Although scholars often consider fifth-century Greece as the center out of which the humanities in the West have emerged, it was in part the rediscovery of ancient Rome that sparked the European Renaissance (although the rediscovery of ancient Greek texts was also responsible), and that our founding fathers looked to for architectural inspiration after the American Revolution. I am, in fact, using the Roman alphabet to type these words, and one recent book, Cullen Murphy's Are We Rome? suggests that the parallels between modern America and ancient Rome are more evident now than ever. For these reasons (and because I focus heavily on the Classical Greek tradition in my art history classes), I will focus this segment of the class on Rome's predecessors, the Etruscans, and on the Romans of the first century after the birth of Christ--before Christianity gained a foothold during the late Empire.

There are two further reasons for this focus. First of all, the Etruscans--because we know so little about them--are somewhat mysterious, and provide an example of how ongoing efforts in archaeology and epigraphy continue to help illuminate the "mystery." The Etruscans are also one of those under-studied civilizations of the past that offer significant examples of how human beings create: through their distinctive pottery and paintings, for example.

In the second place, because of one significant disaster, we have inherited a time capsule that opens up a single moment of Roman history to close, detailed examination: the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius on August 24, CE 79. During the summer quarter of 2007, the Dallas Museum of Art featured an exhibit on the town of Stabiae, which--along with Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Boscoreale--was preserved by layers of pumice, ash, and volcanic mud when Vesuvius erupted. The art, arifacts, and architecture that emerged after excavation provide us with a snapshot of everyday life among the elite in suburban Rome.

For a chronological overview of these two cultures, consult the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Timeline of Art History: Italian Peninsula 1000 BC to 1 AD and 1 to 500 AD, and see the page on Etruscan Art. A recent issue of Archaeology Magazine (available in the Library) features an article on the latest research into Etruscan life. It also includes news on the opening in Pompeii of The House of the Chaste Lovers.

We will explore evidence of domestic life in both Etruria and first-century Rome, emphasizing artifacts that reflect the relationship between art and the everyday, form and function. The following sources will be especially helpful, but see the side-bar for more:

Ancient Etruria

The Mysterious Etruscans has a cheesy name, but the information seems to be authoritative.

History World's page on the Etruscans covers a number of topics. See especially the sections on writing and pottery.

The Ancient Scripts page on the Etruscan language, which includes an alphabet chart and more information on origins.

Pompeii, Herculaneum, Ostia

Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompeii is the official Italian site on the excavations; there's an English section (linked).

A website designed to flog homes to say in while in Rome has a very nice page on Pompeii and Herculaneum, with better photos than some academic sites.

Pictures from Pompeii and Herculaneum This site features some pretty good amateur photos of both sites. Some of the naughty bits are left out, but not all.

The History of Plumbing in Pompeii and Herculaneum For those of you who just can't get enough information about ancient domestic habits, here is a good site on the topic. There are further links to pages on other cultures' accomplishments in this regard, including the Minoans and the Egyptians.

At the risk of seeming to encourage all manner of prurient behavior, here's a link to Wikipedia's page on the erotic art of Pompeii, along with an article on Pompeii's brothel from the London Times online. If this isn't enough, see Eroticism in Pompeii, by Antonio Varone and Maureen Fant (Kelley Library, N 5770 .V3713 2001). Warning: adult content.

Pompeii Interactive Dig is Archaeology magazine's page on Pompeii.

Pompeii Forum Project. The University of Virginia has put together a very thorough site on Pompeii, which--along with Herculaneum--gives us a peek into the (arrested) daily life of Imperial Romans.

The University of Caen in France has been working on a virtual reconstruction of Rome called the Plan de Rome. The site is in French, but I've linked the page on 3D models (maquettes), some of which include video virtual tours.

Here's a very nice short video of a reconstructed Roman insula, albeit from an odd source:

Courtesy RC Boat Videos Hydro Fast Speed Gas Electric

Another video--this time a 3D reconstruction of the port of Rome, Ostia. It offers a decent introduction to the town, but I'm not sure I understand the choice of theme music. :) I'm not embedding this one because I'm pretty sure the soundtrack is ethically problematic.

Roman Comedy and its Legacy

Life in Rome at around the time of Christ was complex. Its citizens enoyed an artistic and architectural florescence, while its massive population of slaves was responsible for everything from daily household chores, to copying the great works of Greek artists in the homes and pleasuredomes of the wealthy, to supplying entertainment--in the theaters and in the arena. Roman life centered on the home, where women, children, and slaves spent most of their time. But the Romans (both men and women) also frequented the public baths, and prominent citizens were entertained--often lavishly--in the homes of their friends and political associates. The PBS television series I, Claudius provides an interesting picture (although not necessarily a completely accurate one) of Roman life under its emperors, as does the film, Gladiator; but another source of information can be found in the Roman equivalent of the movies: the theater.

Although Rome is not known for its contributions to tragic theater (Seneca is the most memorable of Roman tragedians, and his plays owe much to their Greek models), we owe to Roman playwrights credit for the development of comedy. Comic theater as we know it today was introduced in Athens by the Greek comic dramatist, Menander (342-292 BCE); it is referred to as Greek New Comedy because it differs from the satyr plays that accompanied the performance of tragedies in the dramatic festivals in honor of Dionysos and other gods, and from the political satires of Aristophanes. Mendander's plays were comic in the sense that they dealt with common folk and everyday life--whereas tradedy was concerned with larger-than-life characters and cosmic issues. Menander's Roman adaptors, Plautus (254-184 BCE) and Terence (185-159 BCE), are chiefly responsible for the survival of Greek New Comedy into the modern world. The plots of these plays revolve around intrigue, coincidence, irony, and bawdy humor, portrayed by lifelike characters who include prominent citizens, courtesans, and slaves.

By the first century CE, drama in the Roman Empire had begun what would become a long decline. Little survived the Christian era, except for the equivalent of bawdy farces which flourished until the Emperor Justinian closed all of the theaters in the sixth century CE. But before its demise, Roman theater enjoyed enormous popularity and left a substantial legacy. Shakespeare, in the 16th century, and Rodgers & Hart and Stephen Sondheim in the twentieth, all borrowed ideas, plots, and characters from their Roman predecessors, Plautus and Terence.

Roman comic actors originally performed in temporary wooden structures, rather than in the permanent stone theaters we can still see at sites like Pompeii and Ostia. But no matter where the plays were performed, they included the same elements: outrageous coincidences, racy humor, slapstick comedy, a prologue, and a moral. The typical stage setup for a Roman comedy included a scene building with three doors, representing three adjacent houses. Onstage, characters performed accompanied by music and dance. Like those who later borrowed from his plays, Plautus mined earlier Greek comedies for plots, often combining plays or altering scenes to suit the Roman taste for liveliness and hilarity.

For an absolutely marvelous introduction to early theater, see Mark Damen's Classical Drama and Theater course materials from Utah State University.

The Twin Menaechmi (The Brothers Menaechmus)

This play by Plautus is about twin brothers separated in infancy (also known as The Brothers Menaechmus). It has inspired a number of "translations," from Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors to the Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart version, The Boys From Syracuse. In the Plautine version, the brothers meet and discover one another through a variety of mishaps. The play's characters represent several stock types, including a bungling but clever slave, a courtesan, and various servants and neighbors. Names, such as Erotium (the courtesan), often suggest the nature of of the role or the temperament of the character.

The Comedy of Errors

Shakespeare's version of The Twin Menaechmi appeared in print in 1623, but may have been performed as early as 1594. Shakespeare, following in the footsteps of Plautus, adapted the story to seventeenth-century tastes by introducing even more confusion: he created twin slaves for the twin brothers. The Bard still further complicated the plot by introducing an episode adapted from yet another play by Plautus, the Amphytrio--in the tradition of Plautus himself, whose work had often combined elements from different plays by Menander.

Other Modern Adaptations of Roman Comedy

In 1938, the song-writing team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart produced a Broadway version of The Twin Menaechmi (based on The Comedy of Errors) called The Boys from Syracuse. In 1962 the Broadway impresario Hal Prince produced a musical called A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, starring Zero Mostel, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. This same play was revived on Broadway in the '90s, with Nathan Lane in the role of Pseudolus (later, Whoopi Goldberg took over the part). The film version of the play was released in 1966, with Mostel again in the role of the freedom-seeking slave, Pseudolus who, with his fellow slave, Hysterium, proceed to enact an amalgam of situations from several Roman originals, by way of both Shakespeare and Rodgers & Hart. The Wikipedia article on this play is pretty informative.

In the '80s, the British comedy series Up Pompeii! was shown on American public television, and managed to recreate the bawdiness and raucous humor of all of its forbears. The title, by the way, is actually a pun on the British football (soccer) cry, "Up, Pompey!" (the popular name for the town of Portsmouth). While you watch the episode of "Up Pompeii!" consider the following: Is it at all likely that this series could be made today, even though it was quite popular in both Britain and the United States in the seventies? (And has, like many "Britcoms," been shown again recently on the local PBS station.) At the same time, think about what still is funny to us, why some parts seem rather silly to us now, and how much we have to know about British culture in order to get all of the jokes. If you have ever seen Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors or the film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, how would you compare them with the television version of Roman comedy?

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04.26.11