On the Sublime

When visiting Hadrian’s villa in the hills east of Rome, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the experience. Ruins attract a great deal of our imagination and can accumulate mental contradictions. They facilitate ideas of both mortality and eternity, timelessness and ephemerality, past and future. John Soane’s now demolished Bank of England, in an act of retrospectively ironic fan fiction, was rendered as ruins by painters at the time wishing to capitalize on the perceived sublime style of the ruins that would never come to be. In the modern era, when we wish to demolish something the job gets done. While Hadrian’s villa was quarried along with the rest of the ruins the Romans left behind, it remains standing, more or less. It is entirely possible that in this time of classical fascination the idea of ruins defined the sublime. Many artists and architects of the time studied Roman ruins and Hadrian’s ruins were more popular than powdered wigs, the maritime theater even contributing to the Baroque style of Borromini and his peers through its novel use of ovals (Frischer).

The sublime is a rather illusive quality, for it is truly not a quality but a feeling created from an amalgamation of other qualities. For Burke or Schopenhauer or other philosophers of the time, the principle enjoyment that they received was a form of safe terror. Schopenhauer even has a little sliding scale like some sort of the romantic era terror threat level. Each of these levels not only describes the feeling of the sublime but also the perceived threat to the viewer. These threats are, of course, manufactured in one’s own mind. He describes the levels of the sublime as a thing that poses a threat to the viewer with a ‘turbulent nature’ with the most sublime thing being the extent of the universe and the viewer understanding their insignificance. They are not in control but simply a part of the events that threaten them (Schopenhauer, 39). Of course, it takes more than simply being threatening or Apache helicopters would be considered to be sublime. It’s difficult to feel something is sublime if all you can feel is warm liquid running down your leg. Perhaps to some they are but to those of us without damp moss for brains they are a tool created by man to overcome an obstacle. Schopenhauer’s feelings on the sublime may be better described as a feeling of danger that one has overcome. Burke gives a more detailed description of what characteristics an object or place must have to invoke feelings of the sublime in the viewer. Burke defines the terror of the sublime as being influenced by several characteristics such as obscurity, vastness, magnitude, light, and loudness.

While attack helicopters are quite loud, they aren’t very obscure. Burke describes obscurity as an uncertainty of what one’s next action should be. His obscurity precludes knowing the nature of the threat but feeling there is one. If there’s a helicopter chasing you your next action is always pretty clear, have Bruce Willis drive a car into it. But what does one do if they cannot understand the nature of the danger, or even if there is danger? The obscure nature of the villa was intended from the conception of it. There is an anecdote about Hadrian traveling through the empire and being petitioned by a woman. Hadrian told her he was too busy to speak with her, to which she replied “well then, stop being Emperor” (Frischer). The Emperors of Rome used the title Princeps, meaning first citizen. Their ascension over the republic was made possible only be the people and the people expected their leaders to be available to them. Burke, the man of many commas, states that “[t]hose despotic governments…[founded] principally upon the passions of fear, keep their chief as much as may be from the public eye.” (Burke). This was not the case in Rome, but with the advent of this villa it became the case. It allowed Hadrian to control the number of petitioners and senators that would come to see him (Frischer). It was also important for Hadrian to have control over his visitors due to the tendency of the Roman aristocracy to suddenly find themselves in possession of one knife too many (or twenty-three in Caesar’s case). In Hadrian’s mind it was equal odds the fellow at the door was a chef who was to prepare the day’s lunch or an overly aggressive door-to-door knives salesman. So, the villa was constructed with a very large ‘no solicitors, please’ sign, Hadrian overseeing a great deal of the construction. It is not a villa for Hadrian, it is Hadrian’s villa. It is where he retreated when he felt Rome was oversaturated with angry senators. One could argue that the obscurity of the Roman Emperor led to the eventual decline and fall of the Empire itself. The citizenry was important for the rise of Julius Caesar and Octavian and separation from that meant that the military became the power base of the authority of the emperor. It’s possible that Hadrian’s villa was the beginning of the end for Rome. Where citizens of Rome were once removed from the emperor only by the scale of the line leading to speak to/stab him, Hadrian’s villa established a new scale by which emperors and kings would be removed from their subjects; splendor. 

An important thing to recognize about the villa is that it was a functioning government building. It received solicitors and petitioners and senators from Rome and abroad. Typical villas were a place of otium, or rest, where inhabitants could escape from negotium, or business. Hadrian’s villa inverted this precedent and moved instead to create a place where the power and splendor of Rome and its god-emperor could be displayed (MacDonald, 3). Beyond this, there was a deeper and more personal meaning for Hadrian. An admirer of the Greeks in nearly every possible sense of the phrase, he developed an architecture that represented not only the Latin Empire but the Greek Empire as well, including Doric columns and the like. He went so far as to wear a beard in solidarity with schools of Greek philosophers. The villa was not only his home, but his vision, and he directed aspects of its construction. What is referred to by historians as the maritime theater was Hadrian’s inner sanctum, a modification of the classic Roman house, it had an atrium and other features but was designed as a circle instead of rectilinearly, the circle being considered the ‘purest’ shape in classical philosophy (Frischer). Viewing the Parthenon, Hadrian’s love of circles in construction is a blatant as a knife in an emperor. Fascinatingly, as large as it is, it is a human design. Standing at the entrance and staring straight ahead, one would be able to see the oculus at the very peripheral of their vision. Hadrian designed architecture to be human at its core, and perceivable to them.

The last few paragraphs describe the villa and Hadrian because, despite this essay being about the sublime nature of the ruins as they exist today, it is important to understand the mind that this place sprang from and the reasons for it. It is a truly massive and sprawling estate and to describe every facet of it would be too far removed from the purview of this essay. It is this author’s opinion that the conception and construction of the villa lend a great deal of credence to the idea that they follow Burke’s idea of the sublime. They were huge things built at a scale recognizable to humans but still maintained enough splendor to assert the authority of the emperor, an enigmatic and frequently obscure character.

The ruins of Hadrian’s villa are not loud (possibly disappointing Burke), but the silence resounds more there than any noise could. It is not the sound of an uncontrollable storm Burke might hope was sublime, but the deafening silence of a dead civilization. Perhaps there is some catharsis to be had from Rome’s fall, it shows that a corrupt and militaristic government is bound to fail. But to some degree, the villa in disrepair is a sad and poignant reminder of the fragility of existence. Even the mightiest of empires can fail and even the strongest emperors can fall if weighed down by too many knives. These spaces were once loud. They were filled with the bustle and chatter of people, with the grinding of the cogs of the Mediterranean empire, and with the rancor of laughter and panic at the theater and fights. It was a place where life happened and now that life is gone, it’s sound gone with it.

“What happened here?” is the first question one might ask when seeing the ruins. It is immediately visually clear that the place has seen better days, and the engagement with our imagination generates curiosity which propels us through the ruins. It is human nature to seek answers and those answers are certainly obscure at Hadrian’s villa. Any number of questions could be rendered in one’s mind. Who else has walked where my feet now reside? What life was lived in this place? What life ended in this place? What persuades these arches to remain standing after 1800 years suspended? It is a place of curiosity, but not where that curiosity is sated. The nature of the villa is elusive. Its dangers are unknown. Burke states “when we know the full extent of any danger, a great deal of apprehension vanishes” (Burke). It’s important for this apprehension to remain. At any moment, the ancient magics persuading the archest to remain aloft could tire and they may fall. Imagination serves to provide much of the mystery of the place.

Awe is a critical factor in the sublime. One can be terrified of something but some level of awe is required before the attack helicopter can be considered sublime and scale is frequently the easiest way to create it. Understanding scale as it relates to the sublime through awe is best understood by Burke’s concept of vastness. Writing of dimensional vastness, Burke said, “Of These the length strikes least; an (sic) hundred yards of even ground will never work such an effect as a tower an (sic) hundred yards high, or a rock or mountain of that altitude. I Am apt to imagine likewise, that height is less grand than depth; and that we are more struck at looking down from a precipice” (Burke). There is something of an expression of fragility in the act of staring down a precipice, also a bit of a triumph. The viewer, naturally, would have brought themselves to this mountaintop through their strength and persistence, unless of course they were delivered by Apache helicopter. But, Burke’s expression of vastness is not limited to depth or even to a size, but to the vastness of time in the grand scheme of human existence. It can be the vastness of an empire or the scale of proliferation of a people and their culture. The Roman civilization is one that does inspire awe. Many subsequent civilizations have sought to capitalize on it though naming conventions or though architectural architypes, but none inspire the awe of the Romans. The villa was created specifically to inspire awe in those who saw it and sought to conduct business within it. It was an expression of the splendor and majesty that rulers would use to define themselves and distinguish themselves from those they ruled until they were forcedly separated from the policy along with their heads after the storming of the Tuileries.

Vastness by itself is not enough to establish feelings of the sublime. The sight of infinity can be so overwhelming as to be blinding. Whatever vastness generated must be appropriately curated to humans and out unique perspective. “I have ever observed that colonnades and avenues of trees were…far grander than when they were suffered to run immense distances” (Burke). Hadrian was the master of this use of human perspective to create appropriate magnitude, as the Pantheon demonstrates. The maritime theater, his very private office, is built at a scale which is comfortable to work in and to visit (Frischer). The ruined state further brings the scale down to a manageable understanding. It is imperfect and perfectly human. Of course, the villa is huge, whereas the pantheon can be understood in a single glance. Where the complexity and vastness of the villa protects the obscurity from the magnitude, the pantheon eschews complexity in favor of supporting the human scale and human qualities of the building.

Perhaps this is the message of the sublime philosophers: there is great beauty in the world, but this beauty is fragile. We, as humans, loved by each other are beautiful and fragile. It is only through this fragility that meaning can be granted and only in death is life fulfilled. The universe is a wondrous place and eventually it will crush you under its awe, but it has not crushed you yet.

Citations

Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Scolar Press, 1970.

Frischer, Bernard, and Beth Harris. “Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli: A Virtual Tour.” Khan Academy, www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/roman/middle-empire/v/a-tour-of-hadrian-s-villa-with-dr-bernard-frischer.

Frischer, Bernard, and Beth Harris. “Maritime Theatre at Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli.” Khan Academy, www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/roman/middle-empire/v/emperor-hadrian-s-private-retreat-the-maritime-theatre-at-hadrian-s-villa-tivoli.

MacDonald, William L., and John A. Pinto. Hadrian's Villa and Its Legacy. Yale Univ. Press, 1998.

Schopenhauer, Arthur, et al. The World as Will and Representation. Vol. 1, Pearson Longman, 2008.