At the time that the Hellenistic kingdom of Pergamum became a province of the Roman republic in 133 5.7 BC, Rome itself was still a sprawl of timber and mudbrick buildings within fab walls of rugged local tufa. And so it would have remained if republican moralists had had their way: they prized simplicity, despised the OV opulcncc of Hollcnistic kingdonns and th deplored their autocratic governments. m A change was initiated in 53 Bc when Julius Caesar had a new strictly rectangular forum flanked by stoas built near the irregular Forum Romanum that for centuries had been an the civic centre of the republic, with its N Senate housed in a simple brick-built b hall. Under his great-nephew Augustus g (see p. 178) and successors, Rome was R transformed from a republican to an imperial capital, both politically and visually, with fine new marble-clad buildings of unprecedented size and magnificence for public use, including c the Colosseum (5.43, 5.44), built by Vespasian, Trajan's Forum with its