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A building is an instrument a polity’s members use for reaching their purposes which are sometimes public, sometimes private, and always coordinated through politics with other purposes. A building is an instrument a polity’s members use for reaching their purposes which are sometimes public, sometimes private, and always coordinated through politics with other purposes.
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The Organic Ideal of the Ancient City The Organic Ideal of the Ancient City
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The Crown of Walls The Crown of Walls
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Monumental Streets and Spaces of Antonine Cities Monumental Streets and Spaces of Antonine Cities
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Public Buildings, the ‘Ornaments’ of Antonine Cities Public Buildings, the ‘Ornaments’ of Antonine Cities
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107Chapter 6 Buildings, Politics, and the Monumentality of Antonine Cities
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Published:November 2007
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Abstract
We have seen how the forms of individual buildings under the Antonines reflected the desires of patrons or architects to achieve what we might call ‘monumentality’, often at the expense of other, less imposing buildings around them. But as these were public buildings they also reflected on the dignity of the city. Every town in the Roman Empire was an amalgam of many different single constructions that each represented the aspirations of their builders. So how far did entire Roman cities possess ‘monumentality’ in their own right, and how much did individual monumental buildings contribute to it? Did the monumentality of the city amount to more than the sum of its parts? And to what extent did monumental architecture, which for individual patrons and architects involved self-assertion and rivalry with others, express a spirit of inter-city rivalry that threatened the unity of Empire? Buildings have political meaning in many ways. Various facets of the political aspect of architecture in the ancient world have been set out by Wolfgang Sonne. First, the erection of a public building is itself a political and public activity, because it is a highly visible process and involves large numbers of workmen. The impact of this factor on popular awareness of architecture is often neglected, but the monuments of contractors employed during the building boom in Flavian and Trajanic Rome suggest that the physical aspects of construction, such as huge cranes and scaffolding structures, had themselves a certain monumentality. Second, the visual layout of public architecture can have political implications, especially the relative amounts of space given to public and private buildings and their distribution and size. In this way architecture shows how power is shared in a community. Third, some buildings are political in function, not only assemblybuildings like the Roman Curia Julia, but also audience-halls, public precincts, temples, theatres, and amphitheatres housing imperial rituals. Finally, architecture can be used as a medium of political propaganda: for example, public spaces like the Fora of Augustus and Trajan, adorned with deliberately chosen political statuary, or the imperial palaces of Augustus or Domitian.
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