ROMAN ARCHITECTUREâ€”Continued:IMPERIAL ARCHITECTURE

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CHAPTER IX.

ROMAN ARCHITECTURE--Continued.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Same as for Chapter VIII. Also, Guhl and Kohner, Life of the

Ancient Greeks and Romans. Adams, Ruins of the Palace of Spalato. Burn, Rome and

the Campagna. Cameron, Roman Baths. Mau, tr. by Kelcey, Pompeii, its Life and Art.

Mazois, Ruines de Pompeii. Von Presuhn, Die neueste Ausgrabungen zu Pompeii.

Wood, Ruins of Palmyra and Baalbec.

THE ETRUSCAN STYLE. Although the first Greek architects were employed in

Rome as early as 493 B.C., the architecture of the Republic was practically Etruscan

until nearly 100 B.C. Its monuments, consisting mainly of city walls, tombs, and

temples, are all marked by a general uncouthness of detail, denoting a lack of artistic

refinement, but they display considerable constructive skill. In the Etruscan walls we

meet with both polygonal and regularly coursed masonry; in both kinds the true arch

appears as the almost universal form for gates and openings. A famous example is

the Augustan Gate at Perugia, a late work rebuilt about 40 B.C., but thoroughly

Etruscan in style. At Volaterræ (Volterra) is another arched gate, and in Perugia

fragments of still another appear built into the modern walls.

FIG. 51.--TEMPLE FORTUNA VIRILIS. PLAN.

The Etruscans built both structural and excavated tombs; they consisted in general of

a single chamber with a slightly arched or gabled roof, supported in the larger tombs

on heavy square piers. The interiors were covered with pictures; externally there was

little ornament except about the gable and doorway. The latter had a stepped or

moulded frame with curious crossettes or ears projecting laterally at the top. The

gable recalled the wooden roofs of Etruscan temples, but was coarse in detail,

especially in its mouldings. Sepulchral monuments of other types are also met with,

such as cippi or memorial pillars, sometimes in groups of five on a single pedestal

(tomb at Albano).

Among the temples of Etruscan style that of Jupiter Capitolinus on the Capitol at

Rome, destroyed by fire in 80 B.C., was the chief. Three narrow chambers side by

side formed a cella nearly square in plan, preceded by a hexastyle porch of huge

Doric, or rather Tuscan, columns arranged in three aisles, widely spaced and carrying

ponderous wooden architraves. The roof was of wood; the cymatium and ornaments,

as well as the statues in the pediment, were of terra-cotta, painted and gilded. The

details in general showed acquaintance with Greek models, which appeared in

debased and awkward imitations of triglyphs, cornices, antefixæ, etc.

GREEK STYLE. The victories of Marcellus at Syracuse, 212 B.C., Fabius Maximus at

Tarentum (209 B.C.), Flaminius (196 B.C.), Mummius (146 B.C.), Sulla (86 B.C.),

and others in the various Greek provinces, steadily increased the vogue of Greek

architecture and the number of Greek artists in Rome. The temples of the last two

centuries B.C., and some of earlier date, though still Etruscan in plan, were in many

cases strongly Greek in the character of their details. A few have remained to our

time in tolerable preservation. The temple of Fortuna Virilis (really of Fors Fortuna),

of the second century (?) B.C., is a tetrastyle prostyle pseudoperipteral temple with a

high podium or base, a typical Etruscan cella, and a deep porch, now walled up, but

thoroughly Greek in the elegant details of its Ionic order (Fig. 51). Two circular

temples, both called erroneously Temples of Vesta, one at Rome near the Cloaca

Maxima, the other at Tivoli, belong among the monuments of Greek style. The first

was probably dedicated to Hercules, the second probably to the Sibyls; the latter

being much the better preserved of the two. Both were surrounded by peristyles of

eighteen Corinthian columns, and probably covered by domical roofs with gilded

bronze tiles. The Corinthian order appears here complete with its modillion cornice,

but the crispness of the detail and the fineness of the execution are Greek and not

Roman. These temples date from about 72 B.C., though the one at Rome was

probably rebuilt in the first century A.D. (Fig. 52).

IMPERIAL ARCHITECTURE; AUGUSTAN AGE. Even in the temples of Greek style

Roman conceptions of plan and composition are dominant. The Greek architect was

not free to reproduce textually Greek designs or details, however strongly he might

impress with the Greek character whatever he touched. The demands of imperial

splendor and the building of great edifices of varied form and complex structure, like

the thermæ and amphitheatres, called for new adaptations and combinations of

planning and engineering. The reign of Augustus (27 B.C.-14 A.D.) inaugurated the

imperial epoch, but many works erected before and after his reign properly belong to

the Augustan age by right of style. In general, we find in the works of this period the

happiest combination of Greek refinement with Roman splendor. It was in this

period that Rome first assumed the aspect of an opulent and splendid metropolis,

though the way had been prepared for this by the regularization and adornment of

the Roman Forum and the erection of many temples, basilicas, fora, arches, and

theatres during the generation preceding the accession of Augustus. His reign saw the

inception or completion of the portico of Octavia, the Augustan forum, the Septa

Julia, the first Pantheon, the adjoining Thermæ of Agrippa, the theatre of Marcellus,

the first of the imperial palaces on the Palatine, and a long list of temples, including

those of the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux), of Mars Ultor, of Jupiter Tonans on the

Capitol, and others in the provinces; besides colonnades, statues, arches, and other

embellishments almost without number.

FIG. 52.--CIRCULAR TEMPLE. TIVOLI.

LATER IMPERIAL WORKS. With the successors of Augustus splendor increased to

almost fabulous limits, as, for instance, in the vast extent and the prodigality of ivory

and gold in the famous Golden House of Nero. After the great fire in Rome,

presumably kindled by the agents of this emperor, a more regular and monumental

system of street-planning and building was introduced, and the first municipal

building-law was decreed by him. To the reign of Vespasian (6879 A.D.) we owe

the rebuilding in Roman style and with the Corinthian order of the temple of Jupiter

Capitolinus, the Baths of Titus, and the beginning of the Flavian amphitheatre or

Colosseum. The two last-named edifices both stood on the site of Nero's Golden

House, of which the greater part was demolished to make way for them. During the

last years of the first century the arch of Titus was erected, the Colosseum finished,

amphitheatres built at Verona, Pola, Reggio, Tusculum, Nîmes (France), Constantine

(Algiers), Pompeii and Herculanum (these last two cities and Stabiæ rebuilt after the

earthquake of 63 A.D.), and arches, bridges, and temples erected all over the Roman

world.

The first part of the second century was distinguished by the splendid architectural

achievements of the reign of Hadrian (117138 A.D.) in Rome and the provinces,

especially Athens. Nearly all his works were marked by great dignity of conception as

well as beauty of detail. During the latter part of the century a very interesting series

of buildings were erected in the Hauran (Syria), in which Greek and Arab workmen

under Roman direction produced examples of vigorous stone architecture of a

mingled Roman and Syrian character.

The most-remarkable thermæ of Rome belong to the third century--those of

Caracalla (211217 A.D.) and of Diocletian (284305 A.D.)--their ruins to-day

ranking among the most imposing remains of antiquity. In Syria the temples of the

Sun at Baalbec and Palmyra (273 A.D., under Aurelian), and the great palace of

Diocletian at Spalato, in Dalmatia (300 A.D.), are still the wonder of the few

travellers who reach those distant spots.

FIG. 53.--TEMPLE OF VENUS AND ROME. PLAN.

While during the third and fourth centuries there was a marked decline in purity and

refinement of detail, many of the later works of the period display a remarkable

freedom and originality in conception. But these works are really not Roman, they

are foreign, that is, provincial products; and the transfer of the capital to Byzantium

revealed the increasing degree in which Rome was coming to look to the East for her

strength and her art.

TEMPLES. The Romans built both rectangular and circular temples, and there was

much variety in their treatment. In the rectangular temples a high podium, or

basement, was substituted for the Greek stepped stylobate, and the prostyle plan

was more common than the peripteral. The cella was relatively short and wide, the

front porch inordinately deep, and frequently divided by longitudinal rows of

columns into three aisles. In most cases the exterior of the cella in prostyle temples

was decorated by engaged columns. A barrel vault gave the interior an aspect of

spaciousness impossible with the Greek system of a wooden ceiling supported on

double ranges of columns. In the place of these, free or engaged columns along the

side-walls received the ribs of the vaulting. Between these ribs the ceiling was richly

panelled, or coffered and sumptuously gilded. The temples of Fortuna Virilis and of

Faustina at Rome (the latter built 141 A.D., and its ruins incorporated into the

modern church of S. Lorenzo in Miranda), and the beautiful and admirably preserved

Maison Carrée, at Nîmes (France) (4 A.D.) are examples of this type. The temple of

Concord, of which only the podium remains, and the small temple of Julius (both of

these in the Forum) illustrate another form of prostyle temple in which the porch was

on a long side of the cella. Some of the larger temples were peripteral. The temple of

the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux) in the Forum, was one of the most magnificent of

these, certainly the richest in detail (Fig. 44). Very remarkable was the double temple

of Venus and Rome, east of the Forum, designed by the Emperor Hadrian about 130

A.D. (Fig. 53). It was a vast pseudodipteral edifice containing two cellas in one

structure, their statue-niches or apses meeting back to back in the centre. The temple

stood in the midst of an imposing columnar peribolus entered by magnificent

gateways. Other important temples have already been mentioned on p. 91.

Besides the two circular temples already described, the temple of Vesta, adjoining the

House of the Vestals, at the east end of the Forum should be mentioned. At Baalbec

is a circular temple whose entablature curves inward between the widely-spaced

columns until it touches the cella in the middle of each intercolumniation. It

illustrates the caprices of design which sometimes resulted from the disregard of

tradition and the striving after originality (273 A.D.).

THE PANTHEON. The noblest of all circular temples of Rome and of the world was

the Pantheon. It was built by Hadrian, 117138 A.D., on the site of the earlier

rectangular temple of the same name erected by Agrippa. It measures 142 feet in

diameter internally; the wall is 20 feet thick and supports a hemispherical dome

rising to a height of 140 feet (Figs. 54, 55). Light is admitted solely through a round

opening 28 feet in diameter at the top of the dome, the simplest and most impressive

method of illumination conceivable. The rain and snow that enter produce no

appreciable effect upon the temperature of the vast hall. There is a single entrance,

with noble bronze doors, admitting directly to the interior, around which seven

niches, alternately rectangular and semicircular in plan and fronted by Corinthian

columns, lighten, without weakening, the mass of the encircling wall. This wall was

originally incrusted with rich marbles, and the great dome, adorned with deep

coffering in rectangular panels, was decorated with rosettes and mouldings in gilt

stucco. The dome appears to have been composed of numerous arches and ribs, filled

in and finally coated with concrete. A recent examination of a denuded portion of its

inner surface has convinced the writer that the interior panelling was executed after,

and not during, its construction, by hewing the panels out of the mass of brick and

concrete, without regard to the form and position of the origin skeleton of ribs.

FIG. 54.--PLAN OF THE PANTHEON.

FIG. 55.--INTERIOR OF THE PANTHEON.

The exterior (Fig. 56) was less successful than the interior. The gabled porch of

twelve superb granite columns 50 feet high, three-aisled in plan after the Etruscan

mode, and covered originally by a ceiling of bronze, was a rebuilding with the

materials and on the plan of the original pronaos of the Pantheon of Agrippa. The

circular wall behind it is faced with fine brickwork, and displays, like the dome,

many curious arrangements of discharging arches, reminiscences of traditional

constructive precautions here wholly useless and fictitious because only skin-deep.

A revetment of marble below and plaster above once concealed this brick facing. The

portico, in spite of its too steep gable (once filled with a "gigantomachia" in gilt

bronze) and its somewhat awkward association with a round building, is nevertheless

a noble work, its capitals in Pentelic marble ranking among the finest known

examples of the Roman Corinthian. Taken as a whole, the Pantheon is one of the

great masterpieces of the world's architecture.

FIG. 56.--EXTERIOR OF THE PANTHEON.

(From model in Metropolitan Museum, New York.)

FORA AND BASILICAS. The fora were the places for general public assemblage. The

chief of those in Rome, the Forum Magnum, or Forum Romanum, was at first merely

an irregular vacant space, about and in which, as the focus of the civic life, temples,

halls, colonnades, and statues gradually accumulated. These chance aggregations the

systematic Roman mind reduced in time to orderly and monumental form; successive

emperors extended them and added new fora at enormous cost and with great

splendor of architecture. Those of Julius, Augustus, Vespasian, and Nerva (or

Domitian), adjoining the Roman Forum, were magnificent enclosures surrounded by

high walls and single or double colonnades. Each contained a temple or basilica,

besides gateways, memorial columns or arches, and countless statues. The Forum of

Trajan surpassed all the rest; it covered an area of thirty-five thousand square yards,

and included, besides the main area, entered through a triumphal arch, the Basilica

Ulpia, the temple of Trajan, and his colossal Doric column of Victory. Both in size

and beauty it ranked as the chief architectural glory of the city (Fig. 57). The six fora

together contained thirteen temples, three basilicas, eight triumphal arches, a mile of

porticos, and a number of other public edifices.14 Besides these, a net-work of

colonnades covered large tracts of the city, affording sheltered communication in

every direction, and here and there expanding into squares or gardens surrounded by

peristyles.

FIG. 57.--FORUM AND BASILICA OF TRAJAN.

FIG. 58.--BASILICA OF CONSTANTINE. PLAN.

The public business of Rome, both judicial and commercial, was largely transacted in

the basilicas, large buildings consisting usually of a wide and lofty central nave

flanked by lower side-aisles, and terminating at one or both ends in an apse or

semicircular recess called the tribune, in which were the seats for the magistrates.

The side-aisles were separated from the nave by columns supporting a clearstory

wall, pierced by windows above the roofs of the side-aisles. In some cases the latter

were two stories high, with galleries; in others the central space was open to the sky,

as at Pompeii, suggesting the derivation of the basilica from the open square

surrounded by colonnades, or from the forum itself, with which we find it usually

associated. The most important basilicas in Rome were the Sempronian, the Æmilian

(about 54 B.C.), the Julian in the Forum Magnum (51 B.C.), and the Ulpian in the

Forum of Trajan (113 A.D.). The last two were probably open basilicas, only the

side-aisles being roofed. The Ulpian (Fig. 57) was the most magnificent of all, and in

conjunction with the Forum of Trajan formed one of the most imposing of those

monumental aggregations of columnar architecture which contributed so largely to

the splendor of the Roman capital.

FIG. 59.--BASILICA OF CONSTANTINE. RUINS.

These monuments frequently suffered from the burning of their wooden roofs. It was

Constantine who completed the first vaulted and fireproof basilica, begun by his

predecessor and rival, Maxentius, on the site of the former Temple of Peace (Figs.

58, 59). Its design reproduced on a grand scale the plan of the tepidarium-halls of

the thermæ, the side-recesses of which were converted into a continuous side-aisle by

piercing arches through the buttress-walls that separated them. Above the imposing

vaults of these recesses and under the cross-vaults of the nave were windows

admitting abundant light. A narthex, or porch, preceded the hall at one end; there

were also a side entrance from the Via Sacra, and an apse or tribune for the

magistrates opposite each of these entrances. The dimensions of the main hall (325

× 85 feet), the height of its vault (117 feet), and the splendor of its columns and

incrustations excited universal admiration, and exercised a powerful influence on

later architecture.

THERMÆ. The leisure of the Roman people was largely spent in the great baths, or

thermæ, which took the place substantially of the modern club. The establishments

erected by the emperors for this purpose were vast and complex congeries of large

and small halls, courts, and chambers, combined with a masterly comprehension of

artistic propriety and effect in the sequence of oblong, square, oval, and circular

apartments, and in the relation of the greater to the lesser masses. They were a

combination of the Greek palæstra with the Roman balnea, and united in one

harmonious design great public swimming-baths, private baths for individuals and

families, places for gymnastic exercises and games, courts, peristyles, gardens, halls

for literary entertainments, lounging-rooms, and all the complex accommodation

required for the service of the whole establishment. They were built with apparent

disregard of cost, and adorned with splendid extravagance. The earliest were the

Baths of Agrippa (27 B.C.) behind the Pantheon; next may be mentioned those of

Titus, built on the substructions of Nero's Golden House. The remains of the

Thermæ of Caracalla (211 A.D.) form the most extensive mass of ruins in Rome,

and clearly display the admirable planning of this and similar establishments.

A gigantic block of buildings containing the three great halls for cold, warm, and hot

baths, stood in the centre of a vast enclosure surrounded by private baths, exedræ,

and halls for lecture-audiences and other gatherings. The enclosure was adorned with

statues, flower-gardens, and places for out-door games. The Baths of Diocletian (302

A.D.) embodied this arrangement on a still more extensive scale; they could

accommodate 3,500 bathers at once, and their ruins cover a broad territory near the

railway terminus of the modern city. The church of S. Maria degli Angeli was formed

by Michael Angelo out of the tepidarium of these baths--a colossal hall 340 × 87

feet, and 90 feet high. The original vaulting and columns are still intact, and the

whole interior most imposing, in spite of later stucco disfigurements. The circular

laconicum (sweat-room) serves as the porch to the present church. It was in the

building of these great halls that Roman architecture reached its most original and

characteristic expression. Wholly unrelated to any foreign model, they represent

distinctively Roman ideals, both as to plan and construction.

FIG. 60.--THERMÆ OF CARACALLA. PLAN OF CENTRAL BLOCK.

A, Caldarium, or Hot Bath; B, Intermediate Chamber; C, Tepidarium, or Warm Bath; D,

Frigidarium, or Cold Bath; E, Peristyles; a, Gymnastic Rooms; b, Dressing Rooms; c,

Cooling Rooms; d, Small Courts; e, Entrances; v, Vestibules.

FIG. 61.--ROMAN THEATRE. (HERCULANUM.)

(From model.)

PLACES OF AMUSEMENT. The earliest Roman theatres differed from the Greek in

having a nearly semicircular plan, and in being built up from the level ground, not

excavated in a hillside (Fig. 61). The first theatre was of wood, built by Mummius

145 B.C., and it was not until ninety years later that stone was first substituted for

the more perishable material, in the theatre of Pompey. The Theatre of Marcellus

(2313 B.C.) is in part still extant, and later theatres in Pompeii, Orange (France),

and in the Asiatic provinces are in excellent preservation. The orchestra was not, as

in the Greek theatre, reserved for the choral dance, but was given up to spectators of

rank; the stage was adorned with a permanent architectural background of columns

and arches, and sometimes roofed with wood, and an arcade or colonnade

surrounded the upper tier of seats. The amphitheatre was a still more distinctively

Roman edifice. It was elliptical in plan, surrounding an elliptical arena, and built up

with continuous encircling tiers of seats. The earliest stone amphitheatre was erected

by Statilius Taurus in the time of Augustus. It was practically identical in design with

the later and much larger Flavian amphitheatre, commonly known as the Colosseum,

begun by Vespasian and completed 82 A.D. (Fig. 62). This immense structure

measured 607 × 506 feet in plan and was 180 feet high; it could accommodate

eighty-seven thousand spectators. Engaged columns of the Tuscan, Ionic, and

Corinthian orders decorated three stories of the exterior; the fourth was a nearly

unbroken wall with slender Corinthian pilasters. Solidly constructed of travertine,

concrete, and tufa, the Colosseum, with its imposing but monotonous exterior,

almost sublime by its scale and seemingly endless repetition, but lacking in

refinement or originality of detail and dedicated to bloody and cruel sports, was a

characteristic product of the Roman character and civilization. At Verona, Pola,

Capua, and many cities in the foreign provinces there are well-preserved remains of

similar structures.

Closely related to the amphitheatre were the circus and the stadium. The Circus

Maximus between the Palatine and Aventine hills was the oldest of those in Rome.

That erected by Caligula and Nero on the site afterward partly occupied by St.

Peter's, was more splendid, and is said to have been capable of accommodating over

three hundred thousand spectators after its enlargement in the fourth century. The

long, narrow race-course was divided into two nearly equal parts by a low parapet,

the spina, on which were the goals (metæ) and many small decorative structures and

columns. One end of the circus, as of the stadium also, was semicircular; the other

was segmental in the circus, square in the stadium; a colonnade or arcade ran along

the top of the building, and the entrances and exits were adorned with monumental

arches.

FIG. 62.--COLOSSEUM. HALF PLAN.

FIG. 63.--ARCH OF CONSTANTINE.

(From model in Metropolitan Museum, New York.)

TRIUMPHAL ARCHES AND COLUMNS. Rome and the provincial cities abounded

in monuments commemorative of victory, usually single or triple arches with engaged

columns and rich sculptural adornments, or single colossal columns supporting

statues. The arches were characteristic products of Roman design, and some of them

deserve high praise for the excellence of their proportions and the elegance of their

details. There were in Rome in the second century A.D., thirty-eight of these

monuments. The Arch of Titus (7182 A.D.) is the simplest and most perfect of

those still extant in Rome; the arch of Septimius Severus in the Forum (203 A.D.)

and that of Constantine (330 A.D.) near the Colosseum, are more sumptuous but

less pure in detail. The last-named was in part enriched with sculptures taken from

the earlier arch of Trajan. The statues of Dacian captives on the attic (attic = a

species of subordinate story added above the main cornice) of this arch were a

fortunate addition, furnishing a raison-d'être for the columns and broken entablatures

on which they rest. Memorial columns of colossal size were erected by several

emperors, both in Rome and abroad. Those of Trajan and of Marcus Aurelius are

still standing in Rome in perfect preservation. The first was 140 feet high including

the pedestal and the statue which surmounted it; its capital marked the height of the

ridge levelled by the emperor for the forum on which the column stands. Its most

striking peculiarity is the spiral band of reliefs winding around the shaft from bottom

to top and representing the Dacian campaigns of Trajan. The other column is of

similar design and dimensions, but greatly inferior to the first in execution. Both are

really towers, with interior stair-cases leading to the top.

TOMBS. The Romans developed no special and national type of tomb, and few of

their sepulchral monuments were of large dimensions. The most important in Rome

were the pyramid of Caius Cestius (late first century B.C.), and the circular tombs of

Cecilia Metella (60 B.C.), Augustus (14 A.D.) and Hadrian, now the Castle of

S. Angelo (138 A.D.). The latter was composed of a huge cone of marble supported

on a cylindrical structure 230 feet in diameter standing on a square podium 300 feet

long and wide. The cone probably once terminated in the gilt bronze pine-cone now

in the Giardino della Pigna of the Vatican. In the Mausoleum of Augustus a mound of

earth planted with trees crowned a similar circular base of marble on a podium 220

feet square, now buried.

The smaller tombs varied greatly in size and form. Some were vaulted chambers,

with graceful internal painted decorations of figures and vine patterns combined with

low-relief enrichments in stucco. Others were designed in the form of altars or

sarcophagi, as at Pompeii; while others again resembled ædiculæ, little temples,

shrines, or small towers in several stories of arches and columns, as at St. Rémy

(France).

PALACES AND DWELLINGS. Into their dwellings the Romans carried all their love

of ostentation and personal luxury. They anticipated in many details the comforts of

modern civilization in their furniture, their plumbing and heating, and their utensils.

Their houses may be divided into four classes: the palace, the villa, the domus or

ordinary house, and the insula or many-storied tenement built in compact blocks.

The first three alone concern us, and will be taken up in the above order.

The imperial palaces on the Palatine Hill comprised a wide range in style and variety

of buildings, beginning with the first simple house of Augustus (26 B.C.), burnt and

rebuilt 3 A.D. Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero added to the Augustan group; Domitian

rebuilt a second time and enlarged the palace of Augustus, and Septimius Severus

remodelled the whole group, adding to it his own extraordinary seven-storied palace,

the Septizonium. The ruins of these successive buildings have been carefully

excavated, and reveal a remarkable combination of dwelling-rooms, courts, temples,

libraries, basilicas, baths, gardens, peristyles, fountains, terraces, and covered

passages. These were adorned with a profusion of precious marbles, mosaics,

columns, and statues. Parts of the demolished palace of Nero were incorporated in

the substructions of the Baths of Titus. The beautiful arabesques and plaster reliefs

which adorned them were the inspiration of much of the fresco and stucco decoration

of the Italian Renaissance. At Spalato, in Dalmatia, are the extensive ruins of the

great Palace of Diocletian, which was laid out on the plan of a Roman camp, with

two intersecting avenues (Fig. 64). It comprised a temple, mausoleum, basilica, and

other structures besides those portions devoted to the purposes of a royal residence.

FIG. 64.--PALACE OF DIOCLETIAN. SPALATO.

The villa was in reality a country palace, arranged with special reference to the

prevailing winds, exposure to the sun and shade, and the enjoyment of a wide

prospect. Baths, temples, exedræ, theatres, tennis-courts, sun-rooms, and shaded

porticoes were connected with the house proper, which was built around two or

three interior courts or peristyles. Statues, fountains, and colossal vases of marble

adorned the grounds, which were laid out in terraces and treated with all the

fantastic arts of the Roman landscape-gardener. The most elaborate and extensive

villa was that of Hadrian, at Tibur (Tivoli); its ruins, covering hundreds of acres,

form one of the most interesting spots to visit in the neighborhood of Rome.

There are few remains in Rome of the domus or private house. Two, however, have

left remarkably interesting ruins--the Atrium Vestæ, or House of the Vestal Virgins,

east of the Forum, a well-planned and extensive house surrounding a cloister or

court; and the House of Livia, so-called, on the Palatine Hill, the walls and

decorations of which are excellently preserved. The typical Roman house in a

provincial town is best illustrated by the ruins of Pompeii and Herculanum, which,

buried by an eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D., have been partially excavated since

1721.

FIG. 65.--HOUSE OF PANSA, POMPEII.

s, Shops; v, Vestibule; f, Family Rooms; k, Kitchen; l, Lavarium; P, P, P, Peristyles.

The Pompeiian house (Fig. 65) consisted of several courts or atria, some of which

were surrounded by colonnades and called peristyles. The front portion was reserved

for shops, or presented to the street a wall unbroken save by the entrance; all the

rooms and chambers opened upon the interior courts, from which alone they

borrowed their light. In the brilliant climate of southern Italy windows were little

needed, as sufficient light was admitted by the door, closed only by portières for the

most part; especially as the family life was passed mainly in the shaded courts, to

which fountains, parterres of shrubbery, statues, and other adornments lent their

inviting charm. The general plan of these houses seems to have been of Greek origin,

as well as the system of decoration used on the walls. These, when not wainscoted

with marble, were covered with fantastic, but often artistic, painted decorations, in

which an imaginary architecture as of metal, a fantastic and arbitrary perspective,

illusory pictures, and highly finished figures were the chief elements. These were

executed in brilliant colors with excellent effect. The houses were lightly built, with

wooden ceilings and roofs instead of vaulting, and usually with but one story on

account of the danger from earthquakes. That the workmanship and decoration were

in the capital often superior to what was to be found in a provincial town like

Pompeii, is evidenced by beautiful wall-paintings and reliefs discovered in Rome in

1879 and now preserved in the Museo delle Terme. More or less fragmentary

remains of Roman houses have been found in almost every corner of the Roman

empire, but nowhere exhibiting as completely as in Pompeii the typical Roman

arrangement.

WORKS OF UTILITY. A word should be said about Roman engineering works,

which in many cases were designed with an artistic sense of proportion and form

which raises them into the domain of genuine art. Such were especially the bridges,

in which a remarkable effect of monumental grandeur was often produced by the

form and proportions of the arches and piers, and an appropriate use of rough and

dressed masonry, as in the Pons Ælius (Ponte S. Angelo), the great bridge at

Alcantara (Spain), and the Pont du Gard, in southern France. The aqueducts are

impressive rather by their length, scale, and simplicity, than by any special

refinements of design, except where their arches are treated with some architectural

decoration to form gates, as in the Porta Maggiore, at Rome.

MONUMENTS: (Those which have no important extant remains are given in italics.)

TEMPLES: Jupiter Capitolinus, 600 B.C.; Ceres, Liber, and Libera, 494 B.C. (ruins of later

rebuilding in S. Maria in Cosmedin); first T. of Concord (rebuilt in Augustan age), 254

B.C.; first marble temple in portico of Metellus, by a Greek, Hermodorus, 143 B.C.;

temples of Fortune at Præneste and at Rome, and of "Vesta" at Rome, 8378 B.C.; of

"Vesta" at Tivoli, and of Hercules at Cori, 72 B.C.; first Pantheon, 27 B.C. In Augustan

Age temples of Apollo, Concord rebuilt, Dioscuri, Julius, Jupiter Stator, Jupiter Tonans,

Mars Ultor, Minerva (at Rome and Assisi), Maison Carrée at Nîmes, Saturn; at Puteoli,

Pola, etc. T. of Peace; T. Jupiter Capitolinus, rebuilt 70 A.D.; temple at Brescia. Temple of

Vespasian, 96 A.D.; also of Minerva in Forum of Nerva; of Trajan, 117 A.D.; second

Pantheon; T. of Venus and Rome at Rome, and of Jupiter Olympius at Athens, 135138

A.D.; Faustina, 141 A.D.; many in Syria; temples of Sun at Rome, Baalbec, and Palmyra,

cir. 273 A.D.; of Romulus, 305 A.D. (porch S. Cosmo and Damiano). PLACES OF

ASSEMBLY: FORA--Roman, Julian, 46 B.C.; Augustan, 4042 B.C.; of Peace, 75 A.D.;

Nerva, 97 A.D.; Trajan (by Apollodorus of Damascus, 117 A.D.) BASILICAS: Sempronian,

Æmilian, 1st century B.C.; Julian, 51 B.C.; Septa Julia, 26 B.C.; the Curia, later rebuilt

by Diocletian, 300 A.D. (now Church of S. Adriano); at Fano, 20 A.D. (?); Forum and

Basilica at Pompeii, 60 A.D.; of Trajan; of Constantine, 310324 A.D. THEATRES (th.)

and AMPHITHEATRES (amp.): th. Pompey, 55 B.C.; of Balbus and of Marcellus, 13 B.C.; th.

and amp. at Pompeii and Herculanum; Colosseum at Rome, 7882 A.D.; th. at Orange

and in Asia Minor; amp. at Albano, Constantine, Nîmes, Petra, Pola, Reggio, Trevi,

Tusculum, Verona, etc.; amp. Castrense at Rome, 96 A.D. Circuses and stadia at Rome.

THERMÆ: of Agrippa, 27 B.C.; of Nero; of Titus, 78 A.D. Domitian, 90 A.D.; Caracalla,

211 A.D.; Diocletian, 305 A.D.; Constantine, 320 A.D.; "Minerva Medica," 3d or 4th

century A.D. ARCHES: of Stertinius, 196 B.C.; Scipio, 190 B.C.; Augustus, 30 B.C.; Titus,

7182 A.D.; Trajan, 117 A.D.; Severus, 203 A.D.; Constantine, 320 A.D.; of Drusus,

Dolabella, Silversmiths, 204 A.D.; Janus Quadrifrons, 320 A.D. (?); all at Rome. Others

at Benevento, Ancona, Rimini in Italy; also at Athens, and at Reims and St. Chamas in

France. Columns of Trajan, Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius at Rome, others at

Constantinople, Alexandria, etc. TOMBS: along Via Appia and Via Latina, at Rome; Via

Sacra at Pompeii; tower-tombs at St. Rémy in France; rock-cut at Petra; at Rome, of Caius

Cestius and Cecilia Metella, 1st century B.C.; of Augustus, 14 A.D.; Hadrian, 138 A.D.

PALACES and PRIVATE HOUSES: On Palatine, of Augustus, Tiberius, Nero, Domitian,

Septimius Severus, Elagabalus; Villa of Hadrian at Tivoli; palaces of Diocletian at Spalato

and of Constantine at Constantinople. House of Livia on Palatine (Augustan period); of

Vestals, rebuilt by Hadrian, cir. 120 A.D. Houses at Pompeii and Herculanum, cir. 60

79 A.D.; Villas of Gordianus ("Tor' de' Schiavi," 240 A.D.), and of Sallust at Rome and

of Pliny at Laurentium.

14. Lanciani: Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries, p. 89.

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