New week, new tree! After the birch last week, we're moving to another ornamental tree, the plane, or platanus.
Unlike the birch, there are over 50 references to the plane tree in Latin literature, and its place in the architecture of Rome is indisputable. This week, we are going to look at one of the best-known locations of the plane tree in the city of Rome: the Porticus of Pompey.
The Porticus of Pompey
Built in the first century BCE, the Porticus forms a part of a larger complex, including a Theatre, a Temple, and a Senate house (where Julius Caesar was famously assassinated). But before we can understand more about the complex, we need a bit of background on the man who had it built, and after whom it is named.
Pompey was a Republican general-cum-politician, a friend to Julius Caesar before the two became rivals, and a giant of the late Republic. He, Caesar, and Marcus Licinius Crassus formed the first triumvirate, an unofficial alliance that allowed the three of them to effectively rule Rome. Before the triumvirate, and before his loss at the Battle of Pharsalus, in 48 BCE, Pompey led a series of successful campaigns to the east of Rome.
In the mid to late 50s BCE, the portico-theatre-temple-senate house complex of Pompey was dedicated on the Campus Martius, outside the walls of Rome. In it a visitor could see spoils from Pompey's campaigns in the East, imported in his triumphal procession through the city of Rome in 61 BCE. And visitors were common to this place, which was open to the public. That was, in fact, the point. There can be little point in building a museum of your conquest if you do not allow visitors.
When the complex was constructed, it dominated the Campus Martius, and could be found behind four temples, which still stand in Largo Argentina, in Rome's modern centre. The outline of the complex remains in the pattern of the streets, and the semi-circle of the theatre can be walked in Rome today.
The Shady Avenues
Rome in the first centuries BCE and CE was warm, and getting warmer. Summers were hot, and the heat of a city at work was sweltering. Shade was a commodity, and the trees of the city were a welcome source of it.
Pompey's porticus was one of these shady spots, and Martial talks about its shade in his Epigrams:
From there, he seeks the roof supported by a hundred columns, from there the gift of Pompey, and its double grove. (2.14.9-10)
Just like us old ungrateful folk, we long for Pompey's ancient shade (5.10.5)
Martial does not tell us what makes the complex shady, but he does give us some indication of its grandeur, even a full century after it was built. The double grove in the porticus, providing ancient shade, in a city that was becoming increasingly crowded: the roof supported by a hundred columns abutted the porticus, and is the Hecatostylum on the plan above. To the immediate east of the Porticus were four temples, which still stand in the Largo Argentina, to the south was the Porticus Octavia, and buildings were springing up all around the Campus Martius (including the Pantheon, Ara Pacis, and Mausoleum of Augustus. To be noticed in this area was a challenge, and there was always a risk of being just another building.
Propertius, in his Elegies, does tell us what this double grove was.
Pompey’s Porticus, its shady columns draped in Attalid fabrics, and plane trees growing in neat rows (2.32.11-13)
Plane trees, planted in rows, with shady columns. The redistribution of the descriptions - the columns are shady, the trees are in ordered rows - flags that the trees form a part of the porticus' architecture, and that they should be considered fundamental to the building. Plane trees are still used in public gardens to provide shady avenues, and their structure lend them to be thought of as columnar. That they are shady was a fact not lost on Romans, and Pliny the Elder (who else?!) reports that the plane tree was imported 'solely for the sake of its shade' (Natural History 12.6).
And so, we can see how the plane tree completes this place in Rome, controlling interactions within it for the next century, as Latin poets recall the shade they could enjoy in the heart of the city. Trees have other benefits in urban settings too, and we will explore these in future Trees of the Week.
Next week, a spear thrown into a hill will turn into a tree...
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