Chap. IV.

ROMAN.

09

on the decline of the latter, and under Augustus , the opus incertum ; the opus reticulatum,with and without brick, ceased to be used under the Antonines ; and brick was after-wards employed alone to the end of the seventh century — though after the time ofConstantine it was mixed with strataof volcanic stone, and took the name ofSaracenic work. The brickwork, fromthe time of Augustus to Constantine,was formed of triangular bricks ; at cer-tain heights were introduced courses ofsquare or rectangular tiles, which passedthrough the entire thickness of the wall,and bonded the whole together ; this tiedin the facing, called by the modernItalians , cortina. Such work may be seenin the baths of Antoninus , temple ofVenus Erycine, and on the Palatine.

Before stone was used for building, itwas usual to expose it for two years tothe action of the weather, and that whichwas most convenient to Rome was drawn,as Vitruvius says, from the countries ofthe Pallienses, Fidenates, and Albana?;those which were soft after the two years’exposure were allowed to be used in the foundations; which perhaps would be contraryto modern practice; but the excellence of their cement compensated in some degree forthis use of a friable material.

The principal Marbles were the Carrara, abundantly used in the structures of the imperialcity, and also in the provinces. Strabo, who wrote in the time of Tiberius , observes, that atLuna, a city in Etruria , slabs of white as well as veined marble for tables, and shafts of columnsin one single piece, were quarried ; and the greater part of the edifices of Rome and othercities of Italy were enriched with it: it was easy to remove it from the quarries to the sea,from whence it could be freighted up the Tiber. This passage of Strabo leads us to supposethat most of the edifices after the time of the emperor Augustus were adorned with thismarble. At the time of Pliny these quarries yielded a kind that surpassed the Parian inwhiteness, and Mamurra, a Roman knight, decorated his house on the Ca?lian mount

with columns of it, which was the first instance of its being so applied at Rome .

The grain, though finer than that of the Greek, is not so pure a white when polished.

The marble brought from Hymettus, near Athens , was as celebrated as the Pentiliean.Xenophon mentions them both as used by the Athenians for their temples, altars,

statues, and other works. Strabo admires its beauty, and Horace intimates that he en-

crusted the walls of his house with it. It was employed at Rome , before any other foreignmarble was introduced, for columns, and Pliny tells us that Lucius Crassus the oratorbrought six, not more than 12 feet in height, to decorate the atrium of his house on thePalatine, 91 years before the Christian era: for which reason it was called by Marcus Brutus the Palatine Venus.

The Pentiliean marble , composed of white with greenish veins, was quarried in the neigh-bourhood of Athens . By the Roman writers it is seldom mentioned ; by the Greeks it washeld in high estimation, though not much employed in the buildings at Rome. Plutarch implies that the columns of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus were formed of this marble,brought from Athens .

The Parian, found in the Isle of Paros, so much admired by the ancients, was chiefly takenfrom the quarries of Marpessa, and of a pure white ; it was confined to the use of sculp-ture. Procopius tells us that the walls of the mausoleum of Adrian were covered withslabs of this marble, which no longer remain. It is also called Ligdino and Licnite.

The Proconnesiaji marble was white, diversified with black veins, sometimes proceedingin straight lines, often obliquely and winding; it was found at Proconneso, an islandin Propontis : and at Cizicus it was used for building. In the time of Constantine,Justinian employed it for incrusting the walls of S. Sophia, as well as for the columnswhich adorned that building.

The Tatian marble, according to Pliny , was white and full of spots, and muchused in the time of Nero and Domitian , after which we do not often find it employed. Itresembles the Lesbian , but is clearer. Some have supposed the square blocks of the pyramidof C. Cestius to be of this marble, though they are more probably from the quarries ofLuna.

The Fengite, called so from its pure whiteness and splendour, was first noticed in thetime of Nero, at Cappadocia , and was employed by that emperor in the construction of the

ii 2

Fig. 118.

BRICK.