Becoming a creative city: perspectives from Augustus’ Rome

Abstract

The creative city discourse has been shaping cultural policy worldwide. Among the multifaceted goals highlighted by scholars, one aspect that is not thoroughly emphasized is the understanding of creative cities in terms of culture-centric approaches to foster city cohesion. In this paper, I study the value of focusing the idea of the creative city to integrate diverse communities in a historic context: the city of Rome during the reign of Augustus. The aim is to provide a broader historic frame of reference to better articulate the function of the creative city discourse. Through the analysis of primary and secondary literature in Ancient Studies, I highlight three aspects of Augustus’ remaking of Rome: integration, spectacles, and beauty. From these aspects, what emerges is the idea of a creative city as a vital and spectacular place that offers access to arts and culture involving the diversity of the population, presenting a wide range of art forms, and enhancing the beauty of the built space.

Keywords:

• access to the arts
• creative city
• cultural policy

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Erratum

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Daphne Gallagher and Jeffrey M. Hurwit for their helpful suggestions. Many thanks go to the leaders and participants of the 2012 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) summer seminar “Communication, Empire and the City of Rome” at the American Academy in Rome for their inspiring conversations. Finally, many thanks go also to anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments.

Notes

1. E pluribus unum, a Latin phrase meaning “one from many,” was the motto proposed for the first Great Seal of the United States by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson in 1776.

2. Originally the forum was an open space in the center of the city where public buildings, temples, and shops clustered (Richardson, 1992). During the Republic, it became the political heart of the city and the place for court activities. Julius Caesar built a second forum to enlarge the old Roman forum.