Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/453

Rh ARCHITECT UKE 415 them to carry secure and permanent roads across wide and rapid rivers, and to make a comparatively fragile material, such as brick, more extensively useful than the finest marble was in the hands of the Greeks. To the Greeks, however. the Romans were indebted for their knowledge of the more polished forms of columnar architecture. Before the con quest of Greece the structures of Rome appear to have been rude and inelegant, and from that time the existing style of architecture either gave place to the superior merit and beauty of what the Romans found in that country, or was combined with it, though frequently the combination tended to destroy the beauty of both. ipari- In the transference of Greek columnar architecture to Rome, a great change was effected independently of those
 * k and combinations, for the Romans could not appreciate the simple

Itec- grandeur and dignified beauty of the Doric, as it existed in Greece. They appear to have moulded it on what we suppose their own Tuscan to have been ; and the result was the mean and characterless ordinance exemplified in the lowest story of the theatre of Marcellus at Rome, and in the temple at Cora, between 30 and 40 miles south of that city. Not less inferior to the Athenian examples of the Ionic order, than the Doric of Cora is to the Doric of Athens, are the mean and tasteless deteriorations of them in the Roman temples of Fortuna Virilis and Concord. It was different, however, with the foliated Corinthian, which became to the Romans what the Doric had been to the Greeks their national style. But though they bor rowed the style, they did not copy the Greek examples. In Rome the Corinthian order assumed a new and not less beautiful form and character, and was varied to a wonderful extent, but without losing its original and distinctive features. The temple of Vesta, at Tivoli, differs from that commonly, but erroneously, named the temple of Jupiter Stator, in Rome, as much as the latter does from the choragic monument of Lysicrates at Athens ; all three are among the most beautiful examples of the Corinthian order in existence, if indeed they are not pre-eminently so, and yet they do not possess a single proportion in common. It must be confessed, moreover, that if the Romans had not good taste enough to admire the Doric and Ionic models of Greece, they had too much to be fond of their own; for they seldom used them. Both at home and abroad, in all their conquests and colonies, wherever they built, they employed the Corinthian order. Corinthian edifices were raised in Iberia and in Gaul, in Istria and in Greece, in Syria and in Egypt ; and to the present clay, Nismes, Pola, Athens, Palmyra, and the banks of the Nile, alike attest the fondness of the Romans for that peculiar style. We cannot agree with the generally received opinion, that Greek architects were employed by the Romans after the connection between the two countries took .place ; for the difference between the Greek and Roman styles of archi tecture is not merely in the preference given to one over another peculiar mode of columnar arrangement and com position, but a different taste pervades even the details though the mouldings are the same ; they differ more in spirit and character than do those of Greece and Egypt, which certainly would not have been the case if Roman architecture had been the work of Greek architects. Indeed, were it not for historical evidence, which cannot absolutely be refuted, an examination and comparison of the archi tectural monuments of the two countries would lead an architect to the conclusion, that the Corinthian order had its origin in Italy, and that the almost solitary perfect example of it in Greece was the result of an accidental communication with that country, modified by Greek taste ; or that the foliated style was common to both, without either being indebted to the other for it. If, however, Greek architects were employed by the Romans, they must have made their taste and mode of design conform to those of their conquerors much more readily than we can imagine they would as the civilised slaves of barbarian masters ; and it cannot be disputed that the Roman archi tecture is a style essentially distinct from the Greek. This is apparent from the fact that many of the minor works of sculpture in connection with architecture, such as can delabra, vases, and various articles of household furniture, discovered at the villa of Adrian, near Tivoli, and at Herculaneum and Pompeii, are fashioned and ornamented in the Greek style, while others are as decidedly Roman in those particulars, rendering it evident that such things were either imported from Greece, or that Greek artists and artisans were employed in Italy, who retained their own national taste and modes of design. It is probable that both the architects and the artists, natives of Rome, modified their own less elegant productions by reference to Greek models; but that the Romans derived their architec ture entirely from the Greeks, may certainly be disputed. Much of the extent and magnificence of the architectural Building works of the Romans is attributable to their knowledge material* and use of the arch, which enabled them to utilise inferior materials. Almost all their structures were of brick aqueducts, palaces, villas, baths, and temples. Of the present remains, only a few columns and their entablatures are of marble or granite, and two or three buildings are of Travertine stone, all the rest are brick. The Colosseum, the mausoleum of Adrian, the tunnel sewer, the temple of Fortuua Virilis, and the ancient bridges on the Tiber, are of Travertine stone ; the remaining columns of the more splendid temples, the internal columns, and their accessories, of the Pantheon, the exterior of the imperial arches, and the cenotaph columns of Trajan and of Antoniue, are of marble ; but the Imperial Mount of the Palatine, which holds the ruins of the palace of the Caesars, is one mass of brick ; the Pantheon, except its portico and internal columns, &c., is of brick; the temples of Peace, of Venus and Rome, and of Minerva Medica, are of brick ; and so, for the most part, were the walls of others, though they may have been faced with marble or freestone. The baths of Titus, of Caracalla, and Diocletian, are of brick; the city walls are of brick ; so are the extensive remains of the splendid villa of Adrian, and those of the villa of Maecenas at Tivoli ; the palaces of the Roman emperors and patricians at Baise and in other parts of Italy ; and so, it may be said, are the remains of Herculaneum and Pompeii, for the houses in these cities are generally built of alternate double courses of brick and courses of stone or lava. In most cases, at Rome and in the provinces, stucco formed the surface which received the decorations. From the above enumera tion, it will appear how much more variously the Romans built than any of their predecessors. In Egypt we find no indications of edifices of real utility or convenience, nothing but temples and tombs, and in Greece there is but a small addition to this list ; but in Rome are found specimens of almost every variety of structure that men in civilised com munities require. The Roman Corinthian. Like the Greek orders the Roman Corinthian may be said to consist of three parts, stybolate, column, and entablature; but, unlike them, the stylobate is much loftier, and is not graduated, except for the purposes of access before a portico. Its usual height is not exactly deterrninable, in consequence of the ruined state of most of the best examples ; but it may be taken at from two and a half to three diameters. In the triumphal arches the height of the stylobate sometimes amounts to four, and even to five diameters. It is variously arranged, moreover, having, in the shallower examples, simply a congeries of