Domestic Architecture.
We know, not only from the descriptions and incidental notices that have come down to us, but also from the remains found at Pompeii and elsewhere, that the private dwellings of the Romans were characterised by that magnificence and splendour which we find in all their works, accompanied, probably, with more than the usual amount of bad taste.
In Rome itself no ancient house—indeed no trace of a domestic edifice—exists except the palaces of the Cæsars on the Palatine Mount, and the house of the Vestal Virgins[[197]] at its foot; and these even are now a congeries of shapeless ruins, so completely destroyed as to make it difficult even for the most imaginative of restorers to make much of them. The extent of these ruins, however, coupled with the descriptions that have been preserved, suffice to convince us that, of all the palaces ever built, either in the East or the West, these were probably the most magnificent and the most gorgeously adorned. Never in the world’s history does it appear that so much wealth and power were at the command of one man as was the case with the Cæsars; and never could the world’s wealth have fallen into the hands of men more inclined to lavish it for their own personal gratification than these emperors were. They could, moreover, ransack the whole world for plunder to adorn their buildings, and could command the best artists of Greece, and of all the subject kingdoms, to assist in rendering their golden palaces the most gorgeous that the world had then seen, or is likely soon to see again. The whole area of the palace may roughly be described as a square platform measuring 1500 ft. east and west, with a mean breadth of 1300 ft. in the opposite direction. Owing, however, to its deeply indented and irregular outline, it hardly covers more ground than the Baths of Caracalla.
Recent excavations have laid bare nearly the whole of the western portion of this area, and have disclosed the plan of the building, but all has been so completely destroyed that it requires considerable skill and imagination to reinstate it in its previous form. The one part that remains tolerably perfect is the so-called house of Livia the wife of Augustus, who is said to have lived in it after the death of her husband. In dimensions and arrangement it is not unlike the best class of Pompeian houses, but its paintings and decorations are very superior to anything found in that city. They are, in fact, as might be expected from their age and position, the finest mural decorations that have come down to us, and as they are still wonderfully perfect, they give a very high idea of the perfection of art attained in the Augustan age, to which they certainly belong.
That part of the palace on the Palatine which most impresses the visitor is the eastern half, which looks on one hand to the Amphitheatre, on the other to the Baths of Caracalla, and overhangs the Circus Maximius. Though all their marble or painted decorations are gone, the enormous masses of masonry which here exist convey that impression of grandeur which is generally found in Roman works. It is not of Æsthetic beauty arising from ornamental or ornamented construction, but the Technic expression of power and greatness arising from mass and stability. It is the same feeling with which we contemplate the aqueducts and engineering works of this great people; and, though not of the highest class, few scenes of architectural grandeur are more impressive than the now ruined Palace of the Cæsars.
Notwithstanding all this splendour, this palace was probably as an architectural object inferior to the Thermæ. The thousand and one exigencies of private life render it impossible to impart to a residence—even to that of the world’s master—the same character of grandeur as may be given to a building wholly devoted to show and public purposes. In its glory the Palace of the Cæsars must have been the world’s wonder; but as a ruin deprived of its furniture and ephemeral splendour, it loses much that would tend to make it either pleasing or instructive. We must not look for either beauty of proportion or perfection of construction, or even for appropriateness of material, in the hastily constructed halls of men whose unbounded power was only equalled by the coarse vulgarity of their characters.