The Baths of Caracalla Essay Example for Free

The Baths of Caracalla Essay The baths of Caracalla were enormous buildings, with huge frescoed vaults covering the massive rooms. Constructed which began in 212AD and took approximately five year to complete. The original name of the bath was called the Thermae Antoninanae. (power) The baths of Caracalla was a great accomplishment in Greek history and was shown evidentially threw the benefit for the people, novelty and uniqueness and the Architecture. The baths of Caracalla was a great project who had been all started by Emperor Septimus Severus in 206AD and then was later completed but his son Caracalla and was created because the emperor had a duty to provide entertainment for their people, baths were great for socialization purposes (power). The Roman baths have a long varied past. In early history Romans used baths for health and cleanliness. The baths that most people think of like a tub didn’t come into play until 25BC, with the First Thermae built by Emperor Argippa. Until then Romans bathed in neighbourhood baths with an average of five bath houses per block. So the baths of Caracalla were nothing new to the people. The Emperor made it only to improve on design, grandeur and popularity of the ones before him. The baths were open sunrise to sunset; most commoners went only once a day. It was normal for an emperor to use it for luxury and bath as many as seven to eight times a day. A common routine for the Romans were; easy exercise in the palaestra, then continue to attend the baths, after anoint themselves in oil and then finish by eating. unknown, The baths of caracalla) The baths of Caracalla severed as the new â€Å"ideal† baths for romans; it could hold over 1,600 people and allowed them a new place to go. It contained the grandest and most elaborately decorated buildings, and was also the last major building project undertook in Rome until nearly 100 years later. The baths differed from predecessors by its large scale and its imposin g facade, no other bath or building in Rome could compare. Much of its original building is standing, which has been destroyed by an earthquake in 847 . The bath was built on the outskirts of the southern part of the city, near the Circus Maximus and the imperial palace. (unknown, The baths of caracalla) The baths consisted of a series of massive rooms, over an area of 26 acres. It took on the shape of any normal bath house, it was rectangular and very systematically. (unknown, The baths of caracalla). Rooms that were in the bath were vestibules which acted as a lobby between the interior of the building and outer space. Apodyterium which were considered the dressing rooms , and was the first stop for bathers before getting in the water , and a slave would commonly stay on watch over belongings. The calidarium was a hot room with a pool of water at a 35m diameter, Tepiberium was considered just a warm room kind of like a sauna we have today. Frigidarium was the cold room and the opening air swimming pool was called the natatio. The outside of the Baths are covered with gardens which included statues and fountains. Other rooms where the gymnasia and the study room. The building system combined the use of baked brick with concrete called opus caementicium which was a mixture of small pebbles and sand and lime motar. The water for the baths was brought from the springs of Subiaco, 100km from Rome through the aqueducts. It was distributed by tubes, the bath consisted of three network tunnels, for facilities water, sewage and wood which was used in 50 furnaces to heat the water. The floors were covered with black and white mosaics which can still be seen somewhat today. (Zeballos) Compared today with the baths, everyday you don’t see hundred of men in a bath together, nor with women. Today we have individual baths in our homes. The discussion of policy or philosophy is all done in offices now a day , but back then it was all done by a group of people sitting in a bath together. Generally they were washed by slaves or eunuchs, instead of depending on their selves for their own cleanliness. Water was a constant for them, because it was always there for them when here now a days we have to pay for our water supply. The baths of Caracalla are looked at by people in a numerous amount of way , now what of left of it after the earthquake, is now a monument to Roman history, its persistence to benefit the people which kept them clean and the beautiful architecture that was done to make this one of the most memorable accomplishment in history today, and the way that its uniqueness and novelty has different from today’s society.

Dark Images of Cyberpunk :: Literary Movement Technology Essays Papers

Dark Images of Cyberpunk Works Cited Missing With the publication of seminal works such as Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, science fiction has always contained an appeal to the underground culture. Her Gothic visions of human behavior became the inspiration for works such as Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and Isaac Asimov's I, Robot series. Though the beginning emphasized utopian societies, science fiction progressed to include a future quite different from the present. Visions of flying ships, lasers, and travels to far off space colonies inundated these works. However, one subset of authors, such as William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Lewis Shiner, molded an entirely different genre of science fiction, placing more emphasis on the darker future of life on Earth. This work, later labeled "cyberpunk," brought with it a very bleak view of future societies and culture. The features of their style of writing, which include the masculinization of women, the perversion of technology, the oppressive descriptions of settings and life, and the negative characterizations of people, defined the notion of cyberpunk. Women have a certain status in cyberpunk, one that is very contrary to the current sociological expectations of them. Women in these societies have had to adapt to the environmental pressures put on them. They behave in an unconventional manner, as their sociological role dissolves any need for refinement and they must act and think as men would if they are to survive. Illustrations of this assertion abound. On an emotional level, women are portrayed as being very aggressive, both sexually and physically. One example of this can be found in Tom Maddox's "Snake Eyes": Lizzie and George are described as "rubbing up against one another....twinned, as if there were cables running between the two of them," and even describes their initial introduction, where Lizzie gives him a very passionate kiss immediately following their introduction (Mirrorshades, page 18). The passage also recounts in great detail the sexual encounter which occurs just minutes after their first encounter (page 19). On a physical level, the description of women in this genre seems to lack femininity as well. Another example from the same story is the initial sketch of Lizzie, "Her blond hair was cut almost to the skull (page 18)". This (superficial) absence of femininity is traditional in cyberpunk works. She is also described as having numerous tattoos, one on her left shoulder and curving down between her breasts, where it ended in a single blood-tear (page 18). Dark Images of Cyberpunk :: Literary Movement Technology Essays Papers Dark Images of Cyberpunk Works Cited Missing With the publication of seminal works such as Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, science fiction has always contained an appeal to the underground culture. Her Gothic visions of human behavior became the inspiration for works such as Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and Isaac Asimov's I, Robot series. Though the beginning emphasized utopian societies, science fiction progressed to include a future quite different from the present. Visions of flying ships, lasers, and travels to far off space colonies inundated these works. However, one subset of authors, such as William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Lewis Shiner, molded an entirely different genre of science fiction, placing more emphasis on the darker future of life on Earth. This work, later labeled "cyberpunk," brought with it a very bleak view of future societies and culture. The features of their style of writing, which include the masculinization of women, the perversion of technology, the oppressive descriptions of settings and life, and the negative characterizations of people, defined the notion of cyberpunk. Women have a certain status in cyberpunk, one that is very contrary to the current sociological expectations of them. Women in these societies have had to adapt to the environmental pressures put on them. They behave in an unconventional manner, as their sociological role dissolves any need for refinement and they must act and think as men would if they are to survive. Illustrations of this assertion abound. On an emotional level, women are portrayed as being very aggressive, both sexually and physically. One example of this can be found in Tom Maddox's "Snake Eyes": Lizzie and George are described as "rubbing up against one another....twinned, as if there were cables running between the two of them," and even describes their initial introduction, where Lizzie gives him a very passionate kiss immediately following their introduction (Mirrorshades, page 18). The passage also recounts in great detail the sexual encounter which occurs just minutes after their first encounter (page 19). On a physical level, the description of women in this genre seems to lack femininity as well. Another example from the same story is the initial sketch of Lizzie, "Her blond hair was cut almost to the skull (page 18)". This (superficial) absence of femininity is traditional in cyberpunk works. She is also described as having numerous tattoos, one on her left shoulder and curving down between her breasts, where it ended in a single blood-tear (page 18).

Hunger artist Essay

1. In the picture inspired by Franz Kafka’s â€Å"A Hunger Artist† there is a depiction of the man who is fasting, sitting solemnly in a cage as people look in at him as if he is a sideshow. Women, child, and men are all milling about looking in at the hunger artist and reading the signs that are posted around him, all of which sensationalize the hunger artists’ plight. The picture is loyal to the story as it brings a visual image of what it was like for the hunger artist, who simply sits there, starving himself for the amusement of the public. This picture is a wonderful depiction of the scene as described by Kafka when he writes, â€Å"While for grown-ups the hunger artist was often merely a joke, something they participated in because it was fashionable, the children looked on amazed, their mouths open, holding each other’s hands for safety, as he sat there on scattered straw—spurning a chair—in a black tights. Looking pale, with his ribs sticking out prominently, sometimes nodding politely, answering questions with a forced smile, even sticking his arm out through the bars to let people feel how emaciated he was, but then completely sinking back into himself, so that he paid no attention to anything, not even to what was so important to him, the striking of the clock, which was the single furnishing in the cage, merely looking out in front of him with his eyes almost shut and now and then sipping from a tiny glass of water to moisten his lips (Kafka)†. 2. A parable is a story that conveys its message or moral indirectly through the use of symbolism or analogies and the story â€Å"A Hunger Artist† is like a parable in that it conveys its meaning through symbolism and analogies. This story is a parable of the way the public looks at people and what our need for entertainment drives us to do. The hunger artist himself at the end seems to understand that the only reason he had harmed himself by fasting for so long was because he couldn’t be like the other people–food became a symbol of life. The ones who looked in on him had learned how to live life, while he never could. The comparison of starving oneself to being an art becomes a part of the parable as well, and the author writes, â€Å"Try to explain the art of fasting to anyone! † (Kafka). 3. In the story the author describes the hunger artist as an â€Å"an unfortunate martyr† because he is sacrificing so much for his art. There doesn’t seem to be anything incredibly important about what he is doing, yet he continues to sacrifice in order to do it. He is a martyr to the dying arts, the things that people do not care about anymore, and yet he keeps going forward. In the end he dies for his art, despite the fact he cannot do anything else, according to his own beliefs. 4. When the hunger artist joins the circus and is put near the animal cages this symbolized the fact that the public no longer cares about him as an artist, now he is simply entertainment, something strange and odd to be gawked at. While once they looked at what he did with awe and respect, now they see him as something strange and do not pay much mind to him. He is like an animal: something that can be caged up and ignored, but once in a while looked at with only passing interest. The public suddenly stopped caring about him, as the author states, â€Å"At any rate, one day the pampered hunger artist saw himself abandoned by the crowd of pleasure seekers, who preferred to stream to other attractions† (Kafka). 5. The last paragraph of the story shows just how people can soon forget something. No one remembers the hunger artist and, in fact, are relieved to see a panther in the cage, wild and savage, trying desperately to get out of the cage. The hunger artist had been happy in a cage, content with nothing, and yet the panther is the exact opposite. People see the panther and his â€Å"noble body† as being the future, something that is strong, like they wish to be. They do not want to see someone unhappy with his life, unhappy with his situation, and depriving himself. They want to see the spirit of something wild. As Kafka writes, â€Å"It enjoyed the taste and never seemed to miss its freedom† (Kafka).

The Etymology of Geometry Terms

Theres an anecdote about how the philosopher-mathematician Pythagoras overcame a students natural dislike of geometry. The student was poor, so Pythagoras offered to pay him an obol for each theorem he learned. Eager for the money, the student agreed and applied himself. Soon, however, he became so intrigued, he begged Pythagoras to go faster, and even offered to pay his teacher. In the end, Pythagoras recouped his losses. Etymology provides a safety net of demystification. When all the words you hear are new and confusing, or when those around you put old words to strange purposes, a grounding in etymology may help. Take the word line. You put your  ruler to paper and draw a line against the straight edge. If youre an actor, you learn your lines -- line after line of text in a script. Clear. Obvious. Simple. But then you hit Geometry. Suddenly your common sense is challenged by technical definitions*, and line, which comes from the Latin word linea (a linen thread), loses all practical meaning, becoming, instead, an intangible, dimension-less concept that goes off at both ends to eternity. You hear about parallel lines that by definition never meet each other -- except they do in some warped reality dreamt up by Albert Einstein. The concept you have always known as the  line has been renamed line segment. After a few days, it comes as something of a relief to run into an intuitively obvious circle, whose definition as a set of points equidistant from a central point still fits your previous experience. That circle** (coming possibly from a Greek verb meaning to hoop around or from a diminutive of the circular Roman circus, circulus) is marked with what you would have, in pre-geometry days, called a line across part of it. This line is called a chord. The word chord comes from the Greek word (chordà ª) for a piece of animal gut used as a string in a lyre. They still use (not necessarily cat) gut for violin strings. After circles, youll probably study equiangular or equilateral triangles. Knowing the etymology, you can break those words up into component parts: equi (equal), angular, angle, lateral (of a side/sided), and tri (3). A three-sided object with all sides equal. It is possible that youll see triangle referred to as trigon. Again, tri means 3, and gon derives from the Greek word for corner or angle, gà ´nia. However, youre far more likely to see the word trigonometry -- trigon the Greek word for measure. Geo-metry is the measure of Gaia (Geo), the Earth. If youre studying geometry, you probably already know you must memorize theorems, axioms, and definitions corresponding with names. Names of Shapes cylinderdodecagonheptagonhexagonoctagonparallelogrampolygonprismpyramidquadrilateralrectanglespheresquare andtrapezoid. While the theorems and axioms are pretty much geometry-specific, the names of shapes and their properties have further applications in science and life. Beehives and snowflakes are both dependent on the hexagon. If you hang a picture, you want to make sure its top is parallel to the ceiling. Shapes in geometry are usually based on the angles involved, so the two root words (gon and angle [from the Latin angulus which means the same thing as the Greek gà ´nia]) are combined with words that refer to number (like triangle, above) and equality (like equiangular, above). Although there are apparent exceptions to the rule, generally, the numbers used in combination with the  angle (from the Latin) and gon (from the Greek) are in the same language. Since hexa is Greek for six, youre unlikely to see hexangle. Youre far more likely to see the combined form hexa gon, or hexagon. Another Greek word used in combination with the numbers or with the prefix poly- (many) is hedron, which means a foundation, base, or sitting place. A polyhedron is a many-sided three-dimensional figure. Construct one from cardboard or straws, if you like, and demonstrate its etymology, by making it sit on each of its many bases. Even if it doesnt help to know that a tangent, the line (or is that line segment?) that touches at only one point (depending on the function), comes from the Latin tangere (to touch) or the oddly shaped quadrilateral known as a trapezoid got its name from looking like a table, and even if it doesnt save a lot of time to memorize the Greek and Latin numbers, instead of just the names of shapes -- if and when you run into them, the etymologies will come back to add color to your world, and to help you with trivia, aptitude tests and word puzzles. And if you ever do run into the terms on a geometry exam, even if panic sets in, youll be able to count through in your head to figure out whether its a regular pentagon or heptagon that you would inscribe with a traditional five-pointed star. * Heres one possible definition, from McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Mathematics: line: The set of points (x1, . . ., xn) in Euclidean space.... The same source defines line segment as A connected piece of a line. ** For the etymology of circle, see Lingwhizt and the possibility of an ancient Indo-European word for millstone, another round flat object.