In the last couple of lectures we have looked at what happened

when Rome took over civilizations that were older

than Rome's own, and arguably even more advanced

than Rome's own.

And what happened, of course, was an interesting

mix between the architecture and the architectural forms that the

Romans brought with them, and what they found in these

highly developed civilizations, and the interesting mix that

came about because of that.

But we've also taken a look at what happens when Rome went out

and created cities essentially from scratch,

built cities where there had been no cities before.

And what happened as a result tended to be cities that looked

very much in the Roman stamp.

And we're going to look at a number of those cities today,

in the western provinces of the Empire,

in fact, to see what happens again when Rome builds cities

from scratch in that part of the world,

and, as I mentioned already, the distinctive stamp,

this distinctive Roman stamp that they had.

But at the same time there is always some impact from the

local civilization, and to mention in passing that,

at least in the part of the world that we'll be

concentrating on today, especially in Gaul,

ancient Gaul, the Celtic tribes were foremost

there, and we do see that some of the

impact of those tribes makes itself felt,

as well as tribes in other parts of this part of the

ancient Roman world.

Just as a reminder, I want to show you again a

couple of the monuments that we looked at last time,

when we were talking about Greece and about Athens under

the Romans.

And I remind you, for example on the left-hand

side of the screen, of this Temple of Olympian

Zeus, the Olympieion in Athens, which was begun already in the

Archaic period, the Greek Archaic period,

continued to be built up-- those, the patrons tried to

complete it, in the course of the

Hellenistic period into the Augustan period,

and ultimately, as you'll remember,

it was completed under the emperor Hadrian.

So a building with a very long history and a very distinctive

style.

And when it was completed under Hadrian,

of course, you'll recall that it looked entirely Greek --

very similar to what it would have been in the Hellenistic

period.

So those--again, the Greeks holding very

tenaciously to their own plans, to their building materials,

and indeed to the kinds of architects and artisans to carve

them, that had been carving them for

centuries.

We also took a look at the building on the right-hand side

of the screen, which is the Horologion of

Andronicus, or the Tower of the Winds.

And you'll remember in this case that the civilization that

had impact on it was another firmly entrenched civilization

and that is that of Egypt.

We talked about the fact that while the date of this monument

is controversial-- it might be second century

B.C., it might be Caesarian, or even into the Augustan

period--it's controversial, but we talked about the fact

that even though the date is controversial,

that the monument itself was built under very strong

influence from Ptolemaic Egypt.

The Ptolemaic Egyptians particularly intrigued,

for example, by clocks--this was a water

clock, as you'll remember--and by

these abstruse, identifications of abstruse

winds, male winds, that we see in the uppermost

part.

So again, the impact of two very high civilizations--

the Greek civilization and the Egyptian civilization--

on Roman architecture in the eastern part of the world.

Today we're going to go west, and we're going to look at

Roman architecture in a variety of places,

including--and some beautiful places--

including the south of France: a series of cities--

and I'll point those out to you in a moment--

in the north of Italy.

So the north of Italy, the south of France,

into Spain, into what is now Spain.

And then also we will dip into an area called Istria,

which is the uppermost part of what is now Croatia,

where a place by the name of Pola is located.

So those western provinces will be the area that we're going to

concentrate on today.

Now any of you who've traveled in this part of the world know

that it is extraordinarily beautiful.

And I show you just one example of that.

When you go along the French Riviera,

for example, you see places as sophisticated

as Monte Carlo, with its yachts moored here,

and of course with its glittering nightlife and its

extremely famous casino, the Casino at Monte Carlo.

There are also other wonderful cities to visit along here,

modern cities, such that of Villefranche,

which you see here, and its fabulous pastel colored

houses, with boats that are not quite

as magnificent as those at Monte Carlo,

but nonetheless very picturesque, a wonderful place

to visit.

So it's not a hardship to have to travel and look at Roman

antiquities in the south of France.

I want to begin though with northern Italy,

with a city in the north of Italy, a city at a place called

Aosta.

It's the first on your Monument List for today.

A city that was founded by the Romans in 24 B.C.,

in the time of Augustus.

And therefore it won't surprise you to hear that its ancient

Roman name was Augusta Praetoria: Augusta Praetoria,

the modern city of Aosta.

And it was the last colony that the Romans founded in Italy;

the last colony.

And it's interesting to see therefore that this last Roman

colony in Italy takes almost exactly the shape of the first

Roman colony in Italy.

You'll remember the city of Ostia, which the Romans founded

in 350 B.C., and the way in which it conformed to the

typical castrum plan.

We see the same thing here.

We see this typical castrum plan for Aosta:

a rectangle, a regular rectangle,

laid out according to Roman surveying practice.

We see that the two major streets of the city,

the cardo and the decumanus,

meet in the center, and that at that intersection

of those two main streets we see the location,

as it should be, of the forum,

most likely.

You'll see a question mark there, so we're not absolutely

sure, but we think that the forum was located there.

If you look around at the rest of the city,

it was very regularly laid out, with a series of buildings that

we've become accustomed to seeing in a typical Roman city,

when a typical Roman city is built from the basics.

You see the baths here.

You see a temple up there, with a cryptoporticus.

You see a theater and you see an amphitheater.

This site, by the way, spectacularly located in the

Italian Alps.

It's at the intersection of two major trade routes,

in the St.

Bernard passes, as you can see from this plan

that comes from Ward-Perkins.

And what you can also see, that's typical of these cities

that the Romans build from scratch around the western part

of the Empire, is the fact that the city is

ringed with walls, and that it has a series of

gates, the openings of which you can also see in this excellent

plan.

Now I can show you also from the city of Aosta a surviving

Roman arch, one of those gateways in fact,

from the city, that we know dates to the age

of Augustus.

So we give it a date, the same date,

roughly 24 B.C.

You see it here.

You see, if you remember the arches that we've discussed from

the Augustan period in the past, you'll note right off that this

is very consistent with other Augustan arch design.

By that I mean it has one single arcuated bay,

in the center, flanked on either side by

pedestals, wide pedestals that have a set

of double columns on either side,

as you can see here.

The major difference between this and an arch that might have

been put up in Rome at the same time,

in the Augustan period, is the fact that it is made out

of local stone, which is characteristic of so

much of provincial Roman architecture,

and will be the case for most of the buildings that we look at

today.

The attic is gone.

There's a modern roof on top of the structure.

The ancient attic is gone.

But you can imagine that it would've had a fairly

traditional attic, with an inscription at the apex

and probably some kind of sculpture crowning the monument

in antiquity.

Now there's one detail that has to do with the orders that are

used here that is different from any other arch that we've seen

before.

And I wonder if any of you notice what that is.

The columnar orders.

They are what?

Doric, Ionic or Corinthian?

Students: Corinthian.

Prof: Corinthian.

Okay, everyone agrees they're Corinthian.

You're absolutely correct.

But what is strange about the fact--if you look above those

Corinthian columns, what do you see that doesn't

usually go with Corinthian columns?

Student: Oh, the triglyphs.

Prof: The triglyphs and the metopes;

the triglyphs and the metopes that tend to accompany the Doric

order.

So this is very interesting.

We see this mixing of the orders here, the use of

Corinthian columns but a Doric frieze with triglyphs and

metopes.

You'd never see that in Rome itself.

But what it is, is an interesting playing

around with the canonical orders that have been passed from Rome

to this part of the world.

This particular architect or patron,

or the city itself, whoever was the patron of this

particular monument, made the decision to go in a

somewhat different route.

So an interesting mixing of the orders --

an eccentric arch in that regard, but in every other

conforming quite closely to what we would see in Rome,

the city of Rome contemporaneously.

I want to go from Aosta, in the north of Italy,

to the south of France, to Provence,

to take a look at the original town plan of the city of Arles,

the well-known city of Arles.

And those of you who know it, or have been there,

know it probably primarily as the city of Vincent van Gogh.

It's in the city of Arles he spent a good deal of time.

He went to this particular café so often that it has

borne his name for some time, the Café

Van Gogh.

And you see another view of a lovely piazza in the city of--or

plaza in the city of Arles.

And then the famous painting of Van Gogh,

the panting that he made of this particular café,

that he used to spend so much time in,

a café again, as you see here,

that is still there, and where you can yourselves go

and sip an aperitif or whatever.

This part, the city of Arles, a wonderful place to go.

It has a very--I'm not going to show it to you in any detail,

just a glimpse here of its famous amphitheater.

It has a very well-preserved Roman amphitheater.

And the fact that France is so close--

as you can see in that map I showed you before--