White, B. J.
(2023)
The Roman porticus: colonnades in Rome’s built environment, c. 200 BCE - 100 CE.
PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
Abstract
In recent years, space has proved a major theoretical and methodological vehicle for exploring social, cultural and political history. While space is produced by architectural structures, it also a product of the citizens that interact with them. It is precisely in this dialectic that this study employs the term ‘built environment’. In this thesis, I examine the developing forms and functions of a particular space, the porticus, and contextualise it in Rome’s built environment from 200 BCE to 100 CE. A primary function of Roman porticus was their framing of social interaction. By the second century CE, they provided the city of Rome with a cohesive columnar scenography, blending the routines of daily life to the intercolumnar rhythms of its architectural environment. This thesis investigates how and why.
The Roman porticus remains an understudied architectural form and is lacking a diachronic examination of its development at Rome. To provide this, this thesis builds on several studies which have tackled the porticus. It attempts to move away from considering porticus in isolation of the broader questions of urban experience, and to integrate their development with the socio-political transformations that scholarship increasingly focusses on. To that end, this thesis begins by attempting to define what makes a Roman porticus by combining evidence from various media, textual and material. Here, I establish the triad of themes which form the basis for more historicised discussions in the following chapters: porticus as display spaces, didactic spaces, and ordered spaces. The second chapter explores the earliest attested porticus spaces in Rome’s mid-Republican environment. I argue that pinpointing this period as the ‘introduction’ of porticus seriously downplays Rome’s participation in social and cultural conversations throughout the interconnected Mediterranean landscape. The third chapter explores the theme of display among the competitive building practices of the Republic. Here, I address the concept of Rome as a museum city and consider the active role of porticus in producing space for the performance of politics, and especially its increasing theatricality. The fourth chapter turns to the Augustan period and the production of didactic spaces. It argues that porticus, each embellished with instructional materials, actively fashioned stages for the co-production of the new dynamics of power under the emerging Imperial dynasty. The final chapter emphasises the ordering function of porticus spaces. Specifically, in drawing links between the Neronian and Flavian periods, it demonstrates the increased internal structuring of movement and activity in porticus spaces, but also considers their broader role in producing a more unified urban framework: Rome’s urban armature.
Fundamentally, this thesis argues that porticus played a significant and dynamic role in the narratives of late Republican and early Imperial Roman history, society and politics. Underscoring the entire investigation is the active role of porticus in structuring human activity and behaviour, and at every stage I attempt to reanimate and repopulate porticus with their original participants. The diachronic scope of this investigation ensures that a deeper understanding of the porticus can contribute to scholarly conversations surrounding the complex organic processes entangled in the transition from Republic to Empire.
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