Campus Martius

The Campus Martius (Latin for 'Field of Mars'; Italian: Campo Marzio) was a publicly owned area of ancient Rome about 2 square kilometres (490 acres) in extent.

According to Rome's foundation myth, prior to the founding of the city, Rhea Silvia had her twin sons, Romulus and Remus, taken by the King of Alba Longa.

As he came to the end of his life, a storm cloud descended upon the center of the open field outside the city's pomerium in order to lift the elderly king to the afterlife.

[2] Roman men assembled every spring before heading off to fight the hostile tribes that surrounded Rome, and citizens gathered for important religious festivals.

[3] With the advent of the Punic Wars in the mid-third century B.C., Roman military expansion moved out of the Italian peninsula, resulting in the reduction of seasonal musters on the field.

Starting in the time of Sulla, building lots were sold or granted to influential Romans, and insulae (apartment blocks) and villas encroached on the common land.

During the Augustan period of the early Roman Empire, the area became officially part of the city: Rome was split into 14 regions, and the Campus Martius was divided into the VII Via Lata on the east and the IX Circus Flaminius nearer to the river.

After the great fire of 64 A.D. Domitian rebuilt the burnt monuments plus a stadium (eventually to become today's Piazza Navona) and an Odeion (a small performance hall).

[10] In 1581, French essayist Michel de Montaigne traveled to Rome and noted that "upon the very wrecks of the ancient buildings, as they fall to ruin, the builders set out casually the foundations of new houses, as if these fragments were great masses of rock, firm and trustworthy.

The field covered an area of about 250 hectares, or 600 acres (243 ha), extending a little more than two kilometres north and south from the Capitoline to the porta Flaminia, and a little less than two kilometers east and west in its widest part, between the Quirinal and the river.

Ancient writers say that there were several recognizable natural points, such as an oak grove north of the Tiber Island and the Palus Caprae, in the center of the space.

It is virtually impossible to pinpoint exactly when and why these stages occurred, but some historians have sectionalized different periods where Roman architecture faced relatively significant transformation.

[23] After the death of Alexander the Great in 324 BC or the beginning of the "wave of Hellenism" there was a drastic increase in terms building construction within the city of Rome.

This new style was in a way, a step up from the simpler early forms, which often appear coarse and bulky in comparison to the aesthetic perfection and refinement of the later structures.

[23] Instead of being merely genuine and slightly political “donations” that exemplified the successful of individuals, these temples in Campus Martius now were expected to trigger propaganda values whenever large architectural projects took place.

[28] This was a historical period for Roman architecture in that, the catalyst for architects to embrace concrete as a design material or as Nero describes it break free from “the shackles of the classical past”.

Furthermore, Buchner argued that the sundial was integrated into the design of the Ara Pacis in a way that the shadow cast directly onto the altar on Augustus’s birthday.

Further archeological findings where a travertine pavement embedded with a line running north to south with Greek lettering in bronze with zodiac signs confirmed Pliny's writing.

Also, the fact that the site was measured to be about a meter too high to be considered of Augustan date, therefore indicated that the instrument built under Augustus lost its accuracy and was renovated by Domitian.

The message was that Roman people were no longer starving, which was consistent with Augustus’ promise of “peace and fertility”, where he gave land to farmers to plant in the fall and harvest in the spring.

The Ara Pacis’ eclectic art leads us to believe that components might have come from other altars in other provinces most likely salvaged on the troops’ way back to Rome.

On it, troops trained for war, and successful generals displayed their riches taken from conquered lands, erecting temples and public buildings to impress the Roman populace in order to curry favor in the elections.

All of the sites built specifically to host political activities, meetings of the Senate and both legislative and electoral assemblies, were sponsored by or closely associated with Augustus.

Indeed, the size of the Campus is remarkable, since it affords space at the same time and without interference, not only for the chariot-races and every other equestrian exercise, but also for all that multitude of people who exercise themselves by ball-playing, hoop-trundling, and wrestling; and the works of art situated around the Campus Martius, and the ground, which is covered with grass throughout the year, and the crowns of those hills that are above the river and extend as far as its bed, which present to the eye the appearance of a stage-painting — all this, I say, affords a spectacle that one can hardly draw away from.

The most noteworthy is what is called the Mausoleum, a great mound near the river on a lofty foundation of white marble, thickly covered with ever-green trees to the very summit.

Augustus’ aims from this point forward was to return Rome to a state a stability and civility by lifting the political pressure imposed on the courts of law and ensuring free elections in name at least.

[36] Bellona's Temple was rebuilt in marble and travertine with six Corinthian columns along the front and nine along the sides[37] The Campus Martius was an area of religious practice.

Established during the Roman Republic, the games were resurrected by emperor Claudius when a man named Valesius prayed for a cure for his children's illness and was instructed to sacrifice to the underworld deities.

Claudius did this as a way to not only appease the gods after several lightning bolts struck the city of Rome, but to emphasize the birth of a Golden Age.

[42] After the barbarian invasions cut the aqueducts, the rapidly dwindling population abandoned the surrounding hills and concentrated in the Campus Martius, depending on the Tiber for water, but subject to its flooding.