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Imperial Rome: Bread & Circuses

Imperial Rome: Bread & Circuses. The Culture of Cities Wednesday, January 4/2006. SOSC 2730. Selected Civilizations. Rome ‘ Borrowed ’. built on the achievements of Greek/Hellenistic urbanization. Agora ––> Forum. function & structure remained more-or-less the same

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Imperial Rome: Bread & Circuses

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  1. Imperial Rome:Bread & Circuses The Culture of Cities Wednesday, January 4/2006 SOSC 2730

  2. Selected Civilizations

  3. Rome ‘Borrowed’ • built on the achievements of Greek/Hellenistic urbanization

  4. Agora ––> Forum • function & structure remained more-or-less the same • market place, meeting place, place of ritual celebration, etc.

  5. Other Hellenistic Features • theatre • gymnasium ––> Roman bath • religious districts

  6. Architecture Built on Greek Experience • engineering • scale, relative wealth, population size

  7. Pantheon built by the emperor Hadrian (126)

  8. Problems of Empire • administrative problems with large empire • republic ––> imperial political structure (by 50 BCE)

  9. Bread & Circuses • the emperor’s hold on power often tenuous at best • reliance on the army & on keeping the populace of Rome quiet & under control ––> policy of social welfare & public entertainment

  10. Bread & Circuses

  11. Circus Maximus • 500s BCE (last race 549) • capacity: 320,000 • dimensions: 200 x 600 metres • purpose: horse racing

  12. “Bread Not Circuses” A coalition of groups concerned about Toronto's 2008 Olympic Bid SkyDome Fiasco http://www.breadnotcircuses.org/skydome.html SkyDome Fiasco, A Sign of Things to Come? Toronto's now infamous SkyDome, a $600 Million financial disaster, recently filed for creditor protection under Canada's Bankruptcy laws. The same people that pushed for its construction in the 1980s, and then served on its board of directors until very recently, are now the main players on Toronto's team to bid for the 2008 Summer Olympic games. The parallels between the SkyDome stadium's fate and the greed and corruption that plagued the financially troubled Montreal Olympics are stunning. The newspaper articles listed here will give you a detailed look at the problems that face the SkyDome and the probable financial folly that hosting a Summer Olympics will cause in Toronto. For more information on Mega-projects and their affects on cities check out Dr. Kris Olds' essay Urban Mega-Events, Evictions and Housing Rights: The Canadian Case, or read Noll and Zimbalist's Are New Stadiums Worth the Cost? For pictures and other building related information, check out the SkyDome's official website.

  13. Sold . . . . . . for the bargain-basement price of $25-million, Toronto's SkyDome, after it cost taxpayers $600-million 15 years ago The Globe and Mail By MICHAEL GRANGE With reports from Elizabeth Church and Paul Waldie Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - Page S1 TORONTO -- The place where Toronto goes to hear Take Me Out to the Ball Game has been sold for a song. The SkyDome, the taxpayer-financed, multipurpose stadium that has been home to the Toronto Blue Jays since it opened in 1989, was sold to the Blue Jays for $25-million yesterday. The Jays are owned by Rogers Communications. "It was a very fair price," said Paul Godfrey, the Blue Jays' president and chief executive officer. He should know. Godfrey, the onetime chairman of Metropolitan Toronto, helped champion the cause for a world-class stadium in downtown Toronto in the early 1980s. "I've worn many hats and stood in front of many microphones over the years talking about this building," Godfrey said. "Back 20 years ago when Metro Toronto put in the first $30-million, if someone had told me then that the price for the total building would have been less than the first down payment at the time, one would have been a little amazed." By the time construction of the retractable-roofed building was finished, it had cost taxpayers about $600-million. But its slide in value began officially when the publicly owned property was sold in 1994 by the Ontario government for $151-million to a private consortium that included Toronto Sun Publishing Corp., where Godfrey was the publisher before taking over the Blue Jays.

  14. New Achievements • engineers • sewers, water supply • Cloaca Maxima (500s BCE) • some parts still in use today • aqueducts (11 in total) • fresh water from mountains to the city

  15. Other Engineering Achievements • road network • long-distance trade

  16. Long-Distance Trade • Pax Romanum (30 BCE-250) • military control • highways & sea lanes relatively safe from bandits & pirates • trade flourished • wealth creation • spread of urbanization

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