall see that had lasting power.
So this is our second, main Imperial Dynasty.
The Flavian Dynasty as opposed to the Augustin and Julio-Claudian Dynasty.
Now Vespasian came to power in a civil war.
And like Augustus before him, he recognized that
although coming to power in a civil war
could give you the authority that you needed
to govern, it didn't give you the legitimacy.
It was very important in the eyes of the Romans to
have had an important foreign victory to give your dynasty legitimacy.
Augustus came to power after his Civil War with Mark Antony but he looked to his
victory over the Partheons in the eastern part
of the empire to give his reign legitimacy.
Vespacian does the same thing.
He comes to power in the civil war.
He beats back other Romans, so he has to look
elsewhere for legitimacy and he also looks east.
He looks specifically to Judea and he sends his son
in, his son Titus in to do war against Jerusalem.
And Titus was victorious in the early 70s AD in this very important Jewish war
that I'll have more to say about later today and also especially on Tuesday.
So
Vespasian also is a, is a, with his son Titus
is a victor in a foreign war and that becomes the
basis of their right to rule and we'll see references to
those Jewish wars in their art, even in our conversation today.
i also want to say with regard to Vespasian,
not only was he a a great military strategist.
But he also seems to have been an
extremely shrewd politician, someone who recognized that you
could use architecture in the service of ideology.
And that's in fact what were going to see him doing
today, and he starts this from the very beginning of his reign.
I go back here to it and we'll look at it a number of
times today, it really is going to loom large in our In, in today's discussion.
The site plan of Nero's Domus Aurea that we looked
at last time. And you'll remember the location of the
Golden House of Nero, up on the Esquiline Hill the only part of it that
still survives, the so-called Esquiline Wing, which you can see there.
And here the great artificial lake the Colossus Bizenadorus
located over there. And and you can see the way those
are deployed in that 300 to 350 area, area that
acres of area that that Nero had his architects build up.
Claudius, excuse me, Vespasian, as he thinks about how
to move forward with architecture to begin to commission buildings.
The first thing that strikes him, very wisely, is he does
not want to associate himself with Nero; in fact, he wants
to disassociate himself with Nero, who has now been damned.
But he looks back at the Julio-Claudians, and he recognizes
that there is some merit in linking himself with them.
And quite specifically, with Claudius, who was the, it
was the best, after Augu-, in addition to Augustus
was the best of the more recent lot and Claudius was made into a god at his death.
So he looks to Claudius and
he notices the fact that there is a temple of Claudius that was begun
on this very property by Claudius's wife his last wife Agrippina, the Younger.
The woman with the poison mushrooms.
Argapena the younger who also you'll recall was the mother of Nero.
And Agrippina the Younger had begun after Claudius's death and divination,
a temple in honor of Claudius.
Nero, who had no, no particular affection for his
mother, and as you'll remember, had her murdered decided
that he didn't want any part of her building
project either, and, and put a stop to it.
Especially when he decided that he had
other plans for this particular area of Rome.
Namely to build his pleasure palace. So, Nero stops construction.
He doesn't
destroy the building. But he stops construction on it.
And just leaves it as it is. The light bulb goes on for Vespasian.
And Vespatian says to himself, the best way that I can use architecture to make a
connection, to make a link. Between myself and the Julio Claudians,
especially Claudius, is to finish the Temple of Claudius that Agrippina began.
And that's exactly what he sets
out to do.
And he does this at the very beginning of his reign.
We give a date of AD 70 to the so-called Temple of Divine Claudius.
Or as it, as it is often referred to the Cladianam in
Rome, and you see again the location of that Cladianam right here.
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