DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42778#0065
MATERIALS AND MODES OF CONSTRUCTION. 31
massive constructions. Further, the forms of vaulting which had
previously been employed in construction in stone were all trans-
formed into concrete and, in that form, used far more extensively
than before : and an important new form, the intersecting barrel
vault, was developed in the East {infra, Fig. 31) but soon transferred
to the West.
When we come to study the use of the stone arch in Rome and
Italy in detail, we find that while it had become less frequent in
Greece and Asia, a large number occur from the middle of
the second century b.c. onwards, most of them city gates, bridges
and aqueducts. Segmental and flat arches are less common,
concrete being preferred for use in the solution of the more difficult
problems of construction. The earliest stages of this development
are to be found in the Oscan buildings of Pompeii, while the earliest
dated monuments in concrete to be found in Rome, the podia
of the temples of Concord and of Castor and Pollux, belong to a
slightly later stage (late second and early first century b.c.).1 The
first of these had no proper facing, while that of the second has
disappeared : but we find facing in opus incertum on the arches
behind the fons Juturnae, which are probably pre-Sullan.2 Remains
of this style of construction of the time of Sulla may be found
in the arches behind the Rostra of Augustus in the Forum,3 and,
in far greater abundance, in the neighbourhood of Rome, at Pales-
trina (Plate XIV), Tivoli and Cori.
Precedents for the development of series of vaults in Rome
in the last two centuries of the Republic, first in stone (as in bridges,
in which larger spans were used than had ever before been attained,
city gates and aqueducts) may also be traced in the east in Mesopo-
tamia, Egypt,4 Pergamon, and Athens. The use of concrete
for the purpose enormously facilitated the construction ; and in
the last century of the Republic we get complicated series of barrel
vaulted substructions, as in the Tabularium and the substructions
of the temple of Hercules at Tivoli (where the space of the vault
1 Van Deman in American Journal of Archceology XVI (1912), 244, 417.
2 Delbriick notes that the intrados of these, as of the Emporium, are faced
entirely (and not as later merely at the edges) with small voussoirs.
3 The exact date of the substructions on the N.E. side of the Palatine (the
so-called Porticus Catuli) and of the so-called Emporium is doubtful. Del-
bruck wishes to make the former pre Sullan (so also Lanciani). See also Van
Deman cit. p. 247, n.i.
1 Baldwin Brown. The Origin of Roman Imperial Architecture. J.R.I.B.A.
1889.
massive constructions. Further, the forms of vaulting which had
previously been employed in construction in stone were all trans-
formed into concrete and, in that form, used far more extensively
than before : and an important new form, the intersecting barrel
vault, was developed in the East {infra, Fig. 31) but soon transferred
to the West.
When we come to study the use of the stone arch in Rome and
Italy in detail, we find that while it had become less frequent in
Greece and Asia, a large number occur from the middle of
the second century b.c. onwards, most of them city gates, bridges
and aqueducts. Segmental and flat arches are less common,
concrete being preferred for use in the solution of the more difficult
problems of construction. The earliest stages of this development
are to be found in the Oscan buildings of Pompeii, while the earliest
dated monuments in concrete to be found in Rome, the podia
of the temples of Concord and of Castor and Pollux, belong to a
slightly later stage (late second and early first century b.c.).1 The
first of these had no proper facing, while that of the second has
disappeared : but we find facing in opus incertum on the arches
behind the fons Juturnae, which are probably pre-Sullan.2 Remains
of this style of construction of the time of Sulla may be found
in the arches behind the Rostra of Augustus in the Forum,3 and,
in far greater abundance, in the neighbourhood of Rome, at Pales-
trina (Plate XIV), Tivoli and Cori.
Precedents for the development of series of vaults in Rome
in the last two centuries of the Republic, first in stone (as in bridges,
in which larger spans were used than had ever before been attained,
city gates and aqueducts) may also be traced in the east in Mesopo-
tamia, Egypt,4 Pergamon, and Athens. The use of concrete
for the purpose enormously facilitated the construction ; and in
the last century of the Republic we get complicated series of barrel
vaulted substructions, as in the Tabularium and the substructions
of the temple of Hercules at Tivoli (where the space of the vault
1 Van Deman in American Journal of Archceology XVI (1912), 244, 417.
2 Delbriick notes that the intrados of these, as of the Emporium, are faced
entirely (and not as later merely at the edges) with small voussoirs.
3 The exact date of the substructions on the N.E. side of the Palatine (the
so-called Porticus Catuli) and of the so-called Emporium is doubtful. Del-
bruck wishes to make the former pre Sullan (so also Lanciani). See also Van
Deman cit. p. 247, n.i.
1 Baldwin Brown. The Origin of Roman Imperial Architecture. J.R.I.B.A.
1889.