DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8#0044
( 43 )
lodged i« houses within the boundaries of their city,
which were built only one story high, (i. e. what we
call a ground floor), they were obliged to build houses
of several stories high, and of course to make the waiis very
cousiderably thicker ; and lest they should too much
narrow the streets, by the great thickness of the walls,
the law restrained them to the thickness of one foot and
an half; thus impeded by law from building street-fronts
of brick, they were obliged to use either wrought stone
or that kind called cementa : for though a didoron buck
and half, which would form proper bond, sufficed for
houses on ground-floors, they must have had, says
Vitruvius, two or three bricks length-wise for the thickness
of the walls, when they were run up several stories high.
And here I must just observe, what the reader may de-
pend upon, that the Romans at first, as well as the Greeks,
used only unburnt bricks; a fact which Mr. King, in his
munimenta antiqua, treats rather too problematically.
Now from all that is above premised concerning
bricks, and all is fairly extracted out of Vitruvius, it is
most manifest, the foot and half, allowed by raw, could
not be of the Cossutian foot : which would produce
ft.l in.54-, a thickness, of even brick wall, sufficient for a
height of four stories ; whereas Vitruvius says the foot
and half admitted of the use of brick work only on
ground floors.
As Vitruvius, then, said before, that the didoron,
used by the Romans, though by it's name it implied a
lengthoftwopalms=6£or7 of our inches, wasafoot long
yet was not three palms 10£ of our inches; it follows that
the foot, to which he alludes, must have been of a length
somewhere between 7 and 10| inches English : and
7+10|=17|, and this divided by 2 quotes 8.75, and the
F pyramidic
lodged i« houses within the boundaries of their city,
which were built only one story high, (i. e. what we
call a ground floor), they were obliged to build houses
of several stories high, and of course to make the waiis very
cousiderably thicker ; and lest they should too much
narrow the streets, by the great thickness of the walls,
the law restrained them to the thickness of one foot and
an half; thus impeded by law from building street-fronts
of brick, they were obliged to use either wrought stone
or that kind called cementa : for though a didoron buck
and half, which would form proper bond, sufficed for
houses on ground-floors, they must have had, says
Vitruvius, two or three bricks length-wise for the thickness
of the walls, when they were run up several stories high.
And here I must just observe, what the reader may de-
pend upon, that the Romans at first, as well as the Greeks,
used only unburnt bricks; a fact which Mr. King, in his
munimenta antiqua, treats rather too problematically.
Now from all that is above premised concerning
bricks, and all is fairly extracted out of Vitruvius, it is
most manifest, the foot and half, allowed by raw, could
not be of the Cossutian foot : which would produce
ft.l in.54-, a thickness, of even brick wall, sufficient for a
height of four stories ; whereas Vitruvius says the foot
and half admitted of the use of brick work only on
ground floors.
As Vitruvius, then, said before, that the didoron,
used by the Romans, though by it's name it implied a
lengthoftwopalms=6£or7 of our inches, wasafoot long
yet was not three palms 10£ of our inches; it follows that
the foot, to which he alludes, must have been of a length
somewhere between 7 and 10| inches English : and
7+10|=17|, and this divided by 2 quotes 8.75, and the
F pyramidic