Читать книгу A History of Roman Art онлайн

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Source: © 2014. Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of Soprintendenza di Roma Capitale.

In the modern western world most major public works are paid for by government at a variety of levels. Taxes are collected to pay for infrastructure from roads and bridges to water supply and drainage systems, and for all manner of public buildings from court houses to entertainment venues. Public officials administer these things and are paid salaries for their jobs. In the Roman world none of these steps were part of the culture. Taxes did not cover infrastructure projects; they were simply too low. Instead, elite Romans personally paid for all of the categories of projects listed above. In return their names were attached to the projects. This had been the case in Rome for a long time. The pattern was established at least as early as the last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus (535–509 BCE). He commissioned the great Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill. More importantly for the development of Roman urban space, he also began the Cloaca Maxima, the Great Drain, that drained water from all the low areas of the city between the hills. This allowed Romans to build in the areas that would become, for example, the Forum Romanum and later imperial fora.