Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/326

 294 ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. Part I thus became the centre of all the arts and of all the science then known ; and, so far at least as quantity is concerned, she amply redeemed her previous neglect of them. It seems an almost indisputable fact that, during the three centuries of the Empire, more and larger buildings were erected in Rome and her dependent cities than ever were erected in a like period in any part of the world. For centuries before the establishment of the Roman Empire, pro- ' o-ressive develoj^ment and increasing population, joined to comparative peace and security, had accumulated around the shores of the Medi- terranean a mass of people enjoying material prosperity greater than had ever been known before. All this culminated in the first centuries of the Christian era. The greatness of the ancient world was then full, and a more overwhelming and gorgeous spectacle than the Roman Empire then displayed never dazzled the eyes of mankind. From the banks of the Euphrates to those of the Tagus, every city vied with its neighbor in the erection of temples, baths, theatres, and edifices for public use or private luxury. In all cases these display far more evidence of wealth and power than of taste and refinement, and all exhibit traces of that haste to enjoy, Avhich seems incompatible with the correct elaboration of anything that is to be truly great. Not- withstanding all this, there is a greatness in the mass, a grandeur in the conception, and a certain expression of power in all these Roman remains which never fail to strike the beholder with awe, and force admiration from him despite his better judgment. These qualities, coujjled with the associations that attach themselves to every brick and every stone, render the study of them irresistibly attractive. It was with Imperial Rome that the ancient world perished ; it was in her dominions that the new and Christian world was born. All that Avas great in Heathendom was gathered within her walls, tied, it is true, into an inextricable knot, which was cut by the sword of those barbarians who moulded for themselves out of the fragments that polity and those arts which will next occupy our attention. To Rome all previous history tends ; from Rome all modern history springs : to her, therefore, and to her arts, we inevitably turn, if not to admire, at least to learn, and if not to imitate, at any rate to won- der at and to contemplate a phase of art as unknown to previous as to subsequent history, and, if ])ro]ierly understood, more replete with instruction than any other form hitherto known. Though the lesson we learn from it is far oftener wliat to avoid than what to follow, still there is such wisdom to be gathered from it as should guide us in the onward path, which may lead us to a far higher grade than it was given to Rome herself ever to attain.