Imagining Roman ports. the contribution of iconography to the reconstruction of Roman Mediterranean portscapes of the Imperial Period

Abstract

Under the Roman Empire, harbours played an important role for the image of the city. They were more than utilitarian constructions. The buildings and monuments were organised within the space of the port in a programmatic way that made up a genuine urban landscape that I have described as a “portscape”. This term, derived from Zanker’s townscape concept, is understood as the urban aspect, layout and design of Roman ports but also as the lived environment with its societies reflected by its cultural characteristics. Despite recent excavations conducted at Roman ports, our knowledge of portscapes under the Roman Empire is very unclear and the reality of port monuments remains poorly understood. Most known ancient Mediterranean ports are not well preserved, and often only preserved archaeologically at the level of their foundations. While archaeologists are able to reconstruct a plan, understanding ports three dimensionally is at best a challenge. What did Roman ports really look like?

Due to the lack of ancient sources relating to Roman ports, using iconography could be useful. This research aims to demonstrate that port depictions, quite abundant during the Imperial period and decorating various type of artistic media (coins, ceramics, mosaics, paintings, gemstones etc.), can make an important contribution for learning more about ports as they are the only source of information that allows us to understand volumetrically, the architecture of ports that no longer survives archaeologically.

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