CHAPTER IV
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE
The Romans enlarged the scope of architecture in the direction of the art of the engineer. While Hellenic architecture had been an expression of the faculties of reasoning and of taste, co-operating in a singular harmony, Roman architecture was the product of reasoning stimulated by a practical sense and an extraordinary energy and audacity. In place of excessive refinement and sense of proportion, it is distinguished by variety, vastness of scale and exuberance of decorative detail. While every part of a Greek temple was constructional, having its distinct function in contributing to the stability as well as adornment of the whole structure, the Romans, as we have noted, had a uniform system of building in which they applied the structural details of the Greeks, very largely in the way of added embellishment.
Their aptitude for borrowing and adapting is apparent in their orders of columns and entablatures.
Roman Orders.—In the first place, they borrowed from the Etruscans the so-called Tuscan order. This had a rudimentary Doric form; the column being seven diameters in height; the shaft unfluted and tapering toward the capital, while the entablature was simpler, having no triglyphs, mutules, or guttæ.
In borrowing from the Hellenes, the Romans made little use of the Doric order. When it is used, as in the form of engaged columns in the Theatre of Marcellus, the height of the columns was increased in proportion to their diameters; the shafts were either smooth or channelled with semicircular, instead of the subtler, elliptic flutings, separated by narrow fillets; a base was added and modifications were made in the details of the capital. The architrave did not overhang the face of the column and was reduced in height; the triglyphs were used in the frieze only over the centre of the columns, even at the angles, while the cornice was lighter, with dentils sometimes taking the place of mutules. The Doric, in fact, did not appeal to the Roman taste for rich decoration, and, in so far as it was used, was degraded in style.
The same is true of the Roman adaptation of the Ionic order. Simpler and more commonplace curves replace the extreme refinement of the volutes and the fillet of the latter was carried invariably across the top of the echinus or cushion, while the ornamentation of the entablature was more profuse. The best use of this order is found in the upper story of the Theatre of Marcellus; the worst, on the eight remaining columns of the Temple of Saturn in the Forum Romanum.
The Corinthian order, of which no type sufficiently definite to constitute an order had been evolved by the Greeks, was fully worked out by the Romans, with the assistance of Greek artists, and became the favourite expression of their taste for richness. The shaft was either smooth, as in the early example of the Pantheon (B.C. 27), or fluted as in the great temple of Castor and Pollux; the heights in these two cases being respectively 9¾ and 10 diameters. A special base was designed, consisting of tori, scotia, and fillets, resting on a square plinth.
The inverted bell of the capital was surrounded by an upper and lower row of acanthus leaves, which differ from the Hellenic forms in being blunter at the tips. Above the rows of leaves projected the stalks, or “caulicolæ,” which terminated in spirals, both in the centre of each face and at the angles of the abacus. The four sides of the latter are concave and decorated in the centre with a rosette. In the more sumptuous examples further enrichment of ornament was added to the capital, while the capitals of the Temple of Castor and Pollux present a unique instance of the central spirals being interlaced.
The Corinthian architrave in Hellenic usage consisted, it will be remembered, of three bands, as in the Ionic order. The Romans frequently embellished the middle one with a version of the anthemion motive. They also added enrichments to the bed mould beneath the frieze. The latter was frequently carved with acanthus scrolls, grotesque figures, and ox-skulls, and garlands. The cornice was also enriched with carved ornament, of which the most characteristic were modillions or brackets, which appear to support the cornice.
The Composite order was an invention of the Romans and possibly suggested by the capitals of the Erechtheion in Athens, where the Ionic spirals appear above a necking carved with anthemion ornament. The capital of the Composite order consisted in the upper part of Ionic spirals, often richly decorated with foliage, and in the lower of two rows of acanthus leaves, as in the Corinthian order, which was followed also in the other details of the column and entablature.