Fig. 182.—The Tuscan order.
not artistic in the sense that the Greeks were. The Romans were slaves to easy rules and methods; most, if not all, the profiles of their mouldings were struck with compasses, and they were almost destitute of good figure sculptors. They had, however, a passion for magnificence, and for ornate stateliness and dignity, and they rarely failed to get these in their public monuments.
Besides the three orders which were taken from the debased Greek examples of their own time, the Romans added two, the order of the Tuscans, and an invention of their own called the Composite.
The Tuscan.
The Tuscan is described by Vitruvius, lib. 4, cap. 7, as an incomplete Doric, but with a base and a round plinth. The portico of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, by Inigo Jones, is the best example we have of it in London. The example given is from the learned Newton Vitruvius.
The Roman Doric.
One of the earliest examples, with the exception of that at Cora, which is rather debased Greek than Roman, is the example on the Theatre of Marcellus at Rome, finished by Augustus. The column is not fluted, and has no base, and the capital has been greatly altered from that of the best Greek examples. The abacus has a cymatium; the echinus has been reduced in depth, and is an ovolo, and the annulets are merely three plain fillets; the column too has a neck and a necking. In the entablature the architrave is