The temple of Venus and Roma, built by Hadrian in the Romer Forum, would seem from recent excavations to have been one of thy most splendid edifices in the city. According to the plan o M. Caristie, the temple stood in the centre of a quadrilateral nick sure, or peribolue, measuring 525 by 31S feet, and was enclosed la double colonnades of the Corinthian order, consisting altogether of 26 columns. The temple itself was of the same order, upon a con eiderably larger scale, and its dimensions about 350 by 166 feet. 1 was consequently large in proportion to the area within which i stood; and when viewed in combination with the extended files o columns around it, must have produced a powerful effect,—ono it which harmony and regularity were blended with contrast. The interior, judging from the indications afforded by the ruins, must have been equally splendid and picturesque in character.
The Romans seem to have affected the practice of grouping building: together as features in one general symmetrical plan. Their temple: and basilicae were frequently placed, as the principal arehitectura objects, at the extremity of a forum, or other regular area enclosed with colonnades. The temple of Nerve stood at one end of, and partly projected into an enclosure (measuring about 360 by 160 feet) the entrance end of which had five open arches, and the sides were formed by screen walls, decorated with Corinthian pilasters, and columns immediately before them, over which the entablature formed breaks. Of Trajau's forum, which was surrounded not only by colon• mules, but various stately edifices, nothing now remains except the celebrated triumphal column that occupied its centre, arid which, as placed as a principal object, must have heightened the splendour of the whole. Like that of Nerve, the temple of Antoninua and Faustina wee placed at one end of a court of moderate dimensions, whose sides were adorned with coupled columns placed immediately against the walla; and only the portico part of the temple (a Corinthian hexastyle, triproetyle) [Portico] advanced into the enclosed area in front. The forum of CaracalLe was nearly a square, entirely surrounded by arcades, presenting thirteen arches on each of the longer and eleven on each of the shorter aides. In the centre was a Corinthian temple very similar in plan to the Pantheon, with an hexastyle,triprontyle portico in front, and remarkable for having inner columns behind the second from each angle, so that there was a double range of them at each end, and the central space within the portico was a perfect square equal to three in tercolnmns.
The mention we have incidentally made in regard to these temples may not improperly be followed by some additional remarks upon Roman edifices of that clams. Unlike those of Greece, peripteral temples were of comparatively rare occurrence among the Romans; they were mostly prostyle, the portico being attached only in con tinuation of the mita, whose walls formed the flanks of the building, though the order of the portico was frequently continued along them either in half-edemas or pilabtera Such is the plan of that celebrated one at Niames, known by the name of the Maieon Quarnie, which is a Corinthian hexastyle, pecudo-peripteral, the cella being unlamented with attached columns, thereby making ten intereolummi on each flank, three of which are open, or belong to the portico, which latter is accordingly triprostyk. The Corinthian temple at Assisi was similar
in plan, except that it. was not pseudo-peripteral, the aides of the cella being plain. That of Fortuna Virills at home was an Ionic tetrastylc, iliprustyle, and psetelo-peripteral. Resides contributing to variety, temples of tide kind poetess a certain variety of effect in themselves', owing to the depth of the portico, and the contrast between that part and the cella. The portico announced itself more decidedly as the facade par seed/nice; particularly as such temples were generally raised upon a stercobate continued as pedestals to enclose the steps leading up to thorn in front, and which sometimes, as in the temple of Nerve, and that of Autouinus and Fauntina, projected very con siderably.
As our object is rather to direct attention to the modes of composition affected by the Romans and the elements of their style, than to describe their chief architectural monuments, either historically or according to their respective classes and destination, we proceed now to consider some of the individual peculiarities and features belonging to their buildings. In the application of sculpture, particularly of atatiless, they were prodigal ; but they employed the latter chiefly as architectural accessories, frequently placing them over columns, or on the summits of their edifices as acroteria to pediments. by way of giving variety to the outline of their buildings, and also of indicating at feint sight their particular appropriation—a practice almost unknown to the Greeks, there being only one instance of it. The abundant use of statue. led to the adoption of the niche—a feature unknown in Creek architecture—as a convenient mode of inserting them within the surface of walls, and thereby decorating them ; at the same time space was gained in interiors, where, if otherwise placed, they would have taken up room. Niches frequently occur in Roman temples and baths. [Slum.] These various applications of curvilinear forma, both in plan and elevation, undoubtedly furnished Roman architecture with resources unknown to that of Greece. Nor can it be denied that the arch itself in a very beautiful feature, although it was employed by the Roman. to such excess as rather to occasion monotony than to contribute to variety of design ; the amphitheatree and similar works of the ltomana consisting only of continuous tiers of arches, which constituted their more strongly marked features, the columns placed against their tiers being merely ornamental accessories, and comparatively of little effect, and even that not of the very best kind. There was one class of structures however, which, though consisting uniformly of arches and piers alone, were eminently impressive and picturesque, namely, the Roman aqueducts, works of extraordinary grandeur, if estimated by their prodigious extent, and the colossal massiveness of their con struction, but not otherwise entitled to be termed magnificent, their architecture being in the plainest and severest style. In these there were sometimes two or even more tiers of arches, at others only a single one, as in that at Metz on the Moselle, which has exceedingly lofty arches, or, to speak more correctly, arches ou exceedingly lofty piers, divided,by offsets into three stages, the effect of which is no less advantageous than it is uncommon.