DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32867#0373
CHAPTER XI
PAGAN ARCHITECTURE IN TIIE DJEBEL
HAURAN—Contin ued
ROMAN PERIOD (105-200 a.d.)
^pHE influence of Roman political power was felt in the Hauran as early as the
J- time of Pompey, in the days of the Republic. This power had grown and
extended, step by step, during the first century of the Empire, until the year 106 a.d.,
when Cornelius Palma, the Roman legate, made that country part of a Roman prov-
ince under the name of Arabia. At about the same time the Emperor Trajan made
Damascus an imperial city. The influence of Rome did not manifest itself in matters
of art during the long period of gradual political extension; but as soon as the
Hauran had become politically Romanized, the art of the region began to assume the
forms of the imperial style. Roman influence, however, in this field was not to
Romanize. The dominant schools of art in Syria for four hundred years had been
classic, and the tendency of Rome, herself schooled in the art of Greece, was to Hel-
lenize the art of her subjects rather than to ingraft upon it those principles which
were hers by inheritance. The absorption of Syria into the Roman Empire, as
M. de Vogiie says, “ far from interrupting the Greek tradition, gave it new im-
pulse. . . . Greek art dominated in construction and became the ofticial art, as the
Greek language became the official language of the imperial administration.” Classic
architecture, which had been suppressed in the Hauran during the rule of the Idumean
dynasty, was at once restored to its position of prominence, and appeared in a hun-
dred edifices dressed in the rich style suitable to imperial dignity. It will be noticed,
however, that the architecture of the Roman period, as we find it in the Hauran, is
by no means a hard and fixed style, conforming to specifically Greek or Roman
canons, but is charmingly elastic, accommodating itself to native usage and to the
expression of native taste. Classic architecture had known three centuries of glorious
development in Syria before the Romans came. Antioch “ the Fair ” was not only
the third largest city of the ancient world, but one of the most sumptuous cities of
antiquity, and had been famous as an art center long before Rome had acquired
341
PAGAN ARCHITECTURE IN TIIE DJEBEL
HAURAN—Contin ued
ROMAN PERIOD (105-200 a.d.)
^pHE influence of Roman political power was felt in the Hauran as early as the
J- time of Pompey, in the days of the Republic. This power had grown and
extended, step by step, during the first century of the Empire, until the year 106 a.d.,
when Cornelius Palma, the Roman legate, made that country part of a Roman prov-
ince under the name of Arabia. At about the same time the Emperor Trajan made
Damascus an imperial city. The influence of Rome did not manifest itself in matters
of art during the long period of gradual political extension; but as soon as the
Hauran had become politically Romanized, the art of the region began to assume the
forms of the imperial style. Roman influence, however, in this field was not to
Romanize. The dominant schools of art in Syria for four hundred years had been
classic, and the tendency of Rome, herself schooled in the art of Greece, was to Hel-
lenize the art of her subjects rather than to ingraft upon it those principles which
were hers by inheritance. The absorption of Syria into the Roman Empire, as
M. de Vogiie says, “ far from interrupting the Greek tradition, gave it new im-
pulse. . . . Greek art dominated in construction and became the ofticial art, as the
Greek language became the official language of the imperial administration.” Classic
architecture, which had been suppressed in the Hauran during the rule of the Idumean
dynasty, was at once restored to its position of prominence, and appeared in a hun-
dred edifices dressed in the rich style suitable to imperial dignity. It will be noticed,
however, that the architecture of the Roman period, as we find it in the Hauran, is
by no means a hard and fixed style, conforming to specifically Greek or Roman
canons, but is charmingly elastic, accommodating itself to native usage and to the
expression of native taste. Classic architecture had known three centuries of glorious
development in Syria before the Romans came. Antioch “ the Fair ” was not only
the third largest city of the ancient world, but one of the most sumptuous cities of
antiquity, and had been famous as an art center long before Rome had acquired
341