Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/265

to subjection by the Hellenes nor cut off from intercourse with them, and that the true polygonal masonry is found in Etruria only at Pyrgi, and in the towns, not very far distant from it, of Cosa and Saturnia; and as the design of the walls of Pyrgi, especially when we take into account the significant name ("Towers"), may just as certainly be ascribed to the Greeks as that of the walls of Tiryns, in them most probably there still stands before our eyes one of the models from which the Italians learned how to build their walls. The temple, in fine, which in the period of the Empire was called the Tuscanic, and was regarded as a style of the same order with the various Greek temple-structures, not only generally resembles the Greek temple in an enclosed space (cella) usually quadrangular, over which walls and columns raised aloft a sloping roof, but is also in details, especially in the column itself and its architectural features, thoroughly dependent on the Greek system. It is, in accordance with all these facts, probable, as it is credible in itself, that Italian architecture previous to its contact with the Hellenes was confined to wooden huts, abattis, and mounds of earth and stones, and that construction in stone was only adopted in consequence of the example and the better tools of the Greeks. It is scarcely to be doubted that the Italians first learned from them the use of iron, and derived from them the preparation of mortar (cal[e]x calecare, from χάλιξ), the machine, (machina, μηχανή) the measuring-rod (groma, a corruption from γνώμων, γνῶμα). and the artificial lattice-work (clathri, κλῇθρον). Accordingly we can scarcely speak of an architecture peculiarly Italian, except that in the woodwork of the Italian dwelling-houses (alongside of alterations produced in them by Greek influence) many peculiarities were retained or were for the first time developed, and these again exercised a reflex influence on the building of the Italian temples. The architectural development of the house, however, proceeded in Italy from the Etruscans. The Latins and even the Sabellians still adhered to the hereditary wooden hut, and to the good old custom of assigning to the god or spirit not a consecrated dwelling, but only a consecrated space, while the Etruscan had already begun artistically to transform his dwelling-house, and to erect after the model of the dwelling-house of man a temple also for the god and a sepulchral chamber for the spirit.