DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42778#0023
IN ETRURIA AND ELSEWHERE TO 300 B.C. 3
Mamertine Prison, or Tullianum, and some early cisterns on the
Palatine, only one of which is at present visible to the public (Plate
III)1. The arch itself, both round and pointed, dates from time
immemorial; and Professor Petrie’s discovery at Dendera, in Egypt,
of passages 6 feet wide, covered with barrel vaults of three rings
of voussoirs built in crude brick, and dating from 3,500 b.c., shows
that, as a method of construction, the arched vault must have been
one of the earliest known methods of covering over space. The
actual employment, however, of regular voussoirs in stone, cannot,
it would seem, be traced in any monument earlier than the temple
tombs of the High-priestesses of Thebes at Medinet-Abu (700-650
b.c.)2 ; and, as far as we can at present judge, the next stone vaults
in point of date are some early drains built of “ cappellaccio ” (a
soft dark gray tufa—green when wet—which splits easily into
horizontal layers) at the north-west end of the Forum in Rome
(Plate III), which can be attributed to the end of the sixth or the
beginning of the fifth century b.c.3, for considerable remains of
other buildings of this period also exist, built of the same material,
which is cut into slabs rather than blocks, about a foot high, two
or three long and two or three deep. This material and form of
construction (which is peculiar to the city of Rome, and due to
this special material) is to be found in the podiums of the temples
of Jupiter Capitolinus (recently brought to light), Saturn, and Castor
and Pollux, and in other minor monuments,4 and there are scanty
remains of a defensive wall built in this style on the Palatine5 6 (Fig. 2)
while the same technique may be seen in the remains of the first
stone wall by which the city of Rome was fortified (Plate IV),
1 The date of the cistern at Tusculum (Papers of the British School at Rome,
V. P- 357 and PI- XXX, Fig. 2) must be regarded as uncertain.
2 Delbriick : Hellenistische Bauten in Latium. II, 80 sqq.
3 I cannot agree with Tenney Frank, Roman Buildings of the Republic, 52
sqq. that these drains served to carry away the blood of victims slain at altars.
He assigns them to the fourth century.
4 We may instance the earliest form of the Cloaca Maxima, of the shrine
of Venus Cloacina, and of the Lacus Curtius. The Temple of Apollo is slightly
later (431 b.c.). Tenney Frank’s arguments [op. cit. 131 sqq.) do not, it seems
to me, prove that the core is not part of the original structure. We get in it,
as in the earlier city wall, traces of Greek influence in “anathyrosis,” the beds
and joints being worked away so that the blocks touch only along the edge.
6 “ Its preservation is due to the fact that at a later time a second circuit
wall was built in the technique of the ‘ Servian ’ walls of Rome, about 21 feet
in front of the old fortification, while both of these were afterwards encased
by the concrete substructures of Imperial buildings.” (Stuart Jones : Com-
panion to Roman History, 31, Fig. 7, from which our illustration, Fig. 2, is
^_aken).
Mamertine Prison, or Tullianum, and some early cisterns on the
Palatine, only one of which is at present visible to the public (Plate
III)1. The arch itself, both round and pointed, dates from time
immemorial; and Professor Petrie’s discovery at Dendera, in Egypt,
of passages 6 feet wide, covered with barrel vaults of three rings
of voussoirs built in crude brick, and dating from 3,500 b.c., shows
that, as a method of construction, the arched vault must have been
one of the earliest known methods of covering over space. The
actual employment, however, of regular voussoirs in stone, cannot,
it would seem, be traced in any monument earlier than the temple
tombs of the High-priestesses of Thebes at Medinet-Abu (700-650
b.c.)2 ; and, as far as we can at present judge, the next stone vaults
in point of date are some early drains built of “ cappellaccio ” (a
soft dark gray tufa—green when wet—which splits easily into
horizontal layers) at the north-west end of the Forum in Rome
(Plate III), which can be attributed to the end of the sixth or the
beginning of the fifth century b.c.3, for considerable remains of
other buildings of this period also exist, built of the same material,
which is cut into slabs rather than blocks, about a foot high, two
or three long and two or three deep. This material and form of
construction (which is peculiar to the city of Rome, and due to
this special material) is to be found in the podiums of the temples
of Jupiter Capitolinus (recently brought to light), Saturn, and Castor
and Pollux, and in other minor monuments,4 and there are scanty
remains of a defensive wall built in this style on the Palatine5 6 (Fig. 2)
while the same technique may be seen in the remains of the first
stone wall by which the city of Rome was fortified (Plate IV),
1 The date of the cistern at Tusculum (Papers of the British School at Rome,
V. P- 357 and PI- XXX, Fig. 2) must be regarded as uncertain.
2 Delbriick : Hellenistische Bauten in Latium. II, 80 sqq.
3 I cannot agree with Tenney Frank, Roman Buildings of the Republic, 52
sqq. that these drains served to carry away the blood of victims slain at altars.
He assigns them to the fourth century.
4 We may instance the earliest form of the Cloaca Maxima, of the shrine
of Venus Cloacina, and of the Lacus Curtius. The Temple of Apollo is slightly
later (431 b.c.). Tenney Frank’s arguments [op. cit. 131 sqq.) do not, it seems
to me, prove that the core is not part of the original structure. We get in it,
as in the earlier city wall, traces of Greek influence in “anathyrosis,” the beds
and joints being worked away so that the blocks touch only along the edge.
6 “ Its preservation is due to the fact that at a later time a second circuit
wall was built in the technique of the ‘ Servian ’ walls of Rome, about 21 feet
in front of the old fortification, while both of these were afterwards encased
by the concrete substructures of Imperial buildings.” (Stuart Jones : Com-
panion to Roman History, 31, Fig. 7, from which our illustration, Fig. 2, is
^_aken).