In the structures of the ancients, the hardness of their cement equals that of marble itself. The firmness of their highways has never been equalled. Some were paved with large blocks of black marble. Their bridges, some of which still remain, are indubitable monuments of the greatness of their conceptions. The Roman bridge at Gard, near Nismes, is one of them. It serves at once as a bridge and an aqueduct, goes across the river Gardon, and connects two mountains, between which it is enclosed. It comprehends three stories; the third is the aqueduct, which conveys the waters of the Eure into a great reservoir, to supply the amphitheatre and city of Nismes. Trajan’s bridge over the Danube had twenty piers of free-stone, some of which are still standing, a hundred and fifty feet high, sixty in circumference, and distant one from another a hundred and seventy.
Among the ornaments and conveniences of ancient buildings was glass. They decorated their rooms with glasses, as mirrors. They also glazed their windows, so as to enjoy the benefit of light, without being injured by the air. This they did very early; but before they discovered that manner of applying glass, the rich made use of transparent stones in their windows, such as agate, alabaster, phengifes, talc, &c.
Curious Mechanism.
The works of the ancients in miniature were excellent. Archytas, who was contemporary with Plato, constructed a wooden pigeon, which imitated the flight and motions of a living one. Cicero saw the whole of Homer’s Iliad written in so fine a character that it could be contained in a nutshell.[515] Myrmecides, a Milesian, made an ivory chariot, so small and so delicately framed, that a fly with its wing could at the same time cover it; and a little ivory ship of the same dimensions. Callicrates, a Lacedemonian, formed ants and other little animals out of ivory, so extremely small, that their component parts were scarcely to be distinguished. One of these artists wrote a distich in golden letters, which he enclosed in the rind of a grain of corn.
Microscopes, &c.
Whether, in such undertakings as our best artists cannot accomplish without the assistance of microscopes, the ancients were so aided, is doubtful, but it is certain that they had several ways of helping and strengthening the sight, and of magnifying small objects. Jamblichus says of Pythagoras, that he applied himself to find out instruments as efficacious to aid the hearing, as a ruler, or a square, or even optic glasses, διοπτρα, were to the sight. Plutarch speaks of mathematical instruments which Archimedes made use of, to manifest to the eye the largeness of the sun; which may be meant of telescopes. Aulus Gellius having spoken of mirrors that multiplied objects, makes mention of those which inverted them; and these of course must be concave or convex glasses. Pliny says that in his time artificers made use of emeralds to assist their sight, in works that required a nice eye; and to prevent us from thinking that it was on account of its green colour only that they had recourse to it, he adds, that they were made concave the better to collect the visual rays; and that Nero used them in viewing the combats of the gladiators.
Sculpture.
Admirable monuments remain to us of the perfection to which the ancients carried the arts of sculpture and design. The Niobé and the Laocoon, the Venus de Medicis, the Hercules stifling Antæus, that other Hercules who rests upon his club, the dying gladiator, and that other in the vineyard of Borghese, the Apollo Belvedere, the maimed Hercules, and the Equerry in the action of breaking a horse on mount Quirinal, loudly proclaim the superiority of the ancients in those arts. These excellences are to be observed upon their medals, their engraved precious stones, and their cameos.
Painting.
Of ancient painting the reliques are so few and so much injured by time, that to form a proper judgment of it, is at first difficult. Yet if due attention be paid to pictures discovered at Rome, and latterly in the ruins of Herculaneum, the applause which the painters of antiquity received from their contemporaries may seem to have been merited. Among the ancient paintings in fresco, still at Rome, are a reclining Venus at full length, in the palace of Barbarini; the Aldovrandine nuptials; a Coriolanus, in one of the cells of Titus’s baths; and seven other pieces, in the gallery of the college of St. Ignatius; taken out of a vault at the foot of mount Palatine; among which are a satyr drinking out of a horn, and a landscape with figures, both of the utmost beauty. There are also a sacrificial piece, consisting of three figures, in the Albani collection; and an Œdipus, and a sphynx, in the villa Altieri; which all formerly belonged to the tomb of Ovid. From these specimens an advantageous judgment may be formed of the ability of the masters who executed them. Others, discovered at Herculaneum, disclose a happiness of design and boldness of expression, that could only have been achieved by accomplished artists. Theseus vanquishing the minotaur, the birth of Telephus, Chiron and Achilles, and Pan and Olympe, have innumerable excellencies. There were found also, among the ruins of that city, four capital pictures, wherein beauty of design seems to vie with the most skilful management of the pencil. They appear of an earlier date than those spoken of, which belong to the first century; a period when painting, as Pliny informs us, was in its decline.