Treasures of Ancient Rome

S1 • E1

Warts 'n' All

Art historian Alistair Sooke sets out to redeem Roman art of its undeserved 'secundary' and imitative reputation. The theory they learned most from the Etruscans is compromised, as the Luoa Capitolina, supposed model of the suckled wolf, proves medieval, not Etruscan. The republic expanded by constant and looted Hellenistic art with great taste, then developed its own, less 'effeminate' style to fit a warrior race, 'verisic' realism with warts and all, a boon for historians. Their techniques and materials like Carrara marble were excellent, as modern artist copies confirm, their hunger for art insatiable and range of subjects almost limitless, as demonstrated in Pompeii. Only when Ocatvian Augustus transformed the republic into a de fact monarchy afloat in luxury, new flattering styles took over, portraying an ever-young idealized Augustus who even posed like a god in his private collection for the inner circle's eyes only.

S1 • E2

Pomp and Perversion

Alistair elaborates how imperial art evolved, away from republican simplicity. Since Augustus, public art served to demonstrate the might of Rome and the emperor. The whole elite preferring private art, more refined and tailoring to their taste for shameless eroticism up to orgiastic debauchery and savage cruelty, both reflecting the excesses of the Julian first dynasty, from Tiberius and Caligula to Nero and Claudius, with stunning cameos and palatial lust villas. Shortly after came the golden age of grand emperors who completed the conquests, posing for the very grandest art as part of a true cults of deified emperors, and indulging in huge private luxury, culminating in Hadrian's Tiburtine complex.

S1 • E3

The Empire Strikes Back