Rome was the largest and wealthiest city in the ancient world.
Not until the nineteenth century, with the rise of industrial London, would any metropolis
exert such an outsized influence on the global economy.
And it may not have been until Peter the Great’s creation of St. Petersburg, or even Napoleon
the third’s renovation of Paris, that any European ruler invested as massively in monumental
building as the Roman emperors.
For two and a half centuries, the emperors spent the majority of their reigns in and
around Rome, pouring vast sums into feeding, entertaining, and building amenities for the
city’s inhabitants.
As usual, Augustus set the tone.
In the autobiography inscribed on his tomb, the first emperor dedicated a long section
to his building projects in Rome, which included no fewer than 82 temples.
Suetonius’ famous tag about Augustus finding Rome a city of brick and leaving it a city
of marble was hardly an exaggeration.
Although none of Augustus’ successors had, or could have, such a transformative impact,
virtually all commissioned substantial building projects in and around the capital.
By ancient standards, the resources at their disposal were almost incalculably vast.
Besides spectacular reserves of gold and silver, the emperors had access to all the building
materials of the Mediterranean world.
Marble and granite quarries were state-owned, and government officials oversaw the cutting
and shipment of blocks from places as far afield as the Anatolian plateau and Egypt’s
Eastern Desert.
Imperial estates in mountains and woodlands produced construction-grade timber; a recent
analysis of some oak planks found in Rome proved that they were cut in what is now northeastern
France, more than a thousand miles away.
Closer to Rome, the emperors drew vast quantities of travertine (by one estimate, 5.5 million
cubic meters) from the quarries at Tivoli.
They also came to control a network of brickyards around the capital, along with pits that supplied
the volcanic sand used to make concrete.
All of these raw materials combined with imperial funding to support a building industry of
unprecedented scale.
For major projects, contractors like the Haterii, whose monumental tomb was discovered in the
nineteenth century, organized vast teams of laborers and draft animals.
By one estimate, the central block of the Baths of Caracalla involved up to 13,000 laborers
and nearly 2,000 teams of oxen.
The remainder of this video will investigate the three imperial building projects that
were, in my opinion, the most expensive and ambitious ever undertaken in the city of Rome.
So – without any further ado – number three: Domitian’s Temple of Jupiter
According to tradition, the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (Jupiter the Best and Greatest)
on the Capitoline Hill was founded when Rome was still a monarchy.
Over the following centuries, it served as the ritual center of the Roman state.
Votive offerings and statues of famous Romans surrounded it.
The texts of treaties were inscribed in bronze on its walls.
Victorious generals offered sacrifice on its great altar after their triumphs.
The Temple of Jupiter was designed in the Etruscan style – that is, it was almost
square, and characterized by a deep front portico and gently-sloping roof adorned with
statues.
At 53 x 62 meters, it was by far the largest building in early Rome.
The original temple burned in 83 BC, and another fire claimed its replacement in 69 AD.
After it burned a third time eleven years later, it received a final, lavish rebuilding
under the emperor Domitian.
Domitian maintained the basic plan of Jupiter’s temple, but remade every part in the most
expensive materials available.
The columns, an incredible 21 meters high, were of the finest Greek marble.
The cult statue of Jupiter was fashioned from ivory and gold to rival Phidias’ famous
Zeus.
The vast doors were gilded.
So, remarkably, was every bronze shingle on the roof.
Gilding the roof alone cost nearly 300,000,000 sestertii – perhaps three times as much
as the entire Colosseum
We’ll explore two building projects that may have been even more expensive than Domitian’s
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Returning to our topic – number two: the Forum of Trajan.
Thanks to his excellent relations with the Senate and extensive conquests in Dacia and
Parthia, Trajan is remembered as “optimus princeps,” the best emperor.
This reputation was cemented by his spectacular forum, financed with spoils from the conquest
of Dacia.
It was laid out as a quadrilateral roughly 240 meters long and 175 meters deep.
According to the inscription on the pedestal of Trajan’s column, levelling the site required
cutting away a hill as tall as the column itself – 100 Roman feet.
The forum was bounded by a wall of peperino tufa, meant to deflect the fires that routinely
ravaged Rome.
Its portico was fashioned from the finest colored marble, and crowned with colossal
sculptures of captive barbarians.
The central square, paved with 3,000 enormous slabs of white marble, was dominated by an
equestrian statue of Trajan.
On one side of the portico rose the Basilica Ulpia, centered on a cathedral-like nave that
soared to a roof 100 Roman feet high.
Behind it, flanked by two large halls formerly identified as libraries, was the Column of
Trajan, whose famous spiraling relief – 200 meters long and crowded with some 2,600 figures
– proclaimed the emperor’s victories against the Dacians.
Number one.
Nero’s Golden House
Perhaps the only building project in Roman history more expensive than the Forum of Trajan
was the infamous Domus Aurea, Nero’s Golden House.
Built in the wake of a fire that destroyed much of central Rome, the Golden House extended
over three of Rome’s seven hills and may have covered as much as 300 acres – three
times the area of Vatican City.
A statue of Nero 120 feet tall loomed over the vestibule.
Much of the space within, framed by a triple colonnade one mile long, was landscaped as
a forested park.
Tame animals roamed among the groves.
At the center of the Golden House was an artificial lake dotted with pleasure barges.
Around the lake sprawled a series of pavilions that were lavish even by Neronian standards.
Sulfur water swirled in the baths.
Gemstones and gold glittered on the walls of the reception rooms.
Ivory panels in the ceilings opened to shower guests with flower petals and perfume.
The floor of the chief banquet hall rotated like the heavens.
Of all this, only part of a single pavilion survives, preserved in the substructures of
the Baths of Trajan.
This fragment, about 220 meters long, has 142 known rooms.
Though stripped of their marble and statues in antiquity, the rooms are remarkable for
their high ceilings, polygonal shapes, and fragmentary frescoes.
Many appear to have been banquet halls, sited to offer diners sweeping views of the woods
and lake.
Understandably, the Roman people resented such extravagance, and the palace was rapidly
disassembled after Nero’s death.
The Colosseum was built over the artificial lake.
The gargantuan statue of Nero was adapted into a likeness of the sun god.
And within a generation, a bustling new quarter of offices, baths, and shops had completely
covered the remains of the most expensive building in Roman history.
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