The Ten Books on Architecture
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CHAPTER IV
THE FOUNDATIONS AND SUBSTRUCTURES OF TEMPLES
1.The foundations of these works should be dug out of the solid ground, if it can be found, and carried down into solid ground as far as the magnitude of the work shall seem to require, and the whole substructure should be as solid as it can possibly be laid.Above ground, let walls be laid under the columns, thicker by one half than the columns are to be, so that the lower may be stronger than the higher. Hence they are called "stereobates"; for they take the load. And the projections of the bases should not extend beyond this solid foundation. The wall-thickness is similarly to be preserved above ground likewise, and the intervals between these walls should be vaulted over, or filled with earth rammed down hard, to keep the walls well apart.
| 1. | 2. |
| the entasis of columns | |
| 1.The entasis as given by Fra Giocondo in the edition of 1511. | |
| 2.The entasis from the temple of Mars Ultor in Rome compared with Vignola's rule for entasis. | |
2.If, however, solid ground cannot be found, but the place proves to be nothing but a heap of loose earth to the very bottom, or a marsh, then it must be dug up and cleared out and set with piles made of charred alder or olive wood or oak, and these must be driven down by machinery, very closely together like bridge-piles, and the intervals between them filled in with charcoal, and finally the foundations are to be laid on them in the most solid form of construction.The foundations having been brought up to the level, the stylobates are next to be put in place.
3.The columns are then to be distributed over the stylobates in the manner above described: close together in the pycnostyle; in the systyle, diastyle, or eustyle, as they are described and arranged above.In araeostyle temples one is free to arrange them as far apart as one likes.Still, in peripterals, the columns should be so placed that there are twice as many intercolumniations on the sides as there are in front; for thus the length of the work will be twice its breadth.Those who make the number of columns double, seem to be in error, because then the length seems to be one intercolumniation longer than it ought to be.
4.The steps in front must be arranged so that there shall always be an odd number of them; for thus the right foot, with which one mounts the first step, will also be the first to reach the level of the temple itself.The rise of such steps should, I think, be limited to not more than ten nor less than nine inches; for then the ascent will not be difficult.The treads of the steps ought to be made not less than a foot and a half, and not more than two feet deep.If there are to be steps running all round the temple, they should be built of the same size.
5.But if a podium is to be built on three sides round the temple, it should be so constructed that its plinths, bases, dies, coronae, and cymatiumare appropriate to the actual stylobate which is to be under the bases of the columns.
fra giocondo's idea of the "scamilli impares"
(From his edition of Vitruvius, Venice, 1511)
The level of the stylobate must be increased along the middle by the scamilli impares; for if it is laid perfectly level, it will look to the eye as though it were hollowed a little.At the end of the book a figure will be found, with a description showing how the scamilli may be made to suit this purpose.
CHAPTER V
PROPORTIONS OF THE BASE, CAPITALS, AND ENTABLATURE IN THE IONIC ORDER
1.This finished, let the bases of the columns be set in place, and constructed in such proportions that their height, including the plinth, may be half the thickness of a column, and their projection (called in Greek ἑκφορἁ) the same.[1] Thus in both length and breadth it will be one and one half thicknesses of a column.
2.If the base is to be in the Attic style, let its height be so divided that the upper part shall be one third part of the thickness of the column, and the rest left for the plinth.Then, excluding the plinth, let the rest be divided into four parts, and of these let one fourth constitute the upper torus, and let the other three be divided equally, one part composing the lower torus, and the other, with its fillets, the scotia, which the Greeks call τροχἱλος.
3.But if Ionic bases are to be built, their proportions shall be so determined that the base may be each way equal in breadth to the thickness of a column plus three eighths of the thickness; its height that of the Attic base, and so too its plinth; excluding the plinth, let the rest, which will be a third part of the thickness of a column, be divided into seven parts.Three of these parts constitute the torus at the top, and the other four are to be divided equally, one part constituting the upper trochilus with its astragals and overhang, the other left for the lower trochilus.But the lower will seem to be larger, because it will project to the edge of the plinth.The astragals must be one eighth of the trochilus.The projection of the base will be three sixteenths of the thickness of a column.
the ionic order according to vitruvius compared with the order of the mausoleum at halicarnassus
The difference between the Roman and the Greek relation of the baluster-side of the capital to the echinus is to be noted.
4.The bases being thus finished and put in place, the columns are to be put in place: the middle columns of the front and rear porticoes perpendicular to their own centre; the corner columns, and those which are to extend in a line from them along the sides of the temple to the right and left, are to be set so that their inner sides, which face toward the cella wall, are perpendicular, but their outer sides in the manner which I have described in speaking of their diminution. Thus, in the design of the temple the lines will be adjusted with due regard to the diminution.
5.The shafts of the columns having been erected, the rule for the capitals will be as follows.If they are to be cushion-shaped, they should be so proportioned that the abacus is in length and breadth equivalent to the thickness of the shaft at its bottom plus one eighteenth thereof, and the height of the capital, including the volutes, one half of that amount.The faces of the volutes must recede from the edge of the abacus inwards by one and a half eighteenths of that same amount.Then, the height of the capital is to be divided into nine and a half parts, and down along the abacus on the four sides of the volutes, down along the fillet at the edge of the abacus, lines called "catheti" are to be let fall.Then, of the nine and a half parts let one and a half be reserved for the height of the abacus, and let the other eight be used for the volutes.
6.Then let another line be drawn, beginning at a point situated at a distance of one and a half parts toward the inside from the line previously let fall down along the edge of the abacus.Next, let these lines be divided in such a way as to leave four and a half parts under the abacus; then, at the point which forms the division between the four and a half parts and the remaining three and a half, fix the centre of the eye, and from that centre describe a circle with a diameter equal to one of the eight parts.This will be the size of the eye, and in it draw a diameter on the line of the "cathetus."Then, in describing the quadrants, let the size of each be successively less, by half the diameter of the eye, than that which begins under the abacus, and proceed from the eye until that same quadrant under the abacus is reached.
7.The height of the capital is to be such that, of the nine and a half parts, three parts are below the level of the astragal at the top of the shaft, and the rest, omitting the abacus and the channel, belongs to its echinus. The projection of the echinus beyond the fillet of the abacus should be equal to the size of the eye. The projection of the bands of the cushions should be thus obtained: place one leg of a pair of compasses in the centre of the capital and open out the other to the edge of the echinus; bring this leg round and it will touch the outer edge of the bands. The axes of the volutes should not be thicker than the size of the eye, and the volutes themselves should be channelled out to a depth which is one twelfth of their height. These will be the symmetrical proportions for capitals of columns twenty-five feet high and less. For higher columns the other proportions will be the same, but the length and breadth of the abacus will be the thickness of the lower diameter of a column plus one ninth part thereof; thus, just as the higher the column the less the diminution, so the projection of its capital is proportionately increased and its breadth[2] is correspondingly enlarged.
8.With regard to the method of describing volutes, at the end of the book a figure will be subjoined and a calculation showing how they may be described so that their spirals may be true to the compass.
The capitals having been finished and set up in due proportion to the columns (not exactly level on the columns, however, but with the same measured adjustment, so that in the upper members there may be an increase corresponding to that which was made in the stylobates), the rule for the architraves is to be as follows.If the columns are at least twelve feet and not more than fifteen feet high, let the height of the architrave be equal to half the thickness of a column at the bottom.If they are from fifteen feet to twenty, let the height of a column be measured off into thirteen parts, and let one of these be the height of the architrave.If they are from twenty to twenty-five feet, let this height be divided into twelve and one half parts, and let one of them form the height of the architrave.If they are from twenty-five feet to thirty, let it be divided into twelve parts, and let one of them form the height. If they are higher, the heights of the architraves are to be worked out proportionately in the same manner from the height of the columns.
9.For the higher that the eye has to climb, the less easily can it make its way through the thicker and thicker mass of air.So it fails when the height is great, its strength is sucked out of it, and it conveys to the mind only a confused estimate of the dimensions.Hence there must always be a corresponding increase in the symmetrical proportions of the members, so that whether the buildings are on unusually lofty sites or are themselves somewhat colossal, the size of the parts may seem in due proportion.The depth of the architrave on its under side just above the capital, is to be equivalent to the thickness of the top of the column just under the capital, and on its uppermost side equivalent to the foot of the shaft.
10.The cymatium of the architrave should be one seventh of the height of the whole architrave, and its projection the same.Omitting the cymatium, the rest of the architrave is to be divided into twelve parts, and three of these will form the lowest fascia, four, the next, and five, the highest fascia.The frieze, above the architrave, is one fourth less high than the architrave, but if there are to be reliefs upon it, it is one fourth higher than the architrave, so that the sculptures may be more imposing.Its cymatium is one seventh of the whole height of the frieze, and the projection of the cymatium is the same as its height.
11.Over the frieze comes the line of dentils, made of the same height as the middle fascia of the architrave and with a projection equal to their height.The intersection (or in Greek μετὁπη) is apportioned so that the face of each dentil is half as wide as its height and the cavity of each intersection two thirds of this face in width.The cymatium here is one sixth of the whole height of this part.The corona with its cymatium, but not including the sima, has the height of the middle fascia of the architrave, and the total projection of the corona and dentils should be equal to the height from the frieze to the cymatium at the top of the corona.
a comparison of the ionic order according to vitruvius with actual examples and with vignola's order
| A: Showing the orders reduced to equal lower diameters. | B: Showing the orders to a uniform scale. |
And as a general rule, all projecting parts have greater beauty when their projection is equal to their height.
12.The height of the tympanum, which is in the pediment, is to be obtained thus: let the front of the corona, from the two ends of its cymatium, be measured off into nine parts, and let one of these parts be set up in the middle at the peak of the tympanum, taking care that it is perpendicular to the entablature and the neckings of the columns.The coronae over the tympanum are to be made of equal size with the coronae under it, not including the simae.Above the coronae are the simae (in Greek ἑπαιετἱδες), which should be made one eighth higher than the height of the coronae.The acroteria at the corners have the height of the centre of the tympanum, and those in the middle are one eighth part higher than those at the corners.
13.All the members which are to be above the capitals of the columns, that is, architraves, friezes, coronae, tympana, gables, and acroteria, should be inclined to the front a twelfth part of their own height, for the reason that when we stand in front of them, if two lines are drawn from the eye, one reaching to the bottom of the building and the other to the top, that which reaches to the top will be the longer.Hence, as the line of sight to the upper part is the longer, it makes that part look as if it were leaning back.But when the members are inclined to the front, as described above, they will seem to the beholder to be plumb and perpendicular.
14.Each column should have twenty-four flutes, channelled out in such a way that if a carpenter's square be placed in the hollow of a flute and turned, the arm will touch the corners of the fillets on the right and left, and the tip of the square may keep touching some point in the concave surface as it moves through it.The breadth of the flutes is to be equivalent to the enlargement in the middle of a column, which will be found in the figure.
15.In the simae which are over the coronae on the sides of the temple, lion's heads are to be carved and arranged at intervals thus: First one head is marked out directly over the axis of each column, and then the others are arranged at equal distances apart, and so that there shall be one at the middle of every roof-tiling. Those that are over the columns should have holes bored through them to the gutter which receives the rainwater from the tiles, but those between them should be solid. Thus the mass of water that falls by way of the tiles into the gutter will not be thrown down along the intercolumniations nor drench people who are passing through them, while the lion's heads that are over the columns will appear to be vomiting as they discharge streams of water from their mouths.
In this book I have written as clearly as I could on the arrangements of Ionic temples.In the next I shall explain the proportions of Doric and Corinthian temples.
BOOK IV
INTRODUCTION
1.I have observed, Emperor, that many in their treatises and volumes of commentaries on architecture have not presented the subject with well-ordered completeness, but have merely made a beginning and left, as it were, only desultory fragments.I have therefore thought that it would be a worthy and very useful thing to reduce the whole of this great art to a complete and orderly form of presentation, and then in different books to lay down and explain the required characteristics of different departments.Hence, Caesar, in my first book I have set forth to you the function of the architect and the things in which he ought to be trained.In the second I have discussed the supplies of material of which buildings are constructed.In the third, which deals with the arrangements of temples and their variety of form, I showed the nature and number of their classes, with the adjustments proper to each form according to the usage of the Ionic order, one of the three which exhibit the greatest delicacy of proportion in their symmetrical measurements.In the present book I shall speak of the established rules for the Doric and Corinthian orders, and shall explain their differences and peculiarities.
CHAPTER I
THE ORIGINS OF THE THREE ORDERS, AND THE PROPORTIONS OF THE CORINTHIAN CAPITAL
1.Corinthian columns are, excepting in their capitals, of the same proportions in all respects as Ionic; but the height of their capitals gives them proportionately a taller and more slender effect.This is because the height of the Ionic capital is only one third of the thickness of the column, while that of the Corinthian is the entire thickness of the shaft.Hence, as two thirds are added in Corinthian capitals, their tallness gives a more slender appearance to the columns themselves.
2.The other members which are placed above the columns, are, for Corinthian columns, composed either of the Doric proportions or according to the Ionic usages; for the Corinthian order never had any scheme peculiar to itself for its cornices or other ornaments, but may have mutules in the coronae and guttae on the architraves according to the triglyph system of the Doric style, or, according to Ionic practices, it may be arranged with a frieze adorned with sculptures and accompanied with dentils and coronae.
3.Thus a third architectural order, distinguished by its capital, was produced out of the two other orders.To the forms of their columns are due the names of the three orders, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, of which the Doric was the first to arise, and in early times.For Dorus, the son of Hellen and the nymph Phthia, was king of Achaea and all the Peloponnesus, and he built a fane, which chanced to be of this order, in the precinct of Juno at Argolis, a very ancient city, and subsequently others of the same order in the other cities of Achaea, although the rules of symmetry were not yet in existence.
4.Later, the Athenians, in obedience to oracles of the Delphic Apollo, and with the general agreement of all Hellas, despatched thirteen colonies at one time to Asia Minor, appointing leaders for each colony and giving the command-in-chief to Ion, son of Xuthus and Creusa (whom further Apollo at Delphi in the oracles had acknowledged as his son). Ion conducted those colonies to Asia Minor, took possession of the land of Caria, and there founded the grand cities of Ephesus, Miletus, Myus (long ago engulfed by the water, and its sacred rites and suffrage handed over by the Ionians to the Milesians), Priene, Samos, Teos, Colophon, Chius, Erythrae, Phocaea, Clazomenae, Lebedos, and Melite. This Melite, on account of the arrogance of its citizens, was destroyed by the other cities in a war declared by general agreement, and in its place, through the kindness of King Attalus and Arsinoe, the city of the Smyrnaeans was admitted among the Ionians.
5.Now these cities, after driving out the Carians and Lelegans, called that part of the world Ionia from their leader Ion, and there they set off precincts for the immortal gods and began to build fanes: first of all, a temple to Panionion Apollo such as they had seen in Achaea, calling it Doric because they had first seen that kind of temple built in the states of the Dorians.
6.Wishing to set up columns in that temple, but not having rules for their symmetry, and being in search of some way by which they could render them fit to bear a load and also of a satisfactory beauty of appearance, they measured the imprint of a man's foot and compared this with his height.On finding that, in a man, the foot was one sixth of the height, they applied the same principle to the column, and reared the shaft, including the capital, to a height six times its thickness at its base.Thus the Doric column, as used in buildings, began to exhibit the proportions, strength, and beauty of the body of a man.
7.Just so afterwards, when they desired to construct a temple to Diana in a new style of beauty, they translated these footprints into terms characteristic of the slenderness of women, and thus first made a column the thickness of which was only one eighth of its height, so that it might have a taller look.At the foot they substituted the base in place of a shoe; in the capital they placed the volutes, hanging down at the right and left like curly ringlets, and ornamented its front with cymatia and with festoons of fruit arranged in place of hair, while they brought the flutes down the whole shaft, falling like the folds in the robes worn by matrons. Thus in the invention of the two different kinds of columns, they borrowed manly beauty, naked and unadorned, for the one, and for the other the delicacy, adornment, and proportions characteristic of women.
8.It is true that posterity, having made progress in refinement and delicacy of feeling, and finding pleasure in more slender proportions, has established seven diameters of the thickness as the height of the Doric column, and nine as that of the Ionic.The Ionians, however, originated the order which is therefore named Ionic.
The third order, called Corinthian, is an imitation of the slenderness of a maiden; for the outlines and limbs of maidens, being more slender on account of their tender years, admit of prettier effects in the way of adornment.
9.It is related that the original discovery of this form of capital was as follows.A free-born maiden of Corinth, just of marriageable age, was attacked by an illness and passed away.After her burial, her nurse, collecting a few little things which used to give the girl pleasure while she was alive, put them in a basket, carried it to the tomb, and laid it on top thereof, covering it with a roof-tile so that the things might last longer in the open air.This basket happened to be placed just above the root of an acanthus.The acanthus root, pressed down meanwhile though it was by the weight, when springtime came round put forth leaves and stalks in the middle, and the stalks, growing up along the sides of the basket, and pressed out by the corners of the tile through the compulsion of its weight, were forced to bend into volutes at the outer edges.
Photo. Sommer
the basilica at pompeii
the corinthian capital of vitruvius compared with the monuments
10.Just then Callimachus, whom the Athenians called κατατηξἱτεχνος for the refinement and delicacy of his artistic work, passed by this tomb and observed the basket with the tender young leaves growing round it. Delighted with the novel style and form, he built some columns after that pattern for the Corinthians, determined their symmetrical proportions, and established from that time forth the rules to be followed in finished works of the Corinthian order.
11.The proportions of this capital should be fixed as follows.Let the height of the capital, including its abacus, be equivalent to the thickness of the base of a column.Let the breadth of the abacus be proportioned so that diagonals drawn from one corner of it to the other shall be twice the height of the capitals, which will give the proper breadth to each face of the abacus.The faces should curve inwards, by one ninth of the breadth of the face, from the outside edge of the corners of the abacus.At the bottom the capital should be of the thickness of the top of the column omitting the congé and astragal.The height of the abacus is one seventh of the height of the capital.
12.Omitting the height of the abacus, let the rest be divided into three parts, of which one should be given to the lowest leaf.Let the second leaf occupy the middle part of the height.Of the same height should be the stalks, out of which grow leaves projected so as to support the volutes which proceed from the stalks, and run out to the utmost corners of the abacus; the smaller spirals between them should be carved just under the flower which is on the abacus.The flowers on the four sides are to be made as large as the height of the abacus.On these principles of proportion, Corinthian capitals will be finished as they ought to be.
There are other kinds of capitals set upon these same columns and called by various names, but they have no peculiarities of proportion of which we can speak, nor can we recognize from them another order of columns.Even their very names are, as we can see, derived with some changes from the Corinthian, the cushion-shaped, and the Doric, whose symmetrical proportions have been thus transferred to delicate sculptures of novel form.
CHAPTER II
THE ORNAMENTS OF THE ORDERS
1.Since the origin and invention of the orders of columns have been described above, I think it not out of place to speak in the same way about their ornaments, showing how these arose and from what original elements they were devised.The upper parts of all buildings contain timber work to which various terms are applied.And not only in its terminology but actually in its uses it exhibits variety.The main beams are those which are laid upon columns, pilasters, and antae; tie-beams and rafters are found in the framing.Under the roof, if the span is pretty large, are the crossbeams and struts; if it is of moderate extent, only the ridgepole, with the principal rafters extending to the outer edge of the eaves.Over the principal rafters are the purlines, and then above these and under the roof-tiles come the common rafters, extending so far that the walls are covered by their projection.
2.Thus each and every detail has a place, origin, and order of its own.In accordance with these details, and starting from carpenter's work, artists in building temples of stone and marble imitated those arrangements in their sculptures, believing that they must follow those inventions.So it was that some ancient carpenters, engaged in building somewhere or other, after laying the tie-beams so that they projected from the inside to the outside of the walls, closed up the space between the beams, and above them ornamented the coronae and gables with carpentry work of beauty greater than usual; then they cut off the projecting ends of the beams, bringing them into line and flush with the face of the walls; next, as this had an ugly look to them, they fastened boards, shaped as triglyphs are now made, on the ends of the beams, where they had been cut off in front, and painted them with blue wax so that the cutting off of the ends of the beams, being concealed, would not offend the eye.Hence it was in imitation of the arrangement of the tie-beams that men began to employ, in Doric buildings, the device of triglyphs and the metopes between the beams.
3.Later, others in other buildings allowed the projecting principal rafters to run out till they were flush with the triglyphs, and then formed their projections into simae.From that practice, like the triglyphs from the arrangement of the tie-beams, the system of mutules under the coronae was devised from the projections of the principal rafters.Hence generally, in buildings of stone and marble, the mutules are carved with a downward slant, in imitation of the principal rafters.For these necessarily have a slanting and projecting position to let the water drip down.The scheme of triglyphs and mutules in Doric buildings was, therefore, the imitative device that I have described.
4.It cannot be that the triglyphs represent windows, as some have erroneously said, since the triglyphs are placed at the corners and over the middle of columns—places where, from the nature of the case, there can be no windows at all.For buildings are wholly disconnected at the corners if openings for windows are left at those points.Again, if we are to suppose that there were open windows where the triglyphs now stand, it will follow, on the same principle, that the dentils of the Ionic order have likewise taken the places of windows.For the term "metope" is used of the intervals between dentils as well as of those between triglyphs.The Greeks call the seats of tie-beams and rafters ὁπαἱ, while our people call these cavities columbaria (dovecotes).Hence, the space between the tie-beams, being the space between two "opae," was named by them μετὁπη.
5.The system of triglyphs and mutules was invented for the Doric order, and similarly the scheme of dentils belongs to the Ionic, in which there are proper grounds for its use in buildings.Just as mutules represent the projection of the principal rafters, so dentils in the Ionic are an imitation of the projections of the common rafters.And so in Greek works nobody ever put dentils under mutules, as it is impossible that common rafters should be underneath principal rafters.Therefore, if that which in the original must be placed above the principal rafters, is put in the copy below them, the result will be a work constructed on false principles. Neither did the ancients approve of or employ mutules or dentils in pediments, but only plain coronae, for the reason that neither principal nor common rafters tail into the fronts of pediments, nor can they overhang them, but they are laid with a slope towards the eaves. Hence the ancients held that what could not happen in the original would have no valid reason for existence in the copy.
6.For in all their works they proceeded on definite principles of fitness and in ways derived from the truth of Nature.Thus they reached perfection, approving only those things which, if challenged, can be explained on grounds of the truth.Hence, from the sources which have been described they established and left us the rules of symmetry and proportion for each order.Following in their steps, I have spoken above on the Ionic and Corinthian styles, and I shall now briefly explain the theory of the Doric and its general appearance.
CHAPTER III
PROPORTIONS OF DORIC TEMPLES
1.Some of the ancient architects said that the Doric order ought not to be used for temples, because faults and incongruities were caused by the laws of its symmetry.Arcesius and Pytheos said so, as well as Hermogenes.He, for instance, after getting together a supply of marble for the construction of a Doric temple, changed his mind and built an Ionic temple to Father Bacchus with the same materials.This is not because it is unlovely in appearance or origin or dignity of form, but because the arrangement of the triglyphs and metopes (lacunaria) is an embarrassment and inconvenience to the work.
2.For the triglyphs ought to be placed so as to correspond to the centres of the columns, and the metopes between the triglyphs ought to be as broad as they are high. But in violation of this rule, at the corner columns triglyphs are placed at the outside edges and not corresponding to the centre of the columns. Hence the metopes next to the corner columns do not come out perfectly square, but are too broad by half the width of a triglyph. Those who would make the metopes all alike, make the outermost intercolumniations narrower by half the width of a triglyph. But the result is faulty, whether it is attained by broader metopes or narrower intercolumniations. For this reason, the ancients appear to have avoided the scheme of the Doric order in their temples.
3.However, since our plan calls for it, we set it forth as we have received it from our teachers, so that if anybody cares to set to work with attention to these laws, he may find the proportions stated by which he can construct correct and faultless examples of temples in the Doric fashion.
Let the front of a Doric temple, at the place where the columns are put up, be divided, if it is to be tetrastyle, into twenty-seven parts; if hexastyle, into forty-two.One of these parts will be the module (in Greek ἑμβἁτϛ); and this module once fixed, all the parts of the work are adjusted by means of calculations based upon it.
4. The thickness of the columns will be two modules, and their height, including the capitals, fourteen. The height of a capital will be one module, and its breadth two and one sixth modules. Let the height of the capital be divided into three parts, of which one will form the abacus with its cymatium, the second the echinus with its annulets, and the third the necking. The diminution of the column should be the same as described for Ionic columns in the third book. The height of the architrave, including taenia and guttae, is one module, and of the taenia, one seventh of a module. The guttae, extending as wide as the triglyphs and beneath the taenia, should hang down for one sixth of a module, including their regula. The depth of the architrave on its under side should answer to the necking at the top of the column. Above the architrave, the triglyphs and metopes are to be placed: the triglyphs one and one half modules high, and one module wide in front.They are to be arranged so that one is placed to correspond to the centre of each corner and intermediate column, and two over each intercolumniation except the middle intercolumniations of the front and rear porticoes, which have three each.The intervals in the middle being thus extended, a free passage will be afforded to those who would approach the statues of the gods.
vitruvius' doric order compared with the temple at cori and the doric order of the theatre of marcellus
5.The width of the triglyph should be divided into six parts, and five of these marked off in the middle by means of the rule, and two half parts at the right and left.Let one part, that in the centre, form a "femur" (in Greek μηρὁς).On each side of it are the channels, to be cut in to fit the tip of a carpenter's square, and in succession the other femora, one at the right and the other at the left of a channel.To the outsides are relegated the semichannels.The triglyphs having been thus arranged, let the metopes between the triglyphs be as high as they are wide, while at the outer corners there should be semimetopes inserted, with the width of half a module.
In these ways all defects will be corrected, whether in metopes or intercolumniations or lacunaria, as all the arrangements have been made with uniformity.
6.The capitals of each triglyph are to measure one sixth of a module.Over the capitals of the triglyphs the corona is to be placed, with a projection of two thirds of a module, and having a Doric cymatium at the bottom and another at the top.So the corona with its cymatia is half a module in height.Set off on the under side of the corona, vertically over the triglyphs and over the middle of the metopes, are the viae in straight lines and the guttae arranged in rows, six guttae broad and three deep.The spaces left (due to the fact that the metopes are broader than the triglyphs) may be left unornamented or may have thunderbolts carved on them.Just at the edge of the corona a line should be cut in, called the scotia.All the other parts, such as tympana and the simae of the corona, are to be constructed as described above in the case of the Ionic order.
7.Such will be the scheme established for diastyle buildings.But if the building is to be systyle and monotriglyphic, let the front of the temple, if tetrastyle, be divided into nineteen and a half parts; if hexastyle, into twenty-nine and a half parts.One of these parts will form the module in accordance with which the adjustments are to be made as above described.
8.Thus, over each portion of the architrave two metopes and two triglyphs[3] will be placed; and, in addition, at the corners half a triglyph and besides a space large enough for a half triglyph. At the centre, vertically under the gable, there should be room for three triglyphs and three metopes, in order that the centre intercolumniation, by its greater width, may give ample room for people to enter the temple, and may lend an imposing effect to the view of the statues of the gods.
9.The columns should be fluted with twenty flutes.If these are to be left plane, only the twenty angles need be marked off.But if they are to be channelled out, the contour of the channelling may be determined thus: draw a square with sides equal in length to the breadth of the fluting, and centre a pair of compasses in the middle of this square.Then describe a circle with a circumference touching the angles of the square, and let the channellings have the contour of the segment formed by the circumference and the side of the square.The fluting of the Doric column will thus be finished in the style appropriate to it.
10.With regard to the enlargement to be made in the column at its middle, let the description given for Ionic columns in the third book be applied here also in the case of Doric.
Since the external appearance of the Corinthian, Doric, and Ionic proportions has now been described, it is necessary next to explain the arrangements of the cella and the pronaos.
CHAPTER IV
THE CELLA AND PRONAOS
1.The length of a temple is adjusted so that its width may be half its length, and the actual cella one fourth greater in length than in width, including the wall in which the folding doors are placed.Let the remaining three parts, constituting the pronaos, extend to the antae terminating the walls, which antae ought to be of the same thickness as the columns.If the temple is to be more than twenty feet in width, let two columns be placed between the two antae, to separate the pteroma from the pronaos.The three intercolumniations between the antae and the columns should be closed by low walls made of marble or of joiner's work, with doors in them to afford passages into the pronaos.
2.If the width is to be more than forty feet, let columns be placed inside and opposite to the columns between the antae.They should have the same height as the columns in front of them, but their thickness should be proportionately reduced: thus, if the columns in front are in thickness one eighth of their height, these should be one tenth; if the former are one ninth or one tenth, these should be reduced in the same proportion.For their reduction will not be discernible, as the air has not free play about them.Still, in case they look too slender, when the outer columns have twenty or twenty-four flutes, these may have twenty-eight or thirty-two.Thus the additional number of flutes will make up proportionately for the loss in the body of the shaft, preventing it from being seen, and so in a different way the columns will be made to look equally thick.
vitruvius' temple plan compared with actual examples
3.The reason for this result is that the eye, touching thus upon a greater number of points, set closer together, has a larger compass to cover with its range of vision.For if two columns, equally thick but one unfluted and the other fluted, are measured by drawing lines round them, one line touching the body of the columns in the hollows of the channels and on the edges of the flutes, these surrounding lines, even though the columns are equally thick, will not be equal to each other, because it takes a line of greater length to compass the channels and the flutes. This being granted, it is not improper, in narrow quarters or where the space is enclosed, to use in a building columns of somewhat slender proportions, since we can help out by a duly proportionate number of flutings.
4.The walls of the cella itself should be thick in proportion to its size, provided that their antae are kept of the same thickness as the columns.If the walls are to be of masonry, let the rubble used be as small as possible; but if they are to be of dimension stone or marble, the material ought to be of a very moderate and uniform size; for the laying of the stones so as to break joints will make the whole work stronger, and their bevelled edges, standing up about the builds and beds, will give it an agreeable look, somewhat like that of a picture.
CHAPTER V
HOW THE TEMPLE SHOULD FACE
1.The quarter toward which temples of the immortal gods ought to face is to be determined on the principle that, if there is no reason to hinder and the choice is free, the temple and the statue placed in the cella should face the western quarter of the sky.This will enable those who approach the altar with offerings or sacrifices to face the direction of the sunrise in facing the statue in the temple, and thus those who are undertaking vows look toward the quarter from which the sun comes forth, and likewise the statues themselves appear to be coming forth out of the east to look upon them as they pray and sacrifice.
2.But if the nature of the site is such as to forbid this, then the principle of determining the quarter should be changed, so that the widest possible view of the city may be had from the sanctuaries of the gods.Furthermore, temples that are to be built beside rivers, as in Egypt on both sides of the Nile, ought, as it seems, to face the river banks. Similarly, houses of the gods on the sides of public roads should be arranged so that the passers-by can have a view of them and pay their devotions face to face.
CHAPTER VI
THE DOORWAYS OF TEMPLES
1.For the doorways of temples and their casings the rules are as follows, first determining of what style they are to be.The styles of portals are Doric, Ionic, and Attic.
In the Doric, the symmetrical proportions are distinguished by the following rules.Let the top of the corona, which is laid above the casing, be on a level with the tops of the capitals of the columns in the pronaos.The aperture of the doorway should be determined by dividing the height of the temple, from floor to coffered ceiling, into three and one half parts and letting two and one half[4] thereof constitute the height of the aperture of the folding doors. Let this in turn be divided into twelve parts, and let five and a half of these form the width of the bottom of the aperture. At the top, this width should be diminished, if the aperture is sixteen feet in height, by one third the width of the door-jamb; if the aperture is from sixteen to twenty-five feet, let the upper part of it be diminished by one quarter of the jamb; if from twenty-five to thirty feet, let the top be diminished by one eighth of the jamb. Other and higher apertures should, as it seems, have their sides perpendicular.
2.Further, the jambs themselves should be diminished at the top by one fourteenth of their width.The height of the lintel should be equivalent to the width of the jambs at the top.Its cymatium ought to be one sixth of the jamb, with a projection equivalent to its height.The style of carving of the cymatium with its astragal should be the Lesbian.Above the cymatium of the lintel, place the frieze of the doorway, of the same height as the lintel, and having a Doric cymatium and Lesbian astragal carved upon it. Let the corona and its cymatium at the top of all be carved without ornamentation, and have a projection equal to its height. To the right and left of the lintel, which rests upon the jambs, there are to be projections fashioned like projecting bases and jointed to a nicety with the cymatium itself.
3.If the doorways are to be of the Ionic style, the height of the aperture should be reached in the same manner as in the Doric.Let its width be determined by dividing the height into two and one half parts and letting one of them form the width at the bottom.The diminutions should be the same as for Doric.The width of the faces of the jambs should be one fourteenth of the height of the aperture, and the cymatium one sixth of the width.Let the rest, excluding the cymatium, be divided into twelve parts.Let three of these compose the first fascia with its astragal, four the second, and five the third, the fasciae with their astragals running side by side all round.
4.The cornices of Ionic doorways should be constructed in the same manner as those of Doric, in due proportions.The consoles, otherwise called brackets, carved at the right and left, should hang down to the level of the bottom of the lintel, exclusive of the leaf.Their width on the face should be two thirds of the width of the jamb, but at the bottom one fourth slenderer than above.
Doors should be constructed with the hinge-stiles one twelfth of the width of the whole aperture.The panels between two stiles should each occupy three of the twelve parts.
5.The rails will be apportioned thus: divide the height into five parts, of which assign two to the upper portion and three to the lower; above the centre place the middle rails; insert the others at the top and at the bottom.Let the height of a rail be one third of the breadth of a panel, and its cymatium one sixth of the rail.The width of the meeting-stiles should be one half the rail, and the cover-joint two thirds of the rail.The stiles toward the side of the jambs should be one half the rail. If the doors have folds in them, the height will remain as before, but the width should be double that of a single door; if the door is to have four folds, its height should be increased.
vitruvius' rule for doorways compared with two examples
6.Attic doorways are built with the same proportions as Doric.Besides, there are fasciae running all round under the cymatia on the jambs, and apportioned so as to be equal to three sevenths of a jamb, excluding the cymatium.The doors are without lattice-work, are not double but have folds in them, and open outward.
The laws which should govern the design of temples built in the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian styles, have now, so far as I could arrive at them, been set forth according to what may be called the accepted methods.I shall next speak of the arrangements in the Tuscan style, showing how they should be treated.
CHAPTER VII
TUSCAN TEMPLES
1.The place where the temple is to be built having been divided on its length into six parts, deduct one and let the rest be given to its width.Then let the length be divided into two equal parts, of which let the inner be reserved as space for the cellae, and the part next the front left for the arrangement of the columns.
2.Next let the width be divided into ten parts.Of these, let three on the right and three on the left be given to the smaller cellae, or to the alae if there are to be alae, and the other four devoted to the middle of the temple.Let the space in front of the cellae, in the pronaos, be marked out for columns thus: the corner columns should be placed opposite the antae on the line of the outside walls; the two middle columns, set out on the line of the walls which are between the antae and the middle of the temple; and through the middle, between the antae and the front columns, a second row, arranged on the same lines.Let the thickness of the columns at the bottom be one seventh of their height, their height one third of the width of the temple, and the diminution of a column at the top, one fourth of its thickness at the bottom.
the tuscan temple according to vitruvius.
3.The height of their bases should be one half of that thickness.The plinth of their bases should be circular, and in height one half the height of the bases, the torus above it and congé being of the same height as the plinth.The height of the capital is one half the thickness of a column.The abacus has a width equivalent to the thickness of the bottom of a column.Let the height of the capital be divided into three parts, and give one to the plinth (that is, the abacus), the second to the echinus, and the third to the necking with its congé.
4.Upon the columns lay the main beams, fastened together, to a height commensurate with the requirements of the size of the building.These beams fastened together should be laid so as to be equivalent in thickness to the necking at the top of a column, and should be fastened together by means of dowels and dove-tailed tenons in such a way that there shall be a space two fingers broad between them at the fastening.For if they touch one another, and so do not leave airholes and admit draughts of air to blow between them, they get heated and soon begin to rot.
5.Above the beams and walls let the mutules project to a distance equal to one quarter of the height of a column; along the front of them nail casings; above, build the tympanum of the pediment either in masonry or in wood.The pediment with its ridgepole, principal rafters, and purlines are to be built in such a way that the eaves shall be equivalent to one third of the completed roof.
CHAPTER VIII
CIRCULAR TEMPLES AND OTHER VARIETIES
1.There are also circular temples, some of which are constructed in monopteral form, surrounded by columns but without a cella, while others are termed peripteral.Those that are without a cella have a raised platform and a flight of steps leading to it, one third of the diameter of the temple.The columns upon the stylobates are constructed of a height equivalent to the diameter taken between the outer edges of the stylobate walls, and of a thickness equivalent to one tenth of their height including the capitals and bases.The architrave has the height of one half of the thickness of a column.The frieze and the other parts placed above it are such as I have described in the third[5] book, on the subject of symmetrical proportions.
Photo.Anderson
the circular temple at tivoli
the maison carrée at nîmes, a pseudo-peripteral temple
| temple at tivoli | plan of the temple of vesta at rome |
2.But if such a temple is to be constructed in peripteral form, let two steps and then the stylobate be constructed below.Next, let the cella wall be set up, recessed within the stylobate about one fifth of the breadth thereof, and let a place for folding doors be left in the middle to afford entrance.This cella, excluding its walls and the passage round the outside, should have a diameter equivalent to the height of a column above the stylobate.Let the columns round the cella be arranged in the symmetrical proportions just given.
3.The proportions of the roof in the centre should be such that the height of the rotunda, excluding the finial, is equivalent to one half the diameter of the whole work.The finial, excluding its pyramidal base, should have the dimensions of the capital of a column.All the rest must be built in the symmetrical proportions described above.
From Durm
the circular temple according to vitruvius
4.There are also other kinds of temples, constructed in the same symmetrical proportions and yet with a different kind of plan: for example, the temple of Castor in the district of the Circus Flaminius, that of Vejovis between the two groves, and still more ingeniously the temple of Diana in her sacred grove, with columns added on the right and left at the flanks of the pronaos.Temples of this kind, like that of Castor in the Circus, were first built in Athens on the Acropolis, and in Attica at Sunium to Pallas Minerva.The proportions of them are not different, but the same as usual.For the length of their cellae is twice the width, as in other temples; but all that we regularly find in the fronts of others is in these transferred to the sides.
5.Some take the arrangement of columns belonging to the Tuscan order and apply it to buildings in the Corinthian and Ionic styles, and where there are projecting antae in the pronaos, set up two columns in a line with each of the cella walls, thus making a combination of the principles of Tuscan and Greek buildings.
6.Others actually remove the temple walls, transferring them to the intercolumniations, and thus, by dispensing with the space needed for a pteroma, greatly increase the extent of the cella.So, while leaving all the rest in the same symmetrical proportions, they appear to have produced a new kind of plan with the new name "pseudoperipteral."These kinds, however, vary according to the requirements of the sacrifices.For we must not build temples according to the same rules to all gods alike, since the performance of the sacred rites varies with the various gods.
7.I have now set forth, as they have come down to me, all the principles governing the building of temples, have marked out under separate heads their arrangements and proportions, and have set forth, so far as I could express them in writing, the differences in their plans and the distinctions which make them unlike one another.Next, with regard to the altars of the immortal gods, I shall state how they may be constructed so as to conform to the rules governing sacrifices.
CHAPTER IX
ALTARS
Altars should face the east, and should always be placed on a lower level than are the statues in the temples, so that those who are praying and sacrificing may look upwards towards the divinity.They are of different heights, being each regulated so as to be appropriate to its own god.Their heights are to be adjusted thus: for Jupiter and all the celestials, let them be constructed as high as possible; for Vesta and Mother Earth, let them be built low. In accordance with these rules will altars be adjusted when one is preparing his plans.
Having described the arrangements of temples in this book, in the following we shall give an exposition of the construction of public buildings.
BOOK V
INTRODUCTION
1.Those who have filled books of unusually large size, Emperor, in setting forth their intellectual ideas and doctrines, have thus made a very great and remarkable addition to the authority of their writings.I could wish that circumstances made this as permissible in the case of our subject, so that the authority of the present treatise might be increased by amplifications; but this is not so easy as it may be thought.Writing on architecture is not like history or poetry.History is captivating to the reader from its very nature; for it holds out the hope of various novelties.Poetry, with its measures and metrical feet, its refinement in the arrangement of words, and the delivery in verse of the sentiments expressed by the several characters to one another, delights the feelings of the reader, and leads him smoothly on to the very end of the work.
2.But this cannot be the case with architectural treatises, because those terms which originate in the peculiar needs of the art, give rise to obscurity of ideas from the unusual nature of the language.Hence, while the things themselves are not well known, and their names not in common use, if besides this the principles are described in a very diffuse fashion without any attempt at conciseness and explanation in a few pellucid sentences, such fullness and amplitude of treatment will be only a hindrance, and will give the reader nothing but indefinite notions.Therefore, when I mention obscure terms, and the symmetrical proportions of members of buildings, I shall give brief explanations, so that they may be committed to memory; for thus expressed, the mind will be enabled to understand them the more easily.
3.Furthermore, since I have observed that our citizens are distracted with public affairs and private business, I have thought it best to write briefly, so that my readers, whose intervals of leisure are small, may be able to comprehend in a short time.
Then again, Pythagoras and those who came after him in his school thought it proper to employ the principles of the cube in composing books on their doctrines, and, having determined that the cube consisted of 216[6] lines, held that there should be no more than three cubes in any one treatise.
4.A cube is a body with sides all of equal breadth and their surfaces perfectly square.When thrown down, it stands firm and steady so long as it is untouched, no matter on which of its sides it has fallen, like the dice which players throw on the board.The Pythagoreans appear to have drawn their analogy from the cube, because the number of lines mentioned will be fixed firmly and steadily in the memory when they have once settled down, like a cube, upon a man's understanding.The Greek comic poets, also, divided their plays into parts by introducing a choral song, and by this partition on the principle of the cubes, they relieve the actor's speeches by such intermissions.
5.Since these rules, founded on the analogy of nature, were followed by our predecessors, and since I observe that I have to write on unusual subjects which many persons will find obscure, I have thought it best to write in short books, so that they may the more readily strike the understanding of the reader: for they will thus be easy to comprehend.I have also arranged them so that those in search of knowledge on a subject may not have to gather it from different places, but may find it in one complete treatment, with the various classes set forth each in a book by itself.Hence, Caesar, in the third and fourth books I gave the rules for temples; in this book I shall treat of the laying out of public places.I shall speak first of the proper arrangement of the forum, for in it the course of both public and private affairs is directed by the magistrates.
CHAPTER I
THE FORUM AND BASILICA
1.The Greeks lay out their forums in the form of a square surrounded by very spacious double colonnades, adorn them with columns set rather closely together, and with entablatures of stone or marble, and construct walks above in the upper story.But in the cities of Italy the same method cannot be followed, for the reason that it is a custom handed down from our ancestors that gladiatorial shows should be given in the forum.
From Gsell
forum at timgad
A, Forum. B, Basilica. C, Curia. C', Official Building. D, Small Temple. E, Latrina. F, Atrium.
2.Therefore let the intercolumniations round the show place be pretty wide; round about in the colonnades put the bankers' offices; and have balconies on the upper floor properly arranged so as to be convenient, and to bring in some public revenue.
The size of a forum should be proportionate to the number of inhabitants, so that it may not be too small a space to be useful, nor look like a desert waste for lack of population.To determine its breadth, divide its length into three parts and assign two of them to the breadth.Its shape will then be oblong, and its ground plan conveniently suited to the conditions of shows.
3.The columns of the upper tier should be one fourth smaller than those of the lower, because, for the purpose of bearing the load, what is below ought to be stronger than what is above, and also, because we ought to imitate nature as seen in the case of things growing; for example, in round smooth-stemmed trees, like the fir, cypress, and pine, every one of which is rather thick just above the roots and then, as it goes on increasing in height, tapers off naturally and symmetrically in growing up to the top.Hence, if nature requires this in things growing, it is the right arrangement that what is above should be less in height and thickness than what is below.
4.Basilicas should be constructed on a site adjoining the forum and in the warmest possible quarter, so that in winter business men may gather in them without being troubled by the weather.In breadth they should be not less than one third nor more than one half of their length, unless the site is naturally such as to prevent this and to oblige an alteration in these proportions.If the length of the site is greater than necessary, Chalcidian porches may be constructed at the ends, as in the Julia Aquiliana.
5. It is thought that the columns of basilicas ought to be as high as the side-aisles are broad; an aisle should be limited to one third of the breadth which the open space in the middle is to have. Let the columns of the upper tier be smaller than those of the lower, as written above. The screen, to be placed between the upper and the lower tiers of columns, ought to be, it is thought, one fourth lower than the columns of the upper tier, so that people walking in the upper story of the basilica may not be seen by the business men. The architraves, friezes, and cornices should be adjusted to the proportions of the columns, as we have stated in the third book.
From Mau
forum at pompeii
A, Forum. B, Basilica. C, Temple of Apollo. D, D', Market Buildings. E, Latrina. F, City Treasury. G, Memorial Arch. H, Temple of Jupiter. I, Arch of Tiberius. K, Macellum (provision market). L, Sanctuary of the City Lares. M, Temple of Vespasian. N, Building of Eumachia. O, Comitium. P, Office of the Duumvirs. Q, The City Council. R, Office of the Aediles.
From Durm
plan of the basilica at pompeii
6.But basilicas of the greatest dignity and beauty may also be constructed in the style of that one which I erected, and the building of which I superintended at Fano.Its proportions and symmetrical relations were established as follows.In the middle, the main roof between the columns is 120 feet long and sixty feet wide.Its aisle round the space beneath the main roof and between the walls and the columns is twenty feet broad.The columns, of unbroken height, measuring with their capitals fifty feet, and being each five feet thick, have behind them pilasters, twenty feet high, two and one half feet broad, and one and one half feet thick, which support the beams on which is carried the upper flooring of the aisles.Above them are other pilasters, eighteen feet high, two feet broad, and a foot thick, which carry the beams supporting the principal raftering and the roof of the aisles, which is brought down lower than the main roof.
7.The spaces remaining between the beams supported by the pilasters and the columns, are left for windows between the intercolumniations.The columns are: on the breadth of the main roof at each end, four, including the corner columns at right and left; on the long side which is next to the forum, eight, including the same corner columns; on the other side, six, including the corner columns.This is because the two middle columns on that side are omitted, in order not to obstruct the view of the pronaos of the temple of Augustus (which is built at the middle of the side wall of the basilica, facing the middle of the forum and the temple of Jupiter) and also the tribunal which is in the former temple, shaped as a hemicycle whose curvature is less than a semicircle.
vitruvius' basilica at fano
vitruvius' basilica at fano
8.The open side of this hemicycle is forty-six feet along the front, and its curvature inwards is fifteen feet, so that those who are standing before the magistrates may not be in the way of the business men in the basilica.Round about, above the columns, are placed the architraves, consisting of three two-foot timbers fastened together.These return from the columns which stand third on the inner side to the antae which project from the pronaos, and which touch the edges of the hemicycle at right and left.
9.Above the architraves and regularly dispersed on supports directly over the capitals, piers are placed, three feet high and four feet broad each way.Above them is placed the projecting cornice round about, made of two two-foot timbers.The tie-beams and struts, being placed above them, and directly over the shafts of the columns and the antae and walls of the pronaos, hold up one gable roof along the entire basilica, and another from the middle of it, over the pronaos of the temple.
10.Thus the gable tops run in two directions, like the letter T, and give a beautiful effect to the outside and inside of the main roof.Further, by the omission of an ornamental entablature and of a line of screens and a second tier of columns, troublesome labour is saved and the total cost greatly diminished.On the other hand, the carrying of the columns themselves in unbroken height directly up to the beams that support the main roof, seems to add an air of sumptuousness and dignity to the work.
CHAPTER II
THE TREASURY, PRISON, AND SENATE HOUSE
1.The treasury, prison, and senate house ought to adjoin the forum, but in such a way that their dimensions may be proportionate to those of the forum.Particularly, the senate house should be constructed with special regard to the importance of the town or city.If the building is square, let its height be fixed at one and one half times its breadth; but if it is to be oblong, add together its length and breadth and, having got the total, let half of it be devoted to the height up to the coffered ceiling.
2.Further, the inside walls should be girdled, at a point halfway up their height, with coronae made of woodwork or of stucco.Without these, the voice of men engaged in discussion there will be carried up to the height above, and so be unintelligible to their listeners.But when the walls are girdled with coronae, the voice from below, being detained before rising and becoming lost in the air, will be intelligible to the ear.
CHAPTER III
THE THEATRE: ITS SITE, FOUNDATIONS AND ACOUSTICS
1.After the forum has been arranged, next, for the purpose of seeing plays or festivals of the immortal gods, a site as healthy as possible should be selected for the theatre, in accordance with what has been written in the first book, on the principles of healthfulness in the sites of cities.For when plays are given, the spectators, with their wives and children, sit through them spell-bound, and their bodies, motionless from enjoyment, have the pores open, into which blowing winds find their way.If these winds come from marshy districts or from other unwholesome quarters, they will introduce noxious exhalations into the system.Hence, such faults will be avoided if the site of the theatre is somewhat carefully selected.
2.We must also beware that it has not a southern exposure.When the sun shines full upon the rounded part of it, the air, being shut up in the curved enclosure and unable to circulate, stays there and becomes heated; and getting glowing hot it burns up, dries out, and impairs the fluids of the human body.For these reasons, sites which are unwholesome in such respects are to be avoided, and healthy sites selected.
3.The foundation walls will be an easier matter if they are on a hillside; but if they have to be laid on a plain or in a marshy place, solidity must be assured and substructures built in accordance with what has been written in the third book, on the foundations of temples.Above the foundation walls, the ascending rows of seats, from the substructures up, should be built of stone and marble materials.
4.The curved cross-aisles should be constructed in proportionate relation, it is thought, to the height of the theatre, but not higher than the footway of the passage is broad.If they are loftier, they will throw back the voice and drive it away from the upper portion, thus preventing the case-endings of words from reaching with distinct meaning the ears of those who are in the uppermost seats above the cross-aisles.In short, it should be so contrived that a line drawn from the lowest to the highest seat will touch the top edges and angles of all the seats.Thus the voice will meet with no obstruction.
5.The different entrances ought to be numerous and spacious, the upper not connected with the lower, but built in a continuous straight line from all parts of the house, without turnings, so that the people may not be crowded together when let out from shows, but may have separate exits from all parts without obstructions.
Particular pains must also be taken that the site be not a "deaf" one, but one through which the voice can range with the greatest clearness.This can be brought about if a site is selected where there is no obstruction due to echo.
6.Voice is a flowing breath of air, perceptible to the hearing by contact.It moves in an endless number of circular rounds, like the innumerably increasing circular waves which appear when a stone is thrown into smooth water, and which keep on spreading indefinitely from the centre unless interrupted by narrow limits, or by some obstruction which prevents such waves from reaching their end in due formation. When they are interrupted by obstructions, the first waves, flowing back, break up the formation of those which follow.
7.In the same manner the voice executes its movements in concentric circles; but while in the case of water the circles move horizontally on a plane surface, the voice not only proceeds horizontally, but also ascends vertically by regular stages.Therefore, as in the case of the waves formed in the water, so it is in the case of the voice: the first wave, when there is no obstruction to interrupt it, does not break up the second or the following waves, but they all reach the ears of the lowest and highest spectators without an echo.
8.Hence the ancient architects, following in the footsteps of nature, perfected the ascending rows of seats in theatres from their investigations of the ascending voice, and, by means of the canonical theory of the mathematicians and that of the musicians, endeavoured to make every voice uttered on the stage come with greater clearness and sweetness to the ears of the audience.For just as musical instruments are brought to perfection of clearness in the sound of their strings by means of bronze plates or horn ἡχεια, so the ancients devised methods of increasing the power of the voice in theatres through the application of harmonics.
CHAPTER IV
HARMONICS
1.Harmonics is an obscure and difficult branch of musical science, especially for those who do not know Greek.If we desire to treat of it, we must use Greek words, because some of them have no Latin equivalents.Hence, I will explain it as clearly as I can from the writings of Aristoxenus, append his scheme, and define the boundaries of the notes, so that with somewhat careful attention anybody may be able to understand it pretty easily.
2. The voice, in its changes of position when shifting pitch, becomes sometimes high, sometimes low, and its movements are of two kinds, in one of which its progress is continuous, in the other by intervals. The continuous voice does not become stationary at the "boundaries" or at any definite place, and so the extremities of its progress are not apparent, but the fact that there are differences of pitch is apparent, as in our ordinary speech in sol, lux, flos, vox; for in these cases we cannot tell at what pitch the voice begins, nor at what pitch it leaves off, but the fact that it becomes low from high and high from low is apparent to the ear.In its progress by intervals the opposite is the case.For here, when the pitch shifts, the voice, by change of position, stations itself on one pitch, then on another, and, as it frequently repeats this alternating process, it appears to the senses to become stationary, as happens in singing when we produce a variation of the mode by changing the pitch of the voice.And so, since it moves by intervals, the points at which it begins and where it leaves off are obviously apparent in the boundaries of the notes, but the intermediate points escape notice and are obscure, owing to the intervals.
3.There are three classes of modes: first, that which the Greeks term the enharmonic; second, the chromatic; third, the diatonic.The enharmonic mode is an artistic conception, and therefore execution in it has a specially severe dignity and distinction.The chromatic, with its delicate subtlety and with the "crowding" of its notes, gives a sweeter kind of pleasure.In the diatonic, the distance between the intervals is easier to understand, because it is natural.These three classes differ in their arrangement of the tetrachord.In the enharmonic, the tetrachord consists of two tones and two "dieses."A diesis is a quarter tone; hence in a semitone there are included two dieses.In the chromatic there are two semitones arranged in succession, and the third interval is a tone and a half. In the diatonic, there are two consecutive tones, and the third interval of a semitone completes the tetrachord. Hence, in the three classes, the tetrachords are equally composed of two tones and a semitone, but when they are regarded separately according to the terms of each class, they differ in the arrangement of their intervals.
4.Now then, these intervals of tones and semitones of the tetrachord are a division introduced by nature in the case of the voice, and she has defined their limits by measures according to the magnitude of the intervals, and determined their characteristics in certain different ways.These natural laws are followed by the skilled workmen who fashion musical instruments, in bringing them to the perfection of their proper concords.
5.In each class there are eighteen notes, termed in Greek φθὁλλοι, of which eight in all the three classes are constant and fixed, while the other ten, not being tuned to the same pitch, are variable.The fixed notes are those which, being placed between the moveable, make up the unity of the tetrachord, and remain unaltered in their boundaries according to the different classes.Their names are proslambanomenos, hypate hypaton, hypate meson, mese, nete synhemmenon, paramese, nete diezeugmenon, nete hyperbolaeon.The moveable notes are those which, being arranged in the tetrachord between the immoveable, change from place to place according to the different classes.They are called parhypate hypaton, lichanos hypaton, parhypate meson, lichanos meson, trite synhemmenon, paranete synhemmenon, trite diezeugmenon, paranete diezeugmenon, trite hyperbolaeon, paranete hyperbolaeon.
6.These notes, from being moveable, take on different qualities; for they may stand at different intervals and increasing distances.Thus, parhypate, which in the enharmonic is at the interval of half a semitone from hypate, has a semitone interval when transferred to the chromatic.What is called lichanos in the enharmonic is at the interval of a semitone from hypate; but when shifted to the chromatic, it goes two semitones away; and in the diatonic it is at an interval of three semitones from hypate.Hence the ten notes produce three different kinds of modes on account of their changes of position in the classes.
7. There are five tetrachords: first, the lowest, termed in Greek ὑπατον; second, the middle, called μἑσον; third, the conjunct, termed συνημμἑνον; fourth, the disjunct, named διεξενγμἑνον; the fifth, which is the highest, is termed in Greek ὑπερβὁλαιον. The concords, termed in Greek συμφωνἱαι, of which human modulation will naturally admit, are six in number: the fourth, the fifth, the octave, the octave and fourth, the octave and fifth, and the double octave.
8.Their names are therefore due to numerical value; for when the voice becomes stationary on some one note, and then, shifting its pitch, changes its position and passes to the limit of the fourth note from that one, we use the term "fourth"; when it passes to the fifth, the term is "fifth."[7]
9.For there can be no consonances either in the case of the notes of stringed instruments or of the singing voice, between two intervals or between three or six or seven; but, as written above, it is only the harmonies of the fourth, the fifth, and so on up to the double octave, that have boundaries naturally corresponding to those of the voice: and these concords are produced by the union of the notes.
CHAPTER V
SOUNDING VESSELS IN THE THEATRE
1.In accordance with the foregoing investigations on mathematical principles, let bronze vessels be made, proportionate to the size of the theatre, and let them be so fashioned that, when touched, they may produce with one another the notes of the fourth, the fifth, and so on up to the double octave.Then, having constructed niches in between the seats of the theatre, let the vessels be arranged in them, in accordance with musical laws, in such a way that they nowhere touch the wall, but have a clear space all round them and room over their tops.They should be set upside down, and be supported on the side facing the stage by wedges not less than half a foot high.Opposite each niche, apertures should be left in the surface of the seat next below, two feet long and half a foot deep.
2.The arrangement of these vessels, with reference to the situations in which they should be placed, may be described as follows.If the theatre be of no great size, mark out a horizontal range halfway up, and in it construct thirteen arched niches with twelve equal spaces between them, so that of the above mentioned "echea" those which give the note nete hyperbolaeon may be placed first on each side, in the niches which are at the extreme ends; next to the ends and a fourth below in pitch, the note nete diezeugmenon; third, paramese, a fourth below; fourth, nete synhemmenon; fifth, mese, a fourth below; sixth, hypate meson, a fourth below; and in the middle and another fourth below, one vessel giving the note hypate hypaton.
3.On this principle of arrangement, the voice, uttered from the stage as from a centre, and spreading and striking against the cavities of the different vessels, as it comes in contact with them, will be increased in clearness of sound, and will wake an harmonious note in unison with itself.
But if the theatre be rather large, let its height be divided into four parts, so that three horizontal ranges of niches may be marked out and constructed: one for the enharmonic, another for the chromatic, and the third for the diatonic system. Beginning with the bottom range, let the arrangement be as described above in the case of a smaller theatre, but on the enharmonic system.
4.In the middle range, place first at the extreme ends the vessels which give the note of the chromatic hyperbolaeon; next to them, those which give the chromatic diezeugmenon, a fourth below; third, the chromatic synhemmenon; fourth, the chromatic meson, a fourth below; fifth, the chromatic hypaton, a fourth below; sixth, the paramese, for this is both the concord of the fifth to the chromatic hyperbolaeon, and the concord[8] of the chromatic synhemmenon.
5.No vessel is to be placed in the middle, for the reason that there is no other note in the chromatic system that forms a natural concord of sound.
In the highest division and range of niches, place at the extreme ends vessels fashioned so as to give the note of the diatonic hyperbolaeon; next, the diatonic diezeugmenon, a fourth below; third, the diatonic synhemmenon; fourth, the diatonic meson, a fourth below; fifth, the diatonic hypaton, a fourth below; sixth, the proslambanomenos, a fourth below; in the middle, the note mese, for this is both the octave to proslambanomenos, and the concord of the fifth to the diatonic hypaton.
6.Whoever wishes to carry out these principles with ease, has only to consult the scheme at the end of this book, drawn up in accordance with the laws of music.It was left by Aristoxenus, who with great ability and labour classified and arranged in it the different modes.In accordance with it, and by giving heed to these theories, one can easily bring a theatre to perfection, from the point of view of the nature of the voice, so as to give pleasure to the audience.
7.Somebody will perhaps say that many theatres are built every year in Rome, and that in them no attention at all is paid to these principles; but he will be in error, from the fact that all our public theatres made of wood contain a great deal of boarding, which must be resonant.This may be observed from the behaviour of those who sing to the lyre, who, when they wish to sing in a higher key, turn towards the folding doors on the stage, and thus by their aid are reinforced with a sound in harmony with the voice.But when theatres are built of solid materials like masonry, stone, or marble, which cannot be resonant, then the principles of the "echea" must be applied.
8.If, however, it is asked in what theatre these vessels have been employed, we cannot point to any in Rome itself, but only to those in the districts of Italy and in a good many Greek states.We have also the evidence of Lucius Mummius, who, after destroying the theatre in Corinth, brought its bronze vessels to Rome, and made a dedicatory offering at the temple of Luna with the money obtained from the sale of them.Besides, many skilful architects, in constructing theatres in small towns, have, for lack of means, taken large jars made of clay, but similarly resonant, and have produced very advantageous results by arranging them on the principles described.
CHAPTER VI
PLAN OF THE THEATRE
1.The plan of the theatre itself is to be constructed as follows.Having fixed upon the principal centre, draw a line of circumference equivalent to what is to be the perimeter at the bottom, and in it inscribe four equilateral triangles, at equal distances apart and touching the boundary line of the circle, as the astrologers do in a figure of the twelve signs of the zodiac, when they are making computations from the musical harmony of the stars.Taking that one of these triangles whose side is nearest to the scaena, let the front of the scaena be determined by the line where that side cuts off a segment of the circle (A-B), and draw, through the centre, a parallel line (C-D) set off from that position, to separate the platform of the stage from the space of the orchestra.
2.The platform has to be made deeper than that of the Greeks, because all our artists perform on the stage, while the orchestra contains the places reserved for the seats of senators.The height of this platform must be not more than five feet, in order that those who sit in the orchestra may be able to see the performances of all the actors.The sections (cunei) for spectators in the theatre should be so divided, that the angles of the triangles which run about the circumference of the circle may give the direction for the flights of steps between the sections, as far as up to the first curved cross-aisle.Above this, the upper sections are to be laid out, midway between (the lower sections), with alternating passage-ways.
3.The angles at the bottom, which give the directions for the flights of steps, will be seven in number (C, E, F, G, H, I, D); the other five angles will determine the arrangement of the scene: thus, the angle in the middle ought to have the "royal door" (K) opposite to it; the angles to the right and left (L, M) will designate the position of the doors for guest chambers; and the two outermost angles (A, B) will point to the passages in the wings. The steps for the spectators' places, where the seats are arranged, should be not less than a foot and a palm in height, nor more than a foot and six fingers; their depth should be fixed at not more than two and a half feet, nor less than two feet.
plan
section
the roman theatre according to vitruvius
4.The roof of the colonnade to be built at the top of the rows of seats, should lie level with the top of the "scaena," for the reason that the voice will then rise with equal power until it reaches the highest rows of seats and the roof.If the roof is not so high, in proportion as it is lower, it will check the voice at the point which the sound first reaches.
5.Take one sixth of the diameter of the orchestra between the lowest steps, and let the lower seats at the ends on both sides be cut away to a height of that dimension so as to leave entrances (O, P).At the point where this cutting away occurs, fix the soffits of the passages.Thus their vaulting will be sufficiently high.
6.The length of the "scaena" ought to be double the diameter of the orchestra.The height of the podium, starting from the level of the stage, is, including the corona and cymatium, one twelfth of the diameter of the orchestra.Above the podium, the columns, including their capitals and bases, should have a height of one quarter of the same diameter, and the architraves and ornaments of the columns should be one fifth of their height.The parapet above, including its cyma and corona, is one half the height of the parapet below.Let the columns above this parapet be one fourth less in height than the columns below, and the architraves and ornaments of these columns one fifth of their height.If the "scaena" is to have three stories, let the uppermost parapet be half the height of the intermediate one, the columns at the top one fourth less high than the intermediate, and the architraves and coronae of these columns one fifth of their height as before.
From Durm
the theatre at aspendus
7.It is not possible, however, that in all theatres these rules of symmetry should answer all conditions and purposes, but the architect ought to consider to what extent he must follow the principle of symmetry, and to what extent it may be modified to suit the nature of the site or the size of the work. There are, of course, some things which, for utility's sake, must be made of the same size in a small theatre, and a large one: such as the steps, curved cross-aisles, their parapets, the passages, stairways, stages, tribunals, and any other things which occur that make it necessary to give up symmetry so as not to interfere with utility. Again, if in the course of the work any of the material fall short, such as marble, timber, or anything else that is provided, it will not be amiss to make a slight reduction or addition, provided that it is done without going too far, but with intelligence. This will be possible, if the architect is a man of practical experience and, besides, not destitute of cleverness and skill.
8.The "scaena" itself displays the following scheme.In the centre are double doors decorated like those of a royal palace.At the right and left are the doors of the guest chambers.Beyond are spaces provided for decoration—places that the Greeks call περιἁκτοι, because in these places are triangular pieces of machinery (Δ, Δ) which revolve, each having three decorated faces.When the play is to be changed, or when gods enter to the accompaniment of sudden claps of thunder, these may be revolved and present a face differently decorated.Beyond these places are the projecting wings which afford entrances to the stage, one from the forum, the other from abroad.
9.There are three kinds of scenes, one called the tragic, second, the comic, third, the satyric.Their decorations are different and unlike each other in scheme.Tragic scenes are delineated with columns, pediments, statues, and other objects suited to kings; comic scenes exhibit private dwellings, with balconies and views representing rows of windows, after the manner of ordinary dwellings; satyric scenes are decorated with trees, caverns, mountains, and other rustic objects delineated in landscape style.
CHAPTER VII
GREEK THEATRES
1.In the theatres of the Greeks, these same rules of construction are not to be followed in all respects.First, in the circle at the bottom where the Roman has four triangles, the Greek has three squares with their angles touching the line of circumference.The square whose side is nearest to the "scaena," and cuts off a segment of the circle, determines by this line the limits of the "proscaenium" (A, B).Parallel to this line and tangent to the outer circumference of the segment, a line is drawn which fixes the front of the "scaena" (C-D).Through the centre of the orchestra and parallel to the direction of the "proscaenium," a line is laid off, and centres are marked where it cuts the circumference to the right and left (E, F) at the ends of the half-circle.Then, with the compasses fixed at the right, an arc is described from the horizontal distance at the left to the left hand side of the "proscaenium" (F, G); again with the centre at the left end, an arc is described from the horizontal distance at the right to the right hand side of the "proscaenium" (E, H).
2.As a result of this plan with three centres, the Greeks have a roomier orchestra, and a "scaena" set further back, as well as a stage of less depth.They call this the λογεἱον, for the reason that there the tragic and comic actors perform on the stage, while other artists give their performances in the entire orchestra; hence, from this fact they are given in Greek the distinct names "Scenic" and "Thymelic."The height of this "logeum" ought to be not less than ten feet nor more than twelve.Let the ascending flights of steps between the wedges of seats, as far up as the first curved cross-aisle, be laid out on lines directly opposite to the angles of the squares.Above the cross-aisle, let other flights be laid out in the middle between the first; and at the top, as often as there is a new cross-aisle, the number of flights of steps is always increased to the same extent.
CHAPTER VIII
ACOUSTICS OF THE SITE OF A THEATRE
1.All this having been settled with the greatest pains and skill, we must see to it, with still greater care, that a site has been selected where the voice has a gentle fall, and is not driven back with a recoil so as to convey an indistinct meaning to the ear.There are some places which from their very nature interfere with the course of the voice, as for instance the dissonant, which are termed in Greek κατηχουντεϛ; the circumsonant, which with them are named περιηχουντες; again the resonant, which are termed ἁντηχουντες; and the consonant, which they call συνηχουντες.The dissonant are those places in which the first sound uttered that is carried up high, strikes against solid bodies above, and, being driven back, checks as it sinks to the bottom the rise of the succeeding sound.
2.The circumsonant are those in which the voice spreads all round, and then is forced into the middle, where it dissolves, the case-endings are not heard, and it dies away there in sounds of indistinct meaning.The resonant are those in which it comes into contact with some solid substance and recoils, thus producing an echo, and making the terminations of cases sound double.The consonant are those in which it is supported from below, increases as it goes up, and reaches the ears in words which are distinct and clear in tone.Hence, if there has been careful attention in the selection of the site, the effect of the voice will, through this precaution, be perfectly suited to the purposes of a theatre.
The drawings of the plans may be distinguished from each other by this difference, that theatres designed from squares are meant to be used by Greeks, while Roman theatres are designed from equilateral triangles.Whoever is willing to follow these directions will be able to construct perfectly correct theatres.
CHAPTER IX
COLONNADES AND WALKS
1.Colonnades must be constructed behind the scaena, so that when sudden showers interrupt plays, the people may have somewhere to retire from the theatre, and so that there may be room for the preparation of all the outfit of the stage.Such places, for instance, are the colonnades of Pompey, and also, in Athens, the colonnades of Eumenes and the fane of Father Bacchus; also, as you leave the theatre, the music hall which Themistocles surrounded with stone columns, and roofed with the yards and masts of ships captured from the Persians.It was burned during the war with Mithridates, and afterwards restored by King Ariobarzanes.At Smyrna there is the Stratoniceum, at Tralles, a colonnade on each side of the scaena above the race course, and in other cities which have had careful architects there are colonnades and walks about the theatres.
2.The approved way of building them requires that they should be double, and have Doric columns on the outside, with the architraves and their ornaments finished according to the law of modular proportion.The approved depth for them requires that the depth, from the lower part of the outermost columns to the columns in the middle, and from the middle columns to the wall enclosing the walk under the colonnade, should be equal to the height of the outer columns.Let the middle columns be one fifth higher than the outer columns, and designed in the Ionic or Corinthian style.
3.The columns will not be subject to the same rules of symmetry and proportion which I prescribed in the case of sanctuaries; for the dignity which ought to be their quality in temples of the gods is one thing, but their elegance in colonnades and other public works is quite another.Hence, if the columns are to be of the Doric order, let their height, including the capital, be measured off into fifteen parts.Of these parts, let one be fixed upon to form the module, and in accordance with this module the whole work is to be developed. Let the thickness of the columns at the bottom be two modules; an intercolumniation, five and a half modules; the height of a column, excluding the capital, fourteen modules; the capital, one module in height and two and one sixth modules in breadth. Let the modular proportions of the rest of the work be carried out as written in the fourth book in the case of temples.
4.But if the columns are to be Ionic, let the shaft, excluding base and capital, be divided into eight and one half parts, and let one of these be assigned to the thickness of a column.Let the base, including the plinth, be fixed at half the thickness, and let the proportions of the capital be as shown in the third book.If the column is to be Corinthian, let its shaft and base be proportioned as in the Ionic, but its capital, as has been written in the fourth book.In the stylobates, let the increase made there by means of the "scamilli impares" be taken from the description written above in the third book.Let the architraves, coronae, and all the rest be developed, in proportion to the columns, from what has been written in the foregoing books.
5.The space in the middle, between the colonnades and open to the sky, ought to be embellished with green things; for walking in the open air is very healthy, particularly for the eyes, since the refined and rarefied air that comes from green things, finding its way in because of the physical exercise, gives a clean-cut image, and, by clearing away the gross humours from the eyes, leaves the sight keen and the image distinct.Besides, as the body gets warm with exercise in walking, this air, by sucking out the humours from the frame, diminishes their superabundance, and disperses and thus reduces that superfluity which is more than the body can bear.
6.That this is so may be seen from the fact that misty vapours never arise from springs of water which are under cover, nor even from watery marshes which are underground; but in uncovered places which are open to the sky, when the rising sun begins to act upon the world with its heat, it brings out the vapour from damp and watery spots, and rolls it in masses upwards. Therefore, if it appears that in places open to the sky the more noxious humours are sucked out of the body by the air, as they obviously are from the earth in the form of mists, I think there is no doubt that cities should be provided with the roomiest and most ornamented walks, laid out under the free and open sky.
7.That they may be always dry and not muddy, the following is to be done.Let them be dug down and cleared out to the lowest possible depth.At the right and left construct covered drains, and in their walls, which are directed towards the walks, lay earthen pipes with their lower ends inclined into the drains.Having finished these, fill up the place with charcoal, and then strew sand over the walks and level them off.Hence, on account of the porous nature of the charcoal and the insertion of the pipes into the drains, quantities of water will be conducted away, and the walks will thus be rendered perfectly dry and without moisture.
8.Furthermore, our ancestors in establishing these works provided cities with storehouses for an indispensable material.The fact is that in sieges everything else is easier to procure than is wood.Salt can easily be brought in beforehand; corn can be got together quickly by the State or by individuals, and if it gives out, the defence may be maintained on cabbage, meat, or beans; water can be had by digging wells, or when there are sudden falls of rain, by collecting it from the tiles.But a stock of wood, which is absolutely necessary for cooking food, is a difficult and troublesome thing to provide; for it is slow to gather and a good deal is consumed.
9.On such occasions, therefore, these walks are thrown open, and a definite allowance granted to each inhabitant according to tribes.Thus these uncovered walks insure two excellent things: first, health in time of peace; secondly, safety in time of war.Hence, walks that are developed on these principles, and built not only behind the "scaena" of theatres, but also at the temples of all the gods, will be capable of being of great use to cities.
the tepidarium of the stabia baths at pompeii
apodyterium for women in the stabian baths at pompeii
As it appears that we have given an adequate account of them, next will follow descriptions of the arrangements of baths.
CHAPTER X
BATHS
1.In the first place, the warmest possible situation must be selected; that is, one which faces away from the north and northeast.The rooms for the hot and tepid baths should be lighted from the southwest, or, if the nature of the situation prevents this, at all events from the south, because the set time for bathing is principally from midday to evening.We must also see to it that the hot bath rooms in the women's and men's departments adjoin each other, and are situated in the same quarter; for thus it will be possible that the same furnace should serve both of them and their fittings.Three bronze cauldrons are to be set over the furnace, one for hot, another for tepid, and the third for cold water, placed in such positions that the amount of water which flows out of the hot water cauldron may be replaced from that for tepid water, and in the same way the cauldron for tepid water may be supplied from that for cold.The arrangement must allow the semi-cylinders for the bath basins to be heated from the same furnace.
2.The hanging floors of the hot bath rooms are to be constructed as follows.First the surface of the ground should be laid with tiles a foot and a half square, sloping towards the furnace in such a way that, if a ball is thrown in, it cannot stop inside but must return of itself to the furnace room; thus the heat of the fire will more readily spread under the hanging flooring.Upon them, pillars made of eight-inch bricks are built, and set at such a distance apart that two-foot tiles may be used to cover them.These pillars should be two feet in height, laid with clay mixed with hair, and covered on top with the two-foot tiles which support the floor.
the stabian baths at pompeii
S, S. Shops. B. Private Baths. A-T. Men's Bath. A'-T'. Women's Baths. E, E'. Entrances. A, A'. Apodyteria. F. Frigidarium. T, T'. Tepidarium. C, C. Caldarium. K, K, K. Kettles in furnace room. P. Piscina.
3.The vaulted ceilings will be more serviceable if built of masonry; but if they are of framework, they should have tile work on the under side, to be constructed as follows.Let iron bars or arcs be made, and hang them to the framework by means of iron hooks set as close together as possible; and let these bars or arcs be placed at such distances apart that each pair of them may support and carry an unflanged tile.Thus the entire vaulting will be completely supported on iron. These vaults should have the joints on their upper side daubed with clay mixed with hair, and their under side, facing the floor, should first be plastered with pounded tile mixed with lime, and then covered with polished stucco in relief or smooth. Vaults in hot bath rooms will be more serviceable if they are doubled; for then the moisture from the heat will not be able to spoil the timber in the framework, but will merely circulate between the two vaults.
4.The size of the baths must depend upon the number of the population.The rooms should be thus proportioned: let their breadth be one third of their length, excluding the niches for the washbowl and the bath basin.The washbowl ought without fail to be placed under a window, so that the shadows of those who stand round it may not obstruct the light.Niches for washbowls must be made so roomy that when the first comers have taken their places, the others who are waiting round may have proper standing room.The bath basin should be not less than six feet broad from the wall to the edge, the lower step and the "cushion" taking up two feet of this space.
5.The Laconicum and other sweating baths must adjoin the tepid room, and their height to the bottom of the curved dome should be equal to their width.Let an aperture be left in the middle of the dome with a bronze disc hanging from it by chains.By raising and lowering it, the temperature of the sweating bath can be regulated.The chamber itself ought, as it seems, to be circular, so that the force of the fire and heat may spread evenly from the centre all round the circumference.
CHAPTER XI
THE PALAESTRA
1.Next, although the building of palaestrae is not usual in Italy, I think it best to set forth the traditional way, and to show how they are constructed among the Greeks.The square or oblong peristyle in a palaestra should be so formed that the circuit of it makes a walk of two stadia, a distance which the Greeks call the δἱανλος. Let three of its colonnades be single, but let the fourth, which is on the south side, be double, so that when there is bad weather accompanied by wind, the drops of rain may not be able to reach the interior.
2.In the three colonnades construct roomy recesses (A) with seats in them, where philosophers, rhetoricians, and others who delight in learning may sit and converse.In the double colonnade let the rooms be arranged thus: the young men's hall (B) in the middle; this is a very spacious recess (exedra) with seats in it, and it should be one third longer than it is broad.At the right, the bag room (C); then next, the dust room (D); beyond the dust room, at the corner of the colonnade, the cold washing room (E), which the Greeks call λουτρὁν.At the left of the young men's hall is the anointing room (F); then, next to the anointing room, the cold bath room (G), and beyond that a passage into the furnace room (H) at the corner of the colonnade.Next, but inside and on a line with the cold bath room, put the vaulted sweating bath (I), its length twice its breadth, and having at the ends on one side a Laconicum (K), proportioned in the same manner as above described, and opposite the Laconicum the warm washing room (L).Inside a palaestra, the peristyle ought to be laid out as described above.
3.But on the outside, let three colonnades be arranged, one as you leave the peristyle and two at the right and left, with running-tracks in them.That one of them which faces the north should be a double colonnade of very ample breadth, while the other should be single, and so constructed that on the sides next the walls and the side along the columns it may have edges, serving as paths, of not less than ten feet, with the space between them sunken, so that steps are necessary in going down from the edges a foot and a half to the plane, which plane should be not less than twelve feet wide.Thus people walking round on the edges will not be interfered with by the anointed who are exercising.
4.This kind of colonnade is called among the Greeks ξυστὁς, because athletes during the winter season exercise in covered running tracks.Next to this "xystus" and to the double colonnade should be laid out the uncovered walks which the Greeks term παραδρομἱδες and our people "xysta," into which, in fair weather during the winter, the athletes come out from the "xystus" for exercise.The "xysta" ought to be so constructed that there may be plantations between the two colonnades, or groves of plane trees, with walks laid out in them among the trees and resting places there, made of "opus signinum." Behind the "xystus" a stadium, so designed that great numbers of people may have plenty of room to look on at the contests between the athletes.
I have now described all that seemed necessary for the proper arrangement of things within the city walls.
CHAPTER XII
HARBOURS, BREAKWATERS, AND SHIPYARDS
1.The subject of the usefulness of harbours is one which I must not omit, but must explain by what means ships are sheltered in them from storms. If their situation has natural advantages, with projecting capes or promontories which curve or return inwards by their natural conformation, such harbours are obviously of the greatest service.Round them, of course, colonnades or shipyards must be built, or passages from the colonnades to the business quarters, and towers must be set up on both sides, from which chains can be drawn across by machinery.
2.But if we have a situation without natural advantages, and unfit to shelter ships from storms, it is obvious that we must proceed as follows.If there is no river in the neighbourhood, but if there can be a roadstead on one side, then, let the advances be made from the other side by means of walls or embankments, and let the enclosing harbour be thus formed.Walls which are to be under water should be constructed as follows.Take the powder which comes from the country extending from Cumae to the promontory of Minerva, and mix it in the mortar trough in the proportion of two to one.
3.Then, in the place previously determined, a cofferdam, with its sides formed of oaken stakes with ties between them, is to be driven down into the water and firmly propped there; then, the lower surface inside, under the water, must be levelled off and dredged, working from beams laid across; and finally, concrete from the mortar trough—the stuff having been mixed as prescribed above—must be heaped up until the empty space which was within the cofferdam is filled up by the wall. This, however, is possessed as a gift of nature by such places as have been described above.
But if by reason of currents or the assaults of the open sea the props cannot hold the cofferdam together, then, let a platform of the greatest possible strength be constructed, beginning on the ground itself or on a substructure; and let the platform be constructed with a level surface for less than half its extent, while the rest, which is close to the beach, slopes down and out.
4.Then, on the water's edge and at the sides of the platform, let marginal walls be constructed, about one and one half feet thick and brought up to a level with the surface above mentioned; next, let the sloping part be filled in with sand and levelled off with the marginal wall and the surface of the platform.Then, upon this level surface construct a block as large as is required, and when it is finished, leave it for not less than two months to dry.Then, cut away the marginal wall which supports the sand.Thus, the sand will be undermined by the waves, and this will cause the block to fall into the sea.By this method, repeated as often as necessary, an advance into the water can be made.
5.But in places where this powder is not found, the following method must be employed.A cofferdam with double sides, composed of charred stakes fastened together with ties, should be constructed in the appointed place, and clay in wicker baskets made of swamp rushes should be packed in among the props.After this has been well packed down and filled in as closely as possible, set up your water-screws, wheels, and drums, and let the space now bounded by the enclosure be emptied and dried.Then, dig out the bottom within the enclosure.If it proves to be of earth, it must be cleared out and dried till you come to solid bottom and for a space wider than the wall which is to be built upon it, and then filled in with masonry consisting of rubble, lime, and sand.
6.But if the place proves to be soft, the bottom must be staked with piles made of charred alder or olive wood, and then filled in with charcoal as has been prescribed in the case of the foundations of theatres and the city wall.Finally, build the wall of dimension stone, with the bond stones as long as possible, so that particularly the stones in the middle may be held together by the joints.Then, fill the inside of the wall with broken stone or masonry.It will thus be possible for even a tower to be built upon it.
7.When all this is finished, the general rule for shipyards will be to build them facing the north.Southern exposures from their heat produce rot, the wood worm, shipworms, and all sorts of other destructive creatures, and strengthen and keep them alive.And these buildings must by no means be constructed of wood, for fear of fire.As for their size, no definite limit need be set, but they must be built to suit the largest type of ship, so that if even larger ships are hauled up, they may find plenty of room there.
I have described in this book the construction and completion of all that I could remember as necessary for general use in the public places of cities.In the following book I shall consider private houses, their conveniences, and symmetrical proportions.
BOOK VI
INTRODUCTION
1.It is related of the Socratic philosopher Aristippus that, being shipwrecked and cast ashore on the coast of the Rhodians, he observed geometrical figures drawn thereon, and cried out to his companions: "Let us be of good cheer, for I see the traces of man."With that he made for the city of Rhodes, and went straight to the gymnasium.There he fell to discussing philosophical subjects, and presents were bestowed upon him, so that he could not only fit himself out, but could also provide those who accompanied him with clothing and all other necessaries of life.When his companions wished to return to their country, and asked him what message he wished them to carry home, he bade them say this: that children ought to be provided with property and resources of a kind that could swim with them even out of a shipwreck.
2.These are indeed the true supports of life, and neither Fortune's adverse gale, nor political revolution, nor ravages of war can do them any harm.Developing the same idea, Theophrastus, urging men to acquire learning rather than to put their trust in money, states the case thus: "The man of learning is the only person in the world who is neither a stranger when in a foreign land, nor friendless when he has lost his intimates and relatives; on the contrary, he is a citizen of every country, and can fearlessly look down upon the troublesome accidents of fortune.But he who thinks himself entrenched in defences not of learning but of luck, moves in slippery paths, struggling through life unsteadily and insecurely."
3.And Epicurus, in much the same way, says that the wise owe little to fortune; all that is greatest and essential is under the direction of the thinking power of the mind and the understanding.Many other philosophers have said the same thing.Likewise the poets who wrote the ancient comedies in Greek have expressed the same sentiments in their verses on the stage: for example, Eucrates, Chionides, Aristophanes, and with them Alexis in particular, who says that the Athenians ought to be praised for the reason that, while the laws of all Greeks require the maintenance of parents by their children, the laws of the Athenians require this only in the case of those who have educated their children in the arts. All the gifts which fortune bestows she can easily take away; but education, when combined with intelligence, never fails, but abides steadily on to the very end of life.
4.Hence, I am very much obliged and infinitely grateful to my parents for their approval of this Athenian law, and for having taken care that I should be taught an art, and that of a sort which cannot be brought to perfection without learning and a liberal education in all branches of instruction.Thanks, therefore, to the attention of my parents and the instruction given by my teachers, I obtained a wide range of knowledge, and by the pleasure which I take in literary and artistic subjects, and in the writing of treatises, I have acquired intellectual possessions whose chief fruits are these thoughts: that superfluity is useless, and that not to feel the want of anything is true riches.There may be some people, however, who deem all this of no consequence, and think that the wise are those who have plenty of money.Hence it is that very many, in pursuit of that end, take upon themselves impudent assurance, and attain notoriety and wealth at the same time.
5.But for my part, Caesar, I have never been eager to make money by my art, but have gone on the principle that slender means and a good reputation are preferable to wealth and disrepute.For this reason, only a little celebrity has followed; but still, my hope is that, with the publication of these books, I shall become known even to posterity.And it is not to be wondered at that I am so generally unknown.Other architects go about and ask for opportunities to practise their profession; but I have been taught by my instructors that it is the proper thing to undertake a charge only after being asked, and not to ask for it; since a gentleman will blush with shame at petitioning for a thing that arouses suspicion. It is in fact those who can grant favours that are courted, not those who receive them. What are we to think must be the suspicions of a man who is asked to allow his private means to be expended in order to please a petitioner? Must he not believe that the thing is to be done for the profit and advantage of that individual?
6.Hence it was that the ancients used to entrust their work in the first place to architects of good family, and next inquired whether they had been properly educated, believing that one ought to trust in the honour of a gentleman rather than in the assurance of impudence.And the architects themselves would teach none but their own sons or kinsmen, and trained them to be good men, who could be trusted without hesitation in matters of such importance.
But when I see that this grand art is boldly professed by the uneducated and the unskilful, and by men who, far from being acquainted with architecture, have no knowledge even of the carpenter's trade, I can find nothing but praise for those householders who, in the confidence of learning, are emboldened to build for themselves.Their judgment is that, if they must trust to inexperienced persons, it is more becoming to them to use up a good round sum at their own pleasure than at that of a stranger.
7.Nobody, therefore, attempts to practise any other art in his own home—as, for instance, the shoemaker's, or the fuller's, or any other of the easier kinds—but only architecture, and this is because the professionals do not possess the genuine art but term themselves architects falsely.For these reasons I have thought proper to compose most carefully a complete treatise on architecture and its principles, believing that it will be no unacceptable gift to all the world.In the fifth book I have said what I had to say about the convenient arrangement of public works; in this I shall set forth the theoretical principles and the symmetrical proportions of private houses.
CHAPTER I
ON CLIMATE AS DETERMINING THE STYLE OF THE HOUSE
1.If our designs for private houses are to be correct, we must at the outset take note of the countries and climates in which they are built.One style of house seems appropriate to build in Egypt, another in Spain, a different kind in Pontus, one still different in Rome, and so on with lands and countries of other characteristics.This is because one part of the earth is directly under the sun's course, another is far away from it, while another lies midway between these two.Hence, as the position of the heaven with regard to a given tract on the earth leads naturally to different characteristics, owing to the inclination of the circle of the zodiac and the course of the sun, it is obvious that designs for houses ought similarly to conform to the nature of the country and to diversities of climate.
2.In the north, houses should be entirely roofed over and sheltered as much as possible, not in the open, though having a warm exposure.But on the other hand, where the force of the sun is great in the southern countries that suffer from heat, houses must be built more in the open and with a northern or north-eastern exposure.Thus we may amend by art what nature, if left to herself, would mar.In other situations, also, we must make modifications to correspond to the position of the heaven and its effects on climate.
3.These effects are noticeable and discernible not only in things in nature, but they also are observable in the limbs and bodies of entire races.In places on which the sun throws out its heat in moderation, it keeps human bodies in their proper condition, and where its path is very close at hand, it parches them up, and burns out and takes away the proportion of moisture which they ought to possess.But, on the other hand, in the cold regions that are far away from the south, the moisture is not drawn out by hot weather, but the atmosphere is full of dampness which diffuses moisture into the system, and makes the frame larger and the pitch of the voice deeper. This is also the reason why the races that are bred in the north are of vast height, and have fair complexions, straight red hair, grey eyes, and a great deal of blood, owing to the abundance of moisture and the coolness of the atmosphere.
4.On the contrary, those that are nearest to the southern half of the axis, and that lie directly under the sun's course, are of lower stature, with a swarthy complexion, hair curling, black eyes, strong legs, and but little blood on account of the force of the sun.Hence, too, this poverty of blood makes them over-timid to stand up against the sword, but great heat and fevers they can endure without timidity, because their frames are bred up in the raging heat.Hence, men that are born in the north are rendered over-timid and weak by fever, but their wealth of blood enables them to stand up against the sword without timidity.
5. The pitch of the voice is likewise different and varying in quality with different nations, for the following reasons. The terminating points east and west on the level of the earth, where the upper and lower parts of the heaven are divided, seem to lie in a naturally balanced circle which mathematicians call the Horizon. Keeping this idea definitely in mind, if we imagine a line drawn from the northern side of the circumference (N) to the side which lies above the southern half of the axis (S), and from here another line obliquely up to the pivot at the summit, beyond the stars composing the Great Bear (the pole star P), we shall doubtless see that we have in the heaven a triangular figure like that of the musical instrument which the Greeks call the "sambuca."
6.And so, under the space which is nearest to the pivot at the bottom, off the southern portions of the line of the axis, are found nations that on account of the slight altitude of the heaven above them, have shrill and very high-pitched voices, like the string nearest to the angle in the musical instrument.Next in order come other nations as far as the middle of Greece, with lower elevations of the voice; and from this middle point they go on in regular order up to the extreme north, where, under high altitudes, the vocal utterance of the inhabitants is, under natural laws, produced in heavier tones.Thus it is obvious that the system of the universe as a whole is, on account of the inclination of the heaven, composed in a most perfect harmony through the temporary power of the sun.
7.The nations, therefore, that lie midway between the pivots at the southern and the northern extremities of the axis, converse in a voice of middle pitch, like the notes in the middle of a musical scale; but, as we proceed towards the north, the distances to the heaven become greater, and so the nations there, whose vocal utterance is reduced by the moisture to the "hypatès" and to "proslambanomenon," are naturally obliged to speak in heavier tones.In the same way, as we proceed from the middle point to the south, the voices of the nations there correspond in extreme height of pitch and in shrillness to the "paranetès" and "netès."
8.That it is a fact that things are made heavier from being in places naturally moist, and higher pitched from places that are hot, may be proved from the following experiment.Take two cups which have been baked in the same oven for an equal time, which are of equal weight, and which give the same note when struck.Dip one of them into water and, after taking it out of water, strike them both.This done, there will be a great difference in their notes, and the cups can no longer be equal in weight.Thus it is with men: though born in the same general form and under the same all-embracing heaven, yet in some of them, on account of the heat in their country, the voice strikes the air on a high note, while in others, on account of abundance of moisture, the quality of tones produced is very heavy.
9.Further, it is owing to the rarity of the atmosphere that southern nations, with their keen intelligence due to the heat, are very free and swift in the devising of schemes, while northern nations, being enveloped in a dense atmosphere, and chilled by moisture from the obstructing air, have but a sluggish intelligence.That this is so, we may see from the case of snakes.Their movements are most active in hot weather, when they have got rid of the chill due to moisture, whereas at the winter solstice, and in winter weather, they are chilled by the change of temperature, and rendered torpid and motionless.It is therefore no wonder that man's intelligence is made keener by warm air and duller by cold.
10.But although southern nations have the keenest wits, and are infinitely clever in forming schemes, yet the moment it comes to displaying valour, they succumb because all manliness of spirit is sucked out of them by the sun.On the other hand, men born in cold countries are indeed readier to meet the shock of arms with great courage and without timidity, but their wits are so slow that they will rush to the charge inconsiderately and inexpertly, thus defeating their own devices.Such being nature's arrangement of the universe, and all these nations being allotted temperaments which are lacking in due moderation, the truly perfect territory, situated under the middle of the heaven, and having on each side the entire extent of the world and its countries, is that which is occupied by the Roman people.
11.In fact, the races of Italy are the most perfectly constituted in both respects—in bodily form and in mental activity to correspond to their valour.Exactly as the planet Jupiter is itself temperate, its course lying midway between Mars, which is very hot, and Saturn, which is very cold, so Italy, lying between the north and the south, is a combination of what is found on each side, and her preëminence is well regulated and indisputable.And so by her wisdom she breaks the courageous onsets of the barbarians, and by her strength of hand thwarts the devices of the southerners. Hence, it was the divine intelligence that set the city of the Roman people in a peerless and temperate country, in order that it might acquire the right to command the whole world.
12.Now if it is a fact that countries differ from one another, and are of various classes according to climate, so that the very nations born therein naturally differ in mental and physical conformation and qualities, we cannot hesitate to make our houses suitable in plan to the peculiarities of nations and races, since we have the expert guidance of nature herself ready to our hand.
I have now set forth the peculiar characteristics of localities, so far as I could note them, in the most summary way, and have stated how we ought to make our houses conform to the physical qualities of nations, with due regard to the course of the sun and to climate.Next I shall treat the symmetrical proportions of the different styles of houses, both as wholes and in their separate parts.
CHAPTER II
SYMMETRY, AND MODIFICATIONS IN IT TO SUIT THE SITE
1.There is nothing to which an architect should devote more thought than to the exact proportions of his building with reference to a certain part selected as the standard.After the standard of symmetry has been determined, and the proportionate dimensions adjusted by calculations, it is next the part of wisdom to consider the nature of the site, or questions of use or beauty, and modify the plan by diminutions or additions in such a manner that these diminutions or additions in the symmetrical relations may be seen to be made on correct principles, and without detracting at all from the effect.
2.The look of a building when seen close at hand is one thing, on a height it is another, not the same in an enclosed place, still different in the open, and in all these cases it takes much judgment to decide what is to be done. The fact is that the eye does not always give a true impression, but very often leads the mind to form a false judgment. In painted scenery, for example, columns may appear to jut out, mutules to project, and statues to be standing in the foreground, although the picture is of course perfectly flat. Similarly with ships, the oars when under the water are straight, though to the eye they appear to be broken. To the point where they touch the surface of the sea they look straight, as indeed they are, but when dipped under the water they emit from their bodies undulating images which come swimming up through the naturally transparent medium to the surface of the water, and, being there thrown into commotion, make the oars look broken.
3.Now whether this appearance is due to the impact of the images, or to the effusion of the rays from the eye, as the physicists hold, in either case it is obvious that the vision may lead us to false impressions.
4.Since, therefore, the reality may have a false appearance, and since things are sometimes represented by the eyes as other than they are, I think it certain that diminutions or additions should be made to suit the nature or needs of the site, but in such fashion that the buildings lose nothing thereby.These results, however, are also attainable by flashes of genius, and not only by mere science.
5.Hence, the first thing to settle is the standard of symmetry, from which we need not hesitate to vary.Then, lay out the ground lines of the length and breadth of the work proposed, and when once we have determined its size, let the construction follow this with due regard to beauty of proportion, so that the beholder may feel no doubt of the eurythmy of its effect.I must now tell how this may be brought about, and first I will speak of the proper construction of a cavaedium.
CHAPTER III
PROPORTIONS OF THE PRINCIPAL ROOMS
1.There are five different styles of cavaedium, termed according to their construction as follows: Tuscan, Corinthian, tetrastyle, displuviate, and testudinate.
In the Tuscan, the girders that cross the breadth of the atrium have crossbeams on them, and valleys sloping in and running from the angles of the walls to the angles formed by the beams, and the rainwater falls down along the rafters to the roof-opening (compluvium) in the middle.
In the Corinthian, the girders and roof-opening are constructed on these same principles, but the girders run in from the side walls, and are supported all round on columns.
In the tetrastyle, the girders are supported at the angles by columns, an arrangement which relieves and strengthens the girders; for thus they have themselves no great span to support, and they are not loaded down by the crossbeams.
From Mau the house of the surgeon, pompeii Illustrating The Tuscan Atrium
| From Mau house of epidius rufus at pompeii illustrating corinthian atrium |
2.In the displuviate, there are beams which slope outwards, supporting the roof and throwing the rainwater off.This style is suitable chiefly in winter residences, for its roof-opening, being high up, is not an obstruction to the light of the dining rooms. It is, however, very troublesome to keep in repair, because the pipes, which are intended to hold the water that comes dripping down the walls all round, cannot take it quickly enough as it runs down from the channels, but get too full and run over, thus spoiling the woodwork and the walls of houses of this style.
From Mau
house of the silver wedding at pompeii
Illustrating The Tetrastyle Atrium
| a. fauces | p. andron |
| d. tetrastyle atrium | r. peristyle |
| n. dining room | w. summer dining room |
| o. tablinum |
The testudinate is employed where the span is not great, and where large rooms are provided in upper stories.
3.In width and length, atriums are designed according to three classes.The first is laid out by dividing the length into five parts and giving three parts to the width; the second, by dividing it into three parts and assigning two parts to the width; the third, by using the width to describe a square figure with equal sides, drawing a diagonal line in this square, and giving the atrium the length of this diagonal line.
4.Their height up to the girders should be one fourth less than their width, the rest being the proportion assigned to the ceiling and the roof above the girders.
The alae, to the right and left, should have a width equal to one third of the length of the atrium, when that is from thirty to forty feet long.From forty to fifty feet, divide the length by three and one half, and give the alae the result. When it is from fifty to sixty feet in length, devote one fourth of the length to the alae. From sixty to eighty feet, divide the length by four and one half and let the result be the width of the alae. From eighty feet to one hundred feet, the length divided into five parts will produce the right width for the alae. Their lintel beams should be placed high enough to make the height of the alae equal to their width.
5. The tablinum should be given two thirds of the width of the atrium when the latter is twenty feet wide. If it is from thirty to forty feet, let half the width of the atrium be devoted to the tablinum. When it is from forty to sixty feet, divide the width into five parts and let two of these be set apart for the tablinum. In the case of smaller atriums, the symmetrical proportions cannot be the same as in larger.
From Mau
plan of a typical roman house For if, in the case of the smaller, we employ the proportion that belong to the larger, both tablina and alae must be unserviceable, while if, in the case of the larger, we employ the proportions of the smaller, the rooms mentioned will be huge monstrosities. Hence, I have thought it best to describe exactly their respective proportionate sizes, with a view both to convenience and to beauty.
6.The height of the tablinum at the lintel should be one eighth more than its width.Its ceiling should exceed this height by one third of the width.The fauces in the case of smaller atriums should be two thirds, and in the case of larger one half the width of the tablinum.Let the busts of ancestors with their ornaments be set up at a height corresponding to the width of the alae.The proportionate width and height of doors may be settled, if they are Doric, in the Doric manner, and if Ionic, in the Ionic manner, according to the rules of symmetry which have been given about portals in the fourth book.In the roof-opening let an aperture be left with a breadth of not less than one fourth nor more than one third the width of the atrium, and with a length proportionate to that of the atrium.
Photo.Sommer
the peristyle of the house of the vettii at pompeii
7.Peristyles, lying athwart, should be one third longer than they are deep, and their columns as high as the colonnades are wide.
From Durm
plan of the house of the vettii, pompeii Intercolumniations of peristyles should be not less than three nor more than four times the thickness of the columns. If the columns of the peristyle are to be made in the Doric style, take the modules which I have given in the fourth book, on the Doric order, and arrange the columns with reference to these modules and to the scheme of the triglyphs.
8.Dining rooms ought to be twice as long as they are wide.The height of all oblong rooms should be calculated by adding together their measured length and width, taking one half of this total, and using the result for the height.But in the case of exedrae or square oeci, let the height be brought up to one and one half times the width.Picture galleries, like exedrae, should be constructed of generous dimensions.Corinthian and tetrastyle oeci, as well as those termed Egyptian, should have the same symmetrical proportions in width and length as the dining rooms described above, but, since they have columns in them, their dimensions should be ampler.
9.The following will be the distinction between Corinthian and Egyptian oeci: the Corinthian have single tiers of columns, set either on a podium or on the ground, with architraves over them and coronae either of woodwork or of stucco, and carved vaulted ceilings above the coronae.In the Egyptian there are architraves over the columns, and joists laid thereon from the architraves to the surrounding walls, with a floor in the upper story to allow of walking round under the open sky. Then, above the architrave and perpendicularly over the lower tier of columns, columns one fourth smaller should be imposed. Above their architraves and ornaments are decorated ceilings, and the upper columns have windows set in between them. Thus the Egyptian are not like Corinthian dining rooms, but obviously resemble basilicas.
10.There are also, though not customary in Italy, the oeci which the Greeks call Cyzicene.These are built with a northern exposure and generally command a view of gardens, and have folding doors in the middle.They are also so long and so wide that two sets of dining couches, facing each other, with room to pass round them, can be placed therein.On the right and left they have windows which open like folding doors, so that views of the garden may be had from the dining couches through the opened windows.The height of such rooms is one and one half times their width.
11.All the above-mentioned symmetrical relations should be observed, in these kinds of buildings, that can be observed without embarrassment caused by the situation.The windows will be an easy matter to arrange if they are not darkened by high walls; but in cases of confined space, or when there are other unavoidable obstructions, it will be permissible to make diminutions or additions in the symmetrical relations,—with ingenuity and acuteness, however, so that the result may be not unlike the beauty which is due to true symmetry.
CHAPTER IV
THE PROPER EXPOSURES OF THE DIFFERENT ROOMS
1.We shall next explain how the special purposes of different rooms require different exposures, suited to convenience and to the quarters of the sky.Winter dining rooms and bathrooms should have a southwestern exposure, for the reason that they need the evening light, and also because the setting sun, facing them in all its splendour but with abated heat, lends a gentler warmth to that quarter in the evening. Bedrooms and libraries ought to have an eastern exposure, because their purposes require the morning light, and also because books in such libraries will not decay. In libraries with southern exposures the books are ruined by worms and dampness, because damp winds come up, which breed and nourish the worms, and destroy the books with mould, by spreading their damp breath over them.
2.Dining rooms for Spring and Autumn to the east; for when the windows face that quarter, the sun, as he goes on his career from over against them to the west, leaves such rooms at the proper temperature at the time when it is customary to use them.Summer dining rooms to the north, because that quarter is not, like the others, burning with heat during the solstice, for the reason that it is unexposed to the sun's course, and hence it always keeps cool, and makes the use of the rooms both healthy and agreeable.Similarly with picture galleries, embroiderers' work rooms, and painters' studios, in order that the fixed light may permit the colours used in their work to last with qualities unchanged.
CHAPTER V
HOW THE ROOMS SHOULD BE SUITED TO THE STATION OF THE OWNER
1.After settling the positions of the rooms with regard to the quarters of the sky, we must next consider the principles on which should be constructed those apartments in private houses which are meant for the householders themselves, and those which are to be shared in common with outsiders.The private rooms are those into which nobody has the right to enter without an invitation, such as bedrooms, dining rooms, bathrooms, and all others used for the like purposes.The common are those which any of the people have a perfect right to enter, even without an invitation: that is, entrance courts, cavaedia, peristyles, and all intended for the like purpose. Hence, men of everyday fortune do not need entrance courts, tablina, or atriums built in grand style, because such men are more apt to discharge their social obligations by going round to others than to have others come to them.
2.Those who do business in country produce must have stalls and shops in their entrance courts, with crypts, granaries, store-rooms, and so forth in their houses, constructed more for the purpose of keeping the produce in good condition than for ornamental beauty.
For capitalists and farmers of the revenue, somewhat comfortable and showy apartments must be constructed, secure against robbery; for advocates and public speakers, handsomer and more roomy, to accommodate meetings; for men of rank who, from holding offices and magistracies, have social obligations to their fellow-citizens, lofty entrance courts in regal style, and most spacious atriums and peristyles, with plantations and walks of some extent in them, appropriate to their dignity.They need also libraries, picture galleries, and basilicas, finished in a style similar to that of great public buildings, since public councils as well as private law suits and hearings before arbitrators are very often held in the houses of such men.
3.If, therefore, houses are planned on these principles to suit different classes of persons, as prescribed in my first book, under the subject of Propriety, there will be no room for criticism; for they will be arranged with convenience and perfection to suit every purpose.The rules on these points will hold not only for houses in town, but also for those in the country, except that in town atriums are usually next to the front door, while in country seats peristyles come first, and then atriums surrounded by paved colonnades opening upon palaestrae and walks.
I have now set forth the rules for houses in town so far as I could describe them in a summary way.Next I shall state how farmhouses may be arranged with a view to convenience in use, and shall give the rules for their construction.
CHAPTER VI
THE FARMHOUSE
1.In the first place, inspect the country from the point of view of health, in accordance with what is written in my first book, on the building of cities, and let your farmhouses be situated accordingly.
From Mau
the villa rustica at boscoreale near pompeii
A. Court. B. Kitchen. C-F. Baths. H. Stable.
J. Toolroom. K, L, V, V. Bedrooms.
N. Dining Room. M. Anteroom. O. Bakery.
P. Room with two winepresses. Q. Corridor.
B. Court for fermentation of wine. S. Barn.
T. Threshing-floor. Y. Room with oil press.
Their dimensions should depend upon the size of the farm and the amount of produce. Their courtyards and the dimensions thereof should be determined by the number of cattle and the number of yokes of oxen that will need to be kept therein. Let the kitchen be placed on the warmest side of the courtyard, with the stalls for the oxen adjoining, and their cribs facing the kitchen fire and the eastern quarter of the sky, for the reason that oxen facing the light and the fire do not get rough-coated. Even peasants wholly without knowledge of the quarters of the sky believe that oxen ought to face only in the direction of the sunrise.
2.Their stalls ought to be not less than ten nor more than fifteen feet wide, and long enough to allow not less than seven feet for each yoke.Bathrooms, also, should adjoin the kitchen; for in this situation it will not take long to get ready a bath in the country.
Let the pressing room, also, be next to the kitchen; for in this situation it will be easy to deal with the fruit of the olive. Adjoining it should be the wine room with its windows lighted from the north. In a room with windows on any other quarter so that the sun can heat it, the heat will get into the wine and make it weak.
3.The oil room must be situated so as to get its light from the south and from warm quarters; for oil ought not to be chilled, but should be kept thin by gentle heat.In dimensions, oil rooms should be built to accommodate the crop and the proper number of jars, each of which, holding about one hundred and twenty gallons, must take up a space four feet in diameter.The pressing room itself, if the pressure is exerted by means of levers and a beam, and not worked by turning screws, should be not less than forty feet long, which will give the lever man a convenient amount of space.It should be not less than sixteen feet wide, which will give the men who are at work plenty of free space to do the turning conveniently.If two presses are required in the place, allow twenty-four feet for the width.
4.Folds for sheep and goats must be made large enough to allow each animal a space of not less than four and a half, nor more than six feet.Rooms for grain should be set in an elevated position and with a northern or north-eastern exposure.Thus the grain will not be able to heat quickly, but, being cooled by the wind, keeps a long time.Other exposures produce the corn weevil and the other little creatures that are wont to spoil the grain.To the stable should be assigned the very warmest place in the farmhouse, provided that it is not exposed to the kitchen fire; for when draught animals are stabled very near a fire, their coats get rough.
5.Furthermore, there are advantages in building cribs apart from the kitchen and in the open, facing the east; for when the oxen are taken over to them on early winter mornings in clear weather, their coats get sleeker as they take their fodder in the sunlight.Barns for grain, hay, and spelt, as well as bakeries, should be built apart from the farmhouse, so that farmhouses may be better protected against danger from fire. If something more refined is required in farmhouses, they may be constructed on the principles of symmetry which have been given above in the case of town houses, provided that there is nothing in such buildings to interfere with their usefulness on a farm.
6.We must take care that all buildings are well lighted, but this is obviously an easier matter with those which are on country estates, because there can be no neighbour's wall to interfere, whereas in town high party walls or limited space obstruct the light and make them dark.Hence we must apply the following test in this matter.On the side from which the light should be obtained let a line be stretched from the top of the wall that seems to obstruct the light to the point at which it ought to be introduced, and if a considerable space of open sky can be seen when one looks up above that line, there will be no obstruction to the light in that situation.
7.But if there are timbers in the way, or lintels, or upper stories, then, make the opening higher up and introduce the light in this way.And as a general rule, we must arrange so as to leave places for windows on all sides on which a clear view of the sky can be had, for this will make our buildings light.Not only in dining rooms and other rooms for general use are windows very necessary, but also in passages, level or inclined, and on stairs; for people carrying burdens too often meet and run against each other in such places.
I have now set forth the plans used for buildings in our native country so that they may be clear to builders.Next, I shall describe summarily how houses are planned in the Greek fashion, so that these also may be understood.
CHAPTER VII
THE GREEK HOUSE
1.The Greeks, having no use for atriums, do not build them, but make passage-ways for people entering from the front door, not very wide, with stables on one side and doorkeepers' rooms on the other, and shut off by doors at the inner end.
plan of vitruvius' greek house according to becker This place between the two doors is termed in Greek θυρωρειον. From it one enters the peristyle. This peristyle has colonnades on three sides, and on the side facing the south it has two antae, a considerable distance apart, carrying an architrave, with a recess for a distance one third less than the space between the antae. This space is called by some writers "prostas," by others "pastas."
2.Hereabouts, towards the inner side, are the large rooms in which mistresses of houses sit with their wool-spinners.To the right and left of the prostas there are chambers, one of which is called the "thalamos," the other the "amphithalamos."All round the colonnades are dining rooms for everyday use, chambers, and rooms for the slaves.This part of the house is termed "gynaeconitis."
3.In connexion with these there are ampler sets of apartments with more sumptuous peristyles, surrounded by four colonnades of equal height, or else the one which faces the south has higher columns than the others.A peristyle that has one such higher colonnade is called a Rhodian peristyle.Such apartments have fine entrance courts with imposing front doors of their own; the colonnades of the peristyles are decorated with polished stucco in relief and plain, and with coffered ceilings of woodwork; off the colonnades that face the north they have Cyzicene dining rooms and picture galleries; to the east, libraries; exedrae to the west; and to the south, large square rooms of such generous dimensions that four sets of dining couches can easily be arranged in them, with plenty of room for serving and for the amusements.
4.Men's dinner parties are held in these large rooms; for it was not the practice, according to Greek custom, for the mistress of the house to be present.On the contrary, such peristyles are called the men's apartments, since in them the men can stay without interruption from the women.Furthermore, small sets of apartments are built to the right and left, with front doors of their own and suitable dining rooms and chambers, so that guests from abroad need not be shown into the peristyles, but rather into such guests' apartments.
From Bull.de.Corr.Hell.1895
greek house at delos For when the Greeks became more luxurious, and their circumstances more opulent, they began to provide dining rooms, chambers, and store-rooms of provisions for their guests from abroad, and on the first day they would invite them to dinner, sending them on the next chickens, eggs, vegetables, fruits, and other country produce. This is why artists called pictures representing the things which were sent to guests "xenia." Thus, too, the heads of families, while being entertained abroad, had the feeling that they were not away from home, since they enjoyed privacy and freedom in such guests' apartments.
5.Between the two peristyles and the guests' apartments are the passage-ways called "mesauloe," because they are situated midway between two courts; but our people called them "andrones."
This, however, is a very strange fact, for the term does not fit either the Greek or the Latin use of it.The Greeks call the large rooms in which men's dinner parties are usually held ἁνδρωνεϛ, because women do not go there. There are other similar instances as in the case of "xystus," "prothyrum," "telamones," and some others of the sort. As a Greek term, ξνστὁς means a colonnade of large dimensions in which athletes exercise in the winter time. But our people apply the term "xysta" to uncovered walks, which the Greeks call παραδρομἱδες. Again, πρὁθυρα means in Greek the entrance courts before the front doors; we, however, use the term "prothyra" in the sense of the Greek διἁθυρα.
From Mitt.d.Deutsch.Arch.Inst
greek house discovered at pergamum in 1903
| 13.Prothyron. | 7.Tablinum. |
6.Again, figures in the form of men supporting mutules or coronae, we term "telamones"—the reasons why or wherefore they are so called are not found in any story—but the Greeks name them ἁτλανες.For Atlas is described in story as holding up the firmament because, through his vigorous intelligence and ingenuity, he was the first to cause men to be taught about the courses of the sun and moon, and the laws governing the revolutions of all the constellations.Consequently, in recognition of this benefaction, painters and sculptors represent him as holding up the firmament, and the Atlantides, his daughters, whom we call "Vergiliae" and the Greeks Πλειἁδες, are consecrated in the firmament among the constellations.
7.All this, however, I have not set forth for the purpose of changing the usual terminology or language, but I have thought that it should be explained so that it may be known to scholars.
I have now explained the usual ways of planning houses both in the Italian fashion and according to the practices of the Greeks, and have described, with regard to their symmetry, the proportions of the different classes.Having, therefore, already written of their beauty and propriety, I shall next explain, with reference to durability, how they may be built to last to a great age without defects.
CHAPTER VIII
ON FOUNDATIONS AND SUBSTRUCTURES
1.Houses which are set level with the ground will no doubt last to a great age, if their foundations are laid in the manner which we have explained in the earlier books, with regard to city walls and theatres.But if underground rooms and vaults are intended, their foundations ought to be thicker than the walls which are to be constructed in the upper part of the house, and the walls, piers, and columns of the latter should be set perpendicularly over the middle of the foundation walls below, so that they may have solid bearing; for if the load of the walls or columns rests on the middle of spans, they can have no permanent durability.
2.It will also do no harm to insert posts between lintels and sills where there are piers or antae; for where the lintels and beams have received the load of the walls, they may sag in the middle, and gradually undermine and destroy the walls.But when there are posts set up underneath and wedged in there, they prevent the beams from settling and injuring such walls.
3.We must also manage to discharge the load of the walls by means of archings composed of voussoirs with joints radiating to the centre.For when arches with voussoirs are sprung from the ends of beams, or from the bearings of lintels, in the first place they will discharge the load and the wood will not sag; secondly, if in course of time the wood becomes at all defective, it can easily be replaced without the construction of shoring.
4.Likewise in houses where piers are used in the construction, when there are arches composed of voussoirs with joints radiating to the centre, the outermost piers at these points must be made broader than the others, so that they may have the strength to resist when the wedges, under the pressure of the load of the walls, begin to press along their joints towards the centre, and thus to thrust out the abutments.Hence, if the piers at the ends are of large dimensions, they will hold the voussoirs together, and make such works durable.
5.Having taken heed in these matters to see that proper attention is paid to them, we must also be equally careful that all walls are perfectly vertical, and that they do not lean forward anywhere.Particular pains, too, must be taken with substructures, for here an endless amount of harm is usually done by the earth used as filling.This cannot always remain of the same weight that it usually has in summer, but in winter time it increases in weight and bulk by taking up a great deal of rain water, and then it bursts its enclosing walls and thrusts them out.
6.The following means must be taken to provide against such a defect.First, let the walls be given a thickness proportionate to the amount of filling; secondly, build counterforts or buttresses at the same time as the wall, on the outer side, at distances from each other equivalent to what is to be the height of the substructure and with the thickness of the substructure.At the bottom let them run out to a distance corresponding to the thickness that has been determined for the substructure, and then gradually diminish in extent so that at the surface their projection is equal to the thickness of the wall of the building.
retaining walls
(From the edition of Vitruvius by Fra Giocondo, Venice 1511)
7.Furthermore, inside, to meet the mass of earth, there should be saw-shaped constructions attached to the wall, the single teeth extending from the wall for a distance equivalent to what is to be the height of the substructure, and the teeth being constructed with the same thickness as the wall.Then at the outermost angles take a distance inwards, from the inside of the angle, equal to the height of the substructure, and mark it off on each side; from these marks build up a diagonal structure and from the middle of it a second, joined on to the angle of the wall.With this arrangement, the teeth and diagonal structures will not allow the filling to thrust with all its force against the wall, but will check and distribute the pressure.
8.I have now shown how buildings can be constructed without defects, and the way to take precautions against the occurrence of them. As for replacing tiles, roof timbers, and rafters, we need not be so particular about them as about the parts just mentioned, because they can easily be replaced, however defective they may become. Hence, I have shown by what methods the parts which are not considered solid can be rendered durable, and how they are constructed.
9.As for the kind of material to be used, this does not depend upon the architect, for the reason that all kinds of materials are not found in all places alike, as has been shown in the first book.Besides, it depends on the owner whether he desires to build in brick, or rubble work, or dimension stone.Consequently the question of approving any work may be considered under three heads: that is, delicacy of workmanship, sumptuousness, and design.When it appears that a work has been carried out sumptuously, the owner will be the person to be praised for the great outlay which he has authorized; when delicately, the master workman will be approved for his execution; but when proportions and symmetry lend it an imposing effect, then the glory of it will belong to the architect.
10.Such results, however, may very well be brought about when he allows himself to take the advice both of workmen and of laymen.In fact, all kinds of men, and not merely architects, can recognize a good piece of work, but between laymen and the latter there is this difference, that the layman cannot tell what it is to be like without seeing it finished, whereas the architect, as soon as he has formed the conception, and before he begins the work, has a definite idea of the beauty, the convenience, and the propriety that will distinguish it.
I have now described as clearly as I could what I thought necessary for private houses, and how to build them.In the following book I shall treat of the kinds of polished finish employed to make them elegant, and durable without defects to a great age.
BOOK VII
INTRODUCTION
1.It was a wise and useful provision of the ancients to transmit their thoughts to posterity by recording them in treatises, so that they should not be lost, but, being developed in succeeding generations through publication in books, should gradually attain in later times, to the highest refinement of learning.And so the ancients deserve no ordinary, but unending thanks, because they did not pass on in envious silence, but took care that their ideas of every kind should be transmitted to the future in their writings.
2.If they had not done so, we could not have known what deeds were done in Troy, nor what Thales, Democritus, Anaxagoras, Xenophanes, and the other physicists thought about nature, and what rules Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus, and other philosophers laid down for the conduct of human life; nor would the deeds and motives of Croesus, Alexander, Darius, and other kings have been known, unless the ancients had compiled treatises, and published them in commentaries to be had in universal remembrance with posterity.
3.So, while they deserve our thanks, those, on the contrary, deserve our reproaches, who steal the writings of such men and publish them as their own; and those also, who depend in their writings, not on their own ideas, but who enviously do wrong to the works of others and boast of it, deserve not merely to be blamed, but to be sentenced to actual punishment for their wicked course of life.With the ancients, however, it is said that such things did not pass without pretty strict chastisement.What the results of their judgments were, it may not be out of place to set forth as they are transmitted to us.
4.The kings of the house of Attalus having established, under the influence of the great charms of literature, an excellent library at Pergamus to give pleasure to the public, Ptolemy also was aroused with no end of enthusiasm and emulation into exertions to make a similar provision with no less diligence at Alexandria. Having done so with the greatest care, he felt that this was not enough without providing for its increase and development, for which he sowed the seed. He established public contests in honour of the Muses and Apollo, and appointed prizes and honours for victorious authors in general, as is done in the case of athletes.
5.These arrangements having been made, and the contests being at hand, it became necessary to select literary men as judges to decide them.The king soon selected six of the citizens, but could not so easily find a proper person to be the seventh.He therefore turned to those who presided over the library, and asked whether they knew anybody who was suitable for the purpose.Then they told him that there was one Aristophanes who was daily engaged in reading through all the books with the greatest enthusiasm and the greatest care.Hence, when the gathering for the contests took place, and separate seats were set apart for the judges, Aristophanes was summoned with the rest, and sat down in the place assigned to him.
6.A group of poets was first brought in to contend, and, as they recited their compositions, the whole audience by its applause showed the judges what it approved.So, when they were individually asked for their votes, the six agreed, and awarded the first prize to the poet who, as they observed, had most pleased the multitude, and the second to the one who came next.But Aristophanes, on being asked for his vote, urged that the poet who had least pleased the audience should be declared to be the first.
7.As the king and the entire assembly showed great indignation, he arose, and asked and received permission to speak.Silence being obtained, he stated that only one of them—his man—was a poet, and that the rest had recited things not their own; furthermore, that judges ought to give their approval, not to thefts, but to original compositions. The people were amazed, and the king hesitated, but Aristophanes, trusting to his memory, had a vast number of volumes brought out from bookcases which he specified, and, by comparing them with what had been recited, obliged the thieves themselves to make confession. So, the king gave orders that they should be accused of theft, and after condemnation sent them off in disgrace; but he honoured Aristophanes with the most generous gifts, and put him in charge of the library.
8.Some years later, Zoilus, who took the surname of Homeromastix, came from Macedonia to Alexandria and read to the king his writings directed against the Iliad and Odyssey.Ptolemy, seeing the father of poets and captain of all literature abused in his absence, and his works, to which all the world looked up in admiration, disparaged by this person, made no rejoinder, although he thought it an outrage.Zoilus, however, after remaining in the kingdom some time, sank into poverty, and sent a message to the king, requesting that something might be bestowed upon him.
9.But it is said that the king replied, that Homer, though dead a thousand years ago, had all that time been the means of livelihood for many thousands of men; similarly, a person who laid claim to higher genius ought to be able to support not one man only, but many others.And in short, various stories are told about his death, which was like that of one found guilty of parricide.Some writers have said that he was crucified by Philadelphus; others that he was stoned at Chios; others again that he was thrown alive upon a funeral pyre at Smyrna.Whichever of these forms of death befell him, it was a fitting punishment and his just due; for one who accuses men that cannot answer and show, face to face, what was the meaning of their writings, obviously deserves no other treatment.
10.But for my part, Caesar, I am not bringing forward the present treatise after changing the titles of other men's books and inserting my own name, nor has it been my plan to win approbation by finding fault with the ideas of another.On the contrary, I express unlimited thanks to all the authors that have in the past, by compiling from antiquity remarkable instances of the skill shown by genius, provided us with abundant materials of different kinds. Drawing from them as it were water from springs, and converting them to our own purposes, we find our powers of writing rendered more fluent and easy, and, relying upon such authorities, we venture to produce new systems of instruction.
11.Hence, as I saw that such beginnings on their part formed an introduction suited to the nature of my own purpose, I set out to draw from them, and to go somewhat further.
In the first place Agatharcus, in Athens, when Aeschylus was bringing out a tragedy, painted a scene, and left a commentary about it.This led Democritus and Anaxagoras to write on the same subject, showing how, given a centre in a definite place, the lines should naturally correspond with due regard to the point of sight and the divergence of the visual rays, so that by this deception a faithful representation of the appearance of buildings might be given in painted scenery, and so that, though all is drawn on a vertical flat façade, some parts may seem to be withdrawing into the background, and others to be standing out in front.
12.Afterwards Silenus published a book on the proportions of Doric structures; Theodorus, on the Doric temple of Juno which is in Samos; Chersiphron and Metagenes, on the Ionic temple at Ephesus which is Diana's; Pytheos, on the Ionic fane of Minerva which is at Priene; Ictinus and Carpion, on the Doric temple of Minerva which is on the acropolis of Athens; Theodorus the Phocian, on the Round Building which is at Delphi; Philo, on the proportions of temples, and on the naval arsenal which was[9] at the port of Peiraeus; Hermogenes, on the Ionic temple of Diana which is at Magnesia, a pseudodipteral, and on that of Father Bacchus at Teos, a monopteral; Arcesius, on the Corinthian proportions, and on the Ionic temple of Aesculapius at Tralles, which it is said that he built with his own hands; on the Mausoleum, Satyrus and Pytheos who were favoured with the greatest and highest good fortune.
13.For men whose artistic talents are believed to have won them the highest renown for all time, and laurels forever green, devised and executed works of supreme excellence in this building.The decoration and perfection of the different façades were undertaken by different artists in emulation with each other: Leochares, Bryaxis, Scopas, Praxiteles, and, as some think, Timotheus; and the distinguished excellence of their art made that building famous among the seven wonders of the world.
14.Then, too, many less celebrated men have written treatises on the laws of symmetry, such as Nexaris, Theocydes, Demophilus, Pollis, Leonidas, Silanion, Melampus, Sarnacus, and Euphranor; others again on machinery, such as Diades, Archytas, Archimedes, Ctesibius, Nymphodorus, Philo of Byzantium, Diphilus, Democles, Charias, Polyidus, Pyrrus, and Agesistratus.From their commentaries I have gathered what I saw was useful for the present subject, and formed it into one complete treatise, and this principally, because I saw that many books in this field had been published by the Greeks, but very few indeed by our countrymen.Fuficius, in fact, was the first to undertake to publish a book on this subject.Terentius Varro, also, in his work "On the Nine Sciences" has one book on architecture, and Publius Septimius, two.
15.But to this day nobody else seems to have bent his energies to this branch of literature, although there have been, even among our fellow-citizens in old times, great architects who could also have written with elegance.For instance, in Athens, the architects Antistates, Callaeschrus, Antimachides, and Pormus laid the foundations when Peisistratus began the temple of Olympian Jove, but after his death they abandoned the undertaking, on account of political troubles.Hence it was that when, about four hundred years later, King Antiochus promised to pay the expenses of that work, the huge cella, the surrounding columns in dipteral arrangement, and the architraves and other ornaments, adjusted according to the laws of symmetry, were nobly constructed with great skill and supreme knowledge by Cossutius, a citizen of Rome. Moreover, this work has a name for its grandeur, not only in general, but also among the select few.
16.There are, in fact, four places possessing temples embellished with workmanship in marble that causes them to be mentioned in a class by themselves with the highest renown.To their great excellence and the wisdom of their conception they owe their place of esteem in the ceremonial worship of the gods.First there is the temple of Diana at Ephesus, in the Ionic style, undertaken by Chersiphron of Gnosus and his son Metagenes, and said to have been finished later by Demetrius, who was himself a slave of Diana, and by Paeonius the Milesian.At Miletus, the temple of Apollo, also Ionic in its proportions, was the undertaking of the same Paeonius and of the Ephesian Daphnis.At Eleusis, the cella of Ceres and Proserpine, of vast size, was completed to the roof by Ictinus in the Doric style, but without exterior columns and with plenty of room for the customary sacrifices.
17.Afterwards, however, when Demetrius of Phalerum was master of Athens, Philo set up columns in front before the temple, and made it prostyle.Thus, by adding an entrance hall, he gave the initiates more room, and imparted the greatest dignity to the building.Finally, in Athens, the temple of the Olympion with its dimensions on a generous scale, and built in the Corinthian style and proportions, is said to have been constructed, as written above, by Cossutius, no commentary by whom has been found.But Cossutius is not the only man by whom we should like to have writings on our subject.Another is Gaius Mucius, who, having great knowledge on which to rely, completed the cella, columns, and entablature of the Marian temple of Honour and Valour, in symmetrical proportions according to the accepted rules of the art.If this building had been of marble, so that besides the refinement of its art it possessed the dignity coming from magnificence and great outlay, it would be reckoned among the first and greatest of works.
18.Since it appears, then, that our architects in the old days, and a good many even in our own times, have been as great as those of the Greeks, and nevertheless only a few of them have published treatises, I resolved not to be silent, but to treat the different topics methodically in different books.Hence, since I have given an account of private houses in the sixth book, in this, which is the seventh in order, I shall treat of polished finishings and the methods of giving them both beauty and durability.