Ancient Rome

Summary

In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), Roman Republic (509–27 BC), and Roman Empire (27 BC–476 AD) until the fall of the western empire. Ancient Rome began as an Italic settlement, traditionally dated to 753 BC, beside the River Tiber in the Italian Peninsula. The settlement grew into the city and polity of Rome, and came to control its neighbours through a combination of treaties and military strength. It eventually controlled the Italian Peninsula, assimilated the Greek culture of southern Italy (Magna Grecia) and the Etruscan culture, becoming a dominant power in the Mediterranean region and parts of Europe. It was among the largest empires in the ancient world, with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants, roughly 20% of the world's population at the time. It cover

Official source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Rome

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related publications (14)

Related publications

Related people

Related units

Related concepts (206)

Related concepts

Related courses (14)

Related courses

Related lectures (18)

Related lectures

Le "Fragmentum de inventionibus scientiarum" de Diego Palomino

Nouara Chekhar

The objective of this PhD thesis is the translation of, and the mathematical commentary on, a 16th-century Latin book. Its author, Diego Palomino is not well known. With a background in theology, he was a prior. In order to obtain his PhD at the University of Alcala (Madrid), he submitted a work, De mutations æris, in which he included a collection of what seems to be readings notes, entitled Fragmentum de inventionibus scientiarum. His readings have been drawn from various famous mathematicians of his time and ancient ones. The originality of his work relies mostly on his inventiveness and his style —which can be sarcastic— making the reading of it quite interesting and lively. His work consists for the main part in explaining some unclear demonstrations, or bringing new methods of solution ; he also innovates in solving pairs of indeterminate equations by providing the complete set of integral solutions. Before him, only one mathematician (Abu ̄ K ̄amil, at the end of the 10th century) did so, the other mathematicians restricting themselves to giving only one solution or a pair. Palomino did not hesitate in criticizing a well-established theory in ancient mathematics, namely Archimedes —although his critics seem to rely on a faulty edition. His book is entitled to have a significant place in the history of mathematics, for it both maintains the rigor of Greek classical mathematics and announces innovation, as did the 17th century, culminating with the discovery of the infinitesimal calculus.

EPFL2012

Le temple d'Hathor à Dendara

Pierre Zignani

Dendara, July 16, 54 BCE, began the reconstruction of the temple dedicated to the goddess Hathor. Founded under Ptolemy XII, the temple studied here stands at the end of an architectural tradition developed over three millennia. Its state of conservation is exceptional. It is the latest preserved monumental cult building of the pharaonic civilisation. It is a particularly well-suited testimony for an attempt to comprehend the architectural conception of a culture with which no modern society has kept any direct connection. The starting point of this study is a precise survey which constitutes the scientific documentation. The establishment of these data went along with the observation of indications, dimensions, orientations and alterations which allows to identify constant characteristics belonging to the process of designing the structure of the temple. This study uses no technical methodology but rather presents a research of knowledge through observation, hypotheses and verification. There is no pretension to exhaustiveness. This study tries to find, from the territory to the details, breaches, or to give access, into the knowledge belonging to the way of designing. The plans and sections are accompanied by a research which begins with a presentation of the nature of the architectural study of the building belonging to a disappeared culture. Then follows the study of the Egyptian temple and of the technical details of the survey. A building belongs to a territory. The absence of any documentation, the disappearance of vestiges dug out since the end of the 19th century as well as the actual policy of land reclaiming on the site made a cartography of the whole area of the ancient city necessary as a salvage. This led to some thoughts about the urban shape around the temple and about the limits of the space between the divine and the civil world. The reconstruction of a temenos wall brought with it a large reorganisation and renovation of the city and caused an important tabula rasa of civil districts. A global description of the building precedes the chapter concerning the organisation of the space. The world being set up around the god, it progresses from the most holy place towards the civil environment. The system underlying the height of the different spaces can only be determined when taking the heart of the temple as point of origin. Particular attention was devoted to the means which the ancient builders had at their disposal in order to control the precision of their accomplishment. Although rules concerning the outer measurements of the naos and the inner volume of the cella could be determined, it is impossible to reduce the dimensioning of the Egyptian space to a system of constant proportions. The study of the use of the space confirms this statement as it reveals that the functional elements of doors and windows do not follow any ideal formal rules. They are the result of a topological conception where geometric accuracy sacralises different needs; sometimes trivial when one considers light as a physical agent necessary to the daily functioning of human beings in a structure belonging to the divine. The intelligence and the accuracy of these accomplishments clearly required a global and initial conception of the architectural object. The durability of the building was the ultimate reason for the designers' research of technical quality. No single part of the construction, from the foundations to the top of the cornices, escaped this ancient concern. This led to an evolution towards a monolithic character of the masonry and the integration of solutions to contain factors of degradation, such as the rain. This concern also includes a tradition of a seismic culture as well as an execution which optimises the performance of labour and the materials. In parallel to this evolution on can observe the emergence of an ancient analysis of the phenomenon of differential sinking and the development of details which allow a dynamic management of major sources of destruction. Computer modelling helped to check the pertinence of some of these ultimate systems of management of deformation. From the temple of Hathor at Dendara one can conclude that the competence of building has attained a high degree of complexity and of meaning as far as the production of an architectural form is concerned which had to obey to an ideal of perfection and inalterability. Beyond the secular world, the formal conceptualisation of the divine universe also became an intellectual challenge with various referential levels. The architectural composition went along with an active research of technical solutions in order to optimise the art of building.

EPFL2004

Rome est une ville multiple. Elle se compose d'un centre historique, d'une couronne stabilisée et d'une aire périphérique dispersée. Dans cette dernière zone se concentrent les enjeux actuels du développement de la métropole. Face aux problèmes d'identité, de cohésion et d'accessibilité de cette ville diffuse, la commune tente de réagir en créant de nouvelles centralités. Trois pôles principaux se cristallisent aujourd'hui : Fiumicino près de l'aéroport, dédié aux foires et congrès, Tor Vergata à l'est, doté de centres universitaires et commerciaux et Bufalotta au nord, concentrant des programmes tertiaires et de loisir. Nous avons choisi de dynamiser ce dernier pôle par l'implantation d'un nouveau stade, impliquant la création d'espaces publics et la restructuration des réseaux de circulation. La zone d'intervention est la porte d'entrée de la ville, située au point de rencontre entre le périphérique autoroutier et les grands réseaux en provenance de Florence. Le site retenu, Saxa Rubra, est situé dans un méandre du Tibre, au sein d'un paysage urbain composé de grands équipements. La lecture de la morphologie de la ville nous a conduit à mettre en place un espace public de référence tangent au fleuve, qui articule et connecte les éléments du projet : d'un côté un parc regroupant le stade et d'autres activités sportives, de l'autre côté la ville, composée de zones commerciales, tertiaires et d'habitation, dans laquelle vient s'insérer un pôle de transport multimodal. Le stade d'une capacité de 80'000 places est principalement dédié au football, ainsi qu'à des événements culturels tels que des concerts. Le besoin d'un nouveau stade pour la ville est ressenti autant par les spectateurs que par les dirigeants des clubs de football. Le stade olympique de Rome, construit en 1953 et prévu initialement pour l'athlétisme, est peu polyvalent et n'offre pas une bonne visibilité. Le projet abrite donc un programme plus complexe, permettant de diversifier les utilisations. Il apporte également plus de confort aux utilisateurs, en matière d'accueil, de visibilité et d'espace à disposition.

2003

Le temple d'Hathor à Dendara

Pierre Zignani

EPFL2004

2003