Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/678

642 ture depends entirely on other portions of the work.—A triumphal arch is a monumental structure erected in honor of some celebrated person and his deeds, or to commemorate some great event. Triumphal arches probably originated with the Romans, and L. Stertinius is the first recorded who erected such a monument. Two were built by him, one about 196 B.C. in the Forum Boarium, and another in the Circus Maximus. A few years later, Scipio Africanus built one on the Clivus Capitolinus, and in 121 Q. Fabius Maximus erected one on the Via Sacra. Of these none remain. Different writers record 21 as having been built in the city of Rome. The most celebrated Roman arches are those of Augustus at Rimini, of Trajan at Beneventum and Ancona, and those of Titus, Drusus, Septimius Severus, and Constantine at Rome. That of Titus is one of the best. It is situated at the foot of the Palatine, and was probably completed after his death and apotheosis, as in the inscription he is called Divus. It commemorates his conquest of Judea. Remains of Roman arches are to be seen in Spain, Greece, and other countries. The custom of raising magnificent triumphal arches began under the first emperors. During the republic arches were decreed to victorious generals, but not to the dead. When Augustus was emperor, the senate proposed to have one built in honor of Drusus the elder, who died in Germany. Augustus consented, and a marble arch was constructed on the Appian Way.—Paris, of all modern cities, has the most numerous and the most beautiful arches. The Portes St. Denis and St. Martin were erected in 1673–'4; the arc du Carrousel in the years 1806–'9, in honor of the armies of France. The latter is at the W. entrance of the Tuileries; its height is 47 feet, its breadth 55. Its two principal faces have each eight Corinthian columns, surmounted by statues. The most magnificent is the arc de l'Étoile, at the extremity of the avenue des Champs Élysées, built for the purpose of commemorating the victories of Napoleon. (See .) The arch at Hyde Park corner, with the equestrian statue of the duke of Wellington, and Cumberland gate, are the only specimens in England.  ARCHÆOLOGY (Gr., ancient things, and , discourse), the science of antiquities, and especially of human antiquities in general. The primeval period of man has been divided into the stone, the bronze, and the iron ages. Sir John Lubbock, in his "Introduction" to Nilsson's "Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia," subdivides the stone age into the palæolithic and neolithic, the former the older and the one in which the stone implements are not polished, as they are in the latter. The antiquities of this epoch are found in beds of loam and gravel extending along the river valleys of central Europe (the loess), sometimes 200 feet above the present water level; they were evidently deposited by existing rivers, which ran then as now and drained the same areas; they contain no marine remains, and each valley is characterized by fragments of the rocks in its special area. The geography of western Europe was very much the same as now, the only variations being in the everchanging coast line and the depths of the river valleys. The animals then living were the hairy mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and most of the existing mammals, especially tigers, hyænas, and bears, ruminants and rodents, of very great size. The climate was then colder than now, as the musk ox, woolly pachyderms, reindeer, and lemming extended to the south of France. It must have taken a very long time for the extinction of these large mammalia; there is not the most vague tradition of their presence in western Europe, and there are no marks of sudden destructive cataclysms. It must have required many centuries for rivers to excavate their valleys more than 200 feet. The presence of man is indicated at this period in western Europe by his bones and implements of unpolished flint, without pottery or any of the metals; similar implements have been found in the caves of France and Spain. (See .) From all the evidence collected by the above-named authors, it would seem that the people then living in the south of France resembled the Esquimaux of the present day, their chief food being the flesh of the reindeer; they were ingenious workers in flint, bone, and horn, and fond of making rude drawings on the horn of the mammoth and other existing animals. A cold climate is also indicated by their habit of allowing bones and offal to accumulate in and near their cave dwellings. The cave period is probably less ancient than the gravel epoch, and, from the abundance of their remains, is often called the "reindeer" period. In the Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ, by Messrs. Lartet and Christy, there is a full account of the archæology of the old stone age, as exhibited in the south of France, especially in the caves in the valley of the Dordogne and of Cro-Magnon and Moustier. These caves belong to the age of simply worked stone, without the accompaniment of domestic animals or implements of polished stone; bones of the reindeer are abundant, and the coexistence of man with this animal in latitudes so much lower than its present habitat implies a certain degree of elevation above savages, as not only food, clothing, and implements, but materials for ornamentation were obtained from it. In the earlier gravel period, the mammoth, rhinoceros, horse, and ox predominate, the reindeer prevailing in the Dordogne caves, but in neither are found remains of the dog, goat, and sheep; the same is true of the gravels and caves in England, in central France, and in South Wales. Birds and fishes, especially the salmon, were eaten; and everything shows that food was not so scarce as to demand any struggle for existence. The domestic economy of these early races is shown by their hearths, boiling 