ROME: The Mythological City

‘The Myth of White’ - Rome in Colour  During my lecture today we looked at the fact that the Prima Porta statue was originally highly coloured and having just written a blog post on the Prima Porta and not mentioned this fact I felt compelled to fix this oversight. However, after starting to research about colour in antiquity I became fascinated by why we picture Greek and Roman sculpture in this perfect white marble. My Photos from the Vatican Museum (2017)   You can see how all the statues are clean white marble,  this type of portrayal is what perpetuates the myth of white  So, why do we have this ‘myth of white’. A lot of this has to do with the fashions of the 17th and 18th centuries in the wake of the Renaissance. Influential scholars such as Johann Winckelmann (who is often called the father of art history) says that “white was the epitome of beauty and colour inits self wasn’t beautiful,” (Winckelmann, J. Irwin, D. 1972:1...

Myth and Community: Prima Porta Augusta  What is myth?  After a discussion in our  lecture this  week we  came to the conclusion that defining myth was near impossible. However, the one  definition  I did like the sound of and will be using  throughout  this  blog  was by Helen Morales’ (2007:9). She defined myth as “ a complex game of production and reception”, in other words  I   believe  she is saying that myth is everything, it has no boundaries, and this  allows  it to transcend time and be just as important today as it was when it was first told.  What does community mean? To me community means a collection of people living together and/or having similar goals. Following on from our discussion in class about the Origins of Erichthonios and the use of this myth as a way to link the whole citizenry body of Athens together via a common origin, I believe that Augustus is deploying a sim...

ROME: The Mythological City   During the course of this blog my plan is to look at Emperor Augustus’ use of myth in the foundation of his principate and his ‘rule’ over the city. Augustus could never say he ruled Rome, kings were not tolerated in Rome since the assassination of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (the seventh and last king of Rome) and the establishment of the Roman Republic. Anyone who acted like a king was murdered. This meant Augustus need to rule without being seen as ruler. I am going to look at the use of mythology within Augustan 'propaganda' and to what extent this helped establish his power and dominion over not just Rome but the whole of the Empire. To me Augustus is the embodiment of Rome, he symbolises everything Rome stood for and everything it could be. Coming from fairly humble origins, he became the most powerful man in the known world; he was the original success story. I have been fascinated by Rome from a young age ever since seeing pict...