Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/330

 298 ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. Part I. with originality. These would have been noble works indeed had it not been that the Romans unsuccessfully applied to them those orders and details of architecture which were intended only to be applied to tem])les by other nations. In the time of Constantine these orders had nearly died out, and were only subordinately used for decorative purposes. In a little while they would have died out altogether, and the Roman would have become a new and complete style ; but, as before remarked, this did not take place, and the most ancient orders therefore still remain an essential part of Roman art. We find the old orders predominating in the age of Augustus, and we see them gradually die out as we approach that of Constantine. Doric. Adopting the usual classification, the first of the Roman orders is the Doric, which, like everything else in this style, takes a place about half-way between the Tuscan wooden posts and the nobly simple order of the Greeks. It no doubt was a great improvement on the former, but for monumental purposes infinitely inferior to the latter. It was however more manageable ; and for forums or courtyards, or as a three-quarter column between arcades, it was better adapted than the severer Greek style, which, when soem))loyed, not only loses almost all its beauty, but becomes more un- meaning than the Roman. This fact was apparently recognized ; for there is not, so far as is known, a single Doric temple throughout the Roman world. It would in consequence be most unfair to institute a comparison between a mere utilitarian pi'op used only in civil buildings and an order which the most refined artists in the world spent all their ingenuity in rendering the most perfect, because it was devoted to the highest religious purposes. The addition of an independent base made the order much more generally useful, and its adoption brought it much more into harmony with the other two existing orders, which would appear to have been the ]n-incipal object of its introduction. The keynote of Roman architecture was the Corinthian order ; and as, from the necessities of their tall, many-storied buildings, the Romans Avere forced to use the three orders together, often one over the other, it was indispensable that the three should be reduced to something like harmony. This 179. Doric order.