DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42778#0041
15
Chapter II.
ARCHITECTURE IN ROME FROM THE BEGINNING
OF THE THIRD CENTURY B.C. TO THE MIDDLE OF
THE FIRST CENTURY B.C.
We have already seen that the architectural forms and decorations
of the earliest temples known to us in Rome itself are Etruscan, or
rather Italic : and though we have no remains of architectural
decoration of the fourth and third centuries b.c. in Rome, we are
bound to infer that the same was the case there as in the rest of
Italy.
But as Rome gradually conquered the world, she was, naturally,
influenced by the civilizations with which she came into contact.
The commonplace, that Greece led her captor captive, is true in
architecture as in art: and the work by Delbriick, already cited,
contains a long and detailed examination of Roman constructions
and architectural forms in Rome and its neighbourhood from the
beginning of the second century b.c. to the time of Sulla, tracing
their origins from the Hellenized East, and especially from Syria1
and Egypt, and from Sicily—which according to his account,
was sometimes merely the channel by which they were transmitted,
sometimes the place in which they originated. This account of
the origin of the arch is, however, vitiated by the fact of his omission
of the examples in the city of Rome itself which have been mentioned
above (p. 3).
After these, as we have said, there are no others known until we
come to the city gates of the third and second centuries, and to the
road bridges of the same period2; and it is this omission that led
1 The influence exercised on Pompeii during the first half of the second
century b.c. through the medium of Puteoli has been further demonstrated
by Spano : cf. Van Buren in Classical Journal, XV (1920), 416.
2 The first Roman highroad, the Via Appia, was built in 3x2 b.c., but it is
doubtful whether any of the original bridges are preserved.
Chapter II.
ARCHITECTURE IN ROME FROM THE BEGINNING
OF THE THIRD CENTURY B.C. TO THE MIDDLE OF
THE FIRST CENTURY B.C.
We have already seen that the architectural forms and decorations
of the earliest temples known to us in Rome itself are Etruscan, or
rather Italic : and though we have no remains of architectural
decoration of the fourth and third centuries b.c. in Rome, we are
bound to infer that the same was the case there as in the rest of
Italy.
But as Rome gradually conquered the world, she was, naturally,
influenced by the civilizations with which she came into contact.
The commonplace, that Greece led her captor captive, is true in
architecture as in art: and the work by Delbriick, already cited,
contains a long and detailed examination of Roman constructions
and architectural forms in Rome and its neighbourhood from the
beginning of the second century b.c. to the time of Sulla, tracing
their origins from the Hellenized East, and especially from Syria1
and Egypt, and from Sicily—which according to his account,
was sometimes merely the channel by which they were transmitted,
sometimes the place in which they originated. This account of
the origin of the arch is, however, vitiated by the fact of his omission
of the examples in the city of Rome itself which have been mentioned
above (p. 3).
After these, as we have said, there are no others known until we
come to the city gates of the third and second centuries, and to the
road bridges of the same period2; and it is this omission that led
1 The influence exercised on Pompeii during the first half of the second
century b.c. through the medium of Puteoli has been further demonstrated
by Spano : cf. Van Buren in Classical Journal, XV (1920), 416.
2 The first Roman highroad, the Via Appia, was built in 3x2 b.c., but it is
doubtful whether any of the original bridges are preserved.