How to Study Architecture

by Charles H. Caffin

Baths.—Public baths, thermæ, were as necessary a feature of Roman cities as the amphitheatre. Rich citizens, like Mæcenas and Agrippa, set the fashion of building them, and it was followed by emperors seeking to ingratiate themselves with the populace. For the charge for admission was only a quarter of an as—about one quarter of a cent or half a farthing; and even this was waived by certain emperors.

The principal Thermæ in Rome were those of Agrippa, Nero, Titus, Domitian, Commodus, Caracalla, Diocletian, and Constantine. Many of them assumed immense proportions; the ground plan of the Baths of Caracalla, for example, occupying a square quarter of a mile. Besides the actual bathing conveniences, which included hot water baths, vapor baths, cooling chambers and plunges, there were rooms for ball-playing, gymnasiums, colonnades, libraries, theatres, and open courts with shade trees.

From two of the sides of the Baths of Caracalla projected long exhedras, or semi-circular recesses, furnished with benches, which are supposed to have been the meeting places for the discussion of philosophy and poetry. In fact, the great thermæ were the clubs of the period; the resort of all classes, offering cleanliness to the poor, luxury to the rich, and healthful exercise and opportunity of cultured intercourse between those who desired it. And the highest skill was represented in making the walls of the various chambers and reservoirs impervious to moisture, in conducting and heating the water, and in providing flues for hot air.

Basilica.—Equally characteristic of Roman life were the Basilicas. These structures seem to have been intended at first to relieve the congestion of business in the various fora and to afford quiet as well as protection from the weather, for the transaction of business. The earliest in Rome was erected B.C. 184 by Porcius Cato; hence called the Basilica Porcia. Then followed the Basilica Fulvia, Basilica Æmilia, and Basilica Julia, the last being the largest of the five which existed during the reign of Augustus. In A.D. 112, Trajan built the great Basilica Ulpia in connection with his forum, and some two hundred years later was erected the vaulted Basilica of Maxentius or Constantine on the Via Sacra. In all there came to be some twenty basilicas in Rome alone.

One great interest of the basilica halls consists in the fact that from them were derived the plan and form of the early Christian churches. It has been conjectured that the plan of a basilica was derived from that of a Greek temple, the cella walls being replaced by ranges of columns, opening into the peristyle where in turn the columns were replaced by side walls. The colonnades thus became aisles to the central nave; the vestibule being retained at one end and later to be called a narthex, while at the opposite end an apse projected. Here in the Roman basilica were the seats of the quæstor and his assessors, occupied in early Christian basilica churches by the bishop and presbyters.

The interiors of the Roman basilicas present two types of treatment. In the Basilica of Constantine, for example, the nave columns were attached to great piers which supported groined vaults, the thrust of which was sustained by walls at right angles to the piers. These walls divided each aisle into three bays, corresponding to the three bays of the nave, and over each aisle-bay was a barrel-vault, which, being at right angles to the nave, served as extra support to the nave-vaults. Light was admitted through windows in the side walls of the aisles and also through windows in the upper part of the nave, above the aisle vaults.

On the other hand, in the interior of the Basilica Ulpia a range of columns, supporting an entablature, took the place of the piers on each side of the nave. On the entablature rested another range of columns, surmounted by another entablature, above which walls, pierced with windows, were carried up to carry the flat, coffered ceiling. Both tiers of nave columns opened into the aisle, which correspondingly had two stories, the upper crowned with a flat ceiling.

Arches, Columns of Victory.—The magnificence of Rome and other cities was further displayed in the Triumphal Arches and Columns of Victory erected in honour of emperors and conquerors. The arch was of two types: the single arch and the three-arched. A famous example of the former is the Arch of Titus, which commemorated the capture of Jerusalem, A.D. 70. Examples of the three-arched type are those of Septimus Severus, and of Constantine in Rome, and the Arch at Orange. The façades were adorned with columns of the Corinthian or Composite orders, partially or wholly detached, supporting a broken entablature—one, in which the uniformity of projection is interrupted by a projection over each capital. Above it is a top-story, known as the attic. The soffit of the arch was richly coffered and the wall spaces embellished with low-reliefs, representing incidents of triumph, while the attic bore upon its face an inscription and was surmounted by statues or a four-horse triumphal chariot (quadriga).

The most famous of all the pillars of victory is Trajan’s Column, erected in connection with his Basilica. It is a column of the Roman Doric order, mounted upon a lofty pedestal, the height over all being 147 feet. The shaft, 12 feet in diameter at the base, encloses a spiral staircase of marble, while its exterior is decorated with a spiral band, 800 feet long and 3½ feet wide, carved with reliefs, representing incidents in Trajan’s victorious campaigns against the Dacians. It stood originally in a court of the Basilica Ulpia, from the several galleries of which the sculpture could be viewed. The statue of Trajan which originally adorned the summit of the pillar has been replaced by a bronze statue of St. Peter.

A special pillar of imperial times was the Rostral Column, erected in commemoration of a naval victory and decorated with the bronze beaks or prows taken from the enemy’s ships.