A long-standing objective for the Lateran Project has been to draw on structural evidence from the Lateran scavi to model the Constantinian Basilica.Lex Bosman has similarly sought to model the structure, initially from observation of the fabric of the standing Archbasilica. This chapter presents the happy outcome of collaboration between these two approaches.Using state-of-the-art visualisation techniques, the authors have brought together the evidence for the interior and exterior appearance of the Constantinian Basilica. The chapter argues that while based on exhaustive research, these 3D models should nevertheless be best understood as ߢprovocationsߣ.Production of these ߢprovocationsߣ is itself an important vehicle for analysis, because it exposes gaps in understanding as each new model drives and is driven by evolving debates about structure, decoration and illumination.

This chapter brings together the arguments for the identification of a water feature within the Lateran scavi as the Nymphaeum of Pope Hilarus.The feature has been extensively surveyed and laser scanned as part of the Lateran Project in an attempt to underestand how the different elements might have functioned together. The long-term association of the area, formerly part of bath complex built in the Severan period, with elaborate water features is considered;the latest structural elements recovered post-date the nymphaeum and come from a fountain constructed sometime in the 12th/13th century.

This chapter considers changing Roman attitudes and ideology in relation to the fundamental issues of war and peace. The first half examines the basis for the now common assumption that the Roman state and society had a positive attitude to warfare during the Republic. It draws attention to some important qualifications, before assessing the extent to which the same factors continued to operate in later periods. It also discusses Roman attitudes to peace, a subject that has received much less attention in modern scholarship. The second half focuses on the related themes of Roman attitudes to victory and defeat. Roman military successes during the Republic encouraged the development of a range of rituals associated with the celebration of victory (most famously the triumph) and reverence for the goddess Victoria. These rituals illuminate the close relationship between war and religion in Roman culture, while also highlighting the political implications of military success. Their evolution in subsequent periods of Roman history is considered, alongside Roman responses to defeat – how it was explained and how those explanations changed over time.

This paper concentrates on the representation of the Constantinian Basilica in the Liber pontificalis and determines its role in the text and in the representation of the pope.The sections considered range from the foundation of the Basilica in Life 34 (Pope Silvester I) to the significance of the Basilica for Pope Stephen V in Life 112.One oddity about the Liber pontificalis is that it never refers to the Constantinian basilica as dedicated to St John. That information is supplied in liturgical books such as the Sacramentaries and Lectionaries extant in Frankish manuscripts. This prompts a reflection on the Constantinian Basilicaߣs liturgical role within Rome that casts further light on the possible implications and peculiarities of the Basilicaߣs representation in the Liber ponificalis itself.

In the collective memory of Western Christendom it is the basilica of St Peterߣs that is the mother church of Latin Christianity. However, this rank officially appertains to the Basilia of St John Lateran built by Constantine as the Cathedral of Rome. The fact that today the Lateran is no longer perceived as the Cathedral of Rome might go back to the 14th century, when the Popes returned from Avignon and re-established their Roman residence near the basilica of St Peter. But already as early as the sixth century Pope Symmachus (498-514) erected episcopia on both sides of the atrium of St. Peterߣs and copied the display of the Lateran baptistery with its three oratories in the baptistery of St. Peter. This was a highly symbolic act, directed against his opponent Laurentius, who was elected antipope in the very same year as Symmachus. In later centuries it was mostly in periods of conflict that the two basilicas – St John Lateran and St Peterߣs – assumed imporant roles as places of display of rival interests. This chapter investigates the visual strategies of these rival claims through its study of architecture, tombs, relics and images.

When in 1592 the newly elected ponti? Clement VIII paid a visitation to Romeߣs principal church of San Giovanni in Laterano, he renovated the Basilicaߣs transept and installed at its southern end a separate altar where the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist would be preserved. Through this architectural intervention, which transferred the Canonߣs Sacristy outside the church interior, it was clear that the navata clementina would need a ?tting iconographic programme to embellish the new architecture. This chapter argues that these developments must be seen in the context of contemporary debates about the reform of the Roman rite.It also identifies the newly elected Cardinal and Oratorian from Sora, Cesare Baronio, the man who composed the ?rst ocial Catholic historiography of the Roman Church, the Annales Ecclesiastici, as playing a hitherto unidentified but crucial role in the design of the new architecture and its iconographic programme, a programme encompassing eight large scenes taken from the life of Constantine the Great.

This chapter focuses on ideals relevant to those liable to military service. The first half examines the relationship between military service, citizenship and property ownership. During the Republic the latter two were regarded as essential requirements for service in the legions, on the assumption that citizens and those with a minimum amount of property had the strongest incentive to fight on behalf of the Roman state; this gave rise to the related ideals of the citizen-soldier and the farmer-soldier. Over time, however, these reference-points shifted. During the late Republic property ownership became less important while citizenship was gradually extended to provincials, culminating in Caracalla’s universal grant in 212. Nonetheless, these ideals continued to be influential through Late Antiquity. The second half focuses on the ideal of courage, especially as epitomised by the concept of virtus. Its relationship to performance in battle (including single combat), to manliness and to religious ritual during the Republic is considered, as is the evolution of the concept during the Principate and Late Antiquity. Attention is also given to instances of female courage.

Research of the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana on the Lateran Baptistery during the last two decades has resolved some of the many questions left open by the excavations inside the Baptistery in the 1920s and around it in the 1960s. This research has been coordinated by the author and Federico Guidobaldi and has involved the PIAC, the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies in Rome, the Vatican Museums and the Swedish National Heritage board. As a result it has been possible to determine the octagonal plan of the first (Constantinian) phase of the Baptistery, identify the foundations of the Oratory of Santa Croce, ascertain the height to which walls of the Constantinian phase are preserved, and deduce that the reconstructions attributed to the fifth-century Popes Sixtus III and Hilarus must be part of the same project.Laser scanned models and 3D documentation has been created as an instrument for research and for reconstructions. There remain, however, important, unresolved questions and these are also explored int his chapter.How was the building covered?Did it have an inner colonnade?What was the place of the first phase of this structure in the development of Late Antique architecture?