Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/169

 ami J /' ^Mm^ 45- ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. " Immortal glories in my mind revive When Rome's exalted beauties I descry Magnificent in piles of ruin lie. An amphitheatre's amazing height Here fills my eye with tenor and delight. That on its public shows unpeopled Rome. And held uncrowded nations in its womb : Here pillars rough with sculpture pierce the skies ; And here the proud triumphal arches rise, Where the old Romans deathless acts displayed." I. INFLUENCES. i. Geographical. — The map (No. 45) will show that the sea coast of Italy, although the peninsula is long and narrow, is not nearly so much broken up into bays, or natural harbours, as the shore line of Greece, neither are there so many islands studded along its coasts. Again, although many parts of Italy are moun- tainous — the great chain of the Apennines running from one end of the peninsula to the other — yet the whole land is not divided up into little valleys in the same way as the greater part of Greece. The Greek and Italian nations may therefore with fair accuracy