Roman and medieval art
by William Henry Goodyear
1905
INTRODUCTION.
IT is a pity that the word "art" carries with it, to a person not interested in the subject or not versed in its history, a suggestion of luxury and of superfluity, as contrasted with the utilitarian or the practical. Where this possibly derogatory tinge of meaning is not suggested, there is generally at least a feeling that the matters which the word calls up are those of interest to the specialist in design rather than to the world at large. People who are supposed to be interested in "art" might, according to this view, possibly not be interested in literature or in history. Contrary-wise, people interested in history or in literature might possibly not be interested in "art."
It is true that in recent centuries, those namely of recent modern history, the arts of painting and sculpture, at least, have become mainly matters of luxury, and that as arts of popular education and instruction they have been displaced by printed books. Hence the difficulty of making immediately apparent, before the subject itself has been opened up, that a history of art is not so much a history of the arts of design as it is a history of civilization. But if this point is not apparent in advance, it is notwithstanding the point which in recent years has drawn more and more attention to the subject, until it is beginning to figure as an indispensable part of the philosophy and knowledge of general history.
As soon as history ceases to be conceived as a series of disconnected national chronicles, as soon as it begins to be
iv Introduction.
conceived as a sequent evolution of races and of epochs which has been unbroken in continuity since the time of the Chaldeans and Egyptians down to the nineteenth century the history of art appears as a study of the first importance. This is because it deals with the now visible relics of the past ; not only with buildings, statues, reliefs, and paintings, but with fabrics, utensils, coins, furniture, and all the accessories of daily life ; for in historic periods all these things were given an appropriate artistic treatment and setting forth. As revelations of the life of a nation or an epoch these relics appeal to the imagination because they appeal to the eye and assist each student to picture the past to himself. The student is no longer, then, dependent on the descriptions and accounts of another student ; he becomes himself an independent historian, for whoever evokes in imagination the life of the past deserves this title. The history of art has, moreover, especial value for a true philosophy of history in that it forces the student to subordinate the history of nations to the history of epochs. The grand divisions between the successive epochs of the ascendency of the ancient oriental nations of the Greeks, of the Romans, of the Germanic races (the Middle Ages), and of the Italians (the Renaissance) are only seen distinctly when the history of art is called in evidence. As regards the epochs treated by this work, those of the Romans and of the Middle Age, the student must judge from the book itself how far a general knowledge of historic life and civilization is involved in the topics treated.
CONTENTS. PART I. ROMAN ART.
Chapter. Page.
I. THE PREHISTORIC AGE 17
II. EARLY ITALIAN ART 24
III. THE EARLY ROMAN ART 57
IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EMPIRE ... 63
V. GENERAL REVIEW OF THE ROMAN ART . 72
VI. ROMAN ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING . . 78 VII. ROMAN DECORATIVE ART AND SCULPTURE 95
VIII. ANCIENT ROME AS SEEN BY MODERNS . . 104
IX. THE ROMAN DECADENCE 125
X. SUMMARY s. 138
PART II. MEDIEVAL ART.
I. THE PERIOD OF THE GERMAN INVASIONS . 143
II. THE BYZANTINE ART. . . 149
III. EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE .... 161
IV. THE DOME CHURCHES 170
V. BYZANTINE DETAILS AND ORNAMENTAL
SYSTEM i?4
VI. MOHAMMEDAN ART i7 8
VII. THE ROMANESQUE PERIOD 185
VIII. ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE 196
vi Contents.
Chapter. Page.
IX. THE GOTHIC PERIOD 208
X. GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE 221
XI. NORTHERN GOTHIC SCULPTURE AND PAINTING 247
XII. THE SECULAR AND ITALIAN GOTHIC . . . 258
XIII. ITALIAN GOTHIC PAINTING 270
XIV. ITALIAN GOTHIC SCULPTURE . 288
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, at Rome Frontispiece.
1 ~igure. Page.
1. The Ruins of the Roman Forum 20
2. Prehistoric Italian " Hut-Urns," Bronze Helmets, and
Pottery 23
3. Polychromatic Egyptian Glass Vases from Italy. British
Museum 27
4. Etruscan Bronze Statuette. British Museum 29
5. Etruscan Bronze Statuette. British Museum 30
6. Etruscan Bronze Statuette of Venus. British Museum . 31
7. Etruscan Bronze Statuette of Diana. British Museum . 32
8. Relief from a Stone Etruscan Cist. British Museum . 33
9. Etruscan Bronze Statuette of Mars. British Museum . 34
10. Greek Vase from an Etruscan Tomb. British Museum. 35
11. Etruscan Capital from a Tomb, Vulci. British Museum. 37
12. Ancient Etruscan Gate'way. Volterra 38
13. A Room in the Etruscan Museum at Florence .... 40
14. Etruscan Cinerary Cist at Volterra. Actaeon destroyed
by the Dogs of Diana 41
15. A Tomb in the Etruscan Museum at Orvieto 42
16. An Etruscan Tomb at Cervetri 44
17. An Etruscan Tomb at Corneto 45
18. Etruscan Wall at Fallen 46
[9. Archaic Greek Vases. Naples Museum 47
20. Greek Coins from Sicily. Naples Museum 48
21. Ruins of the Temple of Hercules. Selinus 49
22. Greek Temple at Egesta 50
23. Temple of Concord. Girgenti 51
24. Temple of Ceres. Paestum 52
25. The So-called Basilica. Paestum 53
26. Temple of Neptune. Paestum 54
27. Temple of Neptune, Paestum, showing Doric Details . 55
28. Roman Portrait Busts. Capitol Museum 58
vii
viii Illustrations.
Figure. pa K e -
29. The Cloaca Maxima. Rome 59
30. Tuscan (Doric) Capital. Roman Period ....... 60
31. Roman Glass from the Crimea. British Museum ... 61
32. Roman Triumphal Arch. North Africa 62
33. Roman Bronze Statuette of Jupiter. From Hungary.
British Museum 64
34. Roman Aqueduct in Southern France. Nimes .... 65
35. Roman Bronze Statuette found in England. A Military
Officer. British Museum 66
36. Roman Gateway in Germany. Trier 67
37. Roman Ruins in Syria. Baalbek 68
38. Roman Aqueduct in Spain. Segovia 69
39. Roman Ruin. East Jordan Territory 71
40. Greco-Roman Relief from the Decoration of a Foun-
tain. Lateran Museum. A Nymph Feeding the Infant Plutus from Her Horn of Plenty 73
41. Faun. Copy after Praxiteles. Capitol, Rome .... 74
42. Bust of Julius Caesar. Rome 75
43. Bronze Statuette. Venus. Naples 76
44. The "Maison Carrie." Nimes 79
45. Architectural Frieze Detail. Lateran Museum. From
Trajan's Forum 80
46. Temple of Fortuna Virilis. Rome 81
47. Temple of Antoninus and Faustina. Rome 82
48. Temple of Minerva. Assisi 82
49. Roman Composite (Corinthian) Capital 83
50. Ruined Apartment in the Baths of Caracalla 84
51. The Basilica of Constantine. Rome 85
52. Triumphal Arch of Septimius Severus. Rome .... 86
53. The Colosseum. Rome 87
54. Court of a Pompeiian House 89
55. Pompeiian Floor Mosaic. "Beware of the Dog."
Naples Museum 90
56. Pompeiian Wall Painting. Naples Museum 91
57. Pompeiian Wall Painting. Naples Museum 92
58. Roman Mosaic. The Drinking Doves. Capitol, Rome 93
59. Pompeiian Street, as Excavated 96
60. Pompeiian Bronze Lamps. Naples Museum 97
61. Pompeiian Weights. Naples Museum 98
Illustrations. ix
Figure. Page.
62. A Poet Holding a Tragic Theatrical Mask, and a Muse.
Relief. Lateran, Rome 99
63. Bronze Statue of Drusus. Naples Museum 100
64. Roman Portrait Busts. Capitol, Rome 101
65. Bust of the Emperor Titus. Naples Museum 102
66. Sleeping Faun. Bronze from Herculaneum. Naples . 103
67. Casts from Roman Signet Gems. British Museum . . 103
68. The Appian Way, near Rome 105
69. Tomb of Caecilia Metella on the Appian Way 106
70. Tomb of Hadrian and Bridge of St. Angelo. Rome . 107
71. Column of Trajan and Remains of the Ulpian Basilica . 108
72. The Roman Forum no
73. The Forum of Nerva 113
74. Ruins of -the Palace of Caligula, Palatine Hill .... 114
75. The Arch of Titus 115
76. Relief from the Arch of Titus 116
77. The Colosseum 117
78. The Temple of Vesta (so-called) 118
79. Gateway of the Money-changers 118
80. The Theater of Marcellus 119
81. The Pantheon. Rome 120
82. The Pyramid of Caius Cestius and Porta Paola .... 121
83. The Porta Maggiore and Tomb of Eurysaces 122
84. The Arch of Drusus . , 123
85. Wall Painting. Christ and the Woman of Samaria.
Catacomb of St. Calixtus. Fourth Century .... 126
86. Basilica Church of the Manger. Bethlehem. Fourth
Century 128
87. Basilica of St. Paul. Rome. Rebuilt 1828. Old
Church, Fourth Century 131
88. Early Christian Sarcophagus Relief. The Resurrection
of Lazarus. Ravenna 132
89. Early Christian Sarcophagus Relief. Christ and Four
Apostles. Ravenna 134
90. Early Christian Sarcophagus Relief. Daniel in the
Lions' Den 135
91. Ivory Consular Diptych. Victory, with Globe and
Scepter. Fourth Century 136
92. Anglo-Saxon Whalebone Casket. British Museum . . 145
Illustrations.
Figure. Page.
93. Tenth Century Wall Painting. The Annunciation.
Church of San Clemente, Rome 147
94. Carved Ivory Book Covers. Saints or Apostles. Ra-
venna. Tenth Century 148
95. Church of St. Mark. Vestibule with Mosaics. Venice. 150
96. Byzantine Mosaic. St. Mark's, Venice 153
97. Byzantine Mosaic. Procession of Saints. San Apolli-
nare Nuovo, Ravenna. Sixth Century 155
98. Byzantine Mosaic Detail. Head of the Empress Theo-
dora. San Vitale, Ravenna. Sixth Century .... 156
99. Byzantine Mosaic. The Day of Pentecost. Tomb of
Galla Placidia, Ravenna. Fifth Century 158
100. Byzantine Madonna of a Type Common in Italy . . . 159
101. San Lorenzo. Rome. Sixth Century 162
102. San Apollinare Nuovo. Ravenna. Sixth Century . . 163
103. San Apollinare in Classe. Ravenna. Sixth Century . 164
104. San Apollinare Nuovo. Ravenna. Sixth Century . . 166
105. San Apollinare in Classe. Ravenna. Sixth Century . 167
106. San Vitale. Ravenna. Sixth Century 169
107. St. Sophia. Constantinople. Sixth Century ..... 171
108. Byzantine Capitals in St. Mark's at Venice 173
109. St. Sophia. Constantinople 175
no. Byzantine Well. Venice 176
in. Capitals and Arabesques from the Alhambra 179
112. Mosque el Aksa. Jerusalem 180
113. Mohammedan Dome and Dome of the Rock. Jeru-
salem jgi
114. Arcades in the Mosque of Amru. Cairo 182
115. Hall of Justice and Court of the Lions. Alhambra. . 183
116. Arcade in the Alcazar. Seville 184
117. Cathedral of Speyer 186
11 8. Romanesque Enameled Silver Relic Chests, in the
Cathedral Treasury, Hildesheim 188
119. Cathedral of Mainz iSg
120. South Aisle. Peterborough , 191
121. St. Michael's. Hildesheim ,192
122. Hereford Cathedral ' ' I93
123. Mainz Cathedral I9 6
124. Worms Cathedral I97
Illustrations. xi
Figi're. Page.
125. Speyer Cathedral 198
126. Portal. Haughmond Abbey 199
127. Pisa Cathedral, Bell Tower, and Baptistery 200
128. Pisa Cathedral 201
129. St. Michael's. Lucca 202
130. Ivory Carved Book Cover. The Deposition. Hildes-
heim. Eleventh Century 203
131. Limoges Emanuel. The Virgin Mary. Twelfth Century 205
132. Ivory Carved Book Cover. The Deposition and En-
tombment. Thirteenth Century. Ravenna .... 206
133. Cologne Cathedral 212
134. Transept. Cologne Cathedral 217
135. Wells Cathedral , . 222
136. Lincoln Cathedral 223
137. West Front. Melrose Abbey 224
138. Cathedral of Bayonne 226
139. North Aisle. Canterbury 227
140. Cathedral of Nantes 228
141. Choir. Milan Cathedral 230
142. St. Maclou. Rouen 231
143. Choir. Cathedral of Quimper 233
144. Tours Cathedral. (The Flying Buttress.) 235
145. Choir. Cathedral of Amiens 236
146. Cloisters. Winchester 237
147. Gothic Details. Southwell Collegiate Church. Chapter
House 238
148. Lichfield Cathedral 240
149. Cathedral of Poitiers 242
150. Gargoyle and Gothic Details. Notre Dame, Paris . . 244
151. Gothic Portal Sculpture at Longpont (Seine et Oise),
France ' . . 245
152. Gpthic Portal. Chartres 248
153. West Door. Lichfield 249
154. English Ivory Triptych. Fourteenth Century .... 251 155- Virgin Mary from the Van Eycks' Altarpiece in Ghent. 252
156. Reliquary of St. Ursula in Ghent. Hans Memling . . 254
157. Detail of the Reliquary in Ghent. Hans Memling . . 255
158. The Presentation. Munich. Roger van der Weyden . 256
159. Guild Hall of the Cloth Merchants. Ypres 257
xii Illustrations.
Figure. Page.
160. Palais de Justice. Rouen 259
161. Ludlow Castle 260
162. Aigues Mortes. Porte de la Reine (Queen's Gate) . . 260
163. Gothic Dwelling. Hildesheim 261
164. Milan Cathedral 262
165. Cathedral of Orvieto 263
1 66. Cathedral of Florence 264
167. Detail from the Porta della Carta. Venice. Fifteenth
Century 265
168. Capitals from the Baptistery of Pistoja. Fourteenth
Century 266
169. Interior of the Siena Cathedral 268
170. The Upper Church of St. Francis. Assisi 271
171. Cimabue. The Madonna. Academy, Florence . . . 272
172. Duccio. The Madonna. Perugia 273
173. Giotto. St. Joachim Driven from the Temple. Arena
Chapel, Padua 274
174. Giotto. St. Joachim Accomplishes the Sacrifice. Arena 276
Chapel, Padua
175. Giotto. Birth of the Virgin. Arena Chapel, Padua . 277
176. Giotto. Mary's Suitors Receiving the Rods from the
High Priest. Arena Chapel, Padua 279
177. Giotto. The Nativity of Christ. Arena Chapel, Padua 281
178. Giotto. The Flight into Egypt. Arena Chapel, Padua 282
179. Giotto. Christ Crowned with Thorns. Arena Chapel, 283
Padua
180. Giotto. The Deposition. Arena Chapel, Padua . . . 285
181. The Campo Santo. Pisa
182. Detail from the Bronze Doors of Troja Cathedral. 286
Eleventh Century 288
183. Detail from the Easter Candelabrum of Gaeta. The 289
Women at the Sepulcher ; the Day of Pentecost . .
184. Pulpit of the Pisa Baptistery. By Niccolo Pisano . . . 290
185. Detail of the Pisa Pulpit. The Crucifixion
186. Facade of the Orvieto Cathedral, showing its Relief- 291
Sculpture 292
187. Sculpture of Orvieto Cathedral. Story of the Creation. 293
Giovanni Pisano and Scholars. Detail of Fig. 186 .
188. Giotto. Tubal Cain. Florence Campanile 294
Illustrations. xiii
Figwe. Page.
189. Lucca della Robbia. Pythagoras [Arithmetic]. Flor-
ence Campanile 295
190. The Madonna. Prato. Giovanni Pisano 296
The Campo Santo. Pisa 297
The Municipal Palace. Prato 298
The Municipal Palace. Volterra 299
The Palazzo Ca d'Oro. Venice 300
Palazzo Francetti. Venice 301
Detail from the Doge's Palace. Venice 302
PART I. ROMAN ART.
ROMAN AND MEDIEVAL ART.
PART I. ROMAN ART.
CHAPTER I.
THE PREHISTORIC AGE.
THE earliest relics of man's existence in Europe are roughly chipped implements and weapons of flint and .stone, of horn and bone, the latter frequently resembling those used by the modern Esquimaux and the former similar to those still used by absolutely savage races. Of a later date are other stone implements carefully finished and polished. There is a gap, or "hiatus," between the age of rough stone implements, the Palaeolithic time, and the "age of polished stone," the Neolithic time.* The highly vigorous drawings of animals on bone or ivory which belong to the Palaeolithic Age are not found in the later age of polished stone.
It is not within our knowledge to say that Europe was uninhabited in the intervening time but it does not appear that the race of the age of exclusively rough stone implements, whose artistic efforts were so singularly instinct with vitality, has anything to do with the later history of art in Europe. This race was apparently exterminated, supplanted, or succeeded, by the race which used the implements of polished stone, and it was this latter race
* It is to be explained that the manufacturing of unpolished stone implements was not abandoned in the age of polished stone, but this age is specified by its b< st and distinctive work and there was in it an improvement generally in the finish of all these implements.
1 8 Roman and Medieval Art.
which gradually acquired the arts of metal and especially of bronze, and so began the later continuous history of Europe.
There is no known decorated pottery of this age which precedes the use of metals and there are no other remains of design preceding this use ; pottery, on account of its indestructibility,* being usually the material on which the earliest efforts of art are preserved.
The first appearance of metallic arts in Europe and of decorated pottery appears to be due to the influence of a foreign and oriental civilization. There is also a sequence apparent in the order of development, as regards the influence of this foreign civilization, in which sequence the territories of Greece preceded those of Italy, while Italy in turn preceded Switzerland, Germany, France, and Spain. The indications in artistic forms and designs of a graded geographical contiguity in development are the strongest evidence that it took place.
Now, the point I wish to make is this that as regards the history of civilization and of art in Europe, we begin our knowledge with the existence of opposing poles of highly developed civilizations and of very primitive, though not absolutely barbaric, human culture. Regarding the origin or beginnings of either of these conditions we know nothing. At the earliest dates known to us for Chaldea and Egypt, material civilization appears to have been absolutely perfect for the given local surroundings. At the earliest dates known to us for Europe, subsequent to the age of unpolished stone, the culture is highly primitive but it already shows influences of indirect or direct contact with the old Asiatic and African cultures. These influences were earlier in Greece, apparently slightly later
* Not as regards breakage, but as regards material.
The Prehistoric Age. 19
in Italy, and certainly later in Germany, France, Spain, and England.
The modifications made by Greece in creating its own independent civilization out of the oriental were ultimately also lawgiving for Italy, which finally adopted them all.
The modifications made by Italy in creating its own independent civilization out of the oriental, and out of the Greek, were ultimately lawgiving for South Germany, France, Spain, and part of England, which countries ultimately adopted them all. The history of these last modifications is the history of Rome.
Four and five hundred years after Christ the hitherto independent Germanic races of Northern Europe flooded the Romanized portions of Europe, came under the influence of their religion and civilization, and so began the history of the Middle Ages and of medieval art.
These explanations assist us now to speak of Italy in the narrower sense, as sharing the history of all other European countries as regards the Palaeolithic Stone Age and the age of polished stone and of bronze. But the history of art in Italy begins with the age of decorated pottery and of metals that is to say, it begins with the history of the foreign influences of a superior foreign civilization on the primitive culture of Italy, of which, let it be once more said, we know nothing before this influence began.
The date 1500 B. C. would be, according to present knowledge, rather a late one for the first introduction of bronze into the territories of Switzerland, and approximate estimates may be made accordingly for other countries, north or south, as the case may be.
In speaking of prehistoric art in Italy it should be added that the Gauls of the Po Valley retained this style of art
The Prehistoric Age. 21
down to a comparatively late date, until the third century B. C. at least. Hence a great many objects found in North Italy and belonging to such late dates are representative for a state of culture which, in much higher antiquity, was common to the whole of Italy.
The Museum of Bologna is especially rich in objects of this class. Its exhibits include, for instance, bronze vessels which were evidently made under the conditions of a rude and primitive Italian culture and which have notwithstanding clear indications of oriental influence. One of these indications is the use of horizontal bands or zones of animals, among which sphinxes designed in the style of Phenician or Assyrian art are common. Another indication of oriental influence is the appearance of birds and animals like the goose and deer in such associations as to make it clear that they are the counterparts or copies of oriental designs which represented solar or celestial gods under the guise of these animals. We find, for example, the deer in association with the sacred lotus or water-lily, a talismanic emblem which, in oriental art, implies that the animal connected with it is conceived as representing a solar or celestial god. The flower itself is designed in such a way as to make it apparent that we are not concerned with a prehistoric Italian study from nature but with the copy of an oriental and conventional copy of the plant. In the same way lines of birds are found in the ornament of metals and pottery which are borrowed from the lines of geese which were used to represent Egyptian gods like Horus and Osiris.
Much more numerous than these representations of animals or of the human figure are the pattern ornaments. These are again suggestive of southeast Mediterranean influence and are undoubtedly of Egyptian derivation originally.
22 Roman and Medieval Art.
These patterns include the meander (or Greek fret), concentric rings, spirals, and zigzags, and were adopted by the prehistoric Italians in their own pottery and metal designs according to a law which has many other illustrations.
Whenever a lower culture borrows from one which is higher, the imitation of essentials is found to carry with it the imitation of non-essentials. In this case the essential was the manufacture of bronze into vessels and weapons imitated from oriental models. These models had been imported before an independent manufacture was attempted. When the independent manufacture began, the imitation of these models included not only the process of manufacture but also the decorative designs.
These designs are common to the Bronze Age of the whole of Europe, including Ireland and Scandinavia, and are to be conceived as having spread gradually by the main routes of trade from the south and southeast of Europe to the north and northwest. Many important improvements in the general conditions of life are to be argued from the introduction of the arts of metal into Europe and Italy, in the matter of habitations and masonry constructions, the use of textile fabrics, the arts of agriculture, and the general comforts of living.*
According to the above account it will appear that the study of prehistoric Italy is not so much the study of an individual country as of the Bronze Age throughout Europe, a study in which our knowledge is pieced together from different quarters and very largely from circumstantial evidence. For instance, aside from the evidence derived from patterns and designs we have that of philology, which tends to show that the European
* Canon Isaac Taylor's " Origin of the Aryans " is a most interesting account of this subject.
The Prehistoric Age.
words used for metals and for weights and measures are generally of Semitic (Phenician) derivation.
All objects representing the period are obtained from tomb finds. In the case of the so-called "hut-urns" of
FIG. 2. PREHISTORIC ITALIAN " HUT-URNS," BRONZE HELMETS, AND POTTERY.
prehistoric Italy, which were used for burial of the ashes of the dead, we have an obvious imitation of the dwellinghouse of the period. In our illustration of such "huturns" as found at Corneto, north of Rome, we notice also some specimens of prehistoric pottery and some bronze helmets (Fig. 2).
CHAPTER II.
EARLY ITALIAN ART.
SOME clear conception of the outlines of Roman and therefore of ancient Italian history is an elementary condition of the study or knowledge of Roman art. But by the word history we must understand here not the list of the Roman kings or the chronicles of Roman wars or battles or the lives of the famous statesmen and emperors, but rather an account of the general conditions of the civilization. To this account the Roman art itself offers the greatest assistance and it is for this reason that we study it ; but there are entire centuries from which monuments* are lacking for the Romans themselves, and for which the general conditions of Italian history and civilization must be our guide in resurrecting in imagination that art of the Romans which once summarized and expressed their character.
Broadly speaking, it is not till seven centuries of Roman history have been passed over in imagination that we can mention existing visible remains of its greatness ; and Roman art as we know it is mainly the art of the empire, which belongs to the five centuries between the accession of Augustus (B. C. 31) and the chieftainship of Odoacer, the first Germanic ruler of Italy (A. D. 476). f
* The word is used in a sense meaning any surviving visible relic, whether of building or otherwise.
t We do not consider Roman history in any sense as ending with the German invasions of the fifth century A. D., for it lasted a thousand years longer in Eastern Europe. But the ancient art and history of Rome, according to the cnrrent system of terminology, ended about this time; after which we speak of medieval art and history in Western Europe and of Byzantine (East Roman) art and history in Eastern Europe.
Early Italian Art. 25
It is clear that a history of Roman art is not merely a description of the ruins and relics which have come down to our day. Even for the periods which have been most fortunate in such survivals, the actual remains are a most insignificant and fragmentary portion of those which once existed. They assist us, however, to think of these others as once existing. And so of the periods which have left us practically nothing of the Romans, it also holds that our effort to reconceive them is vastly assisted by what we know of other Italian art, which has been somewhat more fortunate as regards survivals.
But there is still a point to be made in the matter of history as affecting Roman art. The word Roman has most singularly diverse meanings at different times. During the time of the monarchy (750-510 B. C. ) it applies at first to a territory about ten miles wide by twenty long. During the later republic and between 275-31 B. C. it includes the whole of Italy.* During the time of the empire (B. C. 3i-A. D. 476) it includes all the countries surrounding the Mediterranean basin as well as portions of Britain, Germany, and Hungary. And these changes are not simply changes of area which imply a series of widening conquests of foreign peoples which are ruled from a distance by foreigners to them. The Romans changed in quality, character, and literally in race, as much as the areas of domination changed. The Roman of the fifth century A. D. was any freeman living within the largest boundaries of the state a Gaul, Briton, Spaniard, North African, Egyptian, Syrian, or Greek and at this time he was not only Roman in name but also in language (if living in Western Europe), in laws, in rights, and in
* The northern Po Valley was excluded from the political conception of Italy until the time of Caesar.
26 Roman and Medieval Art.
civilization. The Roman of the times of Marius and Sulla (first century B. C. ) was any freeman within the boundaries of Italy Etruscan, Gaul, or Samnite, as the case might be. The Romans of the time of the early kings did not even include the Latin tribe to which they otherwise belonged and whose language was their own.
It is clear then that the term Roman art is also not a fixed term. It implies also different things at different times. Luckily, however, it assists us to say in every time what the Romans of that time really were.
Early Italian and Etruscan Art.
We must begin then with some general conception of Italy at large in the time when the Roman city was first founded (about 750 B. C. ) and also with some conception of the relations of the whole country to the exterior civilization of its time.
In the middle of the eighth century before Christ ancient Egypt was only two centuries and a quarter distant from final national downfall, with the Persian conquest, and Assyria had a century less of national existence to run through. The time even of Rome's foundation was therefore not an early one in ancient history, which dates the Egyptian monarchy to 5000 B. C. , and which concedes that the civilization of Chaldea had reached its highest perfection, at the time of the great pyramids. For many centuries before Rome's foundation, Italy had shared with other Mediterranean countries the benefits of Phenician commerce, and that is to say that it was very intimately acquainted, at least through trade, with the technical arts and inventions of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations. For the Phenicians made their living as merchants and their own civilization was entirely
Early Italian Art.
of Egyptian or Assyrian derivation.* Their great colony of Carthage had been founded in North Africa about fifty years before the foundation of Rome, but this was only one of countless settlements which they made along the shores of North and Northwest Africa, of Spain, of Southern France, of Sardinia, and Corsica.
Thus one element of Italian and therefore of Roman art
FIG. 3. POLYCHROMATIC EGYPTIAN GLASS VASES FROM ITALY. British Museum.
was the oriental, but this point applies less to style than it does to technical manipulation and the knowledge and uses of materials and tools. In the matter of style we shall observe some oriental traits in surviving examples of early Italian art, but here rather because of Greek influences, which in early days themselves exhibited an oriental character. This leads us to consider the influ-
* Assyrian civilization was a repetition and continuation of the Chaldean.
28 Roman and Medieval Art.
ence of the Greeks in Italy as contrasted with that of the Phenicians.
The Greek colonies of Italy were especially numerous around its southern shores, but they reached as far north as Pisa. In Sicily they were especially important. Many of them were flourishing civic states as early as the eighth and seventh centuries B. C., and the Greeks had become very active rivals of Phenician commerce in the eastern Mediterranean as early as the eighth century.
Italian art, when we first know it, is thus composed of two factors the oriental (through Phenician commerce) and the Greek the Greek having overlaid the oriental substratum of technical inventions with its own peculiar style, which in its early days had itself an oriental guise and quality.
The three Italian nations which we know best at the time of Rome's foundation (aside from the Greek settlers of Italy) are the Samnites, the Etruscans, and the Gauls. They were mainly settled in the order named from south to north. The Gauls were the ruling nation of the Po Valley ; the Etruscans were especially strong in modern Tuscany, which is named after them, although they had settlements also in Campania (in the vicinity of Naples). Among these nations we owe most to the Etruscans for our general knowledge of ancient Italy, in which they were certainly the most highly civilized and powerful native nation. Aside from a few walls, tunneled aqueducts, and arches, we know them best from the objects found in their tombs.
Like other ancient nations the Etruscans believed in a life after death, and, like other ancient nations, they actually believed that the utensils, ornaments, and surroundings of this life were available for the use of the deceased
Early Italian Art.
29
in the spirit world.* Hence the practice of burying in the tombs so many various objects of daily life, which, as excavated in the last two centuries, now enable us to reconstruct a picture }f ancient civilization.
The museums which are especially : ch in the objects from Etruscan tombs -e those of the Vatican at Rome and i Florence, while many others are in die Louvre at Paris and in the British Museum. These objects are by no ireans exclusively of Etruscan art and iranufacture. Many of them are importations of commerce derived from the Greeks and from the Phenicians, which are significant of the general influences and conditions under which the Italian art developed, as already mentioned.
Bronze, silver, and gold vessels, occasionally vases, more frequently saucer-shaped pater as, are embossed and engraved in an Egyptian style and with Egyptian subjects, and were made and sold by the Phenicians. Similar ones found in Cyprus can be seen in the New York Museum and are illustrated in Cesnola's "Cyprus." Articles of jewelry of EgyptoPhenician make and style are especially well represented in the Campana Collection of the Louvre and in the
* The traditional practice of placing these objects in the tombs undoubtedly survived by many centuries the belief in their actual utility to the dead. The practice continued among all pagan nations until the triumph of Christianity in the fourth century A. D., and there were many philosophic minds which were superior to so materialistic a view of the after life at least as early as the fifth centurv before Christ.
FIG. 4. ETRUSCAN
BRONZE STATUETTE.
British Museum.
Roman and Medieval Art.
Vatican. The Etruscans were themselves great workers in metal, at first under oriental tutelage, and consequently using oriental patterns in the pieces of earlier date. Large bronze shields and vessels of their make can be seen in the British Museum. Much more numerous in the modern finds are vessels of black pottery {"Bucchero ware") with raised patterns imitating the embossed designs of metal.
Diminutive vases of opaque polychromatic glass which were used for unguents or perfumes of the toilet were among the objects of Egyptian importation (Fig. 3).
Various miscellaneous objects of the above-mentioned classes can be dated to the seventh century B. C. It is not likely that many of those known are older than the eighth. Among the most famous excavated early Etruscan tombs are the ' ' ReguliniGalassi" tomb at Cervetri and the "Polledrara" tomb at Vulci.
As early at least as the sixth century B. C. Greek influences are very distinct in Etruscan
art and were in fact dominant from that time. They are not, however, obvious to an eye accustomed to the perfected Greek style and to a person unaware how thoroughly oriental in appearance the early Greek art really was. The Cypriote Greek statuettes and figurines of the New York
FIG. 5. ETRUSCAN BRONZE
STATUETTE. British Museum.
Early Italian Art.
Museum will offer, however, many analogies to the figures shown here in the text. The rude appearance of Fig. 4 would only allow us to say th it, although in fact Etruscan, it might have been made by any Mediterranean people, imitating oriental art in a rude Wciy ; for if the figure had been Egyptian it might have been equally stiff in posture but it would be far more refined and finished in details. But with Figs. 5 and 6 we have unmistakable Greek traits, although the figures themselves are Etruscan. There is no reason for dating any of these figures earlier than the sixth century B. C., although they represent a style which had existed in Italy for some considerable time before that date. This style continued witii some slight improvement in the early fifth century B. C. , as illustrated in Fig. 7.
We have here a very good illustration, not only of the early Etruscan art, but also of the Greek art of the same FIG. e.-ETRuscAN BRONZE dm,:, on which it now became ^^KSS"":
dependent. This statuette is a typical one for Greek and Etruscan style down to the
Roman and Medieval Art.
very threshold of the Phidian period. The pose shows Egyptian influences and places the left leg in advance, which is always found in Egyptian statues which place the legs in action. The drapery and gestures of the arms are
distinctly early Greek. The bulging eyes would not be found, however, in a Greek piece which had reached the technical perfection of the execution here; and this execution, it should be observed, is by no means rude. The zigzag drapery lines (observable in Figs. 6 and 7) are originally imitations in Greek art from wooden figurines used in shrines, which were dressed in actual stuffs plaited to the figure in a manner thus copied.
On the whole, it should be said that
FIG. 7. ETRUSCAN BRONZE STATUETTE vprv errnnpnnt; rrmrln OF DIANA. British Museum.
sions as to the general
condition of a civilization might be drawn from the odd appearance of such figures. Something is to be attributed to the conservative influence of religious tradition, but it should be remembered that the world did not yet know
Early Italian Art.
33
that perfection of Greek art which has since become commonplace. The oriental art which had so far ruled the civilized world, and whose influences are still apparent in these illustrations, had reached a high perfection of formal and technical execution, but sculpture as practiced by the Egyptians had not for many centuries deviated from a fixed and motionless conception of the sitting and standing figure, and the very perfection of Egyptian civilization contributed to restrain and formalize at the outset the art of nations which were learning from it.
FIG. 8. RELIEF FROM A STONE ETRUSCAN CIST. British Museum.
The early Etruscan surface design (paintings as known from tomb frescoes, and reliefs) exhibits some traits foreign to Greek style and also a general dependence on it. In the relief from Chiusi (Fig. 8) the exaggeration and contortion of the attitudes are distinctively Etruscan, although the general conception of the art shows Greek
34
Roman and Medieval Art.
traditions. A certain straining and violence in the attitudes of reliefs is very common in Etruscan art and is well
illustrated here. The date is not far from 500 B. C
We come then finally, as regards the art of design, to that which shows' dependence on the perfected style of the Greeks. Fig. 9 would be an illustration of this class and, judging from the face, is of a relatively early date late fifth, or early fourth century B. C. From this time on, Etruscan art is Greek in matter as well as manner, and with such slight deviations from the original that a practiced eye is required to note them. Quite numerous in the museums of Europe are the ladies' bronze mirrors which are decorated on the back with sub-
FIG. 9. ETRUSCAN BRONZE STATUETTE jectS of Greek myth, OF MARS. British Museum. , , . , ,
and the circular bronze
cists which held objects for the toilet are decorated in the same fashion.
Early Italian Art.
35
The most palpable indication of the Greek influences in Etruscan, and therefore in Italian, art is the very large number of imported Greek painted pottery vases found in the tombs. So numerous are they that the presumption long prevailed that they were native Etruscan works, and the title of " Etruscan vases" still clings in popular use to them, although not one in a thousand was actually Etruscan work.
The Etruscans were especially famous for their skill in working terra-cotta (baked clay), of which many examples survive. In gem-cutting they even excelled the Greeks, as far as actual skill in execution is concerned. Their bronze utensils were in request at Athens for artistic workmanship in the best days of Athenian art.
The two most noted existing works of Etruscan art are the life-size bronze wolf of the Capitol Museum in Rome and the large bronze Chimaera in Florence. Their sculptured stone sarcophagi and stone cists (for the ashes of cremated bodies) are quite numerous in several
FIG. io. GREEK VASE FROM AN ETRUSCAN TOMB. British Museum.
36 Roman and Medieval Art.
museums, but the decorative reliefs and surmounting reclining figures of these works are generally of rather inferior art and execution.
Finally, we have to mention the Etruscans as engineers and architects. It is here that they must have been most helpful to the Romans. No ruins of Etruscan temples have survived. They are known to have resembled the Greek temples in form and are presumed to have been rather inferior to them in the beauty of detail and of proportions. The Etruscans are credited with devising the cold and formal style of Doric capital which was generally used by the Romans in the time of the empire (when they employed the Doric) and which has been known as the "Tuscan" order (Fig. 30). It has been shown, however, by an American archaeologist,* that the so-called Tuscan Doric capital is probably the survival of a very simple and undeveloped Doric form, rather than the late corruption and debasement of a better one. The capital in question, as illustrated here from a modern drawing, lacks the fine curve and bold projection of the Parthenon Doric and is also distinguished from the Greek Doric by a projecting fillet at the top of the column. It is probable that the so-called "Composite" order of the Romans (Fig. 49) originated with the Etruscans. A very interesting and beautiful variant of the Ionic. capital in the British Museum shows an anticipation of this form in the row of acanthus leaves around the neck (Fig. n).
The most famous contribution of the Etruscans to Roman art is the use of the arch (Figs. 12, 29). That they were the first to use it in Italy is clear and it is also clear that they used it largely, though even the ruins of
* Dr. Joseph Thacher Clarke, translator of Reber's " History of Ancient Art," and excavator at Assos in Asia Minor for the Archaeological Institute of America.
Early Italian Art.
37
their work in this line are scanty. The early use of the arch in oriental countries is now generally conceded and it is undoubtedly one of the arts which the Etruscans borrowed from the East. The keystone arch was discovered in Egypt in 1891, in a tomb at Meydum, belonging to the Third Dynasty (ibout 4000 B. C.).* I ; has long been known in brick arches at Thebes, which are dated to the Eighteenth Dynasty (1600 B. C). Its use in ancient Assyria is demonstrated in doorways, gateways, and drains, and is almost certainly demonstrated for the vaulting (roofing) of Assyrian palaces. The general repugnance of Greek builders to the arch is notorious and its later widespread use throughout the modern world is C( rtainly due to the Etruscans, as the Romans learned its use from them. Etruscan engineering capacity is attested by various drainage constructions, of which the most famous is the Cloaca Maxima, or great sewer, at Rome, dating from the sixth century B. C. (Fig. 29).
The Etruscan political system was one of independent cities banded together for foreign emergencies and ruled by oligarchy. This alliance of civic states was ultimately conquered by Rome during the Samnite wars (in which the Etruscans were no less engaged than the Samnites)
* By Mr. William M. Flinders Petrie.
FIG. ii. ETRUSCAN CAPITAL FROM A TOMB, VULCI. British Museum.
Roman and Medieval Art.
between 350 and 290 B. C. They were then gradually absorbed into the Roman political system. The Etruscans were all Roman citizens before the first century of the
FIG. 12. ANCIENT ETRUSCAN GATEWAY. Volterra.
Early Italian Art. 39
Christian era. Their language was displaced by the Latin, and in this die conquest of the Roman was most apparent, for there is no conquest of force which can equal that involved in the disappearance of a language. No literature of the Etruscans has survived. Their language as found in inscriptions is undeciphered and appears to be foreign in derivation to other speeches of Europe. Their alphabet was borrowed from the Greeks and their deities appear to have been roughly analogous to theirs. Their religion, as would appear from tomb paintings, was more fantastic and more gloomy than the Greek. Considering the great excellence of their art and their obvious importance as a nation, almost nothing is known of this people. They are still awaiting their historian. This is partly owing to our ignorance of their language, and their lack of a surviving literature ; but it is a grand point to understand that although they disappear from history in name with the third century B. C. they did not disappear in fact. They were not exterminated or decimated as a race. They had been the foremost native people of Italy in its early civilization, and as Roman subjects and Roman citizens they continued to play their part less conspicuously, but not less serviceably. Maecenas, the great patron of letters and friend of Augustus, was an Etruscan so were the emperors Vespasian and Titus. Their artistic talents and technical knowledge certainly did their full share of service to the Roman imperial period which concealed under its name and shadow so many nations and so many national talents. In the Middle Ages and in the Italian Renaissance the Tuscan artists were the foremost of Italy.*
* A small but interesting collection of Etruscan objects is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Early Italian Art.
Local Notes on Etruscan Tombs and Museums.
Our illustration from one of the rooms of the Etruscan Museum at Florence will give an idea of the general character of a collection of Etruscan antiquities (Fig. 13). On the walls above we see some copies of the tomb paintings. The apartment is filled mainly with sarcophagi and cists for the ashes of the dead. As apparent in the varying sizes of these objects, both ordinary burial and cremation were practiced. The two large sarcophagi belong to a class which is not very numerous and the much larger number of cists for ashes show that cremation was the habitual custom.
There is an even larger number of these cists in the Museum of Volterra, from which museum we have selected a characteristic example for the relief style of later date (Fig. 14) to contrast with the relief from Chiusi (Fig. 8).
The size of these cists is generally about two feet in length. The subjects of the reliefs with which the front and sides of the cists are decorated are mainly taken from Greek mythology and very frequently from Homer. The
FIG. 14. ETRUSCAN CINERARY CIST AT VOLTERRA. ACTION DESTROYED BY THE DOGS OF DIANA.
Roman and Medieval Art.
execution is generally of rather indifferent quality, such as we should expect from an ordinary artisan, but the motives, action, and composition of the designs are of great beauty, for all periods later than the middle of the fifth century B. C. (Fig. 8 would represent the archaic or primitive style of about 500 B. C.) An enormous number of these reliefs show a style which cannot be earlier than the first or second centuries B. C. , and many doubtless belong to later centuries.
The reliefs of these cists are the best possible illustration
of the manner in which
Italian art became saturated with Greek influences and of the conditions under which the Roman art developed. They also show how "Etruscan" art long survived the civic independence of the Etruscan states, whose importance for Italian culture we are too apt to ignore after the date of the Roman conquest.
The reclining figures which are represented
FIG. 15. A TOMB IN THE ETRUSCAN MUSEUM On the Covers of the cist AT ORVIETO.
are invariably of a more
hurried and ruder art than the reliefs on the body of the object and seem to have been made by an inferior class of artists. They represent the deceased in a conventional way and generally without effort at exact portraiture.
Early Italian Art. 43
These reclining figures always hold a patera, or dish for the receipt of the funeral offerings of food and drink.
In the matter of works of art of especially fine execution the Museum of Perugia leads almost every other Etruscan collection except the Vatican. Among its treasures we may specify a terra-cotta head of the Medusa, a terra-cotta cist decorated with a mask of the Medusa and two griffins, and a silver mirror-case with a relief of Bacchus riding on the Panther all of which will rival the most famous similar productions of Greek art.
The small museum at Cortona boasts a bronze lamp with apertures for sixteen wicks, which was found suspended in a tomb, and is on account of its decorative relief designs the most remarkable object of its class in Europe.
In the Museum of Chiusi (the ancient Clusium) we find a large amount of pottery, many cinerary cists, and some statuary.
The museum at Corneto (Tarquinii) is surprisingly rich, in view of the extent to which the tombs of this locality have contributed to the Vatican collection. Its most remarkable possession is a set of false teeth. This reminds us of an exception to the Roman law forbidding the burial of gold objects at funerals, in favor of the gold filling of the teeth of the deceased. The Vatican collection contains the finest examples of work in the precious metals. Among other interesting things may be noted here a bedstead with interlacing flat strips of bronze corresponding to our modern bed springs.
The Etruscan tombs are not generally so interesting at present as they are at the time of excavation and before the buried objects have been dispersed in the museums. An illustration of the humbler class of tombs is offered from the Museum of Orvieto, in which the stones have
44
Roman and Medieval Art.
been set up as they were originally placed (Fig. 15). The tombs which are most generally visited by tourists are those of Cervetri (Caere) and of Corneto (Tarquinii), which are in the neighborhood of Rome.
Fig. 1 6 is a picture from a tomb at Cervetri which shows two shields, a sword, a helmet, a staff, a drinking cup, a frying pan, and two necklaces, carved in relief on the walls
FIG. 16. AN ETRUSCAN TOMB AT CERVETRI.
of tire tomb. This will illustrate the cases in which the actual objects are found in similar location. Here they are represented for a magical purpose, the theory being that to represent the object in the tomb was to endow the deceased with the use of its spiritual counterpart. We also notice the pillows carved in stone in the cavity where the body was laid to rest. The capitals of the pilasters are of a primitive Ionic form, illustrating the evolution of
46
Roman and Medieval Art.
the Ionic capital from the Egyptian lotus flower, and also illustrating the way in which such primitive Greek forms are constantly found in Etruscan examples.
Corneto is the locality most remarkable for tombs whose walls are decorated by frescoes. Our illustration from Corneto (Fig. 17) shows a banquet-scene and musicians. The style of drawing has something of the angularity to be seen in Fig. 8, but shows an improvement which bespeaks
FIG. 18. ETRUSCAN WALL AT FALLERI.
a later date, although probably still in the fifth century B. C. The animals, which are facing a shrub and which resemble leopards, are originally lions, and are copied from lions facing a "sacred tree," such as are common in early Greek art under oriental influence.
The walls of Fallen, north of Rome (Fig. 18), are an example of what may be seen in the way of Etruscan masonry in various quarters. The lower layers of the town walls of Cortona, for instance, date back to the Etruscan
Early Italian Art.
47
period and show a similar construction. In the surviving Italian towns, on sites dating from the ancient days of Latium, there are many remains of similar massive walls and also of town gateways. Of the latter class there is a fine example at Alatri, south of Rome.
The Greek States of Italy and Sicily.
Although the Greek states of Italy were not in direct contact with Rome, their significance for the history of that Italian culture which grew to be the Roman can hardly be over-estimated. South Italy was called Magna Grcecia (Great Greece), which is suggestive of the conq;ption attached by antiquity itself to this part of Italy. The great luxury prevailing in these Greek Italian cities is still attested by our word "sybarite," derived from Sybaris.
We shall presently mention the surviving monuments
which are suggestive ^ ^
of the existence of ancient Greek civilization in Sicily and South Italy, but it may be well first to point the moral of the importance of this civilization for Roman Italy in another way ; that is, by considering simply the date at which the Roman territory began to ex-
FIG. 19. ARCHAIC GREEK VASES. Naples Museum.
pand beyond the narrow limits of Latium and by contrasting this date with the long preceding period of prosperity
48 Roman and Medieval Art.
and greatness which the Greek states of the South had enjoyed.
The first steps toward the Roman conquest of Central Italy were not taken till the time of Philip of Macedon, who overthrew the independence of the Greek states of the mother country. This was in the time of the beginning of
FIG. 20. GREEK COINS FROM SICILY. Naples Museum.
the Samnite wars in Italy (343 B. C. ). The Greek states of South Italy were amalgamated with the Roman territory after the war with Pyrrhus, .275 B. C. Now if we consider that the foundations of these Greek colonies were laid in the eighth, seventh, and sixth centuries B. C., it will be apparent for how long a time their influence in Italy had been exerted before this Roman conquest. Then let it be remembered in addition that this influence was much more direct and widespread after the Roman conquest.
As a matter of fact, all " Roman" art and culture were ultimately Greek. The explanations are manifold, and very many have little or nothing to do with the existence of Greek states in South Italy and Sicily ; but for the
Early Italian Art. 49
earlier dates of Italian and Roman history, say down to 275 B. C., we can hardly over-estimate their importance. Their direct influence was, of course, exerted by commerce and by contact. An indirect influence was exerted by local transfer from one point to another, inside the limits of the native Italic nations, of the Greek influence at first due to direct contact and direct commerce.
As to the surviving remains of the Greek states, they are either tomb finds or temple ruins. Among the tomb finds we give the first importance to the pottery vases, of which mention has been already made under the topic of the Etruscan tombs. Many thousands of these Greek
FIG. 2i. RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF HERCULES. Selinus.
\ases are scattered through the museums of Europe which come from the south Italian and Sicilian states. Their manufacture was generally abandoned in the second century I>. C., when glass seems to have very largely taken the place of pottery. Preceding that date we find a series of
Roman and Medieval Art.
styles corresponding to the general sequence of evolution in Greek art, but falling into two main classes : the primitive style, using black figures on a red ground, which was abandoned early in the fifth century B. C., and the perfected style, using red figures on a black ground, which lasted till the second century B. C.
The figure designs of the first class have the angular attitudes and quaint expression common to other examples of primitive Greek art, and show dependence on oriental
FIG. 22. GREEK TEMPLE AT EGESTA.
tutelage in various ways. The perfected style is subdivided according to the sequence of evolution which also holds of Greek sculpture. We have in vases, as well as in statues, the grand and simple style of the Phidian period (fifth century B. C.), the beautiful style of the time of
Early Italian Art
Praxiteles (fourth century B. C. ), and the complicated or ornate style of the third and second centuries. Some knowledge of this sequence is also essential to the dating of objects in other departments of Italian art, which always
FIG. 23. TEMPLE OF CONCORD. Girgenti.
reflects the same essential facts in all its various departments, owing to its general dependence on the Greek movement of culture.
The Greek coins of Sicily and Italy are very numerous and very beautiful. As every city had its own independent coinage, the multitude of these cities and their importance in the history of commerce are brought to mind by these objects in the strongest possible way. Critics of art are unanimous in the opinion that the Greek coins are the most beautiful which have ever been struck.
Roman and Medieval Art.
The bold relief, noble expression (where heads are represented), and firm, simple outlines of the stamped impressions speak for themselves.
Ruins of Greek temples are especially numerous in Sicily. At Selinus, in the southwest angle of the island,
there are remains of seven massive temples, all laid low by earthquakes, so that there is hardly a column standing even to the height of a few feet. Among these temples there are three of larger dimensions than the Parthenon. The largest is 371 feet long (the Parthenon is 228 feet long). The metope reliefs from one of these temples, which are now in the Palermo Museum, are among the earliest extant examples of Greek sculpture.
At Egesta, in the northwest corner of the island, there is a Greek temple in very fair preservation as regards the portico, entablature, and pediments. It dates from the fifth century B. C. There are also fine ruins of a Greek theater on this site.
At Girgenti (the ancient Agrigentum), on the south shore of Sicily, about midway between its east and west promontories, there are remains of seven Greek temples. Of these the best preserved is the Temple of Concord. A temple of Zeus which has been wholly overthrown by an earthquake was of enormous size, as is still visible in the dimensions of certain details. It had a length of 363 feet.
FIG. 24. TEMPLE OF CERES. Paestum.
Early Italian Art.
53
Besides these temple ruins there is the splendid Greek theater at Taormina, on the east coast of Sicily. At Syracuse, which was the most important city of the island, the ruins are less significant.
The Greek ruins of Italy are almost wholly limited to one site, that of Psestum (the ancient Posidonia), which lies on the west coast, about fifty miles south of Naples. At Metaponto (the ancient Metapontum), on the Gulf of Taranto, there are, however, some Greek ruins, one of which has fifteen erect columns.
It should be added that the chance survival of such ruins either in Sicily or Italy is a \\holly fortuitous accident, which has no relation to the original number of the colonies or their relative importance. Generally speaking, it is the isolation or desertion of the site which ex-
FIG. 25. THE SO-CALLED BASILICA. Pgestum.
plains the survival. Where the later population has been most numerous, there the greatest destruction has been the rule, the old buildings serving as a quarry for later ones. At Pcestum it is the malarial atmosphere and consequent desertion of the site which explain the unusual preservation of the temples.
54
Roman and Medieval Art.
Here are found three very interesting ruins, the so-called Temple of Ceres, the so-called Basilica, and the so-called Temple of Neptune. The last named is the best preserved and the most interesting. Its date is the sixth century B. C. As regards the present effect of this building it may almost be regarded as the rival of the Parthenon, and there is certainly no other surviving Greek ruin which can be
FIG. 26. TEMPLK OF NEPTUNE. Paestum.
compared with it. The building stone, which was once covered with stucco, is much coarser than that of the Parthenon but in massive simplicity the Temple of Neptune has no superior. It is one of the most remarkable instances of an effect of size and power independent of mere dimension. The length of the temple is only 189 feet and its columns are only 38 feet high. For a study of
FIG. 27. TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE, PJESTUM, SHOWING DORIC DETAILS. 55
56 Roman and Medieval Art.
the features of the old Greek Doric architecture this building is one of supreme importance.
The columns of the so-called Basilica are the most extreme case known of the diminution in diameter of the Doric shaft. The Temple of Ceres is in point of style and character of detail the least important of the three ruins and probably is the latest in date.
CHAPTER III.
THE EARLY ROMAN ART.
OUR sketch and illustrations of Etruscan art must serve to give some idea of the surroundings and culture with which the Romans were in contact in early days. The great power and wealth of the Greek states of Italy must not be overlooked in the matter of influence, nor the fact that during nearly five hundred years of Roman history (750275 B. C. ) they were of much greater importance in Italian history than Rome itself ; but they were not geographically or otherwise in direct relations with this .state, and their influence must be conceived rather as indirect through the Etruscans and the Samnites,* as explained for these peoples.
The main apparent fact in early Roman character is its practical, honest, and logical nature ; averse to luxury, and antagonistic in its strictly political and military tendencies to the more artistic and highly developed peoples of the peninsula. Roman art was mainly conspicuous by its absence in early centuries of the monarchy and republic, if we conceive the word " art " as relating to the decorative and luxurious sides of domestic or of national life. Statues and temples of the gods there were, jirms and weapons for the soldier, implements and tools for the farmer, houses and clothes and utensils for rich and poor ; and most of these things, according to the practice (if all ancient nations, must have had some fitting artistic
* Much less is known of this people in the way of remains than of the Etruscans. Greek influences were paramount as far as we know their art.
57
The Early Roman Art.
59
setting forth and decorative treatment and yet rigid economy, stern discipline, legal exactitude, steadfast fortitude, domestic simplicity, and national self-restraint were the points of character most obvious in the Romans. There was no nation in Italy so slightly endowed with purely artistic tastes and capacity, and none so gifted with the practical and common sense virtues.
FIG. 29. THE CLOACA MAXIMA. Rome.
It was this character which insured the Romans an ultimate triumph over all other states of Italy in the various contentions and rivalries of many centuries. They rose first as a small civic community to an ascendency over
60 Roman ana Medieval Art.
their own Latin tribe and territory (750-650 B. C). Thiterritory did not begin to expand outside of Latium till th, times of Philip of Macedon and of Alexander the Greai, (after 350 B. C.). In the Samnite and Etruscan wars,*, which then began, they rapidly became masters of all
Italy between the northern Apennines and the Greek colonies of the South (290 B. C.)- These latter were also absorbed into their political system after the wars with the Macedonian Pyrrhus (275 B. C).
It is at this time that we begin to form somewhat more definite ideas of what Roman FIG. SO.-TUSCAN (ORIC) CAPITAL. art now was b y remembering
what Roman art became.
The Romans were the only conquerors of antiquity who gave to the vanquished the rights and privileges of the victors, f Wisdom and common sense were partners of their generosity here. Their steps in this direction were never, however, taken rapidly or suddenly. Their allies and friends, cities or individuals, were given the preference. There was a graded series of rights and privileges for both individuals and cities, ranging between full Roman rights and none at all. But the steps were always being ascended in rising order, the area and amount of Roman privilege were always widening and increasing, and in Italy itself the Roman citizenship was the right of every
* Samnites and Etruscans were in alliance, but the wars are known in history as the " Samnite wars."
t It was the habit of the Romans never to ask severer terms of an enemy after the battle was won than they did before it began.
The Early Roman Art.
61
eeman soon after B. C. 100. The system of soldierirmer colonies was another element in the Romanizing 3rocess. Roman soldiers were not paid mercenaries in the time of the monarchy or of the early republic. They were citizen-farmers, some or many of whom were given new lands on the boundaries and lines of the new frontier whenever conquests had been made. This was another cause and explanation of the amalgamation which took
FIG. 31. ROMAN GLASS FROM THE CRIMEA. British Museum.
place between the conquered peoples and the conquerors. All these explanations are essential to a philosophic account of the manner in which the Roman art became the Italian and the Italian art became the Roman. Thus we see that the knowledge of Etruscan art is in reality not only a means of imagining what the early Roman art was,
62
Roman and Medieval Art.
but it is also a means of knowing what the Roman art became, viz., that of Italy at large.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Mommsen's and Ihne's histories of Rome are the best (both German, both translated).
FIG. 32. ROMAN TRIUMPHAL ARCH. North Africa.
CHAPTER IV.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EMPIRE.
IT is only the nineteenth century which has been conscientious in preserving the monuments of the past, but it is also like its predecessors in not fearing to pull down what has been done within a century or two, a system \vhich, when applied for centuries, leaves very little to i^peak for any. As it frequently happens in our own time, ^o it was with the Romans. In the days of wealth and power the old buildings were not good enough or large enough to suit the new ideas of the people and were replaced by those whose ruins have partly come down to c-ur time. Some of the walls built by King Servius Tullius and the Etruscan drainage aqueduct and sewer known as the Cloaca Maxima (Fig. 29) are the chief \isible remains of the Roman monarchy (750510 B. C. ).
The early republic has been equally unfortunate. The first important remains of Roman construction in point of time are some of the aqueduct ruins of the Campagna* dating about 150 B. C.
Meantime, before this date, still farther and more important revolutions, or evolutions, had befallen the Roman state. Mistress of Italy after B. C. 275,1 her power had become a standing threat to that of the Phenician Carthage which ruled the coasts of North Africa and Eastern Spain, and the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, with much less attention to the well-being of the conquered populations
* The wide and now mainly deserted plains which surround the modern city. i The northern Po Valley was not considered a part of Italy till the time of Ca:sar, B. C. 50. It was, till then, Cisalpine Gaul (" Gaul this side the Alps ").
63
6 4
Roman and Medieval Art.
than was displayed by Rome with the conquered states of Italy. The contrast was apparent to the peoples oppressed by the Phenicians, who in their turn were conscious of the hatred which their oppressions caused. Both saw in Rome the rival of the oppressor and consequently the
champion of the oppressed. Hence a jealousy which led to the wars with Carthage (260-200 B. C. ), whose ultimate result was Roman supremacy throughout the whole western Mediterranean and over its shores. This enormous access of power roused the jealousy of the states of the Macedonian Greeks which had succeeded to Alexander's great oriental empire. After B. C. 200 Rome thus became involved in contentions with the Greek Asiatic states, and with the Macedonian rulers, which contentions by the time of Julius Ccesar (B. C. 50) had resulted in turning all the countries of the eastern Mediterranean into Roman provinces.
FIG. 33. ROMAN BRONZE STATUETTE OF JUPITER. From Hungary. British Museum.
The Development of the Empire.
We know Julius Caesar as the founder of the later empire and Augustus as its first recognized ruler. Its :erritories were ultimately (according to modern desig-
FIG. 34. ROMAN AQUEDUCT IN SOUTHERN FRANCE. Nimes.
nations) England, South and West Germany, Austria, France, Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, European Turkey, Greece, Roumania, and the Danube countries, Southern Hungary, and, of course, Italy. As regards the art of the Roman Empire, which, as already explained, is mainly the only art of the Romans now known to us, we must insist on the process accomplished through its history, which corresponds to that already explained for the Romans of Italy and the Italians conquered by Rome. The same facts, on a broader scale, hold for all the territories above named, but with one grand distinction between
66
Roman and Medieval Art.
the eastern and the western halves of the empire. The East had a civilization long antedating that of the Romans, but affiliated with it, not only by correspondence of derivation and character, but also by a long series of transmissions and expansions to and over Italy herself (see the chapter on Etruscan art). The art of the whole eastern Mediterranean was Greek after the time of Alexander the Great.* In Africa the Romans succeeded to the heritage of Carthaginian civilization, which had become itself much Grecianized. In Spain the Romans succeeded to the heritage of the Phenicians and the Greeks, f In France they succeeded to the heritage of
* Always excepting Egypt, which mainly continued to exhibit her own independent style under Greek kings and Roman emperors, t Who had founded many cities on the northeast coast.
FIG. 35. ROMAN BRONZE STATUETTE FOUND
IN ENGLAND. A MILITARY OFFICER.
British Museum.
The Development of the Empire. 67
Phenician and Greek influences* and yet in all these countries they were themselves largely the founders and fathers of later civilization, and for England, Northern France, and West and South Germany, they were almost entirely so.
The distinction then between the eastern and western
FIG 36. ROMAN GATEWAY IN GERMANY. Trier.
parts of the empire is that very largely in the west the Rom;ms were the propagators and pioneers, while in the east they were the heirs and the learners. The case, briefly stated, is that the Romans were the lawyers, the engineers, the systematizers, and the pathfinders of the later centuries of Mediterranean history. All the peoples of the empire became Roman in language, f in governmental systems,
* There were many Greek colonies in Southern France, of which Marseilles was the most important.
t'fnot already Greek; both languages were commonly known to educated people.
68
Roman and Medieval Art.
and in rights of citizenship,* and the Romans themselves were transformed into the general mass of the population which they had solidified and endowed with their own laws and culture.
It is only in this way that we can rightly conceive the significance and importance of Roman ruins and works
FIG. 37. ROMAN RUINS IN SYRIA. Baalbek.
of art as found in England, Spain, France, Germany, Africa, Syria, etc. It is of great importance not to view these things as they have been viewed in a more elementary stage of modern studies as monuments of conquest, as exported works of art, as relics of a foreign domination in a word, as intrusive and as foreign to the
*The edict of Caracalla (third century B. C.) gave citizenship to all freemen.
FIG. 38. ROMAN AQUEDUCT IN SPAIN. Segovia.
09
yo Roman and Medieval Art.
countries where they are found. They represent, on the contrary, the native civilization and the native art of the countries in which they were made, for the time in which they were made as the result not of military conquest but of commerce and of intercourse working through centuries. The power of the Roman did not lie in force of arms but in the catholic self-abnegation of the statesmen and heroes who conceived of history as an evolution of commerce, not as a carnage of rival armies. Soldiers and legions and generals there were, combats and jealousies of interior rival forces, and selfishness as always in history. But the legions of the empire were not raised to trample on the liberties of Roman citizens, and all freemen were Roman citizens or so became. These legions were the guardians of the civilization of their day. Their post was the frontiers of the state and their indirect mission largely was to continue the expansion of the domestic arts and sciences beyond its borders.*
The illustrations through these immediate pages have been chosen as symbols of the diffusion of Roman civilization under the conditions just explained. On the other hand, it is most important where illustrations from Italy or the city of Rome are concerned, to look at them as representing buildings or objects which once covered all the territories named.
The most marvelous witnesses to the character of Roman civilization are the Roman ruins east of the Jordan in Syria, where there are more Roman ruins to-day than in the entire area of the old Roman world otherwise considered the explanation being simply that the Bedouin
* The Roman legions were largely raised in the countries where they habitually served. They were British, German, or Gallic, as the case might be, but often subject to transfer. It is well known that they were much employed on the public works.
The Development of the Empire.
Arabs now dwelling in this country, and whose tribes have had it in possession since the seventh century A. D., live in tents and have never treated the ruins as quarries for building material. It is this use of Roman ruins as quarries by the later populations of all other territories named which has caused their destruction and disappearance, so that it is difficult to imagine now the territories of
FIG. 39. ROMAN RUIN. East Jordan Territory.
England, France, Spain, or North Africa, as having once exhibited the same wonderful number of constructions which the east Jordan territory still bears to view.
CHAPTER V.
GENERAL REVIEW OF THE ROMAN ART.
IT was in the second century B. C. that growing wealth at Rome, vast territorial power, and the influence of the Greek Macedonian and Greek Asiatic states brought about the first decided break with the old conservative traditions and with the old Roman indifference to art for its own sake. After the destruction of Corinth by the Roman general Mummius (146 B. C.) enormous numbers of Greek statues were carried off to Rome. A certain number of the famous statues of the modern Italian museums doubtless found their way to Italy at this time. Greek philosophy and Greek literature were cultivated with more and more attention. It was, above all, the general luxury, refinement, and ease of living in the Alexandrian states which made headway at Rome and which involved that interest in art which is often professed by the man of wealth as a matter of display and ostentation, or at least of necessary fashion.
The Greek art of the mother country was at this time itself in a condition of relative decadence, not of productivity or technical capacity, but of simplicity of taste and grandeur of style. In sculpture the taste of the Roman therefore affected the realistic tendencies and minute technical perfection of the Medici Venus and of the Dying Gaul, of the Laocoon group, the Belvedere Torso, and similar works.* In the statues of Greek subjects
* Cf. "A History of Greek Art," by F. B. Tarbell.
FIG. 40. GRECO-ROMAN RELIEF FROM THE DECORATION OF A FOUNTAIN.
LATERAN MUSEUM. A NYMPH FEEDING THE INFANT
PLUTUS FROM HER HORN OF PLENTY.
73
74 Roman and Medieval Art.
which began to be made more and more in Italy two tendencies were therefore apparent, either that minute and sometimes over-anxious attention to minor details, which is
FIG. 41. FAUN. COPY AFTER PRAXITELES. Capitol, Rome.
natural to the taste of the amateur and the dilettante, or else a multiplication of copies of some given type in the rapid and mechanical execution of the artisan or stone-
General Review of Roman Art. 75
cutter. It must be remembered that most of the statues from which \ve derive our knowledge of Greek art were such copies made during the Roman imperial period or in the time of the late republic. At all events, the multiplication of the Greek mythological subjects in sculpture through all the western territories of the empire was one result of its existence.
In spite of the qualifications which a conscientious critic must make as to the productions of Roman-Greek art in face of the Parthenon marbles and similar works, an amazing degree of real beauty and of pure artistic taste continued to assert itself in these later days. This is especially apparent in the collections of the Naples Museum, which, coming so largely from two excavated towns of the first century A. D. (Herculaneum and Pompeii), are a fair test of the taste of Southern Italy at this time. Both of these places, it must however be remembered,
had been Greek FIG. 42. BUST OF JULIUS C^SAR. Rome.
colonies originally.
It must be said in general that the Roman imperial art was most successful in the purest sense when it was least
Roman and Medieval Art.
pretentious and least ostentatious. The small bronze statuettes of Pompeii and Herculaneum are examples of this point.
In decorative art, whether of utensils and furniture,
or the sculptured carving of public buildings, or the painted frescoes of ordinary domestic houses, the highest perfection of taste was displayed. The painted frescoes of the Pompeiian houses in the Naples Museum are an inexhaustible mine of vigorous design and beautiful conception, but mainly of a playful and sportive rather than of a serious taste.
A characteristic and native expression was found in the Roman portr a i t-sculpture. The art of portraiture was not affected by the Greeks, whose sculpture was originally devoted to religious purposes, and rarely abandoned its traditions on this point, but the practical, business-like, and common sense nature of the Ro-
FIG. 43. BRONZE STATUETTE. Naples.
VENUS.
General Review of the Roman Art. 77
man found its own peculiar expressions in portraitsculpture, and achieved its best original work in this department.
It is especially, however, in architecture that the independent greatness of the Roman was apparent. In this practical and necessary art he has left astounding evidences of his boldness, firmness, and grandeur of character, and also of his attention to the material comfort and healthful lives of large masses of city population.
CHAPTER VI.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING.
WE have seen that the Etruscan and early Roman temples were copies of the Greek, and this naturally holds of the temples of the empire. The most important Roman temple which has been perfectly preserved (but in the exterior only) is the one at Nimes in Southern France, which is there traditionally known as the Maison Carrie (the "square house"). The charm of this building (first or second century A. D.) is indescribable to those who have not seen it and eludes a photograph. Its beauty lies in the optical mystifications caused by various slight intentional irregularities of construction similar to those found in the Greek temples. The origin of the town of Nimes in a settlement of Alexandrian Greeks (the Greeks were otherwise largely settled in Southern France) may be one explanation of the artistic beauty of this building.
In Rome itself the best preserved temple of Greek style is the small Ionic Temple of Fortuna Virilis. The temple built in honor of the emperor Antoninus and his wife Faustina, which was completed under Marcus Aurelius (second century A. D. ), has lost its pediment and is now surmounted by the fa$ade of a Christian church. The sites of several other magnificent temples of the city are marked by isolated groups of columns. In Italy at large, the most important surviving temple buildings are those at Assisi and at Pola.* A little temple at Tivoli near Rome
* The province of Istria, in which Pola is situated, although now belonging to Austria, was a portion of Roman Italv.
Roman Architecture and Painting.
79
and the small Temple of Vesta (so-called) in the city are picturesque ruins of circular shrines in fair preservation. A few columns at Athens mark the site of the colossal temple of the Olympian Jupiter completed under
FIG. 44. THE " MAISON CARREK." Nfmes.
Hadrian (second century A. D.). The most magnificent temple ruins of the whole Roman world for size and also for the colossal dimensions of the building blocks are those of Baalbek in Syria, a day's journey north of the road between Beyrout and Damascus (second century A. D. ). The east Jordan territory is full of the ruins of Roman temples. Among these one at Jerash (Gerasa) has the most imposing dimensions. Still another large group of ruins is found at Palmyra in the Syrian Desert, east of Damascus, a reminder of the days of Queen Zenobia and the emperor
FIG. 45. ARCHITECTURAL FRIEZE DETAIL. LATERAN MUSEUM. FROM TRAJAN'S FORUM.
So
Roman Architecture and Painting.
81
Aurelian, as well as of the former glories and high civilization of the now desolate territories of Western Asia.
A comparison of these various buildings with the corresponding ruins of old Greek time shows them to be of less refinement in the masonry fitting and cutting and far less carefully elaborated in the details of construction.* A frequent departure from the beautiful Greek plan with the surrounding colonnade is found in the limitation of the Roman temple portico to the front, while the sides and rear are walls with ' ' engaged ' ' columns ; semi-attached, that is, to the wall surface, so as to simulate a portico.
Departures from the old Greek refinement are also illustrated in the occasional abandonment of the curving outlines of the column, and of its flutings, one or both.
An important distinction lies in the use by the old Doric Greek temples of colored surface ornament. These later buildings, on the other hand, depend on a florid and elaborate but boldly picturesque execution of projected carving. Corinthian.
FIG. 46. TEMPLE OF FORTUNA VIRILIS. Rome-
The prevailing ' ' order ' ' is the The Ionic order, when found, is of relatively inferior quality as regards the grace and refinement of the capitals and other details. There is no temple now known of the Roman period which employed the Doric or Tuscan
* Notwithstanding its picturesque charm the materials and masonry details of the Maison Carree cannot be compared with those of the Parthenon.
82
Roman and Medieval Art.
FIG. 47. TEMPLE OF ANTONINUS AND FAUSTINA. Rome.
order. The dominance of the Corinthian order in Roman monuments is, of course, explained by the fact that it was the favored and characteristic order of the Alexandrian Greeks. The capital known as ' ' Composite, ' ' which was much used by the Romans, has modified
Ionic volutes at the top but otherwise shows the usual
acanthus leaves (Fig. 49).
In buildings which employed the arch and dome, the
Romans showed their
own characteristic
boldness and force.
Constructions like the
aqueducts, which
made no pretensions
to artistic character,
are fine examples of
the powerful artistic
effect of rough masonry in elementary
forms of construction.
Aside from many ruins
on the Campagna near
Rome, and of far superior effect, the great
aqueducts of Segovia
in Spain and of Nimes FIG. 4 8.-TEMPLE OF MINERVA. Assisi.
Roman Architecture and Painting.
in France (the Pont du Card) deserve preeminent mention. These aqueducts are an instance of the attention paid to the material comfort and hygiene of great cities which put our modern civilization to the blush. The city of Rome is now mainly supplied with water by three of its original thirteen aqueducts, and the city of Bologna now obtains its water through a restoration of its ancient aqueduct. It is said that hundreds of provincial Roman cities were more abundantly supplied with water than is the modern city of London.
This abundance of the water supply in Roman cities was connected with a system of public baths of great magnificence and great utility. The ' baths were also club-houses for the. people, which contained lounging and reading rooms, libraries, and gymnasiums. Large numbers of the statues of the modern Roman collections were found in their ruins, showing that they were also museums and galleries of art. Outside of Rome the recently excavated ruins at Bath in England are the most important remains of this class of building. In Rome the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla are now the most imposing and originally accommodated sixteen hundred bathers. The statues now in Naples which belonged to the Farnese
FIG. 49. ROMAN COMPOSITE (CORINTHIAN) CAPITAL.
84 Roman and Medieval Art.
Collection, like the Farnese Hercules, Farnese Bull group, etc., were found in the Baths of Caracalla. The Baths of Diocletian are next in order of present importance and
FIG. 50. RUINED APARTMENT IN THE BATHS OF CARACALLA.
were partly turned into a Christian church by Michael Angelo. The Baths of Titus were in fair preservation in the time of Raphael and his decorative designs in the Vatican Palace were borrowed from them (the Loggie frescoes). Here was found the Laocoon group of the
Roman Architecture and Painting.
Vatican. The Baths of Pompeii are well-preserved structures, showing all arrangements of the antique system lor steam and hot baths, plunges, etc., and the various refinements which were handed down to the Russians and the Turks from the Roman Byzantine system and which are now known and practiced under foreign names.
The basilicas were great halls assigned to the use of the merchants and of the courts of justice and were found in every city. The Basilica of Constantine at Rome is the
FIG. 51. THE BASILICA OF CONSTANTINE. Rome.
most notable ruin of this class as regards present dimension. For Roman palaces the most interesting ruin is that of Diocletian's palace at Spalatro in Dalmatia (fourth century A. D.).
86
Roman and Medieval Art.
The triumphal arches were memorials of victory and successful wars, under which the processions of triumph took their way. There are various ruins of this class in Italy and elsewhere, the most important being those of
FIG. 52. TRIUMPHAL ARCH OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. Rome.
Rome the Arches of Constantine, of Septimius Severus, and of Titus.
The most imposing of all Roman constructions were the enormous amphitheaters, built for the spectacles of the gladiatorial combats and the fights of wild animals. Next to the Colosseum at Rome, begun by Vespasian and completed by Titus (80 A. D.), the most splendid ruins of this class are at Nimes and Aries in France and at Verona in North Italy.
Roman Architecture and Painting. 87
In all these buildings (except the aqueducts) a method and style of ornament were originally employed* which were revived by the Italians of modern history in the Renaissance period a thousand years after they had apparently passed into oblivion. This ornamental style, now known as the Renaissance, has had so wide a vogue
FIG. 53. THE COLOSSEUM. Rome.
in modern architecture that a distinct idea as to its Roman origin and use is a really essential thing for every educated person.
We have seen what debt the Romans owed the Greeks and yet how foreign to Greek art was their system of arch
* In the ruins of the baths and basilicas, which were built of brick faced with marble, the marble panels have been torn away and the ornamental system does not now appear, ,
88 Roman and Medieval Art.
and dome construction. To this arch construction the Roman applied the Greek construction as an ornamental mask and facing. It is common to charge arty use of "engaged" columns* to the score of the Romans as a departure from Greek ideas and usage, and yet we see from engravings of the Erechtheum at Athens, which were made in the eighteenth century, that one portion of it was decorated with ' ' engaged ' ' columns. The same use appears in the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates at Athens. These instances in Greek survivals make it practically certain that the system passed into Italy through the Alexandrian Greeks. 'It is not a use of the columnar form to be commended in theory, as it violates constructional truth and its occasional appearance in Greek monuments of the later period only shows, what we otherwise know, that a relative decline of taste rapidly followed the completion of the Parthenon.
In Roman art it must be confessed that the results of using the ' ' engaged ' ' columns were picturesque and the contrasts of line harmonious. It is a difficult matter to pass judgment critically without, on the one hand, yielding a point which is very much to be emphasized, viz. , the desirability of constructional truth in building ; or, on the other hand, committing the absurdity of condemning wholesale some of the finest architectural monuments of the world. The easiest way out of the difficulty is to treat the matter historically. Criticism is for the present ; history is for the past.
In the Roman ornamental system we observe first the use of the ' ' engaged ' ' column as found in temples, that is, as a simulated portico (Figs. 44 and 46). It appears again in arch constructions as an ornamental framework support-
* Columns used, not for actual porticoes, but for surface wall ornaments.
Roman Architecture and Painting, 89
ing simulated entablatures. These entablatures are frequently seen jutting forward so as to correspond with the projecting surface of the columns (Fig. 52). In late imperial art, as in the Renaissance decadence, these breaks were inordinately multiplied and exaggerated. Finally, the system of gables, pointed or rounded or broken at the center to surmount niches, doors, and windows, is an obvious adaptation of the shape of the Greek temple pediment to decorative uses (Fig. 39). This also was probably first devised by the Alexandrian Greeks, as there are signs of its former use on the Tower of the Winds at Athens. The most extravagant and corrupt instances of the gable ornament are found in the late Roman buildings of Syria; at Palmyra, in the east Jordan country and in
FIG. 54. COURT OF A POMPEIIAN HOUSE.
Roman and Medieval Art.
the rock tombs of Petra "(north of the Sinai Peninsula).
The domestic architecture of the Roman period is best
known to us through the buried town of Pompeii, near
Naples. The ashes of Vesuvius, whose volcanic eruption in the year 79 A. D. buried this town, have preserved its dwelling houses in marvelous condition until the excavations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The town was a small provincial one, and though it was apparently much H*A* T j;)^f j affected by the Romans as a pleasure resort and watering place, the buildings certainly cannot have compared in dimension or height with those of Rome, where we know that houses of six stories were found. None in Pompeii were more than two stories high on the line facing the street. When built on a declivity we find occasionally a third story in the rear. It is only in one or two cases that the second story has been preserved. This general destruction of the upper story is due to the charring of the timber beams and the pressure of the superincumbent volcanic ashes. The general arrangements of the ancient dwelling houses are, however, well represented. Like the domestic oriental buildings of our own time, they were ab-
Roman Architecture a?id Painting. 91
solutely unpretentious in exterior appearance and with few windows opening on the streets. Each house was built about a court or a series of courts on which the small apartments opened. In many cases the street front was
FIG. 56. POMPEIIAN WALL PAINTING. Naples Museum.
devoted to shops, disconnected with the house and separately rented.
The great interest of the Pompeiian houses lies in their painted decorations, not only on account of their beauty but also because they were the work of ordinary artisans and illustrate the artistic capacities of common
Roman and Medieval Art.
workmen of that day. Most of the important frescoes have been moved to the Naples Museum. They lose a certain portion of their brilliancy soon after excavation, but the colors are still warm in effect and many are even
FIG. 57. POMPEIIAN WALL PAINTING. Naples Museum.
bright. The pictures themselves are in many cases copies of more important ones by superior artists, which have been destroyed, and represent nearly all that we know, by survivals, of the earlier Greek painting. A number of very beautiful frescoes have, however, also been found in Rome.
Roman Architecture and Painting. 93
The execution of these pictures was offhand and rapid, as natural to plaster decoration, and in details we frequently find the slips and carelessness of rapid artisan work. On the other hand, they bespeak an amazing fertility of invention and capacity for rapid execution of the most beautiful motives and poses. The subjects of these paintings correspond to the taste of the later periods of Greek art for playful and amatory themes drawn from Greek mythology, although there are other and many scenes from daily antique life and its surroundings. Many of them are in large or life-size dimensions. On the plastered surfaces color was universally employed where no pictures are found. The warm dull red known as ' ' Pompeiian red ' ' and orange yellow were much used. The columns of the porticoes, which universally
inclose the interior ^ G . 58 ._ RoMAN MosAIC . THE DRINKING
courts, were stuccoed DoVES - Ca P itol > Rome -
and painted in the same bright colors, red and yellow. In the more important houses, bright mosaic pictures made of small cubes of colored glass or variously colored small cubes of stone are frequently found. Some were used for floor decorations, others for niches or small wall pictures. The most important of these, and the most important survival of ancient pictorial art, is the large floor mosaic now in the Naples Museum, which represents the battle of Issus, the victory of Alexander the Great over the Persian king, Darius. Among the frescoes found in or
94 Roman and Medieval Art.
near Rome, the small painting now in the Vatican known as the " Aldobrandini Wedding," from the modern villa on whose grounds it was discovered, is the most famous. Some other remarkable cases of landscape painting have been found in Rome in recent years. The mosaic in the Capitol Museum of the "Drinking Doves" also deserves especial mention. Beautiful mosaic floorings have been found in many of the territories which the empire embraced many in England, many in North Africa, etc. A number of these are in the British Museum.
CHAPTER VII.
ROMAN DECORATIVE ART AND SCULPTURE.
AGAIN starting from Pompeii as the main center of such inds, we have to mention the wealth of utensils and furniture of daily life which is in the Naples Museum. Naturally it is the bronzes and metals which have survived. Nothing is left of the luxurious upholstery and wooden furniture which the paintings illustrate. In the bronze vases, tripods, lamps, and utensils of the Naples Museum we again learn how much taste and fine art adorned the lives of the every-day people of antiquity. Constant variety of invention and originality of designs are united with constant attention to use and structural form. The ornament emphasizes and develops the construction. In the pitcher-shaped vases it is, for instance, the handle itself which forms the ornamental motive or else it is the joints of its attachment. In the tripods, tables, and settees the feet and legs and joints are the points or lines of the ornament. These various objects again illustrate the way in which Greek art had permeated the life of Italy and its dependent provinces and, with slight distinctions as to style, would equally well illustrate the art of the centuries before and after the time of the Pompeiian pieces. The bronze weights, finely executed in the shape of human heads, are an instance of the fertile devices for combining use with beauty.
Utensils similar to those of Pompeii have been otherwise most largely found in Etruscan tombs, but this simply
95
9 6
Roman and Medieval Art.
means that, for reasons unknown to us, the fashions of interment among the Greeks themselves chose other objects for the burials. Aside from burial finds it is a rare occurrence that such objects have been found outside of Pompeii and Herculaneum.* A unique discovery was made, however, near Hildesheim in Germany, in 1869, of nearly a hundred pieces of the elaborately decorated silver table serv-
FIG. 59. POMPEIIAN STREET, AS EXCAVATED.
ice of a Roman officer or general. It is supposed to date
from the defeat of the Roman legions under Varus, near this
place, in the year 9 A. D. This find is in the Berlin Museum.
Perhaps the most interesting objects among all those
* Herculaneum is a closely adjacent ancient city but it was buried under volcanic deposits which have hardened into solid rock. Almost nothing has been SP^ES 1 * ! n excavation since the middle of the eighteenth century, on account of the difficulty of mining through this rock.
Roman Decorative Art and Sculpture.
97
found at Pompeii are the carpenters' and workmen's tools, surgical instruments, gardening implements, etc. Although these do not come under the head of art, they have an equal or greater value in stimulating the imagination to resurrect the life of the ancients and it is mainly for this purpose that we study their art. The forms are largely the types of those in use to-day.
Decorated pottery like that of the Greek vases (Fig. 10) was not used after the second century B. C. , and is consequently not found at Pompeii. The pottery of the Roman period, found in all countries of the empire, was the so-called "Samian" (aside from the coarser and ordinary ware). This Samian ware is of a fine red paste decorated with molded or pressed designs, but it has no great artistic value.
The use of the finer early Greek pottery was displaced largely by glass, which was not very familiar to the Greeks of the fifth century B. C. Glass manufacture was an oriental and especially an Egyptian art which spread to the Phenicians and was much cultivated in Syria. Here were many of the important factories throughout the time of the empire and even in the early Middle Ages. Glass manufacture was independently cultivated in all territories of the empire also, and its forms and colors rival those of the modern Venetian glass, which
FIG. 60. POMPEIIAN BRONZE LAMPS. Naples Museum.
9 8
Roman and Medieval Art.
is a traditional survival of this ancient art (Fig. 31).* It was a favored article for the interments and many beautiful specimens have thus survived. The ' ' Portland Vase ' ' of the British Museum is the most celebrated instance. The finest single collection of ancient glass is the Slade Collection of the British Museum, but the New York Museum possesses the best collection of the whole world, next to this.f
We may finally return to the Roman sculpture to ob-
FIG. 61. POMPEIIAN WEIGHTS. Naples Museum.
serve that the reputation of individual busts or statues is rather owing to the fame of the personalities represented,
* Venice is a direct connecting link with antiquity, having been founded in the fifth century A. D. It preserved its autonomy until the times of Bonaparte.
t Its best pieces belong to the series gathered by the Parisian expert Charvet, but there is also an enormous collection of Roman glass from Cyprus.
Roman Decorative Art and Sculpture. 99
among whom nearly all the great Roman statesmen and emperors are included, than to special distinction in workmanship. The merit of the execution and the obvious fidelity to nature are marvelously uniform and marvelously good. The largest collections are naturally in Rome and Naples, and the Louvre at Paris stands next in this depart-
FIG. 62. A POET HOLDING A TRAGIC THEATRICAL MASK, AND A MUSE. Relief. Lateran, Rome.
ment. The most interesting portraits are those of poor prople made by ordinary artisans, because they best exhibit the talent of the people at large rather than that of some artist employed by a person of distinction.
The grand point, in fact, which distinguishes ancient art from modern is the surpassing excellence of the ordinary popular art, and this excellence is not only mechanical and
100
Roman and Medieval Art.
technical but also that of observation, of patient labor, of simplicity, and of the ability to distinguish the thing which is characteristic and essential from that which is transient and unimportant.
Although the study of original Greek art is so largely made through Roman copies that we may feel disposed to
hurry over this portion of the subject when the Roman period itself is in question, we must still say, after all necessary distinctions have been drawn regarding the superior merit of earlier Greek works and the various signs of relative decadence in the times of the empire, that the statuary and relief art of R.oman antiquity in its minor works, in its artisan copies, in its popular productions, is a most marvelous instance of the possibilities and true greatness of the average man under favorable
FIG. 63. BRONZE STATUE OF DRUSUS. conditions.
Naples Museum.
How favorable these conditions were to the art of sculpture we must not, how-
Roman Decorative Art and Sculpture.
lor
ever, forget. The enormous amount of work done was one main condition of its technical excellence. This again is explained by a large popular demand.
In spite of the inroads of skepticism and the weakening
FIG. 64. ROMAN PORTRAIT BUSTS. Capitol, Rome.
influence of philosophy, the mythology of the Greeks, as adopted by the Romans, retained a vital hold on the popular consciousness as late as the third century A. D. The ancient Greek method of personifying abstract ideas, A irtues, and moral lessons in the guise of bodily forms continued till this time. An entire series of subjects of legendary art was employed in the relief decoration of the sarcophagi. The open-air life of antiquity, the interest in monumental decoration, and the public attention to public art made much patronage for the ordinary artisan and
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Roman and Medieval Art.
promoted the education of other and superior artists. On the whole, in insisting on the value of Roman statuary copies for a study of the earlier Greeks, we must not
overlook the significance of these statuary works for the empire itself.
For the comprehension of all art before the invention of printing and the consequent diffusion of books we cannot insist too much on the point that books and printing have taken the place which art once took. It was not only the means of monumental record but also of popular instruction and of popular amusement. We should never dream of studying the daily life of the nineteenth century through its painting and its sculpture, but this is our main authority and our necessary authority for the daily life of antiquity. The greatest importance consequently attaches to the minutest and apparently most
FIG. 65. BUST OF THE EMPEROR TITUS. Naples Museum.
Roman Decorative Art and Sculpture.
103
trivial objects of Roman art, because they are most significant for this daily life and most characteristic for the taste of every-day people. It is from this point of view that the Roman engraved gems used in the signet rings are interesting. A wealth of beauty and of artistic adaptation of means to ends is apparent in these little objects ( Fig. 67 ) . Here again the designs represent Greek subjects. The illustration, being pho- FJG 66> _ SLEEPING FAUN . BRONZE FROM
tOgraphed from Casts, HERCULANEUM. Naples.
shows the raised impression made by an intaglio, /. e. , a gem with the design "cut in" (intaglio), or hollowed out.
FIG. 67. CASTS FROM ROMAN SIGNET GEMS. British Museum.
CHAPTER VIII.
ANCIENT ROME AS SEEN BY MODERNS.
IN our rapid summary connecting some of the surviving Roman monuments of various localities with the essential facts regarding the types of Roman buildings and their system of construction and decoration, we have done scant justice to the importance and local interest of many ruins in the city of Rome. The aim of the present chapter will be to enumerate such important remains as have been omitted from previous mention, or to give a more adequate notice of others which have been too hastily passed over.
We shall begin this account with an illustration of the Appian Way (Fig. 68). Xhis was the earliest of the famous military roads of Rome. It was first constructed as far as Capua by the censor Appius Claudius Csecus in 312 B. C., and was subsequently extended to Beneventum and Brundusium. The ancient construction of the road and its original massive paving-blocks of lava have been laid bare by modern excavations in the neighborhood of Rome for several miles. Remains of similar roads have been found in many territories of the empire, but they appear most wonderful, or most suggestive of the wonderful services of Rome to the cause of civilization, in those countries which are now destitute of similar facilities for traffic ; for instance, in Asia Minor, Syria, and many parts of North Africa. There are at present only two short carriage roads in Syria : one running from Beyrout to Damascus, the other running from Jaffa to Jerusalem,
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Ancient Rome as Seen by Moderns.
105
whereas the vestiges of the Roman roads are visible in all parts of that country. The present state of things is much the same in Asia Minor and in North Africa (outside of the French territory of Algiers). Generally speaking, there was down to the close of the eighteenth century no
FIG. 68. THE APPIAN WAY, NEAR ROME.
such perfection of roads in Europe as had been universal inside the Roman frontiers, as early as the beginning of the Christian era.
These wonderful roads were connected with a system of no less wonderful bridges, which rivaled the most important engineering feats of our own day in the same direction. In the neighborhood of Narni, north of Rome, may still be seen one ruined arch of the bridge built by the emperor Augustus across the river Nera. This arch has a height of sixty feet. The aqueduct crossing the river Gardon near Nimes in France has been already mentioned and illustrated (page 65, Fig. 34). This aqueduct has also
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Roman and Medieval Art.
connected with it a commodious bridge, which is still in use and which may be seen in the illustration above the first line of arches and beyond the buttresses of the second line of arches. The whole height of this construction is 160 feet and the whole length is over 880 feet. The bridge at Rimini on the Adriatic shore of Italy, which was built by Augustus, is also still in use. Another ancient Roman bridge in modern use is the Fabrician bridge, crossing an arm of the Tiber at Rome, which was built in 62 B. C. by the Roman from whom it is named.
The ancient pavement of a Roman street may be seen in
the illustration from Pompeii (Fig. 59). Such pavements are not uncommon among the ruined cities of Eastern Syria, where they may be seen with the ruts of the carriage wheels remaining in them, as is also the case in Pompeii. There is also in the museum at Pompeii a natural cast in volcanic ashes of a cart wheel exactly similar to those now used in Italy. A road roller such as are now used in leveling and crushing down layers of road metal is shown by a stucco relief in the Baths of Stabiae at Pompeii.
The Appian Way is bordered on either side by monumental tombs. The largest of these tombs is the circular one seen in Fig. 69, which has a diameter of sixty-five
FIG. 69. TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA ON THE APPIAN WAY.
Ancient Rome as Seen by Moderns.
107
feet. This is the tomb of Caecilia Metella, wife of the younger Crassus, the son of the triumvir. The battlements above belong to a fortress which was constructed on the summit in the Middle Ages. The tops of such monuments were usually covered by mounds of earth on which
FIG. 70. TOMB OF HADRIAN AND BRIDGE OF ST. ANGELO. Rome.
trees and shrubs were made to grow. Although cemeteries in the modern sense were by no means unknown to the Romans, it was also habitual to line the main roads leading from the cities with tombs. This custom also appears in the Street of the Tombs at Pompeii which issues from the Nola Gate (Fig. 59).
The largest tomb surviving from the Roman period k that of the emperor Hadrian, which lies in the northern part of the modern city of Rome (Fig. 70). Its ruins
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Roman and Medieval Art,
were used as a castle by the medieval popes, and a covered passage now leads from it to the papal palace of the Vatican. The present circular construction, which has a diameter of 324 feet, was formerly topped by another of smaller size which supported a colossal statue of the emperor. Both of these were encrusted with marble and with columnar decoration, and the whole rested on a base 342 feet square. Although this tomb is named from Hadrian, it was also designed by him for his successors and these were also buried here down to the time oi Caracalla inclusive.
Hadrian's predecessor, Trajan, his also left his stamp on the modern city of Rome. Nearly in its center are found
the remains of the Forum which he added to the accommodations of the original Roman Forum. Nothing is left of its walls and porticoes, of its temple, or of its two libraries. We still see some of the columns of the Business Exchange, or Basilica. Its original size and general arrangement may be imagined from our picture of the Christian Church of St. Paul outside the walls (Fig. 87). For, as we shall see later, the plan of such a church was derived from a building of this kind. The Column of Trajan (Fig. 71) was the tombstone of the emperor and he was buried beneath it. His statue, which once stood on it, has dis-
FIG. 71. COLUMN OF TRAJAN AND REMAINS OF THE ULPIAN BASILICA.
Ancient Rome as Seen by Moderns. 109
appeared and is replaced by another of St. Peter. The height of the column (147 feet) represents the height of a hill which was dug away in order to relieve the traffic of the Forum proper, to make an easier access to the northern portion of the city, and to obtain the level space needed for the constructions mentioned. The column itself is decorated by a continuous spiral relief giving a history of Trajan's campaigns in Dacia (part of modern Hungary), which he added to the territory of the empire. This is the most important relic of Roman relief-sculpture in existence, but the reliefs cannot be studied at present on the column, which was once surrounded by a twostoried gallery.
Near by is the Roman Forum proper. To the view of this Forum given on page 20 we now add another, looking in the opposite direction (Fig. 72). The relation of this illustration to the one preceding is made clear by comparing the columns of the Temple of Saturn which are seen in the foreground on page 20 with the same columns as seen in the distance in Fig. 72.
The excavation of the Roman Forum as here illustrated has been accomplished since 1871. Down to the eighth century of our era the old level of the Forum had been preserved, but after that date the site was covered by medieval towers and castles, which were constructed from the surrounding ancient buildings. These feudal constructions were demolished in the thirteenth century, after which the site became a dumping ground and rubbish heap. The buildings themselves, both ancient and medie\al, as they were dismantled and pulled down for the sake of their building material, served by their downfall to raise still further the level of the debris by which they were surrounded. In some places, at the time of recent excava-
Ancient Rome as Seen by Moderns. in
tions, the soil had risen forty feet above the ancient level. The use of the ruins as quarries continued here, and elsewhere in Rome, to the middle of the eighteenth century.
We see on the left of the general view of the Forum some remains of the dwellings of the vestal virgins, one of whose duties it was to tend the sacred fire which was kept burning in the Temple of Vesta. The round foundations of this temple are visible in the illustration.
Beyond this foundation we see on the left three columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, which date from a reconstruction of this temple by Tiberius. The original temple commemorated the victory of the Romans over the Latins at Lake Regillus, in B. C. 496, and was dedicated to the twin gods whose aid was thought to have turned the lide of battle.
Next come the foundations of a basilica which was erected by Julius Caesar.
The Temple of Saturn, whose columns appear in the foreground on page 20, was the seat of the earliest public treasury. The present remains belong to a restoration of the Roman decadence.
Just to the right of this was the Temple of Concord, of which only a portion of the platform is in position. Then come the three remaining columns of a temple built by Domitian.
Next to these we see the Arch of Septimius Severus, which commemorated his victories in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley (Fig. 52), and on the right in the foreground is the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina (see also Fig. 47).
The Basilica of Constantine (Fig. 51) is directly adjacent to this last-named ruin. This building was erected by Maxentius and dedicated under Constantine. What is seen of the Basilica of Constantine in the illustration is the
U2 Roman and Medieval Art.
ruin of one of its side aisles, whose arches have a height of sixty-eight feet. The span of the central nave was eighty feet and its height 112 feet. The ground plan was about 300 feet by 264 feet.
This ruin is the finest surviving example of the Roman system of vaulting and served as a model for the modern Church of St. Peter, whose nave has a corresponding width. It also illustrates the important part which was played in Roman building by the use of concrete. This concrete was poured in a fluid state into timber casings, in which it set and hardened. The size of these casings was regulated by the convenience of construction and would have corresponded in the lower part of this building to the thickness of the piers, but not to their height. The piers were built in a series of sections and the casing was raised or reconstructed as the work went on. Only the facings of the piers and arches were of brick.
This method of building avoided the "thrust" which is exercised by an arch or vaulting wholly composed of brick or stone ; for the arch was, so to speak, cast solid as regards most of the material used in its construction. The exterior brick facings were in their turn covered by a casing of precious marbles and by decorations of Greek columns, entablatures, and pediments, in the style described in a previous chapter. A large Corinthian column which once faced one of the piers of the Basilica of Constantine now stands in front of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore.
The general disappearance of the marble decorations of such buildings is due partly to the use of the columns in later constructions, and partly to the medieval habit of burning the marbles for the manufacture of lime and mortar. In the recent excavations of the Forum remains
Ancient Rome as Seen by Moderns.
of three lime-kilns were found on the platform of the basilica built by Julius Caesar. The above remarks as to the use of concrete, of brick facings, and of the marble facing which covered the brick walls will also apply to the Baths of Caracalla (Fig. 50).
North of the Roman Forum and in its immediate neighborhood are the three columns of a Temple of Mars Ultor, built by Augustus, and famous for their beautiful Corinthian capitals.
In this neighborhood are also two columns and a portion of the wall of the Forum built by the emperor Nerva( Fig. 73). The projecting entablatures resting on these columns are an exaggeration of the ordinary Roman breaks in the line of the entablature. These breaks
FIG. 73. THE FORUM OF NERVA.
are due to the use of the Greek column as a wall decoration. In this instance, although the columns stand free from the wall they are still purely ornamental and the jutting entablature is a result.
South of the Roman Forum lies the Capitoline Hill, which is now covered by a confused mass of ruins belonging to the palaces of the Caesars. Among them was a palace seven stories high built by Septimius Severus. Remains of this building were standing as late as the sixteenth century. East of the Roman Forum lies the Arch of Titus and next comes the Colosseum.
The Arch of Titus commemorates the destruction of
Ancient Rome as Seen by Moderns.
Jerusalem by this emperor, 70 A. D. On the inner walls of the arch are reliefs showing portions of the triumphal procession which celebrated this conquest of the Jews. On one side is seen the emperor in his chariot ; on the other, Roman soldiers bearing the seven-branched candlestick of gold and other spoils of the Jewish temple. These reliefs are significant, like those of the Column of Trajan, for an important distinction between Greek and Roman sculpture. Matter-offact history was not treated by Greek reliefsculpture, whose subjects were wholly religious and mythological. The same practical and utilitarian point of view which we find in the Roman preference for portrait- sculpture as FlG " 75 - THE ARCH OF TlTUS '
contrasted with the Greek indifference to portrait art is illustrated here. (For a typical Greek relief see page 73.) It must be remembered that these Greek reliefs were consi an
