In either of these instances the horizontal arch is a legitimate mode of construction, and may have been used long after the principle of the radiating arch was known. The great convenience of the latter, as enabling large spaces to be spanned even with brick or the smallest stones, and thus dispensing with the necessity for stones of very large dimensions, led ultimately to its universal adoption. Subsequently, when the pointed form of the radiating arch was introduced, no motive remained for the retention of the horizontal method, and it was entirely abandoned.
177. Gateway at Arpino.
178. Aqueduct at Tusculum.
CHAPTER II.
ROME.
INTRODUCTION.
We now approach the last revolution that completed and closed the great cycle of the arts and civilisation of the ancient world. We have seen Art spring Minerva-like, perfect from the head of her great parent, in Egypt. We have admired it in Assyria, rich, varied, but unstable; aiming at everything, but never attaining maturity or perfection. We have tried to trace the threads of early Pelasgic art in Asia, Greece, and Etruria, spreading their influence over the world, and laying the foundation of other arts which the Pelasgi were incapable of developing. We have seen all these elements gathered together in Greece, the essence extracted from each, and the whole forming the most perfect and beautiful combinations of intellectual power that the world has yet witnessed. We have now only to contemplate the last act in the great drama, the gorgeous but melancholy catastrophe by which all these styles of architecture were collected in wild confusion in Rome, and there perished beneath the luxury and crimes of that mighty people, who for a while made Rome the capital of Europe.
View them as we will, the arts of Rome were never an indigenous or natural production of the soil or people, but an aggregation of foreign styles in a state of transition from the old and time-honoured forms of Pagan antiquity to the new development introduced by Christianity. We cannot of course suppose that the Romans foresaw the result to which their amalgamation of previous styles was tending; still they advanced as steadily towards that result as if a prophetic spirit had guided them to a well-defined conception of what was to be. It was not however permitted to the Romans to complete this task. Long before the ancient methods and ideas had been completely moulded into the new, the power of Rome sank beneath her corruption, and a long pause took place, during which the Christian arts did not advance in Western Europe beyond the point they had reached in the age of Constantine. Indeed, in many respects, they receded from it during the dark ages. When they reappeared in the 10th and 11th centuries it was in an entirely new garb and with scarcely a trace of their origin—so distinct indeed that it appears more like a reinvention than a reproduction of forms long since familiar to the Roman world. Had Rome retained her power and pre-eminence a century or two longer, a style might have been elaborated as distinct from that of the ancient world, and as complete in itself, as our pointed Gothic, and perhaps more beautiful. Such was not the destiny of the world; and what we have now to do is to examine this transition style as we find it in ancient Rome, and familiarise ourselves with the forms it took during the three centuries of its existence, as without this knowledge all the arts of the Gothic era would for ever remain an inexplicable mystery. The chief value of the Roman style consists in the fact that it contains the germs of all that is found in the Middle Ages, and affords the key by which its mysteries may be unlocked, and its treasures rendered available. Had the transition been carried through in the hands of an art-loving and artistic people, the architectural beauties of Rome must have surpassed those of any other city in the world, for its buildings surpass in scale those of Egypt and in variety those of Greece, while they affect to combine the beauties of both. In constructive ingenuity they far surpass anything the world had seen up to that time, but this cannot redeem offences against good taste, nor enable any Roman productions to command our admiration as works of art, or entitle them to rank as models to be followed either literally or in spirit.