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Article

trireme  

Philip de Souza

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Material Culture
  2. Roman Material Culture

The trireme (Gk. τριήρης, Lat. triremis) was the standard warship of the classical world for much of the time from the 5th cent. bce to the 4th cent. ce. A long rowing-ship, its principal weapon was a bronze ram, fixed on the prow at the water-line. It was rowed by oarsmen arranged in groups of three, sitting one above the other and each oarsman pulling a single oar of equal length. The topmost level of men were called in Greek thranitai, the middle ones zygioi, and the lowest ones thalamioi. On an Athenian trireme of the Classical period there were 170 oarsmen, ten marines, four archers, and sixteen sailors, including the helmsman, making a total of 200. Trials of a modern reconstruction of an Athenian trireme have shown that speeds in excess of 9 knots are possible. Triremes could be rowed with only some of the oars manned, but this reduced speed considerably. For long sailing passages sails were used, but masts were usually removed and left on the shore before battle.

Article

triumphal arch  

Diane Favro

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture

Triumphal arch is the term generally used for an honorific arch (fornix, arcus; ἁψίς, πύλη), one of the most identifiably Roman of building forms. The descriptor is misleading: while arches frequently commemorated military achievements, not all can be linked with triumphs. These memorials also marked the territorial boundaries of cities and provinces, celebrated infrastructure projects such as roads and harbours, and memorialized the achievements of ambitious individuals. Votive associations with temples have been postulated but generally discounted. Simple in form, with one or more arched openings for passage flanked by sturdy piers and topped with a large attic, the honorific arch offered ample space for reliefs, sculptures, and inscriptions conveying directed messages with many, but not all, tied to military achievements. Honorific arches first appeared at Rome in the form of fornices connected with successful generals. Renamed arcus under Augustus, they were applied to the promotion of state values and military expansion as well as the accomplishments of the imperial family. Civic and private examples proliferated, as did particular architectural features: more openings for pedestrian traffic, more lavish embellishments, and a greater range of sizes. Spreading first through Italy, Gaul, and Spain, the form ultimately appeared in every Roman province. Honorific arches were especially popular in North Africa and the eastern provinces, where they served as gates and enriched the experience of urban streets. Punctuating highways in the countryside and harbour works at the shores, arches both explicitly marked regional boundaries and emphasized the Roman ordering of territory and peoples.

Article

triumphal arches, reception of  

Kimberly Cassibry

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
19 July 2023
Subjects:
  1. Reception
  2. Roman History and Historiography
  3. Roman Material Culture

Triumphal arches originated in the Roman Empire and have been constructed for over two thousand years. These free-standing portals are more accurately known as arch monuments, commemorative arches, or honorific arches due to their diverse functions. Arcuated shapes allow these monuments to span significant roads; multiple façades create space for dedicatory inscriptions, relief sculptures, and statues. Varied reception of this fundamental design concept—a free-standing portal with words and images—is evident in each commemorative arch. Reception of individual arch monuments can be traced through descriptions, representations, and interventions.

The Roman arches dedicated to the emperors Titus (c. 81 ce), Septimius Severus and his sons (c. 203 ce), and Constantine I (315 ce) have strongly influenced the monument’s modern reception, even though they do not represent the monument’s full range of ancient designs and functions. In major European revivals since antiquity, ephemeral arches have adorned political processions, and permanent monuments have commemorated imperial military victories. In the 20th century, arch monuments arose in cities around the globe, often amid debates about national identity.

Article

trophies  

Donald Emrys Strong

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Material Culture
  2. Roman Material Culture
The act of dedicating on the field of battle a suit of enemy armour set upon a stake is a specifically Greek practice. Originally intended as a miraculous image of the theos tropaios who had brought about the defeat of the enemy, a trophy marked the spot where the enemy had been routed. Trophies were also dedicated in the sanctuary of the deity to whom victory was ascribed. They appear in art at the end of the 6th cent. bce and were certainly in use during the *Persian Wars.The trophies of the 4th cent. became permanent monuments. The battle of *Leuctra (371 bce) was commemorated by a tower surmounted by a trophy of arms, and from this period onwards the name was applied to various kinds of towers and buildings commemorating military and naval victories. Trophies became a common motif of art; sculptured trophies accompanied by statues of captives and victors decorated the buildings of Hellenistic kings and took an important place in Roman triumphal art from the 1st cent. bce.

Article

Tullianum  

Ian Archibald Richmond and Janet DeLaine

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture

Tullianum, the underground execution cell of the *prison at Rome, flanking the *Comitium, and traditionally associated with Servius *Tullius (Varro, Ling. 5. 151; Festus 356). The derivation from tullus, a spring, is more attractive, for a spring still rises in the present floor, higher than the original. The existing chamber, once circular (diam. c. 7 m.), is built in peperino ashlar not earlier than the 4th cent. bce. The room above it has a travertine front, orientated like the comitium by cardinal points, and repaired between ce 39 and 42 (CIL 6. 31674; cf. ILS 3.). Here were executed most state prisoners, including *Jugurtha, the Catilinarian (see sergius catilina, l.) conspirators, and *Vercingetorix.

Article

urbanism, late Roman  

Samuel James Beeching Barnish

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
The traditional picture of overall decline is being modified by excavations and surveys which show wide variations in place and time, and by partly semantic disputes: are we confronting the death of civic life, or transformations that show its resilience? Is the city an Aristotelian *polis (see section I above), an agency of central government, or simply a large settlement?Imperial supervision of the cities increased greatly from the 3rd cent. The hereditary councils of local gentry that ran them (see decuriones), and collected and underwrote imperial taxes, were more closely watched by governors of now smaller provinces; their task was complicated by taxes now demanded in kind, though probably little heavier (see finance, roman). New provincial capitals might prosper (often at others' expense), but the immunities of the growing imperial bureaucracies and clergy tempted away many of the curial class; a handful of rich councillors (principales) dominated and exploited their remaining colleagues.

Article

urbanism, Roman  

Nicholas Purcell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
The Romans, ‘the most city-proud people known’, in *Procopius' late description (Goth. 8. 22. 7), founded their city-policy and urban ideology principally on their own city. Already in the 6th cent. extensive in surface-area, imposing in its public buildings and private houses, and complex in its management of space, Rome both resembled the cities of the *Etruscans and Latins (*Latini) in many respects, and functioned as a show-case and pioneer of urban form.In the 4th cent. Rome's urban functions were transformed, through the economic and prestige gains of military success, the organization of a huge territory with the expanding tribal system, and new types of relations with neighbouring cities which foreshadowed the incorporative and co-operative citizenship strategies on which a large urban population ultimately depended: the future megalopolis was conceived.It is only from the perspective of the super-city that the long-lasting tradition of Roman urban policy can be understood. Other ancient cities produced offshoot communities which were essentially new cities. Rome alone deployed its population resources, citizen or Latin, in planned locations, maintaining a superior position in terms of status, and a continuing political and governmental relationship which went far beyond any Greek or Carthaginian *mētropolis–*apoikia tie (cf.

Article

Utica  

William Nassau Weech, Brian Herbert Warmington, and R. J. A. Wilson

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture
Utica, by tradition the oldest Phoenician settlement on the north African coast, in Tunisia, 33 km. (21 mi.) north-east of *Tunis. The traditional foundation date of 1101 bce (Plin.HN 16. 216; Vell. Pat. 1. 2. 4; Sil. 3. 241) is not borne out by the archaeological evidence: Utica's earliest traces are burials of the later 8th cent. bce. Although it now lies 11 km. (7 mi.) inland because of coastline changes as a result of silting, Utica was in antiquity an important port at the mouth of the river Bagradas. Within the empire of *Carthage it always retained a position of importance (Polyb. 3. 24. 2; 7. 9. 5). Utica was conquered by *Agathocles (1) of Syracuse in 308 (Diod. Sic. 20. 54) and besieged by P. *Cornelius Scipio Africanus in 204 (Livy 30. 10. 3). A supporter of *Masinissa against Carthage in 149, Utica was rewarded by Rome with lands of the defeated city, and was made a civitas libera (see free cities) and the capital of the new Roman province of *Africa in 146.

Article

Vatican  

Bryan Ward-Perkins

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Christianity
  2. Late Antiquity
  3. Roman Material Culture
  4. Roman Myth and Religion

Vatican, an extramural area of the city of Rome, on the right bank of the *Tiber around the mons Vaticanus. In the early empire the Vatican was the site of an imperial park (the horti Agrippinae); and of entertainment structures, the Naumachiae (see naumachia), where mock sea-battles were exhibited, and the Vatican *circus, where *Gaius(1) set up a great obelisk from Heliopolis and which was traditionally the site of the martyrdom of St Peter. There was also an important shrine of *Cybele (or the Magna Mater) attested in inscriptions; and along the two roads that crossed the area, the via Cornelia and the via Triumphalis, were cemeteries. A group of mausolea on the foot-slopes of the mons Vaticanus were excavated under St Peter's in the 1940s, and within this cemetery (directly under the high altar of St Peter's) was found a small 2nd-cent. shrine, marking the probable burial-site of Peter, apostle and first bishop of Rome.

Article

Velabrum  

Ian Archibald Richmond and John Patterson

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture
Velabrum, according to *Varro (Ling. 5. 43), the landing-place of an ancient ferry connecting the Aventine with the Palatine in Rome; more generally, an area of low ground between the Capitol and Palatine. Originally open to seasonal floods of the Tiber, it was drained by the *Cloaca Maxima, and eventually became one of the busiest commercial centres of the city; the vicus Tuscus and vicus Iugarius, which carried traffic between the *forum Romanum and the Tiber, passed through.

Article

venationes  

Nicholas Purcell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman History and Historiography
  2. Roman Material Culture
‘Hunts’, involving the slaughter of *animals, especially fierce ones, by other animals or human bestiarii (fighters of wild beasts)—and sometimes of criminals by animals, see below—were a major spectacle at Rome from 186 bce. They displayed the ingenuity and generosity of the sponsoring politician, and the reach of Rome, and its power over nature, in procuring exotic species (lions, panthers, bears, bulls, crocodiles, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, elephants): they admitted a privileged city-audience to the glories of traditional aristocratic hunting. Along with gladiatorial fights, they were a principal reason for building *amphitheatres. The emperors gave especially sumptuous displays: 5,000 wild and 4,000 tame animals died at the inauguration of Titus'*Colosseum in 80, and 11,000 at *Trajan's Dacian *triumph (see dacia). Especially in the later 1st cent. ce, criminals might be forced to re-enact gruesome myths (e.g. the killing of *Orpheus by a bear). See gladiators; hunting.

Article

Vetulonia  

D. W. R. Ridgway

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture
Vetulonia (Etr. Vetluna), in the hills to the west of the bay that is now the Grosseto plain, was one of the twelve cities of Etruria (see etruscans). Excavation has been mainly confined to the extensive cemeteries. The earliest material is Protovillanovan (see villanovan culture); the most notable comes from a series of wealthy orientalizing ‘circle tombs’, consisting of trenches surrounded by stones and covered by a tumulus. The Circolo dei Lebeti contained bronze cauldrons with siren heads and griffin protomes that have Greek and oriental parallels respectively. The Pietrera tumulus contained a single chamber in which a central pillar supports a corbelled dome: here as elsewhere in northern Etruria, the suggestion of affinities with Sardinian building techniques gains credit from the presence of nuragic imports in a number of other graves (see sardinia). According to *Silius Italicus (8. 484–8) the Romans assumed the Etruscan royal insignia of fasces, sella curulis, etc.

Article

vexillum  

Brian Campbell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
Vexillum, a military standard consisting of a square-shaped piece of cloth attached to a crossbar, borne on a pole. In the republic this served as the standard of the legionary cavalry, and in imperial times usually was carried by cavalry units, notably by alae, under the charge of the senior standard-bearer (vexillarius).

Article

via Sacra  

Ian Archibald Richmond and John Patterson

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture
  3. Roman Myth and Religion

Via Sacra, the ‘sacred way’, street connecting the *forum Romanum with the *Velia, affording access to the *Palatine. According to *Varro and *Pompeius Festus, the stretch of road popularly known as via Sacra lay between the *Regia and the house of the rex sacrorum, which was at a location known as Summa Sacra Via; as properly defined, however, the road led from the Sacellum Streniae (cf. strenae) on the Carinae to the Arx (Varro, Ling. 5. 47; Festus, 372 Lindsay). The position of Summa Sacra Via is, however, disputed by modern scholars, who variously locate it close to the Basilica of *Maxentius or near the arch of *Titus. Following the fire of ce 64, the street became a noble avenue, leading from the forum to the entrance to the *Domus Aurea, which was flanked by shops for jewellers, and other luxury-traders.

Article

vicus  

Nicholas Purcell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture

Vicus, ‘village’, one of a series of Roman terms for settlements of lower status than towns (such as *pagus). In administrative law the term was used for places with recognizably independent institutions in the territory of a city or on a private estate. Like pagi, these communities and their magistrates were relatively important in the less urbanized parts of the Italian countryside in the late republic, and are quite well represented in the epigraphic record. The term was also used of local subdivisions of the city, cf. Greek amphoda, named after a street, local cult, or other landmark, and are found notably at Rome (though they are also attested in other cities). *Pliny(1) gives the number of vici at Rome as 265 (HN 3. 5. 66); they too had an independent institutional existence, and appointed officials known as *vicomagistri.

Article

villa  

Michael L. Thomas

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Roman Material Culture
Villa was the Latin word for a rural dwelling associated with an estate, and villas ranged in character from functional farmhouses to luxurious country seats for the élite (Varro, Rust. 1.11.1–1.12.4; 3.2.1–18).1 Most of the literary evidence for villas relates to Italy and primarily describes farms run for the benefit of urban-based proprietors (e.g., Vitr. De arch. 6.6.1), though the most opulent seaside villas of the Roman aristocracy were sometimes built solely for pleasure. Aristocratic enjoyment of rural retreats and pride in creating architectural splendours there are well attested (e.g., Plin. Ep. 2.17), but the classic Italian villa, comprising not only a luxurious dwelling for the use of the owner on visits to the estate (pars urbana) but also working farm buildings (pars rustica) and storage buildings and barns (pars fructuaria), is perfectly illustrated by the excavations at Settefinestre, which have uncovered an aristocratic domus (mansion), baths, slave quarters, wine and olive presses, a piggery, a substantial granary, and formal gardens (cf.

Article

Villanovan culture  

D. W. R. Ridgway

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
Villanovan culture takes its name from the Bolognese estate owned by G. Gozzadini, who in 1853 excavated nearby the first of many iron age cemeteries in the modern provinces of Bologna, Faenza, Forli, and Ravenna. The term is applied not only to these cemeteries of the 9th cent. bce onwards, but also to their contemporaries south of the Apennines, around the previously uninhabited iron age centres destined for continuing greatness as *Etruscan cities. Further south still, the Villanovan phenomenon is represented at *Capua, *Pontecagnano, and Sala Consilina in Campania; and there is also an isolated Villanovan cemetery at Fermo in the Marche.Both north and south of the *Apennines, the Villanovan culture is characterized in its original form by cremation burials in biconical ossuaries with incised decoration. There were no such people as ‘the Villanovans’, in spite of the fact that this unjustified ethnic extrapolation from the modern toponym of an archaeological site has often been used in juxtaposition with the historical Etruscans to imply the substitution, or even invasion, of the former by the latter. In fact, the indigenous possessors of the Villanovan culture of the 9th and 8th cents. in Etruria may confidently be defined as *Etruscans at the iron age stage of their ethnic formation and already in receipt of the influences that reached the Tyrrhenian seaboard from the outside world.

Article

Viminal  

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture

One of the *Seven hills of Rome. It lay between the *Esquiline and the *Quirinal.

Article

Vindolanda tablets  

J. David Thomas

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
During the 1970s and 1980s several hundred wooden writing-tablets were discovered at the Roman fort of Vindolanda near Hadrian's Wall (see wall of hadrian); a further 400 turned up in 1993, and a few more were found post 2000. Of the earlier finds, some were of the well-known stylus type, but the vast majority were made of thin, wooden leaves, written in ink with a pen. Only a handful of tablets of this type was previously known, and the concentration of such numbers at one site is unique. They date between c.ce 90 and 120, when the fort was occupied first by Cohors I Tungrorum and later by Cohors IX Batavorum (see cohors).The Vindolanda material includes the largest group of Latin letters ever discovered (see letters, latin). There are also literary fragments, shorthand texts, military reports, applications for leave, and accounts. The letters often bear on the official and private concerns of the officers, their families, and slaves, while the military documents tell us much about the way the Romans organized a newly acquired frontier area. In addition the tablets provide valuable information on *palaeography and the *Latin language.

Article

Vitruvius (Pol(l)io)  

Richard Allan Tomlinson and J. T. Vallance

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Science, Technology, and Medicine
  2. Roman Material Culture
Vitruvius (Pol(l)io) (See mamurra), a Roman architect and military engineer, in which capacity he served *Caesar. He built a basilica at *Fanum Fortunae; but his fame rests chiefly on a treatise, De architectura, on architecture and engineering, compiled partly from his own experience, partly from work by *Hermogenes(1) (to whom he is heavily indebted) and other Greek authors to which his own experiences have been added, sometimes in a disjointed fashion. It is hardly a handbook for *architects: rather a book for people who need to understand architecture. Perhaps its main function was place-seeking from Octavian (see augustus), to whom it is addressed. His outlook is essentially Hellenistic, and there is a marked absence of reference to important buildings of *Augustus' reign, though he knows of Roman technical developments, such as concrete construction (which he mistrusts). De architectura, the only work of its kind which has survived, is divided into ten books. Book 1 treats of town-planning, architecture in general, and of the qualifications proper in an architect; 2 of building-materials; 3 and 4 of temples and of the ‘orders’ (see orders, architectural; 5 of other civic buildings; 6 of domestic buildings; 7 of pavements and decorative plaster-work; 8 of water-supplies; 9 of geometry, mensuration, *astronomy, etc.