The
iconiCITY of ancient Rome
Diane
Favro
1
Throughout its long and convoluted history,
the city of Rome has been represented by numerous urban icons. Today, an image of St Peter’s
impressive dome provokes thoughts of the Renaissance papal city; pictures of
the Spanish Steps recall the flamboyant Baroque period; postcards of the
Victor Emmanuel Monument memorialize Italy’s unification. For the ancient period, the Colosseum
is the most potent urban icon, depicted ad nauseum on tourist art, paintings,
films, t-shirts and mouse pads. The structure’s size and singularity of shape are readily
recognizable; its complex associations provoke thoughts about Roman culture,
imperial might, engineering skill, cruelty and endurance
Figure 1.[1] The inextricable link between this
urban icon and Roman civilization is underscored by Bede’s oft-quoted passage
from the eighth century, 'while the Colosseo stands, Rome shall stand, but
when the Colosseo falls, Rome shall fall and when Rome falls, the world will
end.'[2] At the time these words were written, ancient Roman
civilization had long since collapsed; the passage refers not to the
amphitheatre, but rather to a nearby colossal statue of Nero sheathed in gold
which had long since crumbled. When these ancient monuments were in their prime, the iconicity of
Rome was markedly different.
2
Urban icons act as visual substitutes for the
multifaceted whole. They must
have a broad identity, readily recognized by the majority of people who share
a common visual vocabulary and similar viewing skills. Today, scholarly discussions of urban
icons generally reflect twenty-first-century ideas about the past as well as
modern, rather secular, notions about symbolism and viewing practices conditioned
by rapid sight-bites, aerial views and broad, instantaneous global
distribution. In antiquity,
graphic metonyms for cities responded to very different cultural factors,
including the inscription of simplified images with polyvalent meanings, and slower
but no less pervasive distribution of common symbols. Urban icons were found throughout the
Roman world, from Eryx to Alexandria to Nicaea.[3] Shockingly, Rome stood apart. Hundreds of images depicting Rome’s
urban features have been found, but no one comes to the fore as a potent
urban icon for the great city during its lengthy lifespan as capital of the
Roman Empire. Did the Romans
have an identifiable image for their capital over its long history? Was one even desirable?
Roman urban icons
3
On the most obvious level, urban icons are
identifiers, visual shorthand for both the physical and conceptual content of
cities. In the era before
photography and mass communication, few people knew what a particular distant
city looked like; specificity of urban representation was therefore of
limited concern in the creation of icons. Instead, the Romans exploited a repertoire of shared
myths, histories and texts, as well as an expansive visual repertoire of
signs and symbols. During both
the Republican and imperial periods people relied on common mental libraries
to create and utilize urban icons serving three broad purposes. First, and perhaps foremost, Roman
urban icons served to identify a locale. On coins, a representation situated the event or building
depicted, or the mint; similarly, in narrative paintings and reliefs a city
icon located the action. Second,
visual metonyms for cities offered a sense of possession. By purchasing an iconic cityscape
ancient tourists reinforced their mnemonic possession of a site visited.[4] In particular, omniscient bird’s-eye
panoramas gave observers a sense of ownership. The Romans exploited such totalizing aerial views in
propagandistic military art succinctly to convey conquest.[5] Third, ancient urban icons expressed
urban character or type, with visual tropes representing common urban
types. In all three cases, the
shared cultural memory of the Romans resulted in rapid recognition of the
physical features, events, typologies or characterizations serving as
symbols for cities.
4
Notable monuments, especially those made
memorable by distinct form and large size, make powerful urban icons. Many ancient cities had their
equivalent of an Eiffel Tower. Remarkable features such as lighthouses, colossal statues, dramatic
topography and famous artworks were well known, their fame lauded in texts,
images and conversations. All
served as Roman urban icons. In
the first century AD the emperor Claudius erected a lighthouse at Portus on
the coast near Rome; the structure became an icon for the port city depicted
on coins, reliefs and mosaics.[6] Roman Athens was represented on coins
by the depiction of the famous Parthenon temple reached by steep steps up the
acropolis.[7] At Ephesus tourists in the imperial
age clamoured for miniature replicas of the great Temple of Artemis, or saved
coins as mementos of their visit to one of the seven wonders of the ancient
world.[8] At Antioch, they bought small glass bottles replicating a famous statue, the
Tyche (goddess of the city’s fortune) by a 
Figure 11pupil of Lysippos.[9] Wealthy tourists to the seaside
resorts of Baiae and Puteoli favoured glass vials carved with images of the
recreational buildings
Figure 3.[10] Romans recognized the site of
Sebastopolis in Pontus from the three views of the distinctive shrine to
Hercules.[11] Though observers knew the general
characteristics of notable urban features across the Empire, they relied
heavily on stock or representative images. Thus, the statue of the Tyche from Antioch was employed to
symbolize the city goddesses of other sites, and the most famous temple of a
particular cult often was recycled to represent other cities honouring the
same divinity.[12] As a result, Roman viewers relied on
additional information, usually a succinct text, to identify the particular
city.
5
In addition to metonymic use of individual
buildings, larger, more holistic representations of cities frequently serve
as urban icons. For example, the
modern skyline silhouettes of 
Figure 4Istanbul and New York have gained iconic status
as urban signs. The Romans,
however, did not favour urban profiles.[13] The unpopularity of skylines may be
partially explained by the blurring between the earthly realm of humans and
the heavenly realm of the gods. Deities regularly entered into Roman cities; priests read
omens in the open sky above and between urban buildings. As a result, the
Romans did not imagine a clear horizontal boundary between heaven and earth. Few cities other than Rome had
numerous tall buildings to create iconic skylines. Similarly, exterior urban elevations of the type popular
in fifteenth-century Europe were not apparently valued in antiquity.[14] After all, Roman cities were not
easily seen in elevation. Towering walls dominated the facades of cities in the Republic and
late Empire, focusing viewers’ attention on individual gates which frequently
were employed as icons. Once a
region was secure, urban growth expanded outward from the enclosing wall,
creating a less crisply defined external edge dominated by non-monumental
structures. In addition, viewing
access was limited since tombs and other buildings along access roads allowed
only partial glimpses of city elevations. Not surprisingly, the few extant Roman urban elevations
are of cities seen across water, as with the river town depicted on a
terracotta lamp and a second-century coin showing the harbour at Patras.[15]
6
Figure 5A bird’s-eye-view is the most
inclusive way to depict a large urban environment. Modern familiarity with viewing cities from above has
promoted a preference for aerial urban icons such as the sprawling grid of
Los Angeles. The ancients had
only limited access to aerial panoramas from elevated viewing spots, yet did
imagine the appearance of such totalizing vistas.[16] City panoramas appeared on wall
paintings, banners, reliefs and even coins, bringing holistic images of
numerous cities to a broad audience.[17] Such vistas, however, were not
realistic snapshots of urban environments. Roman artists focused on memorable urban objects actually
experienced by viewers, including external walls, temples, porticos and
colossal statues. A Caracallan
coin depicted the primary features of Cynaetha in Greece — a stoa, sanctuary
and tree, precisely the elements singled out by Pausanias years earlier.[18] In such icons, scale and accuracy of
building placement were less important than relative status and
associations. For example, major
monuments might be grouped together to emphasize a city’s stature, ignoring actual
physical relationships.[19] 
Figure 6Panoramic icons minimized less
notable urban features such as the connecting tissue of infill housing.[20] Similarly, open urban areas were
rarely used metonymically in the Roman period, in contrast to 
Figure 7the depictions
of piazzas and streets on medieval and Renaissance urban icons.[21] The Romans conceptualized and valued
voids in their architecture, urban design and religion. Open urban spaces, however, did have
as much iconic power. Not only
were urban voids (including fora, porticoed spaces and streets) difficult to
depict in small images, but their meaning was not explicit, not part of the
pervasive Roman visual lexicon. As a result, urban spaces were usually filled with figures or objects
on Roman icons.[22] For example, a large porticoed urban
space shown on an early third-century coin from Laodicea was packed with a
large crowd and an over scale image of the emperor giving honours.[23] In a few instances, Roman icons promoted urban character
rather than significant buildings. Formulaic representations of animated seaside cities effectively
conveyed the hedonistic lifestyle possible along the Bay of Naples.
7
Panoramic urban icons were effective
propagandistic tools used to affirm and justify conquest, expansion and
control. From Rome’s earliest
days, generals often included models or large paintings of cities in
triumphal parades to advertise and justify military action. Many such images were subsequently
placed on permanent display in Rome.[24] Known only through written
descriptions, these exhibited works must have been similar in appearance to
the urban icons preserved in reliefs on numerous monuments, including those
from the Parthian campaign of Septimius Severus shown on his arch in the
Forum Romanum from AD 203. Other urban icons of bird’s-eye-views imparted a sense of paternal
care. In 1998, a wonderful
fresco of a city was brought to light 
Figure 8under the Baths of Trajan in Rome.[25] Named the Citta Dipinta, this image
may represent one of several Italian cities embellishing the porticoed
headquarters of the urban prefect (praefectura Urbi).[26] Despite the remarkable and
particularized details the city has not been identified. Recognition may not have been of
primary importance.[27] Those who could name the city felt
the rush of recognition; for other observers, the healthy city was no less
effective as a visual affirmation of the Roman state’s beneficence
toward municipalities. Similarly, those who looked at the
numerous villages and encampments carved on the Column of Trajan in the early
second century AD were not expected to recognize the various sites in
Dacia; however, they were expected to acknowledge the obvious distinction
between the well-ordered environments of the Romans and the less sophisticated
settlements of their foes.[28]
8
Figure 9Beyond such generalizations the legibility of
ancient urban icons is difficult to gauge. Only a limited number of Romans had sufficient travel
experience to recognize actual urban elements. In some cases the environments shown were either mythic or
much transformed from the time of the narrative (Troy, Dido’s Carthage). Viewers relied on the action, known
individuals or context of the image to determine the specific city when a
written name was not provided. A
viewer familiar with the myth of Daedalus and his son Icarus assumed an urban
icon in conjunction with a youth wearing wings represented Knossos where the
fatal flight took place. A city in a battle featuring M. Claudius Marcellus would be recognized
as Syracuse, one with Scipio Aemilianus as Carthage, and so on. Position within a sequence also
helped in identification as with cities depicted on painted itineraries.
9
The contextual reading of signs was common
throughout Roman culture and promoted typological representation. Simplified graphic symbols for
different city types are well known from ancient, as well as modern, tourist
maps. Common tropes included the walled city, the port and the market
city. These appeared in various
media and contexts, but most often in cartography. The Romans made a clear distinction between two types of
maps. Large-scale geographic
representations boasted a scientific basis in geometry and surveying; these
linear, orthographic representations depicted the whole earth or broad
regions including nations, gulfs, major rivers and large cities. In contrast, chorographic images were
painterly and showed comparatively small areas including cities.[29] A famous example is the Tabula
Peutinger, a medieval travel map believed to be a copy of a late antique
Roman chorographic map.[30] 
Figure 10This painted itinerary (itinerarium
pictum) measured
6.75 metres by 34 centimetres, a format reflecting the material (parchment)
and the Roman linear conceptualization of travel as a process of moving
directly from one point to another. In such a context, accurate orientation, topography and the actual
appearance of each city were less important than the sequence, comparative
scale and type of notable physical features en route. Larger cities were represented by
icons of walled enclosures reflecting the instability of the late antique
period; each was identified by name. Other iconic graphic conventions, such as double towers, did not
represent different urban types, but different types of accommodations
available to travellers.[31] Notably, the Peutinger map used
large-scale personifications, not pictograms, for the most important urban
centres of Antioch, Constantinople and Rome.
10
Even today, humanized figures continue to
represent cities, such as the mermaid statue as an icon for Copenhagen. The ancients had a long tradition of
Figure 10personifying feelings, places, peoples, nations, governmental bodies and
urban environments.[32] The male essence (genius) associated with a person or
place, and the female spirit of chance (Tyche/Fortuna) both represented
cities.[33] The latter was by far the most
popular urban icon. The Greek
Tyche had a long history before being incorporated into the Roman pantheon as
Fortuna
Figure 11. Unlike other
personifications, she was worshipped as a minor deity and did not
dramatically change her appearance when representing different places. Tyche/Fortuna is shown with a
turreted crown carrying attributes that at first glance seem tied to particular
city types (for example the rudder for ports and cornucopia for agricultural
centres); in reality these symbols had generalized meanings. A mural crown loosely symbolized
urban strength, worn by the goddess Cybele, protector of cities, and awarded
to the first soldier who scaled the walls of a besieged city.[34] Tyche/Fortuna’s attributes signified
the human quest for good luck in farming (cornucopia), in the sea of life
(rudder) and business (treasure house, purse and coins). Her identification with a particular
city was usually based on context, text or accompanying element such as a
river god or temple. In fact,
identification of all urban personifications was, and is, often a challenge.
The mapmaker of the Tabula Peutinger could not be sure viewers would
recognize the figures representing cities solely on the basis of geographic
placement; as a further aid he included names and small depictions of notable
local features at, or near, each city.
11
Roman use of familiar graphic
representations had an impact on every category of Roman urban icons. A Roman observer looking at an image of an amphitheatre or stock
figure of Fortuna with no text or other identifiers was hard pressed to name
the city it represented. What a
contrast from the particularized urban signs of independent city states in the
classical Greek period, such as the owl recognized throughout the
Mediterranean as a symbol of Athens. In part, the sameness in appearance of Roman urban icons resulted from
the limited familiarity with the actual appearance of various cities. In part, it reflected the
characteristic of signs to be simple and familiar. Yet another contributing factor was also at play. Roman rule from its earliest days had
pushed for commonality, forging an Empire based on shared gods, laws,
language, activities, architectural forms and visual symbols.[35] Romanization has frequently been
equated with modern globalization in which familiarity reigns, with one city
downtown having the same stores, coffee shops, music, dress, etc., as any
other in the world.[36] By the imperial period, Roman cities
likewise shared a common architectural vocabulary of fora, amphitheatres,
baths, porticos, theatres, temples and so on. Roman culture and government drew strength from repetition
and uniformity. Cities were not
thought of as unique, but part of a complex matrix composed of solid,
familiar components. Realistic
depictions of urban elements or cityscapes were only marginally useful as
urban icons. The message
conveyed was that the building, the personification and even the city itself
were replicable components, like so many tesserae in the mosaic of Empire.
Pictorial Icons for Rome
12
Rome was different. The great city was the caput mundi, head of the world, centre of the
Roman Empire.[37] The capital was the stage for seminal
historic and mythic events, a magnet for travellers, and the locus of state
power. In the Republic, certain events, including ritual
sacrifices and triumphs, could only occur in the capital; Senators had to
reside in Rome at least part of the year.[38] All Romans drew strength from
association with the place, resolutely thwarting any proposal to relocate.[39] Early emperors exploited the city, or
rather the idea of the city, to unify the diverse peoples under their
control. Even as the extent of
the Empire began to decline after the second century AD, the city remained
a touchstone. In the following
century, the Severans constructed the Umbilicus Urbis Romae (navel of the city of Rome) to
mark the Forum Romanum as centre of the city and Empire. Nearby stood the earlier Milliarium
Aureum (Golden Milestone), its glittering surface affirming the truism that
all roads led to Rome.[40] People flocked to the city from every
corner of the known world drawn by the aura of power and the many amenities,
including great buildings, numerous elaborate festivals and a heavily
subsidized dole.[41] Given the status, size and grandeur
of the city on the Tiber one would expect to find pictorial urban icons
scattered tunic-deep across the Empire, yet few obvious representations
existed. The great capital could
not readily fit within the identified categories of Roman urban icons.
13
Rome was filled with remarkable works. Ammianus Marcellinus records the
amazement of emperor Augustus Constantius when he came to the capital for the
first time in the fourth century AD, 'on every side on which his eyes
rested he was dazzled by the array of marvellous sites'.[42] People throughout the Roman world knew of the wonders found
in the capital, their curiosity whetted by word of mouth, written
descriptions and pictorial reproductions.[43] Rome’s awe-inspiring array of
fabulous individual monuments created a collective sense of grandeur,
minimizing the distinctiveness of any single object to stand as a metonym for
the urban whole. Who could
choose one from so many wonders? Even a structure as unusual in form and meaning as the Pantheon was
rarely singled out in ancient texts, and not at all in images.[44] No wonder ancient authors usually
described Rome’s marvels in groupings, rather than singly. The first emperor Augustus catalogued
dozens of buildings in Rome among his achievements listed in his Res
gestae. In the first century Pliny cited not
one, but three monuments as the most beautiful in the capital.[45] In fact, the compilation of lists was
a forceful means of expressing the city’s size and complexity, an activity
that culminated in the fourth century with the Regionary catalogue, a
comprehensive accounting of all the buildings in Rome.[46] The gestalt message of such textual accounts was that the totality was
greater than the sum of its parts.
14
Rome’s unique standing as generating source
of all things Roman conferred the status of exemplar on both the city and its
monuments. From the fourth
century BC onward, urban configurations and buildings from the capital were
emulated as part of a complex campaign to promote romanitas.[47] The
city’s most important temple, that of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the
Capitoline Hill, was replicated in concept and placement (if not always in
form) in numerous 'Capitolia' temples in western Roman cities.[48] Imitation of Rome’s buildings
continued in the imperial period; for example, in the first century AD the
city of Corinth in Greece minted coins under the emperor Domitian showing a
copy of the Meta Sudans fountain in Rome; another version appeared in
Djemila, North Africa.[49] Ironically, such multiple replication and the general typological similarity of Roman building types worked together
to minimize the particularity of Rome’s own projects. As a result, an individual structure
like the Colosseum, even if larger and grander than amphitheatres elsewhere,
could not readily be accepted as a singular symbol of the capital.
15
Patronage also had an impact on the
conceptualization of Rome’s buildings. In the Republic ambitious men competed to erect showy, memorable and
opulent monuments in the capital. Each subsequent generation described its additions to the cityscape
with superlatives, creating an ever-escalating competition.[50] The link between building and donor
was potent, blatantly advertised in enduring inscriptions. Beginning with Augustus, emperors
consolidated patronage to promote themselves, their families and
policies. Rivalry, however, did
not diminish. Each emperor
competed with his predecessors and all other building donors in Rome and
throughout the Empire to create structures worthy of their stature. Naturally, they often reworked
existing structures to draw power from past associations while adding their
own. Augustus, Vespasian and
Domitian all extensively enhanced the Capitoline Temple.[51] The strong link between particular
buildings and donors further precluded the use of any one building as a
metonym for Rome. Who, after
all, could lay claim to the entire city?[52]
16
No panoramic depictions of Rome exist from
antiquity. Practical
considerations provide a partial explanation for this lacuna. The capital was enormous. Dionysius of Halicarnassus writing in
the time of Augustus described Rome as 'stretching out indefinitely'.[53] In his day, the city boasted a
population of over one million residents and extremely high real-estate
values.[54] As a result, Rome expanded upward
with towering, multi-storied apartments mentioned in the first century BC.[55] Aelius Aristides in the mid-second
century wrote of Rome, 'this city is not satisfied with having been
settled on so large an expanse of land, but it lifts up and carries over its
head other cities of equal measure, one upon another'.[56] The plethora of diverse buildings did
not coalesce into a recognizable skyline. The roof lines were irregular and always changing due to
new construction and frequent collapses; even the distinct silhouettes of
major monuments were not readily recognizable in the crowded cityscape. Unconstrained by exterior walls until
the late third century, Rome did not present a distinct exterior
elevation. Ever-growing, the
city’s exterior boundaries were defined in some jurisdictions as extending to
'the edge of urban construction'.[57] Such an animated, expansive urban form could not be fully
captured by ancient representational techniques.[58] Overall, the sprawling extent,
crowded conditions and accompanying smoky pollution made it difficult to visualize
the Rome panoramically, compromising its collective imageability.[59]
17
More,
however, was at work than the difficulty of seeing the enormous
metropolis. Vision is mediated
by culture.[60] The ancient Romans processed visual
data through complex societal filters which, in turn, determined the type and
conceptualization of urban icons. Rome did not fit well within any of the panoramic urban icons
discussed above. As capital of
the Empire Rome was, after all, unique, and could not be represented as an urban type
illustrated by a succinct generic icon. Furthermore, the city did not have other canonical urban
characteristics such as a wall or grid layout that could be readily
encapsulated in an urban image. Three-dimensional views of the capital were also problematic. While other cities might be
metaphorically captured in a totalizing bird’s-eye view, such metaphorical
possession was unthinkable for the capital. Rome was not just the birthplace of Roman civilization;
the city itself was a metonym for the Empire and vice versa. The Romans equated the physical size
of their capital to the physical size of the Empire. In the first century BC Ovid
succinctly wrote, 'The extent [spatium] of the Roman city and the world
are the same.'[61] The concept was echoed centuries
later by Aelius Aristides who wrote, 'What another city is to its
own boundaries and territory, this city is to the boundaries and territory of
the entire civilized world.'[62] Like
the Empire, Rome was too large, too complex to be fixed, to be grasped easily
either in the eye or the mind. Only the gods on high had the ability and status to see both in their
entirety. In an earlier passage
Aristides wrote,
Far from being able to speak properly
about it [Rome], it
is not even possible to view it properly, but truly some all-seeing Argus is
required, or rather the all-seeing god who dwells in the city. For who upon viewing so many occupied
hills or the urbanized pastures of the plains, or a territory so extensive
brought together into the name of a single city, could accurately observe all
these things? Where would be his
point of observation?[63]
Looking down on the world from Olympus, only
the gods could see and appreciate Rome in its entirety; they, unlike human
viewers, had no need for the reductionism of an urban icon.[64]
18
Rome
not only represented the Empire in size and complexity, but also in
time. The city on the Tiber was
the beginning point of time, a fact reaffirmed by the Romans dating of events a.u.c. (ab
urbe condita), 'from the founding of the city'.[65] The Romans’ rich and complex history
was encapsulated in every inch of Rome. To walk through the capital was to learn about past
achievements of all types: political, cultural, religious, military and
social. Observers not only read
content in the numerous sculptures, paintings, reliefs, monuments and
inscriptions of Rome, they also learned by interacting with the various
places. Each site within the
city had a spirit of place (genius loci) which distilled the whole conglomeration of
events that had occurred there. The strong link between places and collective memory was conveyed by
Cicero in the late first century BC, 'Whether it is
natural instinct or a mere illusion, I cannot say; but one’s emotions are more
strongly aroused by seeing the places that tradition records to have been the
favourite resort of men of note in former days, than by hearing about their
deeds or reading their writings.'[66] As Edwards has perceptively noted,
this interpretation resolutely linked viewing of the city with history,
conceptualizing both as part of a temporal continuum.[67] Plutarch in the first century AD.
wrote,
A city,
like a living thing... is a united and continuous whole. This does not
cease to be itself as it changes in growing older, nor does it become one
thing after another with the lapse of time, but is always at one with its
former self in feeling and identity, and must take all the blame or credit
for what it does or has done in its public character, so long as the
association that creates it and binds it together with interwoven strands
preserves it as a unity. To create a multiplicity, or rather an
infinity, of cities by chronological distinctions is like creating many men
out of one.[68]
As container of collective memory,
Rome could not be represented at one moment in its glorious history, like a
fly in amber. Thus, its image
could not be reduced to a static panoramic urban icon.
19
Roman ideas about patronage, viewing and
time barred the use of architecture and city views as icons. Yet Rome needed to be represented
metonymically to the vast Empire. The personification Dea Roma seems an appropriate alternative,
especially since her images were widely distributed across the Empire over a
long period of time. However,
the goddess Roma is problematic as an urban icon. Her worship was initiated in Greek cities probably in the
third century BC, established
by peoples anxious to curry favour with the growing power in central
Italy. The Greeks modelled Roma
after their own personifications including the Demos equated with the
sovereign people of the city state and deified Hellenistic rulers. They identified the goddess not with
the distant, actual city, but with the abstract conception of Roman political
might. The alternative spelling
of 'Rhome' relates to the Greek word for strength; early representations show
her as a warrior
Figure 12. Greek worshippers
addressed her as goddess of 'the People of Rome', or 'Rome and the Roman
Benefactors'.[69] At Rome during the same period the
Romans likewise honoured the spirit of the state as the male Genius Populi
Romani.[70] Myths linking Roma with her namesake
city did not develop until the second century BC.[71] In the early Empire, Augustus
exploited worship of Roma as a unifying state cult, sanctioning provincial
altars and shrines joining the goddess with either his deified father or
himself. Dea Roma did not
receive a major temple or festival in Rome until the early second century
AD., when Hadrian used the cult of Roma Aeterna to help centre and stabilize
the Empire as a whole.[72] In the fourth century Maxentius again
exploited this cult to coalesce Roman identity around a core of traditional
beliefs focused on the capital.[73] As this brief survey shows, Dea Roma
had multiple meanings and multiple representations that varied according to
time, place and audience. In
addition to appearing as armed warrior, Trojan heroine and enthroned queen,
she was often represented as, and conflated with, Virtus, Victory, Minerva
and other female divinities and personifications.[74] Only in a comparatively few images
was Roma linked with the actual physical site of Rome, primarily with images
of the city’s seven hills or the Lupercal cave where Rome’s mythical founders
Romulus and Remus were suckled by the she wolf.[75] The picture is of a complex,
conflated personification whose iconicity was tied with the broad
conceptualization of the Roman state and peoples. Of course all urban icons stand for the people and society
as well the physical city, yet the diverse and complex evidence for Dea Roma
conveys a weaker tie to the place than, for example, Athena to Athens or a
Royal Guardsman to London.[76]
20
Other personifications and images
also represented the collective as well as the capital city, including those
of the Genius Urbis, Genius Populi Romani, Genius Publicus, Genius
Senatus, Romulus and Remus and the emperor. Each evoked different shades of
meaning, and different intensity of relationship to Rome the city. It must be remembered that over the
long history of the Romans only a relatively small proportion of the Empire’s
extensive population knew Rome first hand; all, however, needed to be
informed and unified by common imagery about the state and romanitas in general. As a result, icons representing the collective trumped those for the
city. As a concept even more
than a city, Rome did not have to be presented pictorially. Perhaps the most potent icon for the
capital was the ubiquitous,
powerful and succinct word, ROMA, inscribed on monuments, repeated in
prayers, shown on coins, painted on tableaux, endlessly cited in texts and
spoken thousands of times a day.[77] A picture may be worth a
thousand words, but a word can evoke a million ideas and associations. The iconic power of a text, rather
than an image, to represent the capital implies the Romans shaped their visual culture in a
verbal way.[78]
21
Without
a graphic iconic option, how did people in Rome pictorially present their
city? An answer can be sought in
the one known comprehensive image of the city, the Forma Urbis Romae marble map created in the Severan
Age (AD 203-08) and displayed in the Forum of Peace near the Forum
Romanum.[79] Measuring approximately 13 metres in
height, and 18.3 metres in width, the map depicted every building and street
of Rome in plan; important buildings were slightly larger in scale,
identified with text, the inscribed lines highlighted with red paint
Figure 13.[80] The choice of representational
technique is telling. The
ichnographic map was distinctly different from realistic pictorial panoramas,
as well as from the cityscape itself. The abstracted, scientific quality of the two-dimensional geographic
plan recalled state maps used for taxation, allocation of territories and measurement.[81] The identification of the FUR as an official record of
municipal buildings, though tantalizing, is negated by the map’s
presentation. Literally fixed in
stone, the FUR could
not be readily altered to accommodate urban changes; its placement and
rendering compromised legibility.[82] The map was exhibited above a socle
over four metres tall, in a large room with a colonnade on the north-west
probably surmounted by clerestory windows. Ancient observers craning their necks would have had a
hard time reading the map, especially on winter afternoons when the low sun
cast dark shadows across the room. 
Figure 14Major monuments were emphasized, not to make them more legible, but to
underscore the sheer number of great buildings in the capital. In effect, the presentation was
comparable to the long written lists of things achieved proudly displayed in
public venues throughout the Empire.[83] The largely illegible individual
components shown on the map collectively projected the scale and grandeur of
the city, but not its specificity. Alive and always growing, representing time and place, Rome was too
complex, too grand for human observers to grasp. The aniconic image of the Forma Urbis Rome was an artefact of the capital’s
pictorial inconceivability.
[1] In fact, Rome was late in
receiving a permanent amphitheatre; that at Pompeii dates to the first century
BC. The Colosseum should more
properly be referred to as the Flavian Amphitheatre built by the emperors Vespasian
and his son Titus; S.B. Platner and T. Ashby, A Topographical
Dictionary of Ancient Rome (London, 1929), 6-11.
[2] P. Quennell, The Colosseum (New York, 1971),
8.
[3] Regarding Roman urban pictorial
representations, personifications and symbols see: M.I. Rostovtzeff,
'Die Hellenistisch-Römische Architekturlandschaft,' Mitteilungen
des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, 26 (1911), 1-186; P. Gardner, 'Countries and
cities in ancient art,' Journal of Hellenic Studies, 9 (1888), 47-81; E. La Rocca, 'L’affresco con veduto di città
dal colle Oppio', in E. Fentress (ed.), Romanization and the City: Creation, Transformations, and Failures, Journal of Roman Archaeology Suppl. 38 (2000), 57-71.
[4] A tourist memento is both an aide
mémoire and a means of possessing a memory and place; J. Urry, The Tourist
Gaze (Thousand Oaks, CA, 2002), 147.
[5] Great generals of the late
Republic selected hill top sites for their villas considering it more
soldier-like to look down from a lofty height; Seneca, Epistulae, 51.
[6] Pliny Naturalis historia 36.12; R. Meiggs, Roman
Ostia (Oxford, 1960), 154-6.
[7] M.J. Price and B.L. Trell, Coins and their Cities:
Architecture on the Ancient Coins of Greece, Rome, and Palestine (London, 1977),
76. At Athens, as at many other
cities, a notable sculpture of the primary deity or founder also served as an
urban icon.
[8] Of course such mementos also had
religious connotations. In the
first century, St Paul was chastised because Christianity was hurting the
sales of expensive tourist models of Artemis’ temple at Ephesus; Acts, 19, 24-8; L.
Casson, Travel in the Ancient World (London, 1974), 287; Price and
Trell, Coins, 126-135.
[9] Casson, Travel, 287; T. Dohrn, Die
Tyche von Antiochia (Berlin, 1960), passim.
[10] The images of baths, theatres,
piers and parks are shown in elevation with identifying written labels; P.
Zanker, 'The City as symbol: Rome and the creation of an urban image', in Fentress (ed.), Romanization, 40-1; S.
Ostrow, 'The topography of Puteoli and Baiae on the eight Glass Flasks', Puteoli.
Studi Storia Antica, 3 (1979) 77-140.
[11] Price and Trell, Coins, 19.
[12] Ibid., 33, see figure 32. B.L. Levy notes that representational
conventions were fewer in the Greek east where urban competitiveness remained
strong; review of Price and Trell, Coins, in Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians, 38, 2
(May 1979), 179.
[13] For a discussion of urban
skylines see S. Kostof, The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings through History (Boston, MA, 1991),
279-333.
[14] On types of city representations see D. Buisseret (ed.), Envisioning the City. Six
Studies in Urban Cartography (Chicago, 1998), ix—xi.
[15] The lamp image includes men
fishing and thus may be a genre scene, not an icon for a specific city as
claimed by Cologne; http://www.livius.org/ra-rn/rhine/rhine.html. The Patras image may alternatively be
interpreted as showing urban elements stacked with things behind shown above;
Price and Trell, Coins, 24, 41.
[16] For Roman imagining views from on
high see T. Murphy, Pliny the Elder's Natural History (Oxford, 2004),
129-33.
[17] W.L. MacDonald, The Architecture of the Roman Empire, vol. II (New Haven,
1986), 14-17, 50; A. and M. Levi, Itineraria picta. Contributo allo studio della Tabula
Peutingeriana (Rome,
1967), passim; La Rocca, 'L’affresco'.
[18] Price and Trell, Coins, 16-17.
[19] For example, a Caracallan coin
from Pergamon shows several disparate neocorate temples aligned in a row; ibid., 27-28.
[20] Detailed representations of
housing occur infrequently, usually as backdrop for specific events or as a
specific urban portrait; see the Tomb of the Aurelii frescos or the Avezzano
relief; MacDonald, Roman Empire, vol. II, 16; La Rocca, 'L’affresco', 64.
[21] Depictions of urban
elevations, infill and streets became more common in the waning years of the Empire
as urban viability became problematic and was reinforced with laws promoting
maintenance and good appearance; W. Harris, The Transformations of Urbs Roma
in Late Antiquity, Journal of Roman Archaeology, Suppl. 33 (1999), 9-14; C. Bertelli, 'Town images in late antiquity and the
early middle ages', in
G.P. Brogiolo and B. Ward-Perkins (eds.), The Idea and Ideal of the Town Between Late Antiquity
and the Early Middle Ages (Leiden, 1999), 127-46.
[22] Modern urban observers likewise
generally do not depict open urban spaces in cognitive maps; Kevin Lynch, Image of the
City (Cambridge, MA, 1960), 43-4.
[23] Price and Trell, Coins, 25.
[24] Livy records that L. Scipio carried 134 simulacra of towns in his triumphal
procession; 37.59.3-5; see also Pliny Naturalis historia, 35.22-25; Livy, 41.28.8-10.
[25] E. La Rocca, 'The newly discovered city fresco from Trajan’s
Baths, Rome', Imago Mundi, 53 (2001),
121-4.
[26] Varro mentions 'painted italy' (Italiam
pictam) in conjunction with the Temple of Tellus in this part of Rome;
obviously the description is broad and could refer to a map as easily as
paintings of cities; Varro, De re rustica, 1.2.1. Excavators have dated the portico to
the Flavian period; G. Caruso and R. Volpe, 'Preesistenze e persistenze delle
Terme di Traiano', in Fentress (ed.), Romanization, 43-56. In 2005, further
explorations in the area exposed mosaics with architectural elements; full analysis must await
publication.
[27] The city was variously identified in
the press as Rome, Verona, Arles and London.
[28] J. Coulston, 'The architecture and
construction scenes on Trajan’s Column', in M. Henig (ed.), Architecture and Architectural
sculpture in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1990), 39-50.
[29] On the distinction between geographic and chorographic
images see Ptolemy Geographia.1.1; Strabo 2.5.10, 17; Vitruvius, De architectura, 1.2.2. More accurate geographic maps developed in response to the Roman
government’s need to measure and tax; C. Nicolet, Space, Geography, and
Politics in the Early Roman Empire, trans. H. Leclerc (Ann Arbor, 1991), 1-12; O.A.W. Dilke, Greek
and Roman Maps (Ithaca,
1985), 54.
[30] B. Salway, 'Travel, Itineraria and Tabellaria', in C. Adams and R. Laurence (eds.), Travel and Geography in the Roman Empire (London, 2001), 22-66; Dilke, Maps, 113-20, Levi, Itineraria
picta, passim.
[31] Levi, Itineraria picta, 79-81, 170; E.
Weber, 'The Tabula Peutingeriana and the Madaba Map', in M. Piccirillo and E. Allianta (eds.), The Madaba Map
Centenary 1897-1997 (Jerusalem, 1999), 41-6.
[32] E. Stafford, Worshipping Virtues: Personification and the
Divine in Ancient Greece (Swansea, 2001); F. Strössl, 'Personifikationen', in A. Pauly and G. Wissowa (eds.), Paulys
Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, vol. XXXVII (Stuttgart, 1937) cols. 1042-8.
[33] J. Nitzsche, The Genius Figure
in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (New York, 1975); K. Ziegler, 'Tyche', Pauly-Wissowa, ser. 2, 14, cols.
1643-96; S.B. Matheson, 'The goddess Tyche', in S.B. Matheson(ed.), An Obsession with Fortune:
Tyche in Greek and Roman Art (New Haven, 1994),
19-33; L. Villard and F. Rausa, in J. Boardman, et al. (eds.), Lexicon
iconographicum mythologiae classicae vol. VIII.1 (Zürich, 1997), 115-40.
[34] W. Deonna, 'La Couronne murale
des villes et des pays personnifies dans la antiquité', Geneva, 18 (1940), 127-86.
[35] For an overview of definitions
and approaches to Romanization see J.C. Barrett, 'Romanization, a Critical
Comment', in eD.J. Mattingly (ed.), Dialogues in Roman Imperialism, Journal
of Roman Archaeology, Suppl. 23 (1997), 51-64.
[36] R.K. Lewis, 'Will forces of
globalization overwhelm traditional local architecture?', Washington Post (2 Nov.
2002).
[37] C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome
the Cosmopolis (Cambridge, 2003),
1-5, 123-4; Murphy, Pliny, 50-1.
[38] F. Dupont, Daily Life in
Ancient Rome, trans. C. Woodall (Oxford, 1993), 10; C.
Edwards, 'Imaginaires de l’image de Rome ou comment (se) représenter Rome?', in C. Auvray-Assays (ed.), Images
Romaines (Paris, 1998), 241.
[39] D. Favro, The
Urban Image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge, 1996), 47, 99.
[40] Platner and Ashby, Topographical
Dictionary, 342, 544.
[41] Martial reveals the diversity of
people in Rome in his description of spectators in the Colosseum; Spectacula, 3. In the late Empire, Rome’s potency as
centre and touchstone was transferred first to the person of the emperor and
then to Constantinople; Edwards and Woolf (eds.), Rome, 204.
[42] Ammianus Marcellinus 16.10. One can imagine ancient visitors to
Rome, especially those from rural or underdeveloped parts of the Empire,
succumbing to 'Stendhal’s syndrome': stress caused by exposure to too many
artistic wonders.
[43] Coins were the most portable and
familiar means of advertising Rome’s marvels. From the second century onward numismatic representations of
monuments in Rome circulated widely, and were generally more legible than those
minted elsewhere. Republican
moneyers and magistrates, followed by the emperors, used such representations
to support personal and state agendas; G. Fuchs, Architekturdarstellungen auf
römischen Münzen der Republik und der frühen Kaiserzeit (Berlin, 1969),
5-46.
[44] Platner and Ashby, Topographical
Dictionary, 382-6.
[45] Pliny, Naturalis historia, 36.102. S. Carey perceptively calls Pliny’s lists (including those
of cities) a 'catalogue of Empire'; Pliny's Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire
in the Natural History (Oxford, 2004), 33-8, 73-4, and passim. The
famous list of seven wonders compiled in the Hellenistic period, however, was
not revised to include buildings in Rome until recently; M. Tameanko, 'The
"Seven Wonders" of Rome, illustrated on ancient coinage',
http://www.ancientcoinmarket.com/mt/mtarticle8/1.html (2000).
[46] H. Jordan, (ed.), Topographie der
Stadt Rom im Alterthum, vol. II (Berlin, 1887). 539-74.
[47] The opposite strategy was taken in the creation of
Washington DC; there, each state was invited to put its imprint on the
capital through the design of a different urban square.
[48] Zanker, 'City as symbol', 25-32. As Fentress has pointed out, some early
colonies like Cosa were based on common plans developed in Rome, not specific
replicas of parts of the capital; E. Fentress, 'Introduction:
Cosa and the idea of the city', in Fentress (ed.), Romanization, 9-24.
[49] Price and Trell, Coins, 62, 82, see also
45.
[50] L. Pietilä-Castrén, Magnificentia Publica: The Victory Monuments of the Roman Generals in the Era
of the Punic Wars (Helsinki, 1978); Favro, Urban Image, 50-9.
[51] Platner and Ashby, Topographical
Dictionary, 297-302.
[52] The first emperor’s attempt to create an 'Augustan city' through
material transformation from brick into marble was shortlived; Favro, Urban
Image, 133-4, 248.
[53] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates
Romanae, 4.13. A rough estimate is
that the early imperial city encompassed 1,300 hectares.
[54] The populations of Alexandria and
Antioch were approximately half that of Rome; other cities were considerably
smaller; N. Morley, Metropolis and hinterland: The City of Rome and the
Italian Economy 200 BC – AD 200 (Cambridge, 1996), 2.
[55] A. Claridge, Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide to Rome (Oxford, 1998),
56.
[56] Aristides, Orationes, 26. 8.
[57] J.R. Patterson, 'On the argins
of the city of Rome', in V.M.
Hope and E. Marshall (eds.), Death and Disease in the Ancient City (London, 2000), 90; E. Frézouls, 'Rome ville ouverte.
Réflexions sur les problemes de l’expansion urbaine d’Auguste à Aurélien', in L’Urbs. Espace urbain et histoire. Ier siècle avant J.C. IIIer siècle
après J.C., CEFR 98 (Rome, 1987), 381-2.
[58] Edwards, 'Imaginaires',
238.
[59] On the concept of urban imageability
see Lynch, Image, 9-12. Rome’s visual urban image was also weakened by its convoluted layout,
the result of unplanned organic growth, and by widespread pollution which
hampered viewing.
[60] N. Bryson, 'The gaze in the expanded
field', in H. Foster (ed.), Vision &
Visuality (Seattle, 1988), 91-2.
[61] Ovid, Fasti, 2.684.
[62] Aristides, Orationes, 26.61.
[63] Ibid., Orationes, 26.6.
[64] For an ancient conceptualization
of the view from Olympus see Lucian’s Ikaromenippos from the second
century AD.
[65] Also interpreted as anno urbis
conditae, 'the year of the city’s foundation'.
[66] Cicero, De finibus, 5.2.
[67] Edwards, 'Imaginaires', 235-45.
[68] Plutarch, Moralia, 559a.
[69] R. Mellor, Thea Rhōmē. The Worship of the Goddess
Roma in the Greek World (Göttingen, 1975), 19, passim; 'The Goddess Roma', Aufsteig und Niedergang der römischen Welt, 2 (1981), 952-9; C. Fayer, Il
culto della dea Roma (Pescara, 1976). In an interesting twist, the early cults of Roma established
by Greek cities could prohibit worship by aliens, including Romans.
[70] H. Kunckel, Der römische Genius (Heidelberg, 1974). On the relationship between Roma and
the Demos of the Romans see J.R. Fears, 'Ho demos ho Romaion: Genius Populi Romani. A note on the origin of Dea
Roma', Mnemosyne, 31, 3 (1978),
274-86.
[71] In disjointed stories Rhome
appeared as a heroine variously involved with Odysseus, Aeneas and the
foundation of Rome. Opinions vary
whether these stories were developed by the Greeks in emulation of their own
myths or by the Romans as revisionist self-promotion; C.P. Jones, review of Thea Rhōmē by R. Mellor, Phoenix, 31, 1 (Spring,
1977), 77-81.
[72] The Augustan Age introduced the
concept of Rome as eternal (urbs aeterna). Hadrian formalized the cult of Roma Aeterna and renamed the
Parilia festival the 'Romea'; K.J. Pratt, 'Rome as Eternal', Journal of the
History of Ideas, 26 (Jan. 1965), 25-9; M.T. Boatwright, Hadrian and the City of
Rome (Princeton, 1987), 120-8.
[73] M. Cullhed, Conservator Urbis
Suae: Studies in the Politics and Propaganda of the Emperor Maxentius (Stockholm, 1994).
[74] C. Vermeule, The Goddess Roma
in the Art of the Roman Empire (Cambridge, MA, 1959), passim, and Boardman et al. (eds.), Lexicon iconographicum, 8:1,
1048-68.
[75] The twins are also problematic as urban icons for
Rome. Though usually shown as
infants, their association as adults with a fratricide, even if in conjunction
with the founding of Rome, was obviously negative; T.P. Wiseman, Remus, a
Roman myth (Cambridge, 1995) 16-17. The hut
of Romulus was preserved in Rome and represented on coins, yet was too simple
and rustic to serve as a signifier for the great marble city; C. Edwards, Writing
Rome, Textual Approaches to the City (Cambridge, 1996), 32-8.
[76] Representations of the emperor were
both too personal and too broad in associations to stand as icons for the city,
even for rulers who exploited the idea of Rome to strengthen their position as
did Augustus, Hadrian and Maxentius; Pratt, 'Rome as eternal', 28.
[77] The city was also represented by abbreviations such as
SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus). More research needs to be done to ascertain the distribution and reception
of the Latin 'Roma' in the Greek-speaking east.
[78] Edwards’ insightful book shows that the Romans constructed their capital
from texts as well as stones; Writing Rome, passim.
[79] Earlier versions of the map have
been postulated for the Augustan and Flavian eras; Pliny, Naturalis
historia, 3.66-7. Less than a
quarter of the FUR remains today. The Stanford Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project has done extensive valuable
research on the marble map and compiled an extensive annotated bibliography:
http://formaurbis.stanford.edu/.
[80] The scale variations ranged from
1:189 to 1:413.
[81] The FUR is frequently
discussed in conjunction with the world map of Agrippa from the Augustan Age also
displayed in Rome. With no
physical remains, scholars argue whether the world map was geographic or
chorographic in form, or a written list; Nicolet, Space, 95-122, 171; Dilke, Maps, 41-53, 96; K.
Brodersen, Terra cognita. Studien zur
römischen Raumerfassung (Hildesheim,
1995), 275-86.
[82] Regarding the debated function of the FUR see: G. Carettoni, A.M. Colini, L.
Cozza and G. Gatti, La Pianta Marmorea di Roma Antica. Forma Urbis Romae (Rome, 1960), 213-28; Nicolet, Space, 158-59; D.W.
Reynolds, 'The lost architecture of ancient Rome. Insights from the Severan Plan and the regionary catalogues', Expedition 39, 2
(1997), 15-24.
[83] Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue, 61-6.