For anyone who has been meaning to get to Melbourne Museum this winter, the clock is quietly running down on one of the year's biggest drawcards. ROME: Empire, Power, People has been packing the Carlton museum since April, and it closes on Sunday 25 October — a chance to stand inches from the ancient world that will not come around again soon.
The exhibition gathers more than 150 objects from the height of the Roman Empire, spanning the 1st to the 3rd century CE, and every single one is on display in Melbourne for the first time. They are drawn from two of Italy's most prestigious collections, the Museo Nazionale Romano and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze, and assembled here in a show designed by Museums Victoria.
What is on the plinths is not a parade of broken pottery. There are original marble statues and busts — among them a portrait of the emperor Augustus — alongside mosaics, frescoes, jewellery and the small, human objects of daily life, from the humblest household items to the most sumptuous. A reconstructed triclinium, the reclining dining room of a wealthy Roman house, gives a sense of how the other half lived.
The story it tells runs from the fall of Julius Caesar to the sprawling power of the Empire that followed. It moves between the luxury of the imperial elite, the roar of the gladiator arena, the crush of the marketplace and the ordinary routines of Romans who were, in the end, not so different from the people filing past their belongings two thousand years later.
"This exhibition offers a once-in-a-lifetime chance to stand before treasures nearly 2,000 years old and feel the pulse of a civilisation that shaped the world," said Lynley Crosswell, chief executive and director of Museums Victoria. Federica Montani, head of exhibitions at the Italian partner Contemporanea Progetti, called the show "the result of an exceptional collaboration between Australia and Italy."
ROME is the anchor of a strong winter for Melbourne's big institutions, arriving in the same season as Cartier at the NGV. Between them, the two shows have given the city a reason to spend the cold months indoors among some of the finest objects Europe has sent south in years.
Tickets to ROME include general entry to Melbourne Museum at 11 Nicholson Street, Carlton. Adult admission is $35, or $39 for a flexible date; concession and senior tickets are $30, children aged 16 and under are $15, and children three and under go free. Museums Victoria members pay less again, and session times and booking details are also listed on What's On Melbourne.
With three months left on the calendar and school holidays already behind it, the exhibition is heading into its final stretch. For Melburnians who like their history close enough to touch — or as close as the display cases allow — the Roman Empire is in Carlton until late October, and then it goes home.
