Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/263

Rh The elements of architecture were, as has been already indicated, a primitive common possession of the stocks. The dwelling-house constituted the first attempt of structural art; and it was the same among Greeks and Italians. Built of wood, and covered with a pointed roof of straw or shingles, it formed a square dwelling-chamber, which let out the smoke and let in the light by an opening in the roof, corresponding with a hole for carrying off the rain in the ground (cavum ædium). Under this blackened roof (atrium) the meals were prepared and consumed; there the household gods were worshipped, and the marriage bed and the bier were set out; there the husband received his guests, and the wife sat spinning amid the circle of her maidens. The house had no porch, unless we take as such the uncovered space between the house door and the street, which obtained its name, vestibulum, i. e. dressing-place, from the circumstance that the Romans were in the habit of going about in the house in their tunics, and only wrapped the toga around them when they went abroad. There was, moreover, no division of apartments, except that sleeping and store closets might be provided around the dwelling-room; and still less were there stairs, or stories placed one above another.

Whether, or to what extent, there arose out of these beginnings a national Italian architecture can scarcely be determined, for in this field Greek influence, even in the earliest times, had a very powerful effect, and almost wholly overgrew such national attempts as possibly had preceded it. The very oldest Italian architecture with which we ore acquainted is not much less under the influence of that of Greece than the architecture of the Augustan age. The primitive tombs of Cære and Alsium, and probably the oldest also of those recently discovered at Præneste, have been, exactly like the thesauroi of Orchomenos and Mycenæ, roofed over with layers of stone placed one above another, gradually overlapping, and closed by a large stone cover. A very ancient building near the city wall of Tusculum was roofed in the same way, and so was originally the well-house (tullianum) at the foot of the Capitol, till the top was pulled down to make room for another building. The gates constructed on the same system are entirely similar in Arpinum and in Mycenæ. The emissary of the Alban (P. 40), presents the greatest resemblance to that of the Copaic, lake. What are called ring-walls frequently occur