Perhaps it would help this discussion if I clarified my position. Here's the crux of the argument (which is part of a larger thesis and which has nothing whatsoever to do with the decline of the Roman Empire):
Throughout the Mediterranean, the four and a half centuries of the Roman Republic (ca. 509–44 BCE) were years of rapid urban development. It was in a city’s interests to have grand public buildings, both for its own essential functioning and to vie with other states in terms of urban image. Construction was perceived as the responsibility and the hallmark of ruling elites who, through their initiatives, gained visibility and legitimized their status. In Rome, where the political elite strove constantly to engage the voting public, visibility enhanced electability, and as a result it was all but irresistible for even the most committed Republican to exploit architecture in self-advancement. To control such impulses, checks and balances were set in place. Literary and epigraphical evidence suggests that, by constitution or consensus, the only men authorized to commission public buildings were elected officials–specifically aediles, censors, consuls (usually as triumphatores), and occasionally praetors–and they did so on behalf of the res publica; a privatus could not deploy his own resources on state construction. Unlike monarchs of the eastern Mediterranean, moreover, Roman magistrates labored under close constraints. For one thing, they had only a year in office, at most 18 months as censor; for another, the senate seems to have watched over their use of state resources. These constraints conditioned their building projects: in general plan and inception (though not completion) a single, discrete structure was feasible; a massive orchestration of urban space, of the kind realized by Hellenistic kings and later emperors, who had the resources of the state at their disposal and could reasonably anticipate the fullness of their reign to accomplish their goals, was not. In theory at least, the system controlled state architecture tightly enough to prevent individuals from exploiting it to threaten the system. And from one perspective, the history of Republican architecture in Rome is the history of politicians developing strategies to maneuver within these constraints.
Enter concrete. As deployed in Rome, for politicians it was a game-changer. Its component elements–fist-sized pieces of aggregate, and mortar strengthened by pozzolana from the Alban Hills–were easily available and inexpensive, and relatively unskilled (for which read cheap) laborers could work it faster than masons could cut and dress stone. As used specifically in Republican Rome, the radical significance of this visually lackluster building fabric, and the likely reason for its rapid ascent as a material for public building, is that, quick and economical, in one sweep it neutralized the primary determinants on magistrates’ construction ambitions: time and money. So even despite their short terms and senatorial oversight of funds, on appreciating concrete’s architectonic strengths politicians could conceive not just buildings of moderate size but monumental, self-aggrandizing urban initiatives. Only on being freed from Republican constraints, that is, could they exploit the material’s malleability. With concrete they could work on a scale that, though possible using cut stone, would have been prohibitively time-consuming and expensive for a Republican magistrate. Concrete allowed them to think–and build–more like Hellenistic kings.
In the decades that followed, the material revolutionized Romans’ tolerance and expectations with regard to what a single politician could build in the city; it overwhelmed the constraints on architectural propaganda. It was with Pompey, and then Caesar, that the transgressive potential of concrete was fully realized. Their extraordinary construction ambitions, both realized and projected, helped them to craft an image of unending abstract authority, an
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps it would help this discussion if I clarified my position. Here's the crux of the argument (which is part of a larger thesis and which has nothing whatsoever to do with the decline of the Roman Empire): Throughout the Mediterranean, the four and a half centuries of the Roman Republic (ca. 509–44 BCE) were years of rapid urban development. It was in a city’s interests to have grand public buildings, both for its own essential functioning and to vie with other states in terms of urban image. Construction was perceived as the responsibility and the hallmark of ruling elites who, through their initiatives, gained visibility and legitimized their status. In Rome, where the political elite strove constantly to engage the voting public, visibility enhanced electability, and as a result it was all but irresistible for even the most committed Republican to exploit architecture in self-advancement. To control such impulses, checks and balances were set in place. Literary and epigraphical evidence suggests that, by constitution or consensus, the only men authorized to commission public buildings were elected officials–specifically aediles, censors, consuls (usually as triumphatores), and occasionally praetors–and they did so on behalf of the res publica; a privatus could not deploy his own resources on state construction. Unlike monarchs of the eastern Mediterranean, moreover, Roman magistrates labored under close constraints. For one thing, they had only a year in office, at most 18 months as censor; for another, the senate seems to have watched over their use of state resources. These constraints conditioned their building projects: in general plan and inception (though not completion) a single, discrete structure was feasible; a massive orchestration of urban space, of the kind realized by Hellenistic kings and later emperors, who had the resources of the state at their disposal and could reasonably anticipate the fullness of their reign to accomplish their goals, was not. In theory at least, the system controlled state architecture tightly enough to prevent individuals from exploiting it to threaten the system. And from one perspective, the history of Republican architecture in Rome is the history of politicians developing strategies to maneuver within these constraints. Enter concrete. As deployed in Rome, for politicians it was a game-changer. Its component elements–fist-sized pieces of aggregate, and mortar strengthened by pozzolana from the Alban Hills–were easily available and inexpensive, and relatively unskilled (for which read cheap) laborers could work it faster than masons could cut and dress stone. As used specifically in Republican Rome, the radical significance of this visually lackluster building fabric, and the likely reason for its rapid ascent as a material for public building, is that, quick and economical, in one sweep it neutralized the primary determinants on magistrates’ construction ambitions: time and money. So even despite their short terms and senatorial oversight of funds, on appreciating concrete’s architectonic strengths politicians could conceive not just buildings of moderate size but monumental, self-aggrandizing urban initiatives. Only on being freed from Republican constraints, that is, could they exploit the material’s malleability. With concrete they could work on a scale that, though possible using cut stone, would have been prohibitively time-consuming and expensive for a Republican magistrate. Concrete allowed them to think–and build–more like Hellenistic kings. In the decades that followed, the material revolutionized Romans’ tolerance and expectations with regard to what a single politician could build in the city; it overwhelmed the constraints on architectural propaganda. It was with Pompey, and then Caesar, that the transgressive potential of concrete was fully realized. Their extraordinary construction ambitions, both realized and projected, helped them to craft an image of unending abstract authority, an