Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/328

 2^{) ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. rAKT 1. but more generally the cella occupies the whole of the inner part, though frequently ornamented by a false peristyle of three-quarter columns attached to its walls. Besides this, the Romans borrowed from the Etruscans a circular form of temple unknown to the Greeks, but which to their tomb-build- ing predecessors must have been not only a familiar but a favorite form. As ap])lied by the Romans it was generally encircled by a peristyle of columns, though it is not clear that the Etruscans so used it ; tliis may therefore be an improvement adopted from the Greeks on an Etruscan form. In early times these circular temples were dedi- cated to Vesta, Cybele, or some god or goddess either unknown or not generally worshi]iped by the Aryan races ; but in later times this distinction was lost sight of. A more important characteristic which the Romans borrowed from the Etruscans was the circular arch. It was known, it is true, to the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Greeks ; yet none of these people, perhaps exceiDting the Assyrians, seem to have used it as a feature in their ornamental architecture ; but the Etruscans appear to have had a pecul- iar predilection for it, and from them the Romans adopted it boldly, and introduced it into almost all their buildings. It was not at first used in temples of Grecian form, nor even in their peristylar circular ones. In the civil buildings of the Romans it was a universal feature, but was generally placed in juxtaposition with the Grecian orders. In the Colosseum, for instance, the whole construction is arched ; but a useless network of ill-designed and ill-arranged Grecian columns, with their entablatures, is spread over the whole. This is a curious iu stance of the mixture of the two styles, and as such is very characteristic of Roman art ; but in an artistic point of view the place of these columns would have been far better supplied by buttresses or panels, or some expedient more correctly constructive. After having thoroughly familiarized themselves with the forms of the arch as an architectural feature, the Romans made a bold stride in advance by applying it as a vault both to the circular and rectangular forms of buildings. The most perfect examples of this are the rotunda of the Pantheon and the basilica of Maxentius, commonly called the Temple of Peace, strangely like each other in conception, though apparently so distant in date. In these buildings the Roman archi- tects so completely emancipated themselves from the trammels of former styles as almost to entitle them to claim the invention of a new order of architecture. It would have required some more practice to invent details approjHate to the purpose ; still these two buildings are to this hour unsurpassed for l)oldness of conception and just appre- ciation of the manner in which the new method ought to be ap])lied. This is almost universally acknowledged so far as the interior of the Pantheon is concerned. In simple grandeur it is as yet unequalled ;