Open Yale Courses

HSAR 252 - Paper Topics: Discovering the Roman Provinces and Designing a Roman City

Professor Kleiner presents the three options for the course’s term paper, which fall into two main categories: a research paper or a project to design a Roman city. For the research paper, she suggests cities and monuments not covered or mentioned briefly in the lectures, which embody some of the themes and issues raised in the course. Such topics include, in the Eastern Empire, the Roman cities of Corinth and Gerasa (Jerash), the Library of Celsus at Ephesus, and the Temple of Bel and the tower tombs at Palmyra.

HSAR 252 - Lecture 13 - The Prince and the Palace: Human Made Divine on the Palatine Hill

Professor Kleiner investigates the major architectural commissions of the emperor Domitian, the last Flavian emperor. She begins with the Arch of Titus, erected after Titus’ death by his brother Domitian on land previously occupied by Nero’s Domus Transitoria. The Arch celebrated Titus’ greatest accomplishment–the Flavian victory in the Jewish Wars–and may have served as Titus’ tomb. Professor Kleiner also discusses the Stadium of Domitian, the shape of which is preserved in Rome’s Piazza Navona.

HSAR 252 - Lecture 12 - The Creation of an Icon: The Colosseum and Contemporary Architecture in Rome

Professor Kleiner features the tumultuous year of 68-69 when Rome had four competing emperors. Vespasian emerged the victor, founded the Flavian dynasty, and was succeeded by his sons, Titus and Domitian. The Flavians were especially adept at using architecture to shape public policy. Professor Kleiner demonstrates that Vespasian linked himself with the divine Claudius by completing the Claudianum and distanced himself from Nero by razing the Domus Aurea to the ground and filling in the palace’s artificial lake.

HSAR 252 - Lecture 11 - Notorious Nero and His Amazing Architectural Legacy

Professor Kleiner features the architecture of Augustus’ successors, the Julio-Claudian emperors, whose dynasty lasted half a century (A.D. 14-68). She first presents Tiberius’ magnificent Villa Jovis on the Island of Capri and an underground basilica in Rome used by members of a secret Neo-Pythagorean cult. She then turns to the eccentric architecture of Claudius, a return to masonry building techniques and a unique combination of finished and unfinished, or rusticated, elements.

HSAR 252 - Lecture 10 - Accessing Afterlife: Tombs of Roman Aristocrats, Freedmen, and Slaves

Professor Kleiner explores sepulchral architecture in Rome commissioned by the emperor, aristocrats, successful professionals, and former slaves during the age of Augustus. Unlike most civic and residential buildings, tombs serve no practical purpose other than to commemorate the deceased and consequently assume a wide variety of personalized and remarkable forms. The lecture begins with the round Mausoleum of Augustus, based on Etruscan precedents and intended to house the remains of Augustus and the new Julio-Claudian dynasty.

HSAR 252 - Lecture 9 - From Brick to Marble: Augustus Assembles Rome

Professor Kleiner discusses the transformation of Rome by its first emperor, Augustus, who claimed to have found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble. The conversion was made possible by the exploitation of new marble quarries at Luna (modern Carrara) on the northwest coast of Italy. The lecture surveys the end of the Roman Republic and the inauguration of the Principate and analyzes the Forum of Julius Caesar and the Forum of Augustus.

HSAR 252 - Lecture 8 - Exploring Special Subjects on Pompeian Walls

Professor Kleiner discusses special subjects in Roman wall painting that do not fall within the four architectural styles but were nonetheless inserted into their wall schemes: mythological painting, landscape, genre, still life, history painting, and painted portraiture. The lecture begins with an in-depth examination of the unique Dionysiac Mysteries painting in Pompeii in which young brides prepare for and enter into a mystical marriage with the god Dionysus and simultaneous initiation into his cult.

HSAR 252 - Lecture 7 - Gilding the Lily: Painting Palaces and Villas in the First Century A.D.

Professor Kleiner discusses the development of Third Style Roman wall painting in late first century B.C. villas belonging to the imperial family and other elite patrons. Third Style painting, as Professor Kleiner demonstrates, is characterized by departure from the perspectival vistas and panoramas of the Second Style toward an attenuation of architectural elements and a respect for the inherent flatness of the wall.

HSAR 252 - Lecture 6 - Habitats at Herculaneum and Early Roman Interior Decoration

Professor Kleiner discusses domestic architecture at Herculaneum and the First and Second Styles of Roman wall painting. The lecture begins with an introduction to the history of the city of Herculaneum and what befell some of its inhabitants when they tried to escape obliteration by Vesuvius. She features three houses in Herculaneum, two of which–the Houses of the Mosaic Atrium and the Stags–are among the best examples of a residential style popular in Campania between A.D. 62 and 79.

HSAR 252 - Lecture 5 - Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: Houses and Villas at Pompeii

Professor Kleiner discusses domestic architecture at Pompeii from its beginnings in the fourth and third centuries B.C. to the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79. She describes the plan of the ideal domus italica and features two residences that conform to that layout. She then presents the so-called Hellenized domus that incorporates elements of Greek domestic architecture, especially the peristyle court with columns.

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