Waterhouse, Percy Leslie: The story of architecture throughout the ages: an introduction to the study of the oldest of the arts for students and general readers (London: B. T. Batsford, 1924)

Ill
ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN
ARCHITECTURE.
In dealing with the early days of Rome it is
difficult to distinguish between fiction and truth,
between legend and history. There was, no
doubt, a good deal of human nature in the early
inhabitants, which led them—after the city had
gained for itself such a position as to secure the
respect of all neighbouring nations—to feel that
they could not have been fashioned from the
same stuff as were other men. We thus find
that the early traditions “ mixed human things
with things divine,” and gave a divine origin
to the eternal city. Whatever be the true story
of the foundation of Rome, it appears certain
that at the date assigned to it (753 B.C.) a
people called Etruscans were flourishing in a
highly civilised state in the immediate neigh-
bourhood. The Etruscans were a race of
foreigners, though the source from which they
sprang is still debated. They were possessed
of great constructive skill, and had a certain

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