These features of the architrave, as well as the fine flutings and moulded bases of the columns, are found in Ionic architecture, and in part, at least, in Lycian tombs. As all these examples date from nearly the same period, the origin of these forms and their mutual relations have not been fully determined. The Persian capitals, however, are unique, and so far as known, without direct prototypes or derivatives. Their constituent elements may have been borrowed from various sources. One can hardly help seeing the Egyptian palm-capital in the lower member of the compound type (Fig. 21).

The doors and windows had banded architraves or trims and cavetto cornices very Egyptian in character. The portals were flanked, as in Assyria, by winged monsters; but these were built up in several courses of stone, not carved from single blocks like their prototypes. Plaster or, as at Susa, enamelled bricks, replaced as a wall-finish the Assyrian alabaster wainscot. These bricks, splendid in color, and moulded into relief pictures covering large surfaces, are the oldest examples of the skill of the Persians in a branch of ceramic art in which they have always excelled down to our own day.

LYCIAN ARCHITECTURE. The architecture of those Asiatic peoples which served as intermediaries between the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Assyria on the one hand and of the Greeks on the other, need occupy us only a moment in passing. None of them developed a complete and independent style or produced monuments of the first rank. Those chiefly concerned in the transmission of ideas were the Cypriotes, Phoenicians, and Lycians. The part played by other Asiatic nations is too slight to be considered here. From Cyprus the Greeks could have learned little beyond a few elementary notions regarding sculpture and pottery, although it is possible that the volute-form in Ionic architecture was originally derived from patterns on Cypriote pottery and from certain Cypriote steles, where it appears as a modified lotus motive. The Phoenicians were the world's traders from a very early age down to the Persian conquest. They not only distributed through the Mediterranean lands the manufactures of Egypt and Assyria, but also counterfeited them and adopted their forms in decorating their own wares. But they have bequeathed us not a single architectural ruin of importance, either of temples or palaces, nor are the few tombs still extant of sufficient artistic interest to deserve even brief mention in a work of this scope.

In Lycia, however, there arose a system of tomb-design which came near creating a new architectural style, and which doubtless influenced both Persia and the Ionian colonies. The tombs were mostly cut in the rock, though a few are free-standing monolithic monuments, resembling sarcophagi or small shrines mounted on a high base or pedestal.

In all of these tombs we recognize a manifest copying in stone of framed wooden structures. The walls are panelled, or imitate open structures framed of squared timbers. The roofs are often gabled, sometimes in the form of a pointed arch; they generally show a banded architrave, dentils, and a raking cornice, or else an imitation of broadly projecting eaves with small round rafters. There are several with porches of Ionic columns; of these, some are of late date and evidently copied from Asiatic Greek models. Others, and notably one at Telmissus, seem to be examples of a primitive Ionic, and may indeed have been early steps in the development of that splendid style which the Ionic Greeks, both in Asia Minor and in Attica, carried to such perfection.

JEWISH ARCHITECTURE. The Hebrews borrowed from the art of every people with whom they had relations, so that we encounter in the few extant remains of their architecture Egyptian, Assyrian, Phoenician, Greek, Roman, and Syro-Byzantine features, but nothing like an independent national style. Among the most interesting of these remains are tombs of various periods, principally occurring in the valleys near Jerusalem, and erroneously ascribed by popular tradition to the judges, prophets, and kings of Israel. Some of them are structural, some cut in the rock; the former (tomb of Absalom, of Zechariah) decorated with Doric and Ionic engaged orders, were once supposed to be primitive types of these orders and of great antiquity. They are now recognized to be debased imitations of late Greek work of the third or second century B.C. They have Egyptian cavetto cornices and pyramidal roofs, like many Asiatic tombs. The openings of the rock-cut tombs have frames or pediments carved with rich surface ornament showing a similar mixture of types—Roman triglyphs and garlands, Syrian-Greek acanthus leaves, conventional foliage of Byzantine character, and naturalistic carvings of grapes and local plant-life. The carved arches of two of the ancient city gates (one the so-called Golden Gate) in Jerusalem display rich acanthus foliage somewhat like that of the tombs, but more vigorous and artistic. If of the time of Herod or even of Constantine, as claimed by some, they would indicate that Greek artists in Syria created the prototypes of Byzantine ornament. They are more probably, however, Byzantine restorations of the 6th century A.D.

The one great achievement of Jewish architecture was the national Temple of Jehovah, represented by three successive edifices on Mount Moriah, the site of the present so-called "Mosque of Omar." The first, built by Solomon (1012 B.C.) appears from the Biblical description[6] to have combined Egyptian conceptions (successive courts, lofty entrance-pylons, the Sanctuary and the sekos or "Holy of Holies") with Phoenician and Assyrian details and workmanship (cedar woodwork, empaistic decoration or overlaying with repouss metal work, the isolated brazen columns Jachin and Boaz). The whole stood on a mighty platform built up with stupendous masonry and vaulted chambers from the valley surrounding the rock on three sides. This precinct was nearly doubled in size by Herod (18 B.C.) who extended it southward by a terrace-wall of still more colossal masonry. Some of the stones are twenty-two feet long; one reaches the prodigious length of forty feet. The "Wall of Lamentations" is a part of this terrace, upon which stood the Temple on a raised platform. As rebuilt by Herod, the Temple reproduced in part the antique design, and retained the porch of Solomon along the east side; but the whole was superbly reconstructed in white marble with abundance of gilding. Defended by the Castle of Antonia on the northwest, and embellished with a new and imposing triple colonnade on the south, the whole edifice, aconglomerate of Egyptian, Assyrian, and Roman conceptions and forms, was one of the most singular and yet magnificent creations of ancient art.

[Footnote 6: 1 Kings vi.-vii.; 2 Chronicles iii.-iv.]

The temple of Zerubbabel (515 B.C.), intermediate between those above described, was probably less a re-edification of the first, than a new design. While based on the scheme of the first temple, it appears to have followed more closely the pattern described in the vision of Ezekiel (chapters xl.-xlii.). It was far inferior to its predecessor in splendor and costliness. No vestiges of it remain.

MONUMENTS. PERSIAN: at Murghab, the tomb of Cyrus, known as Gabr-Madr-Soleiman—agabled structure on a seven-stepped pyramidal basement (525 B.C.). At Persepolis the palace of Darius (521 B.C.); the Propyla of Xerxes, his palace and his harem (?) or throne-hall (480 B.C.). These splendid structures, several of them of vast size, resplendent with color and majestic with their singular and colossal columns, must have formed one of the most imposing architectural groups in the world. At various points, tower-like tombs, supposed erroneously by Fergusson to have been fire altars. At Naksh-i-Roustam, the tomb of Darius, cut in the rock. Other tombs near by at Persepolis proper and at Pasargad. At the latter place remains of the palace of Cyrus. At Susa the palace of Xerxes and Artaxerxes (480-405 B.C.).

There are no remains of private houses or temples.

LYCIAN: the principal Lycian monuments are found in Myra, Antiphellus, and Telmissus. Some of the monolithic tombs have been removed to the British and other European museums.

JEWISH: the temples have been mentioned above. The palace of Solomon. The rock-cut monolithic tomb of Siloam. So-called tombs of Absalom and Zechariah, structural; probably of Herod's time or later. Rock-cut Tombs of the Kings; of the Prophets, etc. City gates (Herodian or early Christian period).



CHAPTER VI.

GREEK ARCHITECTURE.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before, Reber. Also, Anderson and Spiers, Architecture of Greece and Rome. Baumeister, Denkmler der Klassischen Alterthums. Btticher, Tektonik der Hellenen. Chipiez, Histoire critique des ordres grecs. Curtius, Adler and Treu, Die Ausgrabungen zu Olympia. Durm, Antike Baukunst (in Handbuch d. Arch.). Frazer, Pausanias' Description of Greece. Hitorff, L'architecture polychrome chez les Grecs. Michaelis, Der Parthenon. Penrose, An Investigation, etc., of Athenian Architecture. Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in Primitive Greece; La Grce de l'Epope; La Grce archaque. Stuart and Revett, Antiquities of Athens. Tarbell, History of Greek Art. Texier, L'Asie Mineure. Wilkins, Antiquities of Magna Grcia.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. Greek art marks the beginning of European civilization. The Hellenic race gathered up influences and suggestions from both Asia and Africa and fused them with others, whose sources are unknown, into an art intensely national and original, which was to influence the arts of many races and nations long centuries after the decay of the Hellenic states. The Greek mind, compared with the Egyptian or Assyrian, was more highly intellectual, more logical, more symmetrical, and above all more inquiring and analytic. Living nowhere remote from the sea, the Greeks became sailors, merchants, and colonizers. The Ionian kinsmen of the European Greeks, speaking a dialect of the same language, populated the coasts of Asia Minor and many of the islands, so that through them the Greeks were open to the influences of the Assyrian, Phoenician, Persian, and Lycian civilizations. In Cyprus they encountered Egyptian influences, and finally, under Psammetichus, they established in Egypt itself the Greek city of Naukratis. They were thus by geographical situation, by character, and by circumstances, peculiarly fitted to receive, develop, and transmit the mingled influences of the East and the South.



PREHISTORIC MONUMENTS.[7] Authentic Greek history begins with the first Olympiad, 776 B.C. The earliest monuments of that historic architecture which developed into the masterpieces of the Periclean and Alexandrian ages, date from the middle of the following century. But there are a number of older buildings, belonging presumably to the so-called Heroic Age, which, though seemingly unconnected with the later historic development of Greek architecture, are still worthy of note. They are the work of a people somewhat advanced in civilization, probably the Pelasgi, who preceded the Dorians on Greek soil, and consist mainly of fortifications, walls, gates, and tombs, the most important of which are at Mycen and Tiryns. At the latter place is a well-defined acropolis, with massive walls in which are passages covered by stones successively overhanging or corbelled until they meet. The masonry is of huge stones piled without cement. At Mycen the city wall is pierced by the remarkable Lion Gate (Fig. 22), consisting of two jambs and a huge lintel, over which the weight is relieved by a triangular opening. This is filled with a sculptured group, now much defaced, representing two rampant lions flanking a singular column which tapers downward. This symbolic group has relations with Hittite and Phrygian sculptures, and with the symbolism of the worship of Rhea Cybele. The masonry of the wall is carefully dressed but not regularly coursed. Other primitive walls and gates showing openings and embryonic arches of various forms, are found widely scattered, at Samos and Delos, at Phigaleia, Thoricus, Argos and many other points. The very earliest are hardly more than random piles of rough stone. Those which may fairly claim notice for their artistic masonry are of a later date and of two kinds: the coursed, and the polygonal or Cyclopean, so called from the tradition that they were built by the Cyclopes. These Cyclopean walls were composed of large, irregular polygonal blocks carefully fitted together and dressed to a fairly smooth face (Fig. 23). Both kinds were used contemporaneously, though in the course of time the regular coursed masonry finally superseded the polygonal.

[Footnote 7: For enlargement on this topic see AppendixA.]



THOLOS OF ATREUS. All these structures present, however, only the rudiments of architectural art. The so-called Tholos (or Treasury) of Atreus, at Mycen, on the other hand, shows the germs of truly artistic design (Fig. 24). It is in reality a tomb, and is one of a large class of prehistoric tombs found in almost every part of the globe, consisting of a circular stone-walled and stone-roofed chamber buried under a tumulus of earth. This one is a beehive-shaped construction of horizontal courses of masonry, with a stone-walled passage, the dromos, leading to the entrance door. Though internally of domical form, its construction with horizontal beds in the masonry proves that the idea of the true dome with the beds of each course pitched at an angle always normal to the curve of the vault, was not yet grasped. Asmall sepulchral chamber opens from the great one, by a door with the customary relieving triangle overit.





Traces of a metal lining have been found on the inner surface of the dome and on the jambs of the entrance door. This entrance is the most artistic and elaborate part of the edifice (Fig. 25). The main opening is enclosed in a three-banded frame, and was once flanked by columns which, as shown by fragments still existing and by marks on either side the door, tapered downward as in the sculptured column over the Lion Gate. Shafts, bases, and capitals were covered with zig-zag bands or chevrons of fine spirals. This well-studied decoration, the banded jambs, and the curiously inverted columns (of which several other examples exist in or near Mycen), all point to a fairly developed art, derived partly from Egyptian and partly from Asiatic sources. That Egyptian influences had affected this early art is further proved by a fragment of carved and painted ornament on a ceiling in Orchomenos, imitating with remarkable closeness certain ceiling decorations in Egyptian tombs.

HISTORIC MONUMENTS; THE ORDERS. It was the Dorians and Ionians who developed the architecture of classic Greece. This fact is perpetuated in the traditional names, Doric and Ionic, given to the two systems of columnar design which formed the most striking feature of that architecture. While in Egypt the column was used almost exclusively as an internal support and decoration, in Greece it was chiefly employed to produce an imposing exterior effect. It was the most important element in the temple architecture of the Greeks, and an almost indispensable adornment of their gateways, public squares, and temple enclosures. To the column the two races named above gave each a special and radically distinct development, and it was not until the Periclean age that the two forms came to be used in conjunction, even by the mixed Doric-Ionic people of Attica. Each of the two types had its own special shaft, capital, entablature, mouldings, and ornaments, although considerable variation was allowed in the proportions and minor details. The general type, however, remained substantially unchanged from first to last. The earliest examples known to us of either order show it complete in all its parts, its later development being restricted to the refining and perfecting of its proportions and details. The probable origin of these orders will be separately considered lateron.

THE DORIC. The column of the Doric order (Figs. 26, 27) consists of a tapering shaft rising directly from the stylobate or platform and surmounted by a capital of great simplicity and beauty. The shaft is fluted with sixteen to twenty shallow channellings of segmental or elliptical section, meeting in sharp edges or arrises. The capital is made up of a circular cushion or echinus adorned with fine grooves called annul, and a plain square abacus or cap Upon this rests a plain architrave or epistyle, with a narrow fillet, the tnia, running along its upper edge. The frieze above it is divided into square panels, called the metopes, separated by vertical triglyphs having each two vertical grooves and chamfered edges. There is a triglyph over each column and one over each intercolumniation, or two in rare instances where the columns are widely spaced. The cornice consists of a broadly projecting corona resting on a bed-mould of one or two simple mouldings. Its under surface, called the soffit, is adorned with mutules, square, flat projections having each eighteen gutt depending from its under side. Two or three small mouldings run along the upper edge of the corona, which has in addition, over each slope of the gable, agutter-moulding or cymatium. The cornices along the horizontal edges of the roof have instead of the cymatium a row of antefix, ornaments of terra-cotta or marble placed opposite the foot of each tile-ridge of the roofing. The enclosed triangular field of the gable, called the tympanum, was in the larger monuments adorned with sculptured groups resting on the shelf formed by the horizontal cornice below. Carved ornaments called acroteria commonly embellished the three angles of the gable or pediment.



POLYCHROMY. It has been fully proved, after a century of debate, that all this elaborate system of parts, severe and dignified in their simplicity of form, received a rich decoration of color. While the precise shades and tones employed cannot be predicated with certainty, it is well established that the triglyphs were painted blue and the metopes red, and that all the mouldings were decorated with leaf-ornaments, "eggs-and-darts," and frets, in red, green, blue, and gold. The walls and columns were also colored, probably with pale tints of yellow or buff, to reduce the glare of the fresh marble or the whiteness of the fine stucco with which the surfaces of masonry of coarser stone were primed. In the clear Greek atmosphere and outlined against the brilliant sky, the Greek temple must have presented an aspect of rich, sparkling gayety.



ORIGIN OF THE ORDER. It is generally believed that the details of the Doric frieze and cornice were reminiscences of a primitive wood construction. The triglyph suggests the chamfered ends of cross-beams made up of three planks each; the mutules, the sheathing of the eaves; and the gutt, the heads of the spikes or trenails by which the sheathing was secured. It is known that in early astylar temples the metopes were left open like the spaces between the ends of ceiling-rafters. In the earlier peripteral temples, as at Selinus, the triglyph-frieze is retained around the cella-wall under the ceiling of the colonnade, where it has no functional significance, as a survival from times antedating the adoption of the colonnade, when the tradition of a wooden roof-construction showing externally had not yet been forgotten.

A similar wooden origin for the Doric column has been advocated by some, who point to the assertion of Pausanias that in the Doric Heraion at Olympia the original wooden columns had with one exception been replaced by stone columns as fast as they decayed. (See p.62.) This, however, only proves that wooden columns were sometimes used in early buildings, not that the Doric column was derived from them. Others would derive it from the Egyptian columns of Beni Hassan (p.12), which it certainly resembles. But they do not explain how the Greeks could have been familiar with the Beni Hassan column long before the opening of Egypt to them under Psammetichus; nor why, granting them some knowledge of Egyptian architecture, they should have passed over the splendors of Karnak and Luxor to copy these inconspicuous tombs perched high up on the cliffs of the Nile. It would seem that the Greeks invented this form independently, developing it in buildings which have perished; unless, indeed, they brought the idea with them from their primitive Aryan home in Asia.

THE IONIC ORDER was characterized by greater slenderness of proportion and elegance of detail than the Doric, and depended more on carving than on color for the decoration of its members (Fig. 28). It was adopted in the fifth century B.C. by the people of Attica, and used both for civic and religious buildings, sometimes alone and sometimes in conjunction with the Doric. The column was from eight to ten diameters in height, against four and one-third to seven for the Doric. It stood on a base which was usually composed of two tori (see p.25 for definition) separated by a scotia (aconcave moulding of semicircular or semi-elliptical profile), and was sometimes provided also with a square flat base-block, the plinth. There was much variety in the proportions and details of these mouldings, which were often enriched by flutings or carved guilloches. The tall shaft bore twenty-four deep narrow flutings separated by narrow fillets. The capital was the most peculiar feature of the order. It consisted of a bead or astragal and echinus, over which was a horizontal band ending on either side in a scroll or volute, the sides of which presented the aspect shown in Fig. 29. Athin moulded abacus was interposed between this member and the architrave.



The Ionic capital was marked by two awkward features which all its richness could not conceal. One was the protrusion of the echinus beyond the face of the band above it, the other was the disparity between the side and front views of the capital, especially noticeable at the corners of a colonnade. To obviate this, various contrivances were tried, none wholly successful. Ordinarily the two adjacent exterior sides of the corner capital were treated alike, the scrolls at their meeting being bent out at an angle of 45, while the two inner faces simply intersected, cutting each other in halves.

The entablature comprised an architrave of two or three flat bands crowned by fine mouldings; an uninterrupted frieze, frequently sculptured in relief; and a simple cornice of great beauty. In addition to the ordinary bed-mouldings there was in most examples a row of narrow blocks or dentils under the corona, which was itself crowned by a high cymatium of extremely graceful profile, carved with the rich "honeysuckle" (anthemion) ornament. All the mouldings were carved with the "egg-and-dart," heart-leaf and anthemion ornaments, so designed as to recall by their outline the profile of the moulding itself. The details of this order were treated with much more freedom and variety than those of the Doric. The pediments of Ionic buildings were rarely or never adorned with groups of sculpture. The volutes and echinus of the capital, the fluting of the shaft, the use of a moulded circular base, and in the cornice the high corona and cymatium, these were constant elements in every Ionic order, but all other details varied widely in the different examples.



ORIGIN OF THE IONIC ORDER. The origin of the Ionic order has given rise to almost as much controversy as that of the Doric. Its different elements were apparently derived from various sources. The Lycian tombs may have contributed the denticular cornice and perhaps also the general form of the column and capital. In the Persian architecture of the sixth century B.C., the high moulded base, the narrow flutings of the shaft, the carved bead-moulding and the use of scrolls in the capital are characteristic features, which may have been borrowed by the Ionians during the same century, unless, indeed, they were themselves the work of Ionic or Lycian workmen in Persian employ. The banded architrave and the use of the volute in the decoration of stele-caps (from stl = a memorial stone or column standing isolated and upright), furniture, and minor structures are common features in Assyrian, Lycian, and other Asiatic architecture of early date. The volute or scroll itself as an independent decorative motive may have originated in successive variations of Egyptian lotus-patterns.[8] But the combination of these diverse elements and their development into the final form of the order was the work of the Ionian Greeks, and it was in the Ionian provinces of Asia Minor that the most splendid examples of its use are to be found (Halicarnassus, Miletus, Priene, Ephesus), while the most graceful and perfect are those of Doric-Ionic Attica.

[Footnote 8: As contended by W. H. Goodyear in his Grammar of the Lotus.]



THE CORINTHIAN ORDER. This was a late outgrowth of the Ionic rather than a new order, and up to the time of the Roman conquest was only used for monuments of small size (see Fig. 38). Its entablature in pure Greek examples was identical with the Ionic; the shaft and base were only slightly changed in proportion and detail. The capital, however, was a new departure, based probably on metallic embellishments of altars, pedestals, etc., of Ionic style. It consisted in the best examples of a high bell-shaped core surrounded by one or two rows of acanthus leaves, above which were pairs of branching scrolls meeting at the corners in spiral volutes. These served to support the angles of a moulded abacus with concave sides (Fig. 30). One example, from the Tower of the Winds (the clepsydra of Andronicus Cyrrhestes) at Athens, has only smooth pointed palm-leaves and no scrolls above a single row of acanthus leaves. Indeed, the variety and disparity among the different examples prove that we have here only the first steps toward the evolution of an independent order, which it was reserved for the Romans to fully develop.

GREEK TEMPLES; THE TYPE. With the orders as their chief decorative element the Greeks built up a splendid architecture of religious and secular monuments. Their noblest works were temples, which they designed with the utmost simplicity of general scheme, but carried out with a mastery of proportion and detail which has never been surpassed. Of moderate size in most cases, they were intended primarily to enshrine the simulacrum of the deity, and not, like Christian churches, to accommodate great throngs of worshippers. Nor were they, on the other hand, sanctuaries designed, like those of Egypt, to exclude all but a privileged few from secret rites performed only by the priests and king. The statue of the deity was enshrined in a chamber, the naos (see plan, Fig. 31), often of considerable size, and accessible to the public through a columnar porch the pronaos. Asmaller chamber, the opisthodomus, was sometimes added in the rear of the main sanctuary, to serve as a treasury or depository for votive offerings. Together these formed a windowless structure called the cella, beyond which was the rear porch, the posticum or epinaos. This whole structure was in the larger temples surrounded by a colonnade, the peristyle, which formed the most splendid feature of Greek architecture. The external aisle on either side of the cella was called the pteroma. Asingle gabled roof covered the entire building.



The Greek colonnade was thus an exterior feature, surrounding the solid cella-wall instead of being enclosed by it as in Egypt. The temple was a public, not a royal monument; and its builders aimed, not as in Egypt at size and overwhelming sombre majesty, but rather at sunny beauty and the highest perfection of proportion, execution, and detail (Fig. 34).

There were of course many variations of the general type just described. Each of these has received a special name, which is given below with explanations and is illustrated in Fig.31.

In antis; with a porch having two or more columns enclosed between the projecting side-walls of the cella.

Prostylar (or prostyle); with a columnar porch in front and no peristyle.

Amphiprostylar (or -style); with columnar porches at both ends but no peristyle.

Peripteral; surrounded by columns.

Pseudoperipteral; with false or engaged columns built into the walls of the cella, leaving no pteroma.

Dipteral; with double lateral ranges of columns (see Fig. 39).

Pseudodipteral; with a single row of columns on each side, whose distance from the wall is equal to two intercolumniations of the front.

Tetrastyle, hexastyle, octastyle, decastyle, etc.; with four, six, eight, or ten columns in the end rows.

CONSTRUCTION. All the temples known to us are of stone, though it is evident from allusions in the ancient writers that wood was sometimes used in early times. (See p.62.) The finest temples, especially those of Attica, Olympia, and Asia Minor, were of marble. In Magna Grcia, at Assos, and in other places where marble was wanting, limestone, sandstone, or lava was employed and finished with a thin, fine stucco. The roof was almost invariably of wood and gabled, forming at the ends pediments decorated in most cases with sculpture. The disappearance of these inflammable and perishable roofs has given rise to endless speculations as to the lighting of the cellas, which in all known ruins, except one at Agrigentum, are destitute of windows. It has been conjectured that light was admitted through openings in the roof, and even that the central part of the cella was wholly open to the sky. Such an arrangement is termed hypthral, from an expression used in a description by Vitruvius;[9] but this description corresponds to no known structure, and the weight of opinion now inclines against the use of the hypthral opening, except possibly in one or two of the largest temples, in which a part of the cella in front of the statue may have been thus left open. But even this partial hypthros is not substantiated by direct evidence. It hardly seems probable that the magnificent chryselephantine statues of such temples were ever thus left exposed to the extremes of the climate, which are often severe even in Greece. In the model of the Parthenon designed by Ch. Chipiez for the Metropolitan Museum in New York, asmall clerestory opening through the roof admits a moderate amount of light to the cella; but this ingenious device rests on no positive evidence (see Frontispiece). It seems on the whole most probable that the cella was lighted entirely by artificial illumination; but the controversy in its present state is and must be wholly speculative.

[Footnote 9: Lib. III., Cap. I.]

The wooden roof was covered with tiles of terra-cotta or marble. It was probably ceiled and panelled on the under side, and richly decorated with color and gold. The pteroma had under the exterior roof a ceiling of stone or marble, deeply panelled between transverse architraves.

The naos and opisthodomus being in the larger temples too wide to be spanned by single beams, were furnished with interior columns to afford intermediate support. To avoid the extremes of too great massiveness and excessive slenderness in these columns, they were built in two stages, and advantage was taken of this arrangement, in some cases, at least, to introduce lateral galleries into the naos.



SCULPTURE AND CARVING. All the architectural membering was treated with the greatest refinement of design and execution, and the aid of sculpture, both in relief and in the round, was invoked to give splendor and significance to the monument. The statue of the deity was the focus of internal interest, while externally, groups of statues representing the Olympian deities or the mythical exploits of gods, demigods, and heroes, adorned the gables. Relief carvings in the friezes and metopes commemorated the favorite national myths. In these sculptures we have the finest known adaptations of pure sculpture—i.e., sculpture treated as such and complete in itself—to an architectural framework. The noblest examples of this decorative sculpture are those of the Parthenon, consisting of figures in the full round from the pediments, groups in high relief from the metopes, and the beautiful frieze of the Panathenaic procession from the cella-wall under the pteroma ceiling. The greater part of these splendid works are now in the British Museum, whither they were removed by Lord Elgin in 1801. From Olympia, gina, and Phigaleia, other master-works of the same kind have been transferred to the museums of Europe. In the Doric style there was little carving other than the sculpture, the ornament being mainly polychromatic. Greek Ionic and Corinthian monuments, however, as well as minor works such as steles, altars, etc., were richly adorned with carved mouldings and friezes, festoons, acroteria, and other embellishments executed with the chisel. The anthemion ornament, aform related to the Egyptian lotus and Assyrian palmette, most frequently figures in these. It was made into designs of wonderful vigor and beauty (Fig. 32).

DETAIL AND EXECUTION. In the handling and cutting of stone the Greeks displayed a surpassing skill and delicacy. While ordinarily they were content to use stones of moderate size, they never hesitated at any dimension necessary for proper effect or solid construction. The lower drums of the Parthenon peristyle are 6feet 6 inches in diameter, and 2feet 10 inches high, cut from single blocks of Pentelic marble. The architraves of the Propyla at Athens are each made up of two lintels placed side by side, the longest 17 feet 7inches long, 3feet 10 inches high, and 2feet 4inches thick. In the colossal temples of Asia Minor, where the taste for the vast and grandiose was more pronounced, blocks of much greater size were used. These enormous stones were cut and fitted with the most scrupulous exactness. The walls of all important structures were built in regular courses throughout, every stone carefully bedded with extremely close joints. The masonry was usually laid up without cement and clamped with metal; there is no filling in with rubble and concrete between mere facings of cut stone, as in most modern work. When the only available stone was of coarse texture it was finished with a coating of fine stucco, in which sharp edges and minute detail could be worked.

The details were, in the best period, executed with the most extraordinary refinement and care. The profiles of capitals and mouldings, the carved ornament, the arrises of the flutings, were cut with marvellous precision and delicacy. It has been rightly said that the Greeks "built like Titans and finished like jewellers." But this perfect finish was never petty nor wasted on unworthy or vulgar design. The just relation of scale between the building and all its parts was admirably maintained; the ornament was distributed with rare judgment, and the vigor of its design saved it from all appearance of triviality.

The sensitive taste of the Greeks led them into other refinements than those of mere mechanical perfection. In the Parthenon especially, but also in lesser degree in other temples, the seemingly straight lines of the building were all slightly curved, and the vertical faces inclined. This was done to correct the monotony and stiffness of absolutely straight lines and right angles, and certain optical illusions which their acute observation had detected. The long horizontal lines of the stylobate and cornice were made convex upward; asimilar convexity in the horizontal corona of the pediment counteracted the seeming concavity otherwise resulting from its meeting with the multiplied inclined lines of the raking cornice. The columns were almost imperceptibly inclined toward the cella, and the corner intercolumniations made a trifle narrower than the rest; while the vertical lines of the arrises of the flutings were made convex outward with a curve of the utmost beauty and delicacy. By these and other like refinements there was imparted to the monument an elasticity and vigor of aspect, an elusive and surprising beauty impossible to describe and not to be explained by the mere composition and general proportions, yet manifest to every cultivated eye.[10]

[Footnote 10: These refinements, first noticed by Allason in 1814, and later confirmed by Cockerell and Haller as to the columns, were published to the world in 1838 by Hoffer, verified by Penrose in 1846, and further developed by the investigations of Ziller and later observers.]



CHAPTER VII.

GREEK ARCHITECTURE—Continued.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Same as for Chapter VI. Also, Bacon and Clarke, Investigations at Assos. Espouy, Fragments d'architecture antique. Harrison and Verrall, Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens. Hitorff et Zanth, Recueil des Monuments de Sgeste et Slinonte. Magne, Le Parthnon. Koldewey and Puchstein, Die griechischen Tempel in Unteritalien und Sicilien. Waldstein, The Argive Herum.

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT. The history of Greek architecture, subsequent to the Heroic or Primitive Age, may be divided into periods as follows:

The ARCHAIC; from 650 to 500 B.C.

The TRANSITIONAL; from 500 to 460 B.C., or to the revival of prosperity after the Persian wars.

The PERICLEAN; from 460 to 400 B.C.

The FLORID or ALEXANDRIAN; from 400 to 300 B.C.

The DECADENT; 300 to 100 B.C.

The ROMAN; 100 B.C. to 200 A.D.

These dates are, of course, somewhat arbitrary; it is impossible to set exact bounds to style-periods, which must inevitably overlap at certain points, but the dates, as given above, will assist in distinguishing the successive phases of the history.

ARCHAIC PERIOD. The archaic period is characterized by the exclusive use of the Doric order, which appears in the earliest monuments complete in all its parts, but heavy in its proportions and coarse in its execution. The oldest known temples of this period are the Apollo Temple at Corinth (650 B.C.?), and the Northern Temple on the acropolis at Selinus in Sicily (cir. 610-590 B.C.). They are both of a coarse limestone covered with stucco. The columns are low and massive (4-1/3 to 4-2/3 diameters in height), widely spaced, and carry a very high entablature. The triglyphs still appear around the cella wall under the pteroma ceiling, an illogical detail destined to disappear in later buildings. Other temples at Selinus date from the middle or latter part of the sixth century; they have higher columns and finer profiles than those just mentioned. The great Temple of Zeus at Selinus was the earliest of five colossal Greek temples of very nearly identical dimensions; it measured 360 feet by 167 feet in plan, but was never completed. During the second half of the sixth century important Doric temples were built at Pstum in South Italy, and Agrigentum in Sicily; the somewhat primitive temple at Assos in Asia Minor, with uncouth carvings of centaurs and monsters on its architrave, belongs to this same period. The Temple of Zeus at Agrigentum (Fig. 33) is another singular and exceptional design, and was the second of the five colossal temples mentioned above. The pteroma was entirely enclosed by walls with engaged columns showing externally, and was of extraordinary width. The walls of the narrow cella were interrupted by heavy piers supporting atlantes, or applied statues under the ceiling. There seem to have been windows between these figures, but it is not clear whence they borrowed their light, unless it was admitted by the omission of the metopes between the external triglyphs.



THE TRANSITION. During the transitional period there was a marked improvement in the proportions, detail, and workmanship of the temples. The cella was made broader, the columns more slender, the entablature lighter. The triglyphs disappeared from the cella wall, and sculpture of a higher order enhanced the architectural effect. The profiles of the mouldings and especially of the capitals became more subtle and refined in their curves, while the development of the Ionic order in important monuments in Asia Minor was preparing the way for the splendors of the Periclean age. Three temples especially deserve notice: the Athena Temple on the island of gina, the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, and the so-called Theseum—perhaps a temple of Heracles—in Athens. They belong to the period 470-450 B.C.; they are all hexastyle and peripteral, and without triglyphs on the cella wall. Of the three the second in the list is interesting as the scene of those rites which preceded and accompanied the Panhellenic Olympian games, and as the central feature of the Altis, the most complete temple-group and enclosure among all Greek remains. It was built of a coarse conglomerate, finished with fine stucco, and embellished with sculpture by the greatest masters of the time. The adjacent Heraion (temple of Hera) was a highly venerated and ancient shrine, originally built with wooden columns which, according to Pausanias, were replaced one by one, as they decayed, by stone columns. The truth of this statement is attested by the discovery of a singular variety of capitals among its ruins, corresponding to the various periods at which they were added. The Theseum is the most perfectly preserved of all Greek temples, and in the refinement of its forms is only surpassed by those of the Periclean age.







THE PERICLEAN AGE. The Persian wars may be taken as the dividing line between the Transition period and the Periclean age. The lan of national enthusiasm that followed the expulsion of the invader, and the glory and wealth which accrued to Athens as the champion of all Hellas, resulted in a splendid reconstruction of the Attic monuments as well as a revival of building activity in Asia Minor. By the wise administration of Pericles and by the genius of Ictinus, Phidias, and other artists of surpassing skill, the Acropolis at Athens was crowned with a group of buildings and statues absolutely unrivalled. Chief among them was the Parthenon, the shrine of Athena Parthenos, which the critics of all schools have agreed in considering the most faultless in design and execution of all buildings erected by man (Figs. 31, 34, and Frontispiece). It was an octastyle peripteral temple, with seventeen columns on the side, and measured 220 by 100 feet on the top of the stylobate. It was the work of Ictinus and Callicrates, built to enshrine the noble statue of the goddess by Phidias, astanding chryselephantine figure forty feet high. It was the masterpiece of Greek architecture not only by reason of its refinements of detail, but also on account of the beauty of its sculptural adornments. The frieze about the cella wall under the pteroma ceiling, representing in low relief with masterly skill the Panathenaic procession; the sculptured groups in the metopes, and the superb assemblages of Olympic and symbolic figures of colossal size in the pediments, added their majesty to the perfection of the architecture. Here also the horizontal curvatures and other refinements are found in their highest development. Northward from it, upon the Acropolis, stood the Erechtheum, an excellent example of the Attic-Ionic style (Figs. 35, 36). Its singular irregularities of plan and level, and the variety of its detail, exhibit in a striking way the Greek indifference to mere formal symmetry when confronted by practical considerations. The motive in this case was the desire to include in one design several existing and venerated shrines to Attic deities and heroes—Athena Polias, Poseidon, Pandrosus, Erechtheus, Boutes, etc. Begun by unknown architects in 479 B.C., and not completed until 408 B.C., it remains in its ruin still one of the most interesting and attractive of ancient buildings. Its two colonnades of differing design, its beautiful north doorway, and the unique and noble caryatid porch or balcony on the south side are unsurpassed in delicate beauty combined with vigor of design.[11] Asmaller monument of the Ionic order, the amphiprostyle temple to Nike Apteros—the Wingless Victory—stands on a projecting spur of the Acropolis to the southwest. It measures only 27 feet by 18 feet in plan; the cella is nearly square; the columns are sturdier than those of the Erechtheum, and the execution of the monument is admirable. It was the first completed of the extant buildings of the group of the Acropolis and dates from 466 B.C.

[Footnote 11: See Appendix, p. 427.]



In the Propyla (Fig. 37), the monumental gateway to the Acropolis, the Doric and Ionic orders appear to have been combined for the first time (437 to 432 B.C.). It was the master work of Mnesicles. The front and rear faades were Doric hexastyles; adjoining the front porch were two projecting lateral wings employing a smaller Doric order. The central passageway led between two rows of Ionic columns to the rear porch, entered by five doorways and crowned, like the front, with a pediment. The whole was executed with the same splendor and perfection as the other buildings of the Acropolis, and was a worthy gateway to the group of noble monuments which crowned that citadel of the Attic capital. The two orders were also combined in the temple of Apollo Epicurius at Phigala (Bass). This temple was erected in 430 B.C. by Ictinus, who used the Ionic order internally to decorate a row of projecting piers instead of free-standing columns in the naos, in which there was also a single Corinthian column of rather archaic design, which may have been used as a support for a statue or votive offering.

ALEXANDRIAN AGE. A period of reaction followed the splendid architectural activity of the Periclean age. Asuccession of disastrous wars—the Sicilian, Peloponnesian, and Corinthian—drained the energies and destroyed the peace of European Greece for seventy-five years, robbing Athens of her supremacy and inflicting wounds from which she never recovered. In the latter part of the fourth century, however, the triumph of the Macedonian empire over all the Mediterranean lands inaugurated a new era of architectural magnificence, especially in Asia Minor. The keynote of the art of this time was splendor, as that of the preceding age was artistic perfection. The Corinthian order came into use, as though the Ionic were not rich enough for the sumptuous taste of the time, and capitals and bases of novel and elaborate design embellished the Ionic temples of Asia Minor. In the temple of Apollo Didymus at Miletus, the plinths of the bases were made octagonal and panelled with rich scroll-carvings; and the piers which buttressed the interior faces of the cella-walls were given capitals of singular but elegant form, midway between the Ionic and Corinthian types. This temple belongs to the list of colossal edifices already referred to; its dimensions were 366 by 163 feet, making it the largest of them all. The famous Artemisium (temple of Artemis or Diana) measured 342 by 163 feet. Several of the columns of the latter were enriched with sculptured figures encircling the lower drums of the colossal shafts. The most lavish expenditure was bestowed upon small structures, shrines, and sarcophagi. The graceful monument still visible in Athens, erected by the choragus Lysicrates in token of his victory in the choral competitions, belongs to this period (330 B.C.). It is circular, with a slightly domical imbricated roof, and is decorated with elegant engaged Corinthian columns (Fig. 38). In the Imperial Museum at Constantinople are several sarcophagi of this period found at Sidon, but executed by Greek artists, and of exceptional beauty. They are in the form of temples or shrines; the finest of them, supposed by some to have been made for Alexander's favorite general Perdiccas, and by others for the Persian satrap who figures prominently on its sculptured reliefs, is the most sumptuous work of the kind in existence. The exquisite polychromy of its beautiful reliefs and the perfection of its rich details of cornice, pediment, tiling, and crestings, make it an exceedingly interesting and instructive example of the minor architecture of the period.



THE DECADENCE. After the decline of Alexandrian magnificence Greek art never recovered its ancient glory, but the flame was not suddenly extinguished. While in Greece proper the works of the second and third centuries B.C., are for the most part weak and lifeless, like the Stoa of Attalus (175 B.C.) and the Tower of the Winds (the Clepsydra of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, 100 B.C.) at Athens or the Portico of Philip in Delos, there were still a few worthy works built in Asia Minor. The splendid Altar erected at Pergamon by Eumenes II. (circ. 180 B.C.) in the Ionic order, combined sculpture of extraordinary vigor with imposing architecture in masterly fashion. At Aizanoi an Ionic Temple to Zeus, by some attributed to the Roman period, but showing rather the character of good late Greek work, deserves mention for its elegant details, and especially for its frieze-decoration of acanthus leaves and scrolls resembling those of a Corinthian capital.



ROMAN PERIOD. During this period, i.e., throughout the second and first centuries B.C., the Roman dominion was spreading over Greek territory, and the structures erected subsequent to the conquest partake of the Roman character and mingle Roman conceptions with Greek details and vice vers. The temple of the Olympian Zeus at Athens (Fig. 39), amighty dipteral Corinthian edifice measuring 354 by 171 feet, standing on a vast terrace or temenos surrounded by a buttressed wall, was begun by Antiochus Epiphanes (170 B.C.) on the site of an earlier unfinished Doric temple of the time of Pisistratus, and carried out under the direction of the Roman architect, Cossutius. It was not, however, finally completed until the time of Hadrian, 130 A.D. Meanwhile Sulla had despoiled it of several columns[12] which he carried to Rome (86 B.C.), to use in the rebuilding of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, where they undoubtedly served as models in the development of the Roman Corinthian order. The columns were 57 feet high, with capitals of the most perfect Corinthian type; fifteen are now standing, and one lies prostrate near by. To the Roman period also belong the Agora Gate (circ. 35 B.C.), the Arch of Hadrian (117 A.D.), the Odeon of Regilla or of Herodes Atticus (143 A.D.), at Athens, and many temples and tombs, theatres, arches, etc., in the Greek provinces.

[Footnote 12: L. Bevier, in Papers of the American Classical School at Athens (vol. i., pp. 195, 196), contends that these were columns left from the old Doric temple. This is untenable, for Sulla would certainly not have taken the trouble to carry away archaic Doric columns, with such splendid Corinthian columns before him.]

SECULAR MONUMENTS; PROPYLA. The stately gateway by which the Acropolis was entered has already been described. It was the noblest and most perfect of a class of buildings whose prototype is found in the monumental columnar porches of the palace-group at Persepolis. The Greeks never used the arch in these structures, nor did they attach to them the same importance as did most of the other nations of antiquity. The Altis of Olympia, the national shrine of Hellenism, appears to have had no central gateway of imposing size, but a number of insignificant entrances disposed at random. The Propyla of Sunium, Priene and Eleusis are the most conspicuous, after those of the Athenian Acropolis. Of these the Ionic gateway at Priene is the finest, although the later of the two at Eleusis is interesting for its anta-capitals. (Anta = a flat pilaster decorating the end of a wing-wall and treated with a base and capital usually differing from those of the adjacent columns.) These are of Corinthian type, adorned with winged horses, scrolls, and anthemions of an exuberant richness of design, characteristic of this late period.

COLONNADES, STO. These were built to connect public monuments (as the Dionysiac theatre and Odeon at Athens); or along the sides of great public squares, as at Assos and Olympia (the so-called Echo Hall); or as independent open public halls, as the Stoa Diple at Thoricus. They afforded shelter from sun and rain, places for promenading, meetings with friends, public gatherings, and similar purposes. They were rarely of great size, and most of them are of rather late date, though the archaic structure at Pstum, known as the Basilica, was probably in reality an open hall of this kind.



THEATRES, ODEONS. These were invariably cut out of the rocky hillsides, though in a few cases (Mantina, Myra, Antiphellus) apart of the seats were sustained by a built-up substructure and walls to eke out the deficiency of the hill-slope under them. The front of the excavation was enclosed by a stage and a set scene or background, built up so as to leave somewhat over a semicircle for the orchestra or space enclosed by the lower tier of seats (Fig. 40). An altar to Dionysus (Bacchus) was the essential feature in the foreground of the orchestra, where the Dionysiac choral dance was performed. The seats formed successive steps of stone or marble sweeping around the sloping excavation, with carved marble thrones for the priests, archons, and other dignitaries. The only architectural decoration of the theatre was that of the set scene or skene, which with its wing-walls (paraskenai) enclosing the stage (logeion) was a permanent structure of stone or marble adorned with doors, cornices, pilasters, etc. This has perished in nearly every case; but at Aspendus, in Asia Minor, there is one still fairly well preserved, with a rich architectural decoration on its inner face. The extreme diameter of the theatres varied greatly; thus at Aizanoi it is 187 feet, and at Syracuse 495 feet. The theatre of Dionysus at Athens (finished 325 B.C.) could accommodate thirty thousand spectators.

The odeon differed from the theatre principally in being smaller and entirely covered in by a wooden roof. The Odeon of Regilla, built by Herodes Atticus in Athens (143 A.D.), is a well-preserved specimen of this class, but all traces of its cedar ceiling and of its intermediate supports have disappeared.

BUILDINGS FOR ATHLETIC CONTESTS. These comprised stadia and hippodromes for races, and gymnasia and palstr for individual exercise, bathing, and amusement. The stadia and hippodromes were oblong enclosures surrounded by tiers of seats and without conspicuous architectural features. The palstra or gymnasium—for the terms are not clearly distinguished—was a combination of courts, chambers, tanks (piscin) for bathers and exedr or semicircular recesses provided with tiers of seats for spectators and auditors, destined not merely for the exercises of athletes preparing for the stadium, but also for the instruction and diversion of the public by recitations, lectures, and discussions. It was the prototype of the Roman therm, but less imposing, more simple in plan and adornment. Every Greek city had one or more of them, but they have almost wholly disappeared, and the brief description by Vitruvius and scanty remains at Alexandria Troas and Ephesus furnish almost the only information we possess regarding their form and arrangement.

TOMBS. These are not numerous, and the most important are found in Asia Minor. The greatest of these is the famed Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in Caria, the monument erected to the king Mausolus by his widow Artemisia (354 B.C.; Fig. 41). It was designed by Satyrus and Pythius in the Ionic style, and comprised a podium or base 50 feet high and measuring 80 feet by 100 feet, in which was the sepulchre. Upon this base stood a cella surrounded by thirty-six Ionic columns; and crowned by a pyramidal roof, on the peak of which was a colossal marble quadriga at a height of 130 feet. It was superbly decorated by Scopas and other great sculptors with statues, marble lions, and a magnificent frieze. The British Museum possesses fragments of this most imposing monument. At Xanthus the Nereid Monument, so called from its sculptured figures of Nereides, was a somewhat similar design on a smaller scale, with sixteen Ionic columns. At Mylassa was another tomb with an open Corinthian colonnade supporting a roof formed in a stepped pyramid. Some of the later rock-cut tombs of Lycia at Myra and Antiphellus may also be counted as Hellenic works.



DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. This never attained great importance in Greece, and our knowledge of the typical Greek house is principally derived from literary sources. Very few remains of Greek houses have been found sufficiently well preserved to permit of restoring even the plan. It is probable that they resembled in general arrangement the houses of Pompeii (see p.107); but that they were generally insignificant in size and decoration. The exterior walls were pierced only by the entrance doors, all light being derived from one or more interior courts. In the Macedonian epoch there must have been greater display and luxury in domestic architecture, but no remains have come down to us of sufficient importance or completeness to warrant further discussion.

MONUMENTS. In addition to those already mentioned in the text the following should be enumerated:

PREHISTORIC PERIOD. In the Islands about Santorin, remains of houses antedating 1500 B.C.; at Tiryns the Acropolis, walls, and miscellaneous ruins; the like also at Mycen, besides various tombs; walls and gates at Samos, Thoricus, Menidi, Athens, etc.

ARCHAIC PERIOD. Doric Temples at Metapontium (by Durm assigned to 610 B.C.), Selinus, Agrigentum, Pstum; at Athens the first Parthenon; in Asia Minor the primitive Ionic Artemisium at Ephesus and the Heraion at Samos, the latter the oldest of colossal Greek temples.

TRANSITIONAL PERIOD. At Agrigentum, temples of Concord, Castor and Pollux, Demeter, sculapius, all circ. 480 B.C.; temples at Selinus and Segesta.

PERICLEAN PERIOD. In Athens the Ionic temple on the Illissus, destroyed during the present century; on Cape Sunium the temple of Athena, 430 B.C., partly standing; at Nemea, the temple of Zeus; at Tegea, the temple of Athena Elea (400? B.C.); at Rhamnus, the temples of Themis and of Nemesis; at Argos, two temples, stoa, and other buildings; all these were Doric.

ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD. The temple of Dionysus at Teos; temple of Artemis Leucophryne at Magnesia, both about 330 B.C. and of the Ionic order.

DECADENCE AND ROMAN PERIOD. At Athens the Stoa of Eumenes, circ. 170 B.C.; the monument of Philopappus on the Museum hill, 110 A.D.; the Gymnasium of Hadrian, 114 to 137 A.D.; the last two of the Corinthian order.

THEATRES. Besides those already mentioned there are important remains of theatres at Epidaurus, Argos, Segesta, Iassus (400? B.C.), Delos, Sicyon, and Thoricus; at Aizanoi, Myra, Telmissus, and Patara, besides many others of less importance scattered through the Hellenic world. At Taormina are extensive ruins of a large Greek theatre rebuilt in the Roman period.



CHAPTER VIII.

ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before, Anderson and Spiers, Baumeister, Reber. Choisy, L'Art de btir chez les Romains. Desgodetz, Rome in her Ancient Grandeur. Durm, Die Baukunst der Etrusker; Die Baukunst der Romer. Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of Modern Discovery; New Tales of Old Rome; Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome. De Martha, Archologie trusque et romaine. Middleton, Ancient Rome in 1888.

LAND AND PEOPLE. The geographical position of Italy conferred upon her special and obvious advantages for taking up and carrying northward and westward the arts of civilization. Ascarcity of good harbors was the only drawback amid the blessings of a glorious climate, fertile soil, varied scenery, and rich material resources. From a remote antiquity Dorian colonists had occupied the southern portion and the island of Sicily, enriching them with splendid monuments of Doric art; and Phoenician commerce had brought thither the products of Oriental art and industry. The foundation of Rome in 753 B.C. established the nucleus about which the sundry populations of Italy were to crystallize into the Roman nation, under the dominating influence of the Latin element. Later on, the absorption of the conquered Etruscans added to this composite people a race of builders and engineers, as yet rude and uncouth in their art, but destined to become a powerful factor in developing the new architecture that was to spring from the contact of the practical Romans with the noble art of the Greek centres.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. While the Greeks bequeathed to posterity the most perfect models of form in literary and plastic art, it was reserved for the Romans to work out the applications of these to every-day material life. The Romans were above all things a practical people. Their consummate skill as organizers is manifest in the marvellous administrative institutions of their government, under which they united the most distant and diverse nationalities. Seemingly deficient in culture, they were yet able to recast the forms of Greek architecture in new moulds, and to evolve therefrom a mighty architecture adapted to wholly novel conditions. They brought engineering into the service of architecture, which they fitted to the varied requirements of government, public amusement, private luxury, and the common comfort. They covered the antique world with arches and amphitheatres, with villas, baths, basilicas, and temples, all bearing the unmistakable impress of Rome, though wrought by artists and artisans of divers races. Only an extraordinary genius for organization could have accomplished such results.

The architects of Rome marvellously extended the range of their art, and gave it a flexibility by which it accommodated itself to the widest variety of materials and conditions. They made the arch and vault the basis of their system of design, employing them on a scale previously undreamed of, and in combinations of surpassing richness and majesty. They systematized their methods of construction so that soldiers and barbarians could execute the rough mass of their buildings, and formulated the designing of the decorative details so that artisans of moderate skill could execute them with good effect. They carried the principle of repetition of motives to its utmost limit, and sought to counteract any resulting monotony by the scale and splendor of the design. Above all they developed planning into a fine art, displaying their genius in a wonderful variety of combinations and in an unfailing sense of the demands of constructive propriety, practical convenience, and artistic effect. Where Egyptian or Greek architecture shows one type of plan, the Roman shows a score.

GREEK INFLUENCE. Previous to the closing years of the Republic the Romans had no art but the Etruscan. The few buildings of importance they possessed were of Etruscan design and workmanship, excepting a small number built by Greek hands. It was not until the Empire that Roman architecture took on a truly national form. True Roman architecture is essentially imperial. The change from the primitive Etruscan style to the splendors of the imperial age was due to the conquest of the Greek states. Not only did the Greek campaigns enrich Rome with an unprecedented wealth of artistic spoils; they also brought into Italy hosts of Greek artists, and filled the minds of the campaigners with the ambition to realize in their own dominions the marble colonnades, the temples, theatres, and propyla of the Greek cities they had pillaged. The Greek orders were adopted, altered, and applied to arcaded designs as well as to peristyles and other open colonnades. The marriage of the column and arch gave birth to a system of forms as characteristic of Roman architecture as the Doric or Ionic colonnade is of the Greek.

THE ROMAN ORDERS. To meet the demands of Roman taste the Etruscan column was retained with its simple entablature; the Doric and Ionic were adopted in a modified form; the Corinthian was developed into a complete and independent order, and the Composite was added to the list. Aregular system of proportions for all these five orders was gradually evolved, and the mouldings were profiled with arcs of circles instead of the subtler Greek curves. In the building of many-storied structures the orders were superposed, the more slender over the sturdier, in an orderly and graded succession. The immense extent and number of the Roman buildings, the coarse materials often used, the relative scarcity of highly trained artisans, and above all, the necessity of making a given amount of artistic design serve for the largest possible amount of architecture, combined to direct the designing of detail into uniform channels. Thus in time was established a sort of canon of proportions, which was reduced to rules by Vitruvius, and revived in much more detailed and precise form by Vignola in the sixteenth century.



In each of the orders, including the Doric, the column was given a base one half of a diameter in height (the unit of measurement being the diameter of the lower part of the shaft, the crassitudo of Vitruvius). The shaft was made to contract about one-sixth in diameter toward the capital, under which it was terminated by an astragal or collar of small mouldings; at the base it ended in a slight flare and fillet called the cincture. The entablature was in all cases given not far from one quarter the height of the whole column. The Tuscan order was a rudimentary or Etruscan Doric with a column seven diameters high and a simple entablature without triglyphs, mutules, or dentils. But few examples of its use are known. The Doric (Fig. 42) retained the triglyphs and metopes, the mutules and gutt of the Greek; but the column was made eight diameters high, the shaft was smooth or had deep flutings separated by narrow fillets, and was usually provided with a simple moulded base on a square plinth. Mutules were used only over the triglyphs, and were even replaced in some cases by dentils; the corona was made lighter than the Greek, and a cymatium replaced the antefix on the lateral cornices. The Ionic underwent fewer changes, and these principally in the smaller mouldings and details of the capital. The column was nine diameters high (Fig. 43). The Corinthian was made into an independent order by the designing of a special base of small tori and scoti, and by sumptuously carved modillions or brackets enriching the cornice and supporting the corona above a denticulated bed-mould (Fig. 44). Though the first designers of the modillion were probably Greeks, it must, nevertheless, be taken as really a Roman device, worthily completing the essentially Roman Corinthian order. The Composite was formed by combining into one capital portions of the Ionic and Corinthian, and giving to it a simplified form of the Corinthian cornice. The Corinthian order remained, however, the favorite order of Roman architecture.



USE OF THE ORDERS. The Romans introduced many innovations in the general use and treatment of the orders. Monolithic shafts were preferred to those built up of superposed drums. The fluting was omitted on these, and when hard and semi-precious stone like porphyry or verd-antique was the material, it was highly polished to bring out its color. These polished monoliths were often of great size, and they were used in almost incredible numbers.



Another radical departure from Greek usage was the mounting of columns on pedestals to secure greater height without increasing the size of the column and its entablature. The Greek anta was developed into the Roman pilaster or flattened wall-column, and every free column, or range of columns perpendicular to the faade, had its corresponding pilaster to support the wall-end of the architrave. But the most radical innovation was the general use of engaged columns as wall-decorations or buttresses. The engaged column projected from the wall by more than half its diameter, and was built up with the wall as a part of its substance (Fig. 45). The entablature was in many cases advanced only over the columns, between which it was set back almost to the plane of the wall. This practice is open to the obvious criticism that it makes the column appear superfluous by depriving it of its function of supporting the continuous entablature. The objection has less weight when the projecting entablature over the column serves as a pedestal for a statue or similar object, which restores to the column its function as a support (see the Arch of Constantine, Fig. 63).



ARCADES. The orders, though probably at first used only as free supports in porticos and colonnades, were early applied as decorations to arcaded structures. This practice became general with the multiplication of many-storied arcades like those of the amphitheatres, the engaged columns being set between the arches as buttresses, supporting entablatures which marked the divisions into stories (Fig. 45). This combination has been assailed as a false and illogical device, but the criticism proceeds from a too narrow conception of architectural propriety. It is defensible upon both artistic and logical grounds; for it not only furnishes a most desirable play of light and shade and a pleasing contrast of rectangular and curved lines, but by emphasizing the constructive divisions and elements of the building and the vertical support of the piers, it also contributes to the expressiveness and vigor of the design.

VAULTING. The Romans substituted vaulting in brick, concrete, or masonry for wooden ceilings wherever possible, both in public and private edifices. The Etruscans were the first vault-builders, and the Cloaca Maxima, the great sewer of Republican Rome (about 500 B.C.) still remains as a monument of their engineering skill. Probably not only Etruscan engineers (whose traditions were perhaps derived from Asiatic sources in the remote past), but Asiatic builders also from conquered eastern provinces, were engaged together in the development of the wonderful system of vaulted construction to which Roman architecture so largely owed its grandeur. Three types of vault were commonly used: the barrel-vault, the groined or four-part vault, and the dome.



The barrel vault (Fig. 46) was generally semi-cylindrical in section, and was used to cover corridors and oblong halls, like the temple-cellas, or was bent around a curve, as in amphitheatre passages.



The groined vault is formed by the intersection of two barrel-vaults (Fig. 47). When several compartments of groined vaulting are placed together over an oblong plan, adouble advantage is secured. Lateral windows can be carried up to the full height of the vaulting instead of being stopped below its springing; and the weight and thrust of the vaulting are concentrated upon a number of isolated points instead of being exerted along the whole extent of the side walls, as with the barrel-vault. The Romans saw that it was sufficient to dispose the masonry at these points in masses at right angles to the length of the hall, to best resist the lateral thrust of the vault. This appears clearly in the plan of the Basilica of Constantine (Fig. 58).

The dome was in almost all Roman examples supported on a circular wall built up from the ground, as in the Pantheon (Fig. 54). The pendentive dome, sustained by four or eight arches over a square or octagonal plan, is not found in true Roman buildings.

The Romans made of the vault something more than a mere constructive device. It became in their hands an element of interior effect at least equally important with the arch and column. No style of architecture has ever evolved nobler forms of ceiling than the groined vault and the dome. Moreover, the use of vaulting made possible effects of unencumbered spaciousness and amplitude which could never be compassed by any combination of piers and columns. It also assured to the Roman monuments a duration and a freedom from danger of destruction by fire impossible with any wooden-roofed architecture, however noble its form or careful its execution.

CONSTRUCTION. The constructive methods of the Romans varied with the conditions and resources of different provinces, but were everywhere dominated by the same practical spirit. Their vaulted architecture demanded for the support of its enormous weights and for resistance to its disruptive thrusts, piers and buttresses of great mass. To construct these wholly of cut stone appeared preposterous and wasteful to the Roman. Italy abounds in clay, lime, and a volcanic product, pozzolana (from Puteoli or Pozzuoli, where it has always been obtained in large quantities), which makes an admirable hydraulic cement. With these materials it was possible to employ unskilled labor for the great bulk of this massive masonry, and to erect with the greatest rapidity and in the most economical manner those stupendous piles which, even in their ruin, excite the admiration of every beholder.



STONE, CONCRETE, AND BRICK MASONRY. For buildings of an externally decorative character such as temples, arches of triumph, and amphitheatres, as well as in all places where brick and concrete were not easily obtained, stone was employed. The walls were built by laying up the inner and outer faces in ashlar or cut stone, and filling in the intermediate space with rubble (random masonry of uncut stone) laid up in cement, or with concrete of broken stone and cement dumped into the space in successive layers. The cement converted the whole into a conglomerate closely united with the face-masonry. In Syria and Egypt the local preference for stones of enormous size was gratified, and even surpassed, as in Herod's terrace-walls for the temple at Jerusalem (p.41), and in the splendid structures of Palmyra and Baalbec. In Italy, however, stones of moderate size were preferred, and when blocks of unusual dimensions occur, they are in many cases marked with false joints, dividing them into apparently smaller blocks, lest they should dwarf the building by their large scale. The general use in the Augustan period of marble for a decorative lining or wainscot in interiors led in time to the objectionable practice of coating buildings of concrete with an apparel of sham marble masonry, by carving false joints upon an external veneer of thin slabs of that material. Ordinary concrete walls were frequently faced with small blocks of tufa, called, according to the manner of its application, opus reticulatum, opus incertum, opus spicatum, etc. (Fig. 48). In most cases, however, the facing was of carefully executed brickwork, covered sometimes by a coating of stucco. The bricks were large, measuring from one to two feet square where used for quoins or arches, but triangular where they served only as facings. Bricks were also used in the construction of skeleton ribs for concrete vaults of large span.

VAULTING. Here, as in the wall-masonry, economy and common sense devised methods extremely simple for accomplishing vast designs. While the smaller vaults were, so to speak, cast in concrete upon moulds made of rough boards, the enormous weight of the larger vaults precluded their being supported, while drying or "setting," upon timber centrings built up from the ground. Accordingly, askeleton of light ribs was first built on wooden centrings, and these ribs, when firmly "set," became themselves supports for intermediate centrings on which to cast the concrete fillings between the ribs. The whole vault, once hardened, formed really a monolithic curved lintel, exerting no thrust whatever, so that the extraordinary precautions against lateral disruption practised by the Romans were, in fact, in many cases quite superfluous.

DECORATION. The temple of Castor and Pollux in the Forum (long miscalled the temple of Jupiter Stator), is a typical example of Roman architectural decoration, in which richness was preferred to the subtler refinements of design (see Fig. 44). The splendid figure-sculpture which adorned the Greek monuments would have been inappropriate on the theatres and therm of Rome or the provinces, even had there been the taste or the skill to produce it. Conventional carved ornament was substituted in its place, and developed into a splendid system of highly decorative forms. Two principal elements appear in this decoration—the acanthus-leaf, as the basis of a whole series of wonderfully varied motives; and symbolism, represented principally by what are technically termed grotesques—incongruous combinations of natural forms, as when an infant's body terminates in a bunch of foliage (Fig. 49). Only to a limited extent do we find true sculpture employed as decoration, and that mainly for triumphal arches or memorial columns.



The architectural mouldings were nearly always carved, the Greek water-leaf and egg-and-dart forming the basis of most of the enrichments; but these were greatly elaborated and treated with more minute detail than the Greek prototypes. Friezes and bands were commonly ornamented with the foliated scroll or rinceau (aconvenient French term for which we have no equivalent). This motive was as characteristic of Roman art as the anthemion was of the Greek. It consists of a continuous stem throwing out alternately on either side branches which curl into spirals and are richly adorned with rosettes, acanthus-leaves, scrolls, tendrils, and blossoms. In the best examples the detail was modelled with great care and minuteness, and the motive itself was treated with extraordinary variety and fertility of invention. Aderived and enriched form of the anthemion was sometimes used for bands and friezes; and grotesques, dolphins, griffins, infant genii, wreaths, festoons, ribbons, eagles, and masks are also common features in Roman relief carving.



The Romans made great use of panelling and of moulded plaster in their interior decoration, especially for ceilings. The panelling of domes and vaults was usually roughly shaped in their first construction and finished afterward in stucco with rich moulding and rosettes. The panels were not always square or rectangular, as in Greek ceilings, but of various geometric forms in pleasing combinations (Fig. 50). In works of a small scale the panels and decorations were wrought in relief in a heavy coating of plaster applied to the finished structure, and these stucco reliefs are among the most refined and charming products of Roman art. (Baths of Titus; Baths at Pompeii; Palace of the Csars and tombs at Rome.)

COLOR DECORATION. Plaster was also used as a ground for painting, executed in distemper or by the encaustic process, wax liquefied by a hot iron being the medium for applying the color in the latter case. Pompeii and Herculaneum furnish countless examples of brilliant wall-painting in which strong primary colors form the ground, and a semi-naturalistic, semi-fantastic representation of figures, architecture and landscape is mingled with festoons, vines, and purely conventional ornament. Mosaic was also employed to decorate floors and wall-spaces, and sometimes for ceilings.[13] The later imperial baths and palaces were especially rich in mosaic of the kind called opus Grecanicum, executed with numberless minute cubes of stone or glass, as in the Baths of Caracalla and the Villa of Hadrian at Tivoli.

[Footnote 13: See Van Dyke's History of Paintings, p.33.]

To the walls of monumental interiors, such as temples, basilicas, and therm, splendor of color was given by veneering them with thin slabs of rare and richly colored marble. No limit seems to have been placed upon the costliness or amount of these precious materials. Byzantine architecture borrowed from this practice its system of interior color decoration.



CHAPTER IX.

ROMAN ARCHITECTURE—Continued.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Same as for Chapter VIII. Also, Guhl and Kohner, Life of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. Adams, Ruins of the Palace of Spalato. Burn, Rome and the Campagna. Cameron, Roman Baths. Mau, tr. by Kelcey, Pompeii, its Life and Art. Mazois, Ruines de Pompeii. Von Presuhn, Die neueste Ausgrabungen zu Pompeii. Wood, Ruins of Palmyra and Baalbec.

THE ETRUSCAN STYLE. Although the first Greek architects were employed in Rome as early as 493 B.C., the architecture of the Republic was practically Etruscan until nearly 100 B.C. Its monuments, consisting mainly of city walls, tombs, and temples, are all marked by a general uncouthness of detail, denoting a lack of artistic refinement, but they display considerable constructive skill. In the Etruscan walls we meet with both polygonal and regularly coursed masonry; in both kinds the true arch appears as the almost universal form for gates and openings. Afamous example is the Augustan Gate at Perugia, alate work rebuilt about 40 B.C., but thoroughly Etruscan in style. At Volaterr (Volterra) is another arched gate, and in Perugia fragments of still another appear built into the modern walls.

The Etruscans built both structural and excavated tombs; they consisted in general of a single chamber with a slightly arched or gabled roof, supported in the larger tombs on heavy square piers. The interiors were covered with pictures; externally there was little ornament except about the gable and doorway. The latter had a stepped or moulded frame with curious crossettes or ears projecting laterally at the top. The gable recalled the wooden roofs of Etruscan temples, but was coarse in detail, especially in its mouldings. Sepulchral monuments of other types are also met with, such as cippi or memorial pillars, sometimes in groups of five on a single pedestal (tomb at Albano).

Among the temples of Etruscan style that of Jupiter Capitolinus on the Capitol at Rome, destroyed by fire in 80 B.C., was the chief. Three narrow chambers side by side formed a cella nearly square in plan, preceded by a hexastyle porch of huge Doric, or rather Tuscan, columns arranged in three aisles, widely spaced and carrying ponderous wooden architraves. The roof was of wood; the cymatium and ornaments, as well as the statues in the pediment, were of terra-cotta, painted and gilded. The details in general showed acquaintance with Greek models, which appeared in debased and awkward imitations of triglyphs, cornices, antefix, etc.



GREEK STYLE. The victories of Marcellus at Syracuse, 212 B.C., Fabius Maximus at Tarentum (209 B.C.), Flaminius (196 B.C.), Mummius (146 B.C.), Sulla (86 B.C.), and others in the various Greek provinces, steadily increased the vogue of Greek architecture and the number of Greek artists in Rome. The temples of the last two centuries B.C., and some of earlier date, though still Etruscan in plan, were in many cases strongly Greek in the character of their details. Afew have remained to our time in tolerable preservation. The temple of Fortuna Virilis (really of Fors Fortuna), of the second century (?) B.C., is a tetrastyle prostyle pseudoperipteral temple with a high podium or base, atypical Etruscan cella, and a deep porch, now walled up, but thoroughly Greek in the elegant details of its Ionic order (Fig. 51). Two circular temples, both called erroneously Temples of Vesta, one at Rome near the Cloaca Maxima, the other at Tivoli, belong among the monuments of Greek style. The first was probably dedicated to Hercules, the second probably to the Sibyls; the latter being much the better preserved of the two. Both were surrounded by peristyles of eighteen Corinthian columns, and probably covered by domical roofs with gilded bronze tiles. The Corinthian order appears here complete with its modillion cornice, but the crispness of the detail and the fineness of the execution are Greek and not Roman. These temples date from about 72 B.C., though the one at Rome was probably rebuilt in the first century A.D. (Fig. 52).



IMPERIAL ARCHITECTURE; AUGUSTAN AGE. Even in the temples of Greek style Roman conceptions of plan and composition are dominant. The Greek architect was not free to reproduce textually Greek designs or details, however strongly he might impress with the Greek character whatever he touched. The demands of imperial splendor and the building of great edifices of varied form and complex structure, like the therm and amphitheatres, called for new adaptations and combinations of planning and engineering. The reign of Augustus (27 B.C.-14 A.D.) inaugurated the imperial epoch, but many works erected before and after his reign properly belong to the Augustan age by right of style. In general, we find in the works of this period the happiest combination of Greek refinement with Roman splendor. It was in this period that Rome first assumed the aspect of an opulent and splendid metropolis, though the way had been prepared for this by the regularization and adornment of the Roman Forum and the erection of many temples, basilicas, fora, arches, and theatres during the generation preceding the accession of Augustus. His reign saw the inception or completion of the portico of Octavia, the Augustan forum, the Septa Julia, the first Pantheon, the adjoining Therm of Agrippa, the theatre of Marcellus, the first of the imperial palaces on the Palatine, and a long list of temples, including those of the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux), of Mars Ultor, of Jupiter Tonans on the Capitol, and others in the provinces; besides colonnades, statues, arches, and other embellishments almost without number.

LATER IMPERIAL WORKS. With the successors of Augustus splendor increased to almost fabulous limits, as, for instance, in the vast extent and the prodigality of ivory and gold in the famous Golden House of Nero. After the great fire in Rome, presumably kindled by the agents of this emperor, amore regular and monumental system of street-planning and building was introduced, and the first municipal building-law was decreed by him. To the reign of Vespasian (68-79 A.D.) we owe the rebuilding in Roman style and with the Corinthian order of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, the Baths of Titus, and the beginning of the Flavian amphitheatre or Colosseum. The two last-named edifices both stood on the site of Nero's Golden House, of which the greater part was demolished to make way for them. During the last years of the first century the arch of Titus was erected, the Colosseum finished, amphitheatres built at Verona, Pola, Reggio, Tusculum, Nmes (France), Constantine (Algiers), Pompeii and Herculanum (these last two cities and Stabi rebuilt after the earthquake of 63 A.D.), and arches, bridges, and temples erected all over the Roman world.

The first part of the second century was distinguished by the splendid architectural achievements of the reign of Hadrian (117-138 A.D.) in Rome and the provinces, especially Athens. Nearly all his works were marked by great dignity of conception as well as beauty of detail. During the latter part of the century a very interesting series of buildings were erected in the Hauran (Syria), in which Greek and Arab workmen under Roman direction produced examples of vigorous stone architecture of a mingled Roman and Syrian character.

The most-remarkable therm of Rome belong to the third century—those of Caracalla (211-217 A.D.) and of Diocletian (284-305 A.D.)—their ruins to-day ranking among the most imposing remains of antiquity. In Syria the temples of the Sun at Baalbec and Palmyra (273 A.D., under Aurelian), and the great palace of Diocletian at Spalato, in Dalmatia (300 A.D.), are still the wonder of the few travellers who reach those distant spots.

While during the third and fourth centuries there was a marked decline in purity and refinement of detail, many of the later works of the period display a remarkable freedom and originality in conception. But these works are really not Roman, they are foreign, that is, provincial products; and the transfer of the capital to Byzantium revealed the increasing degree in which Rome was coming to look to the East for her strength and her art.



TEMPLES. The Romans built both rectangular and circular temples, and there was much variety in their treatment. In the rectangular temples a high podium, or basement, was substituted for the Greek stepped stylobate, and the prostyle plan was more common than the peripteral. The cella was relatively short and wide, the front porch inordinately deep, and frequently divided by longitudinal rows of columns into three aisles. In most cases the exterior of the cella in prostyle temples was decorated by engaged columns. Abarrel vault gave the interior an aspect of spaciousness impossible with the Greek system of a wooden ceiling supported on double ranges of columns. In the place of these, free or engaged columns along the side-walls received the ribs of the vaulting. Between these ribs the ceiling was richly panelled, or coffered and sumptuously gilded. The temples of Fortuna Virilis and of Faustina at Rome (the latter built 141 A.D., and its ruins incorporated into the modern church of S.Lorenzo in Miranda), and the beautiful and admirably preserved Maison Carre, at Nmes (France) (4A.D.) are examples of this type. The temple of Concord, of which only the podium remains, and the small temple of Julius (both of these in the Forum) illustrate another form of prostyle temple in which the porch was on a long side of the cella. Some of the larger temples were peripteral. The temple of the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux) in the Forum, was one of the most magnificent of these, certainly the richest in detail (Fig. 44). Very remarkable was the double temple of Venus and Rome, east of the Forum, designed by the Emperor Hadrian about 130 A.D. (Fig. 53). It was a vast pseudodipteral edifice containing two cellas in one structure, their statue-niches or apses meeting back to back in the centre. The temple stood in the midst of an imposing columnar peribolus entered by magnificent gateways. Other important temples have already been mentioned on p.91.

Besides the two circular temples already described, the temple of Vesta, adjoining the House of the Vestals, at the east end of the Forum should be mentioned. At Baalbec is a circular temple whose entablature curves inward between the widely-spaced columns until it touches the cella in the middle of each intercolumniation. It illustrates the caprices of design which sometimes resulted from the disregard of tradition and the striving after originality (273 A.D.).



THE PANTHEON. The noblest of all circular temples of Rome and of the world was the Pantheon. It was built by Hadrian, 117-138 A.D., on the site of the earlier rectangular temple of the same name erected by Agrippa. It measures 142 feet in diameter internally; the wall is 20 feet thick and supports a hemispherical dome rising to a height of 140 feet (Figs. 54, 55). Light is admitted solely through a round opening 28 feet in diameter at the top of the dome, the simplest and most impressive method of illumination conceivable. The rain and snow that enter produce no appreciable effect upon the temperature of the vast hall. There is a single entrance, with noble bronze doors, admitting directly to the interior, around which seven niches, alternately rectangular and semicircular in plan and fronted by Corinthian columns, lighten, without weakening, the mass of the encircling wall. This wall was originally incrusted with rich marbles, and the great dome, adorned with deep coffering in rectangular panels, was decorated with rosettes and mouldings in gilt stucco. The dome appears to have been composed of numerous arches and ribs, filled in and finally coated with concrete. Arecent examination of a denuded portion of its inner surface has convinced the writer that the interior panelling was executed after, and not during, its construction, by hewing the panels out of the mass of brick and concrete, without regard to the form and position of the origin skeleton of ribs.