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ephebi or youths exercised, or, as some say, where those that designed to exercise met and agreed what kind of exercise they should contend in, and what should be the victor's roward; D, is the coryceum; E, the KovoтhpLov, conisterium, where the dust was kept for sprinkling those that had been anointed; r is the cold bath (frigida lavatio); a, the exau

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Beolov, elæothesium, or place for anointing those that were about to wrestle; H, the frigidarium, or cold chamber; 1, passage to the propigneum, or furnace; L, the propigneum; м, the arched sudatio, for sweating; N, the laconicum; o, the hot bath (calida lavatio); 5, 7, the two porticoes described as out of the palæstra, of which 7 forms the rystus, and 6 a double portico; a a, the margines, or semite of the xystus, to separate the spectators from the wrestlers; bb, the middle part excavated two steps, cc, down; QQ, gardens; dd, walks; e e, stationes for seats; R R, Evoтa, xysta, sometimes called περίδρομιδες, for walking or exercises; s, the stadium, with raised seats round it.

176. The roofs of the edifices of Athens vary from 14 to 15 degrees in inclination, a subject which will be hereafter fully considered, when we come to investigate the principles of constructing roofs. In Rome, as will hereafter be seen, the inclination is much more. There is nothing to war. rant us in a belief that the arch was known to the Greeks till after the age of Alexander. Indeed, the want of a name for it in a language so generally copious as the Greek, suffices to show that they were unacquainted with it. It was most probably in much earlier use in Italy. The words Soλos, ais, and taxis, are not used in a sense that signifies an arch until after the reign of the above-named monarch; nor is any description extant from which may be conceived the construction of an arch on scientific principles.

Fig. 107.

B

3

PLAN OF A GREEK GYMNASIUM.

177. From the time of Pericles to that of Alexander, all the arts, and most especially that of architecture, seem to have attained a high state of perfection. Every moral and physical cause had concurred in so advancing them. But perfection, when once reached in the works of man, is only the commencement of their falling away from it. Liberty, the love of country, ambition in every department of life, had made Athens the focus of the arts and sciences: the defeat of the Persians at Marathon and other celebrated victories had brought peace to the whole of the states of Greece. In the space of time preceding the Peloponnesian war, there seems to have been, as it were, an explosion of every species of talent, and it was at this period that they set about rebuilding the temples and other edifices that the Persians had thrown down, of which a wise policy had preserved the ruins, so that the contemplation of desolation and misfortune afforded them an eloquent reminiscence of the peril in which they continually stood. It was indeed only after the flight of the general of Xerxes, and the victory gained by Themistocles, that a general restoration of their monuments and the rebuilding of Athens were set about. These were the true trophies of the battle of Salamis. About 335 years B. C. Alexander became master of Greece. with every species of glory, and jealous of leaving to posterity monuments that should be unworthy of his greatness and fame, or other than proofs of the refinement of his taste, this prince gave a new impulse to genius by the exclusive choice that he made of the most skilful artists, and by the liberal rewards he bestowed upon them. The sacking of Corinth by the Romans in less than two centuries (about 146 B.C.) was the first disaster that the fine arts encountered in Greece; their overthrow there was soon afterwards completed by the country becoming a Roman province. At the former occurrence Polybius

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(cited by Strabo) says, that during the plunder the Roman soldiers were seen casting their dice on the celebrated picture of Bacchus by Aristides. Juvenal well describes such a scene (Satire xi. 100.): —

Tunc rudis et Graias mirari nescius artes,
Urbibus eversis, prædarum in parte reperta
Magnorum artificům frangebat pocula miles.

The well-known story of the consul Mummius shows either that the higher ranks among the Roman citizens were not very much enlightened on the arts, or that he was a singular block head. We have now arrived at the period at which Greece was despoiled and Rome enriched, and must pursue the history of the art among the Romans; incidental to which a short digression will be necessary on Etruscan architecture.

SECT. XII.

ETRUSCAN ARCHITECTURE.

178. The inhabitants of Etruria, a country of Italy, now called Tuscany, are supposed to have been a colony from Greece. They certainly may have been a swarm from the original hive (see Druidical, Celtic, 13.; and Cyclopean Architecture, 32.) that passed through Greece in their way to Italy. The few remains of their buildings still existing show, from their construction, that they are coeval with the walls of Tiryns, Mycena (figs. 9. and 10.), and other works of a very early age; and it is our own opinion that the wandering from that great central nation, of which we have already so much spoken, was as likely to conduct the Etrurians at once to the spot on which they settled, as to bring them through Greece to the place of their settlement. It is equally our opinion that, so far from the country whereof we now treat having received their arts from the Greeks, it is quite as possible, and even likely, that the Greeks may have received their arts from the Etruscans. The history of Etruria, if we consult the different writers who have mentioned it, is such a mass of contradiction and obscurity, that there is no sure guide for us. It seems to be a moving picture of constant emigration and re-emigration between the inhabitants of Greece and Italy. The only point upon which we can surely rest is, that there were many ancient relations between the two countries, and that in after times the dominion of the Etruscans extended to that part of Italy which, when it became occupied by Grecian colonies, took the name of Magna Græcia. The continual intercourse between the two countries lessens our surprise at the great similarity in their mythology, in their religious tenets, and in their early works of art. We are quite aware that the learned Lanzi was of opinion (Saggio di Lingua Etrusca that the Etruscans were not the most ancient people of Italy. We are not about to dispute that point. He draws his conclusion from language; we draw our own from a comparison of the masonry employed in both nations, from the remains whereof we should, if there be a difference, assign the earliest date to that of Hetruria. This, to be sure, leaves open the question whether the country was preoccupied; one which, for our purpose, it is not necessary to settle. We have Winkelman and Guarnacci on our side, who from medals and coins arrived at the belief that among the Etruscans the arts were more advanced at a very early age than among the Greeks; and Dr. Clarke's reasoning tends to prove for them a Phoenician origin.

179. Great solidity of construction is the prominent feature in Etruscan architecture. Their cities were surrounded by walls consisting of enormous blocks of stone, and usually very high. Remains of them are still to be seen at Volterra (fig. 108.), Cortona, Fiesole

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(fig. 109.), &c. Monibus," says Alberti (De Re Edific. lib. vii. c. 2.) “veterum præsertim populi Etruriæ quadratum eumdemque vastissimum lapidem probavêre." In the walls of Cortona some of the stones are upwards of 22 Roman feet in length, and from 5 to 6 ft. high, and in them neither cramps nor cement appear to have been employed. The walls of Volterra are built after the same gigantic fashion. In the earliest specimens of walling, the blocks of stone were of an irregular polygonal form, and so disposed as that all their sides were in close contact with one another. Of this species is the wall at Cora, near Velletri. The gates were very simple, and built of stones of an oblong square form. The gate of Hercules, at Volterra, is an arch consisting of nineteen stones;

Fig. 108. WALL AT VOLTERRA.

Fig. 109.

WAIL AT FIRSOLE

circunstance which, if its antiquity be allowed to be only of a moderately remote period, would go far to disprove all Lanzi's reasoning, for, as we have noticed in the preceding ar ticle, the arch was unknown in Greece till after the time of Alexander. According to Gori (Museum Etruscum), vestiges of theatres have been discovered among the ruins of some of their cities. That they were acquainted with the method of conducting theatrical representations is evident from Livy, who mentions an occasion on which comedians were brought from Etruria to Rome, whose inhabitants at the time in question were only accustomed to the games of the circus. The gladiatorial sports, which were afterwards so much the delight of the Romans, were also borrowed from the same people. They constructed their temples peripterally; the pediments of them were decorated with statues, quadriga, and bassi rilievi, in terra cotta, many whereof were remaining in the time of Vitruvius and Pliny, Though it is supposed that the Etruscans made use of wood in the entablatures of their temples, it is not to be inferred that at even the earliest period they were unacquainted with the use of stone for their architraves and lintels, as is sufficiently proved in the Piscina of Volterra.

180. The Romans, until the conquest of Greece, borrowed the taste of their architecture from Etruria. Even to the time of Augustus, the species called Tuscan was to be seen by the side of the acclimatised temple of the Greeks.

181. The atrium or court, in private houses, seems to have been an invention of the Etruscans. Festus derives its name from its having been first used at Atria, in Etruria : "Dictum Atrium quia id genus edificii primum Atriæ in Etruria sit institutum." We shall, however, allude in the next section to Etruscan architecture as connected with Roman; merely adding here, that in about a year after the death of Alexander the nation fell under the dominion of the Romans.

SECT. XIII.

ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.

182. The Romans can scarcely be said to have had an original architecture; they had rather a modification of that of the Greeks. Their first instruction in the art was received from the Etruscans, which was probably not until the time of the Tarquins, when their edifices began to be constructed upon fixed principles, and to receive appropriate decoration. In the time of the first Tarquin, who was a native of Etruria, much had been done towards the improvement of Rome. He brought from his native country a taste for that grandeur and solidity which prevailed in the Etruscan works. After many victories he had the honour of a triumph, and applied the wealth he had acquired from the conquered cities to building a circus, for which a situation was chosen in the valley which reached from the Aventine to the Palatine Hill. Under his reign the city was fortified, cleansed, and beautified. The walls were built of hewn stone, and the low grounds about the Forum drained, which prepared the way for the second Tarquin to construct that Cloaca Maxima, which was reckoned among the wonders of the world. The Forum was surrounded with galleries by him; and his reign was further distinguished by the erection of temples, schools for both sexes, and halls for the administration of public justice. This, according to the best chronologies, must have been upwards of 610 years B. c. Servius Tullius enlarged the city, and among his other works continued those of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, which had been commenced by his predecessor; but the operations of both were eclipsed by monuments, for which the Romans were indebted to Tarquinius Superbus, the seventh king of Rome. Under him the Circus was completed, and the most effective methods taken to finish the Cloaca Maxima. This work, on which neither labour nor expense was spared to make the work everlasting, is of wrought stone, and its height and breadth are so considerable, that a cart loaded with hay could pass through it. Hills and rocks were

cut through for the purpose of passing the filth of the city into the Tiber. Pliny calls the Cloaca, "operum omnium dictu maximum, suffossis montibus, atque urbe pensili, sub terque navigata." The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was not finished till after the expulsion of the kings, 508 B. c. ; but under Tarquinius Superbus it was considerably advanced. In the third consulship of Poplicola, the temple was consecrated. As the name,

which was changed, imports, this temple stood on the Mons Capitolinus, and embraced, according to Plutarch, four acres of ground. It was twice afterwards destroyed, and twice rebuilt on the same foundations. Vespasian, at a late period, rebuilt it; and upon the destruction of this last by fire, Domitian raised the most splendid of all, in which the gilding alone cost 12,000 talents. It is impossible now to trace the architecture of the Romans through its various steps between the time of the last king, 508 B. c., and the subjugation of Greece by that people in the year 145 в. c., a period of $63 years.

The

disputes in which they were continually engaged left them little leisure for the arts of peace; yet the few monuments with which we are acquainted show a power and skill that mark them as an extraordinary race. Thus in the year 397 B. c., on the occasion of the siege of Veii, the prodigy, as it was supposed, of the lake of Alba overflowing, when there was little water in the neighbouring rivers, springs, and marshes, induced the authorities to make an emissarium, or outlet for the superfluous water, which subsists to this day. The water of the lake Albano, which runs along Castel Gondolfo, still passes through it. A few years after this event an opportunity was afforded, which, with more care on the part of the authorities, might have considerably improved it, after its demolition by Brennus. This event occurred 389 B. c., and was nearly the occasion of the population being removed to Veii altogether, a place which offered them a spot fortified by art and nature, good houses ready built, a wholesome air, and a fruitful territory. The eloquence, however, of Camillus prevailed over their despondency. Livy (b. vi.) observes, that in the rebuilding, the state furnished tiles, and the people were allowed to take stone and other materials wherever they could find them, giving security to finish their houses within the year. But the haste with which they went to work caused many encroachments on each other's soil. Every one raised his house where he found a vacant space; so that in many cases they built over the common sewers, which before ran under the streets. So little taste for regularity and beauty was observed, that the city, when rebuilt, was even less regular than in the time of Romulus; and though in the time of Augustus, when Rome had become the capital of the world, the temples, palaces, and private houses were more magnificent than before, yet these decorations could not rectify the fault of the plan. Though perhaps not strictly within our own province, we may here mention the temple built in honour of Juno Moneta, in consequence of a vow of L. Furius Camillus when before the Volsci. This was one of the temples on the Capitoline hill. The epithet above mentioned was given to the queen of the gods, a short time before the taking of Rome by the Gauls. It was pretended that from the temple of Juno a voice had proceeded, accompanied with an earthquake, and that the voice had admonished the Romans to avert the evils that threatened them by sacrificing a sow with pig. She was hence called Moneta (from monere). The temple of Juno Moneta becoming afterwards a public mint, the medals stamped in it for the current coin took the name of Moneta (money). This temple was erected about 345 years B.C., on the spot where the house of Marcus Manlius had stood. 183. In the time that Appius Claudius was censor, about 309 B. C., the earliest paved road was made by the Romans. It was first carried to Capua, and afterwards continued to Brundusium, a length altogether of 350 miles. Statius calls it regina viarum. Paved with the hardest stone, it remains entire to the present day. Its breadth is about 14 ft.; the stones of which it is composed vary in size, but so admirably was it put together that they are like one stone. Its bed is on two strata; the first of rough stones cemented with mortar, and the second of gravel, the thickness altogether being about 3 ft. To the same Appius Claudius belongs the honour of having raised the first aqueduct. The water with which it supplied the city was collected from the neighbourhood of Frascati, about 100 ft. above the level of Rome. The Romans at this time were fast advancing in the arts and sciences; for in about nineteen years afterwards we find Papirius, after his victory over the Samnites, built a temple to Quirinus out of a portion of its spoils. Upon this temple was fixed (Pliny, b. vii. c. 60.) the first sun-dial that Rome ever saw. For a long while the Romans marked only the rising and setting of the sun; they afterwards observed, but in a rude clumsy manner, the hour of noon. When the sun's rays appeared between the rostra and the house appointed for the reception of the ambassadors, a herald of one of the consuls proclaimed with a loud voice that it was mid-day. With the aid of the dial they now marked the hours of the day, as they soon after did those of the night by the aid of the clepsydra or water-clock. The materials for carrying on the investigation are so scanty, and moreover, as in the case of Grecian architecture, without examples whereon we can reason, that we will not detain the reader with further speculations, but at once proceed to that period (145 B.C.) when Greece was reduced to a Roman province. Art, in the strict application of that word, was not properly understood by the victorious Romans; and a barrenness appears to have clung about that whereof we treat, even with all the advantages that Rome possessed. It may be supposed that the impulse given to the arts would have been immediate; but, like the waves generated by the ocean storm, a succession of them was necessary before the billows would approach the coast. Perhaps, though it be only conjectural, the first effect was visible in the temple reared to Minerva at Rome, out of the spoils of the Mithridatic war, by Pompey the Great, about sixty years B.C., after a triumph unparalleled perhaps in the history of the world; after the conclusion of a war of thirty years' duration, in which upwards of two millions of his fellow-creatures had been slain and vanquished; after 846 ships had been sunk or taken, and 1538 towns and fortresses had been reducea to the power of the empire, and all the countries between the lake Mæotis and the Red Sea had been subdued. It is to be regretted that no remains of this temple exist. The inscription (Plin. lib. vii. c. 26.) was as follows: —

CN. POMPEIUS. CN. F. MAGNUS. IMP.

BELLO. XXX. ANNORUM. CONFECTO.

PUSIS. FUGATIS. OCCISIS. IN. DEDITIONEM. ACCEPTIS
HOMINUM. CENTIES. VICIES. SEMEL. CENTENIS.

LXXXIII. M.

DEPRESSIS. AUT. CAPT. NAVIBUS. DCCCXLVI

OPPIDIS. CASTELLIS. MDXXXVIII

IN. FIDEM. RECEPTIS.

TERRIS. A. MAEOTI. LACU. AD. RUBRUM. MARK

SUBACTIS.

VOTUM. MERITO. MINERVÆ

184. The villas of the Romans at this period were of considerable extent; the statues of Greece had been acquired for their decoration, and every luxury in the way of decoration that the age could afford had been poured into them from the plentiful supply that Greek art afforded. To such an extreme was carried the determination to possess every thing that talent could supply, that we find Cicero was in the habit of employing two architects, Chrysippus and Cluatius (ad Atticum, lib. iii. epist. 29. and lib. xii. epist. 18.); the first certainly, the last probably a Greek. Their extent would scarcely be credited but for the corroboration we have of it in some of their ruins.

185. Until the time of Pompey no permanent theatre existed in Rome: the ancient discipline requiring that the theatre should continue no longer than the shows lasted. The most splendid temporary theatre was that of M. Æmilius Scaurus, who, when ædile, erected one capable of containing 80,000 persons, which was decorated, from all accounts, with singular magnificence and at an amazing cost. History (Plin. xxxvi. 15.) records an extraordinary instance of mechanical skill, in the theatre erected by Curio, one of Cæsar's partisans, at the funeral exhibition in honour of his father. Two large theatres of timber were constructed back to back, and on one side so connected with hinges and machinery for the purpose, that when the theatrical exhibitions had closed they were wheeled or slung round so as to form an amphitheatre, wherein, in the afternoon, shows of gladiators were given. Returning, however, to the theatre erected by Pompey, which, to avoid the animadversion of the censors, he dedicated as a temple to Venus: the plan (Pliny, vii. 3.) was taken from that at Mitylene, but so enlarged as to be capable of containing 40,000 persons. Round it was a portico for shelter in case of bad weather: a curia or senate house was attached to it with a basilica or hall for the administration of jusThe statues of male and female persons celebrated for their lives and characters were selected and placed in it by Atticus, for his attention to which Cicero (Epist. ad Attic. iv. 9.) was commissioned by Pompey to convey his thanks. The temple of Venus, which was attached to avoid the breach of the laws committed, was so contrived that the seats of the theatre served as steps to the temple; a contrivance which also served to escape the reproach of encountering so vast an expense for mere luxury, for the temple was so placed that those who visited the theatre might seem at the same time to come for the purpose of worshipping the goddess. At the solemnity of its dedication the people were entertained with the most magnificent shows that had ever been exhibited in Rome. We cannot prolong the account of this edifice by detailing them,—indeed that would be foreign to our purpose; but we may add, that such a building presents to us a genuine idea of the vast grandeur and wealth of those principal subjects of Rome, who from their own private revenues could rear such magnificent buildings, and provide for the entertainment of the people shows to which all the quarters of the globe contributed, and which no monarch now on earth could afford to exhibit. This theatre was finished about 54 B.C.

tice.

186. In the year 45 B.C. Rome witnessed a triumph not less extraordinary than that we bave just recorded,—that of Julius Cæsar on his return from Utica. From the commencement of the civil war that had raged he had found no leisure for celebrating the triumphs which induced the people to create him dictator for ten years, and to place his statue in the Capitol opposite to that of Jupiter, with the globe of the earth under his feet, and the inscription "To Cæsar the Demi-God." We need scarcely remind our readers that his first triumph was over the Gauls; that this was followed by that over Ptolemy and Egypt; the third over Pharnaces and Pontus; and the fourth over Juba. The triumph recorded these appropriately; but we leave that merely observing, by the way, that the fruit of his victories amounted to 65,000 talents and 2822 crowns of gold, weighing together 20,414 Roman pounds, to state that on this occasion the Circus was enlarged, a lake sunk for the exhibition of Egyptian and Tyrian galleys, and that in the same year he dedicated a temple to Venus Genetrix, and opened his new forum. Warriors are not often inclined to call in the aid of the arts, except for commemorating their own actions. Not so with Cæsar. In the year 44 B.C., after his triumph over the sons of Pompey, we once more find him engaged in the arts of peace. A temple to Clemency was erected by him, in which his statue was placed near to that of the goddess, and joining hands with her. In the next year he laid

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