Courses

This course offers a sweeping survey of the art and architecture of the Roman world, from the founding of Rome in the 8th century BCE to the transfer of the capital to Constantinople in the 4th century CE. Students will trace Rome’s transformation from a modest settlement of huts amid central Italy’s marshlands into the dynamic center of a vast empire spanning extraordinary distances of space and time. We’ll explore topics such as Roman building techniques and urbanism, the relationship between Greek and Roman art, the politics and power encoded in Roman portraiture, the twinned destruction and preservation of Pompeii and other towns in the Bay of Naples, architectural marvels such as the Colosseum and the Pantheon, and the rise of Christianity. We’ll examine how buildings and artifacts created by diverse peoples across the empire reveal broader historical, political, and cultural patterns. What, we will begin and end by asking, is Roman about Roman art?