where "elegance, gaiety, and magnificence were required."

The stern and massive simplicity of the Doric accorded much better with the taste of Greece in her palmy days, when her poetry and eloquence possessed the same characteristics.

Beside the three Grecian orders, human figures were sometimes employed by the Greeks as supports for entablatures. When these figures represented men, they were called Persians, from contempt, and a wish to degrade their enemies. When they were women, they were called Cariatides, from the people of Caria, who had been the allies of the Persians in some of their wars against Greece. (See Plate VI.) This was a great departure from correct taste.

In the Grecian orders there is an union of strength and lightness, of simplicity and ornament, of grandeur and beauty, which can never be surpassed. Modern architects, in endeavouring to improve upon Grecian designs, have been completely foiled; the closest investigation leads to the conclusion that the principles of Grecian Architecture were fixed by men of consummate science and skill, and have their foundation in immutable truth.

It is evident that the Greeks preferred the fine to the useful arts. Their temples were the only property which they possessed in common, and their munificence in affording the means for their erection, attests

the pride that they felt in making these monuments the wonder of the world, when their private dwellings were still humble.

The Greeks knew little of the comforts of domestic life. The temple, the theatre, the forum, the schools of the philosophers, were the places of resort for men; wives were not intellectual companions, and the graceful embellishments of home, which depend upon them, were not appreciated by their lordly masters.

"The houses of the Athenians in general, consist of two sets of apartments; the upper story for the women, and the lower for the men. The roofs have terraces, with a large projection at each extremity. In the front is a small court, or rather a sort of portico, at the end of which is the house door, where we find sometimes a figure of Mercury, to drive away thieves, or a dog, who is a much more effectual guard."*

Such were the dwellings of Aristides and Themistocles; but the men of wealth, in the later luxurious days of Greece, erected more commodious mansions, which they embellished with sculpture and painting.

The plan of a Grecian house, as given by the architect Vitruvius, exhibits a great number of apartments, courts, and colonnades. In addition to the apartments for the men and the women of the household, there were suites of apartments for strangers, who came to attend the great festivals, separated by passages and entered

* Anacharsis.

by gates apart from the main entrance. These apartments were furnished even with stores of edibles, that the guests might feel themselves quite at home.

Well might the comedian Lysippus say: "Whoever does not desire to see Athens, is stupid; whoever sees it without being delighted, is still more stupid; but the height of stupidity is, to see it, to admire it, and to leave it."

CHAPTER X.

ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.

FROM a state of extreme rudeness and barbarism, Rome gradually became the imperial mistress of the world. For a long time the gentle arts of peace could find no place among her rough warriors. Their dwelling-houses ungraced by the presence of woman, were at first, undoubtedly, less commodious than an American log-cabin.

Their first efforts of architectural skill were employed upon walls for defence. With the Tarquins, was brought the knowledge of the art as practised in Etruria. To the Romans, the invention of the arch has been attributed; but since arches have been discovered amid Etruscan ruins, older than Rome itself, it may rationally be inferred that they acquired the principles of its construction from Etruria. The unadorned works which they constructed during the early ages, were remarkable for solidity, being built of large blocks of stone, in the most substantial manner, proving the "early ambition which projected from its very infancy, 'the eternal city,' the capital of the world."

As Rome extended her conquests, wealth flowed in, and with it a taste for the luxuries of life. Greece and her beautiful colonies in Sicily and Italy, were among these conquests. The rude Romans must have gazed with savage wonder upon the chaste simplicity of the Parthenon, and the surpassing magnificence of the Temple of Jupiter Olympus at Athens; but their religion led them to reverence, and to spare the temples of deities whom they worshipped in common with the Greeks. The genius of the Greeks for Architecture, was gradually and perfectly developed by the rivalry of aspiring states and their ambitious, gifted artists; but as we now look through the vista of ages, it seems to have sprung up spontaneously, or rather to have come forth perfect in all its proportions and ornaments, like their own Minerva from the head of Jupiter. At Rome it was transplanted.

When Marcellus conquered Syracuse, a Grecian colony in Sicily, he carried the spoils, consisting of rich statuary, vases, and pictures, to Rome, to grace his triumph and astonish the Roman citizens. Plutarch tells us that on the occasion of the triumph decreed to Paulus Emilius, for his conquest of Macedonia, a whole day was scarcely sufficient to exhibit the specimens of classic art brought forth for that occasion. Two hundred and fifty chariots were employed to carry them in the triumphal procession. The acquisition of these models of art did not elicit genius; for a long time after, they imported their artists