HELLINISTIC AND ROMAN PERIOD

Specific Foundation / Core

The course is also offered to exchange programme students.

To get familiar with the topography, the architecture and the monuments of the Greek cities during the roman period. Critical use of the bibliography.

During the Roman Imperial period the Greek cities, although now under the jurisdiction of the Roman prefect of the province, preserved their civic constitutions and administrative autonomy. Their civic center, the Agora, not only didn't lose its significance but gradually took a monumental form through the erection of new public buildings, funded by the rich citizens and occasionally by the emperor. A new kind of polis religion, the imperial cult, was introduced to the religious context of the Agora, while at the same time the cities gradually -under Roman influences- incorporated new architectural features that helped them to adjust to the new urban requirements of the era. At the time of Caesar and Augustus new cities (mostly Roman colonies like Corinth, Patras, Philippoi, Dion that replaced preexisting Greek cities) were built next to the traditional urban centers (Athens, Argos, Sparta, Thessaloniki, Beroea etc.) of Greece. The organization of these colonies (populated by latin speaker colonists) was based more or less on the same principles, that ruled the life in the Roman cities in Italy and elsewhere. However and despite this Roman orientation, many elements of the preexisting Greek city survived in the new context.

Roman period, architecture, sculpture, cities, emperor's cult

27-02-2020