economy — both of material and labour — had pro-
bably much to do with it. The common idea of
the wealth and luxury of Roman building as com-
pared with Greek can only be accepted with great
reservation ; their system of construction was rela-
tively much less costly. The Greeks rarely attempted
a colossal building ; where they did, as at Agri-
gentuni, it is a failure. They were content with
comparatively small buildings ; but on these they
lavished the highest skill, materials and labour of
the costhest. They never required whole armies of
workmen, and were, therefore, able to give the same
skilled labour to the building throughout. The
materials are costly in themselves, in large blocks,
and selected with the greatest care ; the work is exe-
cuted with a delicacy even to the smallest details,
which shows that every workman was an artist.
Parts which could never be examined, such as the
beds and joints of the masonry, or the backs of the
statues in the pediments, are all worked and sculp-
tured as conscientiously as the rest ; the walls are
invariably built solid, of the same material through-
out. Even in works of fortification, as in the Cyclo-
pean walls of Tiryns and IVIycenae, the luicoursed
polygonal masonry, though of ordinary stone, is
worked with a nicety and care that must have made
it quite as costly as regular ashlar-work. The
Romans, on the other liand, entered upon the path
of economy. They reached architecture through
engineering (to draw a distinction more easily recog-
nised than defined). ' The Greeks,' we must remem-
ber, means, after all, the inhabitants of a few small
cities isolated and without cohesion ; by far the
greater portion of the incomparable heritage of art,
letters, and science that comes to us from Greece we
owe to a single city, surpassed in size by many a
constituency of modern times. But the Romans,
who ultimately welded the world into a whole, re-
quired to execute great works of engineering, fortifi-
cations and roads, aqueducts and bridges. They
had to employ enormous numbers of men, the vast
majority of whom were probably their soldiers. In
comparison, the skilled workmen must have been
few, and it was natural to apply their skill to the
more important points in the construction. We
find, therefore, exactly the opposite of what we have
in Greece. Materials and skilled labour alike are
economised wherever possible, without risk to sta-
bility. The walls are often merely faced with
ashlar ; the nucleus of the construction is rubble
or concrete. Difficulties of construction, too, are
avoided. Penetrations in vaulting of unequal cm--
vature are steadily rejected, lo avoid the complicated
and difficult tracing of the resulting intersection.
Thus, where two barrel vaults communicate, if of
unequal span, the Roman architect sjirings the larger
from a line above the crown of the smaller. This is
constantly seen in the theatres and amphitheatres,
where the vomitories and enti-ances penetrate the
vaulted ambulatories or galleries running round the
building at every stage. Similarly, if a barrel vault
has to run into a cupola, the latter is sprung from
above the apex of the arch. It was left for the
Renascence architects to work out the problems of
iniequal penetrations, with the resulting intersec-
tions and lunettes, and in this the Renascence
inidoubtedly represents a great advance, though
exaggerated in the eighteenth century into all sorts
of complications as useless as Ikr-fetched (still to be
found by the ciu-ious in treatises on stereotomy). It
was the Gothic architects who followed faitlifully in
the path opened out by Rome, developing to its
highest possibilities the system of ribbed vaulting
and concentrated buttressed thrusts. In this sense
Gothic architecture is as truly the offspring of
Roman as is Byzantine, the latter also steadily de-
veloping the barrel vault, both simple and intersect-
ing, and, above all, the cupola.
One other characteristic difference between Greek and Roman architecture remains to be noted. In the Greek temple, as universally in the East, hori- zontal lines are the predominant feature ; the building forms a rectangular prism, divided by strongly-marked lines into horizontal zones. In a Gothic cathedral the vertical predominates as strongly ; instead of the calm sweep of level line 'long drawn out,' we have constant grouping leading the eye aloft ; the prism has given place to the pyramid. The two are absolutely divided; between them is Rome, serving as transition, but again separating herself from Greece, and opening the way for Western architecture. The two best in- stances, perhaps, are the Baths of Caracalla and the Basilica of Maxentius. In the former the great central hall is very lofty, and the thrust of its vaulting rests upon a series of smrounding buildings arranged like steps to buttress it in the latter the great central nave has an intersecting vault springing ostensibly from single columns, but really buttressed by the lateral aisles, which are roofed with transverse barrel vaults to receive the thrust.
Of course there is much in Rome that belongs to trabeate architecture; often there is indecision between the architrave and the arch. It is not contended that Roman architecture represents an abrupt severance between the old and the new, the East and the West ; it is only a transition and steady growth, though, perhaps, the most marked and important in architectural liistory. Enough, however, it is hoped, has been said to vindicate the claim of Rome to be no mere second-hand imitator of her more art-gifted neighbour, but herself the maker of an epoch and the founder of perhaps the fairest period of evolution in the art. S. H. Ca^ppek.
