Rome's Urban Metamorphoses under Augustus

[Ursus]

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From: Bryn Mawr Classical Review <bmcreview@...>

Date: Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 5:45 AM

Subject: BMCR 2009.04.75: Macaulay-Lewis on Haselberger, Urbem

adornare: die Stadt Rom und ihre Gestaltumwandlung unter Augustus =

Rome's Urban Metamorphosis under Augustus (English translation of the

main text by Alexander Thein). Journal of Roman Archaeology.

Supplementary Series; no. 64

To: bmcr-l@..., bmr-l@...

 

 

 

Lothar Haselberger, Urbem adornare: die Stadt Rom und ihre

Gestaltumwandlung unter Augustus = Rome's Urban Metamorphosis under

Augustus (English translation of the main text by Alexander Thein).

Journal of Roman Archaeology. Supplementary Series; no. 64.

Portsmouth, R.I.: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2007. Pp. 288. ISBN

9781887829649. $99.00.

 

Reviewed by Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis, Oxford University

(Elizabeth.macaulay@...)

Word count: 2039 words

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[Table of Contents (in English and German) at the end of the review.]

 

Rome and its physical transformation under Augustus remains one of the

most popular subjects for scholars and students of the ancient world.

Because of this interest in Augustan Rome, saying something new is

often a challenge. One of the scholars at the forefront of recent work

on Augustan Rome has been Lothar Haselberger. Haselberger's

contribution to the study of the topography of Rome is considerable,

specifically in the form of his Mapping Augustan Rome project and his

work on imagining ancient Rome.[[1]] Here he explores the well-known

topic of the transformation of the city of Rome under Augustus and

builds on the work of previous scholars, specifically Zanker, Favro and

Huelscher (p. 18).[[2]] In six chapters, a postscript and addenda,

Haselberger examines how the Augustan Revolution affected the urban

image of Rome.

 

Chapter 1, "Adorn this city," sets the stage for the main arguments of

the book. This chapter focuses on the idea of "adorning the city," (Dio

52.30.1) and the visual built image of Rome as perceived in the ancient

sources. The discussion is heavily focused on textual analysis, with

archaeology a distant second place here, which is surprising

considering the considerable archaeological evidence there is on the

topic. However, the rest of the book draws on archaeology, epigraphy

and the ancient sources.

 

He also sets out the two main arguments of the book. First, the Campus

Martius was the center of the Augustan building program and its

development reflects a shift away from the center of the Urbs and a new

focus for the city of Rome. Second, he argues that the Augustan

reforms of 7 BC, specifically the reorganization of the city into

fourteen regions and "the all-encompassing 'opening' of the urbs, along

with the neglect of its walls," (p. 36) reflect a radical

transformation of the city. It is this two-pronged transformation of

Rome that allowed Augustus to articulate his "revolutionary realities"

(p. 28). Haselberger sees Augustus as the driver for all of these

programs even if he was not explicitly involved in them; specifically,

he sees Augustus and Agrippa working in concert (p. 36).

 

In Chapter 2, "Rome--a deficient metropolis," Haselberger retraces the

well-accepted facts that Rome was not constructed, planned or organized

the way that a leading ancient metropolis should be and that Augustus

tried to address the scruffy image of Rome, now the capital of the

ancient world, through this extensive building project. The position of

the city on seven hills and its organic development dictated its form

and, as a result, its failure to be as architecturally grand as many

Greek and Hellenistic cities. He argues that the Campus Martius was

the only place where orthogonal planning in accordance with cardinal

points could be applied since it was outside the heart of the city of

Rome (pp. 40-43). In other words, in Haselberger's opinion, it was the

only part of the city whose urban image could be made into something

comparable or superior to the cities of the Greek East and, even,

Alexandria.

 

Chapter 3, "La grande Rome--creating and preserving the new Rome" (pp.

70-221), explores the development of the Campus Martius. The

development of the Campus Martius, which commenced under Caesar and

Pompey, continued unabated under the auspices of Augustus and Agrippa.

It became a "new urban landscape" of gleaming monumental architecture

and green space (p. 126). There is little doubt of this from the

textual and surviving archaeological data. However, Haselberger's image

of an orderly, designed Campus Martius, is not sustained in his

discussion of the various building projects. This argument becomes

increasingly difficult to support when one considers the buildings

whose locations in the Campus Martius are known archaeologically and

those buildings and properties whose placement in the Campus Martius

remains unknown. The boundaries of the Horti Agrippae, Thermae

Agrippae, Horti Pompei, the park complex associated with the Mausoleum

of Augustus are unknown. Even Haselberger's maps from Mapping Augustan

Rome suggest that there are large portions of the Campus Martius that

we simply do not know enough about to assess its organization

accurately.

 

Furthermore, Haselberger sees the Campus Martius as the focus of the

Augustan building program. It was certainly a critical part of the

program; however, he underplays Augustus's restoration or construction

of new monuments within the bounds of the old Urbs, specifically the

eighty-two temples mentioned in the Res Gestae, his completion of the

Forum Iulium, the construction of the Forum Augustum, the restoration

of the city gates, and his building projects in the Roman Forum. While

Haselberger discusses these projects (pp. 127-144), he sees them as

secondary to the building works of Agrippa and the construction of

monuments on the Campus Martius. Clearly, Augustus focused on these

monuments; the construction or restoration of temples reflected his

ideological goal of restoring pietas, one of Republican Rome's core

values, while Agrippa, probably with Augustus's approval, carried out

the bulk of the improvements to the Campus Martius. While the Campus

Martius was undoubtedly important, as its new public monuments

presented Rome as an imperial city and underlined the importance of

public building, Augustus and his associates focused on restoring and

transforming all of Rome.[[3]] Haselberger also places the

transformation of the city in a strict chronological framework, seeing

the first two decades of Augustus's reign until 7 BC as the most

critical for the development of the new urban image of Rome.

 

Chapter 4, "The silent revolution of 7 BC--the 'open city,' " serves as

a platform for Haselberger's second argument that Augustus' other

radical transformation of the city occurred with the reorganization of

city into fourteen regions that included the suburban part of the city

and even a whole region across the Tiber. As he observes, Rome became a

city without walls, whose gates became open gateways, and the suburban

edge of the city became subject to the city's administration, although

the pomerium was not extended to include these domains. This was quite

revolutionary, since many cities in Roman Italy were still walled.

Rome, like Sparta, "was protected by its strength rather than its

walls" (p. 230). The opening of the gates, the decline of Rome's walls

and her urban boundaries remain understudied generally and should

provide a fruitful area for further study.

 

Chapter 5, "Augustus' new Rome," summarizes Haselberger's two

arguments. Although with a slightly different emphasis on the Campus

Martius and the opening of the city, Haselberger presents the same

argument about the transformation of Augustan Rome that we have seen

before. She became an imperial capital from a city of brick. In

conclusion, Haselberger's argument for the centrality of the Campus

Martius in Augustan Rome is less convincing and original than his

argument about the opening of the city and its transformative power.

While the Campus Martius becomes a space for public entertainment and

leisure, the political, religious and ceremony heart of Rome remained

the Forum Romanum and Forum Augustum. The continued imperial focus on

this region remained throughout Rome's history.

 

This study, however, makes a number of useful contributions. It

provides a clear overview and narrative for the Augustan building

programs and a precise chronology; his list of Augustan buildings

(Chapter 6, "Augustan buildings in Rome: a list") is particularly

helpful, it gives dates for the years of dedication and individuals

involved in the various Augustan building projects. It serves as a good

starting point for a student new to Augustan Rome or for a scholar

engaging with complex topographical arguments.

 

Now let us briefly discuss certain issues of the bilingual German and

English text, formatting and images. Publishing the text in German and

English is laudable; Haselberger's ideas are quickly available to a

wider range of scholars, and the book achieves its goal of engaging

non-German scholars with the German tradition of Bauforschung (p. 10).

However, the decision not to translate the footnotes or the addenda is

irritating. Only the most active of readers will hunt through the

long, complicated footnotes to find references. Inevitably, those

reading in English naturally find themselves ignoring the footnotes,

and thus, do not get as much out of the book as they could.

Furthermore, not all of the captions of the images (for example, Abb.

3, p. 47) are translated. As an experiment in this type of bilingual

publishing, the book is fairly successful and should encourage similar

efforts; however, a full translation would make the book even more

accessible and user-friendly.

 

Finally, for a book on the metamorphosis of Augustan Rome, it is far

too short on maps and images. There are only four figures and a total

of nine images, including one small map that only depicts part of the

Campus Martius. This work assumes that one will have Haselberger's

previous book, Mapping Augustan Rome, or at least a map of Rome, to

hand when assessing his arguments (p. 10); if one does, this book is

much easier to use. It would have been helpful if at least one or two

large-scale maps, perhaps of pre- and post-7 BC Rome, had been included

to allow the reader to follow and dissect Haselberger's arguments.

Considering Haselberger's recent work on creating accurate visual

reconstructions of ancient Rome and the topic of this book on the urban

image of Rome, it is also surprising that no reconstructions play a

role in it. Inclusion of such images might have also strengthened his

arguments, particularly those about the organization of the Campus

Martius, by helping the reader to visualize the transformation of Rome

and understand how the topography of Rome changed during this period in

its history.

 

Table of Contents (In English and German)

 

FOR ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF MAIN TEXT

List of figures 6

Special abbreviations 7

Preface 8

I. "Adorn this city" 12

Problems and perspectives 16

The territorial definition of the Urbs 18

built urban image 22

Leading and directing public building 28

Augustus' own urban building as represented in the Res gestae 32

Campus Martius and Urbs 36

II. Rome--a deficient metropolis 40

Not yet adorned 40

Attempts at a solution 46

Caesar's inheritance and new initiatives 54

Programmatic building 64

III. "La grande Rome"--creating and preserving the new Rome 70

Staging the project (29/28 B.C.) 72

Building the Campus Martius: monumenta Agrippae (27-19 B.C.) 100

Suburb and "the rest of the Urbs" (27-19 B.C.) 128

A Rome transformed: aurea saecula (19-7 B.C.) 150

Sealing and confirming (7 B.C.-A.D. 14) 192

IV. The silent revolution of 7 B.C.--the "open city" 222

Regiones and urban territory 224

A city without walls 230

V. Augustus' new Rome 238

New city and old Urbs 238

Traumatic notions 244

Augustus' program and "deception" 248

VI. Augustan buildings in Rome: a list 256

Postscript 266

Addenda 272

Select bibliography 275

Indices 277

Rome: buildings and localities 277

Other cities and places 280

Terms, aspects, concepts 280

Prosopography (except authors) 282

Ancient authors 283

Inscriptions, papyri, coins 287

 

INHALTSVERZEICHNIS

Abbildungsverzeichnis 6

Besondere Abkuerzungen 7

Vorwort 9

I. "Schm7uuml;cke diese Stadt" 13

Fragen und Perspektiven 17

Die Urbs 19

Gebautes Stadtbild 23

Lenkung und Leitung 29

Die Res gestae 33

Marsfeld und Urbs 37

II. Rom--Weltstadt mit Maengeln 41

"Noch nicht geschmueckt" 41

Loesungsversuche 47

Caesars Erbe und neue Initiativen 55

Bauen als Programm 65

III. "La grande Rome"--Schaffen und Bewahren des neuen Rom 71

Programmatisches Inszenieren (29/28 v.Chr.) 73

Grossbaustelle Marsfeld: monumenta Agrippae (27-19 v.Chr.) 101

Vorstadt und "uebrige Stadt" (27-19 v.Chr.) 129

Ein verwandeltes Rom: aurea saecula (19-7 v.Chr.) 151

Besiegeln und Bekraeftigen (7 v.Chr.-14 n.Chr.) 193

IV. Die stille Revolution von 7 v.Chr.--die "offene Stadt" 223

Gebietsreform und Stadtgebiet 225

Stadt ohne Mauern 230

V. Das neue Rom des Augustus 239

Neue Stadt und alte Urbs 239

Traumatische Stadtfragen 245

Augustus' Programm und "Augentaeuschung" 249

VI. Augusteisches Bauen in Rom: eine Liste 257

Postskript 267

Addenda 272

Bibliographie in Auswahl 275

Register 277

Rom: Bauten und Oertlichkeiten 277

Andere Staedte und Orte 280

Begriffe, Aspekte, Konzepte 280

Antike Personennamen (ohne Autoren) 282

Antike Autoren 283

Inschriften, Papyri, Muenzen 287

------------------

Notes:

 

 

1. Mapping Augustan Rome, directed by Lothar Haselberger in

collaboration with David Gilman Romano; edited by Elisha Ann Dumser.

Journal of Roman archaeology. Suppl. 50, 2002; Imaging ancient Rome:

documentation, visualization, imagination, ed. Lothar Haselberger and

John Humphrey. Journal of Roman Archaeology Suppl. 61, 2006.

 

2. See Hoellscher, T. "Augustus und die Macht der Archaeologie," in

F. Miller et al. La re/volution romaine apre\s Ronald Syme. Bilans et

perspectives (=EntrHardt 2000), 331-58; Favro, D. The Urban Image of

Augustan Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996; Zanker, P.

The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, trans. by Alan Shapiro. Ann

Arbor, 1988.

 

3. Haselberger downplays the importance of the building programs

within the traditional bounds of the city. For example, he sees the

construction of the Naumachia Augusti and the Forum Augustum as two

parts of a "twin project," because the Naumachia was to host a

spectacle celebrating the completion of the Forum Augustum (pp. 194-6).

This seems to overstate the importance of the Naumachia, as the Forum

Augustum was not only one of the most important constructions for its

ideological significance, but it was used on a daily basis and as a

setting for major public events and sacrifices.

 

 

 

 

 

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