Author: root

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Technology and Revolution in Roman Architecture

 

Channel: YaleCourses
Duration: 1:10:49
Description: Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner discusses the revolution in Roman architecture resulting from the widespread adoption of concrete in the late second and first centuries B.C. She contrasts what she calls innovative Roman architecture with the more traditional buildings already surveyed and documents a shift from the use of concrete for practical purposes to an exploration of its expressive possibilities. The lecture concludes with a discussion of the Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia at Palestrina, an impressive terraced complex that uses concrete to transform a mountain into a work of architecture, with ramps and stairs leading from one level to the next and porticoes revealing panoramic views of nature and of man-made architectural forms.
00:00 – Chapter 1. Roman Concrete and the Revolution in Roman Architecture
13:26 – Chapter 2. The First Experiments in Roman Concrete Construction
25:11 – Chapter 3. Sanctuaries and the Expressive Potential of Roman Concrete Construction
41:28 – Chapter 4. Innovations in Concrete at Rome: The Tabularium and The Theater of Marcellus
56:56 – Chapter 5. Concrete Transforms a Mountain at Palestrina
Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses
This course was recorded in Spring 2009.
Published: September 14, 2009 10:56 pm

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Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire: The Last Emperor

 

Channel: Melan Mendo
Duration: 37:24
Description: Follow the most dramatic Roman characters as they led an empire slowly sliding to its own destruction, and the Barbarian leaders who brought about that destruction. We vividly create the living environment of the time: teeming Roman streets, struggling armies, gladiators, Roman excesses and debauchery, the camps and villages of the barbarians and the deeply human struggle of outsiders to conquer and the Romans to survive.
Published: July 26, 2015 1:17 pm

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The Battle of Cannae

 

Channel: Pants Halo
Duration: 7:14
Description: One of the most accurate ancient battle depictions in modern media. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae Swearing vengeance against Rome for the humiliation they inflicted on Carthage, Hannibal Barca in his Iberian kingdom set out on an audacious plan to strike at Rome’s heart in Italy, by marching an army of between 60,000 and 80,000 men overland through southern Gaul and over the Alps. Somewhere over 40,000 arrived in Italy with Hannibal some months later. With inferior numbers, Hannibal wielded a tactical and strategic genius which allowed him to twice outsmart and defeat the Roman armies at Lake Trasimene and the River Trebia.  Appointed Dictator by the Senate of Rome, Quintus Fabius Maximus was not about to let Hannibal demolish and humiliate the Romans again. He began a policy of “delaying”, a war of attrition which would starve Hannibal’s army out of Italy. This policy lasted as long as Fabius Maximus’s Dictatorship. After it expired, the new Consuls for the year, Gaius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paullus, raised an army of some 16 legions numbering between 80,000 and 90,000 men, Roman and Italian, to meet Hannibal Barca and defeat him once and for all. The ensuing day’s battle would be the turning point for the Second Punic War, and the course of Roman and Carthaginian history. Hannibal’s tactics would be studied and admired by Rome for hundreds of years to come. The strategy, as it unfolded, began by presenting Rome with an unavoidably appealing target—the Carthaginian infantry line, slightly ragged, shaped like a crescent. The cavalry met first, with Hannibal’s Iberian, Gallic, and Carthaginian cavalry quickly defeating the Romans, and chasing them off the field completely. The Roman army pressed into the infantry, which gave ground steadily, flexing the crescent shape around and creating a sort of crater for the front lines of the Romans to crash into. Much of the center would be stuck in place by the sheer mass of the army moving forward. On cue, the elite African and Libyan troops of Hannibal’s army extended the lines and attacked the Roman flanks, leaving one line of escape. This was sealed shut by the returning heavy cavalry. While virtually every Carthaginian line could fight the Romans, only the Roman lines on the extreme flanks, rear, and front could fight while the rest were crushed in the center, left to panic that they were surrounded, and undoubtedly losing the battle. Estimates put the Roman casualties at 50,000, with Consul Paullus dead, and over eighty Roman Senators killed. Carthage lost 6,000 dead and 10,000 wounded. Despite the stunning victory, Hannibal Barca did not press on Rome itself. Theories range, claiming Hannibal could have taken Rome by force, while others put forth that because Barca had no siege equipment, he would have bled his army out on the walls, as the Romans had left a garrison in the city, and would scrape together all the troops they could to defend the city to the death. Hannibal was ultimately defeated by Publius Cornelius Scipio at the Battle of Zama, after spending over a decade in Italy, victim of returning Dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus’s “delaying” tactics, an entire Roman army keeping Hannibal pinned in Italy while Scipio led another army to ultimately destroy Hannibal’s “kingdom” in Iberia. Hannibal risked the journey to Carthage with his ragged army when Carthage itself was threatened by Rome.
Published: March 18, 2010 6:20 pm

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Pantheon – Ancient Rome

 

Channel: Loren Abraham
Duration: 4:32
Description:
This is a final clip in a series of clips on Roman Pantheon from the educational series Drive Thru History with Dave Stotts. This it isn’t your typical tour of ruins and dusty artifacts. In a style all his own, Dave Stotts speeds through the ancient world giving you a fast-paced encounter with the people, places and events that have shaped our world and the Christian faith. In Episode 2 of the series on Rome David covers the Circus Maximus, chariot racing, the great fire of Rome, Nero’s persecutiom of Christians and the Roman Pantheon.
Published: October 25, 2013 6:56 am