Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/356

 324 ROMAN AECHITECTURE Part 1. wliether the theatre may not have been rebuilt, and these arcades added at some later period. It is so comjiletely built over by modern houses, and so ruined, that it is extremely difficult to arrive at any satisfactory opinion regarding it. Its dimensions were worthy of the capital, the audience part being a semicircle of 410 ft. in diameter, and the scena being of great extent in proportion to the other part, Avhich is a characteristic of all Roman theatres, as compared with Grecian edifices of this class. One of the most striking Roman provincial theatres is that of Orange in the south of France. Perhaps it owes its existence, or at all events its splendor, to the substratum of Grecian colonists that preceded the Romans in that country. Its auditorium is 340 ft. in diameter, but much ruined, in consequence of the Princes of Orange having used this part as a bastion in some fortification they were constructing. The stage is very tolerably preserved. It shows well the increased extent and complication of arrangements required for the theatrical representations of the age in Avhich it was constructed, being a con- siderable advance towards the more modern idea of a play, as distin- guished from the stately semi-religious spectacle in which the Greeks delighted. The noblest part of the building is the great wall at the I)ack, an immense mass of masonry 340 ft. in extent and 116 ft. in height, without a single opening above the basement, and no ornament except a range of blank arches, about midw^ay between the basement and the top, and a few projecting corbels to receive the footings of the masts that supported the velariuin. Nowhere does the architec- ture of the Romans shine so much as when their gigantic buildings are left to tell their own tale by the imposing grandeur of their masses. Whenever ornament is attempted, their bad taste comes out. The size of their edifices, and the solidity of their construction, were only surpassed by the Egyptians, and not always by them ; and when, as here, the mass of material heaped up stands unadorned in all its native grandeur, criticism is disarmed, and the spectator stands awe-struck at its majesty, and turns away convinced that truly "there were giants in those days." This is not, it is true, the most intellec- tual way of obtaining architectural effect, but it has the advantage of being the easiest, the most certain to secure the desired result, and at the same time the most permanent. Amphitheatres. The deficiency of theatres erected by the Romans is far more than coni])ensated by the number and splendor of their amphi- theatres, which, Avith their baths, may be considered as the true types of Roman art, although it is almost certain that they derived this class