II. HELLENIC GREECE…

II. HELLENIC GREECE

HISTORY OF THE ORDERS.

The culminating period of the Pelasgic civilisation of Greece was at the time of the war with Troy—the last great military event of that age, and the one which seems to have closed the long and intimate connection of the Greek Pelasgians with their cognate races in Asia.

Sixty years later the irruption of the Thessalians, and twenty years after that event the return of the Heracleidæ, closed, in a political sense, that chapter in history, and gave rise to what may be styled the Hellenic civilisation, which proved the great and true glory of Greece.

Four centuries, however, elapsed, which may appropriately be called the dark ages of Greece, before the new seed bore fruit, at least in so far as art is concerned. These ages produced, it is true, the laws of Lycurgus, a characteristic effort of a truly Aryan race, conferring as they did on the people who made them that power of self-government, and capacity for republican institutions, which gave them such stability at home and so much power abroad, but which were as inimical to the softer glories of the fine arts in Sparta as they have proved elsewhere.

When, after this long night, architectural art reappeared, it was at Corinth, under the Cypselidæ, a race of strongly-marked Asiatic tendencies; but it had in the meantime undergone so great a transformation as to well-nigh bewilder us. On its reappearance it was no longer characterised by the elegant and ornate art of Mycenæ and the cognate forms of Asiatic growth, but had assumed the rude, bold proportions of Egyptian art, and with almost more than Egyptian massiveness.

DORIC TEMPLES IN GREECE.

The age of the Doric temple at Corinth is not, it is true, satisfactorily determined; but the balance of evidence would lead us to believe that it belongs to the age of Cypselus, or about 650 B.C. The pillars are less than four diameters in height, and the architrave—the only part of the superstructure that now remains—is proportionately heavy. It is, indeed, one of the most massive specimens of architecture existing, more so than even the rock-cut prototype at Beni Hasan. As a work of art, it fails from excess of strength, a fault common to most of the efforts of a rude people, ignorant of the true resources of art, and striving, by the expression of physical power alone, to attain its objects.

Next in age to this is the little temple at Ægina.[131] Its date, too, is unknown, though, judging from the character of its sculpture, it probably belongs to the middle of the sixth century before Christ.

We know that Athens had a great temple on the Acropolis, contemporary with these, and the frusta of its columns still remain, which, after its destruction by the Persians, were built into the walls of the citadel. It is more than probable that all the principal cities of Greece had temples commensurate with their dignity before the Persian War. Many of these were destroyed during that struggle; but it also happened then, as in France and England in the 12th and 13th centuries, that the old temples were thought unworthy of the national greatness, and of that feeling of exaltation arising from the successful result of the greatest of their wars, so that almost all those which remained were pulled down or rebuilt. The consequence is, that nearly all the great temples now found in Greece were built in the forty or fifty years which succeeded the defeat of the Persians at Salamis and Platæa.

One of the oldest temples of this class is that best known as the Theseion or Temple of Theseus at Athens, now recognised as the Temple of Hephaistos mentioned in the “Attica” of Pausanias. By an analysis of the architectural character of the Temple Dr. Dorpfield contends that it is posterior to the Parthenon and not anterior, as is generally supposed.

Of all the great temples, the best and most celebrated is the Parthenon, the only octastyle Doric Temple in Greece, and in its own class undoubtedly the most beautiful building in the world. It is true it has neither the dimensions nor the wondrous expression of power and eternity inherent in Egyptian temples, nor has it the variety and poetry of the Gothic Cathedral; but for intellectual beauty, for perfection of proportion, for beauty of detail, and for the exquisite perception of the highest and most recondite principles of art ever applied to architecture, it stands utterly and entirely alone and unrivalled—the glory of Greece and a reproach to the rest of the world.

Next in size and in beauty to this was the great hexastyle temple of Jupiter at Olympia, finished two years later than the Parthenon. Its dimensions were nearly the same, but having only six pillars in front instead of eight, as in the Parthenon, the proportions were different, this temple being 95 ft. by 230, the Parthenon 101 ft. by 227.

The excavations at Olympia, undertaken at the cost of the German Government in 1876, not only laid bare the site of the Temple of Jupiter, of which the lower frusta of half the column, the lower portions of the walls of cella and nearly the whole of the pavement was found in situ; but led to the recovery of a great portion of the sculptures which decorated the metopes and filled the pediments, so that it is not only possible to restore the complete design of the temple itself but to obtain a distinct idea of its sculptural decoration. The foundations of other Doric temples were found; of the Temple of Hera, which seems originally to have been a wooden structure, the wood being gradually replaced by stone when from its decay it required renewal.[132] This temple was coeval if not more ancient than that of Zeus; the interior of the cella would seem to have been subdivided into bays or niches inside, similar to those of the Temple at Bassæ; a third hexastyle Doric temple, the Metroum, was also discovered, and many buildings dating from the Roman occupation.

To the same age belongs the exquisite little Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassæ (47 ft. by 125), the Temple of Minerva at Sunium, the greater temple at Rhamnus, the Propylæa at Athens, and indeed all that is greatest and most beautiful in the architecture of Greece. The temple of Ceres at Eleusis also was founded and designed at this period, but its execution belongs to a later date.

The temple at Assos, though not of any great size, is interesting on account of its having had the outer face of the architrave sculptured in relief, requiring therefore an architectural frame which was obtained by leaving a raised fillet along the bottom. The temple was hexastyle-peristyle with pronaos but no posticum. The date is assumed to be about 470 B.C., or shortly after the battle of Mycale.[133]

DORIC TEMPLES IN SICILY.

Owing probably to some local peculiarity, which we have not now the means of explaining, the Dorian colonies of Sicily and Magna Græcia seem to have possessed, in the days of their prosperity, a greater number of temples, and certainly retain the traces of many more, than were or are to be found in any of the great cities of the mother country. The one city of Selinus alone possesses six, in two groups,—three in the citadel and three in the city. Of these the oldest is the central one of the first-named group. Its sculptures, first discovered by Messrs. Angell and Harris, indicate an age only slightly subsequent to the foundation of the colony, B.C. 636, and therefore probably nearly contemporary with the example above mentioned at Corinth. The most modern is the great octastyle temple, which seems to have been left unfinished at the time of the destruction of the city by the Carthaginians, B.C. 410. It measured 375 ft. by 166, and was consequently very much larger than any temple of its class in Greece. The remaining four range between these dates, and therefore form a tolerably perfect chronometric series at that time when the arts of Greece itself fail us. The inferiority, however, of provincial art, as compared with that of Greece itself, prevents us from applying such a test with too much confidence to the real history of the art, though it is undoubtedly valuable as a secondary illustration.

At Agrigentum there are three Doric temples, two small hexastyles, whose age may be about 500 to 480 B.C., and one great exceptional example, differing in its arrangements from all the Grecian temples of the age. Its dimensions are 360 ft. long by 173 broad, and consequently very nearly the same as those of the great Temple of Selinus just alluded to. Its date is perfectly known, as it was commenced by Theron, B.C. 480, and left unfinished seventy-five years afterwards, when the city was destroyed by the Carthaginians.

At Syracuse there still exist the ruins of a very beautiful temple of this age; and at Segesta are remains of another in a much more perfect state.

Pæstum, in Magna Græcia, boasts of the most magnificent group of temples after that at Agrigentum. One is a very beautiful hexastyle, belonging probably to the middle of the fifth century B.C., built in a bold and very pure style of Doric architecture, and still retains the greater part of its internal columnar arrangement.

The other two are more modern, and are far less pure both in plan and in detail, one having nine columns at each end, the central pillars of which are meant to correspond with an internal range of pillars, supporting the ridge of the roof. The other, though of a regular form, is so modified by local peculiarities, so corrupt, in fact, as hardly to deserve being ranked with the beautiful order which it most resembles.

IONIC TEMPLES.

We have even fewer materials for the history of the Ionic order in Greece than we have for that of the Doric. The recent discoveries in Assyria have proved beyond a doubt that the Ionic was even more essentially an introduction from Asia[134] than the Doric was from Egypt: the only question is, when it was brought into Greece. My own impression is, that it existed there in one form or another from the earliest ages, but owing to its slenderer proportions, and the greater quantity of wood used in its construction, the examples may have perished, so that nothing is now known to exist which can lay claim to even so great an antiquity as the Persian War.

The oldest example, probably, was the temple on the Ilissus, now destroyed, dating from about 484 B.C.; next to this is the little gem of a temple dedicated to Niké Apteros, or the Wingless Victory, built about fifteen years later, in front of the Propylæa at Athens. The last and most perfect of all the examples of this order is the Erechtheium, on the Acropolis; its date is apparently about 420 B.C., the great epoch of Athenian art. Nowhere did the exquisite taste and skill of the Athenians show themselves to greater advantage than here; for though every detail of the order may be traced back to Nineveh or Persepolis, all are so purified, so imbued with purely Grecian taste and feeling, that they have become essential parts of a far more beautiful order than ever existed in the land in which they had their origin.

The largest, and perhaps the finest, of Grecian Ionic temples was that built about a century afterwards at Tegea, in Arcadia—a regular peripteral temple of considerable dimensions, but the existence of which is now known only from the description of Pausanias.[135]

As in the case, however, of the Doric order, it is not in Greece itself that we find either the greatest number of Ionic temples or those most remarkable for size, but in the colonies in Asia Minor, and more especially in Ionia, whence the order most properly takes its name.

That an Ionic order existed in Asia Minor before the Persian War is quite certain, but all examples perished in that memorable struggle; and when it subsequently reappeared, the order had lost much of its purely Asiatic character, and assumed certain forms and tendencies borrowed from the simpler and purer Doric style.

If any temple in the Asiatic Greek colonies escaped destruction in the Persian wars, it was that of Juno at Samos. It is said to have been built by Polycrates, and appears to have been of the Doric order. The ruins now found there are of the Ionic order, 346 ft. by 190 ft., and must have succeeded the first mentioned. The apparent archaisms in the form of the bases, &c., which have misled antiquarians, are merely Eastern forms retained in spite of Grecian influence.

More remarkable even than this was the celebrated Temple of Diana at Ephesus, said by Pliny to have been 425 ft. long by 220 ft. wide. Recent excavations on the site, however, carried out by Mr. T. Wood, prove that these dimensions apply only to the platform on which it stood. The temple itself, measured from the outside of the angle pillars, was only 348 ft. by 164, making the area 57,072 ft., or about the average dimensions of our mediæval cathedrals.

Besides these, there was a splendid decastyle temple, dedicated to Apollo Didymæus, at Miletus, 156 ft. wide by 295 ft. in length; an octastyle at Sardis, 261 ft. by 144 ft.; an exquisitely beautiful, though small hexastyle, at Priene, 122 ft. by 64 ft.; and another at Teos, and smaller examples elsewhere, besides many others which have no doubt perished.

German explorations in Pergamon have brought to light the remains of the Augustæum, a building consisting of two detached wings with columns of the Ionic order resting on a lofty podium enriched with sculpture and connected one with the other by a magnificent flight of steps, the whole block measuring 125 ft. by 114 ft.[136]

CORINTHIAN TEMPLES.

The Corinthian order is as essentially borrowed from the bell-shaped capitals of Egypt as the Doric is from their oldest pillars. Like everything they touched, the Greeks soon rendered it their own by the freedom and elegance with which they treated it. The acanthus-leaf with which they adorned it is essentially Grecian, and we must suppose that it had been used by them as an ornament, either in their metal or wood work, long before they adopted it in stone as an architectural feature.

As in everything else, however, the Greeks could not help betraying in this also the Asiatic origin of their art, and the Egyptian order with them was soon wedded to the Ionic, whose volutes became an essential though subdued part of this order. It is in fact a composite order, made up of the bell-shaped capitals of the Egyptians and the spiral of the Assyrians, and adopted by the Greeks at a time when national distinctions were rapidly disappearing, and when true and severer art was giving place to love of variety. At that time also mere ornament and carving were supplanting the purer class of forms and the higher aspirations of sculpture with which the Greeks ornamented their temples in their best days.

In Greece the order does not appear to have been introduced, or at least generally used, before the age of Alexander the Great; the oldest authentic example, and also one of the most beautiful, being the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates (B.C. 335), which, notwithstanding the smallness of its dimensions, is one of the most beautiful works of art of the merely ornamental class to be found in any part of the world. A simpler example, but by no means so beautiful, is that of the porticoes of the small octagonal building commonly called the Tower of the Winds at Athens. The largest example in Greece of the Corinthian order is the Temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens. This, however, may almost be called a Roman building, though on Grecian soil—having been commenced in its present form under Antiochus Epiphanes, in the second century B.C. by the Roman architect Cossutius, and only finished by Hadrian, to whom probably we may ascribe the greatest part of what now remains. Its dimensions are 135 ft. by 354 ft., and from the number of its columns, their size and their beauty, it must have been when complete the most beautiful Corinthian temple of the ancient world.

Judging, however, from some fragments found among the Ionic temples of Asia Minor, it appears that the Corinthian order was introduced there before we find any trace of it in Greece Proper. Indeed, à priori, we might expect that its introduction into Greece was part of that reaction which the elegant and luxurious Asiatics exercised on the severer and more manly inhabitants of European Greece, and which was in fact the main cause of their subjection, first to the Macedonians, and finally beneath the iron yoke of Rome. As used by the Asiatics, it seems to have arisen from the introduction of the bell-shaped capital of the Egyptians, to which they applied the acanthus-leaf, sometimes in conjunction with the honeysuckle ornament of the time, as in Woodcut No. 135, and on other and later occasions together with the volutes of the same order, the latter combination being the one which ultimately prevailed and became the typical form of the Corinthian capital.

DIMENSIONS OF GREEK TEMPLES.

Although differing so essentially in plan, the general dimensions of the larger temples of the Greeks were very similar to those of the mediæval cathedrals, and although they never reached the altitude of their modern rivals, their cubic dimensions were probably in about the same ratio of proportion.

The following table gives the approximate dimensions, rejecting fractions, of the eight largest and best known examples:—

Juno, at Samos 346 feet long 190 feet wide = 65,740 feet. Jupiter, at Agrigentum 360 feet long 173 feet wide = 62,280 feet. Apollo, at Branchidæ 362 feet long 168 feet wide = 60,816 feet. Diana, at Ephesus 348 feet long 164 feet wide = 57,072 feet. Jupiter, at Athens 354 feet long 135 feet wide = 47,790 feet. Didymæus, at Miletus 295 feet long 156 feet wide = 45,020 feet. Cybele, at Sardis 261 feet long 144 feet wide = 37,884 feet. Parthenon, at Athens 228 feet long 101 feet wide = 23,028 feet.

There may be some slight discrepancies in this table from the figures quoted elsewhere, and incorrectness arising from some of the temples being measured on the lowest step and others, as the Parthenon, on the highest; but it is sufficient for comparison, which is all that is attempted in its compilation.

DORIC ORDER.

The Doric was the order which the Greeks especially loved and cultivated so as to make it most exclusively their own; and, as used in the Parthenon, it certainly is as complete and as perfect an architectural feature as any style can boast of. When first introduced from Egypt, it, as before stated, partook of even more than Egyptian solidity, but by degrees became attenuated to the weak and lean form of the Roman order of the same name. Woodcuts No. 136, 137, 138 illustrate the three stages of progress from the oldest example at Corinth to the order as used in the time of Philip at Delos, the intermediate being the culminating point in the age of Pericles: the first is 4·47 diameters in height, the next 6·025, the last 7·015; and if the table were filled up with all the other examples, the gradual attenuation of the shaft would very nearly give the relative date of the example. This fact is in itself sufficient to refute the idea of the pillar being copied from a wooden post, as in that case it would have been slenderer at first, and would gradually have departed from the wooden form as the style advanced.[137] This is the case in all carpentry styles. With the Doric order the contrary takes place. The earlier the example the more unlike it is to any wooden original. As the masons advanced in skill and power over their stone material, it came more and more to resemble posts or pillars of wood. The fact appears to be that, either in Egypt or in early Greece, the pillar was originally a pier of brickwork, or of rubble masonry, supporting a wooden roof, of which the architraves, the triglyphs, and the various parts of the cornice, all bore traces down to the latest period.

Even as ordinarily represented, or as copied in this country, there is a degree of solidity combined with elegance in this order, and an exquisite proportion of the parts to one another and to the work they have to perform, that command the admiration of every person of taste; but, as used in Greece, its beauty was very much enhanced by a number of refinements whose existence was not suspected till lately, and even now cannot be detected but by the most practised eye.

The columns were at first assumed to be bounded by straight lines. It is now found that they have an entasis, or convex profile, in the Parthenon to the extent of 1/550 of the whole height, and are outlined by a very delicate hyperbolic curve; it is true this can hardly be detected by the eye in ordinary positions, but the want of it gives that rigidity and poverty to the column which is observable in modern examples.[138]

In like manner, the architrave in all temples was carried upwards so as to form a very flat arch, just sufficient to correct the optical delusion arising from the interference of the sloping lines of the pediment. This, I believe, was common to all temples, but in the Parthenon the curve was applied to the sides also, though from what motive it is not so easy to detect.

Another refinement was making all the columns slope slightly inwards, so as to give an idea of strength and support to the whole. Add to this, that all the curved lines used were either hyperbolas or parabolas. With one exception only, no circular line was employed, nor even an ellipse. Every part of the temple was also arranged with the most unbounded care and accuracy, and every detail of the masonry was carried out with a precision and beauty of execution which is almost unrivalled, and it may be added that the material of the whole was the purest and best white marble. All these delicate adjustments, this exquisite finish and attention to even the smallest details, are well bestowed on a design in itself simple, beautiful, and appropriate. They combine to render this order, as found in the best Greek temples, as nearly faultless as any work of art can possibly be, and such as we may dwell upon with the most unmixed and unvarying satisfaction.

The system of definite proportion which the Greeks employed in the design of their temples, was another cause of the effect they produce even on uneducated minds. It was not with them merely that the height was equal to the width, or the length about twice the breadth; but every part was proportioned to all those parts with which it was related, in some such ratio as 1 to 6, 2 to 7, 3 to 8, 4 to 9, or 5 to 10, &c. As the scheme advances these numbers become undesirably high. In this case they reverted to some such simple ratios as 4 to 5, 5 to 6, 6 to 7, and so on.

We do not yet quite understand the process of reasoning by which the Greeks arrived at the laws which guided their practice in this respect; but they evidently attached the utmost importance to it, and when the ratio was determined upon, they set it out with such accuracy, that even now the calculated and the measured dimensions seldom vary beyond such minute fractions as can only be expressed in hundredths of an inch.

Though the existence of such a system of ratios has long been suspected, it is only recently that any measurements of Greek temples have been made with sufficient accuracy to enable the matter to be properly investigated and their existence proved.[139]

The ratios are in some instances so recondite, and the correlation of the parts at first sight so apparently remote, that many would be inclined to believe they were more fanciful than real.[140] It would, however, be as reasonable in a person with no ear, or no musical education, to object to the enjoyment of a complicated concerted piece of music experienced by those differently situated, or to declare that the pain musicians feel from a false note was mere affectation. The eyes of the Greeks were as perfectly educated as our ears. They could appreciate harmonies which are lost in us, and were offended at false quantities which our duller senses fail to perceive. But in spite of ourselves, we do feel the beauty of these harmonic relations, though we hardly know why; and if educated to them, we might acquire what might almost be considered a new sense. But be this as it may, there can be no doubt but that a great deal of the beauty which all feel in contemplating the architectural productions of the Greeks, arises from causes such as these, which we are only now beginning to appreciate.

To understand, however, the Doric order, we must not regard it as a merely masonic form. Sculpture was always used, or intended to be used, with it. The Metopes between the triglyphs, the pediments of the porticoes, and the acroteria or pedestals on the roof, are all unmeaning and useless unless filled or surmounted with sculptured figures. Sculpture is, indeed, as essential a part of this order as the acanthus-leaves and ornaments of the cornice are to the capitals and entablature of the Corinthian order; and without it, or without its place being supplied by painting, we are merely looking at the dead skeleton, the mere framework of the order, without the flesh and blood that gave it life and purpose.

It is when all these parts are combined together, as in the portico of the Parthenon (Woodcut No. 139), that we can understand this order in all its perfection; for though each part was beautiful in itself, their full value can be appreciated only as parts of a great whole.

Another essential part of the order, too often overlooked, is the colour, which was as integral a part of it as its form. Till very lately, it was denied that Greek temples were, or could be, painted: the unmistakable remains of colour, however, that have been discovered in almost all temples, and the greater knowledge of the value and use of it which now prevails, have altered public opinion very much on the matter, and most people now admit that some colour was used, though few are agreed as to the extent to which it was carried.

It cannot now be questioned that colour was used everywhere internally, and on every object. Externally too it is generally admitted that the sculpture was painted and relieved by strongly coloured backgrounds; the lacunaria, or recesses of the roof, were also certainly painted; and all the architectural mouldings, which at a later period were carved in relief, have been found to retain traces of their painted ornaments.

It is disputed whether the echinus or carved moulding of the capital was so ornamented. There seems little doubt but that it was; and that the walls of the cells were also coloured throughout and covered with paintings illustrative of the legends and attributes of the divinity to whom the temple was dedicated or of the purposes for which it was erected. The plane face of the architrave was probably left white, or merely ornamented with metal shields or inscriptions, and the shafts of the columns appear also to have been left plain, or merely slightly stained to tone down the crudeness of the white marble. Generally speaking, all those parts which from their form or position were in any degree protected from the rain or atmospheric influences seem to have been coloured; those particularly exposed, to have been left plain. To whatever extent, however, painting may have been carried, these coloured ornaments were as essential a part of the Doric order as the carved ornaments were of the Corinthian, and made it, when perfect, a richer and more ornamental, as it was a more solid and stable, order than the latter. The colour nowhere interfered with the beauty of its forms, but gave it that richness and amount of ornamentation which is indispensable in all except the most colossal buildings, and a most valuable adjunct even to them.

IONIC ORDER.

The Ionic order, as we now find it, is not without some decided advantages over the Doric. It is more complete in itself and less dependent on sculpture. Its frieze was too small for much display of human life and action, and was probably usually ornamented with lines of animals,[141] like the friezes at Persepolis. But the frieze of the little temple of Nikè Apteros is brilliantly ornamented in the same style as those of the Doric order. It also happened that those details and ornaments which were only painted in the Doric, were carved in the Ionic order, and remain therefore visible to the present day, which gives to this order a completeness in our eyes which the other cannot boast of. Add to this a certain degree of Asiatic elegance and grace, and the whole when put together makes up a singularly pleasing architectural object. But notwithstanding these advantages, the Doric order will probably always be admitted to be superior, as belonging to a higher class of art, and because all its forms and details are better and more adapted to their purpose than those of the Ionic.

The principal characteristic of the Ionic order is the Pelasgic or Asiatic spiral, here called a volute, which, notwithstanding its elegance, forms at best but an awkward capital. The Assyrian honeysuckle below this, carved as it is with the exquisite feeling and taste which a Greek alone knew how to impart to such an object, forms as elegant an architectural detail as is anywhere to be found; and whether used as the necking of a column, or on the crowning member of a cornice, or on other parts of the order, is everywhere the most beautiful ornament connected with it. Comparing this order with that at Persepolis (Woodcut No. 96), the only truly Asiatic prototype we have of it, we see how much the Doric feeling of the Greeks had done to sober it down, by abbreviating the capital and omitting the greater part of the base. This process was carried much farther when the order was used in conjunction with the Doric, as in the Propylæa, than when used by itself, as in the Erechtheium; still in every case all the parts found in the Asiatic style are found in the Greek. The same form and feelings pervade both; and, except in beauty of execution and detail, it is not quite clear how far even the Greek order is an improvement on the Eastern one. The Persepolitan base is certainly the more beautiful of the two; so are many parts of the capital. The perfection of the whole, however, depends on the mode in which it is employed; and it is perfectly evident that the Persian order could not be combined with the Doric, nor applied with much propriety as an external order, which was the essential use of all the Grecian forms of pillars.

When used between antæ or square piers, as seems usually to have been the case in Assyria, the two-fronted form of the Ionic capital was appropriate and elegant; but when it was employed, as in the Erechtheium, as an angle column, it presented a difficulty which even Grecian skill and ingenuity could not quite conquer. When the Persians wanted the capital to face four ways they turned the side outwards, as at Persepolis (Woodcut No. 96), and put the volutes in the angles—which was at best but an awkward mode of getting over the difficulty.

The instance in which these difficulties have been most successfully met is in the internal order at Bassæ. There the three sides are equal, and are equally seen—the fourth is attached to the wall—and the junction of the faces is formed with an elegance that has never been surpassed. It has not the richness of the order of the Erechtheium, but it excels it in elegance. Its widely spreading base still retains traces of the wooden origin of the order, and carries us back towards the times when a shoe was necessary to support wooden posts on the floor of an Assyrian hall.

Notwithstanding the amount of carving which the Ionic order displays, there can be little doubt of its having been also ornamented with colour to a considerable extent, but probably in a different manner from the Doric. My own impression is, that the carved parts were gilt, or picked out with gold, relieved by coloured grounds, varied according to the situation in which they were found. The existing remains prove that colours were used in juxtaposition, to relieve and heighten the architectural effect of the carved ornaments of this order.

In the Ionic temples at Athens the same exquisite masonry was used as in the Doric; the same mathematical precision and care is bestowed on the entasis of the columns, the drawing of the volutes, and the execution of even the minutest details; and much of its beauty and effect are no doubt owing to this circumstance, which we miss so painfully in nearly all modern examples.

CORINTHIAN ORDER.

As before mentioned, the Corinthian order was only introduced into Greece on the decline of art, and never rose during the purely Grecian age to the dignity of a temple order. It most probably, however, was used in the more ornate specimens of domestic architecture, and in smaller works of art, long before any of those examples of it were executed which we now find in Greece.

The most typical specimen we now know is that of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates (Woodcut No. 143), which, notwithstanding all its elegance of detail and execution, can hardly be pronounced to be perfect, the Egyptian and Asiatic features being only very indifferently united to one another. The foliaged part is rich and full, but is not carried up into the upper or Ionic portion, which is, in comparison, lean and poor; and though separately the two parts are irreproachable, it was left to the Romans so to blend the two together as to make a perfectly satisfactory whole out of them.

In this example, as now existing, the junction of the column with the capital is left a plain sinking, and so it is generally copied in modern times; but there can be little doubt that this was originally filled by a bronze wreath, which was probably gilt. Accordingly this is so represented in the woodcut as being essential to the completion of the order. The base and shaft have, like the upper part of the capital, more Ionic feeling in them than the order was afterwards allowed to retain; and altogether it is, as here practised, far more elegant, though less complete, than the Roman form which superseded it.

The other Athenian example, that of the Tower of the winds (Woodcut No. 144), is remarkable as being almost purely Egyptian in its types, with no Ionic admixture. The columns have no bases, the capitals no volutes, and the water-leaf clings as closely to the bell as it does in the Egyptian examples. The result altogether wants richness, and, though appropriate on so small a scale, would hardly be pleasing on a larger.

The great example of the Temple of Jupiter Olympius differs in no essential part from the Roman order, except that the corners of the abacus are not cut off; and that, being executed in Athens, there is a degree of taste and art displayed in its execution which we do not find in any Roman examples. Strictly speaking, however, it belongs to that school, and should be enumerated as a Roman, and not as a Grecian, example.

CARYATIDES.

It has been already explained that the Egyptians never used caryatide figures, properly so called, to support the entablatures of their architecture, their figures being always attached to the front of the columns or piers, which were the real bearing mass. At Persepolis, and elsewhere in the East, we find figures everywhere employed supporting the throne or the platform of the palaces of the kings; not, indeed, on their heads, as the Greeks used them, but rather in their uplifted hands.

The name, however, as well as their being only used in conjunction with the Ionic order and with Ionic details, all point to an Asiatic origin for this very questionable form of art. As employed in the little Portico attached to the Erechtheium, these figures are used with so much taste, and all the ornaments are so elegant, that it is difficult to criticise or find fault; but it is nevertheless certain that it was a mistake which even the art of the Greeks could hardly conceal. To use human figures to support a cornice is unpardonable, unless it is done as a mere secondary adjunct to a building. In the Erechtheium it is a little too prominent for this, though used with as much discretion as was perhaps possible under the circumstances. Another example of the sort is shown in Woodcut No. 146, which, by employing a taller cap, avoids some of the objections to the other; but the figure itself, on the other hand, is less architectural, and so errs on the other side.

Another form of this class of support is that of the Giants or Telamones, instances of which are found supporting the roof of the great Temple at Agrigentum, and in the baths of the semi-Greek city of Pompeii. As they do not actually bear the entablature, but only seem to relieve the masonry behind them, their employment is less objectionable than that of the female figures above described; but even they hardly fulfil the conditions of true art, and their place might be better filled by some more strictly architectural feature.

FORMS OF TEMPLES.

The arrangements of Grecian Doric temples show almost less variety than the forms of the pillars, and no materials exist for tracing their gradual development in an historical point of view. The temples at Corinth, and the oldest at Selinus, are both perfect examples of the hexastyle arrangement to which the Greeks adhered in all ages; and though there can be little doubt that the peripteral form, as well as the order itself, was borrowed from Egypt, it still was so much modified before it appeared in Greece, that it would be interesting, if it could be done, to trace the several steps by which the change was effected.

In an architectural point of view this is by no means difficult. The simplest Greek temples were mere cells, or small square apartments suited to contain an image—the front being what is technically called distyle in antis, or with two pillars between antæ, or square pilaster like piers terminating the side walls. Hence the interior enclosure of Grecian temples is called the cell or cella, however large and splendid it may be.

The next change was to separate the interior into a cell and porch by a wall with a large doorway in it, as in the small temple at Rhamnus (Woodcut No. 148), where the opening however can scarcely be called a doorway, as it extends to the roof. A third change was to put a porch of 4 pillars in front of the last arrangement, or, as appears to have been more usual, to bring forward the screen to the positions of the pillars as in the last example, and to place the 4 pillars in front of this. None of these plans admitted of a peristyle, or pillars on the flanks. To obtain this it was necessary to increase the number of pillars of the portico to 6, or, as it is termed, to make it hexastyle, the 2 outer pillars being the first of a range of 13 or 15 columns, extended along each side of the temple. The cell in this arrangement was a complete temple in itself—distyle in antis, most frequently made so at both ends, and the whole enclosed in its envelope of columns, as in Woodcut No. 149. Sometimes the cell was tetrastyle or with four pillars in front.

In this form the Greek temple may be said to be complete, very few exceptions occurring to the rule, though the Parthenon itself is one of these few. It has an inner hexastyle portico at each end of the cell; beyond these outwardly are octastyle porticoes, with 17 columns on each flank.

The great Temple at Selinus is also octastyle, but it is neither so simple nor so beautiful in its arrangement; and, from the decline of style in the art when it was built, is altogether an inferior example; still, as one of the largest of Greek Doric temples, its plan is worthy of being quoted as an illustration of the varying forms of these temples.

Another great exception is the great temple at Agrigentum (Woodcuts Nos. 152 and 154), where the architect attempted an order on so gigantic a scale that he was unable to construct the pillars with their architraves standing free. The interstices of the columns are therefore built up with walls pierced with windows, and altogether the architecture is so bad, that even its colossal dimensions must have failed to render it at any time a pleasing or satisfactory work of art.

A fourth exception is the double temple at Pæstum, with 9 pillars in front, a clumsy expedient, but which arose from its having a range of columns down the centre to support the ridge of the roof by a simpler mode than the triangular truss usually employed for carrying the roof between two ranges of column.

With the exception of the temple at Agrigentum, all these were peristylar, or had ranges of columns all around them, enclosing the cell as it were in a case, an arrangement so apparently devoid of purpose, that it is not at first sight easy to account for its universality. It will not suffice to say that it was adopted merely because it was beautiful, for the forms of Egyptian temples, which had no pillars externally, were as perfect, and in the hands of the Greeks would have become as beautiful, as the one they adopted. Besides, it is natural to suppose they would rather have copied the larger than the smaller temples, if no motive existed for their preference of the latter. The peristyle, too, was ill suited for an ambulatory, or place for processions to circulate round the temple; it was too narrow for this, and too high to protect the procession from the rain. Indeed, I know of no suggestion except that it may have been adopted to protect the paintings on the walls of the cells from the inclemency of the weather. It hardly admits of a doubt that the walls were painted, and that without protection of some sort this would very soon have been obliterated. It seems also very evident that the peristyle was not only practically, but artistically, most admirably adapted for this purpose. The paintings of the Greeks were, like those of the Egyptians, composed of numerous detached groups, connected only by the story, and it almost required the intervention of pillars, or some means of dividing into compartments the surface to be so painted, to separate these groups from one another, and to prevent the whole sequence from being seen at once; while, on the other hand, nothing can have been more beautiful than the white marble columns relieved against a richly coloured plane surface. The one appears so necessary to the other, that it seems hardly to be doubted that this was the cause, or that the effect must have been most surpassingly beautiful.

MODE OF LIGHTING TEMPLES.

The arrangement of the interior of Grecian temples necessarily depended on the mode in which they were lighted. No one will, I believe, now contend, as was once done, that it was by lamplight alone that the beauty of their interiors could be seen; and as light certainly was not introduced through the side walls, nor could be in sufficient quantities through the doorways, it is only from the roof that it could be admitted. At the same time it could not have been by a large horizontal opening in the roof, as has been supposed, as that would have admitted the rain and snow as well as the light; and the only alternative seems to be one I suggested some years ago—of a clerestory,[142] similar internally to that found in all the great Egyptian temples,[143] but externally requiring such a change of arrangement as was necessary to adapt it to a sloping instead of a flat roof. This could have been effected by countersinking it into the roof, so as to make it in fact 3 ridges in those parts where the light was admitted, though the regular slope of the roof was retained between these openings, so that neither the ridge nor the continuity of the lines of the roof was interfered with. This would effect all that was required, and in the most beautiful manner; it moreover agrees with all the remains of Greek temples that now exist, as well as with all the descriptions that have been handed down to us from antiquity.

This arrangement will be understood from the section of the Parthenon (Woodcut No. 153), restored in accordance with the above explanation, which agrees perfectly with all that remains on the spot, as well as with all the accounts we have of that celebrated temple. The same system applies even more easily to the great hexastyle at Pæstum and to the beautiful little Temple of Apollo at Bassæ, in Phigaleia (Woodcut No. 149), and in fact to all regular Greek temples. Indeed, it seems impossible to account for the peculiarities of that temple except on some such theory as this. Any one who studies the plan (Woodcut No. 149) will see at once what pains were taken to bring the internal columns exactly into the spaces between those of the external peristyle. The effect inside is clumsy, and never would have been attempted were it not that practically their position was seen from the outside, and this could hardly have been so on any other hypothesis than that now proposed. An equally important point in the examination of this theory is that it applies equally to the exceptional ones. The side aisles, for instance, of the great temple at Agrigentum were, as before mentioned, lighted by side windows; the central one could only be lighted from the roof, and it is easy to see how this could be effected by introducing openings between the telamones, as shown in Woodcut No. 154.

In the great Temple of Jupiter Olympius (Woodcut No. 196), as described by Vitruvius,[144] the nave had two storeys of columns all round, and the middle was open to the sky. It is suggested, however, by Dr. Dorpfield that the temple in Vitruvius’s time was incomplete, and that subsequently when Hadrian erected the great chryselephantine statue in it the nave may have lost its hypæthral source of light. (In that case its light may have been introduced through the court or hypæthron in front of the cell, such as is shown on the plan in Woodcut No. 196.)

The Ionic temples of Asia are all too much ruined to enable us to say exactly in what manner, and to what extent, this mode of lighting was applied to them, though there seems no doubt that the method there adopted was very similar in all its main features.

The little Temple of Nikè Apteros and the temple on the Ilissus, were both too small to require any complicated arrangement of the sort, but the Ionic temple of Pandrosus was lighted by windows which still remain at the west end, so that it is possible the same expedient may have been adopted to at least some extent in the Asiatic examples. The latter, however, is, with one exception, the sole instance of windows in any European-Greek temple, the only other example being in the very exceptional temple at Agrigentum. It is valuable, besides, as showing how little the Greeks were bound by rules or by any fancied laws of symmetry.

As is shown in the plan, elevation, and view (Woodcuts Nos. 155, 156, 157), the Erechtheium consisted, properly speaking, of 3 temples grouped together; and it is astonishing what pains the architect took to prevent their being mistaken for one. The porticoes of two of them are on different levels, and the third or caryatide porch is of a different height and different style. Every one of these features is perfectly symmetrical in itself, and the group is beautifully balanced and arranged; and yet no Gothic architect in his wildest moments could have conceived anything more picturesquely irregular than the whole becomes. Indeed, there can be no greater mistake than to suppose that Greek architecture was fettered by any fixed laws of formal symmetry: each detail, every feature, every object, such as a hall or temple, which could be considered as one complete and separate whole, was perfectly symmetrical and regular; but no two buildings—no two apartments—if for different purposes, were made to look like one. On the contrary, it is quite curious to observe what pains they took to arrange their buildings so as to produce variety and contrast, instead of formality or singleness of effect. Temples, when near one another, were never placed parallel, nor were even their propylæa and adjuncts ever so arranged as to be seen together or in one line. The Egyptians, as before remarked, had the same feeling, but carried it into even the details of the same building, which the Greeks did not. In this, indeed, as in almost every other artistic mode of expression, they seem to have hit exactly the happy medium, so as to produce the greatest harmony with the greatest variety, and to satisfy the minutest scrutiny and the most refined taste, while their buildings produced an immediate and striking effect on even the most careless and casual beholders.

Owing to the Erechtheium having been converted into a Byzantine church during the Middle Ages, almost all traces of its original internal arrangements have been obliterated, and this, with the peculiar combination of three temples in one, makes it more than usually difficult to restore. The annexed plan, however, meets all the requirements of the case in so far as they are known. To the east was a portico of 6 columns, between two of which stood an altar to Dione, mentioned in the inscription enumerating the repairs in 409 B.C.;[145] inside, according to Pausanias,[146] were three altars, the principal dedicated to Poseidon, the others to Butes and Hephaistos. From its form, it is evident the roof must have been supported by pillars, and they probably also bore a clerestory, by which, I believe, with rare exceptions, all Greek temples were lighted.

The Temple of Pandrosus was on a lower level, and was approached by a flight of steps, corresponding with which was a chamber, containing the well of salt water, and which apparently was the abode of the serpent-god Erechthonios, mentioned by Herodotus.[147] The central cell was lighted by the very exceptional expedient of 3 windows in the western wall, which looked directly into it. Beyond this, on the south, was the beautiful caryatide porch, where, if anywhere within the temple, grew the olive sacred to Minerva. Unfortunately, our principal guide, Pausanias, does not give us a hint where the olive-tree grew, and on the whole I am inclined to believe it was in the enclosure outside the western wall of the temple,[148] and to which a doorway leads directly from the Temple of Pandrosus, as well as one under the north portico, the use of which it is impossible to explain unless we assume that this enclosure was really of exceptional importance.

TEMPLE OF DIANA AT EPHESUS.

A history of Grecian architecture can hardly be considered as complete without some mention of the great Ephesian temple, which was one of the largest and most gorgeous of all those erected by the Greeks, and considered by them as one of the seven wonders of the world. Strange to say, till very recently even its situation was utterly unknown; and even now that it has been revealed to us by the energy and intelligence of Mr. Wood, scarcely enough remains to enable him to restore the plan with anything like certainty. This is the more remarkable, as it was found buried under 17 to 20 feet of mud, which must have been the accumulation of centuries, and might, one would have thought, have preserved considerable portions of it from the hand of the spoiler.

The annexed plan compiled from Mr. Wood’s researches embodies all the information he has been able to obtain. The dimensions of the double peristyle, and the number and position of its 96 columns, are quite certain. So are the positions of the north, south, and west walls of the cella; so that the only points of uncertainty are the positions of the four columns necessary to make up the 100 mentioned by Pliny,[149] and the internal arrangement of the cella itself and of the opisthodomus.

With regard to the first there seems very little latitude for choice. Two must have stood between the antæ. The position of the other two must be determined either by bringing forward the wall enclosing the stairs, so as to admit of the intercolumniation east and west being the same as that of the other columns, or of spacing them so as to divide the inner roof of the pronaos into equal squares. I have preferred the latter as that which appears to me the most probable.[150]

The west wall of the cella and the position of the statue having been found, the arrangement of the pillars surrounding this apartment does not admit of much latitude. Fragments of these pillars were found, but not in situ, showing that they were in two heights and supported a gallery. I have spaced them intermediately between the external pillars, as in the Temple of Apollo at Bassæ (Woodcut No. 149), because I do not know of any other mode by which this temple could be lighted, except by an opaion, as suggested for that temple; and if this is so they must have been so spaced. Carrying out this system it leaves an opisthodomus which is an exact square, which is so likely a form for that apartment that it affords considerable confirmation to the correctness of this restoration that it should be so. The four pillars it probably contained are so spaced as to divide it into nine equal squares.

Restored in this manner the temple appears considerably less in dimensions than might have been supposed from Pliny’s text. His measurements apply only to the lower step of the platform, which is found to be 421 ft. by 238. But the temple itself, from angle to angle of the peristyles, is only 342 ft. by 164, instead of 425 ft. by 220 of Pliny.

Assuming this restoration to be correct there can be very little doubt as to the position of the thirty-six columnæ cælatæ, of which several specimens have been recovered by Mr. Wood, and are now in the British Museum. They must have been the sixteen at either end and the four in the pronaos, shown darker in the woodcut.

From the temple standing on a platform so much larger than appears necessary, it is probable that pedestals with statues stood in front of each column, and if this were so, the sculptures, with the columnæ cælatæ and the noble architecture of the temple itself, must have made up a combination of technic, æsthetic, and phonetic art such as hardly existed anywhere else, and which consequently the ancients were quite justified in considering as one of the wonders of the world.

MUNICIPAL ARCHITECTURE.

Very little now remains of all the various classes of municipal and domestic buildings which must once have covered the land of Greece, and from what we know of the exquisite feelings for art that pervaded that people, they were certainly not less beautiful, though more ephemeral, than the sacred buildings whose ruins still remain to us.

There are, however, two buildings in Athens which, though small, give us most exalted ideas of their taste in such matters. The first, already alluded to, usually known as the Tower of the Winds, is a plain octagonal building about 45 ft. in height by 24 in width, ornamented by 2 small porches of 2 pillars each, of the Corinthian order, the capitals of which are represented in Woodcut No. 141. Its roof, like the rest of the building, is of white marble, and of simple but very elegant design, and below this is a frieze of 8 large figures, symbolical of the 8 winds, from which the tower takes its name, they in fact being the principal objects and ornaments of the building, the most important use of which appears to have been to contain a clepsydra or water-clock.

The other building, though smaller, is still more beautiful. It is known as the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, and consists of a square base 12 ft. high by 9 ft. wide, on which stands a circular temple adorned by 6 Corinthian columns, which, with their entablature and the roof and pedestal they support, make up 22 ft. more, so that the whole height of the monument is only 34 ft. Notwithstanding these insignificant dimensions, the beauty of its columns (Woodcut No. 143) and of their entablature—above all, the beauty of the roof and of the finial ornament, which crowns the whole and is unrivalled for elegance even in Greek art—make up a composition so perfect that nothing in any other style or age can be said to surpass it.[151] If this is a fair index of the art that was lavished on the smaller objects, the temples hardly give a just idea of all that have perished.

THEATRES.

In extreme contrast with the buildings last described, which were among the smallest, came the theatres, which were the largest, of the monuments the Greeks seem ever to have attempted.

The annexed plan of one at Dramyssus, the ancient Dodona, will give an idea of their forms and arrangements. Its dimensions may be said to be gigantic, being 443 ft. across; but even this, though perhaps the largest in Greece, is far surpassed by many in Asia Minor. What remains of it, however, is merely the auditorium, and consists only of ranges of seats arranged in a semicircle, but without architectural ornament. In all the examples in Europe, the proscenium,[152] which was the only part architecturally ornamented, has perished, so that, till we can restore this with something like certainty, the theatres hardly come within the class of Architecture as a fine art.

The theatre of Dionysus at Athens, which was excavated and laid bare in 1862-63, measures only 165 ft. in its greatest width. Built on the south side of the Acropolis, the natural slope forming the rising ground was utilised for the foundations of the tiers of seats which, in some cases, and particularly at the back, were hewn in the rock; so that they were carried back 294 ft. from the centre of the orchestra. In the theatre of Epidaurus, which, according to Pausanias, was the most beautiful theatre in the world, the lines of the seats are continued on each side of the orchestra so as to form a horse-shoe on plan; the foundations of the stage, the projecting side wings with staircases on each side, and other buildings belonging to the stage are still preserved.

In Asia Minor some of the theatres have their proscenia adorned with niches and columns, and friezes of great richness; but all these belong to the Roman period, and, though probably copies of the mode in which the Greeks ornamented theirs, are so corrupt in style as to prevent their being used with safety in attempting to restore the earlier examples.

Many circumstances would indeed induce us to believe that the proscenia of the earlier theatres may have been of wood or bronze, or both combined, and heightened by painting and carving to a great degree of richness. This, though appropriate and consonant with the origin and history of the drama, would be fatal to the expectation of anything being found to illustrate its earliest forms.

TOMBS.

Like the other Aryan races, the Greeks never were tomb-builders, and nothing of any importance of this class is found in Greece, except the tombs of the early Pelasgic races, which were either tumuli, or treasuries, as they are popularly called. There are, it is true, some headstones and small pillars of great beauty, but they are monolithic, and belong rather to the department of Sculpture than of Architecture. In Asia Minor there are some important tombs, some built and others cut in the rock. Some of the latter have been described before in speaking of the tombs of the Lycians. The built examples which remain almost all belong to the Roman period, though the typical and by far the most splendid example of Greek tombs was that erected by Artemisia to the memory of her husband Mausolus at Halicarnassus. We scarcely know enough of the ethnic relations of the Carians to be able to understand what induced them to adopt so exceptional a mode of doing honour to their dead. With pure Greeks it must have been impossible, but the inhabitants of these coasts were of a different race, and had a different mode of expressing their feelings.

Till Sir Charles Newton’s visit to Halicarnassus in 1856 the very site of this seventh wonder of the world was a matter of dispute. We now know enough to be able to restore the principal parts with absolute certainty, and to ascertain its dimensions and general appearance within very insignificant limits of error.[153]

The dimensions quoted by Pliny[154] are evidently extracted from a larger work, said to have been written by the architect who erected it, and which existed at his time. Every one of them has been confirmed in the most satisfactory manner by recent discoveries, and enable us to put the whole together without much hesitation.

Sufficient remains of the quadriga, which crowned the monument, have been brought home to give its dimensions absolutely. All the parts of the Ionic order are complete. The steps of the pyramid have been found and portions of the three friezes, and these, with Pliny’s dimensions and description, are all that are required to assure us that its aspect must have been very similar to the form represented in Woodcut No. 162. There can be little doubt with regard to the upper storey, but in order to work out to the dimensions given by Pliny (411 ft. in circumference) and those found cut out in the rock (462 ft.), the lower storey must be spread out beyond the upper to that extent, and most probably something after the manner shown in the woodcut.

The building consisted internally of two chambers superimposed the one on the other, each 52 ft. 6 in. by 42 ft.—the lower one being the vestibule to the tomb beyond—the upper was surrounded by a peristyle of 36 columns. Externally the height was divided into three equal portions of 37 ft. 6 in. each (25 cubits), one of which was allotted to the base— one to the pyramid with its meta—and one to the order between them. These with 14 ft., the height of the quadriga, and the same dimension belonging to the lower entablature, made up the height of 140 Greek feet[155] given it by Pliny.

Though its height was unusually great for a Greek building, its other dimensions were small. It covered only 13,230 ft. The admiration therefore which the Greeks expressed regarding it must have arisen, first, from the unusual nature of its design and of the purpose to which it was applied, or perhaps more still from the extent and richness of its sculptured decorations, of the beauty of which we are now enabled to judge, and can fully share with them in admiring.

Another, but very much smaller, tomb of about the same age was found by Mr. Newton at Cnidus, and known as the Lion Tomb, from the figure of that animal, now in the British Museum, which crowned its summit. Like many other tombs found in Asia and in Africa, it follows the type of the Mausoleum in its more important features. It possesses a base—a peristyle—a pyramid of steps—and, lastly, an acroterion or pedestal meant to support a quadriga or statue, or some other crowning object, which appropriately terminated the design upwards.

Several examples erected during the Roman period will be illustrated when speaking of the architecture of that people, all bearing the impress of the influence the Mausoleum had on the tomb architecture of that age; but unfortunately we cannot yet go backwards and point out the type from which the design of the Mausoleum itself was elaborated. The tombs of Babylon and Passargadæ are remote both geographically and artistically, though not without certain essential resemblances. Perhaps the missing links may some day reward the industry of some scientific explorer.

CYRENE.

At Cyrene there is a large group of tombs of Grecian date and with Grecian details, but all cut in the rock, and consequently differing widely in their form from those just described. It is not clear whether the circumstance of this city possessing such a necropolis arose from its proximity to Egypt, and consequently from a mere desire to imitate that people, or from some ethnic peculiarity. Most probably the latter, though we know so little about them that it is difficult to speak with precision on such a subject.[156]

These tombs are chiefly interesting from many of the details of the architecture still retaining the colour with which they were originally adorned. The triglyphs of the Doric order are still painted blue,[157] as appears to have been the universal practice, and the pillars are outlined by red lines. The metopes are darker, and are adorned with painted groups of figures, the whole making up one of the most perfect examples of Grecian coloured decoration which still remain.

There is another tomb at the same place—this time structural—which is interesting not so much for any architectural beauty it possesses as from its belonging to an exceptional type. It consists now only of a circular basement—the upper part is gone—and is erected over an excavated rock-cut tomb. There seem to be several others of the same class in the necropolis, and they are the only examples known except those at Marathos, one of which is illustrated above (Woodcut No. 122). As before hinted, the Syrian example does not appear to be very ancient, but we want further information before speaking positively on this subject. No one on the spot has attempted to fix with precision the age of the Cyrenean examples; nor have they been drawn in such detail as is requisite for others to ascertain the fact. They may be as late as the time of the Romans, but can hardly be dated as prior to the age of Alexander the Great.

DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.

We have nothing left but imperfect verbal descriptions of the domestic, and even of the palatial architecture of Greece, and, consequently, can only judge imperfectly of its forms. Unfortunately, too, Pompeii, though but half a Greek city, belongs to too late and too corrupt an age to enable us to use it even as an illustration; but we may rest assured that in this, as in everything else, the Greeks displayed the same exquisite taste which pervades not only their monumental architecture, but all their works in metal or clay, down to the meanest object, which have been preserved to our times.

It is probable that the forms of their houses were much more irregular and picturesque than we are in the habit of supposing them to have been. They seem to have taken such pains in their temples—in the Erechtheium, for instance, and at Eleusis—to make every part tell its own tale, that anything like forced regularity must have been offensive to them, and they would probably make every apartment exactly of the dimensions required, and group them so that no one should under any circumstances be confounded with another.

This, however, with all the details of their domestic arts, must now remain to us as mere speculation, and the architectural history of Greece must be confined to her temples and monumental erections. These suffice to explain the nature and forms of the art, and to assign to it the rank of the purest and most intellectual of all the styles which have yet been invented or practised in any part of the world.

I. ETRURIA

CONTENTS.

Historical notice—Temples—Rock-cut Tombs—Tombs at Castel d’Asso—Tumuli.

CHRONOLOGICAL MEMORANDA.

Migration from Asia Minor about 12th cent. B.C. Tomb of Porsenna about B.C. 500 Etruria becomes subject to Rome about B.C. 330

The ethnographical history of art in Italy is in all its essential features similar to that of Greece, though arriving at widely different results from causes the influence of which it is easy to trace. Both are examples of an Aryan development based on a Turanian civilisation which it has superseded. In Greece—as already remarked—the traces of the earlier people are indistinct and difficult to seize. In Italy their features are drawn with a coarser hand, and extend down into a more essentially historic age. It thus happens that we have no doubt as to the existence of the Etruscan people—we know very nearly who they were, and cannot be mistaken as to the amount and kind of influence they exercised on the institutions and arts of the Romans.

The more striking differences appear to have arisen from the fact, that Greece had some four or five centuries of comparative repose during which to form herself and her institutions after the Pelasgic civilisation was struck down at the time of the Dorian occupation of the Peloponnesus. During that period she was undisturbed by foreign invasion, and was not tempted by successful conquests to forsake the gentler social arts for the more vulgar objects of national ambition. Rome’s history, on the other hand, from the earliest aggregation of a robber horde on the banks of the Tiber till she became the arbiter of the destinies of the ancient world, is little beyond the record of continuous wars. From the possession of the seven hills, Rome gradually carried her sway at the edge of the sword to the dominion of the whole of Italy and of all the then known world, destroying everything that stood in the way of her ambition, and seeking only the acquisition of wealth and power.

Greece, in the midst of her successful cultivation of the arts of commerce and of peace, stimulated by the wholesome rivalry of the different States of which she was composed, was awakened by the Persian invasion to a struggle for existence. The result was one of the most brilliant passages in the world’s history, and no nation was ever more justified in the jubilant outburst of enthusiastic patriotism that followed the repulse of the invader, than was Greece in that with which she commenced her short but brilliant career. A triumph so gained by a people so constituted led to results at which we still wonder, though they cause us no surprise. If Greece attained her manhood on the battle-fields of Marathon and Salamis, Rome equally reached the maturity of her career when she cruelly and criminally destroyed Corinth and Carthage, and the sequel was such as might be expected from such a difference of education. Rome had no time for the cultivation of the arts of peace, and as little sympathy for their gentler influences. Conquest, wealth, and consequent power, were the objects of her ambition—for these she sacrificed everything, and by their means she attained a pinnacle of greatness that no nation had reached before or has since. Her arts have all the impress of this greatness, and are characterised by the same vulgar grandeur which marks everything she did. Very different they are from the intellectual beauty found in the works of the Greeks, but in some respects they are as interesting to those who can read the character of nations in their artistic productions.

In the earlier part of her career Rome was an Etruscan city under Etruscan kings and institutions. After she had emancipated herself from their yoke, Etruria long remained her equal and her rival in political power, and her instructress in religion and the arts of peace. This continued so long, and the architectural remains of that people are so numerous, and have been so thoroughly investigated, that we have no difficulty in ascertaining the extent of influence the older nation had on the nascent empire. It is more difficult to ascertain exactly who the Etruscans themselves were, or whence they came. But on the whole there seems every reason to believe they migrated from Asia Minor some twelve or thirteen centuries before the Christian era, and fixed themselves in Italy, most probably among the Umbrians, or some people of cognate race, who had settled there before—so long before, perhaps, as to entitle them to be considered among the aboriginal inhabitants.

It would have been only natural that the expatriated Trojans should have sought refuge among such a kindred people, though we have nothing but the vaguest tradition to warrant a belief that this was the case. They may too from time to time have received other accessions to their strength; but they were a foreign people in a strange land, and scarcely seem ever to have become naturalised in the country of their adoption. But what stood still more in their way was the fact that they were an old Turanian people in presence of a young and ambitious community of Aryan origin, and, as has always been the case when this has happened, they were destined to disappear. Before doing so, however, they left their impress on the institutions and the arts of their conquerors to such an extent as to be still traceable in every form. It may have been that there was as much Pelasgic blood in the veins of the Greeks as there was Etruscan in those of the Romans; but the civilisation of the former had passed away before Greece had developed herself. Etruria, on the other hand, was long contemporary with Rome: in early times her equal, and sometimes her mistress, and consequently in a position to force her arts upon her to an extent that was never effected on the opposite shore of the Adriatic.

TEMPLES.

Nothing can prove more clearly the Turanian origin of the Etruscans than the fact that all we know of them is derived from their tombs. These exist in hundreds—it may almost be said in thousands—at the gates of every city; but no vestige of a temple has come down to our days. Had any Semitic blood flowed in their veins, as has been sometimes suspected, they could not have been so essentially sepulchral as they were, or so fond of contemplating death, as is proved by the fact that a purely Semitic tomb is still a desideratum among antiquaries, not one having as yet been discovered. What we should like to find in Etruria would be a square pyramidal mound with external steps leading to a cella on its summit; but no trace of any such has yet been detected. Their other temples—using the word in the sense in which we usually understand it—were, as might be expected, insignificant and ephemeral. So much so, indeed, that except from one passage in Vitruvius,[158] and our being able to detect the influence of the Etruscan style in the buildings of Imperial Rome, we should hardly be aware of their existence. The truth seems to be that the religion of the Etruscans, like that of most of their congeners, was essentially ancestral, and their worship took the form of respect for the remains of the dead and reverence for their memory. Tombs consequently, and not temples, were the objects on which they lavished their architectural resources. They certainly were not idolaters, in the sense in which we usually understand the term. They had no distinct or privileged priesthood, and consequently had no motive for erecting temples which by their magnificence should be pleasing to their gods or tend to the glorification of their kings or priests. Still less were they required for congregational purposes by the people at large.

The only individual temple of Etruscan origin of which we have any knowledge, is that of Capitoline Jupiter at Rome.[159] Originally small, it was repaired and rebuilt till it became under the Empire a splendid fane. But not one vestige of it now remains, nor any description from which we could restore its appearance with anything like certainty.

From the chapter of the work of Vitruvius just alluded to, we learn that the Etruscans had two classes of temples: one circular, like their structural tombs, and dedicated to one deity; the other class rectangular, but these, always possessing three cells, were devoted to the worship of three gods.

The general arrangement of the plan, as described by Vitruvius, was that shown on the plan above (Fig. 1), and is generally assented to by all those who have attempted the restoration. In larger temples in Roman times the number of pillars in front may have been doubled, and they would thus be arranged like those of the portico of the Pantheon, which is essentially an Etruscan arrangement. The restoration of the elevation is more difficult, and the argument too long to be entered upon here;[160] but its construction and proportions seem to have been very much like those drawn in the above diagram (Fig. 2). Of course, as wooden structures, they were richly and elaborately carved, and the effect heightened by colours, but it is in vain to attempt to restore them. Without a single example to guide us, and with very little collateral evidence which can at all be depended upon, it is hardly possible that any satisfactory restoration could now be made. Moreover, their importance in the history of art is so insignificant, that the labour such an attempt must involve would hardly be repaid by the result.

The original Etruscan circular temple seems to have been a mere circular cell with a porch. The Romans surrounded it with a peristyle, which probably did not exist in the original style. They magnified it afterwards into the most characteristic and splendid of all their temples, the Pantheon, whose portico is Etruscan in arrangement and design, and whose cell still more distinctly belongs to that order; nor can there be any doubt that the simpler Roman temples of circular form are derived from Etruscan originals.[161] It would therefore be of great importance if we could illustrate the later buildings from existing remains of the older: but the fact is that such deductions as we may draw from the copies are our only source of information respecting the originals.

We know little of any of the civil buildings with which the cities of Etruria were adorned, beyond the knowledge obtained from the remains of their theatres and amphitheatres. The form of the latter was essentially Etruscan, and was adopted by the Romans, with whom it became their most characteristic and grandest architectural object. Of the amphitheatres of ancient Etruria only one now remains in so perfect a state as to enable us to judge of their forms. It is that at Sutrium, which, however, being entirely cut in the rock, neither affords information as to the mode of construction nor enables us to determine its age. The general dimensions are 295 ft. in its greatest length by 265 in breadth, and it is consequently much nearer a circular form than the Romans generally adopted: but in other respects the arrangements are such as appear to have usually prevailed in after times.

Besides these, we have numerous works of utility, but these belong more strictly to engineering than to architectural science. The city walls of the Etruscans surpass those of any other ancient nation in extent and beauty of workmanship. Their drainage works and their bridges, as well as those of the kindred Pelasgians in Greece, still remain monuments of their industrial science and skill, which their successors never surpassed.

On the whole, perhaps we are justified in asserting that the Etruscans were not an architectural people, and had no temples or palaces worthy of attention. It at least seems certain that nothing of the sort is now to be found, even in ruins, and were it not that the study of Etruscan art is a necessary introduction to that of Roman, it would hardly be worth while trying to gather together and illustrate the few fragments and notices of it that remain.

TOMBS.

The tombs of the Etruscans now found may be divided into two classes— first, those cut in the rock, and resembling dwelling-houses; secondly, the circular tumuli, which latter are by far the most numerous and important class.

Each of these may be again subdivided into two kinds. The rock-cut tombs include, firstly, those with only a façade on the face of the rock and a sepulchral chamber within; secondly, those cut quite out of the rock and standing free all round. To this class probably once belonged an immense number of tombs built in the ordinary way; but all these have totally disappeared, and consequently the class, as now under consideration, consists entirely of excavated examples.

The second class may be divided into those tumuli erected over chambers cut in the tufaceous rock which is found all over Etruria, and those which have chambers built above-ground.

In the present state of our knowledge it is impossible to say which of these classes is the older. We know that the Egyptians buried in caves long before the Etruscans landed in Italy, and at the same time raised pyramids over rock-cut and built chambers. We know too that Abraham was buried in the Cave of Machpelah in Syria. On the other hand, the tombs at Smyrna (Woodcut No. 113), the treasuries of Mycenæ (Woodcut No. 124), the sepulchre of Alyattes (Woodcut No. 115), and many others, are proofs of the antiquity of the tumuli, which are found all over Europe and Asia, and appear to have existed from the earliest ages.

The comparative antiquity of the different kinds of tombs being thus doubtful, it will be sufficient for the purposes of the present work to classify them architecturally. It may probably be assumed, with safety, that all the modes which have been enumerated were practised by the Etruscans at a period very slightly subsequent to their migration into Italy.

Of the first class of the rock-cut tombs—those with merely a façade externally—the most remarkable group is that at Castel d’Asso. At this place there is a perpendicular cliff with hundreds of these tombs ranged along its face, like houses in a street. A similar arrangement is found in Egypt at Benihasan, at Petra, and Cyrene, and around all the more ancient cities of Asia Minor.

In Etruria they generally consist of one chamber lighted by the doorway only. Their internal arrangement appears to be an imitation of a dwelling chamber, with furniture, like the apartment itself, cut out of the rock. Externally they have little or no pretension to architectural decoration. It is true that some tombs are found adorned with frontispieces of a debased Doric or Ionic order; but these were executed at a much later period and under Roman domination, and cannot therefore be taken as specimens of Etruscan art, but rather of that corruption of style sure to arise from a conquered people trying to imitate the arts of their rulers.

The general appearance of the second class of rock-cut tombs will be understood from the woodcut (No. 168), representing two monuments at Castel d’Asso. Unfortunately neither is complete, nor is there any complete example known to exist of this class. Perhaps the apex was added structurally and that these, like all such things in Etruria, have perished. Possibly, if cut in the rock, the terminals were slender carved ornaments, and therefore liable to injury. They are usually restored by antiquaries in the shape of rectilinear pyramids, but so far as I know, there is no authority for this. On the contrary, it is more in accordance with what we know of the style and its affinities to suppose that the termination of these monuments, even if added in masonry, was curvilinear.

One remarkable thing about the rock-cut tombs is the form of their mouldings, which differ from any found elsewhere in Europe. Two of these are shown in the annexed woodcut (No. 169). They are very numerous and in great variety, but do not in any instance show the slightest trace of a cornice, nor of any tendency towards one. On the contrary, in place of this, we find nothing but a reverse moulding. It is probable that similar forms may be found in Asia Minor, while something resembling them actually occurs at Persepolis and elsewhere. It is remarkable that this feature did not penetrate to Rome, and that no trace of its influence is found there, as might have been expected.[162]

TUMULI.

The simplest, and therefore perhaps the earliest, monument which can be erected over the graves of the dead, by a people who reverence their departed relatives, is a mound of earth or a cairn of stones, and such seems to have been the form adopted by the Turanian or Tartar races of mankind from the earliest days to the present hour. It is scarcely necessary to remark how universal such monuments were among the ruder tribes of Northern Europe. The Etruscans improved upon this by surrounding the base with a podium, or supporting wall of masonry. This not only defined its limits and gave it dignity, but enabled entrances to be made in it, and otherwise converted it from a mere hillock into a monumental structure. It is usually supposed that this basement was an invariable part of all Etruscan tumuli, and when it is not found, it is assumed that it has been removed, or that it is buried in the rubbish of the mound. No doubt such a stone basement may easily have been removed by the peasantry, or buried, but it is by no means clear that this was invariably the case. It seems that the enclosure was frequently a circle of stones or monumental steles, in the centre of which the tumulus stood. The monuments have hitherto been so carelessly examined and restored, that it is difficult to arrive at anything like certainty with regard to the details of their structure. Nor can we draw any certain conclusion from a comparison with other tumuli of cognate races. The description by Herodotus of the tomb of Alyattes at Sardis (Woodcut No. 115), those described by Pausanias as existing in the Peloponnesus, and the appearances of those at Mycenæ and Orchomenos, might be interpreted either way; but those at Smyrna (Woodcut No. 113), and a great number at least of those in Etruria, have a structural circle of stone as a supporting base to the mound.

These tumuli are found existing in immense numbers in every necropolis of the Etruscans. A large space was generally set apart for the purpose outside the walls of all their great cities. In these cemeteries the tumuli are arranged in rows, like houses in streets. Even now we can count them by hundreds, and in the neighbourhood of the largest cities— at Vulci, for instance—almost by thousands.

Most of them are now worn down by the effect of time to nearly the level of the ground, though some of the larger ones still retain an imposing appearance. Nearly all have been rifled at some early period, though the treasures still discovered almost daily in some places show how vast their extent was, and how much even now remains to be done before this vast mine of antiquity can be said to be exhausted.

One of the most remarkable among those that have been opened in modern times is at Cervetri, the ancient Cære, known as the Regulini Galeassi tomb, from the names of its discoverers.

Like a Nubian pyramid or Buddhist tope, it consists of an inner and older tumulus, around and over which another has been added. In the outer mound are five tombs either of dependent or inferior personages. These were rifled long ago; but the outer pyramid having effectually concealed the entrance to the principal tomb, it remained untouched till very lately, when it yielded to its discoverers a richer collection of ornaments and utensils in gold and bronze than has ever been found in one place before.

The dimensions and arrangements of this tumulus will be understood from Woodcuts Nos. 170, 171, and from the two sections of the principal tomb which are annexed to them. These last display an irregularity of construction very unusual in such cases, for which no cause can be assigned. The usual section is perfectly regular, as in the annexed woodcut (No. 172), taken from another tomb at the same place.

These chambers, like all those of the early Etruscans, are vaulted on the horizontal principle, like the tombs at Mycenæ and Orchomenos, though none are found in Italy at all equal to those of Greece in dimensions or beauty of construction.

Woodcut No. 173 is a perspective view of the principal chamber in the Regulini Galeassi tomb, showing the position of the furniture found in it when first opened, consisting of biers or bedsteads, shields, arrows, and vessels of various sorts. A number of vases are hung in a curious recess in the roof, the form of which would be inexplicable but for the utensils found in it. With this clue to its meaning we can scarcely doubt that it represents a place for hanging such vessels in the houses of the living.

All the treasures found in this tomb are in the oldest style of Etruscan art, and are so similar to the bronzes and ornaments brought by Layard from Assyria as to lead to the belief that they had a common origin. The tomb, with its contents, probably dates from the 9th or 10th century before the Christian era.

The largest tomb hitherto discovered in Etruria is now known as the Cocumella, in the necropolis at Vulci. It is rather more than 240 ft. in diameter, and originally could not have been less than 115 or 120 ft. in height, though now it only rises to 50 ft.

Near its centre are the remains of two solid towers, one circular, the other square, neither of them actually central, nor are they placed in such a way that we can understand how they can have formed a part of any symmetrical design. A plan and a view of the present appearance of this monument are given in Woodcuts 174 and 175.

This tumulus, with its principal remaining features thus standing on one side of the centre, may possibly assist us to understand the curious description found in Pliny[163] of the tomb of Porsenna. This description is quoted from Varro, being evidently regarded by Pliny himself as not a little apocryphal. According to this account it consisted of a square basement 300 ft. each way, from which arose five pyramids, united at the summit by a bronze circle or cupola. This was again surmounted by four other pyramids, the summits of which were again united at a height of 300 ft. from the ground. From this point rose still five more pyramids, whose height Varro (from modesty, as Pliny surmises) omits to state, but which was estimated in Etruscan traditions at the same height as the rest of the monument. This last statement, which does not rest on any real authority, may well be regarded as exaggerated; but if we take the total height as about 400 ft., it is easy to understand that in the age of Pliny, when all the buildings were low, such a structure, as high as the steeple at Salisbury, would appear fabulous; but the vast piles that have been erected by tomb-building races in other parts of the earth render it by no means improbable that Varro was justified in what he asserted.[164]

Near the gate of Albano is found a small tomb of five pyramidal pillars rising from a square base, exactly corresponding with Varro’s description of the lower part of the tomb of Porsenna. It is called by tradition the tomb of Aruns, the son of Porsenna, though the character of the mouldings with which it is adorned would lead us to assign to it a more modern date. It consists of a lofty podium, on which are placed five pyramids, a large one in the centre and four smaller ones at the angles. Its present appearance is shown in the annexed woodcut (No. 176).

There are not in Etruria any features sufficiently marked to characterise a style of architecture, nor any pillars with their accessories which can be considered to constitute an order. It is true that in some of the rock-cut tombs square piers support the roof; and in one or two instances rounded pillars are found, but these are either without mouldings or ornamented only with Roman details, betraying the lateness of their execution. The absence of built examples of the class of tombs found in the rock prevents us from recognising any of those peculiarities of construction which sometimes are as characteristic of the style and as worthy of attention as the more purely ornamental parts.

From their city gates, their aqueducts and bridges, we know that the Etruscans used the radiating arch at an early age, with deep voussoirs and elegant mouldings, giving it that character of strength which the Romans afterwards imparted to their works of the same class. The Cloaca Maxima of Rome (Woodcut No. 104) must be considered as a work executed under Etruscan superintendence, and a very perfect specimen of the class.

At the same time the Etruscans used the pointed arch, constructed horizontally, and seem to have had the same predilection for it which characterised the cognate Pelasgian race in Greece. A gateway at Arpino (Woodcut No. 177) is almost identical with that at Thoricus (Woodcut No. 126), but larger and more elegant; and there are many specimens of the same class found in Italy. The portion of an aqueduct at Tusculum, shown in Woodcut No. 178, is a curious transition specimen, where the two stones meeting at the apex (usually called the Egyptian form, being the first step towards the true arch) are combined with a substructure of horizontal converging masonry.

In either of these instances the horizontal arch is a legitimate mode of construction, and may have been used long after the principle of the radiating arch was known. The great convenience of the latter, as enabling large spaces to be spanned even with brick or the smallest stones, and thus dispensing with the necessity for stones of very large dimensions, led ultimately to its universal adoption. Subsequently, when the pointed form of the radiating arch was introduced, no motive remained for the retention of the horizontal method, and it was entirely abandoned.

Introduction

We now approach the last revolution that completed and closed the great cycle of the arts and civilisation of the ancient world. We have seen Art spring Minerva-like, perfect from the head of her great parent, in Egypt. We have admired it in Assyria, rich, varied, but unstable; aiming at everything, but never attaining maturity or perfection. We have tried to trace the threads of early Pelasgic art in Asia, Greece, and Etruria, spreading their influence over the world, and laying the foundation of other arts which the Pelasgi were incapable of developing. We have seen all these elements gathered together in Greece, the essence extracted from each, and the whole forming the most perfect and beautiful combinations of intellectual power that the world has yet witnessed. We have now only to contemplate the last act in the great drama, the gorgeous but melancholy catastrophe by which all these styles of architecture were collected in wild confusion in Rome, and there perished beneath the luxury and crimes of that mighty people, who for a while made Rome the capital of Europe.

View them as we will, the arts of Rome were never an indigenous or natural production of the soil or people, but an aggregation of foreign styles in a state of transition from the old and time-honoured forms of Pagan antiquity to the new development introduced by Christianity. We cannot of course suppose that the Romans foresaw the result to which their amalgamation of previous styles was tending; still they advanced as steadily towards that result as if a prophetic spirit had guided them to a well-defined conception of what was to be. It was not however permitted to the Romans to complete this task. Long before the ancient methods and ideas had been completely moulded into the new, the power of Rome sank beneath her corruption, and a long pause took place, during which the Christian arts did not advance in Western Europe beyond the point they had reached in the age of Constantine. Indeed, in many respects, they receded from it during the dark ages. When they reappeared in the 10th and 11th centuries it was in an entirely new garb and with scarcely a trace of their origin—so distinct indeed that it appears more like a reinvention than a reproduction of forms long since familiar to the Roman world. Had Rome retained her power and pre-eminence a century or two longer, a style might have been elaborated as distinct from that of the ancient world, and as complete in itself, as our pointed Gothic, and perhaps more beautiful. Such was not the destiny of the world; and what we have now to do is to examine this transition style as we find it in ancient Rome, and familiarise ourselves with the forms it took during the three centuries of its existence, as without this knowledge all the arts of the Gothic era would for ever remain an inexplicable mystery. The chief value of the Roman style consists in the fact that it contains the germs of all that is found in the Middle Ages, and affords the key by which its mysteries may be unlocked, and its treasures rendered available. Had the transition been carried through in the hands of an art-loving and artistic people, the architectural beauties of Rome must have surpassed those of any other city in the world, for its buildings surpass in scale those of Egypt and in variety those of Greece, while they affect to combine the beauties of both. In constructive ingenuity they far surpass anything the world had seen up to that time, but this cannot redeem offences against good taste, nor enable any Roman productions to command our admiration as works of art, or entitle them to rank as models to be followed either literally or in spirit.

During the first two centuries and a half of her existence, Rome was virtually an Etruscan city, wholly under Etruscan influence; and during that period we read of temples and palaces being built and of works of immense magnitude being undertaken for the embellishment of the city; and we have even now more remains of kingly than we have of consular Rome.

After expelling her kings and shaking off Etruscan influence, Rome existed as a republic for five centuries, and during this long age of barbarism she did nothing to advance science or art. Literature was almost wholly unknown within her walls, and not one monument has come down to our time, even by tradition, worthy of a city of a tenth part of her power and magnitude. There is probably no instance in the history of the world of a capital city existing so long, populous and peaceful at home, prosperous and powerful abroad, and at the same time so utterly devoid of any monuments or any magnificence to dignify her existence.

When, however, Carthage was conquered and destroyed, when Greece was overrun and plundered, and Egypt, with her long-treasured art, had become a dependent province, Rome was no longer the city of the Aryan Romans, but the sole capital of the civilised world. Into her lap were poured all the artistic riches of the universe; to Rome flocked all who sought a higher distinction or a more extended field for their ambition than their own provincial capitals could then afford. She thus became the centre of all the arts and of all the science then known; and, so far at least as quantity is concerned, she amply redeemed her previous neglect of them. It seems an almost indisputable fact that, during the three centuries of the Empire, more and larger buildings were erected in Rome and her dependent cities than ever were erected in a like period in any part of the world.

For centuries before the establishment of the Roman Empire, progressive development and increasing population, joined to comparative peace and security, had accumulated around the shores of the Mediterranean a mass of people enjoying material prosperity greater than had ever been known before. All this culminated in the first centuries of the Christian era. The greatness of the ancient world was then full, and a more overwhelming and gorgeous spectacle than the Roman Empire then displayed never dazzled the eyes of mankind. From the banks of the Euphrates to those of the Tagus, every city vied with its neighbour in the erection of temples, baths, theatres, and edifices for public use or private luxury. In all cases these display far more evidence of wealth and power than of taste and refinement, and all exhibit traces of that haste to enjoy, which seems incompatible with the correct elaboration of anything that is to be truly great. Notwithstanding all this, there is a greatness in the mass, a grandeur in the conception, and a certain expression of power in all these Roman remains which never fail to strike the beholder with awe and force admiration from him despite his better judgment. These qualities, coupled with the associations that attach themselves to every brick and every stone, render the study of them irresistibly attractive. It was with Imperial Rome that the ancient world perished; it was in her dominions that the new and Christian world was born. All that was great in Heathendom was gathered within her walls, tied, it is true, into an inextricable knot, which was cut by the sword of those barbarians who moulded for themselves out of the fragments that polity and those arts which will next occupy our attention. To Rome all previous history tends; from Rome all modern history springs: to her, therefore, and to her arts, we inevitably turn, if not to admire, at least to learn, and if not to imitate, at any rate to wonder at and to contemplate a phase of art as unknown to previous as to subsequent history, and, if properly understood, more replete with instruction than any other form hitherto known. Though the lesson we learn from it is far oftener what to avoid than what to follow, still there is such wisdom to be gathered from it as should guide us in the onward path, which may lead us to a far higher grade than it was given to Rome herself ever to attain.

III. ROMAN ARCHITECTURE

CONTENTS.

Origin of style—The arch—Orders: Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Composite— Temples—The Pantheon—Roman temples at Athens—at Baalbec.

CHRONOLOGICAL MEMORANDA.

DATES.

Foundation of Rome B.C. 753

Tarquinius Priscus—Cloaca Maxima, foundation of Temple of 616 Jupiter Capitolinus.

Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus dedicated 507

Scipio—tomb at Literium 184

Augustus—temples at Rome 31

Marcellus—theatre at Rome—died 23

Agrippa—portico of Pantheon—died 13

Nero—burning and rebuilding of Rome—died A.D. 68

Vespasian—Flavian amphitheatre built 70

Titus—arch in Forum 79

Destruction of Pompeii 79

Trajan—Ulpian Basilica and Pillar of Victory 98

Hadrian builds temple at Rome, Temple of Jupiter Olympius 117 at Athens, &c.

Septimius Severus—arch at Rome 194

Caracalla—baths 211

Diocletian—palace at Spalato 284

Maxentius—Basilica at Rome 306

Constantine—transfer of Empire to Constantinople 328

The earliest inhabitants of Rome were an Aryan or, as they used to be called, Indo-Germanic race, who established themselves in a country previously occupied by Pelasgians. Their principal neighbour on one side was Etruria, a Pelasgian nation. On the other hand was Magna Græcia, which had been colonised in very early ages by Hellenic settlers of kindred origin. It was therefore impossible that the architecture of the Romans should not be in fact a mixture of the styles of these two people. As a transition order, it was only a mechanical juxtaposition of both styles, the real fusion taking place many long centuries afterwards. Throughout the Roman period the two styles remain distinct, and there is no great difficulty in referring almost every feature in Roman architecture to its origin.

From the Greeks were borrowed the rectangular peristylar temple, with its columns and horizontal architraves, though they seldom if ever used it in its perfect purity, the cella of the Greek temples not being sufficiently large for their purposes. The principal Etruscan temples, as we have already shown, were square in plan, and the inner half occupied by one or more cells, to the sides and back of which the portico never extended. The Roman rectangular temple is a mixture of these two: it is generally, like the Greek examples, longer than its breadth, but the colonnade never seems to have entirely surrounded the building. Sometimes it extends to the two sides as well as the front, but more generally the cella occupies the whole of the inner part though frequently ornamented by a false peristyle of three-quarter columns attached to its walls.

Besides this, the Romans borrowed from the Etruscans or Greeks a circular form of temple. As applied by the Romans it was generally encircled by a peristyle of columns, though it is not clear that the Etruscans so used it; this may therefore be an improvement adopted from the Greeks on an Etruscan form. In early times these circular temples were dedicated to Vesta, Cybele, or some god or goddess either unknown or not generally worshipped by the Aryan races; but in later times this distinction was lost sight of.

A more important characteristic which the Romans borrowed from the Etruscans was the circular arch. It was known, it is true, to the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Greeks; yet none of these people, perhaps excepting the Assyrians, seem to have used it as a feature in their ornamental architecture; but the Etruscans appear to have had a peculiar predilection for it, and from them the Romans adopted it boldly, and introduced it into almost all their buildings. It was not at first used in temples of Grecian form, nor even in their peristylar circular ones. In the civil buildings of the Romans it was a universal feature, but was generally placed in juxtaposition with the Grecian orders. In the Colosseum, for instance, the whole construction is arched; but a useless network of ill-designed and ill-arranged Grecian columns, with their entablatures, is spread over the whole. This is a curious instance of the mixture of the two styles, and as such is very characteristic of Roman art; but in an artistic point of view the place of these columns would have been far better supplied by buttresses or panels, or some expedient more correctly constructive.

After having thoroughly familiarised themselves with the forms of the arch as an architectural feature, the Romans made a bold stride in advance by applying it as a vault both to the circular and rectangular forms of buildings. The most perfect examples of this are the rotunda of the Pantheon and the basilica of Maxentius, commonly called the Temple of Peace, strangely like each other in conception, though apparently so distant in date. In these buildings the Roman architects so completely emancipated themselves from the trammels of former styles as almost to entitle them to claim the invention of a new order of architecture. It would have required some more practice to invent details appropriate to the purpose; still these two buildings are to this hour unsurpassed for boldness of conception and just appreciation of the manner in which the new method ought to be applied. This is almost universally acknowledged so far as the interior of the Pantheon is concerned. In simple grandeur it is as yet unequalled; its faults being principally those of detail. It is not so easy, however, to form an opinion of the Temple of Peace in its present ruined state; but in so far as we can judge from what yet remains of it, in boldness and majesty of conception it must have been quite equal to the other example, though it must have required far more familiarity with the style adopted to manage its design as appropriately as the simpler dome of the Pantheon.

These two buildings may be considered as exemplifying the extent to which the Romans had progressed in the invention of a new style of architecture and the state in which they left it to their successors. It may however be worth while pointing out how, in transplanting Roman architecture to their new capital on the shores of the Bosphorus, the semi-Oriental nation seized on its own circular form, and, modifying and moulding it to its purpose, wrought out the Byzantine style; in which the dome is the great feature, almost to the total exclusion of the rectangular form with its intersecting vaults. On the other hand, the rectangular form was appropriated by the nations of the West with an equally distinct rejection of the circular and domical forms, except in those cases in which we find an Eastern people still incorporated with them. Thus in Italy both styles continued long in use, the one in baptisteries, the other in churches, but always kept distinct, as in Rome. In France they were so completely fused into each other that it requires considerable knowledge of architectural analysis to separate them again into their component parts. In England we rejected the circular form altogether, and so they did eventually in Germany, except when under French influence. Each race reclaimed its own among the spoils of Rome, and used it with the improvements it had acquired during its employment in the Imperial city.

ORDERS.

The first thing that strikes the student in attempting to classify the numerous examples of Roman architecture is the immense variety of purposes to which it is applied, as compared with previous styles. In Egypt architecture was applied only to temples, palaces and tombs. In Greece it was almost wholly confined to temples and theatres; and in Etruria to tombs. It is in Rome that we first feel that we have not to deal with either a Theocracy or a kingdom, but with a great people, who for the first time in the world’s history rendered architecture subservient to the myriad wants of the many-headed monster. It thus happens that in the Roman cities, in addition to temples we find basilicas, theatres and amphitheatres, baths, palaces, tombs, arches of triumph and pillars of victory, gates, bridges, and aqueducts, all equally objects of architectural skill. The best of these, in fact, are those which from previous neglect in other countries are here stamped with originality. These would have been noble works indeed had it not been that the Romans unsuccessfully applied to them those orders and details of architecture which were intended only to be applied to temples by other nations. In the time of Constantine these orders had nearly died out, and were only subordinately used for decorative purposes. In a little while they would have died out altogether, and the Roman would have become a new and complete style; but, as before remarked, this did not take place, and the most ancient orders therefore still remain an essential part of Roman art. We find the old orders predominating in the age of Augustus, and see them gradually die out as we approach that of Constantine.

DORIC.

Adopting the usual classification, the first of the Roman orders is the Doric, which, like everything else in this style, takes a place about half-way between the Tuscan wooden posts and the nobly simple order of the Greeks. It no doubt was a great improvement on the former, but for monumental purposes infinitely inferior to the latter. It was, however, more manageable; and for forums or courtyards, or as a three-quarter column between arcades, it was better adapted than the severer Greek style, which, when so employed, not only loses almost all its beauty, but becomes more unmeaning than the Roman. This fact was apparently recognised; for there is not, so far as is known, a single Doric temple throughout the Roman world. It would in consequence be most unfair to institute a comparison between a mere utilitarian prop used only in civil buildings and an order which the most refined artists in the world spent all their ingenuity in rendering the most perfect, because it was devoted to the highest religious purposes.

The addition of an independent base made the order much more generally useful, and its adoption brought it much more into harmony with the other two existing orders, which would appear to have been the principal object of its introduction. The keynote of Roman architecture was the Corinthian order; and as, from the necessities of their tall, many-storeyed buildings, the Romans were forced to use the three orders together, often one over the other, it was indispensable that the three should be reduced to something like harmony. This was accordingly done, but at the expense of the Doric order, which, except when thus used in combination, must be confessed to have very little claim to our admiration.

IONIC.

The Romans were much more unfortunate in their modifications of the Ionic order than in those which they introduced into the Doric. They never seem to have either liked or understood it, nor to have employed it except as a mezzo termine between the other two. In its own native East this order had originally only been used in porticoes between piers or antæ, where of course only one face was shown, and there were no angles to be turned. When the Greeks adopted it they used it in temples of Doric form, and in consequence were obliged to introduce a capital at each angle, with two voluted faces in juxtaposition at right angles to one another. In some instances—internally at least—as at Bassæ (Woodcut No. 142) they used a capital with four faces. The Romans, impatient of control, eagerly seized on this modification, but never quite got over the extreme difficulty of its employment. With them the angular volutes became mere horns, and even in the best examples the capital wants harmony and meaning.

When used as a three-quarter column these alterations were not required, and then the order resembled more its original form; but even in this state it was never equal to the Greek examples, and gradually deteriorated to the corrupt application of it in the Temple of Concord in the Forum, which is the most degenerate example of the order now to be found in Roman remains.

CORINTHIAN.

The fate of this order in the hands of the Romans was different from that of the other two. The Doric and Ionic orders had reached their acme of perfection in the hands of the Grecian artists, and seem to have become incapable of further improvement. The Corinthian, on the contrary, was a recent conception; and although nothing can surpass the elegance and grace with which the Greeks adorned it, the new capital never acquired with them that fulness and strength so requisite to render it an appropriate architectural ornament. These were added to it by the Romans, or rather perhaps by Grecian artists acting under their direction, who thus, as shown in Woodcut No. 181, produced an order which for richness combined with proportion and architectural fitness has hardly been surpassed. The base is elegant and appropriate; the shaft is of the most pleasing proportion, and the fluting gives it just the requisite degree of richness and no more; while the capital, though bordering on over-ornamentation, is so well arranged as to appear just suited to the work it has to do. The acanthus-leaves, it is true, approach the very verge of that degree of direct imitation of nature which, though allowable in architectural ornaments, is seldom advisable; they are, however, disposed so formally, and there still remains so much that is conventional in them, that, though perhaps not justly open to criticism on this account, they are nevertheless a very extreme example.

The entablature is not so admirable as the column. The architrave is too richly carved. It is evident, however, that this arose from the artist having copied in carving what the Greeks had only painted, and thereby produced a complexity far from pleasing.

The frieze, as we now find it, is perfectly plain; but this undoubtedly was not the case when originally erected. It either must have been painted (in which case the whole order of course was also painted), or ornamented with scrolls or figures in bronze, which may probably have been gilt.

The cornice is perhaps open to the same criticism as the architrave, of being over-rich, though this evidently arose from the same cause, viz., reproducing in carving what was originally only painted; which to our Northern eyes at least appears more appropriate for internal than for external decoration, though, under the purer skies where it was introduced and used, this remark may be hardly applicable.

The order of the portico of the Pantheon is, according to our notions, a nobler specimen of what an external pillar should be than that of the Temple of Jupiter Stator. The shafts are of one block, unfluted; the capital plainer; and the whole entablature, though as correctly proportional, is far less ornamented and more suited to the greater simplicity of the whole.

The order of the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina is another example intermediate between these two. The columns are in this instance very similar to those of the Pantheon, and the architrave is plain. The frieze, however, is ornamented with more taste than any other in Rome, and is a very pleasing example of those conventional representations of plants and animals which are so well suited to architectural purposes— more like Nature than those of the Greeks, but still avoiding direct imitation sufficiently to escape the affectation of pretending to appear what it is not and cannot be.

The Maison Carrée at Nîmes presents an example of a frieze ornamented with exquisite taste, while at Baalbec, and in some other examples, we have them so over-ornamented that the effect is far more offensive, from utter want of repose, than the frieze in the Temple of Jupiter Stator ever could be from its baldness.

Besides these there are at least fifty varieties of Corinthian capitals to be found, either in Rome or in various parts of the Roman Empire, all executed within the three centuries during which Rome continued to be the imperial city. Some of them are remarkable for that elegant simplicity which so evidently betrays the hand of a Grecian artist, while others again show a lavish exuberance of ornament which is but too characteristic of Roman art in general. Many, however, contain the germs of something better than was accomplished in that age; and a collection of them would afford more useful suggestions for designing capitals than have yet been available to modern artists.

COMPOSITE ORDER.

Among their various attempts to improve the order which has just been described, the Romans hit upon one which is extremely characteristic of their whole style of art. This is known by the distinguishing name of the Composite order, though virtually more like the typical examples of the Corinthian order than many of those classed under the latter denomination.

The greatest defect of the Corinthian capital is the weakness of the small volutes supporting the angles of the abacus. A true artist would have remedied this by adding to their strength and carrying up the fulness of the capital to the top. The Romans removed the whole of the upper part and substituted an Ionic capital instead. Their only original idea, if it may be so called, in art was that of putting two dissimilar things together to make one which should combine the beauties of both, though as a rule the one generally serves to destroy the other. In the Composite capital they never could hide the junction; and consequently, though rich, and in some respects an improvement on the order out of which it grew, this capital never came into general use, and has seldom found favour except amongst the blindest admirers of all that the Romans did.

In the latter days of the Empire the Romans attempted another innovation which promised far better success, and with very little more elaboration would have been a great gain to the principles of architectural design. This was the introduction of the Persian or Assyrian base, modified to suit the details of the Corinthian or Composite orders. If they had always used this instead of the square pedestals on which they mounted their columns, and had attenuated the pillars slightly when used with arcades, they would have avoided many of the errors they fell into. This application, however, came too late to be generally used; and the forms already introduced continued to prevail. At the same time it is evident that a Persepolitan base for an Ionic and even for a Corinthian column would be amongst the greatest improvements that could now be introduced, especially for internal architecture.

COMPOSITE ARCADES.

The true Roman order, however, was not any of these columnar ordinances we have been enumerating, but an arrangement of two pillars placed at a distance from one another nearly equal to their own height, and having a very long entablature, which in consequence required to be supported in the centre by an arch springing from piers. This, as will be seen from the annexed woodcut, was in fact merely a screen of Grecian architecture placed in front of a construction of Etruscan design. Though not without a certain richness of effect, still, as used by the Romans, these two systems remain too distinctly dissimilar for the result to be pleasing, and their use necessitated certain supplemental arrangements by no means agreeable. In the first place, the columns had to be mounted on pedestals, or otherwise an entablature proportional to their size would have been too heavy and too important for a thing so useless and so avowedly a mere ornament. A projecting keystone was also introduced into the arch. This was unobjectionable in itself, but when projecting so far as to do the duty of an intermediate capital, it overpowered the arch without being equal to the work required of it.

The Romans used these arcades with all the 3 orders, frequently one over the other, and tried various expedients to harmonise the construction with the ornamentation, but without much effect. They seem always to have felt the discordance as a blemish, and at last got rid of it, but whether they did so in the best way is not quite clear. The most obvious mode of effecting this would no doubt have been by omitting the pillars altogether, bending the architrave, as is usually done, round the arch, and then inserting the frieze and cornices into the wall, using them as a string-course. A slight degree of practice would soon have enabled them—by panelling the pier, cutting off its angles, or some such expedient—to have obtained the degree of lightness or of ornament they required, and so really to have invented a new order.

This, however, was not the course that the Romans pursued. What they did was to remove the pier altogether, and to substitute for it the pillar taken down from its pedestal. This of course was not effected at once, but was the result of many trials and expedients. One of the earliest of these is observed in the Ionic Temple of Concord before alluded to, in which a concealed arch is thrown from the head of each pillar, but above the entablature, so as to take the whole weight of the superstructure from off the cornice between the pillars. When once this was done it was perceived that so deep an entablature was no longer required, and that it might be either wholly omitted, as was sometimes done in the centre intercolumniation, or very much reduced. There is an old temple at Talavera in Spain, which is a good example of the former expedient; and the Roman gateway at Damascus is a remarkable instance of the latter. There the architrave, frieze and cornice are carried across in the form of an arch from pier to pier, thus constituting a new feature in architectural design.

In Diocletian’s reign we find all these changes already introduced into domestic architecture, as shown in Woodcut No. 185, representing the great court of his palace at Spalato, where, at one end, the entablature is bent into the form of an arch over the central intercolumniation, while on each side of the court the arches spring directly from the capitals of the columns.

Had the Romans at this period been more desirous to improve their external architecture, there is little doubt that they would have adopted the expedient of omitting the entire entablature: but at this time almost all their efforts were devoted to internal improvement, and not unfrequently at the expense of the exterior. Indeed the whole history of Roman art, from the time of Augustus to that of Constantine, is a transition from the external architecture of the Greeks to the internal embellishment of the Christians. At first we see the cells of the temple gradually enlarged at the expense of the peristyle, and finally, in some instances, entirely overpowering them. Their basilicas and halls become more important than their porticoes, and the exterior is in almost every instance sacrificed to internal arrangements. For an interior, an arch resting on a circular column is obviously far more appropriate than one resting on a pier. Externally, on the contrary, the square pier is most suitable, because a pillar cannot support a wall of sufficient thickness. This defect was not remedied until the Gothic architects devised the plan of coupling two or more pillars together; but this point had not been reached at the time when with the fall of Rome all progress in art was effectually checked for a time.

TEMPLES.

There is perhaps nothing that strikes the inquirer into the architectural history of Rome more than the extreme insignificance of her temples, as compared with the other buildings of the imperial city and with some contemporary temples found in the provinces. The only temple which remains at all worthy of such a capital is the Pantheon. All others are now mere fragments, from which we can with difficulty restore even the plans of the buildings, far less judge of their effect. We have now no means of forming an opinion of the great national temple of the Capitoline Jove, no trace of it, nor any intelligible description, having been preserved to the present time. Its having been of Etruscan origin, and retaining its original form to the latest day, would lead us to suppose that the temple itself was small, and that its magnificence, if any, was confined to the enclosure and to the substructure, which may have been immense.

Of the Augustan age we have nothing but the remains of three temples, each consisting of only three columns; and the excavations that have been made around them have not sufficed to make even their plans tolerably clear.

The most remarkable was that of Jupiter Stator in the Forum, the beautiful details of which have been already alluded to and described. This temple was octastyle in front. It was raised on a stylobate 22 ft. in height, the extreme width of which was 98 ft., and this corresponds as closely as possible with 100 Roman ft. The angular columns were 85 ft. from centre to centre. The height of the pillars was 48 ft., and that of the entablature 12 ft. 6 in.[165] It is probable that the whole height to the apex of the pediment was nearly equal to the extreme width, and that it was designed to be so.

The pillars certainly extended on both flanks, and the temple is generally restored as peristylar, but apparently without any authority. From the analogy of the other temples it seems more probable that there were not more than eight or ten pillars on each side, and that the apse of the cella formed the termination opposite the portico.

The temple nearest to this in situation and style is that of Jupiter Tonans.[166] The order in this instance is of slightly inferior dimensions to that of the temple just described, and of very inferior execution. The temple, too, was very much smaller, having only six columns in front, and from its situation it could not well have had more than that number on the flanks, so that its extreme dimensions were probably about 70 ft. by 85.

The third is the Temple of Mars Ultor, of which a plan is annexed; for though now as completely decayed as the other two, in the time of Ant. Sabacco and Palladio there seem to have been sufficient remains to justify an attempt at restoration. As will be seen, it is nearly square in plan (112 ft. by 120). The cella is here a much more important part than is usual in Greek temples, and terminates in an apse, which afterwards became characteristic of all places of worship. Behind the cella, and on each side, was a lofty screen of walls and arches, part of which still remain, and form quite a new adjunct, unlike anything hitherto met with attached to any temple now known.

The next class of temples, called pseudo-peripteral (or those in which the cella occupies the whole of the after part), are generally more modern, certainly more completely Roman, than these last. One of the best specimens at Rome is the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, a small building measuring 72 ft. by 120. There is also a very elegant little Ionic temple of this class called that of Fortuna Virilis; while the Ionic Temple of Concord, built by Vespasian, and above alluded to, appears also to have been of this class. So was the temple in the forum at Pompeii; but the finest specimen now remaining to us is the so-called Maison Carrée at Nîmes, which is indeed one of the most elegant temples of the Roman world, owing probably a great deal of its beauty to the taste of the Grecian colonists long settled in its neighbourhood. It is hexastyle, with 11 columns in the flanks, 3 of which stand free, and belong to the portico; the remaining 8 are attached to the walls of the cella. The temple is small, only 45 ft. by 85; but such is the beauty of its proportions and the elegance of its details that it strikes every beholder with admiration.

The date of this temple has not been satisfactorily ascertained. From the nail-holes of the inscription on the frieze it has been attempted to make out the names of Caius and Lucius Cæsar, and there is nothing in the style of its architecture to contradict this hypothesis. Even if the buildings in the capital were such as to render this date ambiguous, it would scarcely be safe to apply any argument derived from them to a provincial example erected in the midst of a Grecian colony. But for their evidence we might almost be inclined to fancy its style represented the age of Trajan.

The temple of Diana in the same city is another edifice of singular beauty of detail, and interesting from the peculiarity of its plan. Exclusive of the portico it is nearly square, 70 ft. by 65, and consists of a cella which is covered with a stone ribbed vault, the thrust of which is counteracted by smaller vaults thrown across two side passages or aisles which are, however, not thrown open to the cella. The columns in the cella are detached from the wall, which is singularly interesting as the origin of much which we find afterwards in Gothic work. (A somewhat similar arrangement is found in the small temple at Baalbec (Woodcut No. 197) where, however, the peristyle occupies the position and serves the same purpose as the aisles at Nîmes, viz., to resist the thrust of the vault over the cella.)

Throughout this building the details of the architecture are unsurpassed for variety and elegance by anything found in the metropolis, and are applied here with a freedom and elegance bespeaking the presence of a Grecian mind even in this remote corner of the Empire. Another interesting feature is the porch. This was supported by four slender columns of singularly elegant design, but placed so widely apart that they could not have carried a stone entablature. It is difficult to guess what could have been the form of the wooden ones; but a mortice which still exists in the walls of the temple shows that it must have been eight or ten feet deep, and therefore probably of Etruscan form (Woodcut No. 167); though it may have assumed a circular arched form between the pillars.[167]

Another peculiarity is, that the light was introduced over the portico by a great semicircular window, as is done in the Buddhist caves in India; which, so far as I know, is the most perfect mode of lighting the interior of a temple which has yet been discovered.

Not far from the Colosseum, in the direction of the Forum, are still to be seen the remains of a great double temple built by the Emperor Hadrian, and dedicated to Venus and Rome, and consisting of the ruins of its two cells, each about 70 ft. square, covered with tunnel-vaults, and placed back to back, so that their apses touch one another. These stand on a platform 480 ft. long by 330 wide; and it is generally supposed that on the edge of this once stood 56 great columns, 65 ft. in height, thus moulding the whole into one great peripteral temple. Some fragments of such pillars are said to be found in the neighbourhood, but not one is now erect,—not even a base is in its place,—nor can any of its columns be traced to any other buildings. This part, therefore, of the arrangement is very problematical, and I should be rather inclined to restore it, as Palladio and the older architects have done, with a corridor of ten small columns in front of each of the cells. If we could assume the plan of this temple to have been really peripteral, as supposed, it must have been a building worthy of the imperial city and of the magnificence of the emperor to whom its erection is ascribed.

More perfect and more interesting than any of these is the Pantheon, which is undoubtedly one of the finest temples of the ancient world. Externally its effect is very much destroyed by its two parts, the circular and the rectangular, being so dissimilar in style and so incongruously joined together. The portico especially, in itself the finest which Rome exhibits, is very much injured by being prefixed to a mass which overpowers it and does not harmonise with any of its lines. The pitch, too, of its pediment is perhaps somewhat too high, but, notwithstanding all this, its sixteen columns, the shaft of each composed of a single block, and the simple grandeur of the details, render it perhaps the most satisfactory example of its class.

The pillars are arranged in the Etruscan fashion, as they were originally disposed in front of three-celled temples. As they now stand, however, they are added unsymmetrically to a rotunda, and in so clumsy a fashion that the two are certainly not part of the same design and do not belong to the same age. Either it was that the portico was added to the pre-existing rotunda, or that the rotunda is long subsequent to the portico. Unfortunately the two inscriptions on the portico hardly help to a solution of the difficulty. The principal one states that it was built by M. Agrippa, but the “it” may refer to the rotunda only, and may have been put there by those who in the time of Aurelius[168] repaired the temple which had “fallen into decay from age.” This hardly could, under any circumstances, be predicated of the rotunda, which shows no sign of decay during the last seventeen centuries of ill-treatment and neglect, and may last for as many more without injury to its stability, but might be said of a portico which, if of wood, as Etruscan porticoes usually were, may easily in 200 years have required repairs and rebuilding. From a more careful examination on the spot, I am convinced that the portico was added at some subsequent period to the rotunda. If by Agrippa, then the dome must belong to Republican times; if by Severus it may have been, as is generally supposed, the hall of the Baths of Agrippa.[169] Altogether I know of no building whose date and arrangements are so singular and so exceptional as this. Though it is, and always must have been, one of the most prominent buildings in Rome, and most important from its size and design, I know of no other building in Rome whose date or original destination it is so difficult to determine.

Internally perhaps the greatest defect of the building is a want of height in the perpendicular part, which the dome appears to overpower and crush. This mistake is aggravated by the lower part being cut up into two storeys, an attic being placed over the lower order. The former defect may have arisen from the architect wishing to keep the walls in some proportion to the portico. The latter is a peculiarity of the age in which I suppose this temple to have been remodelled, when two or more storeys seem to have become indispensable requisites of architectural design. We must ascribe also to the practice of the age the method of cutting through the entablature by the arches of the great niches, as shown in the sectional part of the last woodcut. It has already been pointed out that this was becoming a characteristic of the style at the time when the circular part of this temple was arranged as it at present appears.

Notwithstanding these defects and many others of detail that might be mentioned, there is a grandeur and a simplicity in the proportions of this great temple that render it still one of the very finest and most sublime interiors in the world, and the dimensions of its dome, 145 ft. 6 in. span by 147 in height, have not yet been surpassed by any subsequent erection. Though it is deprived of its bronze covering[170] and of the greater part of those ornaments on which it mainly depended for effect, and though these have been replaced by tawdry and incongruous modernisms, still nothing can destroy the effect of a design so vast and of a form so simply grand. It possesses moreover one other element of architectural sublimity in having a single window, and that placed high up in the building. I know of no other temples which possess this feature except the great rock-cut Buddhist basilicas of India. In them the light is introduced even more artistically than here; but, nevertheless, that one great eye opening upon heaven is by far the noblest conception for lighting a building to be found in Europe.

Besides this great rotunda there are two other circular temples in or near Rome. The one at Tivoli, shown in plan and elevation in the annexed woodcuts (Nos. 192 and 193), has long been known and admired; the other, near the mouth of the Cloaca Maxima, has a cell surrounded by twenty Corinthian columns of singularly slender proportions. Both these probably stand on Etruscan sites; they certainly are Etruscan in form, and are very likely sacred to Pelasgic deities, either Vesta or Cybele.

Both in dimensions and design they form a perfect contrast to the Pantheon, as might be expected from their both belonging to the Augustan age of art: consequently the cella is small, its interior is unornamented, and all the art and expense is lavished on the external features, especially on the peristyle; showing more strongly than even the rectangular temple the still remaining predominance of Grecian taste, which was gradually dying out during the whole period of the Empire.

It is to be regretted that the exact dates of both these temples are unknown, for, as that at Tivoli shows the stoutest example of a Corinthian column known and that in Rome the slenderest, it might lead to some important deductions if we could be certain which was the older of the two. It may be, however, that this difference of style has no connection with the relative age of the two buildings, but that it is merely an instance of the good taste of the age to which they belong. The Roman example, being placed in a low and flat situation, required all the height that could be given it; that at Tivoli, being placed on the edge of a rock, required as much solidity as the order would admit of to prevent its looking poor and insecure. A Gothic or a Greek architect would certainly have made this distinction.

One more step towards the modern style of round temples was taken before the fall of the Western Empire, in the temple which Diocletian built in his palace at Spalato. Internally the temple is circular, 28 ft. in diameter, and the height of the perpendicular part to the springing of the dome is about equal to its width. This is a much more pleasing proportion than we find in the Pantheon; perhaps the very best that has yet been employed. Externally the building is an octagon, surrounded by a low dwarf peristyle, very unlike that employed in the older examples. This angularity is certainly a great improvement, giving expression and character to the building, and affording flat faces for the entrances or porches; but the peristyle is too low, and mars the dignity of the whole.[171]

To us its principal interest consists in its being so extremely similar to the Christian baptisteries which were erected in the following centuries, and which were copies, but very slightly altered, from buildings of this class.

ATHENS.

Even assuming that Hadrian completed the great Temple of Venus at Rome in the manner generally supposed, it must have been very far surpassed by the great Temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens, which, though probably not entirely erected, was certainly finished, by that Emperor. It was octastyle in front,[172] with a double range of 20 columns on each flank so that it could not well have had less than 106 columns, all about 58 ft. in height, and of the most elegant Corinthian order, presenting altogether a group of far greater magnificence than any other temple we are acquainted with of its class in the ancient world. Its lineal dimensions also, as may be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 195), were only rivalled by the two great Sicilian temples at Selinus and Agrigentum (Woodcuts Nos. 151, 152). It was 135 ft. wide by 354 in length, or nearly the same dimensions as the great Hypostyle Hall at Karnac, from which, however, it differs most materially, that being a beautiful example of an interior, this depending for all its magnificence on the external arrangement of its columns. Mr. Penrose’s discoveries in 1884 show that there was an opisthodomus at the rear and a vestibule or court in front of the cella which may have been hypæthral so as to admit light into the interior. This arrangement became so common in the early Christian world that there must have been some precedent for it; which, in addition to other reasons,[173] strongly inclines me to believe that the arrangement shown in the plan is correct.

BAALBEC.

The temples of Palmyra and Kangovar have been already mentioned in speaking of that of Jerusalem, to which class they seem to belong in their general arrangements, though their details are borrowed from Roman architecture. This, however, is not the case with the temples at Baalbec, which taken together and with their accompaniments, form the most magnificent temple group now left to us of their class and age. The great temple, if completed (which, however, probably it never was), would have been about 160 ft. by 290, and therefore, as a Corinthian temple, only inferior to that of Jupiter Olympius at Athens. Only nine of its colossal columns are now standing, but the bases of most of the others are in situ. Scarcely less magnificent than the temple itself was the court in which it stood, above 380 ft. square, and surrounded on three sides by recessed porticoes of most exuberant richness, though in perhaps rather questionable taste. In front of this was a hexagonal court of very great beauty, with a noble portico of 12 Corinthian columns, with two square blocks of masonry at each end. The whole extent of the portico is 260 ft., and of its kind it is perhaps unrivalled, certainly among the buildings of so late a date as the period to which it belongs.

The other, or smaller temple, stands close to the larger. Its dimensions, to the usual scale, are shown in the plan (Woodcut No. 197). It is larger than any of the Roman peripteral temples, being 117 ft. by 227 ft., or rather exceeding the dimensions of the Parthenon at Athens, and its portico is both wider and higher than that of the Pantheon at Rome. Had this portico been applied to that building, the slope of its pediment would have coincided exactly with that of the upper sloping cornice, and would have been the greatest possible improvement to that edifice. As it is, it certainly is the best proportioned and the most graceful Roman portico of the first class that remains to us in a state of sufficient completeness to allow us to judge of its effect.

The interior of the cella was richly ornamented with niches and pilasters, and covered with a ribbed and coffered vault, remarkable, like every part of this edifice, rather for the profusion than for the good taste of its ornaments.

One of the principal peculiarities of this group of buildings is the immense size of some of the stones used in the substructure of the great temple: three of these average about 63 ft. in length, 10 ft. 5 in. in breadth, and 13 ft. in height. A fourth, of similar dimensions, is lying in the quarry, which it is calculated must weigh alone more than 1100 tons in its rough state, or nearly as much as one of the tubes of the Britannia Bridge. It is not easy to see why such masses were employed. If they had been used as foundation stones their use would have been apparent, but they are placed over several courses of smaller stones, about half-way up the terrace wall, as mere binding stones, apparently for show. It is true that in many places in the Bible and in Josephus nothing is so much insisted upon as the immense size of the stones used in the building of the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem, the bulk of the materials used appearing to have been thought a matter of far more importance than the architecture. It probably was some such feeling as this which led to their employment here, though, had these huge stones been set upright, as the Egyptians would have placed them, we might more easily have understood why so great an expense should have been incurred on their account. As it is, there seems no reason for doubting their being of the same age as the temples they support, though their use is certainly exceptional in Roman temples of this class.

IV. BASILICAS, THEATRES, AND BATHS

CONTENTS.

Basilicas of Trajan and Maxentius—Provincial basilicas—Theatre at Orange—Colosseum—Provincial amphitheatres—Baths of Diocletian.

BASILICAS.

We have already seen that in size and magnificence the temples of Rome were among the least remarkable of her public buildings. It may be doubted whether in any respect, in the eyes of the Romans themselves, the temples were as important and venerable as the basilicas. The people cared for government and justice more than for religion, and consequently paid more attention to the affairs of the basilicas than to those of the temples. Our means for the restoration of this class of buildings are now but small, owing to their slight construction in the first instance, and to their materials having been so suitable for the building of Christian basilicas as to have been extensively used for that purpose. It happens, however, that the remains which we do possess comprise what we know to be the ruins of the two most splendid buildings of this class in Rome, and these are sufficiently complete to enable us to restore their plans with considerable confidence. It is also fortunate that one of these, the Ulpian or Trajan’s basilica, is the typical specimen of those with wooden roofs; the other, that of Maxentius, commonly called the Temple of Peace, is the noblest of the vaulted class.

The rectangular part of Trajan’s basilica was 180 ft. in width and a little more than twice that in length, but, neither end having yet been excavated, its exact longitudinal measurement has not been ascertained. It was divided into five aisles by four rows of columns, each about 35 ft. in height, the centre being 87 ft. wide, and the side-aisles 23 ft. 4 in. each. The centre was covered by a wooden roof of semicircular form,[174] covered apparently with bronze plates richly ornamented and gilt. Above the side aisles was a gallery, the roof of which was supported by an upper row of columns. From the same columns also sprang the arches of the great central aisle. The total internal height was thus probably about 120 ft., or higher than any English cathedral, though not so high as some German and French churches.

At one end was a great semicircular apse, the back part of which was raised, being approached by a semicircular range of steps. In the centre of this platform was the raised seat of the quæstor or other magistrate who presided. On each side, upon the steps, were places for the assessors or others engaged in the business being transacted. In front of the apse was placed an altar, where sacrifice was performed before commencing any important public business.[175]

Externally this basilica could not have been of much magnificence. It was entered on the side of the Forum (on the left hand of the plan and section) by one triple doorway in the centre and two single ones on either side, flanked by shallow porticoes of columns of the same height as those used internally. These supported statues, or rather, to judge from the coins representing the building, rilievos, which may have set off, but could hardly have given much dignity to, a building designed as this was. At the end opposite the apse a similar arrangement seems to have prevailed.

This mode of using columns only half the height of the edifice must have been very destructive of their effect and of the general grandeur of the structure, but it became about this time rather the rule than the exception, and was afterwards adopted for temples and every other class of buildings, so that it was decidedly an improvement when the arch took the place of the horizontal architrave and cornice; the latter always suggested a roof, and became singularly incongruous when applied as a mere ornamental adjunct at half the height of the façade. The interior of the basilica was, however, the important element to which the exterior was entirely sacrificed, a transition in architectural design which we have before alluded to, taking place much faster in basilicas, which were an entirely new form of building, than in temples, whose conformation had become sacred from the traditions of past ages.

The basilica of Maxentius, which was probably not entirely finished till the reign of Constantine, was rather broader than that of Trajan, being 195 ft. between the walls, but it was 100 ft. less in length. The central aisle was very nearly of the same width, being 83 ft. between the walls, and 120 ft. in height. There was, however, a vast difference in the construction of the two; so much so, that we are startled to see how rapid the progress had been during the interval, of less than two centuries, that had elapsed between the construction of the two basilicas.

In this building no pillars were used with the exception of eight great columns in front of the piers, employed merely as ornaments, or as vaulting shafts were in Gothic cathedrals, to support in appearance, though not in construction, the springing of the vaults.[176] The side-aisles were roofed by three great arches, each 74 ft. in span, and the centre by an immense intersecting vault in three compartments. The form of these will be understood from the annexed sections (Woodcuts Nos. 202 and 203), one taken longitudinally, the other across the building. As will be seen from them, all the thrusts are collected to a point and a buttress placed there to receive them: indeed almost all the peculiarities afterwards found in Gothic vaults are here employed on a far grander and more gigantic scale than the Gothic architects ever attempted; but at the same time it must be allowed that the latter, with smaller dimensions, often contrived by a more artistic treatment of their materials to obtain as grand an effect and far more actual beauty than ever were attained in the great transitional halls of the Romans. The largeness of the parts of the Roman buildings was indeed their principal defect, as in consequence of this they must all have appeared smaller than they really were, whereas in all Gothic cathedrals the repetition and smallness of the component parts has the effect of magnifying their real dimensions.

The roofs of these halls had one peculiarity which it would have been well if the mediæval architects had copied, inasmuch as they were all, or at least might have been, honestly used as roofs without any necessity for their being covered with others of wood, as all Gothic vaults unfortunately were. It is true this is perhaps one of the causes of their destruction, for, being only overlaid with cement, the rain wore away the surface, as must inevitably be the case with any composition of the sort exposed horizontally to the weather, and that being gone, the moisture soon penetrated through the crevices of the masonry, destroying the stability of the vault. Still, some of these in Rome have resisted for fifteen centuries, after the removal of any covering they ever might have had, all the accidents of climate and decay, while there is not a Gothic vault of half their dimensions that would stand for a century after the removal of its wooden protection. The construction of a vault capable of resisting the destructive effects of exposure to the atmosphere still remains a problem for modern architects to solve. Until this is accomplished we must regard roofs entirely of honest wood as preferable to the deceptive stone ceilings which were such favourites in the Middle Ages.

The provincial basilicas of the Roman Empire have nearly all perished, probably from their having been converted, first into churches, for which they were so admirably adapted, and then rebuilt to suit the exigencies and taste of subsequent ages. One example, however, still exists in Trèves of sufficient completeness to give a good idea of what such structures were. As will be seen by the annexed plan, it consists of a great hall, 85 ft. in width internally, and rather more than twice that dimension in length. The walls are about 100 ft. in height and pierced with two rows of windows; but whether they were originally separated by a gallery or not is now by no means clear. At one end was the apse, rather more than a semicircle of 60 ft. in diameter. The floor of the apse was raised considerably above that of the body of the building, and was no doubt adorned by a hemicycle of seats raised on steps, with a throne in the centre for the judge. The building has been used for so many purposes since the time of the Romans, and has been so much altered, that it is not easy now to speak with certainty of any of its minor arrangements. Its internal and external appearance, as it stood before the recent restoration, are well expressed in the annexed woodcuts; and though ruined, it was the most complete example of a Roman basilica to be found anywhere out of the capital. A building of this description has been found at Pompeii, which may be considered a fair example of a provincial basilica of the second class. Its plan is perfectly preserved, as shown in Woodcut No. 208. The most striking difference existing between it and those previously described is the square termination instead of the circular apse. It must, however, be observed that Pompeii was situated nearer to Magna Græcia than to Rome, and was indeed far more a Greek than a Roman city. Very slight traces of any Etruscan designs have been discovered there, and scarcely any buildings of the circular form so much in vogue in the capital. Though the ground-plan of this basilica remains perfect, the upper parts are entirely destroyed, and we do not even know for certain whether the central portion was roofed or not.[177]

There is a small square building at Otricoli, which is generally supposed to be a basilica, but its object as well as its age is so uncertain that nothing need be said of it here. In the works of Vitruvius, too, there is a description of one built by him at Fano, the restoration of which has afforded employment for the ingenuity of the admirers of that worst of architects. Even taking it as restored by those most desirous of making the best of it, it is difficult to understand how anything so bad could have been erected in such an age.

It is extremely difficult to trace the origin of these basilicas, owing principally to the loss of all the earlier examples. Their name is Greek, and they may probably be considered as derived from the Grecian Lesche, or perhaps as amplifications of the cellæ of Greek temples, appropriated to the purposes of justice rather than of religion; but till we know more of their earlier form and origin, it is useless speculating on this point. The greatest interest to us, arises rather from the use to which their plan was afterwards applied, than from the source from which they themselves sprang. All the larger Christian churches in the early times were copies, more or less exact, of the basilicas of which that of Trajan is an example. The abundance of pillars, suitable to such an erection, that were found everywhere in Rome, rendered their construction easy and cheap; and the wooden roof with which they were covered was also as simple and as inexpensive a covering as could well be designed. The very uses of the Christian basilicas at first were by no means dissimilar to those of their heathen originals, as they were in reality the assembly halls of the early Christian republic, before they became liturgical churches of the Catholic hierarchy.

The more expensive construction of the bold vaults of the Maxentian basilica went far beyond the means of the early Church, established in a declining and abandoned capital, and this form therefore remained dormant for seven or eight centuries before it was revived by the mediæval architects on an infinitely smaller scale, but adorned with a degree of appropriateness and taste to which the Romans were strangers. It was then used with a completeness and unity which entitle it to be considered as an entirely new style of architecture.

THEATRES.

The theatre was by no means so essential a part of the economy of a Roman city as it was of a Grecian one. With the latter it was quite as indispensable as the temple; and in the semi-Greek city of Herculaneum there was one, and in Pompeii two, on a scale quite equal to those of Greece when compared with the importance of the town itself. In the capital there appears only to have been one, that of Marcellus,[178] built during the reign of Augustus. It it is very questionable whether what we now see—especially the outer arcades—belong to that age, or whether the theatre may not have been rebuilt and these arcades added at some later period. It is so completely built over by modern houses, and so ruined, that it is extremely difficult to arrive at any satisfactory opinion regarding it. Its dimensions were worthy of the capital, the audience part being a semicircle of 410 ft. in diameter, and the scena being of great extent in proportion to the other part, which is a characteristic of all Roman theatres, as compared with Grecian edifices of this class.

One of the most striking Roman provincial theatres is that of Orange, in the south of France. Perhaps it owes its existence, or at all events its splendour, to the substratum of Grecian colonists that preceded the Romans in that country. Its auditorium is 340 ft. in diameter, but much ruined, in consequence of the Princes of Orange having used this part as a bastion in some fortification they were constructing.

The stage is very tolerably preserved. It shows well the increased extent and complication of arrangements required for the theatrical representations of the age in which it was constructed, being a considerable advance towards the more modern idea of a play, as distinguished from the stately semi-religious spectacle in which the Greeks delighted. The noblest part of the building is the great wall at the back, an immense mass of masonry 340 ft. in extent and 116 ft. in height, without a single opening above the basement, and no ornament except a range of blank arches, about midway between the basement and the top, and a few projecting corbels to receive the footings of the masts that supported the velarium. Nowhere does the architecture of the Romans shine so much as when their gigantic buildings are left to tell their own tale by the imposing grandeur of their masses. Whenever ornament is attempted, their bad taste comes out. The size of their edifices, and the solidity of their construction, were only surpassed by the Egyptians, and not always by them; and when, as here, the mass of material heaped up stands unadorned in all its native grandeur, criticism is disarmed, and the spectator stands awe-struck at its majesty, and turns away convinced that truly “there were giants in those days.” This is not, it is true, the most intellectual way of obtaining architectural effect, but it has the advantage of being the easiest, the most certain to secure the desired result, and at the same time the most permanent.

AMPHITHEATRES.

The deficiency of theatres erected by the Romans is far more than compensated by the number and splendour of their amphitheatres, which, with their baths, may be considered as the true types of Roman art, although it is possible that they derived this class of public buildings from the Etruscans. At Sutrium there is a very noble one cut out of the tufa rock,[179] which was no doubt used by that people for festal representations long before Rome attempted anything of the kind. It is uncertain whether gladiatorial fights or combats of wild beasts formed any part of the amusements of the arena in those days, though boxing, wrestling, and contests of that description certainly did; but whether the Etruscans actually proceeded to the shedding of blood and to slaughter is more than doubtful.

Even in the remotest parts of Britain, in Germany and Gaul, wherever we find a Roman settlement, we find the traces of their amphitheatres. Their soldiery, it seems, could not exist without the enjoyment of seeing men engaged in doubtful and mortal combats—either killing one another, or torn to pieces by wild beasts. It is not to be wondered at that a people who delighted so much in the bloody scenes of the arena should feel but very little pleasure in the mimic sorrows and tame humour of the stage. The brutal exhibition of the amphitheatre fitted them, it is true, to be a nation of conquerors, and gave them the empire of the world, but it brought with it feelings singularly inimical to all the softer arts, and was perhaps the great cause of their ultimate debasement.

As might be expected, the largest and most splendid of these buildings is that which adorns the capital; and of all the ruins which Rome contains, none have excited such universal admiration as the Flavian Amphitheatre. Poets, painters, rhapsodists, have exhausted all the resources of their arts in the attempt to convey to others the overpowering impression this building produces on their own minds. With the single exception, perhaps, of the Hall at Karnac, no ruin has met with such universal admiration as this. Its association with the ancient mistress of the world, its destruction, and the half-prophetic destiny ascribed to it, all contribute to this. In spite of our better judgment we are forced to confess that

“The gladiators’ bloody circus stands A noble wreck in ruinous perfection,”

and worthy of all or nearly all the admiration of which it has been the object. Its interior is almost wholly devoid of ornament, or anything that can be called architecture—a vast inverted pyramid. The exterior does not possess one detail which is not open to criticism, and indeed to positive blame. Notwithstanding all this, its magnitude, its form, and its associations, all combine to produce an effect against which the critic struggles in vain. Still, all must admit that the pillars and their entablature are useless and are added incongruously, and that the upper storey, not being arched like the lower, but solid, and with ugly pilasters, is a painful blemish. This last defect is so striking that, in spite of the somewhat dubious evidence of medals, I should feel inclined to suspect that it was a subsequent addition, and meant wholly for the purpose of supporting and working the great velarium or awning that covered the arena during the representation, which may not have been attempted when the amphitheatre was first erected.

Be this as it may, it certainly now very much mars the effect of the building. The lower storeys are of bad design, but this is worse. But notwithstanding these defects, there is no building of Rome where the principle of reduplication of parts, of which the Gothic architects afterwards made so much use, is carried to so great an extent as in this. The Colosseum is principally indebted to this feature for the effect which it produces. Had it, for instance, been designed with only one storey of the height of the four now existing, and every arch had consequently been as wide as the present four, the building would have scarcely appeared half the size it is now seen to be. For all this, however, when close under it, and comparing it with moving figures and other objects, we could scarcely eventually fail to realise its wonderful dimensions. In that case, a true sense of the vast size of the building would have had to be acquired, as is the case with the façade of St. Peter’s. Now it forces itself on the mind at the first glance. It is the repetition of arch beyond arch and storey over storey that leads the mind on, and gives to this amphitheatre its imposing grandeur, which all acknowledge, though few give themselves the trouble to inquire how this effect is produced.

Fortunately, too, though the face of the building is much cut up by the order, the entablatures are unbroken throughout, and cross the building in long vanishing lines of the most graceful curvatures. The oval, also, is certainly more favourable for effect than a circular form would be. A building of this shape may perhaps look smaller than it really is to a person standing exactly opposite either end; but in all other positions the flatter side gives a variety and an appearance of size, which the monotonous equality of a circle would never produce.

The length of the building, measured over all along its greatest diameter, is 620 ft., its breadth 513, or nearly in the ratio of 6 to 5, which may be taken as the general proportion of these buildings, the variations from it being slight, and apparently either mistakes in setting out the work in ancient times, or in measuring it in modern days, rather than an intentional deviation. The height of the three lower storeys, or of what I believe to have been the original building, is 120 ft.; the total height as it now stands is 157 ft. The arena itself measures 287 ft. in length by 180 in breadth. The whole area of the building has been calculated to contain 250,000 square feet, of which the arena contains 40,000; then deducting 10,000 for the external wall, 200,000 square feet will remain available for the audience. If we divide this by 5,[180] which is the number of square feet it has been found necessary to allow for each spectator in modern places of amusement, room will be afforded for 40,000 spectators; at 4 feet, which is a possible quantity, with continuous seats and the scant drapery of the Romans, the amphitheatre might contain 50,000 spectators at one time.

The area of the supports has also been calculated at about 40,000 square feet, or about one-sixth of the whole area; which for an unroofed edifice of this sort[181] is more than sufficient, though the excess accounts for the stability of the building.

Next in extent to this great metropolitan amphitheatre was that of Capua; its dimensions were 558 ft. by 460; its height externally 95 ft. It had three storeys, designed similarly to those of the Colosseum, but all of the Doric order, and used with more purity than in the Roman example.

Next in age, though not in size, is that at Nîmes, 430 ft. by 378, and 72 in height, in two storeys. Both these storeys are more profusely and more elegantly ornamented with pillars than those of either of the amphitheatres mentioned above. The entablature is however broken over each column, and pediments are introduced on each front. All these arrangements, though showing more care in design and sufficient elegance in detail, make this building very inferior in grandeur to the two earlier edifices, whose simplicity of outline makes up, to a great extent, for their faults of detail.

A more beautiful example than this is that at Verona. Its dimensions are 502 ft. by 401, and 98 ft. high, in three storeys beautifully proportioned. Here the order almost entirely disappears to make way for rustication, showing that it must be considerably more modern than either of the three examples above quoted, though hardly so late as the time of Maximianus, to whom it is frequently ascribed.[182] The arena of this amphitheatre is very nearly perfect, owing to the care taken of it during the Middle Ages, when it was often used for tournaments and other spectacles; but of its outer architectural enclosure only four bays remain, sufficient to enable an architect to restore the whole, but not to allow of its effect being compared with that of more entire examples.

The amphitheatre at Pola, which is of about the same age as that of Verona, and certainly belonging to the last days of the Western Empire, presents in its ruin a curious contrast to the other. That at Verona has a perfect arena and only a fragment of its exterior decoration, while the exterior of Pola is perfect, but not a trace remains of its arena, or of the seats that surrounded it. This is probably owing to their having been of wood, and consequently having either decayed or been burnt. Like that at Verona, it presents all the features of the last stage of transition; the order is still seen, or rather is everywhere suggested, but so concealed and kept subordinate that it does not at all interfere with the general effect. But for these faint traces we should possess in this amphitheatre one specimen entirely emancipated from incongruous Grecian forms, but, as before remarked, Rome perished when just on the threshold of the new style.

The dimensions of the amphitheatre at Pola are very nearly the same as of that at Nîmes, being 436 ft. by 346. It has, however, three storeys, and thus its height is considerably greater, being 97 ft. Owing to the inequality of the ground on which it is built, the lower storey shows the peculiarity of a sub-basement, which is very pleasingly managed, and appears to emancipate it more from conventional forms than is the case with its contemporary at Verona. The third storey, or attic, is also more pleasing than elsewhere, as it is avowedly designed for the support of the masts of the velarium. The pilasters and all Greek forms are omitted, and there is only a groove over every column of the middle storey to receive the masts. There is also a curious sort of open battlement on the top, evidently designed to facilitate the working of the awning, though in what manner is not quite clear. There is still one other peculiarity about the building, the curvature of its lines is broken by four projecting wings, intended apparently to contain staircases; in a building so light and open as this one is in its present state there can be no doubt but that the projections give expression and character to the outline, though such additions would go far to spoil any of the greater examples above quoted.

At Otricoli there is a small amphitheatre, 312 ft. by 230, in two storeys, from which the order has entirely disappeared; it is therefore possibly the most modern of its class, but the great flat pilasters that replace the pillars are ungraceful and somewhat clumsy. Perhaps its peculiarities ought rather to be looked on as provincialisms than as genuine specimens of an advanced style. Still there is a pleasing simplicity about it that on a larger scale would enable it to stand comparison with some of its greater rivals.

Besides these, which are the typical examples of the style, there are the “Castrense” at Rome, nearly circular, and possessing all the faults and none of the beauties of the Colosseum; one at Arles, very much ruined; and a great number of provincial ones, not only in Italy and Gaul, but in Germany and Britain. Almost all these were principally if not wholly excavated from the earth, the part above-ground being the mound formed by the excavation. If they ever possessed any external decoration to justify their being treated as architectural objects, it has disappeared, so that in the state at least in which we now find them they do not belong to the ornamental class of works of which we are at present treating.

BATHS.

Next in splendour to the amphitheatres of the Romans were their great thermal establishments: in size they were perhaps even more remarkable, and their erection must certainly have been more costly. The amphitheatre, however, has the great advantage in an architectural point of view of being one object, one hall in short, whereas the baths were composed of a great number of smaller parts, not perhaps very successfully grouped together. They were wholly built of brick covered with stucco (except perhaps the pillars), and have, therefore, now so completely lost their architectural features that it is with difficulty that even the most practised architect can restore them to anything like their original appearance.

In speaking of the great Thermæ of Imperial Rome, they must not be confounded with such establishments as that of Pompeii for instance. The latter was very similar to the baths now found in Cairo or Constantinople, and indeed in most Eastern cities. These are mere establishments for the convenience of bathers, consisting generally of one or two small circular or octagonal halls, covered by domes, and one or two others of an oblong shape, covered with vaults or wooden roofs, used as reception-rooms, or places of repose after the bath. These have never any external magnificence beyond an entrance-porch; and although those at Pompeii are decorated internally with taste, and are well worthy of study, their smallness of size and inferiority of design do not admit of their being placed in the same category as those of the capital, which are as characteristic of Rome as her amphitheatres, and are such as could only exist in a capital where the bulk of the people were able to live on the spoils of the conquered world rather than by the honest gains of their own industry.

Agrippa is said to have built baths immediately behind the Pantheon, and Palladio and others have attempted restorations of them, assuming that building to have been the entrance-hall. Nothing, however, can be more unlikely than that, if he had first built the rotunda as a hall of his baths, he should afterwards have added the portico, and converted it from its secular use into a temple dedicated to all the gods.

As before remarked, the two parts are certainly not of the same age. If Agrippa built the rotunda as a part of his baths, the portico was added a century and a half or two centuries afterwards, and it was then converted into a temple. If Agrippa built the portico, he added it to a building belonging to Republican times, which may always have been dedicated to sacred purposes. As the evidence at present stands, I am rather inclined to believe the first hypothesis most correctly represents the facts of the case.[183]

Nero’s baths, too, are a mere heap of shapeless ruins, and those of Vespasian, Domitian, and Trajan in like manner are too much ruined for their form, or even their dimensions, to be ascertained with anything like correctness. Those of Titus are more perfect, but the very discrepancies that exist between the different systems upon which their restoration has been attempted show that enough does not remain to enable the task to be accomplished in a satisfactory manner. They owe their interest more to the beautiful fresco paintings that adorn their vaults than to their architectural character. These paintings are invaluable, as being the most extensive and perfect relics of the painted decoration of the most flourishing period of the Empire, and give a higher idea of Roman art than other indications would lead us to expect.

The baths of Constantine are also nearly wholly destroyed, so that out of the great Thermæ two only, those of Diocletian and of Caracalla, now remain sufficiently perfect to enable a restoration to be made of them with anything like certainty.

The great hall belonging to the baths of Diocletian is now the Church of Sta. Maria degli Angeli, and has been considerably altered to suit the changed circumstances of its use; while the modern buildings attached to the church have so overlaid the older remains that it is not easy to follow out the complete plan. This is of less consequence, as both in dimensions and plan they are extremely similar to those of Caracalla, which seem to have been among the most magnificent, as they certainly are the best preserved, of these establishments.[184]

The general plan of the whole enclosure of the baths of Caracalla was a square of about 1150 ft. each way, with a bold but graceful curvilinear projection on two sides, containing porticoes, gymnasia, lecture-rooms, and other halls for exercise of mind or body. In the rear were the reservoirs to contain the requisite supply of water and below them the hypocaust or furnace, by which it was warmed with a degree of scientific skill we hardly give the Romans of that age credit for. Opposite to this and facing the street was one great portico extending the whole length of the building, into which opened a range of apartments, meant apparently to be used as private baths, which extend also some way up each side. In front of the hypocaust, facing the north-east, was a semicircus or theatridium, 530 ft. long, where youths performed their exercises or contended for prizes.

These parts were, however, merely the accessories of the establishment surrounding the garden, in which the principal building was placed. This was a rectangle 730 ft. by 380, with a projection covered by a dome on the south-western side, which was 167 ft. in diameter externally, and 115 ft. internally. There were two small courts (A A) included in the block, but nearly the whole of the rest appears to have been roofed over.

The modern building which approaches nearest in extent to this is probably our Parliament Houses. These are about 830 ft. in length, with an average breadth of about 300, and, with Westminster Hall, cover as nearly as may be the same area as the central block of these baths. But there the comparison stops; there is no building of modern times on anything like the same scale arranged wholly for architectural effect as this one is, irrespective of any utilitarian purpose. On the other hand, the whole of the walls being covered with stucco, and almost all the architecture being expressed in that material, must have detracted considerably from the monumental grandeur of the effect. Judging, however, from what remains of the stucco ornament of the roof of the Maxentian basilica (Woodcut No. 202), it is wonderful to observe what effects may be obtained with even this material in the hands of a people who understand its employment. While stone and marble have perished, the stucco of these vaults still remains, and is as impressive as any other relic of ancient Rome.

In the centre was a great hall (B), almost identical in dimensions with the central aisle of the basilica of Maxentius already described, being 82 ft. wide by 170 in length, and roofed in the same manner by an intersecting vault in three compartments, springing from eight great pillars. This opened into a smaller apartment at each end, of rectangular form, and then again into two other semicircular halls forming a splendid suite 460 ft. in length. This central room is generally considered as the tepidarium, or warmed apartment, having four warm baths opening out of it. On the north-east side was the frigidarium, or cold water bath, a hall[185] of nearly the same dimensions as the central Hall. Between this and the circular hall (D) was the sudatorium or sweating-bath, with a hypocaust underneath, and flue-tiles lining its walls. The laconicum or caldarium (D) is an immense circular hall, 116 ft. in diameter, also heated by a hypocaust underneath, and by flue tiles in the walls. This rotunda is said to be of later date than Caracalla. There are four other rooms on this side, which seem also to have been cold baths. None of these points have, however, yet been satisfactorily settled, nor the uses of the smaller subordinate rooms; every restorer giving them names according to his own ideas. For our purpose it suffices to know that no groups of state apartments in such dimensions, and wholly devoted to purposes of display and recreation, were ever before or since grouped together under one roof. The taste of many of the decorations would no doubt be faulty, and the architecture shows those incongruities inseparable from its state of transition; but such a collection of stately halls must have made up a whole of greater splendour than we can easily realise from their bare and weather-beaten ruins, or from anything else to which we can compare them. Even allowing for their being almost wholly built of brick, and for their being disfigured by the bad taste inseparable from everything Roman, there is nothing in the world which for size and grandeur can compare with these imperial places of recreation.[186]