Latin 520 (Tiberius): Assignment for Week 9 (Feb. 26-March 2)

Papers: Several of you have already talked to me about your papers and what you’d like to do. If you have not done so, please do by the end of this coming week…by Friday I’d like a working title, please.

As promised, we’ll spend a little more time on the epigraphic record – finish talking about SCPP, and then I’d like to look briefly at T. Heb. and T. Siar. About 30-45 minutes worth.

But the star of the week is the Tiberian building program.

You each have been assigned a building(s) or site. I’d like you to research that, and give a short summary of what you’ve found; locate it on the plan of Rome, too. We will look at these in this order (JB: yours is the Temple of Concordia), beginning on Tuesday (post-epigraphica) and finishing on Thursday:

Ara Amicitiae; Ara Clementiae; Colossus Tiberi

Domus Tiberiana

Theater of Pompey

Castra Praetoria

Arcus Germanici

Arcus Drusi et Germanici; Arcus Tiberii; Arcus Drusi

Sacrarium Divi Augusti

Temple of Concordia

Temple of Augustus

There are a couple of resources for researching these. Start with Richardson’s Topographical Dictionary. This is on our reserve shelf; your monument/site is in this, but you may have to grapple with Richardson’s occasionally creative way of listing it. This will give you brief information AND, most importantly, direct you to the text(s) that provide evidence and occasionally some secondary studies.

The more serious place to look is Steinby’s multi-volume (and multi-lingual) Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae. This is in Suzzallo Reference, and thus cannot be check out. Call number is DG63 .L49 1993. You should look at this: if you’re lucky, the article on your monument will be in English; more likely, in German, French, or Italian. Even if you can’t read it, the article will guide you to more secondary and primary evidence than Richardson.

The venerable Coarelli, you will find, will not be of too much help here, except for some of the bigger (and actually extant) monuments, such as the Domus Tiberiana or the Th. of Pompey. You will find that we know a lot about some of these places, but in most cases very little.

You also might find it interesting to look at the venerable, old-but-still-useful Platner-Ashby, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Oxford 1929). Lucky for you this is available online through Suzzallo (type ‘Platner Ashby’ in the Keyword Search box).

• Ponderanda

The aim here is to give you some sense of the most significant components of Tiberius’ ‘building’ program. The Augustan bp is legendary and obvious. So first question: is it even justifed to talk about a Tiberian building program? What are its characteristics?

In contrast to the Augustan program, whose rich decorative program is exceptionally well documented, we know next to nothing about what was on Tiberian buildings. But theorize about this: what sorts of themes do you think this emperor (and this period) might have favored?