THE ROMANS.
The splendour that surrounded the personal usages of the earlier races
of antiquity, the Egyptians, Ninevites, Persians, Greeks, and Tuscans,
was inherited by the Romans. Not only did they outlive those powers,
but they absorbed their territory as far as they could reach it; they
affected to take in their religions and deities to add to their own
system; they drained the subject populations for slaves, and eagerly
adopted from them every art that could administer to the magnificence
and luxury of their own private life. They have left both written
records in their literature and actual examples of their furniture,
made in metal or of marble. The discovery of Herculaneum and of
Pompeii has given us not only single pieces of furniture, but very
considerable remains of houses, shops, streets, fora or open public
places of assembly, theatres, and baths. It is in such evidences of
Roman social life that we shall find the materials for our present
inquiry.
The Romans spent their earlier ages in unceasing struggles for
independence and dominion: and so long as the elder powers of Italy
survived to dispute the growth of Roman greatness, there could not be
much expansion of private wealth or splendour in the houses of
Roman citizens. Though surrounded by splendid social life among the
Etruscans, the Roman people long remained exceptionally simple in
personal habits. It was after the Punic wars that oriental luxuries
found their way into Italy along with the Carthaginian armies.
Tapestry is said to have been first brought to Rome by Attalus, the
king of Pergamus, who died B.C. 133 possessed of immense wealth, and
bequeathed tapestries, generally used in the east from the early ages,
to the Roman citizens. When Augustus became emperor the conquest of
the world was complete. Thenceforward military habits and simplicity
of individual life were no longer necessary to a state that could find
no political rivals. The great capital of the world absorbed like a
vast vegetable growth the thought, the skill, and the luxuries of
the whole world. Nothing was too valuable to be procured by the great
Roman nobles or money-makers, and nothing too strange not to find a
place and be welcome in one or other of their vast households.
While this was so at Rome in chief, it must be remembered that
other capitals were flourishing in various countries, as wealthy, as
luxurious in their own way and degree, only less in extent and means,
and lacking that peculiar seal of supremacy that gives to the real
capital a character that is never attained in subordinate centres of
civilisation. Antioch was such a centre in the east; Alexandria in
the south. Both these great cities contained wealthy, refined, and
luxurious societies. Both were known as universities and seats of
learning. Antioch was the most debauched and luxurious; Alexandria the
most learned and refined. They did not exactly answer to the distinct
capitals of modern kingdoms and states, such as we now see flourishing
in Europe, to London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, or St. Petersburg,
because no one supreme state or city predominates over them; and
further still, no one draws the pick and choice of the intellect and
refinement of the whole of Europe to absorb them into itself as Rome
did in the old world. But, in those days, Antioch and Alexandria,
one at the head of the wealth and splendour of Asia, the other
representing Greek learning grafted on the ancient scientific and
artistic traditions of Egypt, must have contributed much to the
general fusion of "ideas" and notions on art and personal manners and
customs in the capital of the Roman empire.
The Roman house was of traditional plan, and consisted generally of
two or more square enclosures surrounded by arcades, open to the air
in the centre, but which openings could be closed in summer or winter
by awnings when the courts were not large enough to include a garden,
as the inner enclosure usually did.
The house had in front a _vestibulum_, an open space covered by a
verandah-shaped roof, sometimes enclosed by lattices, sometimes open.
An _ostium_ or lobby inside the entrance-door, deep enough to contain
a small porter's lodge on one side, led to an inner door which opened
on the _atrium_. This court had an opening to the air, and a tank for
rain water was sunk in the middle. Fountains with jets or falls of
water were not uncommon, the ancients being well acquainted with the
principle that water if brought from an elevation in pipes will force
its way up to its natural level.
Inside the _atrium_ was the _nuptiale_, the nuptial bed, and here were
kept in earliest times the _penates_, household or family divinities,
and the family hearth, though these sacred emblems were banished in
the imperial times to distant parts of the house, and statues between
the columns that supported the central roof supplied their place. The
_atrium_ was the general reception-room, like the hall in mediæval
houses, but not the dining-room. To this succeeded an inner open
court, with porticoes or corridors running round, supported on
columns, and with a fountain or basin, shrubs and flowers in the
centre, like the courts of the Alhambra. This court provided four
halls in the four corridors, which could be screened off by tapestries
and curtains. The centre was shaded in summer by canvas or carpet
awnings. In winter a wooden roof could be pushed over the open space.
Between the two halls or courts was a chamber called the _triclinium_,
or dining-room. These rooms were roofed with timber richly painted
and gilt. The roofs either hung on beams projecting from the walls,
or were supported by pillars, or were carried up to a high opening,
sloping back to the walls so as to admit more light to the rooms,
alcoves, or screened portions furthest removed from the opening.
Occasionally they were covered in wholly with a testudo-shaped roof,
and in such cases lighted, perhaps, by dormers, though it is not quite
clear how light was provided for in such constructions. Roman rooms
were not floored with boards but paved with marble in large pieces, or
in mosaic work made of small dies or squares. Coarse specimens of
such work manufactured in our own times are laid down in the museum
at Kensington, and fragments of the old work may be seen there on
the walls. Occasionally these mosaics represent the house watch-dog
chained, or the fable of Ganymede, or hunting scenes, sometimes
finished with the utmost nicety. The _triclinium_ took its name from
the three couches or sofas, on each of which three persons reclined
during meals. Later, and in sumptuous palaces, several dining-rooms
were built out beyond the inner courts. The engraving, a
reconstruction, will give a fair idea of the general character of
a richly furnished Roman house. First, is the _atrium_, into which
smaller chambers open; next, the _triclinium_, to the left of which is
a cabinet; and beyond is the _peristylium_, with its lofty colonnades.
This last apartment was large and open; often planted with shrubs
and trees, or containing statues, flowers in pots and vases, and
surrounded by a corridor. As these courts were of various sizes they
were, no doubt, in Rome on a scale out of all proportion to those
found at Pompeii; were fewer or more in number, and rooms were
added as the proprietor could acquire ground for building, often a
difficulty in the older parts of the city. Something of this ground
plan survives in a few of the very ancient Roman churches, as in
that of S. Pudenziana, formerly the house of the senator Pudens, with
vestibules, open courts, &c.
[Illustration]
Around the inner court, in the sumptuous Roman houses and the country
villas of the patricians, were built other rooms, dining-halls, no
longer called _triclinium_ but _triclinia_ in the plural, as admitting
more than the number of nine persons reclining on the conventional
three couches, to dine at once. In the city itself room was probably
wanting in private houses for such expansion, the houses being in
streets already laid out. In the villas there was no such restriction.
These halls were built to face different quarters of the compass and
to be used according to the season. _Verna_ and _autumnalis_ looked to
the east, _hyberna_ to the west, _æstiva_ to the north. _[OE]ci_ were
other rooms still larger; and glass windows were to be found in them.
In a painting now in the Kensington museum, n^{o.} 653, given by
the emperor Napoleon the third, glazed windows can be distinguished,
divided by upright mullions and transoms of wood, such as were
constructed in English houses in the seventeenth century. The
sleeping-rooms, _cubicula_, were small closets rather than rooms,
closed in general by curtains or hangings, and disposed about the
sides of the rooms between the courts, or round the outer courts
themselves.
Besides the living and sleeping chambers, there were store-rooms
for various kinds of food. Wearing apparel was kept in _vestiaria_,
wardrobe rooms, fitted especially to store them in. It is doubtful
whether the dresses were in chests: more probably in presses, or
hanging on pegs.
The ornamental woodwork in some of these rooms was rich in the
extreme. The outer vestibule was protected by an overhanging balcony
or by the projecting rafters of the roof of the first portion of the
house, according as rooms were built over that portion or not. It was
in some instances enclosed by carved or trellised woodwork. The doors
were generally in two halves and could be closed with locks, which
in the age of the empire were thoroughly understood, with latchets
secured by a pin or with a wooden bar. The term _obserare_ was used
when the security of a bar was added. The hinge was a pin or peg at
the top and bottom which turned in a socket. Metal hinges strapped
over the wood frame were not unknown: and bronze hinges are in the
collection of the British museum. The decoration of the door, which
was of wood, consisted principally of bronze mounts. The doorposts
were ornamented with carving, sometimes inlaid with tortoiseshell and
other rich materials. The woodwork was painted. Bedrooms were closed
with doors; oftener by curtains. The windows were generally closed
with shutters, hinged and in pairs. They were some six feet six inches
above the level of the street, not beyond reach of the knocks and
signals of friends outside. Wooden benches were usually provided in
the vestibule.
Besides the inlaid door frames, the ceilings of all the Roman rooms
were very richly decorated. In more simple constructions the wood
joists of the floor above, or the structure of the roof when no
room surmounted it, were shown and painted; but in richer houses the
timbers were covered with boards, and formed into coffers and
panels, painted, gilt, and inlaid with ivory. This splendid system of
decoration dates from the destruction of Carthage. Curved bearers from
the upper part of the walls were added to form one kind of ceiling
(_camara_), for which Vitruvius gives directions; and glass mosaics,
like those used in the pavements, were inlaid on a plaster bed in the
coffers. The cornices were of carved wood, or of plaster carved or
modelled; the wood was always covered with a preparation of gesso, and
gilt and painted like the walls.
An examination of the remains of Roman glass found at Pompeii and
elsewhere, and of which excellent examples may be studied in the
Kensington museum, seems to point to the use not only of mosaics made
of dies, but of mouldings, borders, and panels moulded in coloured
glass of magnificent hues, and with the finest stamped ornaments.
These were occasionally gilt, or were made in relief, or with a coat
of opaque white glass over the translucent material, which could
be cut and modelled in the manner of cameos, and helped further to
decorate the ceiling, always one of the most splendid features of the
room.
The walls, when not painted, were sometimes hung with mirrors of glass
blackened, or of silver, or of slabs of obsidian. They were of various
sizes, sometimes large enough to reflect persons at full length. In
the case of portable pictures, frames were added round them. Borders
were certainly painted round frescoes. It is not to be supposed that
paintings which could be exposed for sale, moved about, and hung up,
could be finished round otherwise than by ornamental mouldings, or
framework sufficient to protect and properly set them off.
[Illustration]
Among the ornamental pieces of furniture were tripods, three-legged
frames, forming the supports of tables, of altars, of braziers,
sometimes of pieces of sculpture. These were generally of bronze, and
original pieces obtained in various parts of Italy can be seen in
the bronze room of the British museum. Some of these much exceed the
height of high modern tables. They are light, and ornamented on the
upper ends with animal or other heads; some with the beginning of a
hind leg about halfway down. They were, however, frequently movable,
and, like the piece in the cut on the preceding page from an example
in the British museum, were made to contract by folding; the stays
which connect the legs internally slipping up and down them by means
of loops. Such pieces might serve as table legs, or would hold altar
pans or common fire pans or support pots of flowers.
[Illustration]
Besides tripods the reception rooms were ornamented with candelabra on
tall stands of most graceful form and proportions. It will suffice to
point to more than a dozen of examples in the British museum; and
the woodcuts are from examples in other collections. The stems are a
fluted staff or a light tree stem, commonly supported on three animal
legs spread at the base, and branching out on the tops into one, two,
or more boughs or hooks, with elegant modelled decorations or ending
in flat stands. One has a slight rim round the dish or stand, on which
a candelabrum or wax candlestick could be placed. In other cases the
lamps were hung by their suspensory chains to the branches described.
Other candelabra stands were of marble, six, eight, ten, or more feet
in height, hybrid compositions of column caps, acanthus leaves and
stems, on altar bases, &c., in great variety of design, of which
engravings may be studied in the work of Piranesi. Casts, n^{os.} 93,
94 (antiques), are in the South Kensington museum.
We do not know in what kind of repositories or pieces of furniture the
ancient Romans kept their specimens of painting or their vases, some
of which formed their most valued treasures. It is generally supposed
that they were set on shelves fastened to the wall. On such shelves
small images, boxes of alabaster or glass, and ornamental vases of all
kinds were kept. Craters, sculptured vases on a large scale and made
of bronze or marble, were also mounted on pedestals and ranged as
ornaments with the statues. Bronzes and statues, pieces of sculpture
that had fixed places, stood either along the walls of the reception
rooms or under the eaves of the _compluvium_, whence light was
obtained to set them off to advantage, and where turf, flowers, and
fountains were in front of them. A vase or crater, nearly eight feet
high, is in the hall of the British museum, brought from the villa of
Hadrian at Palestrina; and in the entrance-hall of Nero's house there
was a colossus 120 feet high, and long arcades and a tank or basin of
water. But objects on this scale scarcely belong to the descriptions
of what might be found ordinarily in houses of the great patricians.
Sometimes a couch and a table of marble were placed close to the
fountains in these delightful portions of the house.
Tables were of many varieties in Rome, and enormous expenses were
incurred in the purchase of choice pieces of such furniture. They
were made of marble, gold, silver, bronze; were engraved, damascened,
plated, and otherwise enriched with the precious metals; were of
ivory, and of wood, and wood decorated with ivory; and in many other
methods. Engraved (p. 26) is a very beautiful table found at Pompeii,
and now at Naples. Tripods, terminal and other figures, made of bronze
or marble; winged sphinxes, or leopards' and lions' legs, columns and
other architectonic forms, were the supports on which these tables
were fastened. Some had one central support only, in a few instances
finished with animal heads of ivory. _Abaci_ were small tables with
raised rims to hold valuables.
Many tables were of cedar and on ivory feet. Horace speaks of maple,
so also does Pliny, as a favourite wood for tables: birds'-eye maple
especially was much prized. The planks and disks that could be cut
from the roots and the boles of trees that had been either pollarded
or otherwise dwarfed in growth in order to obtain wavy grain, knotted
convolutions, &c., were in request. Veneers of well-mottled wood or of
precious wood, small in scantling, were glued on pine, cedar, &c.,
as a base. These pollard heads, root pieces, &c., were bought at high
prices, specially those of the _citrus_ or _cedrus Atlantica_.
[Illustration]
The point held to be desirable (says Pliny) in the grain of tables was
to have "veins arranged in waving lines or else forming spirals like
so many little whirlpools. In the former arrangement the lines run in
an oblong direction, for which reason they are called _tigrinæ_, tiger
tables. In the latter case they are called _pantherinæ_, or panther
tables. There are some with wavy, undulating marks, and which are more
particularly esteemed if these resemble the eyes of a peacock."
Next in esteem to these was the veined wood covered or dotted, as
it were, with dense masses of grain, for which reason such tables
received the name of _apiatæ_, parsley wood. But the colour of the
wood is the quality that was held in the highest esteem of all;
that of wine mixed with honey was the most prized, the veins being
peculiarly refulgent. The defect in that kind of table was _lignum_
(dull log colour), a name given to the wood when common-looking,
indistinct, with stains or flaws. The barbarous tribes, according to
Pliny, buried the citrus wood in the ground while green, giving it
first a coating of wax. When it came into the workman's hands it
was put for a certain number of days beneath a heap of corn. By this
process the wood lost weight. Sea-water was supposed to harden it,
and to act as a preservative. This wood was carefully polished by
hand-rubbing. As much as £9,000 (a million of sesterces) was paid for
one table by Cicero. Of two that had belonged to king Juba, sold by
auction, one fetched over £10,000. These were made of citrus (_Thuya
articulata_ or _cedrus Atlantica_). We hear of two made for king
Ptolemæus of Mauritania, the property of Nomius, a freed man of
Tiberius, formed out of two slices or sections of the _cedrus
Atlantica_ four feet and a half in diameter, the largest known to
Pliny; and of the destruction of a table, the property of the family
of the Cethegi, valued at 1,400,000 sesterces.
[Illustration]
The Roman patricians and their ladies sat on chairs and reclined on
couches when not at meals. In the _atrium_ under the broad roofed
corridors, and in the halls not used for eating, were couches, such as
the couch of which we give a woodcut, of bronze or of precious woods;
the bronze damascened with ornaments of the precious metals, or of
metal amalgam; the wood veneered or inlaid with marquetry or tarsia
work of ivory, ebony, box, palm, birds'-eye maple, beech, and other
woods.
The chairs were of different kinds and were used for various
occasions. The _atrium_ contained double seats, single seats, and
benches to hold more than one sitter; chairs that either folded or
were made in the form of folding chairs, such as could be carried
about and placed in the chariot, _curules_. The woodcut shows the
general fashion of a state or ceremonial chair; from the marble
example in the Louvre.
[Illustration]
This woodcut is of the _sella_, a seat or couch, made of wood, with
turned legs; it is intended, probably, for one person only, and has no
need of a footstool. It has been covered with a cushion.
[Illustration]
_Scamnum_ was a bench or long seat of wood, used in poorer houses
instead of the luxurious _triclinium_ of the men or arm-chairs of
the women, for sitting at meals or other occasions. Seats were placed
along the walls in the _exedræ_ or saloons; marble benches in most
cases, sometimes wooden seats; particularly also in the alcoves that
were constructed in the porticoes of baths and public buildings, where
lectures of philosophers were listened to.
The Romans had hearths in certain rooms. Numerous passages in ancient
writers, to which it is needless to refer, concur in showing that the
hearth was a spot sacred to the _lares_ of the family, the altar
of family life. It was occasionally made of bricks or stone, and
immovable, on which logs could be heaped. It seems doubtful whether
chimneys were used in the Roman houses; probably occasionally. Writers
on Roman antiquities speak of such rare constructions used, perhaps,
as ventilators to the kitchen. The usual method of warming was by
means of a brazier, of which an example found at Cære, in Etruria, is
preserved in the British museum. It is a round dish on three animal
legs, with swing handles for removing it. Another, square in form,
is reproduced in a casting in the South Kensington museum collection,
n^{o.} 70, standing on animal legs and damascened round the sides with
gold ornaments. The Romans had also kitchen braziers with contrivances
for heating pans, water, wine, &c., by charcoal. N^{o.} 71 at
South Kensington is a casting of such a piece, having a round metal
receptacle, like a small cask, on its end, and a raised horse-shoe
frame, on which a pan could be placed, with fire space in the middle.
These braziers were filled with charcoal heated thoroughly by the help
of the bellows, to get rid of the noxious gases.
It has been said that the dresses of the Romans were preserved, as in
mediæval castles, in a separate room or wardrobe, and this room must
have been fitted with apparatus for hanging shelves and lockers.
They had besides for keeping valuables, and usually placed in the
sleeping-room of the master or mistress of the house, cupboards and
chests of beech ornamented with metal, some large enough to contain
a man. In these receptacles they conveyed their property to and from
country houses, and on visits. Enormous numbers of slaves moved to and
fro with the family, and the chests were carried on men's shoulders,
or in waggons of various shape and make.
The most important action of the luxurious Roman day was the dinner.
Couches were arranged for the guests, and the room was further
provided with stools or low benches, side tables, and the movable
table used for each course. These tables were put down and removed
from the supports on which they stood. The side tables were of
marble or of wood, covered with silver plates, inlaid, veneered, and
ornamented in various ways; some were used for serving the dishes,
others for the display of plate.
Sculptured objects of plate, partly ornamental, were put on the table
and removed with the courses. Petronius describes an ass of Corinthian
bronze with silver paniers as the centre piece of one course; sauces
dropped from the paniers on luscious morsels placed beneath. A hen of
wood with eggs within and a figure of Vertumnus are also named by the
same author as centre pieces. These were replaced on the sideboard or
removed with the course in trays.
[Illustration]
Closely connected with the dining-room was, it need scarcely be
said, the kitchen; and we give woodcuts of kitchen utensils, from the
originals preserved at Naples.
Mention should be made of tapestries and carpets before leaving the
subject of Roman house furniture.
Carpets, _tapete_, blankets, or other woollen coverlids for sofas or
beds, were made at Corinth, Miletus, and a number of seats of fine
wool manufacture. It is too large a question to go into in detail, and
woven fabrics belong to a different class of objects fully described
in another hand-book, upon textiles. These tapestries played a great
part in the actual divisions of the Roman rooms. Bedrooms, it has
been said, were often closed with curtains only, and the corridors and
smaller rooms were closed at the ends and made comfortable by the
same means. At the dinner detailed by Petronius the hangings on the
_triclinia_ are changed between pauses in the meal. The feelings
consonant with the day or occasion were symbolized or carried out in
these external decorations. Mention is made by Seneca of ceilings
made so as to be moved, and portions turned by machinery; perhaps the
changed panels showed different colours and decorations according to
the day, and to the hangings which were used. The same author alludes
to wood ceilings that could be raised higher or lower by machinery,
"_pegmata per se surgentia_ et tabulata _tacite in sublime
crescentia_," making no noise in the operation. These contrivances
were reserved for dining-rooms, where the diversions were of the
freest description and the guests prepared for any exciting or
sensational interludes.
The Romans required some of their furniture for out-door use. Besides
the curule chairs and lofty seats which were carried into theatres or
baths, and other places of public resort, they used litters. The sofas
or couches were sometimes carried on the necks of six or more slaves,
and served as litters. But special contrivances like the Indian
palanquins were made with or hung under poles, with curtains or
shutters. Stations of such conveyances for public use were established
in Rome.
The subjects of the carving and ornamentation of Roman furniture were
the classic legends mainly derived from the Greek mythology. Roman
house walls were, however, in later years profusely decorated with
conventional representations of architecture, and panels richly
coloured on which were painted figures of dancers, cupids, gods and
heroes; sometimes commonplace landscapes and domestic scenes. Their
solid furniture was decorated with masks, heads of heroes, legs and
feet of animals, and foliage, generally the leaves of the acanthus, of
an architectonic kind.
The great achievement of the Romans in woodwork of a constructive kind
was the machinery contrived for public shows, such as the cages shot
up out of the sand of the arena of amphitheatres, of which the sides
fell down, leaving at liberty the beasts wanted for fights or for the
execution of criminals. Of such constructions probably nothing in the
middle ages, when timber abounded and the use of it was thoroughly
understood, exceeds the following; a description by Pliny of a device
of C. Curio, in Africa, when celebrating the funeral games in honour
of his father:--
"He caused to be erected close together two theatres of very large
dimensions and built of wood, each of them nicely poised, and turning
on a pivot. Before mid-day a spectacle of games was exhibited in each,
the theatres being turned back to back, in order that the noise of
neither of them might interfere with what was going on in the other.
Then, in the latter part of the day, all on a sudden, the two theatres
were swung round and, the corners uniting, brought face to face; the
outer frames too were removed (_i.e._ the backs of each hemicycle) and
thus an amphitheatre was formed, in which combats of gladiators were
presented to the view; men whose safety was almost less compromised
than that of the Roman people in allowing itself to be thus whirled
round from side to side."
The following woods were in use amongst the Romans:--
For carpentry and joiner's work, _cedar_ was the wood most in demand.
_Pine_ of different kinds was used for doors, panels, carriage
building, and all work requiring to be joined up with glue, of which
that wood is particularly retentive. _Elm_ was employed for the
framework of doors, lintels and sills, in which sockets were formed
for the pins or hinges on which the doors turned. The hinge jambs were
occasionally made of _olive_. _Ash_ was employed for many purposes;
that grown in Gaul was used in the construction of carriages on
account of its extreme suppleness and pliancy. Axles and portions
which were much morticed together were made of _Ilex_ (_Holm oak_).
_Beech_ also was in frequent use. _Acer_ (_Maple_) was much prized, as
has been already stated, for tables, on account of the beauty of
the wood and of the finish which it admits. _Osiers_ were in use
for chairs as in our own times. _Veneering_ was universal in wood
furniture of a costly kind. The slices of wood were laid down with
glue as in modern work, and they used tarsia or picture work of
all kinds. _Figwood_, _willow_, _plane_, _elm_, _ash_, _mulberry_,
_cherry_, _cork wood_, were amongst the materials for the bed or
substance on which to lay such work. Wild and cultivated _olive_,
_box_, _ebony_ (Corsican especially), _ilex_, _beech_, were adapted
for veneering boxes, desks, and small work. Besides these, the Romans
used the Syrian _terebinth_, _maple_, _palm_ (cut across),
_holly_, _root of elder_, _poplar_; horn, ivory plain and stained;
tortoiseshell; and wood grained in imitation of various woods for
veneering couches and other large pieces of furniture, as well as door
frames, &c., so that this imitation of grains is not entirely a modern
invention. Woods were soaked in water or buried under heaps of grain
to season them; or steeped in oil of cedar to keep off the worms. The
_cedars_ of Crete, Africa, and Syria were the best of that class of
timber. The best _fir_ timber was obtained from the Jura range, from
Corsica, Bithynia, Pontus, and Macedonia.
The Romans had admirable glue, and used planes, chisels, &c. Their
saws, set in frames, had the teeth turned in opposite directions to
open the seam in working.
There are some curious historical records of the endurance of
particular wood structures. The cedar roof of the temple of Diana of
Ephesus was intact at the end of four centuries in Pliny's time. Her
statue was black, supposed to be of ebony, but according to other
authorities of vine, and had outlasted various rebuildings of the
temple. The roof beams of the temple of Apollo at Utica were of cedar
and had been laid 348 years before the foundation of Rome; nearly
1,200 years old in the time of Pliny, and still sound.
The emperor Philip celebrated the secular games (recurring every 100
years), with great pomp, for the fifth time in the year 248. We may
consider this event, for our present purpose, as a convenient finish
of the classic period of antique art, and of the reflections of it in
the woodwork and furniture and the surroundings of private life.
Ten centuries had elapsed since Romulus had fortified the hills on the
banks of the Tiber. "During the first four ages" (says Gibbon) "the
Romans, in the laborious school of poverty, had acquired the virtues
of war and government; by the vigorous exertion of these virtues, and
by the assistance of fortune, they had obtained in the course of the
three succeeding centuries an absolute empire over many countries of
Europe, Asia, and Africa. The last three centuries had been consumed
in apparent prosperity and internal decline."