The course aims to provide with an advanced integrated knowledge of the places and of the types of the Roman spectacle in the Flavian Age. Special attention will be paid to the Colosseum, which is the dynastic stage for the Emperor Vespasian and his children Titus and Domitian.
2) ESSAYS:
KEITH HOPKINS-MARY BEARD, Il Colosseo: la storia e il mito, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2006.
CINZIA VISMARA, Il supplizio come spettacolo, in Teatri romani. Gli spettacoli nell’antica Roma, a cura di Nicola SAVARESE, Imola, Cue Press, 2015, pp. 148-157 (the volume is available also as e-book: http://www.cuepress.com/prodotto/teatri-romani/).
3) TEXTS: MARZIALE, Liber de spectaculis (e.g. in Epigrammi translated by Mario Scàndola, with notes by Elena Merli and with an introductory essay by Mario Citroni, vol. I, Libro degli spettacoli, I-VII, facing Latin text, Milano, Rizzoli, 1996, pp. 115-141).
SVETONIO, Vespasiano, Tito, Domiziano (e.g. in Vite dei Cesari translated by Felice Dessì, with an introduction and a preface to Latin text by Settimio Lanciotti, facing Latin text, Milano, Rizzoli, 1982, vol. II).
Learning Objectives
The course aims to provide students with an advanced historical-philological knowledge of Roman ludi in the first century AD and of its context. This is achieved via manifold tools. The lessons aim to develop the key transferable skills required student’s understanding of the plural sources (literary, iconographic, epigraphic, archaeological sites, websites). The main objective is to achieve individual analytical skills related to the history of Roman spectacle in the Flavian Age. The course include learning exercise.
Prerequisites
Bachelor.
Teaching Methods
Face-to-face lectures: history of culture and history of spectacle by means of a comparative analysis of plural sources and multiple historiographical approaches. Contextual and multilinear approach to the topics studied. The course will be integrated with the showing of pictures and video. The course include learning exercise.
Further information
Course attendance is strongly recommended. There will be oral and/or written testes ‘in itinere’ and a final oral test.
Type of Assessment
Oral test. The student will be examined on the course contents and on the required
readings.
Course program
Title of the course: THE ROMAN SPECTACLE IN THE FLAVIAN AGE. THE HISTORY OF THE COLOSSEUM AND OTHER PROBLEMS.
Special attention will be paid to the complex dramaturgy related to the Colosseum, which was the imposing public stage for the Flavian dynasty founded by Divus Vespasian (80-96 AD.). The lessons include: the contextual analysis of the processes of the production, staging and consumption of spectacle; the philological analysis of the architecture and the functioning of the Colosseum; the understanding of gladiator game competitions, ‘naumachia’, ‘venatio’ and of the ‘supplizio’ performance represented for the inauguration of the Flavian amphitheater; the analysis of the centuries-old fortune of the most celebrated building in the Ancient World.
Topics:
1. History of spectacle and Ancient World: matters and methods.
2. The Roman political and cultural system in the first century AD.
3. The Flavian rise to power.
4. The triumphal procession as spectacle.
5. Vespasian’s great ‘view’: the building of the Flavian amphitheater.
6. The inauguration of the Flavian stage (80 AD.).
7. Other types of spectacle in the Colosseum.
8. The fame of the Colosseum.