Perhaps it's not surprising to see that when Diocletian begins to put up monumental architecture in Rome, he chooses first public monuments, public monuments that are going to be seen and that are going to speak to this return of stability to Rome. And he chooses to put them in as visible place as he possibly can. And what's the most visible place in the city of Rome but the Roman Forum, the great Forum Romanum. So we see Diocletian commissioning a monument to put up in the Roman Forum. That monument is referred to by a variety of names. We usually call it, and I've indicated this for you on the monument list, we usually call it the preferred name for it is the Decennial monument, the Decennial monument. But it is also sometimes called the Five Column monument, and it is sometimes called the Tetrarchic monument. It's called the Tetrarchic monument because it honors the four Tetrarchs it's called the Five Column monument because it's made up as we'll see of five columns. And it's called the Decennial Monument because it, it honors the decennalia, the ten year rule of the Tetrarchy. The Tetrarchy founded in 293. The monument is put up in 303, so ten years of rule. And it also honored the twentieth anniversary, the vicennalia. The Vicennalia of Diocletian. Because Diocletian had become emperor in 283. So he's, he's lasted 20 years which is extraordinary considering some emperors of the third century only lasted a matter of months. He's lasted 20 years and his Tetrarchy has lasted ten years. And it's time for a celebration. And he puts up a major monument in the Roman forum. Let me show you via this map first, so this plan of the Roman forum as it would have looked between the third century and the seventh century AD. We see a number of buildings that we have looked at together before. We can see in the uppermost part the Tabularium, the temple of Vespasian. We see, the arch of Septimius Severus up here. We see some buildings we did not talk about. For example the temple of the divine Julius Caesar and a couple of basilicas that were put up here in the late republic, and into the, finished in the Augustan period. The two buildings that we're going to look at today the senate house, or the Curia Julia. But also at the rostra, or what's behind the rostra. If you see the rostra there right in the center that's the, the dais from which major speeches were made. If you look right behind the rostra you will see four columns on a curve and then another column right behind them. That is the so-called for the so called a five column monument excuse me, of, of the Tetrarchy that we see there right behind the rostra. Now here we're looking at a Google Earth image from the same vantage point that shows us again, the Colosseum, the Victor Emmanuel monument, the cap-, the Capitoline Hill, the Palatine Hill, the Circus Maximus. Here the forum in the center. And we can, locate the Five Column Monument by, let me see. Here we have, here we have the Curia here we have the Arch of Septimius Severus. And then right to, right next to, the Arch of Septimius Severus, essentially to the left of it was the location of the Five Column Monument right behind the Rostra. Now the problem is that all we have left of this so called Five ColumnMonument is a single base. One base of one of the columns. And you can see that base on display right in front of on a base right on a base and a different base and base made out of brick as you see here. The base of that one column right in front of the arch of Septimius Severus, dwarfed by the arch of Septimius Severus. In fact, I'm always, always on the lookout when I'm in that part of the forum to see if anybody looks [LAUGH] at the column. They said nobody ever does. They're so taken both with the, with the arch of Septimius Severus with the baroque church that lies behind, and with the, with the chorea, or senate house that we're all going to look at today. That they don't happen to notice this. But that is all that survives. So you might ask yourself, well then how in the world do we know there was a five column monument behind the rostra and that this is one of those columns. Because we have a depiction of it on the Arch of Constantine, which we'll be looking at on Tuesday. The early fourth century AD arch. One of the scenes that shows Constantine himself, is located in the Roman forum. And we see Constantine now, headless with some of his attendants and other individuals standing on the rostra making a, an address to the people. He's surrounded, this is very interesting, we'll talk about why next time, surrounded seated portraits of Hadrian. And Marcus Aurelius, identifiable by their portraits, and he's making an address. And if you look very carefully you will see behind him are five columns. Five columns that have statues on top of them. That is the five-column monument that stood behind the Rostra. So that combined with that preserved base gives us a very good sense of what that monument might have looked like. Though you may be asking yourself, What is she talking about? Five columns, and there are only four Tetrarchys?" Is she misspeaking here? No, I'm speaking correctly. There were five columns but one of those columns was put up to Jupiter. Jupiter the head god. Jupiter who was the patron god of Diocletian. So we see Jupiter in one column on his own. Back behind the others. And then the other four columns of the tetrarchs, each with a, a base with a figure, with sculptural figure decoration down below. The shaft was plain, then the statue of each of the four tetrarchs and the statue of Jupiter on the, top. And we think that this statue, the column of the statue of Jupiter was probably a little bit taller, as is indicated here, because he was after all a god, than the others. And you can see the way it is located behind the rostra. So that, again, if someone were speaking from the rostra, that this is exactly what you'd be seeing behind, just as we see in the arch of Constantine. You also see its location as it faces the temple of divine Julius Caesar, which is probably not a coincidence. We do see that Diocletian tried to link himself to Caesar and other great leaders of the Roman past. And then this basilica completed by Augustus. This was a very carefully chosen location by Diocletian to link himself after this, after this bloody third century as I mentioned. To link himself with the great leaders of the Roman past. I, I want to show you quickly because this is again of course an architecture. Not a sculpture. But I do want to show you just quickly the scenes on the base. Because I think one of the interesting in, interesting detective work one can do is to try to figure out, since we have only one base, whose base was it? Which of the four Tetrarchs, or was it Jupiter's base? And I've tried that, played that game myself and I'll give you my idea and you'll see whether you think it's a good one or not. We looked at the, seen at the top upper most parts, we're looking at the four sides of that sculptured base. At the top, you see two victories With a shield and that shield has the word in the center, decennalia. decennalia. That's how we know it's dedicated to the decennial of the, the decennial anniversary, ten year rule of the Tetrarchs. You can also see barbarians down below. So a reference to those who have been conquered. And if you look very carefully you'll see that the figures are outlined as saw them them at Orange And also at St. Remy, and then some of the items, including the arms and armor are actually inscribed, carved on the stone, directly on the stone. So this very interesting use of outlining here, here I don't think the reason for it is the same, I don't think they're looking at that copy books, but rather. That there has been, there is, there's now an interest in this kind of outlining for visual effect. Up here, we see a sacrifice of three animals being brought in for sacrifice, and the men with their axes, who are going to slit their throats, ultimately. The sacrifice, obviously, in honor of this Decennial celebration, this anniversary celebration. Making reference to ten year rule of the Tetrarchy. Here's a scene down here, unfortunately in all of these scenes where we seem to have the emperor or emperors, the heads are no longer preserved. So here we have a sacrifice scene, also a sacrifice being made in honor of this decennial anniversary. But the emperor represented here who was sacrificing, whose face this probably was. His face is gone, which you can see he's accompanied by Roma, by the, the, the Senate, the personification of the Senate, by Mars. By victory, who crowns him with a wreath, as you can see here. And this looks like a figure of Saul Helios with the rayed crown. So a whole panoply of divinities with whom, by whom he is being honored and with whom he wants to associate himself. This is the most important relief, I believe, in terms of, of speculating about who's base this might have been. We see four figures, four adult males in the foreground with togas. All of them headless, unfortunately. But four of them, that's no coincidence. All four standing there. So, while we see one of them, this is his base. One of them sacrificing here. I guess one could argue it's Diocletian as the head of the tetrarchy. That would be another possibility, but the four of them represented here. But if you look very closely, one of them is accompanied by a child. So my speculation would be, since one of them is accompanied by a child, and since it is Constantine who is most, thought most likely to be the one to eventually succeed, the tetrarchs or become a tetrarch itself. I would speculate and it's pure speculation, that this may have been the base of Constantius Chlorus, of his father Constantius Chlorus. And that the clue there is Constantine.
