Subterranean Rome - an engineering feat from 2500 years ago

 

At one time, one could visit,
but would you want to?

  Rome's - if not the world's - most famous sewer showed up on our RST Top 40 list, admittedly at #40, almost 9 years ago. We're revisiting it today, because it fits into our you-can't-go-there-anyway category; in this case, because it's underground.

Better to view it from the outside, here, today, as it exits into the Tevere.

 The sewer, or Cloaca Maxima (also spelled Cloaxa, as we did 9 years ago, but Cloaca is more common, we've learned since) - meaning "big sewer" - was constructed about 2500 years ago, even before the Romans as we know them. It was designed to canalize water coming down from streams on Rome's 7 hills into the Forum. It ran straight through the Forum and was first open, with small boards as crossing points (must have smelled lovely).

In the photo at right is a reconstruction of what the Cloaca Maxima looked like during the time of the Tarquinian kings (6th century BCE).

When we wrote Rome the Second Time in 2008, we were fascinated by the large mouth of the Cloaca on the Tevere that one can still see today (it shows up in Itinerary 3: The Strange Career of the Tevere, p. 48 in the print copy) - see photo above,"Lo sbocco nel Tevere." There are many views of that 2500 year-old opening, including by Piranesi (etching below), who apparently inspired Goethe to visit the Cloaca in April, 1788. There's evidence Goethe was able to go inside the sewer, though we don't know if he entered it from the Tevere. 

There are more, quite lovely, paintings and etchings at the end of this post.  Amazing a sewer can be so inspirational.

We, who are always finding ways to tie Rome, Los Angeles, and Buffalo, NY, to each other, offer to tie at least Rome and Buffalo together with the tracing above ground of the waterway below-ground. The photo below shows the route of the Cloaca Maxima, above ground, as it would look today. Recently, Bill took the two of us on a route following an important creek in Buffalo, the Scajaquada Creek, where it was placed - a mere 90 years ago -  underground, but can - more or less - be followed above ground. 

So that's our challenge to our readers and to us the next time we are able - to follow the Cloaca Maxima's route above ground.  Part of that route, of course, still wends its way through the Forum, and one can today find evidence of it above ground there, as in this photo:

These (above photo) are the remains of a small "chapel" ("Sacello") to the Sewer Venus ("Venere Cloacina"), evidenced also in a coin of the period (photo right). 

Other fun facts.  Most of the sewer is in use today, 2,500 years later, although not the part that opens onto the Tevere. Etruscans started building it by carving into the very useful tufo (photo left). It was finally (!) covered over in the 2nd century BCE, as Rome grew and there was need for more space. Agrippa (1st century BCE) took a boat and explored it. 

People who were sewer-keepers were proud enough to have this on their tombstones (photo right). 

One of the San Sebastiano stories has him thrown into it. Left, Ludovico Carracci's 1612 painting of San Sebastiano being thrown into the Cloaca

Parts of the Cloaca Maxima are built with the classic Roman marble, travertine (tons used by Richard Meier to construct The Getty Museum in LA - see, I got LA in there - as well as the Ara Pacis structure in central Rome). Photo right.

There have been visits "down there" from time to time, including the photo at the top of this post from the 1960s, as I recall. Now, small robots are used to investigate the caverns, called "robotini" or "archeorobots" - photo left.

Most of the information in this post is from a Zoom lecture by Daniela Pacchiani, a specialist in ancient archaeology, as part of Turismo Culturale Italiano's Roma Inaccessibili ("Inaccessible Rome") series in January and February.

Dianne (more 18th and 19th century paintings below!)

This is a nice "capriccio" or fantastical image
of the Cloaca's opening onto the Tevere. It is 
not too far from the temple, whose ruins are fancifully shown here,
but which are obviously not exactly in this location.

"Children of Rome": From Trajan's Column to Robert E. Lee

RST is pleased to welcome guest blogger Dr. Daniel D. Reiff.  Dr. Reiff is SUNY Fredonia Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus (and for many years a colleague of RST's William Graebner), where he taught architectural history.  With co-author Janina K. Darling (a classicist), he recently published a 5-volume compilation and history of column monuments: Column Monuments: Commemorative and Memorial Column Monuments from Ancient Times to the 21st Century:A History and Guide (The Edwin Mellen Press, 2018).  The text includes 286 major monuments in 36 countries, including 98 sites in the United States.  As Dr. Reiff's post reveals, all the later columns owe a debt to the columns of ancient Rome; hence the title "Children of Rome."  

Trajan's Column, Rome, c. 113, commemorating the
military campaign against Dacia (now Romania)

The commemorative columns of ancient Rome--notably those of Trajan (c. 113) [above] and Marcus Aurelius (c. 193) [below]--had a profound impact on later memorials. Trajan's column contains a helical, or spiral, staircase of 185 steps, illuminated by 40 small windows.  By the 12th century the column had become a powerful symbol of the city of Rome.  So great was its importance that in 1162 the Senate passed a law that condemned to death any person who would damage the column, declaring that it must stand intact as the talisman of Rome "as long as the Earth endures."

The Marcus Aurelius column, Rome,
in Piazza Colonna, c. 193.

Pompey's Pillar, Alexandria, 302.

Other examples from the Roman world, that confirm the importance of this sort of monument, also survived the centuries: Constantine's column in Istanbul (330), and "Pompey's Pillar: in Alexandria (302) [right] were always well known.

The Venetian columns, 1100s.

Simple, clear, and of urban importance, such monuments (after a Medieval hiatus when they were considered icons of paganism) reappear in the early middle ages, now sanctified by images of saints--not pagan emperors--at their summits.  Those in Venice [left], one bearing the lion symbol of St. Mark (1126), and the other an image of St. Theodore (1172), are among the most famous.











Elaborate columns supporting images of the Holy Trinity (17th-18th centuries) or the Virgin Mary (17th-19th centuries)--usually offering thanks for their intercession in stopping plagues--were ubiquitous in Europe; a splendid one in Olomouc (Czech Republic) [below], with a column in High Baroque style, was completed in 1723.

In the Baroque style, Czech Republic, 1723.

But the first column monument with a mortal at its summit finally appeared less than a century before: it was erected in Warsaw in 1644, to honor Emperor Sigismund III [below].  From that date onward, mortals, and symbolic figures, found their way to the apex of hundreds of such columns, throughout Europe, and beyond.

Warsaw, 1644.  The first column to have a person on top.  

In America, such memorial columns begin with Charles Bulfinch's Bunker Hill Monument of 1790.  Thereafter, such monuments, large and small, became a popular way to commemorate important events or persons.  Some had statues of the dedicatee, as that to George Washington in Baltimore (1829)--one of the tallest at 193 feet [below].

George Washington on top of this large column in
Baltimore, MD, 1829.  

Phoenixville, PA, (c. 1890) with spiral bands
perhaps derived from Trajan's column

In the post-Civil War era the columns often displayed a figure of "Liberty," "Columbia," an American eagle, or most often, a statue of the "common soldier."  Such soldier figures provided the viewer, often grieving for a lost husband, brother, or son, greater empathy.  Such monuments can be found all across America, both North and South, for the half-century following the war.

Several representative ones can be illustrated.  The elegant version from Ogdensburg, NY (1905) follows the model of the "basis type" closely.  An elaborate version of this model, beautifully carved in white marble, is in Phoenixville, PA: it even emulates the spiral band motif of the Column of Trajan! [Right]

A post-Civil War column, Buffalo,
Lafayette Square, 1878.

Somewhat more elaborate versions included statues of soldiers
representing the branches of the military, as seen in Boston (1877) and Buffalo (1878) [left] around the base.

Separate pedestals, Lancaster, PA, 1874.

Some examples, such as that in Lancaster, PA (1874) [left], place these figures on separate pedestals, for ease of viewing.  This monument uses a pillar--a "square column"--as its support.









But having an actual historic person on the summit was very rare: that in New Orleans (1884), capped by Robert E. Lee, is an example [below].  (The bronze figure has recently been removed.)

Commemorating Robert E. Lee, New Orleans, 1884.
The Lee figure was removed to an unknown location in 2017.
The column stands in Lee Circle.

The "basis type" continued in use for World War I monuments too.  One of the most beautiful is in Washington, D.C. (1924); another, in Lockport, NY, from 1930 [below], uses a pillar of somewhat "moderne" style to support a figure of "militant Liberty," based on Roman sculptures of seated Jupiter!

Lockport, NY column, in the "moderne" style.

But column monuments also celebrate a host of other people, and events, in America--a brief sampling:

Henry Clay, Pottsville, PA (1852)
Christopher Columbus, NYC (1892)

                                                John C. Calhoun, Charleston, SC (1896) [below]

John C. Calhoun, a pro-slavery politician, atop a Charleston, S.C. column, 1894. The column
was dedicated in the midst of the Jim Crow era--one of the reasons a later generation
would call for the removal of the figures (see Robert E. Lee column above).

Elijah Paris Lovejoy (19th c. martyred publisher), Alton, IL (1897)
James Rumsey (18th-century inventor of a steamboat), Shepherdstown, WV (1915)
Henry Hudson, Bronx, NY (1938)
Doctors Column (historic doctors, ancient times to 20th century), Philadelphia, PA (1976)

End of Revolutionary War, Yorktown, VA (1884)
Commodore Dewey, San Francisco, CA (1903)
Revolutionary War "Prison Ship Martyrs," Brooklyn, NY (1909)
Revolutionary War Generals, Columbia, SC (1913)
1812 Battle of Lake Erie, South Bass Island, OH (1914)

                                             Columbia River Column, Astoria, OR (1926) [below]

                                            Cancer Survivors Column, Cleveland, OH (1989) [below]

The ultimate source for all these varied designs is, essentially, the column monuments of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius.  In these "children of Rome," the richness and variety of architectural designs, and sculptures by many leading (and some un-sung) artists and architects, make this a history of "hidden masterpieces"--little studied, until now.

Dr. Daniel D. Reiff

Space-Age Buildings: LA and Rome

 RST spends time in both Rome and Los Angeles, very different cities that share traffic problems but, seemingly, little else. 

We found another connection.  Each city has an iconic, well-known, mid-century, high-modernist,  dome-like building that utilizes powerful, dominant exterior supports.  Both were constructed at

Garry Winogrand's famous 1964 photo

about the same time, and both have a space-age look consistent with the era but nonetheless rare.  We can think of no other building, anywhere, that has all these characteristics.  If you're aware of one, let us know.  

The LA building is known (rather oddly) as the "Theme Building."  It sits near the entrance/exit of Los

Looks like an artists's conception

Angeles International Airport (known to locals as LAX) and houses a Jetsons-like (the program began in 1962) restaurant in its core - Encounter (managed in part, we might add, by Buffalo-based Delaware North Companies).  Credit for the innovative design is usually given to an architectural firm headed by William Pereira and Charles Luckman.  But there were other firms involved in this "team" effort, including Welton Becket and Paul R. Williams, the black architect, and web sites say the "real" credit for the design should go to James Langenheim--or Gin Wong--both of Pereira and Luckman.   The building opened in 1961. 

Prosaic during the day

Its Rome counterpart is the Palazzetto dello Sport, completed in 1958 for the 1960 Rome Olympic games.  It isn't quite as fanciful as the Theme Building, except perhaps at night, when interior light flows through the glass windows beneath the dome.  But an impressionable (and stoned) foreign student, coming upon the structure suddenly and after dark, might wonder if the Martians had landed. 

In this case the lead designer is known: Italian Pier Luigi Nervi.   Bill

See earlier posts on the Palazzetto and the 1960 Olympics.

Compelling at night