Roman Monuments

This truly monumental book stems from the author’s doctoral thesis completed in 1993 at Oxford, and the intervening years have certainly allowed for the development and reμnement of his thoughts. The signiμcance of architecture for people living in the second century is the central focus of the book. By using a combination of written and visual evidence, T. tries to understand how the ancient viewer perceived the architectural forms around him. His μrst task, undertaken in the Introduction and picked up throughout the book, is to explain the term ‘monumentality’ and to trace its usage from antiquity up to modern times. The term ‘monumental’ should not be assigned only to a building of great size or one that serves as a commemoration, for ‘monumental buildings transcended natural grandeur because of their practical value’ (p. 239). Those structures that were used daily by many people were considered to have the greatest monumentality by contemporaries