Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/78

 48 Eoman Architecture. While making the fullest use of a constructional expedient which the Greeks had never employed, the Romans, who were always better engineers than architects, were content to borrow an artistic element from another source. This was the columniation of the Greeks, which they copied in a comparatively coarse and tasteless way, and employed not only in the entrances to their temples, basilicas, theatres, amphitheatres, palaces, and baths, but also in the richly-decorated courts of their private houses. The three Greek orders were often introduced into a single building, but the favourite order was the richly-decorated Corinthian, the beauty of which the Romans strove to increase by adding to it the fulness and strength which the Greeks had never succeeded in giving it (Fig. 24). The Com- posite or Roman Order was the outcome of the attempt to improve the Corinthian, of which it was in fact a somewhat free version (Fig. 25), while what is known as the Tuscan order was, on the other hand, an impoverished version of the Doric. The distinctive feature of Roman architecture is the combination of the Etruscan circular arch with the Grecian system of columniation. The Romans seldom invented a new form, they never worked out a style dis- tinct from that of their predecessors or complete in itself; and the interest of Roman architecture, apart from the wonderful extent of the structures and the skill with which they were erected, consists entirely in the fact that it is a transition style, a combination of all ancient styles, and the starting-point of early Christian architecture. An examination of Roman buildings, as we shall presently see, enables us to understand much that must otherwise have remained inexplicable in the arts of the Gothic age. Roman architecture of the earliest period was of an