1 00:00:04,863 --> 00:00:06,221 When I was studying ancient Rome 2 00:00:06,221 --> 00:00:08,032 one of the most difficult things for me to understand is 3 00:00:08,032 --> 00:00:11,257 how all of these ancient ruins fit together, 4 00:00:11,257 --> 00:00:13,568 but luckily we have Dr. Bernard Frischer 5 00:00:13,568 --> 00:00:16,590 who has built an extraordinary video simulation 6 00:00:16,590 --> 00:00:19,057 that allows us to move through this space. 7 00:00:19,057 --> 00:00:21,026 The difficulty is always two-fold. 8 00:00:21,026 --> 00:00:23,864 First of all, that ancient cities are now in ruins 9 00:00:23,864 --> 00:00:25,448 so the one problem we have is 10 00:00:25,448 --> 00:00:27,598 how do you go from ruins to the way 11 00:00:27,598 --> 00:00:28,854 it did look in antiquity. 12 00:00:28,854 --> 00:00:30,804 Secondly, we only have random ruins, 13 00:00:30,804 --> 00:00:31,630 we don't have everything. 14 00:00:31,630 --> 00:00:33,858 So even if you can visualize what the Pantheon looks like 15 00:00:33,858 --> 00:00:34,767 or the Colosseum, 16 00:00:34,768 --> 00:00:36,024 they are a mile apart in the city . 17 00:00:36,024 --> 00:00:38,985 What was everything else? Most of it is missing. 18 00:00:38,985 --> 00:00:41,494 So the visualization is trying to put the whole city together 19 00:00:41,494 --> 00:00:43,247 And so let's take a look. Okay. 20 00:00:43,247 --> 00:00:44,877 It is just beautiful. 21 00:00:44,877 --> 00:00:48,365 We're now flying low over the city, over the Tibre. 22 00:00:48,365 --> 00:00:50,028 It's a good place to start because you know, 23 00:00:50,028 --> 00:00:52,344 the Tibre does divide Rome into two parts. 24 00:00:52,344 --> 00:00:55,180 And I see in the distance a very large temple. 25 00:00:55,180 --> 00:00:58,504 That's the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. 26 00:00:58,504 --> 00:00:59,936 Jupiter, the best and the greatest, 27 00:00:59,936 --> 00:01:03,039 which was the main temple of the Roman state cult. 28 00:01:03,039 --> 00:01:05,431 And it's on top of the Capitoline Hill 29 00:01:05,431 --> 00:01:07,733 which because of this temple and some others, 30 00:01:07,733 --> 00:01:10,090 was considered the center of the state cult 31 00:01:10,090 --> 00:01:11,262 and the state religion. 32 00:01:11,262 --> 00:01:14,137 So what moment in Rome's history have you chosen? 33 00:01:14,137 --> 00:01:16,709 This is notionally the year 320 AD, 34 00:01:16,709 --> 00:01:19,641 the peak of Rome's urban development, 35 00:01:19,641 --> 00:01:21,142 certainly in terms of public architecture 36 00:01:21,142 --> 00:01:22,342 for the simple reason that 37 00:01:22,342 --> 00:01:24,974 the Emperor at this time was Constantine the Great 38 00:01:24,974 --> 00:01:26,440 and shortly after this year 39 00:01:26,440 --> 00:01:28,255 he moved the capital from Rome 40 00:01:28,255 --> 00:01:31,036 to his city of Constantinople. 41 00:01:31,037 --> 00:01:32,309 Ok so we're flying up the river 42 00:01:32,309 --> 00:01:36,441 and after the Capitoline Hill we see the Palatine Hill, 43 00:01:36,441 --> 00:01:39,701 another one of the seven canonical hills of Rome. 44 00:01:39,701 --> 00:01:43,193 And the Palatine is obvious to anybody who visits Rome. 45 00:01:43,194 --> 00:01:44,635 If you're in the forum, 46 00:01:44,635 --> 00:01:47,207 this is the great hill with the palaces. 47 00:01:47,207 --> 00:01:49,735 In fact, the word palace derives from the word Palatine. 48 00:01:49,736 --> 00:01:52,459 The Romans, as time went on in their history, 49 00:01:52,459 --> 00:01:54,833 said "where ever the emperor is, there the palace is," 50 00:01:54,833 --> 00:01:57,306 or the paletine. So, the term palace got detached 51 00:01:57,306 --> 00:01:58,908 from this physical hill 52 00:01:58,908 --> 00:02:01,907 and came to just mean "a place where the ruler lives". 53 00:02:01,907 --> 00:02:04,107 And actually as we're flying past 54 00:02:04,108 --> 00:02:05,853 what is the Circus Maximus, 55 00:02:05,853 --> 00:02:08,800 I see the imperial palace, it is so large. 56 00:02:08,800 --> 00:02:11,262 It is literally enveloped the entire hillside. 57 00:02:11,262 --> 00:02:12,866 We have to remember this was not only 58 00:02:12,866 --> 00:02:14,832 where the emperor lived, and his family with him, 59 00:02:14,832 --> 00:02:17,314 but it was also the center of the government. 60 00:02:17,314 --> 00:02:19,894 any important relationship 61 00:02:19,895 --> 00:02:22,657 between this enormous circus and the palace? 62 00:02:22,657 --> 00:02:24,089 They are in fact connected 63 00:02:24,089 --> 00:02:26,965 and the Emperor was a great giver of the circus games 64 00:02:26,965 --> 00:02:31,175 and could easily come down to the Imperial box 65 00:02:31,175 --> 00:02:32,321 from the palace, 66 00:02:32,321 --> 00:02:33,266 or if he even wanted 67 00:02:33,266 --> 00:02:36,049 he could watch the circus races at the Palace. 68 00:02:36,050 --> 00:02:38,362 So we're not talking about Barnum & Bailey, 69 00:02:38,362 --> 00:02:40,924 we're talking about sporting events. 70 00:02:40,924 --> 00:02:43,116 We're mainly talking about chariot races. 71 00:02:43,116 --> 00:02:46,119 Think Ben Hur, the very famous chariot race scenes. 72 00:02:46,119 --> 00:02:47,460 And there were also animal hunts, 73 00:02:47,460 --> 00:02:50,062 there were parades, religious processions, 74 00:02:50,062 --> 00:02:51,623 and the triumphal processions. 75 00:02:51,623 --> 00:02:54,135 So let's go into the city proper. We know that 76 00:02:54,135 --> 00:02:57,662 Rome was this mercantile culture that has real markets. 77 00:02:57,663 --> 00:02:59,204 How much do we know about 78 00:02:59,204 --> 00:03:01,509 the daily lives of the inhabitants? 79 00:03:01,509 --> 00:03:02,685 We know a huge amount. 80 00:03:02,686 --> 00:03:05,818 We know about their hundreds of trades and professions, 81 00:03:05,818 --> 00:03:07,360 the different social classes. 82 00:03:07,360 --> 00:03:09,768 We know about their diet, we know about their longevity. 83 00:03:09,768 --> 00:03:12,884 The scholars have really reconstructed in great detail 84 00:03:12,884 --> 00:03:14,273 what everyday life was like. 85 00:03:14,274 --> 00:03:15,713 So one of the most impressive structures 86 00:03:15,713 --> 00:03:19,156 that I'm seeing is this aqueduct, this highway for water. 87 00:03:19,156 --> 00:03:21,186 Yeah, the Romans are famous for their aqueducts. 88 00:03:21,186 --> 00:03:22,934 They never could have had their big city 89 00:03:22,934 --> 00:03:24,323 of a million or even the 2 million that 90 00:03:24,324 --> 00:03:26,456 we're now seeing without the aqueducts 91 00:03:26,456 --> 00:03:27,861 that brought water in from 92 00:03:27,861 --> 00:03:29,233 20 or 30 miles away in the mountains. 93 00:03:29,234 --> 00:03:32,384 They kept this gravitational sytem working 94 00:03:32,384 --> 00:03:34,730 by getting the sources up into the mountains, 95 00:03:34,730 --> 00:03:35,894 bringing it down into the city 96 00:03:35,895 --> 00:03:38,519 and the valley which gave the force to the water. 97 00:03:38,519 --> 00:03:40,529 And they were able to somehow calculate 98 00:03:40,529 --> 00:03:43,215 a slope of even just 1 foot every 2000 feet, 99 00:03:43,215 --> 00:03:44,242 which is remarkable. 100 00:03:44,242 --> 00:03:46,456 We don't know how they could measure so accurately 101 00:03:46,456 --> 00:03:49,116 so that the water kept moving gently downhill 102 00:03:49,116 --> 00:03:50,684 but relentlessly downhill. 103 00:03:50,684 --> 00:03:52,349 There is this kind of ambition, 104 00:03:52,349 --> 00:03:54,953 this notion that man can control nature. 105 00:03:54,953 --> 00:03:58,853 It does not need to build a city where the water is already, 106 00:03:58,853 --> 00:04:02,056 but one can actually bend nature to man's will. 107 00:04:02,056 --> 00:04:04,334 The Romans were remarkable engineers. 108 00:04:04,334 --> 00:04:06,654 They used the water for drinking purposes, 109 00:04:06,654 --> 00:04:07,560 obviously cooking, and so on. 110 00:04:07,560 --> 00:04:09,564 But also a lot of these aqueducts 111 00:04:09,564 --> 00:04:11,118 ended at great fountains, 112 00:04:11,118 --> 00:04:12,995 but also in the great public baths. 113 00:04:12,995 --> 00:04:16,629 So this area seems to be sort of set apart from 114 00:04:16,629 --> 00:04:18,471 this denser, urban part of the city, 115 00:04:18,471 --> 00:04:20,250 and these are the baths of Trajan. 116 00:04:20,250 --> 00:04:22,467 Yes, these were not the first public baths, 117 00:04:22,467 --> 00:04:23,977 but they were the baths 118 00:04:23,977 --> 00:04:26,582 that gave the standard design for public baths. 119 00:04:26,583 --> 00:04:28,282 Block of bathing buildings 120 00:04:28,282 --> 00:04:30,000 in the middle of a kind of garden area, 121 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:31,544 delimited by a wall. 122 00:04:31,544 --> 00:04:34,582 And we were talking earlier about the way 123 00:04:34,583 --> 00:04:36,273 in which the emperors would provide for 124 00:04:36,273 --> 00:04:37,340 the well- being of the city, 125 00:04:37,340 --> 00:04:38,479 and this is really a prime example. 126 00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:40,542 So now we are moving to some of the most 127 00:04:40,542 --> 00:04:42,674 well known monuments in ancient Rome. 128 00:04:42,674 --> 00:04:43,996 The Colosseum. 129 00:04:43,997 --> 00:04:46,389 But we're in a fairly late moment in Roman history. 130 00:04:46,389 --> 00:04:49,165 Before the Colosseum, wasn't there another palace here? 131 00:04:49,165 --> 00:04:49,750 There was. 132 00:04:49,750 --> 00:04:52,324 The Colosseum was built by the emperor of Vespasian, 133 00:04:52,324 --> 00:04:56,097 who became emperor in 69 AD. 134 00:04:56,097 --> 00:04:59,945 After the suicide of Nero, a very unpopular emperor. 135 00:04:59,945 --> 00:05:02,493 One of the reasons he was so unpopular was that 136 00:05:02,493 --> 00:05:04,364 after the great fire of 64 AD 137 00:05:04,364 --> 00:05:06,236 in which a lot of the city was destroyed, 138 00:05:06,237 --> 00:05:09,253 he took over 100 acres in the heart of the city 139 00:05:09,253 --> 00:05:10,972 and converted it from private property 140 00:05:10,972 --> 00:05:13,596 to his own personal use as a palace. 141 00:05:13,596 --> 00:05:14,984 The Golden House of Nero. 142 00:05:14,984 --> 00:05:18,015 And the Colosseum was actually a lake in that palace. 143 00:05:18,016 --> 00:05:19,202 And Vespasian, 144 00:05:19,202 --> 00:05:21,094 to show that he was a friend of the people, 145 00:05:21,095 --> 00:05:23,326 filled in that lake and built a Colosseum on top of it. 146 00:05:23,326 --> 00:05:26,400 The Colosseum was not originally called the Colosseum. 147 00:05:26,400 --> 00:05:27,551 No. That's a term that 148 00:05:27,552 --> 00:05:29,384 only goes back to the early middle ages. 149 00:05:29,384 --> 00:05:31,758 The Romans called it the Flavian Amphitheatre 150 00:05:31,758 --> 00:05:34,844 because the Vespasians' family name was Flavius, 151 00:05:34,844 --> 00:05:36,303 so Flavian. 152 00:05:36,303 --> 00:05:38,846 And it's an Amphitheatre, or kind of a double theatre, 153 00:05:38,846 --> 00:05:40,477 an oval in shape. 154 00:05:40,477 --> 00:05:42,513 The Romans certainly didn't call it Colosseum, 155 00:05:42,513 --> 00:05:45,032 but they did call this enormous statue the Colossus. 156 00:05:45,032 --> 00:05:46,532 It's a statue of the sun god. 157 00:05:46,532 --> 00:05:49,542 Now you have mentioned that this is the moment 158 00:05:49,542 --> 00:05:51,337 when Constantine rules Rome 159 00:05:51,338 --> 00:05:53,715 and has not yet moved the capital to the east. 160 00:05:53,715 --> 00:05:55,679 And it's interesting to look at his arch, 161 00:05:55,680 --> 00:05:57,146 the arch of Constantine, 162 00:05:57,146 --> 00:05:59,124 and realize that this is brand new. 163 00:05:59,124 --> 00:06:00,780 It's only a couple of years old, 164 00:06:00,780 --> 00:06:04,299 Constantine left Rome after he defeated Maxentius 165 00:06:04,299 --> 00:06:06,032 at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. 166 00:06:06,032 --> 00:06:07,054 As far as we know, 167 00:06:07,054 --> 00:06:08,700 he never came back to Rome to actually see it. 168 00:06:08,700 --> 00:06:12,032 So we've just risen over the edge of the Colosseum 169 00:06:12,032 --> 00:06:13,198 and we're looking down. 170 00:06:13,199 --> 00:06:15,613 This is in a way, a mirror of Roman society. 171 00:06:15,613 --> 00:06:17,796 The best seats are the ones farthest down, 172 00:06:17,796 --> 00:06:19,262 closest to the arena, 173 00:06:19,262 --> 00:06:21,456 and that was reserved for the emperor, 174 00:06:21,456 --> 00:06:24,224 top office holders, priests, and so on. 175 00:06:24,224 --> 00:06:25,914 Then behind them were the senators. 176 00:06:25,914 --> 00:06:27,563 Behind them, the wealthy business men. 177 00:06:27,564 --> 00:06:30,932 And behind them, the free born, normal citizens. 178 00:06:30,932 --> 00:06:35,319 At the very top, sat women, slaves, and foreigners. 179 00:06:35,319 --> 00:06:36,907 So what were they coming to watch? 180 00:06:36,907 --> 00:06:38,609 As we can see now what's going on 181 00:06:38,610 --> 00:06:40,530 is the main thing that we associate with the Colosseum, 182 00:06:40,530 --> 00:06:42,236 the gladiatorial combats. 183 00:06:42,237 --> 00:06:43,508 Another thing that went on here that 184 00:06:43,508 --> 00:06:46,207 the Romans loved was hunts of wild animals. 185 00:06:46,208 --> 00:06:49,106 The third thing is the execution of criminals. 186 00:06:49,106 --> 00:06:51,255 Often in very colorful ways. 187 00:06:51,255 --> 00:06:53,397 Ways we would find very cruel. 188 00:06:53,397 --> 00:06:56,769 So let's make a left turn and move towards the forum. 189 00:06:56,769 --> 00:06:58,875 What is that enormous temple? 190 00:06:58,875 --> 00:07:01,496 It's the biggest temple of the state religion. 191 00:07:01,496 --> 00:07:03,186 It's the temple of Venus and Rome. 192 00:07:03,187 --> 00:07:05,267 It was built by the emperor Hadrian. 193 00:07:05,267 --> 00:07:06,555 It's actually interesting because 194 00:07:06,555 --> 00:07:08,071 it's two temples back-to-back. 195 00:07:08,071 --> 00:07:10,569 One part of it is dedicated to the worship 196 00:07:10,569 --> 00:07:12,025 of the goddess, Venus. 197 00:07:12,025 --> 00:07:13,568 That's the one facing the Coliseum. 198 00:07:13,569 --> 00:07:16,029 The other, to the goddess, Roma, that's facing the forum. 199 00:07:16,029 --> 00:07:17,736 And there seems to be a reason for that. 200 00:07:17,736 --> 00:07:19,435 Venus is looking at the Colosseum 201 00:07:19,435 --> 00:07:21,042 which is associated with fun and games. 202 00:07:21,042 --> 00:07:23,323 Otium, the Romans would say. Leisure. 203 00:07:23,324 --> 00:07:26,000 Whereas Roma is a more serious goddess. 204 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:28,201 She's facing the forum which is the area of negotium, 205 00:07:28,201 --> 00:07:30,134 or business and work. 206 00:07:30,134 --> 00:07:32,860 Ok, so now we're moving over to the forum itself. 207 00:07:32,860 --> 00:07:36,061 And we'll stop first at the Basilica of Maxentius, 208 00:07:36,061 --> 00:07:38,417 the last of the great civic buildings 209 00:07:38,417 --> 00:07:41,294 built in Rome before Constantine moved the capital. 210 00:07:41,294 --> 00:07:42,688 This is a huge structure 211 00:07:42,688 --> 00:07:45,448 and the word Basilica is familiar to us. 212 00:07:45,448 --> 00:07:47,233 We often call churches "basilicas" now. 213 00:07:47,233 --> 00:07:49,679 For the Romans it was a civic building 214 00:07:49,679 --> 00:07:51,792 used mainly for courts, 215 00:07:51,793 --> 00:07:53,834 the Christians adopted the building forum 216 00:07:53,834 --> 00:07:55,233 because they worshipped inside, 217 00:07:55,233 --> 00:07:58,667 so they adopted this preexisting building forum 218 00:07:58,667 --> 00:07:59,806 and gave it a new content. 219 00:07:59,807 --> 00:08:01,238 So now we're moving into 220 00:08:01,238 --> 00:08:03,326 one of the most complicated parts of Rome, 221 00:08:03,326 --> 00:08:05,205 especially when you try to look at the ruins 222 00:08:05,205 --> 00:08:07,726 and understand how these buildings related to each other. 223 00:08:07,726 --> 00:08:10,330 I always say the forum is like the wall in Washington. 224 00:08:10,330 --> 00:08:12,241 It's a big open public space 225 00:08:12,241 --> 00:08:16,096 used for public events like parades and speeches. 226 00:08:16,096 --> 00:08:19,425 The buildings around that open space are also public 227 00:08:19,425 --> 00:08:21,931 and they are courthouses and temples. 228 00:08:21,931 --> 00:08:24,155 Then, on the forum plaza are, 229 00:08:24,155 --> 00:08:26,794 as in the case of the wall in Washington, 230 00:08:26,794 --> 00:08:27,998 monuments commemorating 231 00:08:27,999 --> 00:08:30,321 great men and important events. 232 00:08:30,321 --> 00:08:31,691 Adjacent to the forum, 233 00:08:31,691 --> 00:08:34,265 private property was increasingly bought up 234 00:08:34,267 --> 00:08:36,639 so that each emperor could build his own forum, 235 00:08:36,639 --> 00:08:40,408 the so called imperial fora of the emperors. 236 00:08:40,408 --> 00:08:41,929 We've made a full circle 237 00:08:41,929 --> 00:08:44,126 and we're now looking again at the Capitoline. 238 00:08:44,128 --> 00:08:45,872 We're flying over the Roman forum, 239 00:08:45,872 --> 00:08:46,779 we'll acutally come back to it. 240 00:08:46,779 --> 00:08:48,519 We're flying over the Capitoline hill, 241 00:08:48,519 --> 00:08:51,239 we can see the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, 242 00:08:51,239 --> 00:08:53,447 and we're going beyond, back to the river, 243 00:08:53,447 --> 00:08:55,814 where we find a big flat area of Rome 244 00:08:55,814 --> 00:08:57,175 called the Campus Martius, 245 00:08:57,175 --> 00:08:58,401 the field of Mars. 246 00:08:58,402 --> 00:09:00,701 It was called that because in the Roman republic 247 00:09:00,701 --> 00:09:01,773 when there was a citizen army, 248 00:09:01,773 --> 00:09:03,784 the army would meet here and train. 249 00:09:03,784 --> 00:09:08,366 Now, we've just moved over this lovely squared pond, 250 00:09:08,366 --> 00:09:10,297 and we're looking at the flank 251 00:09:10,297 --> 00:09:13,154 of an enormously important building, the Pantheon. 252 00:09:13,154 --> 00:09:14,741 The rotunda, the round part, 253 00:09:14,741 --> 00:09:16,952 we wouldn't really see in antiquity. 254 00:09:16,952 --> 00:09:19,324 We would see the part that has the eight columns 255 00:09:19,324 --> 00:09:21,709 across the front that looks like a traditional temple. 256 00:09:21,709 --> 00:09:25,252 We like to say that it was built as a building 257 00:09:25,252 --> 00:09:26,623 with a surprise on the inside. 258 00:09:26,624 --> 00:09:28,926 Because it does look like a regular 259 00:09:28,926 --> 00:09:29,970 Greek or Roman temple 260 00:09:29,970 --> 00:09:31,045 but when you get inside, 261 00:09:31,045 --> 00:09:33,774 that's when you notice that there's actually a rotunda. 262 00:09:33,774 --> 00:09:35,484 I just want to spend just a second 263 00:09:35,484 --> 00:09:37,959 marvelling at the scale of this structure. 264 00:09:37,959 --> 00:09:41,704 Look at those columns, they are enormous. 265 00:09:41,704 --> 00:09:45,200 The ability to get stones that large upright 266 00:09:45,201 --> 00:09:47,244 is just a phenomenal feat in itself. 267 00:09:47,244 --> 00:09:50,508 It's phenomenal and even more so when you consider that 268 00:09:50,508 --> 00:09:52,625 this is granite, and it's all from Egypt. 269 00:09:52,625 --> 00:09:54,637 So it was brought from very far away. 270 00:09:54,637 --> 00:09:57,497 This is a building that celebrates the Roman emperors. 271 00:09:57,498 --> 00:09:59,504 This building we know had statues of 272 00:09:59,504 --> 00:10:01,654 Julius Caesar and Augustus, 273 00:10:01,654 --> 00:10:04,813 so we think that this building was dedicated always 274 00:10:04,813 --> 00:10:06,693 to the worship of the emperors. 275 00:10:06,693 --> 00:10:10,023 So this space opens up just magically. 276 00:10:10,023 --> 00:10:12,485 It does, and the magic is really remarkable, 277 00:10:12,485 --> 00:10:14,087 I've taken many visitors there, 278 00:10:14,087 --> 00:10:15,203 and I've asked them 279 00:10:15,203 --> 00:10:17,184 if they've had the same experience that I've had. 280 00:10:17,184 --> 00:10:18,540 If you stop right on the threshold, 281 00:10:18,541 --> 00:10:21,160 and you hold your head straight, I always say, 282 00:10:21,160 --> 00:10:23,233 "what can you see?" And everybody always agrees. 283 00:10:23,233 --> 00:10:25,906 You can see the hole in the dome up at the top, 284 00:10:25,907 --> 00:10:26,824 we call it the eye. 285 00:10:26,824 --> 00:10:27,769 You can see the floor, 286 00:10:27,769 --> 00:10:30,473 and you can see the two sides left and right. 287 00:10:30,473 --> 00:10:33,257 That is to say that this is a grandiose space. 288 00:10:33,258 --> 00:10:35,631 But it's right at the limit of human vision, 289 00:10:35,631 --> 00:10:38,223 and for me it always defines what is the classical, 290 00:10:38,224 --> 00:10:41,534 which is always derived from the human form, 291 00:10:41,534 --> 00:10:44,157 its proportions and its limitations. 292 00:10:44,157 --> 00:10:46,746 And by building a building that exactly 293 00:10:46,746 --> 00:10:51,515 corresponds to the limits of our vision it ennobles us. 294 00:10:51,515 --> 00:10:54,292 It makes us feel as big and great 295 00:10:54,292 --> 00:10:55,580 as we can feel as humans. 296 00:10:55,580 --> 00:10:57,497 It doesn't reduce us. Had it been ten times bigger, 297 00:10:57,497 --> 00:10:59,203 we would have felt ourselves 298 00:10:59,203 --> 00:11:01,486 reduced to the size of an ant, or something. 299 00:11:01,486 --> 00:11:05,205 The building is obsessively concerned with circular form. 300 00:11:05,205 --> 00:11:07,777 But it is also concerned with squares. 301 00:11:07,777 --> 00:11:09,507 We look at the floor we actually see 302 00:11:09,507 --> 00:11:11,041 this play of squares and circles. 303 00:11:11,042 --> 00:11:12,828 And then of course there are the coffers 304 00:11:12,828 --> 00:11:15,257 that create this beautiful sense of rhythm. 305 00:11:15,258 --> 00:11:17,087 Absolutely. And notice we also there 306 00:11:17,087 --> 00:11:18,450 get the play of squares and circles, 307 00:11:18,450 --> 00:11:20,084 because these are square coffers that 308 00:11:20,084 --> 00:11:21,743 give us a semi circular dome. 309 00:11:21,744 --> 00:11:24,092 But what's interesting to me about it is 310 00:11:24,092 --> 00:11:25,332 first of all it's painted, 311 00:11:25,332 --> 00:11:25,928 when you go there today, 312 00:11:25,928 --> 00:11:27,480 the paint has been completely lost. 313 00:11:27,480 --> 00:11:29,153 In a dome of heaven motifs. 314 00:11:29,153 --> 00:11:31,836 So the ground of the dome is painted blue. 315 00:11:31,836 --> 00:11:34,295 The coffers are highlighted in yellow as if 316 00:11:34,295 --> 00:11:35,589 radiating the light of the sun, 317 00:11:35,590 --> 00:11:37,867 and in the middle were probably rosettes 318 00:11:37,867 --> 00:11:40,723 that are supposed to be suns or stars. 319 00:11:40,723 --> 00:11:43,276 And even in antiquity we know from a historian 320 00:11:43,276 --> 00:11:44,839 who wrote only a hundred years 321 00:11:44,839 --> 00:11:46,244 after the building was built. 322 00:11:46,244 --> 00:11:47,751 People wondered, how did they build the dome? 323 00:11:47,751 --> 00:11:49,136 How could they do that? 324 00:11:49,136 --> 00:11:51,093 They marvelled at it even in antiquity. 325 00:11:51,093 --> 00:11:52,804 The light is very interesting. 326 00:11:52,804 --> 00:11:56,149 If you look at the coffering, you can get the idea that 327 00:11:56,149 --> 00:12:00,337 you know the light from the eye is going to 328 00:12:00,337 --> 00:12:02,917 direct the sunbeams to different coffers 329 00:12:02,917 --> 00:12:04,893 at different times of day, on different days of the year. 330 00:12:04,893 --> 00:12:07,288 Recent scholarship suggests that 331 00:12:07,288 --> 00:12:09,005 this wasn't really a sundial, 332 00:12:09,005 --> 00:12:11,740 but there was a play of the passage of time 333 00:12:11,740 --> 00:12:13,674 and a play of light on space to indicate 334 00:12:13,674 --> 00:12:15,404 the passage of time during the year. 335 00:12:15,404 --> 00:12:17,447 There is though one alignment 336 00:12:17,447 --> 00:12:19,066 that seems to be very intentional 337 00:12:19,066 --> 00:12:22,656 and that is the sunlight coming through the eye 338 00:12:22,656 --> 00:12:25,203 at noon on April 21 339 00:12:25,203 --> 00:12:28,076 exactly illuminated the main door of the Pantheon. 340 00:12:28,076 --> 00:12:30,673 Remember Hadrian was the man 341 00:12:30,673 --> 00:12:33,270 responsible for the Pantheon in this phase. 342 00:12:33,270 --> 00:12:36,206 April 21 was the birthday festival of Rome, 343 00:12:36,206 --> 00:12:38,542 and Hadrian's very interested in the birthday festival, 344 00:12:38,542 --> 00:12:41,275 changed the name to the Romaea festival 345 00:12:41,275 --> 00:12:42,939 in honor of the goddess Roma. 346 00:12:42,940 --> 00:12:47,060 He seems to have aligned the building in such a way that 347 00:12:47,060 --> 00:12:48,772 there would be this dramatic effect at noon, 348 00:12:48,773 --> 00:12:49,980 and we can only imagine that 349 00:12:49,980 --> 00:12:52,414 there must of been some sort of birthday festival 350 00:12:52,414 --> 00:12:53,614 happening in the Pantheon that day. 351 00:12:53,614 --> 00:12:56,323 So let's move back down to the forum now. 352 00:12:56,323 --> 00:12:58,481 Some of the main roads going through the city 353 00:12:58,481 --> 00:13:00,352 met here in the forum, 354 00:13:00,352 --> 00:13:03,002 it's a place that the average Roman 355 00:13:03,002 --> 00:13:05,176 on an average day might well pass through. 356 00:13:05,177 --> 00:13:06,741 As the camera pulls back 357 00:13:06,741 --> 00:13:09,793 and we can really see the full extent of the city, 358 00:13:09,793 --> 00:13:12,398 you really understand how complex, 359 00:13:12,398 --> 00:13:14,585 how advanced this ancient world was. 360 00:13:14,585 --> 00:13:15,971 How many buildings were here, do we think? 361 00:13:15,971 --> 00:13:20,274 We have two censuses from the fourth century AD that 362 00:13:20,274 --> 00:13:21,477 suggest there were 363 00:13:21,477 --> 00:13:23,579 between eight and ten thousand buildings here. 364 00:13:23,580 --> 00:13:24,970 We think the population 365 00:13:24,970 --> 00:13:26,513 might have been between one and two million. 366 00:13:26,513 --> 00:13:29,325 The total surface area was about 367 00:13:29,325 --> 00:13:31,452 twenty-five square kilometers, 368 00:13:31,452 --> 00:13:33,536 so it was the biggest city in the Western world anyway 369 00:13:33,536 --> 00:13:35,608 until 19th Century London.