ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.
The Greeks recognized no culture besides their own ; all other races. were barbarians. As such they looked upon the Macedonians, notwith standing their widely-extended empire, and though it was through them that the world was opened to Greek culture and manifold new forms were introduced into Grecian art ; hence impotent attempts to free themselves from Macedonian domination. Nor did the Macedonians long retain their empire: another mighty people, occupying Italy—a people who by per petual wars had won their own freedom and extended their sway, a people whose vocation was not the exercise of art, but that of battle and sov ereignty—overthrew the Macedonians. Macedonia itself was made a Roman province 146 B. c., and two years later Greece fell also into the hands of the Roman barbarians.
Early Period of Roman Romans had previously employed Greek artists, so that, though Etruscan art was at first dominant upon their soil and their historians say that in early clays all was Etruscan, this was quickly superseded, and later all was Grecian. They themselves had no desire, no talent, for the cultivation of art. Not that artists never arose among them, but .that all learned in the Greek school and desired to be Greek artists. Virgil, the most illustrious poet of an age which may be considered the most flourishing in Roman history, allows Anchises, while expatiating upon the greatnes of Rome, to say: " Let others better mould the running mass Of metals, and inform the breathing brass, And soften into flesh a marble face; • Plead better at the bar; describe the skies, And when the stars descend, and when they rise.
But, Rome! *tis thine alone with awful sway To rule mankind and make the world obey, Disposing peace and war thy own majestic way." But, though the Romans did not practise art, they desired to patronize it. Foreign cities were compelled to give up their cherished treasures, as happened to Corinth when conquered and destroyed (148 B. C.), and also to other ancient art-centres of Greece. Greek artists were directed to build in Grecian manner Roman works proclaiming the fame of Rome; for of all foreign peoples the Greeks were the only ones to whom the proud Romans did not give the name of barbarians. Thus in the works of the Romans we have but the continuation of those of the Greeks.
Doubtless many links are wanting. Nothing remains of the works of the Alexandrians, and the prodigality and luxury of later Rome destroyed the older Roman productions; so that what remains belongs to a later age. We are compelled to pass over almost two hundred years and their devel opments; and among a people susceptible as were the Greeks, and at the same time spurred on by the grand ideas of the Romans, what must two hundred years have produced ! Thus we cannot tell at what date many patterns which were pre-existent in Etruscan art were received into the Grecian. We know, however, that vaulted construction belongs to the fourth century before Christ, probably to its commencement, though it was as yet not employed in the building of temples.
But the magnificent results which Architecture then produced could no longer find expression within the narrow circle of forms which the temple architecture of the fifth century B. C. had established. Vaulted construc tion particularly, made visible exteriorly in the form of arches, obtained extensive application for profane purposes. Temple-architecture next adopted the scheme that had been derived from it, especially since the so-called ''Corinthian " order enabled it to combine richness and elegance with imposing dimensions.
Temple of Zeus al zllliens.—We must now notice a single work in Greece dating from about the era when that country fell under the power of Rome—namely, the restoration of the unfinished Temple of Zeus at Athens (begun in the palmy days of Greece) by Antiochos Epiphanes, King of Syria (r75-163 B. C.), under the direction of the Roman architect Cossutius; it was a dipteral structure corresponding- to the original plan, yet with Corinthian columns. The edifice was not then entirely com pleted, but was finished by the Emperor Hadrian. On Plate 9 (fig. 3) we give a view of the ruins, and in Figure 4 a restoration of the facade, from which it is evident that even in this late age the fundamental form of the temple had not changed. •• About the year T 50 B. C. the outer propykea of the Temple of Demeter at Eleusis were erected in tolerably close imitation of those of the Acropolis at Athens.