ROMAN BUILDING AND DECORATION
Shepherds' huts clustered upon a hill top whose base is washed by a
swift yellow river rushing to the sea not far distant. This is the
first faint foreshadowing of the existence of Rome which reaches us
dimly across the centuries. These shepherd settlers had chosen a site
propitious for the foundation of the great city which was to be raised
upon those grouped hills by the skilful hands of their descendants,
for the necessary building materials lay close at hand in lavish
profusion. One of the neighbouring hills, known later as the
Janiculum, and parts of another, the Pincian, yielded a fine yellow
sand. Beneath the surface soil was volcanic rock, which, in a
prehistoric age when the campagna was a sea-bed and waves lapped
against Monte Cavo, had been poured out in great liquid streams from
volcanoes amongst the Alban hills and at Bracciano. Close at hand in
the plain lay immense beds of a chocolate-brown earth with which later
builders were to manufacture cement.
The makers of Rome therefore had only to quarry their building stone
on the very site of their city, and we can still recognise in the few
fragments that have come down to us the rectangular blocks of brown
tufa used in the first period of her history. These earliest
monuments, the walls of Servius Tullius and the vaults of the
Mamertine prisons, were the direct outcome of a period of Etruscan
dominion, and one of the first great works undertaken in the growing
city, the draining of the swamps of the Forum, Campus Martius and
Velabrum, was due to Tarquinius Priscus, the immense _cloacae_ built
for the purpose being still in use, and their masonry as strong as
when they were constructed about 603 B.C. The two Etruscan kings,
Tarquinius Priscus and Tarquinius Superbus, built the first triple
shrine on the Capitol dedicated to the three Etruscan gods, Jupiter,
Juno, and Minerva, and the primitive Roman temples, consisting of a
simple _cella_ with a peristyle, were doubtless Etruscan in character
and were decorated with terra-cotta and bronze in the Etruscan manner.
The Romans were born builders and engineers, and in these branches
they quickly outstripped their predecessors and instructors. If they
were deficient in artistic originality, they evinced a readiness to
imitate and a power of appreciating skill and proficiency in the arts
wherever they met with them, and their practical and utilitarian
spirit taught them how to adopt and improve upon experience and guided
them in the choice of right materials.
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF SATURN FROM THE PORTICO OF THE DII CONSENTES
One of the earliest monuments of Rome; originally built in the reign
of the last of the Tarquins or the first years of the Republic, but
twice reconstructed during the Empire. It served as the Treasury of
Rome. The granite columns with marble capitals are of the Ionic
order. See pages 30, 181.]
A period when the influence of Greece predominated succeeded the first
epoch in the building of Rome, and to this time must be ascribed
the adoption of the Greek models for public buildings, for circuses,
baths, and basilicas. Ionic, Corinthian, and Doric columns were
imported into Rome, the latter undergoing some modification to suit
the Romans' more florid taste. The temples became Hellenic in style.
The small _cella_ was built within an open court surrounded by arcades
from which the people assisted at the sacrifices. The altar stood in
the open court. Later, windows were introduced into the building, and
the openings were filled in with a bronze grating similar to that
still in perfect preservation over the door of the Pantheon, or with a
perforated marble screen, fragments of coloured glass being inserted
in the interstices of the pattern. By the third century there were 400
temples in Rome, but the simple form of the early buildings was hidden
with excessive ornamentation, and frieze and cornice were loaded with
carving and figures.
The basilica, or kingly hall of justice, was a rectangular building
divided into a central portion or nave and side aisles by rows of
columns under a horizontal architrave. The columns were in two tiers,
the upper one enclosing a gallery which was reached by a flight of
stairs springing either within or without the building. The entrances
were at the sides, and one extremity, and in some cases both were
extended to form a semicircular apse or tribune where stood the
judge's seat. A marble screen, the _cancellum_, separated this portion
from the rest of the building, and this constituted the bar to which
the accused were brought; just beyond stood the altar, where incense
burned; and here, during the persecutions, Christians were arraigned
and bidden to throw incense on the fire as a sign of recantation.
These great buildings served as courts of justice and for the
transaction of business, and those which stood upon the _fora_ were in
some instances so large that several cases could be conducted in them
at once. Before the Empire the nave was probably unroofed or covered
only with an awning, and the upper galleries were entirely open so
that their occupants could at will attend to the proceedings within
the basilica or watch the games and events without. Similarly a single
rail or low partition only separated the open colonnades below from
the Forum. Curtains could be drawn across these to shut out
importunate onlookers and to muffle the sounds of street traffic, but
it is evident that the basilica precincts were regarded as a place of
familiar _rendezvous_ by the idlers in the Forum, as the gaming tables
scratched in the flooring of the Julian basilica testify.
[Illustration: A CORNER OF THE FORUM FROM THE BASE OF THE TEMPLE OF
SATURN
The column of Phocas, erected in honour of the Byzantine emperor who
was the contemporary of Gregory the Great, faces us, and to the
right are the columns of the temple to Antoninus Pius and Faustina,
now the facade of the church of San Lorenzo in Miranda. The columns
are of _cippolino_ marble. See page 32.]
The era of _thermae_ or public baths began with Agrippa in 27 B.C.,
and by the end of the third century eleven such existed in Rome
exclusive of the smaller baths or _balnae_, of which there were 850.
Nero, Titus, Trajan, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, Diocletian, were
all builders of _thermae_. These huge edifices were a great deal more
than public baths. They were a Roman form of the _gymnasia_ of the
Greeks, and the colossal ruins that remain can give but the barest
idea of what they must have been at their best. They included
immense halls and courts for athletic displays, vestibules, concert
rooms, picture galleries and libraries, pleasure grounds decorated
with statues fountains and shrubs and surrounded by open porticoes.
Feasts, concerts, and entertainments were provided, and pleasant hours
could be whiled away within their walls by the gilded youth of Rome.
The baths of Diocletian, of which the church of S. Maria degli Angeli
is a magnificent fragment, could accommodate 3600 bathers at a time,
those of Caracalla 2000. An army of slaves and attendants waited upon
the bathers and sped upon their errands along underground passages
from one end of the building to the other. Ruins of the _thermae_ of
Caracalla and of Titus are still standing. Out of the colossal vaults
and walls of Diocletian's baths have been constructed two churches, a
monastery, a large museum, and a variety of storehouses, warehouses,
stables, and cellars.
Equally remarkable was the Roman system for supplying their city,
their _thermae_, and their 1350 street fountains with pure water.
Appius Claudius was the first to collect the water from springs
amongst the mountains in the neighbourhood of Rome and to bring it
across the campagna. This was in 313 B.C., up to which date the
inhabitants of the city had depended for their water supply upon the
Tiber and upon sunken wells. Following in the steps of Claudius,
fourteen aqueducts whose united length measured 360 miles were built
at various times. They varied in length from 11 to 59 miles and their
course lay sometimes under ground and sometimes 100 feet above it,
while the amount of water they poured daily into Rome has been
estimated at 54,000,000 cubic feet.
Four of these ancient aqueducts are still in use. The Virgo, built by
Agrippa in 27 B.C., and now known as the Trevi; the Alexandrina,
constructed by Alexander Severus (222-235), probably to supply his own
baths, and now known as the _acqua Felice_; the ancient Trajana, now
Paola, and the Marcian, restored by Pius IX. The Marcian was always
considered the best drinking water, and the Trevi being a softer water
was preferred for bathing purposes.
The amphitheatre alone was, perhaps characteristically, a building of
purely Roman origin. Intended for shows and fights of gladiators and
wild beasts, these were at first temporary wooden structures. The only
stone predecessor to the great Flavian amphitheatre was a smaller
building in the Campus Martius, the work of Statilius Taurus in 30
B.C. The Colosseum was begun by Vespasian in A.D. 72, was dedicated
eight years later by Titus, and was completed by Domitian. It stands
upon the site of Nero's artificial lake, is one-third of a mile in
circumference, covers some 6 acres of ground, and is 160 feet in
height. It could seat 87,000 spectators, and its staircases,
galleries, and entrances are so admirably planned that this crowd of
sight-seers must have found their seats and filed out when the show
was finished with little delay and difficulty. The numbers of the
entrances, cut in stone, can still be seen over each of the arches.
The Colosseum is built entirely of travertine, the blocks are fitted
together without mortar and are studded with holes from which the
greedy despoilers of the middle ages wrenched the metal clamps. In
spite of its having been used as a fortress and served as a stone
quarry for centuries, it is still one of the most magnificent of the
monuments of Rome.
The solidity of the public buildings seems to have been in marked
contrast to the flimsy nature of the common dwellings or _insulae_. In
the time of Augustus these numbered 46,600, the _domui_, or houses of
the rich, 1790. The former were roofed with timber or thatch. As land
was dear, they were often of several stories and perilously high; many
of them were built of unbaked bricks with projecting upper floors, and
they were constructed with wooden framing filled in with rush and
plaster, so that when a fire broke out in the city whole regions were
laid waste in a few hours. As a measure of safety Augustus limited the
height of the _insulae_ to 70 feet, and Trajan reduced this again to
60 feet, while a distance of 5 feet between each house was prescribed
by the law of the Twelve Tables.
The volcanic tufa used by the earliest Roman builders was discarded
gradually in favour of better materials. _Peperino_, a grey-green
volcanic stone from the Alban hills, began to take its place, and was
used for the construction of the Tabularium in 78 B.C. and for
Hadrian's mausoleum. It was cut in the same way in large rectangular
blocks, clamped together during the Republican and early Imperial
periods with iron. Mortar was not used till later, and at first served
only to level the surfaces of the stones; it came into use for
binding bricks together only at a later and degenerate period of
architecture. Travertine was adopted towards the first century B.C. It
is a cream-coloured stone hard and durable though easily calcined by
fire, formed by deposit in running water. It was quarried at Tivoli
and on the banks of the river Anio, where it is still plentiful. To
the present day the quarries are worked at Tivoli, and the stone is
brought to Rome on waggons drawn by immense white oxen which pace
majestically along the dusty roads beneath the goad of their
wild-looking drivers.
The chocolate-brown earth imported from Pozzuoli or dug from beds in
the campagna, is known as _pozzolana_, and early in the history of
Rome her builders discovered that when mixed with lime it made a
remarkably strong cement. As such they used it for foundations, for
the lining of walls and ceilings. With pieces of brick and stone a
concrete was formed which was poured in a liquid state between wooden
casings, and when set proved to be one of the hardest and most durable
of the materials used. It was the strength of this concrete which
enabled the Roman builders to give the vaults of their baths and
basilicas such an enormous span; and it could be used for the flooring
of upper stories without beams or supports. When especial lightness
was required, the concrete was made with broken pumice stone.
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF MARS ULTOR
The temple erected by Augustus in his Forum to the God of War under
the title of Mars the Avenger. Only the upper part of the ancient
arch of the Forum, now known as _Arco de' Pantani_, is visible. This
represents the first imperial building in Rome. See pages 3, 30.]
After the first century B.C. concrete became a favourite building
material. The walls so made were lined with stucco and faced without
in various fashions, the variety of the facing determining with
considerable accuracy the date of the fabric. The earliest facing, of
the first and second century B.C., was of irregular blocks of tufa set
in cement, and is known as the _opus incertum_. This was replaced in
the middle of the first century B.C. by tufa blocks cut in squares and
set diagonally giving the appearance of a network and hence known as
_opus reticulatum_. In or after the first century A.D. this fashion
was superseded by a facing of triangular bricks set point inwards, and
by the end of the third century bricks were mixed with the _opus
reticulatum_, a style known as _opus mixtum_. To the casual observer
the narrow brown bricks of the ruined buildings of ancient Rome seem
to play an important part, but, with few exceptions, they are merely a
brick facing upon concrete.
Up to the first century B.C. there was little or no splendour or
decoration introduced into the buildings of Rome, and the city of
Augustus' inheritance was a city of sober-hued, volcanic rock. When
marble was first sparingly used, Livy reprobates it as too showy and
extravagant. Notwithstanding, the fashion rapidly spread, first in the
embellishment of public buildings, then for private houses as well
until in the first century of the Empire it became a common building
stone.
For nearly three centuries it was imported into the city in a
continuous flow from the quarries of Greece and Egypt. The native Luna
marble, the modern Carrara, was not at first worked, but thousands of
slaves and convicts toiled in the quarries of the Roman provinces. The
great blocks were numbered and stamped with the name of the reigning
emperor and shipped off in the great triremes across the Mediterranean
to Ostia. Thence the trading vessels were towed by oxen up the river
to Rome, their slow progress ceasing with nightfall, when they were
drawn up and moored to the banks till next morning, bands of _vigiles_
watching over the safety of their cargoes and restraining their
lawless crews from acts of brigandage. At their journey's end, the
cargoes were unloaded upon the marble wharf beneath the Aventine; here
unused blocks still lie upon the site of the once busy _Marmoratum_,
now a deserted quay beside a deserted river; and the harbour of Ostia,
built by King Ancus Martius at the river's mouth, is now four miles
inland.
Occasionally a granite obelisk was brought from Thebes or Heliopolis
to adorn an imperial circus. That now in the Lateran Piazza is 108
feet in height and weighs 400 tons. Ships had to be built on purpose
for the task, and one of these was so enormous that after safely
conveying the Vatican obelisk to Rome, it was sunk by the Emperor
Claudius to serve as a breakwater for the harbour at Porto. When the
laden ships arrived at the _Marmoratum_ the obelisks were hauled on
shore by men and horses and then dragged and pushed on rollers along
the streets by gangs of workmen. Forty-eight obelisks were once
erected in Rome, of which thirty have disappeared and left no trace.
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF VESPASIAN FROM THE PORTICO OF THE DII
CONSENTES
Built in honour of the first Flavian Emperor by his sons Titus and
Domitian. The three remaining Corinthian columns are of Carrara
marble. The Arch of Septimius Severus to the right was dedicated to
the emperor and his sons Caracalla and Geta in A.D. 203, to
commemorate their Parthian victories. It is of Pentelic marble. The
church of Santa Martina in the background is near the site of the
Senate House. See pages 31, 32.]
While the fashion for marble lasted, no material was considered too
rare or too costly. Parian marble, the most beautiful of all white
marbles, from the island of Paros; Pentelic marble from Pentelicus;
Hymettan marble from the mountains of Attica; rich yellow _giallo
antico_ from Numidia; _cippolino_ with its beautiful green waves from
Carystos; purple _pavonazzo_ from Phrygia; black marble from Cape
Matapan; green and red porphyries from Egypt; alabaster from Thebes;
serpentine from Sparta; jasper and fluor-spar from Asia Minor; _lapis
lazuli_, with which Titus paved a chamber in his baths, from Persia,
besides countless varieties of the so-called _Lumachella_ marbles and
rare and beautiful _breccias_.
There arose in Rome an army of marble workers, cutters and sawyers,
polishers and cleaners, carvers of simple mouldings and of
inscriptions, and more skilled sculptors of ornament and of statues
and busts.
Coloured marbles were first used in small pieces for making mosaic
pavements. This art was introduced from Greece some time in the first
century B.C., and in its simplest form was an arrangement of smooth
pebbles in a rough pattern on a bed of cement. As the art developed,
cubes, lozenges, and hexagons of travertine and grey lava were cut and
fitted together in simple patterns. Then cubes of coloured marble were
used, and the designs, of figures and flowers, became more elaborate.
The floors were prepared with a bed of concrete, covered with several
layers of cement; the last layer was carefully smoothed and levelled,
and in this the cubes were fitted according to the pattern, and
finally liquid cement was poured over the whole to fill in the cracks.
When dry and hard the surface was polished with sand and water rubbed
on with little marble blocks.
Pavements of the best building period can be recognised by the size of
the cubes, about three to the inch, and by the neatness and finish of
the work. Two varieties of mosaic can be distinguished, that in which
marbles, stones, and coloured glass are cut into cubes only and the
so-called _sectile_ mosaic in which elaborate scenes and groups of
figures are represented, the coloured pieces being sawn into shapes to
fit in with the design. The _Tablinum_ in the house of the vestals and
the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol were paved with sectile mosaic.
The most brilliant mosaic which came into use during the Empire for
the decoration of walls and vaults was made of fragments of coloured
marble and glass, the latter specially prepared with acids to make it
opaque and to give it a brilliant appearance. The art of mosaic work
has never died out entirely in Rome. The Roman mosaic pavements and
mosaic wall decoration were copied by the builders of mediaeval
churches, and even now a mosaic factory is kept up at the Vatican.
Although first used in this way, coloured marbles were gradually
employed for the interior decoration of houses, for columns, dados,
and friezes. Lucius Crassus, the consul (176 B.C.), was the first so
to adorn his house, and Lucullus (151 B.C.) paved his hall with black
marble. Later, entire rooms were lined with thin slabs clamped to the
concrete wall with iron. Sometimes such marble walls were given a thin
coat of stucco and painted. As the passion for sumptuous interiors
grew all the decorative arts were put into requisition. Walls were
painted in fresco, as we can still see at Pompeii and in the house of
Germanicus on the Palatine. Ceilings, walls, and cornices were
ornamented in stucco in shallow relief. An extremely hard stucco was
made with lime and powdered marble--it was nearly as durable as marble
and could take almost as high a polish. It was even used for floors;
for internal decoration, plaster of Paris was mixed with it.
Mouldings, figures, arabesques, groups and scenes were worked in this
stucco and delicately coloured. Examples have been preserved in the
Diocletian museum and can be seen _in situ_ in the Latin tombs.
The greatest plans for the building of Rome were conceived by Julius
Caesar and Nero. Of Nero's buildings nothing remains except some ruins
of his Golden House beneath the baths of Titus, while the designs of
Caesar were destined to be carried out by his great successor
Augustus. Justly could this emperor boast that he found Rome a city of
brick and left it a city of marble. The republican period succeeding
the expulsion of the Tarquins, and which his accession brought to a
close, had not been so fruitful in public buildings as the epoch
immediately following. Of the former, the Tabularium, the tombs of
Bibulus and Cecilia Metella, the temple of Fortuna Virilis, and the
ruins of the Fabrician bridge, the modern Ponte Quattro Capi, have
come down to us. The city, however, was beginning to assume a more
majestic appearance. On the accession of Augustus, the Capitol was
crowned by the Tarquins' temple to Jupiter, which was to be restored
by Domitian. The valley between the Palatine and the Aventine was
occupied by the enormous Circus Maximus, built by Tarquinius Priscus
and decorated by Julius Caesar, and which has so entirely disappeared
that we can only trace its site along the present Via dei Cerchi. The
temples of Concord and Castor and Pollux stood upon the Forum
Romanum, while the temple of Saturn bounding the steep _Clivus
Capitolinus_ which led upwards to the Capitol--the ancient _Mons
Saturninus_--recorded the golden age when Saturn reigned in Italy.
The streets of the city were paved, and beyond the walls the immense
Appian causeway crossed the Pontine marshes and stretched onwards
towards Brindisi and the east.
In the forty years following Rome was transformed. There arose in the
Campus Martius, the Pantheon with the baths and aqueduct of Agrippa,
the portico of Octavia dedicated by Augustus to his sister, the
theatre of Marcellus and the great mausoleum where the emperor and his
kindred were to lie, and which, almost smothered in poor houses, has
in modern times served the ignoble offices of a bull-ring and a
third-rate theatre. Temples were restored, the Basilica Julia was
completed, another Forum built with the temple of Mars Ultor in its
midst. Upon the site of Augustus' birthplace on the Palatine hill a
great palace was raised by himself and Tiberius, and this district of
Rome became henceforth the abode of the Caesars.
[Illustration: THE COLOSSEUM ON A SPRING DAY
The Flavian amphitheatre, called Colosseum from the _colossus_ or
colossal statue of Nero which stood on the _velia_ before it. The
picture is taken from an _orto_ belonging to the Barberini on the
Palatine, looking across the Arch of Constantine. See pages 22, 23,
31.]
Augustus and his immediate successors were to witness the golden age
of Roman building. After Hadrian came the period of decadence
characterised by florid ornamentation, bad taste and workmanship,
which culminated under Constantine and his sons.
Following in the steps of Augustus, Caligula and Nero erected palaces
on the Palatine. Caligula connected the hill with the Forum, and Nero
opened up an entrance towards the Caelian. Vespasian built there the
Flavian house which his son Domitian was to dedicate as the _Aedes
Publica_, a gift to the people. Septimius Severus extended the
Palatine towards the south by the construction of his Septizonium.
Of the buildings of Tiberius, the columns of the temple of Ceres built
into the church of S. Maria in Cosmedin remain to us; of those of
Claudius, the beautiful ruined arches of his aqueduct. The Flavian
emperors were great builders, and to this period belong the arch of
Titus, built in A.D. 70 to commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem, a
monument of Rome's best period, the ruined baths erected by this same
emperor, and the great amphitheatre and ruins of the temple of
Vespasian.
Trajan's great buildings--his forum and triumphal arch, his basilica
and library--are represented by a very small excavated portion of the
basilica, and the column whose summit marks the height of the hill cut
away by this emperor to make a roadway between the Quirinal and
Capitol and thus relieve the congested traffic of the city.
The only fragments left of the work of Hadrian are the ruins of a
villa near Tivoli, the mausoleum and _Pons Aelius_, now the castle and
bridge of S. Angelo; and behind the church of S. Francesca Romana in
the Forum the ruins of the _Templum Urbis_, the temple of Venus and
Rome, with its twin niches for the gods, one turned towards the
convent the other looking outwards towards the Colosseum. The gilt
bronze tiles from the roof of this temple were removed by Pope
Honorius I. to deck the Christian _Templum Urbis_ S. Peter's.
During the following 140 years there arose in Rome, amongst other
monuments that have perished, the temple of Antoninus and Faustina
built by Antoninus Pius in memory of his wife and now transformed into
the church of S. Lorenzo in Miranda, the column of Marcus Aurelius,
the triumphal arch of Septimius Severus dedicated to his sons
Caracalla and Geta, the baths which bear this eldest son's name,
although only begun by him and completed by Heliogabalus and Alexander
Severus, the walls of Aurelian which still encompass the city and the
_thermae_ of Diocletian. The latest of the imperial buildings were the
temple built by Maxentius to his son Romulus, now the church of SS.
Cosma and Damian in the Forum, and the baths, basilica, and triumphal
arch of Constantine.
A visitor to this city of the Caesars must have been almost bewildered
by what he saw. As he passes through the town great buildings meet his
glance on every side, their gilded tiles and white marble walls
glistening in the sun and clear atmosphere. Crowds jostle him in the
narrow paved roads. He crosses one Forum after another, six in all,
and finally reaches the Campus Martius. He pauses upon the steps of
temples and basilicas which seem on all sides to surround these busy
centres of Roman life. Open spaces are crowded with trees and shrubs,
fountains and statues. He can count thirty-six triumphal arches and
eight bridges that span the yellow Tiber. He passes theatres and
_stadia_ for races and games, columns and obelisks. Occasionally he
comes across a giant building, a colossus even in that city of
marvels, the amphitheatre of Vespasian or the _thermae_ of Diocletian,
or an immense circus where 285,000 spectators are seated waiting for
the chariot races to begin; he has noticed groups of charioteers in
their distinctive colours, and heavy betting is going on. He has
walked from one end of the city to the other sheltered from sun and
rain, along covered porticoes, their pavements rich mosaics, and their
length decorated throughout with a continuous series of statues and
pictures. He has gazed upon the stupendous palaces of the Palatine,
and has noticed the streams of people passing in and out of the city
gates on their way to the suburbs which extend to Veii Tivoli and
Ostia, or to the villas, parks and gardens, villages and farms, which
cover the outskirts of Rome to a distance of 15 miles, amongst which
great roads lined by marble tombs radiate outwards towards the hills.
With the decay of this mighty city began the era of church building.
The origin of the Christian basilica is still a matter of
controversy, but the results of careful and recent research[1] go to
confirm the view that it was modelled not upon its Pagan namesake the
forensic basilica, but upon the private hall found in many of the
dwellings of rich Romans of consular or senatorial rank which served
for those domestic tribunals for the adjudication of family disputes
sanctioned by Roman law. This conclusion has been overlooked from a
mistaken belief that the first Christians were recruited from the
slaves and poorer classes of the population, but it is now proved that
noble Romans and even members of Imperial families early embraced
Christianity, and it was more than probable that the domestic
basilicas in their houses should be utilised as places of assembly by
members of their faith, the gathering of a large body of persons being
concealed during times of persecution, by the use of the many
entrances common to the Roman house.
[1] _Le Basiliche Cristiane._ Mons. Pietro Crostarosa. Rome.
The domestic basilica dedicated as a place of Christian assembly,
became with the development of the ecclesiastical system, the Roman
_titulus_, the church in the house, and as no public hall was built
until after the Peace of the church, these were multiplied as the
Christian population grew and numbered 40 by the second century. The
Christian basilica was thus in existence and perfected in all its
liturgical parts in the first three centuries, and when Constantine
built his great extramural churches, he only amplified a type familiar
to every Christian.
S. Maria Maggiore probably existed as a domestic basilica at a time
anterior to that of its reputed founders Liberius and Sixtus, and we
know that S. Croce and the Lateran were constructed within the
Sessorian palace and the house of the Laterani of which they probably
formed the halls.
[Illustration: THE COLOSSEUM AT SUNSET
Taken from the _Mons Oppius_, one of the two spurs of the Esquiline
hill. See pages 5, 11.]
Architecturally also the earliest churches resembled more nearly the
domestic hall than the public basilica. The latter were little more
than a covered portion of the Forum upon which they stood. They were
entered from either side through the open ambulatories which as we
have seen were free to all. The extremities were walled up later and
prolonged into an apse to increase the space available for legal
purposes. The domestic basilica on the other hand was a rectangular
building roofed and closed on all sides, its single apse at one
extremity facing the main entrance. The central space was surrounded
on three sides by porticoes dividing it into portions which became the
aisles for the worshippers and the narthex for the use of catechumens.
The domestic judge's seat standing in the apse was replaced by the
bishop's throne, and the _cancellum_ became the chancel rail dividing
this portion, the presbytery of the church, from the rest of the
building.
The ruins of the Flavian basilica in Domitian's house on the Palatine
(81-96) affords us a ground plan of such a domestic hall, in this
instance placed close to the _triclinium_ of the house and not in a
direct line with the _vestibulum_ or entrance as was generally the
case. Here a fragment of the _cancellum_ can still be seen _in situ_.
The Christian altar of the earliest churches placed in front of the
apse, faced the congregation, and a space before it, beyond the
depressed portion or _confessio_, was reserved for the choir and was
surrounded by a marble balustrade. The columns supported a horizontal
architrave, above it a flat wall pierced with windows and the plain
roof of cedar-wood beams.
The floors were paved with a fine mosaic of marble and green
serpentine alternating with slabs of white marble or discs of red
porphyry. Tribune, arch, and vault, and sometimes other portions of
the walls, were decorated with brilliant mosaics and examples of this
work, of the fourth, sixth, ninth, and twelfth centuries, and possibly
of the second or third, have happily escaped the ravishing hand of the
restorer. In the twelfth century the art of marble working underwent a
temporary revival under the influence of a talented family of artists,
the Cosmati; and a good deal of their work and that of their school is
still to be found in Rome, the carved marble and an inlay of mosaic
upon marble being easily recognisable in the decoration of the
cloisters of the Lateran and of S. Paul's outside the walls, upon
ambones, candelabra, and tombs scattered throughout the churches.
The straight architectural lines of the Christian basilicas and their
subdued colouring of floor and apse produce a delicate and harmonious
effect, but they were erected during a debased building period and
were not designed for strength, and only a few have weathered the
storms of the middle ages and escaped destruction beneath the
tasteless restorations of the Renaissance.
The new building epoch born in Rome was to be nourished entirely at
the expense of the old. Columns and mouldings were transferred bodily
from the nearest basilica to furnish the Christian church, and were
there arranged haphazard. Simpler still, walls of ancient bricks were
quickly run up between the solid columns of a temple; marble casings
were torn off to be used as common building stone; statues, carved
cornices, and friezes were thrust into lime-kilns which sprang up all
over the city wherever the ancient monuments stood thickest; priceless
marbles were ground into fragments for making mosaics or were mixed
with cement and made into concrete.
When Constantine left Rome to found his new capital the city had
already degenerated into a squalid provincial town, and fifty years
later Jerome could refer to its gilded squalor and its temples lined
with cobweb.
Already the seal had been put upon the old order when Gratian in 383
abolished the privileges of the pagan places of worship, and quickly
disaster followed upon the heels of destruction. Twice Alaric
despoiled the city and carried off priceless booty. Vitiges tore the
marble from the mausoleum of Hadrian and destroyed the aqueducts;
Genseric dismantled the temple of Jupiter; Robert Guiscard laid waste
the Campus Martius and other parts of the city by fire. Sieges, sacks,
earthquakes, fires, and inundations succeeded each other until the old
level of the city was in places buried 50 feet beneath accumulated
ruin and rubbish.
The scene shifts once more; centuries have slipped by and the city of
Rome has become a desolation. Marble columns and granite obelisks lie
prone upon the ground, and many more have found graves beneath the
soil. Enormous mounds of earth and masonry, disfigured with rude
battlements, represent all that is left of the great monuments;
crumbling ruins and waste land stretch away to the walls, and without
the campagna has become a fever-stricken wilderness.
Military fortresses, watch-towers on the walls, and bell-towers of
churches are the only buildings kept in repair. Gaunt wolves snarl and
fight over the refuse heaps under the walls of S. Peter's. A gibbet
crowns the bare summit of the Capitol, goatherds pasture their flocks
on its sides and along the green slopes of the Forum, and thus the
hill and the tract of land at its foot have returned once more to
their primitive pastoral state and their pastoral names, the "hill of
goats" and the "field of cows." Over all broods the ominous silence of
terror, bloodshed, and pestilence.
Upon this scene of ruin the Renaissance and modern city of Rome was to
come into being, and the mediaeval buildings were in their turn to be
destroyed or overlaid with a modern garb, leaving only a few churches
and convents, a few towers and palaces, a few cloisters to mark the
passing of the centuries.
The remains of the imperial city are described by a modern writer[2]
lying like a skeleton beneath the modern town, beneath streets,
villas, and public buildings; and from the fifteenth century, when
Rome, which had only just escaped an extinction as complete as that of
her neighbour and ancient rival Tusculum, began once more to rise from
the dust, to modern times, all the building materials have been
furnished by her ruins. The few monuments that have been preserved owe
their safety to their consecration as churches.
[2] Gabelli, _Roma e i Romani_.
[Illustration: ARCH OF TITUS
Erected to commemorate this Emperor's destruction of Jerusalem, A.D.
70. It is decorated with reliefs of the seven-branched candlestick
and other spoils of the Temple which were carried through the city
in the Emperor's triumph. See page 31.]
Of all the despoilers to which Rome has fallen a victim, none have
been so assiduous in their destruction as her own rulers and people.
Streets have been paved with building stone, churches and palaces
built with ancient materials. Monuments of the utmost artistic and
historic value have been destroyed for the purpose, the Colosseum
alone being robbed of 2522 cart-loads of travertine in the fifteenth
century. The inadequate prohibitions issued at rare intervals proved
impotent in presence of a practice so deep rooted and time honoured.
Every villa garden and palace staircase is peopled with ancient
statues. Fragments of inscriptions, of carved mouldings and cornices,
marble pillars and antique fountains, are met with in every courtyard.
Even a humble house or shop will have a marble step or a marble lintel
to the front door. To the present day no piece of work is ever
undertaken in Rome, no house foundation dug or gas-pipe laid, but the
workmen come across some ancient masonry, an aqueduct whose
underground course is unknown and unexplored, a branch of one of the
great _cloacae_, or the immense concrete vault of a bath or temple
whose destruction gives as much trouble as if it were solid rock.
Fortunately for the student and the archaeologist a government
official, a "custodian of excavations," now watches all such
operations, and all "finds" of importance, fragments of inscriptions
and statues, earthenware lamps, bronze or glass vessels, fragments of
mosaic, and gold ornaments, are collected and reported.