Literature from classical antiquity is riddled with references to the transience of everything in this world: Heraclitus famously says ‘nothing is permanent except change’[1]and Herodotus states ‘human prosperity never continues in the same place’[2]. Today, nearly all surviving structures of ancient civilisations are ruins. But it should be remembered that ruins are not just a feature of the modern-day, but were also a feature in the worlds of those civilisations. In contrast to the romantic valorisations of ruins in the modern era, the Ancient Greeks and Romans viewed ruins with differing emotional responses to modern notions of ruins, as a more anomalous and abnormal element of the landscape, and as entangled with mythology and the gods.
Ruins have always been ubiquitous to any settlement. Natural disasters, weather and war has meant that buildings collapsed and their rebuilding was often costly and slow meaning that they could be broken for years. The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill was destroyed by fire three times[3], twice being burnt due to fighting around it,[4] and was rebuilt, on average, in just over 7 years each time.[5] Other monuments, like the Colossus of Rhodes, and ruins of other cultures they conquered were never rebuilt. There are various reasons why we might be led to believe that the Ancient Romans had fewer ruins than today: the ready availability of slave labour allowed resurrecting buildings to be carried out with greater efficiency, and thus resulted in it being more frequent, than today; the lack of civilisations with widespread stonemasonry at that time meant there were fewer ruins in the entire world; and building on the foundations of ancestors was a critical way to gain auctoritas or authority[6]as well as display power, something less significant today. Public buildings were connected directly to authority.[7] Moreover, as shown with the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Roman politics believed in the ‘sacral character of foundation’[8]and that ‘once something has been founded it remains binding for all future generations’.[9] Thus, preserving the memory of foundation was important for authority, hence why the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus took little time to rebuild. These all give us reason to think that ruins, although to be found in all civilisations, were more unusual in classical antiquity than now.
This may explain why for Ancient Roman writers, ruins conjured differing emotions to writers discussing ruins today. Ruins were admirable and remarkable as they can be today: describing the Colossus of Rhodes, Strabo says ‘it now lies on the ground…and is broken off at the knees… This is the most remarkable of the votive offerings’;[10] Pliny states, ‘This statue 56 years after it was erected, was thrown down by an earthquake; but even as it lies, it excites our wonder and admiration…its fingers are larger than most statues…vast caverns are seen yawning in the interior.’[11] Both Strabo and Pliny show ‘wonder and admiration’ but provide no sense that they feel loss and longing whilst reflecting on the ruins. The relative low concentration of ruins then and the few advanced societies preceding the writers at that time may give rise to this: numerous ruins means that more has gone missing and thus the intrigue created by having few ruins is overwhelmed by sensations of loss.
Nonetheless, it can be argued that this line of argumentation is misleading because it neglects the influence of the gods. An earthquake, an event caused by the gods, destroyed the Colossus and the Oracle of Delphi prohibited its rebuilding meaning that writers would show discontent with the will of the gods if they expressed sorrow and mourning at the ruination of the Colossus. Ruination is simply a consequence of fate and the will of the gods. Thus, the same emotions as today of wistfulness and melancholy may have still been felt by the ancients but not verbally expressed so as not to incur the wrath of the gods.
However, this supports the case that different emotions to today were conjured at the sight of ruins. Events being influenced by the gods and fate provides a new dimension to the reaction to that event and is entirely different to today. Additionally, Tacitus ensuing the Great Fire of Rome discusses ‘the striking beauty of the rearisen city’[12]and Ovid discusses the beautiful scene ensuing the fall of Ardea: ‘All its houses burned and sank down in the heated embers: and a bird…flew upward from a wrecked heap…the voice, the lean pale look, the sorrows of a captured city, even the name of the ruined city, all these things remain in that bird – Ardea’s fallen walls are beaten in lamentation in his wings.’[13] Both of these show authors’ intoxication with a ruined city (embodied by a bird in one), whose beauty and ruination has been perfectly crafted by the gods. Thus, ancient Roman authors portray ruins as more impressive and connected to gods than today.
Moreover, Roman authors also view ruins as empty, desolate, and final but with a differing sense of loss to authors today. 17th century Genoese artist Castiglione’s sonnet on Rome provides a good comparison: ‘Sacred ruins, who bear of Rome alone her name…what miserable relics… in little time you are converted to ashes’.[14] In contrast to this, whilst classical authors do discuss themes of emptiness, desolation and finality in association with ruin – ‘untenanted her dwellings and her fields…the ancestral roof finds none on whom to fall’[15]; ‘Time, devourer of all things, and envious Age, together you destroy all that exists and…bring on lingering death’[16]there is no misery and sorrow contained within the ruins themselves but only sorrow at the mortality of things in so far as their incapacity to be forever serviceable. The closest excerpt to the sense of loss from ruin is perhaps in Lucan’s Pharsalia Book I: ‘The walls are tumbling in the towns of Italy, the houses half-destroyed, and, the defences collapsed, the huge stones lie; no guardian occupies the homes and in the ancient cities wanders only an occasional inhabitant; Hesperia bristles now with thorns, unploughed through many a year, lacking the hands for fields which demand them’.[17] Lucan depicts near empty ruins that have lost the people it requires for its fields: these ruins are unkempt and wild, something that has been romanticised by modern-age writers and artists (for instance J.M.W. Turner’s Tintern Abbey painting) but here in Lucan’s mind appears to show a lack of purpose and civilisation. Propertius romantically mourns Veii – ‘Alas, ancient Veii! You too were then a mighty kingdom…now within your walls sound the horn of the loitering shepherd, and men reap ploughed fields over your bones!’[18]– but does not wish for resurrection for the past, recognising the inexorability of fate, the will of the gods, and merely mourns what a once great kingdom has now become. Lucan and Propertius convey a sense of loss that is sad for reasons of dysfunctionality, and that these ruins cannot be used for the present as opposed to loss focused on by modern-day authors longing to resurrect the past.
In addition, the value of ruins for anthropological reasons was something the Ancient Greeks and Romans were aware of, although their attempts to decipher things from ruins was somewhat marred by the idea that mythology was inextricably incorporated into ruins. Lucan in Pharsalia Book VII imagines a dystopian outcome of the civil war: ‘The Latin names shall sound as fables in the ears of men, and ruins loaded with the dust of years shall hardly mark her [(Rome’s)] cities.’[19] The last form of legacy is left in the form of ruins, which is something not often focused on in the romantic mournings of the loss of civilisations in the modern age. Whilst Ancient Roman and Greek writers were quite good at describing ruins from their own civilisations, their ignorance was betrayed when describing ruins of past civilisations they had never met. Although they knew that civilisations predated their own, they still linked these past ruins to mythology: Herodotus describes how the nebulous Pelasgians built a wall on the Acropolis[20], although this is in fact a Mycenaean wall, and Pausanias describes the ruins of Tiryns and another Mycaenean wall in this way: ‘The wall, which is the only part of the ruins still remaining, is a work of the Cyclopes made of unwrought stones, each stone being so big that a pair of mules could not move the smallest from its place to the slightest degree.’[21] Despite the incorrectness of these stories and the preference of classical authors to create fiction and assume knowledge despite the lack of evidence, this still demonstrates the appreciation the Ancient Romans and Greeks had for ruins as a form of legacy and a way to view the past.
The attitude of those in classical antiquity to ruins vastly differs from the perspective of today. As well as valuing ruins for what they were and what they show, it would be an interesting thought experiment to view modern-day Roman and Greek ruins as the Romans and Greeks viewed ruins: to stop yearning for past times and to admire them in the present.
Attitudes to Ruins in Classical Antiquity