Page:Judging from the past and present, what are the prospects for good architecture in London?.djvu/13

 was rich enough to raise at his expense such a temple, and public Thermæ besides, did not build himself, depend upon it, a flimsy house. This was Agrippa; but neither did Crassus, nor Lucullus, nor Mæcenas, nor other wealthy and luxurious men in the days of solid construction and enduring materials. We know where the house and immense gardens of this last-named patron of art and letters were situated, and where were the houses of the Cornelii, of Sallustius, of Sylla, of Cicero, even those of Catulus, of Clodius, and of Scaurus; but of the buildings themselves we can find no remains.

Neither can it be said that the cause must be sought in the more perishable nature of the materials employed respectively in public and in private edifices. This is not so. On the contrary, many of the public buildings are constructed with uncemented blocks of tufo, friable and liable to flake. The private ones were built of calcareous stone, hard and durable, or of brick connected by the Roman mortar, made with puzzolana, to break which requires an operation more like that of quarrying or of mining than that of ordinary mason's work.

But that we may make ourselves still more sure of our principle, let us return again, in mind, to Sicily. In that island, so rich in early ruins, the most favoured spot is, without rivalry, Girgenti, the site of the ancient Agrigentum. It presents to the eye of the astonished artist and antiquarian piles almost of buildings, colossal in their proportions, massive in their uncemented blocks, columns, gigantic statues