The principal entrance to the palace is on the north, and is called the Golden Gate, and, as represented in the annexed woodcut (No. [247]), shows all the peculiarities of Roman architecture in its last stage. The horizontal architrave still remains over the doorway, a useless ornament, under a bold discharging arch, which usurps its place and does its duty. Above this, a row of Corinthian columns, standing on brackets, once supported the archivolts of a range of niches—a piece of pleasing decoration, it must be confessed, but one in which the original purpose of the column has been entirely overlooked or forgotten.
Entering this portal, we pass along a street ornamented with arcades on either side, till exactly in the centre of the building this is crossed at right angles by another similar street, proceeding from the so-called Iron and Brazen Gates, which are similar to the Golden Gate in design, but are far less richly ornamented.
These streets divided the building into four portions: those to the north are so much ruined that it is not now easy to trace their plan, or to say to what purpose they were dedicated; but probably the one might have been the lodgings of the guests, the other the residence of the principal officers of the household.
The whole of the southern half of the building was devoted to the palace properly so called. It contained two temples, as they are now designated. That on the right is said to have been dedicated to Jupiter, though, judging from its form, it would appear to have been designed rather as the mausoleum of the founder than as a temple of that god. On the assumption that it was a temple it has been illustrated at a previous page.[[199]] Opposite to it is another small temple, dedicated, it is said, to Æsculapius.
Between these two is the arcade represented in Woodcut No. [185], at the upper end of which is the vestibule—circular, as all buildings dedicated to Vesta, or taking their name from that goddess, should be. This opened directly on to a magnificent suite of nine apartments, occupying the principal part of the south front of the palace. Beyond these, on the right hand, were the private apartments of the emperor, and behind them his baths. The opposite side is restored as if it exactly corresponded, but this is more than doubtful; and, indeed, there is scarcely sufficient authority for many of the details shown in the plan, though they are, probably, on the whole, sufficiently exact to convey a general idea of the arrangements of a Roman imperial palace.
247. Golden Gateway at Spalato. (From Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s ‘Dalmatia.’)
Perhaps, however, the most splendid feature in this palace was the great southern gallery, 515 ft. in length by 24 in width, extending along the whole seaward face of the building. Besides its own intrinsic beauty as an architectural feature, it evinces an appreciation of the beauties of nature which one would hardly expect in a Roman. This great arcade is the principal feature in the whole design, and commands a view well worthy the erection of such a gallery for its complete enjoyment.
Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Failing to discover any example of domestic architecture in Rome, we turn to Pompeii and Herculaneum, where we find numerous and most interesting examples of houses of all classes, except, perhaps, the best; for there is nothing there to compare with the Laurentian villa of Pliny, or with some others of which descriptions have come down to us. Pompeii, moreover, was far more a Grecian than a Roman city, and its buildings ought to be considered rather as illustrative of those of Greece, or at least of Magna Græcia, than of anything found to the northward. Still these cities belonged to the Roman age, and, except in taste and in minor arrangements, we have no reason to doubt that the buildings did resemble those of Rome, at least to a sufficient extent for illustration.