How Roman Art Reimagined Greek Traditions

As a part of this imperial process, goods and people began moving around the Mediterranean basin and beyond at unprecedented rates and volume– including art and artists. Roman elites developed a rabid appetite for foreign art that was entering Italy from conquered territories, especially from Greece; their villas and gardens quickly filled with sculptures, paintings, and other decorative objects. Art soon became a commodity for socio-economic exhibitionism in a way that it had not been so before. 

Once Roman desires for Greek art outpaced the number of original works available, artists themselves began moving to Rome to create copies of the great works such as the Aphrodite of Knidos, the Dying Gaul, and the Discobolus. It is because of this copy market that we even know what many of the Greek masterpieces looked like as most originals have long since been lost.

At the same time, art also became a way to express Roman ideals and history. Where Greek art tended to favor mythical and religious figures and topics, Roman art was more often employed to record or commemorate contemporary or historical events. 

Triumphal arches, for example, were a staple of the Roman artistic and architectural repertoire and were decorated with carved relief panels recording moments in the Roman past. The Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, erected around 81 CE by the Emperor Domitian, depicts many such historic vignettes, with one frieze in particular showing a group of soldiers carrying the treasures of war back to Rome, including a large menorah representative of the Roman siege of Jerusalem 10 years prior.

Roman artistic historical depiction was not to be understood as entirely factual, however, as mythical or allegorical themes were often intertwined into pieces to propagandistic ends. The Emperor Augustus’ Ara Pacis (the Altar of Peace), for instance, depicts realistic procession scenes intermingled with deities and symbolism charged with the undercurrents of the Augustan regime’s ideals. These carved panels do not depict any one procession in particular, but the ideals of what one should look like presided over by emblems and deities of prosperity and plenty. 

In many ways, Roman art was also far more individualized and accessible than previous traditions. This is especially apparent in portraiture. In ancient Greek societies, typically only individuals of extreme prominence or wealth had their portraits commissioned. However, by the 1st century BCE, a great number of individuals in Rome were commissioning portraits of themselves, including formerly enslaved individuals. Most often, these portraits were carved in marble or travertine and used as tomb or grave markers and provided individuals an opportunity to showcase aspects of their identity within the greater fabric of the Republic and Empire. 

Freedpersons often had themselves shown in traditional Roman clothing or fashionable hairstyles to commemorate their change in status and rise within the social ranks. Many examples of painted portraits on wooden panels preserved from Roman Egypt also survive and showcase the skills of Roman era painters and the individualism of the subjects. 

Decorative painting was also a widespread Roman taste. Frescoed walls have been found in private homes and even public shops and restaurants. Pompeii and Herculaneum have provided us with the majority of our evidence for Roman wall painting thanks to the nature of their preservation. However, ample evidence from across the empire has shown that similar styles and uses for painted walls extended far beyond Italy into the provinces as well.

If we were to compare the overall quantity of art that has survived between Greece and Rome, Roman materials would likely outpace Greek many times over. Yet, when it comes to knowledge of artists themselves, Greece has the monopoly. Some Roman era artists and their works are mentioned in contemporary and later primary sources, however, the specific artists discussed tend to only survive through the literary record, much like those in Greece, and are overwhelmingly from Greece or eastern provinces. 

As a whole, Roman attitudes towards art saw the Greek masters and their advancements as unsurpassable. Art and artists, while appreciated, did not take on the same levels of renown as did those from the 4th and 5th centuries BCE. What Roman art did accomplish though was a previously unseen level of art accessibility and a widened repertoire of visuals that showcased the history and diversity of one of the ancient world’s largest empires.