Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Temple of Rome and Augustus (Athens, Greece) »

The article examines the collaborations between the pensionnaires of the Villa Medici in Rome and the members of the French School of Athens, shedding light on the complex relationships between architecture, art, and archeology. The second half of the 19th century was a period during which the exchanges and collaborations between archaeologists, artists, and architects acquired a reinvented role and a dominant place. Within such a context, Athens was the place par excellence, where the encounter between these three disciplines took place. The main objective of the article is to render explicit how the revelations of archeology, actively disseminated by the members of the French School of Athens—the “Athéniens”—had an important impact on the approach of certain pensionnaires of the Villa Medici in Rome. Particular emphasis is placed on certain pensionnaires, who decided to devote their envois to ancient monuments of Greece. In parallel, the article intends to shed light on the methods that helped the pensionnaires-architects of the Villa Medici in Rome appropriate archaeological discoveries concerning Greek antiquities. The article takes, as a starting point, the following hypothesis: to better understand the figure of the architect-archaeologist, of whom Jacques Ignace Hittorff is an emblematic example, it is pivotal to bear in mind that before the second half of the 19th century neither the figure of Hellenic archeology nor the figure of the architect had yet acquired their autonomy. Taking into account that Johann Joachim Winckelmann, in the middle of the 18th century, forged an ideal Greek model, which was criticized during the second half of the 19th century, the article also sheds light on the fact that the revelations of archaeologists have called into question the Winckelmannian image of Greece. Another aspect that is explored in the article is Jacques Ignace Hittorff’s studies concerning the polychromy of ancient Greek monuments, paying special attention to his Restitution du temple d’Empédocle à Sélinonte ou l’Architecture polychrome chez les Grecs. The article also explores how the shifts of the status of philhellenism are related to the mutations of the meaning of travel to Greece. In parallel, it investigates the impact of Greek independence on the ideals of beauty and nature in arts, as well as how Greek independence is related to the intensification of the interest in the excavations of Greek antiquities.

Chapter 14 takes another break from the historical narrative to discuss the major Roman building projects in Athens, which some scholars argue brought about a Romanization of the city and led to its becoming a provincial one. The argument is made that despite Roman buildings, Athens remained a Greek city. The chapter discusses the Roman Agora; the Temple of Roma and Augustus in front of the Parthenon; Agrippa’s Odeum; the lesser public works under the post Julio-Claudian emperors; and Hadrian’s great building program (including the completion of the monumental Temple to Olympian Zeus (Olympieion), a library, an aqueduct), second only to that of Augustus, with a nod to the next chapter to explain why he did what he did. The funerary monument to Philopappus, not at the behest of an emperor but still part of a building program because of Roman style in its architecture, is also discussed. Finally, the chapter examines the transplanting of some temples from the Attic countryside during this period and why this occurred, and the reuse of earlier (especially Classical) statues dedicated to Romans, as part of a plan of the Athenians to keep their heritage alive and not have statues removed to Rome.

The final chapter completes the narrative with an examination of Hadrian’s dealings with Athens, thanks to whom the city was again made prominent in the Greek world. After discussing Hadrian’s economic and constitutional arrangements for Athens, the chapter turns to the religious and intellectual life in the city and how these appealed to a polymath like Hadrian. Most importantly there is a focus on Hadrian’s Panhellenion, a league of cities of the East created by the emperor that made Athens its center. As a result, Athens’ reputation and prestige skyrocketed once again, and it became in effect the second city of the Roman Empire after Rome. The Panhellenion also spawned a burst of building activity under Hadrian not seen since the days of Augustus. The completion of the monumental Temple to Olympian Zeus was meant to be the focal point of the Panhellenion. A section on Hadrian’s Arch is also discussed, as the monument was commissioned by the Athenians and shows the extent of Hadrian’s power over the city, Greece, and the east. As a postscript, there is a broad brushstroke description of Athens after Hadrian, including the activity of Herodes Atticus and up to the Herulian sack.

From Augustus’ death to Hadrian a succession of emperors in three dynasties came to rule Rome. Chapter 13 begins by thematically covering the relations of the dynasties toward Greece. Then it considers the relations of the emperors toward Athens, and the state of the city (economically, politically) during this period. The chapter also discusses St Paul’s visit to Athens and his sermon to the Areopagus, recounted in Acts. Finally, there is an examination of what is known about individual emperors’ relations with the city, and what they did to it, including cultural life, up to Trajan, and introducing Hadrian, with whom the book will end.

Greek and Roman societies were strongly rooted in and intentionally based on their authoritative pasts, made visible in monuments and “lieux de mémoire.” For a precise understanding of these phenomena, a theoretical distinction is introduced between the knowledge of tradition and the memory of a paradigmatic past, exemplifying both categories by testimonies of the age of Augustus. Specific commemorative capacities are explored, on the one hand, in places of mythical and historical memory in Athens and Rome and, on the other hand, in political monuments from classical and Hellenistic Greece to republican Rome and the Roman Empire. The distinction serves to underline the potentially aggressive character of collective identity based on public memory.

Abstract The Hellenistic period, the 300 years between the reigns of Alexander the Great of Macedon (336-323 BC) and Augustus, the first Roman Emperor (31 BC-AD 14), is often seen as an uninteresting and incoherent part of Greek history. Falling be¬ tween the two ‘central’ periods of classical Athens and Ciceronian or Augustan Rome, the period seems to be merely the melancholy story of the decline of the Greek city, subjected first to Alexander and his successors and then to the Romans.

The grand tour took the young and wealthy to Rome and Naples, but not as far as Greece, which had sunk into oblivion under its Byzantine emperors, who began to rule in A.D. 527. For seven hundred years Greece remained masked in obscurity as Crusaders, Venetians, and then Turks established princedoms and trading posts there. The Turks entered Athens in 1455 and turned the Parthenon and Acropolis into a fortress, transforming Greece into a rundown province of the Ottoman Empire. Worse yet, the ravages of wind, rain, and earthquake, of villagers seeking building stone and mortar, buried and eroded the ancient Greek temples and sculptures. Only a handful of intrepid artists and antiquarians came from Europe to sketch and collect before 1800, for Greek art and architecture were still little known or admired in the West, overshadowed as they were by the fashion for things Roman that dominated eighteenth-century taste. A small group of English connoisseurs financed the artists James Stuart and Nicholas Revett on a mission to record Greek art and architecture in 1755, and the first book in their multivolume Antiquities of Athens appeared in 1762. This, and other works, stimulated antiquarian interest, but in spite of such publications, few travelers ventured far off the familiar Italian track. The Parthenon was, of course, well known, but places like the oracle at Delphi, the temple of Poseidon at Sounion—at the time a pirates’ nest— and Olympia were little visited. In 1766, however, Richard Chandler, an Oxford academic, did visit Olympia, under the sponsorship of the Society of Dilettanti. The journey took him through overgrown fields of cotton shrubs, thistles, and licorice. Chandler had high expectations, but found himself in an insect-infested field of ruins: Early in the morning we crossed a shallow brook, and commenced our survey of the spot before us with a degree of expectation from which our disappointment on finding it almost naked received a considerable addition. The ruin, which we had seen in evening, we found to be the walls of the cell of a very large temple, standing many feet high and well-built, its stones all injured . . .

Abstract Societies in the Ancient world developed methods and instruments for finding and measuring time by the sun and by water. This chapter establishes the difference between clepsydras and water clocks so as to elucidate the description of these as used in the Ancient world, including in Assyria, Greece, Babylon, Egypt, and Rome. It also describes the several different kinds of sundials and explains the fifteen individual types established by archaeological evidence. Furthermore, it covers how sundials were used in Antiquity, and goes on to describe some major monuments, such as the Meridian of Augustus and the Tower of the Winds in Athens.

The ancient city of Philadelphia is primarily remembered as one of the seven cities mentioned in the book of Revelation. Because the city was in an earthquake-prone area, not much remains to be seen of ancient Philadelphia. What might still exist lies buried, for the most part, under the modern city. Situated approximately 30 miles southeast of the site of ancient Sardis on highway 585, Alaşehir is the name of the modern city located on the site of ancient Philadelphia. Philadelphia was on a plateau in the Cogamus River valley (today the Alaşehir Çayï), a tributary of the Hermus River. In antiquity, the Persian Royal Road from Sardis to Susa (in modern Iran) ran through Philadelphia. Prior to the Hellenistic founding of the city of Philadelphia, an earlier settlement here was known as Calletebus, dating back several centuries. The city was named for Attalus II Philadelphus, the Attalid king of Pergamum from 159 to 138 B.C.E., whose loyalty to his brother Eumenes II Soter, who preceded him as king (r. 197–159 B.C.E.), earned him the nickname “Philadelphus,” meaning “brotherly love.” Either Eumenes or Attalus founded the city, which was in the Lydian region of ancient Anatolia. After Attalus III (r. 138–133 B.C.E.) bequeathed the Pergamene kingdom to the Romans in 133 B.C.E., Philadelphia came under Roman control. The area around Philadelphia was a fertile agricultural area, especially good for growing grapes. Unfortunately, the area was also susceptible to frequent earthquakes. A particularly devastating earthquake struck the area in 17 C.E., destroying the city of Sardis and doing extensive damage to Philadelphia. To help the city recover from this disaster, Emperor Tiberius remitted the tribute owed to Rome for a period of five years. In gratitude, Philadelphia took the name Neocaesarea and dedicated a temple to Tiberius. Although the city was slow to recover from the devastation caused by the earthquake and its aftershocks, it eventually prospered under Roman rule. By the 5th century it was sometimes referred to as “little Athens” because of its many temples and religious festivals.