Ancient Roman Architecture
Uploaded by CLoNE189 on Sep 14, 1999
The ancient Romans are famous for many things. One thing is their adaptation and development of architecture. From the Etruscans and early tribes the Romans found most of their basic architectural skills. From the Greeks some components of Roman architecture were adapted. Which gives some early Roman architecture some characteristics of oriental architecture because of Greek contact with the Orient. The heart of Roman architecture was the Roman forum, which was really being constructed under the rule of Octavian (Augustus) Caesar. As time progressed the Roman architecture went into a stage of Greek like buildings. After this Roman architecture as we know it today was starting to take form.
Etruscan architecture was really the beginning of Roman architecture. For example in Etruscan tombs people would find many types of architectural traits found in many Roman buildings. Like the fact they had vaulted entrances. Some cities had an influence, such as the fortified city of Norba. After this Greece started to gain control in Italy that greatly affected the Roman architecture of this time but not as much as Etruscan does in the future. When the Greeks came in Rome was building their new buildings in the classic Greek vaulted construction with Doric style columns. The start of this was in 179 B.C., it started with the planing of the Temple to Fortuna Virilis. This was completed in approximately 100 B.C. Then shortly after the completion of the Tabularium built in the time of Sulla. In this period under the dictator Sulla, Hellenistic architecture flourished in Rome, with the buildings Lindos, Cos, the acropolis at Pergamon, Fortuna at Praeneste, the sanctuary of Hercules Victor at Tibur, and the temple of Jupiter Anxur at Terracina. Though all these buildings were noticeably Hellenistic, they retained the Roman's own unique architectural style. Such as the cylindrical shape of Forum Boarium, this was an original shape for the Romans along with the roof.
Eventually the Hellenistic architecture was being pushed out by Romanization. When Rome gained leadership over Neighboring countries and was starting to unite the cities, in about 300 B.C. Rome started to gain it's own unique architectural culture. When Rome was expanding they build grids of roads, and with this advance Rome had a much greater ability to build massive projects. Such as Octavian (Augustus) Caesar's Forum, aqueducts, temples, jetties, safe ports, bridges, marsh drainage and the first truly planned cities. These cities were...