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This chapter describes the Capitoline as the farthest projection of a group of hills that breaks off from the plateau northeast of Rome and extends almost to the Tiber. The Capitoline separates the Campus Martius from the Roman Forum and Forum Boarium. Because of its strategic position and physical characteristics, the hill readily served as a citadel. According to ancient tradition, it was at this hill that Saturn established the region's first community, which was destined to become Rome. The Temple of the Capitoline Triad Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Juno Regina, and Minerva was the most important cult center in the Roman state. The chapter discusses several significant events that occurred in this place, and provides descriptions of such other buildings at the Capitoline as the Area Capitolina, the Tabularium, the Temple of Veiovis, and the Arx.

A recent study by Bernard Flusin of two documents dated to the end of the sixth century has reopened the debate concerning the location of the Capitoline temple in Aelia Capitolina. There is no doubt that the site identified as the Capitol is the present Haram esh-Sharif, because the mosque in question can only be that seen by Arculf on his visit to Jerusalem between 679 and 688. Cyril Mango immediately hailed the two Byzantine texts as the decisive confirmation of the assertion of Dio Cassius that the Capitoline temple dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva was located on the esplanade of the great temple built by Herod the Great.

This chapter begins with a retrospective construction and invocation of the category of “mainstream sociology,” with special attention given to the heroes of the insurgents, Mills and Gouldner. It then turns to the era of postwar expansion most frequently associated with the rise and dominance of the so-called mainstream, discussing the figures Bourdieu referred to as the Capitoline triad—Parsons, Merton, and Lazarsfeld—and continuing with a broader view of the postwar elite, including especially developments at the University of Chicago. Next, it presents a critical consideration of the discourse of mainstream sociology. Throughout, the chapter is engaged with the interplay of hierarchy, diversity, orthodoxy, and heterodoxy within postwar American sociology.

For the Romans, Mercury held some particular narrative and socio-cultural implications during the First Punic War and was connected to a nexus of thought with specific resonance during a markedly naval conflict. An underappreciated testimonium of Naevius’ Bellum Punicum (c.220 bce) suggests that he crafted a version of the god who built Aeneas’ ship and led the hero from Troy to Italy. This understanding of the god’s maritime role in the epic and its literary afterlives are traced out in later texts and objects in order best to reconstruct a largely lost characterization of the god in Roman culture. Focus is given to Naevius, Vergil, Silius Italicus, Marcellus of Side, and the visual narratives found on the Augustan Tabula Iliaca Capitolina.

This introduction provides a portrait of late sixteenth-century Rome. It gives background including the 1527 Sack of Rome. It discusses the Council of Trent, concluded in 1563. It introduces the main themes of the book including the idea of trading zones--that Roman infrastructure projects as well as investigation of antiquities and cartographical activities were characterized by arenas of substantive communication between men from learned and those from practical or skilled backgrounds. The chapter introduces four popes important to the book--Pius IV, Pius V, Gregory XIII, and Sixtus V. It discusses in detail the papal government of the city (or Camera Apostolica) and the city government of the Capitoline Council. It also describes the population of Rome from elite cardinals to the civic nobility, to skilled workers and to laborers and vagabonds. It treats some of the historiography of Roman governance, including the Prodi thesis.

This chapter treats the sixteenth-century study of Roman topography and antiquarian studies by antiquarians such as Bartolomeo Marliani. It also discusses a related activity, the creation of maps and urban images of Rome. The chapter reviews the development of the ichnographic or measured map from the time of Leon Battista Alberti, and the surveying that such maps required. It also focuses on a measured map of the city in Marliani’s 1544 guidebook and the ichnographic map of the city created by Leonardo Bufalini, first published in 1551. It discusses the discovery of the Capitoline Fasti and its importance for antiquarian studies. Finally it investigates the bitter rivalries and disagreements between Pirro Ligorio and his humanist friends such as Bartolomeo Egio, on the one hand, and Marliani, on the other, over the location of the ancient Roman Forum. It treats the maps of Pirro Ligorio, including his famous map of ancient Rome first published in 1561.

In this chapter, the author considers the story of the Gallic sack in 390 BCE as a typical example of a Roman narrative of crisis and survival. This story was repeatedly evoked by spectators of the civil conflict of 69 CE and was exploited by the Flavian entourage to frame Vitellius’ descent into Italy. In particular, Domitian seems to have relied on this episode to mythologize his own participation in the battle of the Capitoline against Vitellius in 69 CE. The author shows that many elements attached to this narrative (especially the topic of self-sacrifice) surface in Statius’ narrative of the siege of Thebes in book 10 and that Statius interacts with Domitian’s attempts at styling himself as the savior of Rome.

This chapter examines the Casa Romuli, the thatched hut associated with the city’s founder Romulus and held up as an exemplum of Rome’s origins. Contrary to other examples discussed in the book, this structure consistently retained its original form and the same type of materials when rebuilt. However, in this instance, too, the case is made that the architectural continuity was not motivated by an overt attempt to preserve the historic appearance of the building, but was instead a consequence of other influences. By drawing a comparison with the maintenance of the Pons Sublicius, a new interpretation of the hut is proposed and the relevance of religious agency in matters of built heritage is again brought to the fore.