Among the most characteristic features of ancient Rome are the war memorials that celebrated Roman victory throughout the Mediterranean, Europe, and the Middle East. Triumphal arches, monumental narrative columns, and large-scale battle paintings dominated the landscape of ancient Rome, as did war booty such as obelisks and Greek statuary that had been seized in conquered lands. All of these will be surveyed in this talk, along with war memorials of the 20th and 21st centuries that have been influenced by ancient Roman designs.
C. Brian Rose, Ph.D. (B.A. Haverford College; M. A., Ph.D. Columbia University), is James B. Pritchard Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology and Peter C. Ferry Curator-in-Charge of the Mediterranean Section. Since 1988 he has been Head of Post-Bronze Age excavations at Troy, and between 2004 and 2007 he directed a survey project in the Granicus River Valley that focused on recording and mapping the Graeco-Persian tombs that dominate the area. In 2013 he became director of the Gordion Excavations in central Turkey. His research has concentrated on the political and artistic relationship between Rome and the provinces (Dynastic Commemoration and Imperial Portraiture in the Julio-Claudian Period, Cambridge, 1997), and on the monuments of Troy during the Classical periods (The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Troy, Cambridge, 2014).
