Fig. 2.
It is supposed that the first introduction of the Greek Corinthian order into Rome was brought about by the barbarian act of Sulla, in transporting the columns of the Temple of Zeus from Athens to the Capitoline Temple of Jupiter. Of the remaining specimens of this order in Rome, the portico of the Pantheon is the oldest. In that building the capitals appear somewhat shorter and broader than in the later examples, at the ruins of the Temple of Castor in the Forum (Fig. 7), and in the peristyle of Nerva’s Forum called the Colonnacce.
Fig. 3.
The Composite capital, for it can hardly be called an order, as there is nothing in the entablature or the base to distinguish it from the Corinthian, was formed probably under the patronage of the early emperors. The earliest instance we have of it now extant in Rome, is in the Arch of Titus (Fig. 8) and there are only three other ruins where it is found. These are, the Arch of Septimius Severus, the Arch of the Goldsmiths, and the Baths of Diocletian, at Sta. Maria degli Angeli, where it is mixed up with Corinthian capitals. The peculiar combination of which it consists, the superposition of the Ionic volutes upon two rings of Corinthian acanthus leaves, is not generally considered a very happy artistic design. Hope says of it, that “instead of being a new creation of genius, it gave evidence of poverty to invent and ignorance to combine,” and Fergusson is hardly more complimentary to the Roman architects.
Fig. 4.
But though we must deny to this Roman adaptation of Greek forms the credit of originality, or even of symmetrical design, yet its rich appearance was peculiarly suited to the lavish ornamentation with which the Roman emperors delighted to trick out their palaces and halls, and it well represents to us the character of the Roman imperial architecture, with its indiscriminate combination of mouldings and profusion of gaudy detail.
The three great triumphal arches of Titus, Septimius Severus, and Constantine at Rome, and also the Arch of Drusus, are decorated with an unmeaning and foreign dress. In the Arch of Constantine alone, the columns which stand in front are in some measure justified by the statues they support.