The Romans - Gallery 6: Art & Architecture

One of several homes, Pliny’s villa at Laurentum was where he spent some of the winter months. (Plan adapted from H. L. Rogers and T. R. Harley, The Life of Rome, Clarendon Press 1927)

Bust of Julia Paula, wife of Elagabalus, emperor AD 218--22. (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek: René Seindal)

Marble head of Caracalla, emperor AD 211--17. (VRoma (Riley Sculpture Collection): John Gruber-Miller)

Gold aureus of Septimius Severus AD 193--6, depicting his wife Julia Domna with her title of Augusta. (VRoma: National Museums, Rome: Barbara McManus)

(VRoma: Lisanne Marshall)

Trajan’s column, detail.(VRoma: Leslie Flood) A spiral band about 1 metre deep and 200 metres long winds twenty-three times round the shaft from bottom to top, carrying 155 continuous scenes. Though there is not a great deal of attention given to perspective, the effect is of activity and action in which there are more than 2500 different human figures.

Trajan himself appears frequently in the scenes. Here a Dacian prisoner is brought before him. (VRoma: EUR (Rome), Museum of Roman Civilization: Barbara McManus)

Aeneas carries his father Anchises and leads his son Ascanius from burning Troy: copy of a wall painting from Pompeii, first century AD. (VRoma: EUR (Rome), Museum of Roman Civilization: Barbara McManus)

Wall painting of a garden scene with fountain and birds, from Oplontis, first century AD. (VRoma: Barbara McManus)

Display shelves and painting of food, from a Roman restaurant of the third century AD. (VRoma: Susan Bonvallet)

(VRoma: Jeremy Walker)

Detail from a mosaic from the Aventine Hill: dancing girl with musicians. (VRoma: Vatican Museums, Rome: Barbara McManus)

Red jasper sealstone ring depicting a chariot race in the Circus Maximus, second or third century AD. (VRoma: British Museum: Barbara McManus)

First-century AD sardonyx cameo depicting a seated poet, a woman, and a man playing the double flute. (VRoma: British Museum: Barbara McManus)

Portrait of Domitia, wife of emperor Domitian, engraved on a gemstone. The head is 10mm high. (From Sir John Edwin Sandys (ed.), A Companion to Latin Studies, Cambridge University Press 1913)

Plan of a typical Roman house

Reconstruction of a street in Pompeii. (Illustration by John Pittaway from Picture Reference Ancient Romans, Brockhampton Press 1970)

Model of a Roman room in a well-to-do home. (VRoma: Museum of London: Paula Chabot)

Reconstruction of a simple room based on Roman houses excavated in Newgate, London. Furniture, food, and room are replicas. Artefacts on the table - tablets and stylus, dishes, board game - are original. (VRoma: Museum of London: Barbara McManus)

Public latrines, such as this one in Rome, also served a social function. The trend extended to private houses: the villa at Settefinestre, near Cosa, built in 75 BC, sports a communal lavatory seating twenty people at a time. (VRoma: Leslie Flood)

From Helen and Richard Leacroft, The Buildings of Ancient Rome, Brockhampton Press 1969.

Central heating was invented by Sergius Oresta in about 100 BC. 1] Marble wall facings. 2] Mosaic floor on cement. 3] Bricks on brick piers. 4] Wall flues. 5] Hot air from furnaces. (From Helen and Richard Leacroft, The Buildings of Ancient Rome, Brockhampton Press 19

(Illustration by John Pittaway from Picture Reference Ancient Romans, Brockhampton Press 1970)

(From Helen and Richard Leacroft, The Buildings of Ancient Rome, Brockhampton Press 1969)

Opus reticulatum, Pompeii. (VRoma: Lisanne Marshall)

Cutaway drawing of the Pantheon, showing the inside of the building. The hemispherical dome is 43.28 metres in diameter, and if completed would exactly touch the ground. The only light falls through an eight-metre wide gap in the top (see note in right hand column). (From Helen and Richard Leacroft, The Buildings of Ancient Rome, Brockhampton Press 1969)

Model of central Rome in the fourth century AD, from the south. (VRoma: EUR (Rome), Museum of Roman Civilization: Barbara McManu

Cutaway model of a typical Roman baths. (Saalberg Museum: Barbara McManus)

The whole theatre could be covered by the velarium, a great canvas roof hung on masts to protect the audience from the sun. The public entered and left the auditorium through openings known as vomitoria, according to where their seats were. (From Helen and Richard Leacroft, The Buildings of Ancient Rome, Brockhampton Press 1969)

Maison Carrée, Nîmes, built probably in 16 BC, is the most complete remaining example of the temple architecture of the Augustan age. (VRoma: AICT)

Hadrian’s Wall was built largely between AD 122 and 127 on the orders of the emperor Hadrian to facilitate the control of the frontier between Britain and the tribes to the north. Except for the period between about AD 143 and 165, when the Antonine Wall was in operation across the Clyde - Forth isthmus, Hadrian’s Wall marked the northernmost frontier of the empire. It ran 73 miles from coast to coast, following the natural crags in the terrain, and comprised a V-shaped ditch up to 5 metres deep and 12 metres wide, dug where necessary out of solid rock. Behind it was a wall 5 metres high and about 3 wide, with battlements on top. There were seventeen forts along its length, and every Roman mile a tower, between each pair of which were two fortified turrets. (VRoma: Susan Bonvallet)

Illustration by John Pittaway from Picture Reference Ancient Romans, Brockhampton Press 1970.

Arch of Septimius Severus in the Forum, erected AD 203 to celebrate his victories over the Parthians and the Osroeni. (René Seindal)

At Alcántara in Spain, six arches of unmortared blocks of granite, the two centre ones 55 metres above the water, carry the road across the river Tagus. The bridge was built in about AD 106, and an inscription in a temple nearby reads: “The celebrated Lacer built this bridge with supreme skill to endure through the ages to eternity.” (VRoma: Paula Chabot)

The Pont du Gard, 25 km west of Avignon, originally 275 metres long, carried water along a channel on top of three tiers of arches towering 50 metres above the river. (VRoma: AICT)

Reconstruction of the water channel of the Pont du Gard, first century AD. (From Helen and Richard Leacroft, The Buildings of Ancient Rome, Brockhampton Press 1969)

In the model of Rome, the Claudian aqueduct (foreground) nears the end of its journey. It was one of eleven similar structures which brought water to the city. (VRoma: EUR (Rome), Museum of Roman Civilization: Barbara McManus)

Model of Roman crane. (VRoma: Paula Chabot)