WEBVTT 00:00:04.863 --> 00:00:06.221 When I was studying ancient Rome 00:00:06.221 --> 00:00:08.032 one of the most difficult things for me to understand is 00:00:08.032 --> 00:00:11.257 how all of these ancient ruins fit together, 00:00:11.257 --> 00:00:13.568 but luckily we have Dr. Bernard Frischer 00:00:13.568 --> 00:00:16.590 who has built an extraordinary video simulation 00:00:16.590 --> 00:00:19.057 that allows us to move through this space. 00:00:19.057 --> 00:00:21.026 The difficulty is always two-fold. 00:00:21.026 --> 00:00:23.864 First of all, that ancient cities are now in ruins 00:00:23.864 --> 00:00:25.448 so the one problem we have is 00:00:25.448 --> 00:00:27.598 how do you go from ruins to the way 00:00:27.598 --> 00:00:28.854 it did look in antiquity. 00:00:28.854 --> 00:00:30.804 Secondly, we only have random ruins, 00:00:30.804 --> 00:00:31.630 we don't have everything. 00:00:31.630 --> 00:00:33.858 So even if you can visualize what the Pantheon looks like 00:00:33.858 --> 00:00:34.767 or the Colosseum, 00:00:34.768 --> 00:00:36.024 they are a mile apart in the city . 00:00:36.024 --> 00:00:38.985 What was everything else? Most of it is missing. 00:00:38.985 --> 00:00:41.494 So the visualization is trying to put the whole city together 00:00:41.494 --> 00:00:43.247 And so let's take a look. Okay. 00:00:43.247 --> 00:00:44.877 It is just beautiful. 00:00:44.877 --> 00:00:48.365 We're now flying low over the city, over the Tibre. 00:00:48.365 --> 00:00:50.028 It's a good place to start because you know, 00:00:50.028 --> 00:00:52.344 the Tibre does divide Rome into two parts. 00:00:52.344 --> 00:00:55.180 And I see in the distance a very large temple. 00:00:55.180 --> 00:00:58.504 That's the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. 00:00:58.504 --> 00:00:59.936 Jupiter, the best and the greatest, 00:00:59.936 --> 00:01:03.039 which was the main temple of the Roman state cult. 00:01:03.039 --> 00:01:05.431 And it's on top of the Capitoline Hill 00:01:05.431 --> 00:01:07.733 which because of this temple and some others, 00:01:07.733 --> 00:01:10.090 was considered the center of the state cult 00:01:10.090 --> 00:01:11.262 and the state religion. 00:01:11.262 --> 00:01:14.137 So what moment in Rome's history have you chosen? 00:01:14.137 --> 00:01:16.709 This is notionally the year 320 AD, 00:01:16.709 --> 00:01:19.641 the peak of Rome's urban development, 00:01:19.641 --> 00:01:21.142 certainly in terms of public architecture 00:01:21.142 --> 00:01:22.342 for the simple reason that 00:01:22.342 --> 00:01:24.974 the Emperor at this time was Constantine the Great 00:01:24.974 --> 00:01:26.440 and shortly after this year 00:01:26.440 --> 00:01:28.255 he moved the capital from Rome 00:01:28.255 --> 00:01:31.036 to his city of Constantinople. 00:01:31.037 --> 00:01:32.309 Ok so we're flying up the river 00:01:32.309 --> 00:01:36.441 and after the Capitoline Hill we see the Palatine Hill, 00:01:36.441 --> 00:01:39.701 another one of the seven canonical hills of Rome. 00:01:39.701 --> 00:01:43.193 And the Palatine is obvious to anybody who visits Rome. 00:01:43.194 --> 00:01:44.635 If you're in the forum, 00:01:44.635 --> 00:01:47.207 this is the great hill with the palaces. 00:01:47.207 --> 00:01:49.735 In fact, the word palace derives from the word Palatine. 00:01:49.736 --> 00:01:52.459 The Romans, as time went on in their history, 00:01:52.459 --> 00:01:54.833 said "where ever the emperor is, there the palace is," 00:01:54.833 --> 00:01:57.306 or the paletine. So, the term palace got detached 00:01:57.306 --> 00:01:58.908 from this physical hill 00:01:58.908 --> 00:02:01.907 and came to just mean "a place where the ruler lives". 00:02:01.907 --> 00:02:04.107 And actually as we're flying past 00:02:04.108 --> 00:02:05.853 what is the Circus Maximus, 00:02:05.853 --> 00:02:08.800 I see the imperial palace, it is so large. 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:11.262 It is literally enveloped the entire hillside. 00:02:11.262 --> 00:02:12.866 We have to remember this was not only 00:02:12.866 --> 00:02:14.832 where the emperor lived, and his family with him, 00:02:14.832 --> 00:02:17.314 but it was also the center of the government. 00:02:17.314 --> 00:02:19.894 any important relationship 00:02:19.895 --> 00:02:22.657 between this enormous circus and the palace? 00:02:22.657 --> 00:02:24.089 They are in fact connected 00:02:24.089 --> 00:02:26.965 and the Emperor was a great giver of the circus games 00:02:26.965 --> 00:02:31.175 and could easily come down to the Imperial box 00:02:31.175 --> 00:02:32.321 from the palace, 00:02:32.321 --> 00:02:33.266 or if he even wanted 00:02:33.266 --> 00:02:36.049 he could watch the circus races at the Palace. 00:02:36.050 --> 00:02:38.362 So we're not talking about Barnum & Bailey, 00:02:38.362 --> 00:02:40.924 we're talking about sporting events. 00:02:40.924 --> 00:02:43.116 We're mainly talking about chariot races. 00:02:43.116 --> 00:02:46.119 Think Ben Hur, the very famous chariot race scenes. 00:02:46.119 --> 00:02:47.460 And there were also animal hunts, 00:02:47.460 --> 00:02:50.062 there were parades, religious processions, 00:02:50.062 --> 00:02:51.623 and the triumphal processions. 00:02:51.623 --> 00:02:54.135 So let's go into the city proper. We know that 00:02:54.135 --> 00:02:57.662 Rome was this mercantile culture that has real markets. 00:02:57.663 --> 00:02:59.204 How much do we know about 00:02:59.204 --> 00:03:01.509 the daily lives of the inhabitants? 00:03:01.509 --> 00:03:02.685 We know a huge amount. 00:03:02.686 --> 00:03:05.818 We know about their hundreds of trades and professions, 00:03:05.818 --> 00:03:07.360 the different social classes. 00:03:07.360 --> 00:03:09.768 We know about their diet, we know about their longevity. 00:03:09.768 --> 00:03:12.884 The scholars have really reconstructed in great detail 00:03:12.884 --> 00:03:14.273 what everyday life was like. 00:03:14.274 --> 00:03:15.713 So one of the most impressive structures 00:03:15.713 --> 00:03:19.156 that I'm seeing is this aqueduct, this highway for water. 00:03:19.156 --> 00:03:21.186 Yeah, the Romans are famous for their aqueducts. 00:03:21.186 --> 00:03:22.934 They never could have had their big city 00:03:22.934 --> 00:03:24.323 of a million or even the 2 million that 00:03:24.324 --> 00:03:26.456 we're now seeing without the aqueducts 00:03:26.456 --> 00:03:27.861 that brought water in from 00:03:27.861 --> 00:03:29.233 20 or 30 miles away in the mountains. 00:03:29.234 --> 00:03:32.384 They kept this gravitational sytem working 00:03:32.384 --> 00:03:34.730 by getting the sources up into the mountains, 00:03:34.730 --> 00:03:35.894 bringing it down into the city 00:03:35.895 --> 00:03:38.519 and the valley which gave the force to the water. 00:03:38.519 --> 00:03:40.529 And they were able to somehow calculate 00:03:40.529 --> 00:03:43.215 a slope of even just 1 foot every 2000 feet, 00:03:43.215 --> 00:03:44.242 which is remarkable. 00:03:44.242 --> 00:03:46.456 We don't know how they could measure so accurately 00:03:46.456 --> 00:03:49.116 so that the water kept moving gently downhill 00:03:49.116 --> 00:03:50.684 but relentlessly downhill. 00:03:50.684 --> 00:03:52.349 There is this kind of ambition, 00:03:52.349 --> 00:03:54.953 this notion that man can control nature. 00:03:54.953 --> 00:03:58.853 It does not need to build a city where the water is already, 00:03:58.853 --> 00:04:02.056 but one can actually bend nature to man's will. 00:04:02.056 --> 00:04:04.334 The Romans were remarkable engineers. 00:04:04.334 --> 00:04:06.654 They used the water for drinking purposes, 00:04:06.654 --> 00:04:07.560 obviously cooking, and so on. 00:04:07.560 --> 00:04:09.564 But also a lot of these aqueducts 00:04:09.564 --> 00:04:11.118 ended at great fountains, 00:04:11.118 --> 00:04:12.995 but also in the great public baths. 00:04:12.995 --> 00:04:16.629 So this area seems to be sort of set apart from 00:04:16.629 --> 00:04:18.471 this denser, urban part of the city, 00:04:18.471 --> 00:04:20.250 and these are the baths of Trajan. 00:04:20.250 --> 00:04:22.467 Yes, these were not the first public baths, 00:04:22.467 --> 00:04:23.977 but they were the baths 00:04:23.977 --> 00:04:26.582 that gave the standard design for public baths. 00:04:26.583 --> 00:04:28.282 Block of bathing buildings 00:04:28.282 --> 00:04:30.000 in the middle of a kind of garden area, 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:31.544 delimited by a wall. 00:04:31.544 --> 00:04:34.582 And we were talking earlier about the way 00:04:34.583 --> 00:04:36.273 in which the emperors would provide for 00:04:36.273 --> 00:04:37.340 the well- being of the city, 00:04:37.340 --> 00:04:38.479 and this is really a prime example. 00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:40.542 So now we are moving to some of the most 00:04:40.542 --> 00:04:42.674 well known monuments in ancient Rome. 00:04:42.674 --> 00:04:43.996 The Colosseum. 00:04:43.997 --> 00:04:46.389 But we're in a fairly late moment in Roman history. 00:04:46.389 --> 00:04:49.165 Before the Colosseum, wasn't there another palace here? 00:04:49.165 --> 00:04:49.750 There was. 00:04:49.750 --> 00:04:52.324 The Colosseum was built by the emperor of Vespasian, 00:04:52.324 --> 00:04:56.097 who became emperor in 69 AD. 00:04:56.097 --> 00:04:59.945 After the suicide of Nero, a very unpopular emperor. 00:04:59.945 --> 00:05:02.493 One of the reasons he was so unpopular was that 00:05:02.493 --> 00:05:04.364 after the great fire of 64 AD 00:05:04.364 --> 00:05:06.236 in which a lot of the city was destroyed, 00:05:06.237 --> 00:05:09.253 he took over 100 acres in the heart of the city 00:05:09.253 --> 00:05:10.972 and converted it from private property 00:05:10.972 --> 00:05:13.596 to his own personal use as a palace. 00:05:13.596 --> 00:05:14.984 The Golden House of Nero. 00:05:14.984 --> 00:05:18.015 And the Colosseum was actually a lake in that palace. 00:05:18.016 --> 00:05:19.202 And Vespasian, 00:05:19.202 --> 00:05:21.094 to show that he was a friend of the people, 00:05:21.095 --> 00:05:23.326 filled in that lake and built a Colosseum on top of it. 00:05:23.326 --> 00:05:26.400 The Colosseum was not originally called the Colosseum. 00:05:26.400 --> 00:05:27.551 No. That's a term that 00:05:27.552 --> 00:05:29.384 only goes back to the early middle ages. 00:05:29.384 --> 00:05:31.758 The Romans called it the Flavian Amphitheatre 00:05:31.758 --> 00:05:34.844 because the Vespasians' family name was Flavius, 00:05:34.844 --> 00:05:36.303 so Flavian. 00:05:36.303 --> 00:05:38.846 And it's an Amphitheatre, or kind of a double theatre, 00:05:38.846 --> 00:05:40.477 an oval in shape. 00:05:40.477 --> 00:05:42.513 The Romans certainly didn't call it Colosseum, 00:05:42.513 --> 00:05:45.032 but they did call this enormous statue the Colossus. 00:05:45.032 --> 00:05:46.532 It's a statue of the sun god. 00:05:46.532 --> 00:05:49.542 Now you have mentioned that this is the moment 00:05:49.542 --> 00:05:51.337 when Constantine rules Rome 00:05:51.338 --> 00:05:53.715 and has not yet moved the capital to the east. 00:05:53.715 --> 00:05:55.679 And it's interesting to look at his arch, 00:05:55.680 --> 00:05:57.146 the arch of Constantine, 00:05:57.146 --> 00:05:59.124 and realize that this is brand new. 00:05:59.124 --> 00:06:00.780 It's only a couple of years old, 00:06:00.780 --> 00:06:04.299 Constantine left Rome after he defeated Maxentius 00:06:04.299 --> 00:06:06.032 at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. 00:06:06.032 --> 00:06:07.054 As far as we know, 00:06:07.054 --> 00:06:08.700 he never came back to Rome to actually see it. 00:06:08.700 --> 00:06:12.032 So we've just risen over the edge of the Colosseum 00:06:12.032 --> 00:06:13.198 and we're looking down. 00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:15.613 This is in a way, a mirror of Roman society. 00:06:15.613 --> 00:06:17.796 The best seats are the ones farthest down, 00:06:17.796 --> 00:06:19.262 closest to the arena, 00:06:19.262 --> 00:06:21.456 and that was reserved for the emperor, 00:06:21.456 --> 00:06:24.224 top office holders, priests, and so on. 00:06:24.224 --> 00:06:25.914 Then behind them were the senators. 00:06:25.914 --> 00:06:27.563 Behind them, the wealthy business men. 00:06:27.564 --> 00:06:30.932 And behind them, the free born, normal citizens. 00:06:30.932 --> 00:06:35.319 At the very top, sat women, slaves, and foreigners. 00:06:35.319 --> 00:06:36.907 So what were they coming to watch? 00:06:36.907 --> 00:06:38.609 As we can see now what's going on 00:06:38.610 --> 00:06:40.530 is the main thing that we associate with the Colosseum, 00:06:40.530 --> 00:06:42.236 the gladiatorial combats. 00:06:42.237 --> 00:06:43.508 Another thing that went on here that 00:06:43.508 --> 00:06:46.207 the Romans loved was hunts of wild animals. 00:06:46.208 --> 00:06:49.106 The third thing is the execution of criminals. 00:06:49.106 --> 00:06:51.255 Often in very colorful ways. 00:06:51.255 --> 00:06:53.397 Ways we would find very cruel. 00:06:53.397 --> 00:06:56.769 So let's make a left turn and move towards the forum. 00:06:56.769 --> 00:06:58.875 What is that enormous temple? 00:06:58.875 --> 00:07:01.496 It's the biggest temple of the state religion. 00:07:01.496 --> 00:07:03.186 It's the temple of Venus and Rome. 00:07:03.187 --> 00:07:05.267 It was built by the emperor Hadrian. 00:07:05.267 --> 00:07:06.555 It's actually interesting because 00:07:06.555 --> 00:07:08.071 it's two temples back-to-back. 00:07:08.071 --> 00:07:10.569 One part of it is dedicated to the worship 00:07:10.569 --> 00:07:12.025 of the goddess, Venus. 00:07:12.025 --> 00:07:13.568 That's the one facing the Coliseum. 00:07:13.569 --> 00:07:16.029 The other, to the goddess, Roma, that's facing the forum. 00:07:16.029 --> 00:07:17.736 And there seems to be a reason for that. 00:07:17.736 --> 00:07:19.435 Venus is looking at the Colosseum 00:07:19.435 --> 00:07:21.042 which is associated with fun and games. 00:07:21.042 --> 00:07:23.323 Otium, the Romans would say. Leisure. 00:07:23.324 --> 00:07:26.000 Whereas Roma is a more serious goddess. 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:28.201 She's facing the forum which is the area of negotium, 00:07:28.201 --> 00:07:30.134 or business and work. 00:07:30.134 --> 00:07:32.860 Ok, so now we're moving over to the forum itself. 00:07:32.860 --> 00:07:36.061 And we'll stop first at the Basilica of Maxentius, 00:07:36.061 --> 00:07:38.417 the last of the great civic buildings 00:07:38.417 --> 00:07:41.294 built in Rome before Constantine moved the capital. 00:07:41.294 --> 00:07:42.688 This is a huge structure 00:07:42.688 --> 00:07:45.448 and the word Basilica is familiar to us. 00:07:45.448 --> 00:07:47.233 We often call churches "basilicas" now. 00:07:47.233 --> 00:07:49.679 For the Romans it was a civic building 00:07:49.679 --> 00:07:51.792 used mainly for courts, 00:07:51.793 --> 00:07:53.834 the Christians adopted the building forum 00:07:53.834 --> 00:07:55.233 because they worshipped inside, 00:07:55.233 --> 00:07:58.667 so they adopted this preexisting building forum 00:07:58.667 --> 00:07:59.806 and gave it a new content. 00:07:59.807 --> 00:08:01.238 So now we're moving into 00:08:01.238 --> 00:08:03.326 one of the most complicated parts of Rome, 00:08:03.326 --> 00:08:05.205 especially when you try to look at the ruins 00:08:05.205 --> 00:08:07.726 and understand how these buildings related to each other. 00:08:07.726 --> 00:08:10.330 I always say the forum is like the wall in Washington. 00:08:10.330 --> 00:08:12.241 It's a big open public space 00:08:12.241 --> 00:08:16.096 used for public events like parades and speeches. 00:08:16.096 --> 00:08:19.425 The buildings around that open space are also public 00:08:19.425 --> 00:08:21.931 and they are courthouses and temples. 00:08:21.931 --> 00:08:24.155 Then, on the forum plaza are, 00:08:24.155 --> 00:08:26.794 as in the case of the wall in Washington, 00:08:26.794 --> 00:08:27.998 monuments commemorating 00:08:27.999 --> 00:08:30.321 great men and important events. 00:08:30.321 --> 00:08:31.691 Adjacent to the forum, 00:08:31.691 --> 00:08:34.265 private property was increasingly bought up 00:08:34.267 --> 00:08:36.639 so that each emperor could build his own forum, 00:08:36.639 --> 00:08:40.408 the so called imperial fora of the emperors. 00:08:40.408 --> 00:08:41.929 We've made a full circle 00:08:41.929 --> 00:08:44.126 and we're now looking again at the Capitoline. 00:08:44.128 --> 00:08:45.872 We're flying over the Roman forum, 00:08:45.872 --> 00:08:46.779 we'll acutally come back to it. 00:08:46.779 --> 00:08:48.519 We're flying over the Capitoline hill, 00:08:48.519 --> 00:08:51.239 we can see the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, 00:08:51.239 --> 00:08:53.447 and we're going beyond, back to the river, 00:08:53.447 --> 00:08:55.814 where we find a big flat area of Rome 00:08:55.814 --> 00:08:57.175 called the Campus Martius, 00:08:57.175 --> 00:08:58.401 the field of Mars. 00:08:58.402 --> 00:09:00.701 It was called that because in the Roman republic 00:09:00.701 --> 00:09:01.773 when there was a citizen army, 00:09:01.773 --> 00:09:03.784 the army would meet here and train. 00:09:03.784 --> 00:09:08.366 Now, we've just moved over this lovely squared pond, 00:09:08.366 --> 00:09:10.297 and we're looking at the flank 00:09:10.297 --> 00:09:13.154 of an enormously important building, the Pantheon. 00:09:13.154 --> 00:09:14.741 The rotunda, the round part, 00:09:14.741 --> 00:09:16.952 we wouldn't really see in antiquity. 00:09:16.952 --> 00:09:19.324 We would see the part that has the eight columns 00:09:19.324 --> 00:09:21.709 across the front that looks like a traditional temple. 00:09:21.709 --> 00:09:25.252 We like to say that it was built as a building 00:09:25.252 --> 00:09:26.623 with a surprise on the inside. 00:09:26.624 --> 00:09:28.926 Because it does look like a regular 00:09:28.926 --> 00:09:29.970 Greek or Roman temple 00:09:29.970 --> 00:09:31.045 but when you get inside, 00:09:31.045 --> 00:09:33.774 that's when you notice that there's actually a rotunda. 00:09:33.774 --> 00:09:35.484 I just want to spend just a second 00:09:35.484 --> 00:09:37.959 marvelling at the scale of this structure. 00:09:37.959 --> 00:09:41.704 Look at those columns, they are enormous. 00:09:41.704 --> 00:09:45.200 The ability to get stones that large upright 00:09:45.201 --> 00:09:47.244 is just a phenomenal feat in itself. 00:09:47.244 --> 00:09:50.508 It's phenomenal and even more so when you consider that 00:09:50.508 --> 00:09:52.625 this is granite, and it's all from Egypt. 00:09:52.625 --> 00:09:54.637 So it was brought from very far away. 00:09:54.637 --> 00:09:57.497 This is a building that celebrates the Roman emperors. 00:09:57.498 --> 00:09:59.504 This building we know had statues of 00:09:59.504 --> 00:10:01.654 Julius Caesar and Augustus, 00:10:01.654 --> 00:10:04.813 so we think that this building was dedicated always 00:10:04.813 --> 00:10:06.693 to the worship of the emperors. 00:10:06.693 --> 00:10:10.023 So this space opens up just magically. 00:10:10.023 --> 00:10:12.485 It does, and the magic is really remarkable, 00:10:12.485 --> 00:10:14.087 I've taken many visitors there, 00:10:14.087 --> 00:10:15.203 and I've asked them 00:10:15.203 --> 00:10:17.184 if they've had the same experience that I've had. 00:10:17.184 --> 00:10:18.540 If you stop right on the threshold, 00:10:18.541 --> 00:10:21.160 and you hold your head straight, I always say, 00:10:21.160 --> 00:10:23.233 "what can you see?" And everybody always agrees. 00:10:23.233 --> 00:10:25.906 You can see the hole in the dome up at the top, 00:10:25.907 --> 00:10:26.824 we call it the eye. 00:10:26.824 --> 00:10:27.769 You can see the floor, 00:10:27.769 --> 00:10:30.473 and you can see the two sides left and right. 00:10:30.473 --> 00:10:33.257 That is to say that this is a grandiose space. 00:10:33.258 --> 00:10:35.631 But it's right at the limit of human vision, 00:10:35.631 --> 00:10:38.223 and for me it always defines what is the classical, 00:10:38.224 --> 00:10:41.534 which is always derived from the human form, 00:10:41.534 --> 00:10:44.157 its proportions and its limitations. 00:10:44.157 --> 00:10:46.746 And by building a building that exactly 00:10:46.746 --> 00:10:51.515 corresponds to the limits of our vision it ennobles us. 00:10:51.515 --> 00:10:54.292 It makes us feel as big and great 00:10:54.292 --> 00:10:55.580 as we can feel as humans. 00:10:55.580 --> 00:10:57.497 It doesn't reduce us. Had it been ten times bigger, 00:10:57.497 --> 00:10:59.203 we would have felt ourselves 00:10:59.203 --> 00:11:01.486 reduced to the size of an ant, or something. 00:11:01.486 --> 00:11:05.205 The building is obsessively concerned with circular form. 00:11:05.205 --> 00:11:07.777 But it is also concerned with squares. 00:11:07.777 --> 00:11:09.507 We look at the floor we actually see 00:11:09.507 --> 00:11:11.041 this play of squares and circles. 00:11:11.042 --> 00:11:12.828 And then of course there are the coffers 00:11:12.828 --> 00:11:15.257 that create this beautiful sense of rhythm. 00:11:15.258 --> 00:11:17.087 Absolutely. And notice we also there 00:11:17.087 --> 00:11:18.450 get the play of squares and circles, 00:11:18.450 --> 00:11:20.084 because these are square coffers that 00:11:20.084 --> 00:11:21.743 give us a semi circular dome. 00:11:21.744 --> 00:11:24.092 But what's interesting to me about it is 00:11:24.092 --> 00:11:25.332 first of all it's painted, 00:11:25.332 --> 00:11:25.928 when you go there today, 00:11:25.928 --> 00:11:27.480 the paint has been completely lost. 00:11:27.480 --> 00:11:29.153 In a dome of heaven motifs. 00:11:29.153 --> 00:11:31.836 So the ground of the dome is painted blue. 00:11:31.836 --> 00:11:34.295 The coffers are highlighted in yellow as if 00:11:34.295 --> 00:11:35.589 radiating the light of the sun, 00:11:35.590 --> 00:11:37.867 and in the middle were probably rosettes 00:11:37.867 --> 00:11:40.723 that are supposed to be suns or stars. 00:11:40.723 --> 00:11:43.276 And even in antiquity we know from a historian 00:11:43.276 --> 00:11:44.839 who wrote only a hundred years 00:11:44.839 --> 00:11:46.244 after the building was built. 00:11:46.244 --> 00:11:47.751 People wondered, how did they build the dome? 00:11:47.751 --> 00:11:49.136 How could they do that? 00:11:49.136 --> 00:11:51.093 They marvelled at it even in antiquity. 00:11:51.093 --> 00:11:52.804 The light is very interesting. 00:11:52.804 --> 00:11:56.149 If you look at the coffering, you can get the idea that 00:11:56.149 --> 00:12:00.337 you know the light from the eye is going to 00:12:00.337 --> 00:12:02.917 direct the sunbeams to different coffers 00:12:02.917 --> 00:12:04.893 at different times of day, on different days of the year. 00:12:04.893 --> 00:12:07.288 Recent scholarship suggests that 00:12:07.288 --> 00:12:09.005 this wasn't really a sundial, 00:12:09.005 --> 00:12:11.740 but there was a play of the passage of time 00:12:11.740 --> 00:12:13.674 and a play of light on space to indicate 00:12:13.674 --> 00:12:15.404 the passage of time during the year. 00:12:15.404 --> 00:12:17.447 There is though one alignment 00:12:17.447 --> 00:12:19.066 that seems to be very intentional 00:12:19.066 --> 00:12:22.656 and that is the sunlight coming through the eye 00:12:22.656 --> 00:12:25.203 at noon on April 21 00:12:25.203 --> 00:12:28.076 exactly illuminated the main door of the Pantheon. 00:12:28.076 --> 00:12:30.673 Remember Hadrian was the man 00:12:30.673 --> 00:12:33.270 responsible for the Pantheon in this phase. 00:12:33.270 --> 00:12:36.206 April 21 was the birthday festival of Rome, 00:12:36.206 --> 00:12:38.542 and Hadrian's very interested in the birthday festival, 00:12:38.542 --> 00:12:41.275 changed the name to the Romaea festival 00:12:41.275 --> 00:12:42.939 in honor of the goddess Roma. 00:12:42.940 --> 00:12:47.060 He seems to have aligned the building in such a way that 00:12:47.060 --> 00:12:48.772 there would be this dramatic effect at noon, 00:12:48.773 --> 00:12:49.980 and we can only imagine that 00:12:49.980 --> 00:12:52.414 there must of been some sort of birthday festival 00:12:52.414 --> 00:12:53.614 happening in the Pantheon that day. 00:12:53.614 --> 00:12:56.323 So let's move back down to the forum now. 00:12:56.323 --> 00:12:58.481 Some of the main roads going through the city 00:12:58.481 --> 00:13:00.352 met here in the forum, 00:13:00.352 --> 00:13:03.002 it's a place that the average Roman 00:13:03.002 --> 00:13:05.176 on an average day might well pass through. 00:13:05.177 --> 00:13:06.741 As the camera pulls back 00:13:06.741 --> 00:13:09.793 and we can really see the full extent of the city, 00:13:09.793 --> 00:13:12.398 you really understand how complex, 00:13:12.398 --> 00:13:14.585 how advanced this ancient world was. 00:13:14.585 --> 00:13:15.971 How many buildings were here, do we think? 00:13:15.971 --> 00:13:20.274 We have two censuses from the fourth century AD that 00:13:20.274 --> 00:13:21.477 suggest there were 00:13:21.477 --> 00:13:23.579 between eight and ten thousand buildings here. 00:13:23.580 --> 00:13:24.970 We think the population 00:13:24.970 --> 00:13:26.513 might have been between one and two million. 00:13:26.513 --> 00:13:29.325 The total surface area was about 00:13:29.325 --> 00:13:31.452 twenty-five square kilometers, 00:13:31.452 --> 00:13:33.536 so it was the biggest city in the Western world anyway 00:13:33.536 --> 00:13:35.608 until 19th Century London.