Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/465

Rh COM AN.] A 11 C 11 1 T E C T U K E 421 to recover whatever was valuable; and it is very probable, moreover, that the place was constantly resorted to by treasure-seekers for perhaps centuries after the calamity occurred. It may also be remarked that the loftier edifices, which would have been uuburied by the ashes, had been thrown down by an earthquake about sixteen years before the volcanic shower fell, and, therefore, were the more easily covered. Other showers must have fallen since that which destroyed the city, to produce the complete lilling up of every part and the general level throughout. Hence we are still uninformed as to the structure and disposition of the roofs and ceilings of the houses of the ancients. The doors, too, of whatever materials they were composed, are entirely gone : there remain, however, here and there indications and even charred fragments of wooden door-posts, but they belong to outer or street doors, leaving it probable that a matting of some kind, suspended from the lintel, formed the usual doors to rooms. It is, in fact, supposed that curtains answered the purposes of doors to the interiors. In these particulars, unfortunately, Herculaneum affords but little assistance, as the mode of its destruction was similar to that of Pompeii, though, upon the whole, Herculaneum is more likely to furnish information on these particulars than its sister in misfor tune. Although it has been ascertained that the Romans understood the manufacture of glass, it must not be sup posed that they were accustomed to apply it as freely as we do to exclude the weather and transmit light. It was, however, soihetimes used; one wooden frame with four small squares of glass has been found ; another brass frame with the glass movable ; and one piece of glass of considerable size was found in one of the walls of a bath. The floors of the houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum are all of mosaic work, coarser and simpler in the less import ant parts, and finer and more ornate in the more finished apartments : the ornaments are borders, dots, frets, labyrinths, flowers, and sometimes figures. In this, too, the superior advantages the moderns enjoy are evident. The ancients did not understand how to construct wooden floors, or, at least, they did not apply timber to that use. A few rude and narrow staircases are found in Pompeii, which, it is very probable, were to afford access to the terraces or flat roofs, for they are not common, and no portion of an upper story remains in any part. Sufficient remains have, however, been found to show that the upper stories often overhung tho lower front, as in mediaeval houses; the fronts being made of woodwork, supported on a prolongation of the floor joists. In one part of the city the houses on one side of the street are on a declivity: there a, commodious flight of stairs is found to lead from the atrium in front to another lower court and rooms, not under the houses but behind them ; for we do not find an under-ground story in the Pompeian houses. On the .shores of the Bay of Baiae, and at Cicero s Formian Villa on the Gulf of Gaeta, however, there are crypts or arched chambers under the level of the mansions, the sites requiring substructions; but it may be questioned whether even these were used as parts of the house, and as we use cellars, for they present no indications of stairs, and have no regular means of intercommunication. Numerous remains of Roman houses are found in all the colonies, and notices of many in England will be found in the Archceolo jia, and other archaeological publications. They are not of sufficient importance to be quoted here, Init they serve to show that the Romans carried with them into other lands the same habits, and even practised tho same mode of construction which they adopted at home. One very remarkable exception exists, viz., in the Ifauran in Syria. The edifices there were first, we believe, noticed by Humboldt. They have since been described in detail by Mr Cyril Graham and others, and have been admirably illustrated by Count Vogue. The country was conquered by the Romans at the end of the 1st century A.D., and the houses, tc., seem to range in date from that time, or, perhaps, earlier, to the end of the 4th. They are contained within stone vralls, forming small towns, and so numerous that sixty of these walled cities have been counted, all now desolate, but in many cases remain ing almost perfect even to the doors, shutters, and paving of streets. The remains are chiefly of houses whose walls are of basalt. The rooms are 12 to 20 or 25 feet square, with strong, arched ribs thrown across, supporting a ceiling of thick slabs of basalt. Some of these are as much as 18 by 12 feet, and 6 inches thick. The doors and shutters are of the same material, often panelled as though of wood. A specimen of these, and also some of the carvings, are in the British Museum. BASILICAS. We have left these to the last, as they are Basilicas, more intimately connected than any other ancient architec tural forms with those of the Christians. They seem to have been at first much the same class of building as our Royal Exchange, both as regards use and plan ; open in the centre, with porticoes round. Then all was roofed over, and a sort of triforium or gallery formed over the por ticoes. At one end was a recess, often circular and parted off from the rest by a screen of columns. This, with the space in front of it, formed the Tribunal. In Trajan s, there seems to have been an apse at each end. Remains are found at Pompeii and Herculaneum, Treves, &c. A complete exception to the ordinary form is found in tho Basilica of Maxentius (formerly known as the temple of Peace) at Rome. RESUME. Roman architecture, as we know it, dates Resume, only from about the Christian era, and the rapidity with which it spread from that time is something marvellous. Through nearly the whole extent of the Roman empire, through Italy, Asia Minor, Sicily, Britain, France, Syria, Africa, with one great exception, Egypt, all was Roman in mouldings, ornaments, details, the very style of carving and the construction. No matter what the country or the architect, all seem to have lost their nationality when the Roman came, and to have adopted implicitly his system of design and decoration. It has been seen that he copied the orders and much of the leading forms of his buildings from the Greeks. But he speedily added others. The apse and the circle on plan w r ere his ; so were the dome and the arch in elevation ; and thus he enlarged at once the whole range of the architect s powers, and whilst utterly disre garding the delicate refinements of the Greeks, secured a freedom of design which resulted at length in our Pointed architecture. But great as the advance was, it seems to have been arrested just when opportunities were offered, on the grandest scale, foi bringing about the noblest results. The Roman architect seems to have been unable to reach the highest effort of art, viz., to bring the whole of any grand edifice into one splendid mass, to concentrate the detailed parts into one grand whole. But in reflecting on what the Roman did not do, we must not forget that we owe to him some of the grandest forms to which we too are now accustomed. We now come to a complete change in the structures which we have to describe. Henceforth we shall find no Forum, no public bath, theatre, temple, or house. All these forms disappear, and for nearly 700 years, until the time when the Norman castle arose, well-nigh every building of architectural merit was in some way or other ecclesiastical. But with our Christian faith there arose forms of beauty utterly unknown to the Pagan, which culminated in the glories of Lincoln and Canterbury.