Sylvia Rodriguez on Klein and Dupont / Ali Smith on Mumford and Dupont
1-29-00 wd. ct. 695 Analytical Assignment Report: Week 2
As part of this week's analytical assignment, I chose to read chapters four and seven from the book titled Daily Life in Ancient Rome by Florence Dupont. I also read an article by Kevin Herbert called "The Silk Road: The Link Between the Classical World and Ancient China" The two chapters in Dupont's book briefly overlapped on the topic of distinction between citizen and soldier. Chapter four presented a very general introduction into the themes of boundaries and separation, religious piety, and Rome in contrast to its colonies and the rest of the world. Chapter seven dealt more specifically with the Roman army and what it entails to be a part of the army and participate in mi litary campaigns. Herbert's article was a concise composition on the relationship between Rome and China based on trade and then gave a brief synopsis of several comparative topics that could be researched in order to further investigate this subject.
Herbert argues that Rome was in contact with China and not just areas around the Mediterranean as is commonly believed. He cites that evidence of trade between the two regions proofs that there was contact between the east and the west. The trade that occurred between the two regions at the ends of the "silk road" eventually led to the exchange of "technological and cultural information" (Herbert 121). In chapter four, Dupont is clearly arguing that the Romans had a distinct way of organization from civic to military life and geographic boundaries. According to Dupont, there was always some kind of distinctions between places and events and that sometimes, in order to proceed from one level to the other, certain rituals must take place, especially when it comes to appeasing the gods. Dupont writes that Romans believed their city was the center of the world and although they considered themselves superior to other peoples, they nonetheless adopted foreign gods as their own. In this sense, the Romans were willing to assimilate certain aspects of other cultures into their own. In chapter seven, Dupont states the fact that the separation from citizen to soldier was very important. Here, Dupont goes into a more in depth description of the whole change from leading a civic life to fulfilling the military requirements. The military life was taken very seriously. In the army, one was either a follower or a leader. There was a fine line which a Roman soldier had to follow. He had to be more civilized than the enemy and still be hearty and tough. Courage was probably their most important virtue for which one could either be punished as Titus Manlius' son or rewarded as many others were.
Dupont's chapter on the army gives the reader the most evidence as to how serious the military life was taken. Dupont takes the reader from the enlistment of men to taking the sacramentum to the battle field. Through this tour, one can understand why Romans took their military duties solemnly. In chapter four, Dupont's topics range greatly so t þhat her arguments are questionable even though the topics have the same underlying theme of boundaries. Herbert's article is too brief to give a reader a comfortable sense of his arguments. In providing these topics for further investigation, Herbert should have used these himself in order to solidify his argument.
All of these secondary readings relate in one way or another to the secondary readings. Chapter seven goes along wit the lecture on the Friday of the second week. This chapter gives a reader f urther insight into the very real significance of the army throughout the history of Rome. The chapter on boundaries goes along with Wednesday's lecture on the boundaries between the city of the living and the city of the dead. Herbert's article goes along with the topic of assimilation of other material items, gods, and ritual practices.
Works Cited:
Alicia Smith CMS 206 Analytic Paper-Week 2 Word Count: 913
Practical and Symbolic Functions of Roman Walls in Roman Colonies
Physical form and location of buildings is something those who live around them rarely take notice of, as they are part of their everyday lives. However, the placing and design of buildings is far from arbitrary. Structures help shape the social and political direction of the city they occupy and the ideals of their inhabitants. In the Roman Empire, colonies were closely modeled after the city of Rome in order to promote the idea onto the occupied cities that they were now Roman.
Unlike the Greeks, the Romans saw a wall as a vital part of their city structure, so much so that it was the first thing they would build when creating a new city. Walls, a checkerboard layout within a rectangular boundary, a forum, theatre, arena, and baths characterized Rome and the cities of its Empire. Roads intersected each other neatly, with the two main roads intersecting at the Forum, the central meeting place in the city, giving the area an even greater importance than it would have anyway as the center of government. When a new colony was gained, the town would be rebuilt in the image of Rome, as the Romans saw Rome as a model for all other cities. As the Empire grew, the city of Rome began to deviate from its original neatness and order, but its colonies, such as Turin and Aosta, stayed orderly in appearance.
The orderliness of Rome's colonies was a method of controlling a new population that may not have wanted to be Romans in the first place. Even though the Romans permitted the taken city's inhabitants to maintain, for the most part, their usual ways of life, there needed to be a way other than taxes to make these people realize they were now part of Rome. If the local leaders stayed the same, and most of the laws stayed the same, one can understand why the people may not have felt very Roman. In order to overcome that mental barrier, the face of the city was often changed to resemble a typical Roman town, complete with the all-important wall. This change in architecture also symbolized to outsiders traveling to the city for trade or other business&emdash;and invasion&emdash;that the city was now part of the Roman Empire.
Sections of Roman walls are still prominent throughout former areas of the Empire. One of the most famous of these walls is known as Hadrian's Wall, in Great Britain. While J.J.R. Bridge's article, "The Roman Wall" reads more like a tourist brochure for the border area of Britain and Scotland, Internet searches on Hadrian's Wall produced more relevant historical information. The web site of the Museum of Antiquities describes the wall's purpose as that of a divider between the taken territory of Britain and the northern territory. Apparently, the Roman commander Hadrian ordered a wall built along a line of already established forts because he felt the entire territory taken by Trajan would be too large to effectively control, so he arbitrarily downsized it. The wall served the practical purpose of reducing the land to a size the Roman forces in Britain could control. During the course of my semester at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, I was told another theory on the origins of Hadrian's Wall. It only took seven years for the Romans to quell resistance and control most of England. The Scottish and Welsh tribes, however, were more of a problem. According to the proud modern Glaswegian, the Romans built Hadrian's Wall across northern England to keep out the obstinate Scots whom they could not control.
Gates in the wall allowed for monitoring of people traveling between the northern territory and Britain, so the Romans could watch for possible troublemakers. Gates were an important part of all Roman walls, although in cities their function was less on military surveillance than on the practical purpose of entry and the symbolic function of transition into the Roman city. These gates, known as janua, represented a return home for travelers, or an end to war and the beginning of peace for soldiers returning from battle.
Walls such as the Hadrian Wall clearly delineated what was and what was not a Roman city to both Romans and outsiders. Walls and repetitive features such as forums and baths in Roman colonial cities projected an outward appearance of order, cleanliness, and civility to the Romans, their enemies, and new colonies. As the Empire expanded and Rome began to experience urban sprawl and disarray, orderly cities projected sense of peace and law in the colonies became even more important for the Roman citizen's peace of mind. This would explain why, even though the physical face of Rome itself was changing because of a growing population, the colonies were limited to a certain population size and built in the image of old Rome.
The importance of physical settings has not changed in modern times. This is evidence by the fevor of Mayor Rudolph Gulliani's campaign to clean up New York City of not just crime but garbage and graffiti. In New York and other cities large and small in the United States and abroad, people recognize that the structures around them influence attitudes. The Romans seemed to recognize this when they built their walls and buildings in their colonies as a way of promoting group identity among resistant people.
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