Roman and Early Christian Connections

The Pantheon was designed and constructed during the reign of Hadrian in the Roman forum as a temple to all the Olympian gods (Pantheon: "all the gods"). The building consists of a rectangular porch (portico) with two rows of Corinthian columns in the usual fashion of a Greek inspired Roman temple. This porch opens into a  massive rotunda (circular room) with the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. The original layout of the temple included an enclosed courtyard so that viewers could not see the rotunda from the outside, making the inside seem impossibly and unexpectedly huge. The domed ceiling includes patterns of sunken coffers and a 29-foot wide oculus (central opening) that helps to illuminate the temple. It was dedicated to "St. Mary and the Martyrs" in the 7th century as a Roman Catholic church. 

The Church of Santa Costanza was originally built as the mausoleum of Constantina, the daughter of Constantine. It was dedicated as a Catholic church in 1256 to Santa Costanza, which is the Italian name for the later sanctified Constantina.  The building has a large rotunda surrounded by a barrel vaulted ambulatory, and displays Composite columns and clerestory windows, giving the interior a divinely lit feel. It also displays complicated mosaics, sculptures, and marble work, contrasting its relatively simple exterior. 

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Many examples of early Christian architecture display elements and even near copies of Roman art and architecture. For instance, the Pantheon and the Church of Santa Costanza both exhibit large domed rotundas as their central architectural feature, although they were built for different purposes they have a similar layout. Roman traditions and images were also reinvented for use in emerging Christian traditions. In mosaics in the Church of Santa Costanza, grapevines and putti (naked cherubs) surround a bust of Constantina. The putti drive wagon loads of grapes to pavilions where more putti are making grape juice for wine. The images are traditionally Roman and associated with Bacchus, but are reinvented to suit the Christian context referencing the Eucharist and symbolizing death and resurrection (the trampling of the grapes to be remade into wine). This is just one example of the connections between Roman and early Christian traditions. 

 The Parthenon is a octostyle peripteral Doric temple with some Ionic architectural features. One feature is the set of Ionic columns inside the Parthenon. The other is the frieze that runs along the upper part of the naos (inner building, sanctuary). The frieze is missing from the Nashville Parthenon replica. On the original Parthenon, it is a low relief sculpture. It is a 525 foot long procession “celebrating the festival that took place in Athens every four years.” (Stokstad 133)

 There is a second frieze on the Parthenon, this one Doric. It consists of 92 marble relief panels, called metopes. Each group of metopes portrays a legendary battle, with each of the individual metopes showing a fight between two representative figures within that battle. The fourteen metopes on the east side of the Parthenon convey the story of the battle between the Olympian gods and the Giants. The metopes on the west side show the invasion of Athens by the Amazons. The northern metopes are representative of the Trojan War. The southern metopes, which include some of the best preserved on the original Parthenon, shows the Battle of the Lapiths and the Centaurs. This scene is likely representative of the Greek’s battle against the Persians, and we never see the Centaurs winning in one of these fights. 

The Athena Parthenos is the colossal cult statue of Athena as the warrior goddess. The original was created by the renowned sculptor, Phedias. Unfortunately, the original was lost long ago, and we only know what it looked like from copies, coins, miniatures, and descriptions. The ancient historian, Pausanias, described it like this:

“The statue itself is made of ivory silver and gold. On the middle of her helmet is placed a likeness of the Sphinx ... and on either side of the helmet are griffins in relief. ... The statue of Athena is upright, with a tunic reaching to the feet, and on her breast the head of Medusa is worked in ivory. She holds a statue of Victory about four cubits high, and in the other hand a spear; at her feet lies a shield and near the spear is a serpent. This serpent would be Erichthonius. On the pedestal is the birth of Pandora in relief.