Central to the exhibition is the question inherent in its title, Ancient Rome: the Empire that Shaped the World. Is it really possible that toga-clad men who over-indulged in fermented grape juice and had a fondness of bathing and large stadium spectaculars could be our cultural forefathers? Located in an enormous tent at Waterfront City Piazza Docklands, the collection of models and working machines, gladiator costumes and display cases of artefacts from the mighty Empire transports the visitor back to a time before the internet, before the car and wristwatches.
Thankfully, this exhibition goes beyond the clichéd images we have from Hollywood and sheds some light on the extraordinary facts as well as presenting fascinating anecdotes.
Another unique aspect is that most of the items on display are interactive. Many of the machines in the exhibition have handles that can be turned and ropes that when pulled activate pulleys. This level of interactivity provides a fantastic insight into the way things work. Their complex ingenuity and elegance of design appeases even those of us with insatiable curiosity.
The exhibition is broken up into themes to help the visitor take in the vast amounts of knowledge on display, and brings to light some of the legacies from the period from 52 BC to AD 476 that linger on today in the fields of architecture, engineering, military leadership, scholarship and politics.
Despite the 2000+ years between the days of the reign of dictator Julius Caesar and current day Melbourne, and the vast geographic distance, I found there to be many similarities between our cultures. Design elements from the Colosseum can be found in the construction of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Both stadiums are essentially amphitheatres with tiered seating allowing each spectator an unimpeded view of the action below. Up to 80,000 Roman citizens could attend the spectacle, testament to the fact that the Romans were also fans of sport and loved their celebrity gladiators. Turnstiles, crowd controllers and the Vomitoria (not, as popular myth suggests, rooms designed for purging at a banquet but actually passageways through which big crowds can exit rapidly – or ‘spew forth’ – at the end of a performance) provided easy access and enabled the large crowds to exit quickly and safely.
The Romans were masters of propaganda and legionnaires wore metal strips that hung from the bottom of their chest armour and rattled when they walked. The racket of the jangling metal and the thunderous noise of thousands of marching men frightened and intimidated the enemy.
A number of gladiator, legionnaire and emperor’s bodyguard outfits are on display in the exhibition so the visitor can examine the materials used and their construction in detail.
There are words and phrases that have remained unchanged for 2000 years. A battering ram, or Ram in Testudo, is a wooden structure on wheels. A heavy beam is suspended from the mobile frame and when set in swinging motion is effective at breaking through doors, gates and even city walls. A carved head of a ram is at the business end of the beam. The Romans knew the brutal force of a ram fighting another ram.
When the men weren’t being entertained by gladiatorial combats they were on campaigns to take control of lands. Over its 500 year reign, Rome was one of the largest empires in the ancient world, controlling cities across what is now modern day Europe, the east of the Asian continent and North Africa.
Sanitation in the military camps ensured soldiers were healthy and lived to fight longer. “Battles are won with the shovel, not the sword,” according to Caligula’s General Domitius Corbulo (AD 15 – 67) (1).
They were aware of a healthy diet, taking porridge with them on campaigns. The meat-eating barbarians perceived this to be sissy, and their cereal-eating habit earned them the reputation of being porridge munchers.
They used technology in ingenious ways. The farmers who were recruited to join the army were about five feet tall, short compared to today’s standards. Their enemies were taller and stronger, carrying long swords and shields. To get through their enemies’ defences, the Romans engineered lances with lead points which would be thrown at the enemies, embed themselves in the shields, and then bend, making them heavy and awkward. The enemies would discard their shields and give the Romans a fairer chance at getting close to them and striking them a killing blow.
The technology used to build stone structures, roads and bridges was known to the ancient Greeks from the 8th to 6th centuries BC. The Romans used this knowledge to advance their military capabilities. It’s no accident that the phrase, ‘as straight as a Roman road’ is ingrained in our psyche. Roman roads were surveyed and paved, providing the quickest route from point A to point B, for exclusive use by armies and supplies. The roads, called viae, were smooth and designed not to flood. Some are still in use millennia later.
The Calcatorian crane was described as one of the most powerful ancient cranes capable of lifting weights of up to 21 tons. Made of wood and operated by five men inside a treadmill resembling a giant hamster wheel, the crane used a system of pulleys and was similar to the kind used to build the Palace of Versailles in Paris in 1682. This engineering know-how was superseded only by the machines of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th Century.
Like all the models on display, the crane is made by the Artisans of Florence, three generations of master craftsmen who meticulously and painstakingly created the machines using the materials of the era: wood, iron, cloth, ropes and bronze. An exhibition of the machines in Rome in 2011 attracted the Italian presidential Gold Medal award in recognition of its contribution to culture and the arts.
The Romans shaped the modern world as much through their way of thinking as through their military ambition, most notably their need for precision in all things. At night, when sundials were of no use, the Romans harnessed the power of water to measure time. On display is a 12 hour water clock that divides the 24 hours of the day into two periods. An intricate device with numerous chambers, it keeps the water flow constant and is calibrated to take into account the different hours of sunlight in winter and summer. The terms ante meridiem (‘before midday’) and post meridiem (‘after midday’) are still in use today (2).
The Romans were masters of infrastructure and their superbly engineered roads have survived the ages. The Tabula of Peutinger is thought to be the first ever road map. Measuring 36 cm in width and 7.5 metres in length the scroll displays the world as known in the late 3rd century AD at the height of the Roman expansion. Unlike later cartographical maps, the territories were not drawn to scale. Instead, it contains diagrams and descriptions that helpfully provide the names of the roads and towns in black ink, the names of important cities, provinces and regions in red ink, the distances between each and the locations of the depots for the benefit of Roman officials leading their armies.
To know the length of a road, the Romans used a Land Odometer. The wooden odometer was applied to an axle of a large cart, adjusted to the outer rim, which “according to Vitruvius, had to complete 400 revolutions to cover a mile” (3). After each mile a cog turns a horizontal wheel and a seashell is released into a container. At the end of the journey the shells are counted and the distance documented.
The Codex, a collection of papers, trimmed or folded and bound, was an innovation of Julius Caesar and the precursor to the mass-produced book. Among the replica artefacts on display in the exhibition is a collection of rare copies of famous ‘volumen’ and ‘codices’ (scrolls and books) including De Architectura by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio.
As impressive as these are what caught my eye was the Tabula Rasa, literally a ‘blank tablet’. The pointed end of a metal tool, known as a stylus, would be used to make an inscription in the flattened beeswax on wood and then erased with the flat end of the stylus. It was used by pupils in the earliest Roman schools to practice their writing, and by people wanting to jot down a memo. In the years before this invention, only important texts were written on large scrolls made of papyrus which were single-use, expensive, awkward to carry and fragile. I can’t help looking at this as an analogue precursor to the iPad, a ‘tablet’ from our very different, electronic age.
How these innovations, inventions, concepts and applications of technology came to be preserved as part of our culture is intriguing. We take so much of our modern day knowledge for granted. This exhibition is a timely reminder of how much of our culture and wisdom is derived from this earlier civilisation. From 52 BC to AD 476 the Roman Empire was the Western world’s superpower. It is easy to believe we are culturally superior to our forefathers with our sophisticated technology-enhanced lifestyles, our internet connectedness and our smart phones with GPS. However, ‘resting on our laurels’ (another Roman saying) poses a grave danger. Despite the quality lifestyles, the technological innovations, the ground-breaking feats of engineering and military might that benefited those with status and power in the Roman Empire we should keep in mind how quickly the victors can become the vanquished.
Ancient Rome: the Empire that Shaped the World
Waterfront City Piazza, Docklands, Melbourne
March 31 – July 15
www.romanexhibition.com.au/
Footnotes:
1) Machina: Tecnologia dell’Antica Roma – Technology of Ancient Rome
Museo Civilta Romana, Rome, December 2009 – April 2010 Marco Galli, Giuseppina Pisani Saertorio
Catalogue to the Exhibition ‘Machina’ Palombi Editore, Roma 2009
2) ‘Time’. The New Encyclopædia Britannica. 28. 2005. pp. 670 2a.
3) Vitruvius’ De Architectura Book VIII
