Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/374

 342 ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. Part I. The arrangement of the base serving as a pedestal for eight statues is not only elegant but appropriate. The ornament which covers the shaft takes off from the idea of its being a mere pillar, and at the same time is so subdued as not to break the outline or interfere with con- structive propriety. The capita], of the Corinthian order, is found in the neighbor- hood used as the mouth of a well In its original position it no doubt had a hole through it, which being enlarged suggested its aj^plication to its present ignoble purijose, the liole being no doubt intended either to receive or support the statue or emblem that originally crowned the monument, but of that no trace now remains. There cannot be a more natui-al mode of monumental expression than that of a simple upright stone set up by the victors to comme- morate their prowess and success. Accordingly steles or pillars erected for this j^urpose are found everywhere, and take shapes as various as the countries where they stand or the people who erected them. In Northern Europe they are known as Cath or battle-stones, and as rude unhewn monolitlis ai-e found everywhere. In India they ai-e as elegant and as elal^orately adorned as the Kutub Minar at Delhi, but nowhere was their true architectural expression so mistaken as in Rome. There, by perverting a feature designed for one purpose to a totally different use, an example of bad taste was given till then unknown, though in our days it has become not uncommon. Tombs. In that strange collection of the styles of all nations which mingled together makes up the sum of Roman art, nothing strikes the architec- tural student with more astonishment than the number and importance of their tombs. If the Romans are of Aryan origin, as is generally assumed, they are the only people of that race among whom tomb- building was not utterly neglected. The importance of the tombs among the Roman remains jiroves one of two things. Either a con- siderable proportion of Etruscan blood was mixed up with that of the dominant race in Rome, or that the fierce and inartistic Romans, having no art of their own, were led blindly to copy that of the people among whom they were located. Of the tombs of Consular Rome nothing remains except perhaps the sarcophagus of Sci]no ; and it is only on the eve of the Empire that we meet with the well-known one of Camellia Metella, the wife of Crassus, which is not only the best specimen of a Roman tomb now remaining to us, but the oldest architectural l)uilding of the imperial city of which we have an authentic date. It consists of a bold square