How did the use of public space differ between Greek and Roman cities?

[LookAlive]

This is my essay title and if possible I'd like a little bit of help starting it!

 

I need a good structure (would stating the similarities and the differences be a good structure?) and argument (although I'm sure after working out my structure I can devise a decent argument). I also need to know what these differences and similarities were?

 

I'm assuming the title refers to areas such as forums, ampitheatres etc. so I thought this would be the best place to ask.

 

Thanks a lot for any help you can offer me!

 

LookAlive

[Kosmo]

Welcome!

It looks like your in the wrong subforum, this is about news.

Your essay will have some problems I think because: roman cities are based on greek and hellenistic models, many roman cities are actually greek/hellenistic cities that lived on under roman rule (how you classify Syracusa, Athens, Ephesus or Antioh?)

If in the West roman expansion brought in many places a new type of city and architecture in the East there is no major change.

For me there is no clear cut distinction between the two.

Good luck!

[Nephele]

Welcome!

It looks like your in the wrong subforum, this is about news.

 

Moved to Academia.

[Maty]

Did they differ?

 

The first question is Greek when and Roman when? Are we comparing fifth century Athens with imperial Rome? If so we may be looking at differences of evolution rather than culture.

 

Let's also see what counts as public space. I'm assuming the question refers to urban space, though one might consider the agri publici as public space as well. For most Roman public spaces there is a Greek equivalent. Comitium = pnyx(or whatever) forum = agora, taverns and inns were more or less the same, and temples were temples, though the Romans cared less how they were oriented. Roman theatres were as in Greece, because they were Greek theatres.

 

The differences - well, amphitheatres were Roman though the Greeks were quick to adopt them. Only the Romans went in for triumphal arches as far as I know, and the baths were distinct from Greek gymnasia. I'd say that another difference with Roman public space is that there was a heck of a lot of it - at least 40% of all of Rome was public space of some kind.

 

Finally the use of these spaces - well the Greeks liked processions more than the Romans did, and I don't recall a lot of politics happening in the agora, while the forum was very political. 'Proper' Greek women appeared less in public spaces, and the Romans did not like armed soldiers in theirs. That's about all I can contribute off -hand. I'll be interested in what others can add.

[M. Porcius Cato]

What a fascinating question!

 

Just to add to Maty's excellent post -- I'd like to add roads to the mix of public spaces. Like the Romans, the Greeks certainly had a sophisticated network of roads connecting their cities to harbors, to shrines, and to one another, but my impression is that the Greeks didn't have the same level of road-culture (road decor, roadside necropolii, road markers, overall road quality, etc) built up around it that the Romans did. One might argue that this is merely an evolutionary difference -- that the Greeks *would* have built up their road-culture if only the Greeks had been more successful in their imperial expansion, etc. But, I'm not so sure about that argument. The Greeks were notoriously fractious, competitive, and independent, with Greek colonies joined only by sea-routes and little attention paid to building infrastructure among Greek cities capable of moving large armies (and why would they, since they were normally at war with one another anyway?). To my mind, the failure of the Greeks to build a proper highway system really is emblematic of a cultural difference with the Romans, one that's at least as important as differences in the orientation of temples.

[sylla]

... I don't recall a lot of politics happening in the agora, while the forum was very political.

That might be so because it's seemingly an asymmetric comparison; the Roman equivalent of the Hellenic agora as a commercial center would have most likely been the Trajan's market; for Athens, the equivalent of the Roman forum as a political meeting center would have been the Pnyx. Edited December 11, 2009 by sylla

[Melvadius]

As Sylla has mentioned in Athens the ruling body was the Ekklesia which was made up of citizens enrolled in the deme and over 18 meet outdoors on Pnyx hill to the south-west of the agora you could make comparisons with the Roman senate or the more local town administrations which tended to meet in smaller numbers and indoors.

 

You may also want to consider the place the hermai had in Greek (or at least Athenain society) and the place of other statuary - I've been told that it seems to have been a fairly common Greek practice to place statues of benefactors of the city in the theatres (actually amongst the seating) as well as near temples while the Romans tended to placed their commemorative statues in or near the fora as well as some at temples.

 

BTW on the point of Greek road building or rather lack of it as much as anything that can probably be put down to how difficult the terrain was compared to Italy - it was usually much easier to send a ship around the coast than to put in the effort of road building.