Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/372

 340 ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. Taut I. this class is that of St. Chanias in Provence, represented in Woodcut No. 220. It consists of two arches, one at each end of the bridge, of singular elegance of form and detail. Although it bears a still legible inscrij^tion, it is uncertain to what age it belongs, probably that of the Antonines : and I would account for the purity of its details by refer- ring to the Greek element that pervades the south of France. Whether this is so or not, it is impossible not to admire not only the design of the whole bridge wnth its two arches, but the elegance with which the details have been executed. Used in this mode as commencements of roads or entrances to bridges, or as festal entrances to unfortified towns, there are perhaps no monuments of the second class more appro])riate or more capable of architectural expression than these ai'ches, though all of them have been more or less spoiled by an incongruous order being applied to them. Used, however, as they were in Rome, as monuments of victory, with- out offering even an excuse for a j^assage through them, the taste dis- played in them is more than questionable : the manner, too, in which they were cut up by broken cornices and useless columns placed on tall pedestals, with other trivial details highly objectionable^ deprive them of that largeness of design which is the only true merit and peculiar characteristic of Roman art, while that exquisite elegance with Avhich the Greeks knew so well how to dignify even the most trivial objects was in them almost entirely lost. Pillars of Victory. Pillars of Victory are a class of monuments which seem to have been used in the East in very early times, though their history it must be confessed is somewhat fragmentary and uncertain, and they seem to have been adopted by the Romans in those provinces where they had been employed by the earlier inhabitants. Whatever the original may have been, the Romans were singularly unsuccessful in their ajiplica- tion of the form. They never, in fact, rose above the idea of taking a column of construction, magnifying it, and i)lacing it on a pedestal, without any attemi)t to modify its details or hide the original utiUta- rian purpose for which the pillar Avas designed. When they attempted more than this they failed entirely in elaborating any new form at all worthy of admiration. The Columna Rostrata, or that erected to cele- brate naval victories, was, so far as we can judge from representations (for no perfect specimen exists), one of the ugliest and clumsiest forms of ])illar it is ])Ossible to conceive. Of those of Victory, one of the most celebrated is that erected by Diocletian at Alexandria. A somewhat similar one exists at Arsinoe erected by Alexander Severus; and a third at Mylassa in Caria. All