Diocletian's Diocletian retired from power, in 305 A. D., he erected at Spalato, in Dalmatia, a magnificent palace which still remains an object of wonder. It is a rectangle of 630 feet by 5to feet. The end facing the sea contains the emperor's apartments, which open to the sea by a portico, and upon the opposite end is the grand entrance, or Porta Aurea. Two intersecting streets divide the interior into four sections. The colonnades which lead to the vestibule of the residence have no architrave, but semicircular arches spring from column to column. (See Vol. II. pt. 31.) Connected with Diocletian's palace was a domical temple dedicated to Jupiter, of Which a cross-section is given in Figure 10 (j5/. it). Another temple, that of ..Esculapins, is a four-columned prostylos. The details, especially the profile of the cornice, are completely barbarous, yet the entire design is original and suggests mighty energy.
Circus of architecture of Rome itself was less fan tastic. The Circus of Maxentius (303-312), near the Via Appia, is an elongated structure in the centre of which stands a straight parapet wall around which the contestants drove, and the two ends of which were marked by a terminal pillar. One of the short sides is a semicircle, and here, under the seats, is the richly-decorated Porta Triumphalis. The other short side, through which the contestants entered, was shut in by a segmental edifice which contained stables and rooms for the chariots. Around rose seats in amphitheatral fashion, with the place of honor for the emperor and his suite on one of the longer sides.
The Basilica of Peace, built in the place of one constructed by Ves pasian and burned in the time of Commodus, was also the work of this emperor. Like the principal room of Diocletian's Baths, it was roofed with three transverse vaults which sprang from massive columns (pi.
fig. 9). A terrace surrounded the structure.
Ancient heathen culture had taken its last flight. Its inward truth and moral earnestness had long since expired; now its outward steadfast ness began also to fail. Caprice became the only law; and the more this caprice made itself felt in progressing eastward, and the more it impressed itself upon the groundwork of the ancient voluptuousness and luxury, the more extravagant it became. There are, in fact, in Asia other works which surpass both those of Baalbec and those of Palmyra in eccentricity; such are all the temples, theatres, triumphal arches, buildings, and tombs at Petra, in Arabia, most of which are hewn out of the rock. Pilasters and columns are placed in the strangest positions, parts of buildings are torn away from one another, and we even find a round, tower-like structure set between the two parts of a broken pediment. The capitals have lost their classic
form; they are mere blocks the projections of which simulate the form of capitals. Remains which are of this late age, and upon which we observe winding flutes, may also be seen at Kandahar, in Persia, and at Aphrodis ias, in Caria.
II'orks of Constantine's buildings in Treyes which date back to the time of Constantine are at once more earnest and simple in style. Among these must first be mentioned the great basilica, which has two rows of large windows, one over the other, and pilasters both inside and out. It is an oblong hall 73 metres (24o feet) by 27.8 metres (91 feet), with a semicircular tribune at one end; it was restored in 1846, and in 1856 was consecrated as a Protestant church. The remains of an amphi theatre and of an imperial palace—in connection with which we may also mention the remains of certain villas at Fliessem and Nennig—must not be forgotten. Quite similar to the Basilica of Treves, but smaller, is that of in Mysia, which still exists as the Church of St. John, and which shows that there were present inner and outer columned por ticoes, of which that at Treves affords no traces. To the time of Con stantine also belongs the tolerably well-preserved theatre at Orange, Prance.
Among Constantine's buildings at Rome is the arch which bears his name (pr. 10, jig. 4), and which, as already stated (p. S6 ), was composed of fragments of the Arch of Trajan, and also borrowed its entire design from the same source. A four-sided Arch of Janus, rebuilt by Con stantine, on the Forum Boarium, was hastily and defectiliely constructed from fragments of the older one. Similar imperfection is exhibited in the remains of the Ionic Temple of Concord on the Forum Romanum, whose columns are composed of various fragments and have differently shaped bases.
Although the materials of more ancient works were utilized, yet even at that time Rome undoubtedly presented a spectacle of the greatest splendor, far surpassing the seats of ancient Oriental culture. But her day was over. Constantine transferred his capital to Byzantium (330 A. D.), which he sumptuously rebuilt and named after himself. The Constantinople of to-day contains no monument of its founder's time, and history gives us no clear picture of the city. With the removal of the capital Rome's period of architectural activity closed, and, though she still remained the world's centre, her power was lost, and the exten sive destruction of the grand old monuments then soon commenced, being partly carried on by barbarians who destroyed for destruction's sake, and partly by other barbarians who used the fragments of the ancient structures for new purposes.