shaped by the enclosures. The Pantheon’s interior is a single unified,
self-sufficient whole, uninterrupted by supporting solids. It encloses
visitors without imprisoning them, opening through the oculus to
the drifting clouds, the blue sky, the sun, and the gods. In this space,
the architect used light not merely to illuminate the darkness but to
create drama and underscore the interior shape’s symbolism. On a
sunny day, the light that passes through the oculus forms a circular
beam, a disk of light that moves across the coffered dome in the
course of the day as the sun moves across the sky itself. Escaping from
the noise and torrid heat of a Roman summer day into the Pan-
theon’s cool, calm, and mystical immensity is an experience almost
impossible to describe and one that should not be missed.
HADRIAN’S VILLA, TIVOLIHadrian, the amateur archi-
tect, was not the designer of the Pantheon, but the emperor was
deeply involved with the construction of his private country villa at
Tivoli. One of his projects there was the construction of a pool and
an artificial grotto, called the Canopus and Serapeum (FIG. 10-52),
respectively. Canopus was an Egyptian city connected to Alexandria
by a canal. Its most famous temple was dedicated to the god Serapis.
Nothing about the Tivoli design, however, derives from Egyptian
architecture. The grotto at the end of the pool is made of concrete
and has an unusual pumpkin-shaped dome that Hadrian probably
designed himself (see “Hadrian and Apollodorus of Damascus,”
above). Yet, in keeping with the persistent eclecticism of Roman art
and architecture, Greek columns and marble copies of famous Greek
statues lined the pool, as would be expected from a lover of Greek
art. The Corinthian colonnade at the curved end of the pool, how-
ever, is of a type unknown in Classical Greek architecture. The
colonnade not only lacks a superstructure but has arcuated(curved
or arched) lintels, as opposed to traditional Greek horizontal lintels,
between alternating pairs of columns. This simultaneous respect for
Greek architecture and willingness to break its rules are typical of
much Roman architecture of the High and Late Empire.High Empire 269D
io Cassius, a third-century CEsenator who wrote a history of
Rome from its foundation to his own day, recounted a reveal-
ing anecdote about Hadrian and Apollodorus of Damascus, archi-
tect of the Forum of Trajan (FIG. 10-43):
Hadrian first drove into exile and then put to death the architect
Apollodorus who had carried out several of Trajan’s building proj-
ects....When Trajan was at one time consulting with Apollodorus
about a certain problem connected with his buildings, the architect
said to Hadrian, who had interrupted them with some advice, “Go
away and draw your pumpkins. You know nothing about these
problems.” For it so happened that Hadrian was at that time priding
himself on some sort of drawing. When he became emperor he re-
membered this insult and refused to put up with Apollodorus’s out-
spokenness. He sent him [his own] plan for the temple of Venus and
Roma [FIG. 10-2,no. 14], in order to demonstrate that it was pos-
sible for a great work to be conceived without his [Apollodorus’s]help, and asked him if he thought the building was well designed.
Apollodorus sent a [very critical] reply....[The emperor did not]
attempt to restrain his anger or hide his pain; on the contrary, he
had the man slain.*
The story says a great deal both about the absolute power Roman
emperors wielded and about how seriously Hadrian took his archi-
tectural designs. But perhaps the most interesting detail is the descrip-
tion of Hadrian’s drawings of “pumpkins.” These must have been
drawings of concrete domes like the one in the Serapeum (FIG. 10-52)
at Hadrian’s Tivoli villa. Such vaults were too adventurous for Apollo-
dorus, or at least for a public building in Trajanic Rome, and Hadrian
had to try them out later at home at his own expense.Hadrian and Apollodorus of Damascus
WRITTEN SOURCES*Dio Cassius,Roman History,69.4.1–5. Translated by J. J. Pollitt,The Art of Rome,
c. 753 B.C.–A.D. 337: Sources and Documents (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1983), 175–176.10-52Canopus and Serapeum,
Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli, Italy,
ca. 125–128 ce.
Hadrian was an architect and may
have personally designed some
buildings at his private villa at
Tivoli. The Serapeum features the
kind of pumpkin-shaped concrete
dome the emperor favored.