DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42778#0044
18 THE ARCHITECTURE OF ANCIENT ROME.
below the Aventine near the Tiber, together with stone quays along
the river, a line of porticos leading from the Emporium to the foot
of the Capitol, and the pillars of a bridge, which was finished in
142 B.C., and rebuilt by Augustus (the Pons iEmilius or Ponte
Rotto) and a harbour at Terracina. The only pre-Sullan buildings
in Rome which present any definite architectural characteristics
are the Aqua Marcia (144 b.c.) and the Pons Mulvius (109 b.c.),1
and even here we have only to deal with plain pillars and arches
without decoration2; while for the rest of Italy we have nothing
but the buildings of the tufa period in Pompeii.3 This period,
which coincides more or less with the second century b.c., reveals
the climax of Pompeian architecture prior to the Roman domination.
To it belong a number of important public buildings and private
houses, with simple Greek architectural forms expressed in stucco ;
and the style of decoration is the first or incrustation style.
The period of Sulla marks a considerable increase of activity in
building, and we have a number of edifices belonging to it both in
Rome and elsewhere, which it will be well to examine more closely.
The chief examples of the Doric order are the Tabularium, one of
the three temples in the Forum Holitorium, the arcades of the temple
of Heracles at Tivoli, and the Temple at Cori.
The first of these buildings is the earliest secular building still
existing of the Republican period,4 inasmuch as it was built by
Catulus in the year 78 b.c. It was built in the interval between the
two summits of the Capitoline Hill, its lower portion resting upon
a mass of earth, supported by a retaining wall. The substructure
consisted of an immense wall built with a batter on its outer face,
each course of the sperone stone, with which it was faced (though
it, too, was probably stuccoed over), receding one inch behind the
face of the course below. The stones were respectively 2 feet high
1 The remains of about half of the Pons iEmilius which existed until recent
years (now there is only one arch in mid-stream) belonged in the main to the
time of Augustus.
2 Whether the circular Corinthian temple of white marble near the Tiber
(perhaps the temple of Portunus) can be attributed to this comparatively early
period is very doubtful. It has indeed been placed as late as the time of
Septimus Severus.
3 The much discussed early column belongs to a previous period, that of
the houses with limestone atriums (before 200 b.c.). Mau in Rom. Mitt.
XXIII (1908), 78. Patroni and Cozzi in Memorie dell ’Accademia di Napoli,
Nuova serie I (1911), 211.
4 Delbriick, Hellenistische Bauten, I, 23 sqq.
below the Aventine near the Tiber, together with stone quays along
the river, a line of porticos leading from the Emporium to the foot
of the Capitol, and the pillars of a bridge, which was finished in
142 B.C., and rebuilt by Augustus (the Pons iEmilius or Ponte
Rotto) and a harbour at Terracina. The only pre-Sullan buildings
in Rome which present any definite architectural characteristics
are the Aqua Marcia (144 b.c.) and the Pons Mulvius (109 b.c.),1
and even here we have only to deal with plain pillars and arches
without decoration2; while for the rest of Italy we have nothing
but the buildings of the tufa period in Pompeii.3 This period,
which coincides more or less with the second century b.c., reveals
the climax of Pompeian architecture prior to the Roman domination.
To it belong a number of important public buildings and private
houses, with simple Greek architectural forms expressed in stucco ;
and the style of decoration is the first or incrustation style.
The period of Sulla marks a considerable increase of activity in
building, and we have a number of edifices belonging to it both in
Rome and elsewhere, which it will be well to examine more closely.
The chief examples of the Doric order are the Tabularium, one of
the three temples in the Forum Holitorium, the arcades of the temple
of Heracles at Tivoli, and the Temple at Cori.
The first of these buildings is the earliest secular building still
existing of the Republican period,4 inasmuch as it was built by
Catulus in the year 78 b.c. It was built in the interval between the
two summits of the Capitoline Hill, its lower portion resting upon
a mass of earth, supported by a retaining wall. The substructure
consisted of an immense wall built with a batter on its outer face,
each course of the sperone stone, with which it was faced (though
it, too, was probably stuccoed over), receding one inch behind the
face of the course below. The stones were respectively 2 feet high
1 The remains of about half of the Pons iEmilius which existed until recent
years (now there is only one arch in mid-stream) belonged in the main to the
time of Augustus.
2 Whether the circular Corinthian temple of white marble near the Tiber
(perhaps the temple of Portunus) can be attributed to this comparatively early
period is very doubtful. It has indeed been placed as late as the time of
Septimus Severus.
3 The much discussed early column belongs to a previous period, that of
the houses with limestone atriums (before 200 b.c.). Mau in Rom. Mitt.
XXIII (1908), 78. Patroni and Cozzi in Memorie dell ’Accademia di Napoli,
Nuova serie I (1911), 211.
4 Delbriick, Hellenistische Bauten, I, 23 sqq.