Westward empire

by Elias Lyman Magoon

One of the first things the Romans borrowed from Greece was their Corinthian order; but we neither know when it was introduced into Rome, nor can we trace its history from the time it was lost under Alexander the Great, during the three hundred years that transpired before its reappearance in the age of Augustus. To the purposes of a people who were as unable to appreciate as to execute the Doric, or even the lighter, but not less elegant, Ionic, the richness of the Corinthian was admirably adapted. The plan of a building, after that order, required little thought, and its execution necessitated still less. No delicate spirals, sculpture, or painting, was requisite, but every thing was purely mechanical, and such as any stone-mason could execute. The pillars could be lengthened, or shortened, at will, the intercolumniations made wide or narrow, and be placed at angles, or used in interiors with equal facility. No wonder, therefore, that this order became a favorite with the Romans; and though it was brought from Greece, and at first executed by imported Attic genius, they so modified its features as to give them a thoroughly Roman aspect, and in the temple of Jupiter Stator left the most perfect specimen of monumental art Rome ever produced. From bad to worse they proceeded, and blended their degraded Ionic, or Corinthian styles, into the hideousness of their Composite order. For them to make one harmonious whole out of two realms of artistic excellence, was not to be expected; they could only combine, without uniting, and join incongruous parts, while not one joint was concealed. To fit two into one, as the Greeks had elaborated one out of two, required invention and taste, of which the Romans had neither; therefore, in all their architecture, they have left some grand works of talent, but not one monument that attests the presence of creative and delicate genius.

Rome arrived at the zenith of architectural science, such as it was, under the reign of Augustus, as Athens attained infinitely superior honors under Pericles. But, with the single exception of Trajan, not one epoch after that great exponent of his age was marked by structural magnificence erected by Romans. When Virgil, Homer, Cicero, and Livy, were publishing their works, the metropolis was graced with a number of gorgeous temples; but the decline of letters and arts soon followed, and architecture, especially, sunk to the last degree.

The Parthenon and the Pantheon, those two great types of their respective ages, might be compared on the score of magnificence, but they were utterly devoid of resemblance as masterpieces of art. The quadrangular portico of the latter may be presumed to have been intended to signify the union of architectural powers; without some such reason the rectilinear front would not have been stuck before a circular edifice, and the egregious anomaly can be accounted for on no more plausible ground. That Rome bore the arts, as she did the spoils, and even the gods of conquered nations, to her own haughty abode, is true; but it is not less evident that she was destitute of all the arts and elegances of high civilization till she imported them from Greece, and that she had neither definite principles, nor correct artistic conceptions, of her own.

The celebrated temple of all the gods to which we have just referred, is supposed to have been erected in the time of the Republic, and that the portico was appended A.D. 14, by Agrippa. Of all the temples of the Romans, the Pantheon is by far the most original and typical, and as a rotunda it is unmatched in the ancient world. There is a simplicity about its proportions, the height being exactly equal to the width, and in the mode by which it is lighted through a single aperture in the roof, which gives it a character of grandeur that redeems the clumsiness of detail, which would nearly spoil any edifice less grand in conception. That majestic dome is the only Roman structure extant that has power to carry the mind beyond the imperial mass of crime out of which tower the splendors of the Augustan age, and tells us of that grand old Republic whose glory elicited the worth and illuminated the figures of subsequent history.

Vespasian and his son Titus cumbered the city, and astonished the world by such masses of building in amphitheatres and baths as will probably never again be reared. The Coliseum, so named, according to some, from its gigantic dimensions, but in the more probable opinion of others, from its proximity to a colossal statue of Nero, is said to have seated 109,000 persons at one time, to view at their ease the bloody sports of the arena. The probability of this astonishing fact will appear not only from its enormous height and great number of ascending stages, but especially from the fact that it covers nearly six acres of ground. As the Pantheon was the type of the first half of the Augustan age, so does the Coliseum represent the later period, and was a fit arena for the degenerate progeny of a brute. It is the best type of the Roman style, containing at once all its beauties and defects. In size and splendor, it comported with the empire at its culminating height, and the purpose for which it was built rendered it the favorite building of the metropolitan city in the days of its greatest glory. Even now its ruins appear as eternal as the Roman name, and present us a more adequate picture of the times in which they stood unimpaired than the pages of Livy or Tacitus. Despite our better judgment, they awe us into admiration of the greatness of that martial people, though, in fact, few buildings were ever more tasteless in design, or more faulty in execution.

Standing within that immense fabric, one cannot but feel that Rome, as mistress of the world, with unlimited wealth and power, and a proud feeling of conscious pre-eminence, beyond all other nations had the greatest means of cultivating the liberal arts. On the foundation laid in Greece, she might have built models of usefulness for the world to a boundless extent; but, as it was, she only altered what she had neither the capacity nor disposition to improve, and advanced only in the path of degradation till the lowest depth was reached.

The Marmertine prison, begun by Ancus Martius, and completed by Servius Tullius, yet remains nearly perfect, and is a good example of primitive masonry. In the time of the Republic, the Appian road, used to this day, was commenced by Appius Claudius Cæcus. The Forums of Julius Cæsar, of Augustus, of Nerva, and of Trajan, were adorned by many of the noblest structures in Rome. But the most useful works were exterior to the city, such as those wonderful engineering structures, the aqueducts. Of these, the Appian, Martian, and Claudian were most celebrated. The last-mentioned, completed by the emperor Claudius, A.D. 51, and yet in existence, is forty-six miles in length; for thirty-six, it runs under ground; and a series of lofty arches, six miles in length, forms a noble feature in the Campagna, still supplying the city with pure water. That commenced by Quintus Martius, B.C. 145, was also an astonishing undertaking, upwards of sixty miles in length, comprising three separate channels conveying water from different sources, and partly carried on an arcade of seven thousand arches, seventy feet in height. Neither were these colossal works confined to the seat of empire alone, but were executed in the remoter West as well, as at Segovia, Metz, and Nimes. As one sees this vast supply of pure water still poured from the Sabine hills through the ancient aqueducts, he feels how superior were the republican contributions to the true greatness of Rome, compared with all the imperial and later works.

It should be particularly observed that the Romans emulated only the pictorial half of Greek design; and this they greatly increased, regarding the refinements of propriety as virtues too insipid to be admired. They were evidently pleased with the columnar ordinance of a Greek temple, but had no affinity with the instinctive sense of propriety so prominent in Athenian architects, and could not understand the true purpose of a colonnade. They did not look at pillars, entablatures, and pediments as expressions, but simply as physical substances, which in their combinations formed a picturesque object, which could be used in a scenic display of sensual magnificence. Impelled by an insane passion for decoration, the architects of the Augustan age emblazoned the imperial city with a thousand monumental errors which in due time subsided into effete grossness, and became the compost to nourish an entirely new and superior type of art. Such is the wisdom and goodness of Providence!

Another class of national monuments clearly indicate how the Romans were differenced from the Greeks. The history of the latter speaks of valor, power, and conquests, as well as that of the former people. Where are her architectural monuments of conquered countries and captured spoils? She had them, but they were mere temporary trophies constructed of wood. With glorious Greece, the day of triumph was the day of magnanimity, and in the presence of great art, which ought never to be desecrated in the forms of self glory, she was willing to let the songs of victory dwindle speedily into silence. But the Romans were actuated by entirely opposite feelings. In a Greek portico columns are native to the occasion as the flower to its parent soil; but in a triumphal arch as constructed by the Romans, the columns support nothing that is necessary, nor are they in the slightest degree constructive, but are forced in with every thing else to typify national ostentation. Outward symbols, and inner panels of bas-relief cut in precious marbles, as uncouthly executed as the architectural members, illustrate the triumphal procession of a conqueror, leading vanquished captives in chains. If you would clearly read the lessons of art, that most legible commentary on national character, ascend reverently the Propylæum in presence of the sculptured Parthenon, and then go scan the monstrous arches of Titus, Septimus Severus, and Constantine.

The final expression of eastern beauty was embodied in the immense temple of Diana at Ephesus. Ctesiphon designed it about B.C. 366, all the Asiatic colonies of Greece contributing to the expense of its erection. It was four hundred years in progress, and was burned by Eratostratus, with the object of immortalizing his name, on the same night that Alexander was born. Then began the age of martial greatness and artistic deterioration which ended not till Christianity came to gaze on the desecrated relics of Judea at Rome, and passed yet further west through the arches of paganism to originate more aspiring and glorious shines.