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Losing your marbles: What happened to Rome’s colored stone? To offset pink with green as Domitian did on the Palatine was only possible because of Rome’s domination of the Mediterranean, and although luxury stones became distributed across the empire nowhere were they more richly concentrated than in the metropolis itself. Syene, Chios, Libya: these were all places that Rome controlled, and the many marbles that decorated the city were as much physical proof of the Empire as they were its products. When educated Romans saw this sort of sight, however, they didn’t see only beauty, they also saw the power and might. Your weary eyes can hardly find the roof you’d think it was the gilded ceiling of heaven.Ĭlearly, the emperor and his entourage relished not only the luxury of these beautiful materials but also their striking juxtapositions in jaw-dropping combinations. Stone from Luna is only brought in to support the columns, and it’s a long look up!
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Marbles from Syene and Chios too, and rocks to rival the color of the green-blue sea. There, the stones from the Libyan mountain gleam in competition with those from Troy, The Roman poet Statius describes attending a dinner party at the palace of the emperor Domitian on the Palatine Hill (can you visit it with our Immersive Colosseum Tour, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill) and takes special note of its many marbles: Other varieties came from the hills of what is now Turkey or the Greek islands, and all of these were extracted, packaged and shipped back to Rome for the delight of its citizens. North Africa produced a striking “Numidian yellow” whose deep honey colour was flecked with blue veins like a stinky cheese. The Romans coveted these wondrous materials and brought them back to Italy to decorate their public buildings and private villas.Ī glance at the variety of these marbles unearthed locally shows how far Rome’s power stretched: from Thebes in Egypt came the deep green “serpentine”, while the bright-red “rosso antico” was sourced from near Sparta in Greece. No two quarries are exactly the same, and local conditions across the Mediterranean created all the colours of the rainbow––and more. Marble is formed through complex geological processes of heat and pressure which are incredibly variable and unpredictable impurities and trace elements combine to produce different shades and qualities of stone. However, as they expanded their control across Europe, the Romans began to discover more and more exotic varieties. Rome’s closest source of marble was modern Carrara in Tuscany, the same quarries that provided the blocks for Michelangelo’s David and Pietà and which continue to produce snow-white stone for artists and architects around the world. Highly polished and often arranged in complex geometric patterns, they would have overwhelmed the senses and added to the splendor of what was then capital of the Mediterranean world. These were not just different shades of white as you might expect (although there were many of these, just like a modern interior designer can choose between eggshell and ivory), but came in dozens of different varieties: yellow, black, red, as well as many blues and greens.
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No aspect of the ancient city, however, was more vivid or brilliant than its many colored marbles. In reality, however, the ancient city was a riot of colour: the walls of private residences were decorated with bright wall-frescoes, public spaces were adorned with garlands and flowers, and, as recent research has shown, even the white statues were enhanced with garish paint. The Colour of Empire: The Many Marbles of Ancient RomeĪ lot of people think of Ancient Rome as a pretty monochrome place in the popular imagination, its temples and palaces gleam with polished white marble, while a visit to the ruins of the Roman Forum(or a viewing of Russell Crowe’s Gladiator) is tinted with beige and ochre.