A few days ago I went to an exhibition about Rome and its emperors. There I had a chance to know a little more of Roman history through sculpture of famous people as well as aristocrats, and to know a bit of the customs of the Romans in the construction of houses, their logistics and communication, their preparation for war, what they used to do to have some entertainment, a bit of their sexuality, and the multiculturalism of the Empire. Finally, an amazing tour through the history of one of the cornerstones of Western Civilization.
Walking through the galleries, we have a chance to see busts of the emperors Nero and Vespasian, and the philosopher Cicero. There are also some busts of empresses, but what impresses most is the realism of the sculptures and how careful the artisans were at the time . Something interesting is that the works were not signed because there was no idea of authorship like we have nowadays.
As Rome expanded through Europe, North Africa and parts of the East, they also incorporated some gods and customs of the people they ruled. We can see it more clearly in works like that that portrays Apollo (looking very like a Hindu god) and Isis looking more like a Greco-Roman goddess than an Egyptian one. After Rome subjugated Greece, even some of their emperors adopted Greek modes and manners, e.g., haircut and beard shaving, to stay in the simplest things ...
The Roman concept of family a bit different from what we are used to now. Not only are the bonds of affection and blood that bind the family. In Rome there was the figure of the pater familias, which encompassed not only the family itself as the entire economic and financial unity they possessed, and the children were emancipated only after the death of their father.
Although the Roman elite has developed over time refinement in cousine and arts, much of the empire population was undernourished. Thus, it is interesting to see a Venus a little beefier, after some fat accumulated indicating health, while men should be more athletic because of the war that the patricians and then the citizens of the empire had to take part at any time.
Something symbolic for some people who attended the exhibition was to see the figure of Priapus dedicated to fertility, which was then associated with the men, since the women were only considered as host of the unborn. Usually only Priapus is depicted with the the phallus erected, while the same was not true for the other gods. In general, the Romans might consider a big phallus as an aberration and related to the lower classes, they must have made it clear with a bronze statue of a street vendor with his phallus disproportionate, which caused some embarassment amid the visitors and needed some explanations by the Gallery's staff.
There must be a lot more to write about Rome, but perhaps I should finish talking about the legacy they left to us. The first major roads of Europe were made by the Romans, the idea of a great city, the development of trade, the law that became a reference in much of the world and the Romance languages have their origins in Rome. Finally, even if not the greatest territorial empire of the past, the Roman legacy persists to this our time, and next to the ancient Greeks, gives us lessons on how we should live from now on. After all, as much as the world progresses, the essence of mankind remains the same.
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