The Ten Books on Architecture
everybody, and the ancient style called "opus incertum." Of these, the
reticulatum looks better, but its construction makes it likely to crack,
because its beds and builds spread out in every direction. On the other
hand, in the opus incertum, the rubble, lying in courses and imbricated,
makes a wall which, though not beautiful, is stronger than the
reticulatum.
2. Both kinds should be constructed of the smallest stones, so that the
walls, being thoroughly puddled with the mortar, which is made of lime
and sand, may hold together longer. Since the stones used are soft and
porous, they are apt to suck the moisture out of the mortar and so to
dry it up. But when there is abundance of lime and sand, the wall,
containing more moisture, will not soon lose its strength, for they will
hold it together. But as soon as the moisture is sucked out of the
mortar by the porous rubble, and the lime and sand separate and
disunite, the rubble can no longer adhere to them and the wall will in
time become a ruin.
3. This we may learn from several monuments in the environs of the city,
which are built of marble or dimension stone, but on the inside packed
with masonry between the outer walls. In the course of time, the mortar
has lost its strength, which has been sucked out of it by the porousness
of the rubble; and so the monuments are tumbling down and going to
pieces, with their joints loosened by the settling of the material that
bound them together.
4. He who wishes to avoid such a disaster should leave a cavity behind
the facings, and on the inside build walls two feet thick, made of red
dimension stone or burnt brick or lava in courses, and then bind them to
the fronts by means of iron clamps and lead. For thus his work, being no
mere heap of material but regularly laid in courses, will be strong
enough to last forever without a flaw, because the beds and builds, all
settling equally and bonded at the joints, will not let the work bulge
out, nor allow the fall of the face walls which have been tightly
fastened together.
5. Consequently, the method of construction employed by the Greeks is
not to be despised. They do not use a structure of soft rubble polished
on the outside, but whenever they forsake dimension stone, they lay
courses of lava or of some hard stone, and, as though building with
brick, they bind the upright joints by interchanging the direction of
the stones as they lie in the courses. Thus they attain to a perfection
that will endure to eternity. These structures are of two kinds. One of
them is called "isodomum," the other "pseudisodomum."
6. A wall is called isodomum when all the courses are of equal height;
pseudisodomum, when the rows of courses do not match but run unequally.
Both kinds are strong: first, because the rubble itself is of close
texture and solid, unable to suck the moisture out of the mortar, but
keeping it in its moist condition for a very long period; secondly,
because the beds of the stones, being laid smooth and level to begin
with, keep the mortar from falling, and, as they are bonded throughout
the entire thickness of the wall, they hold together for a very long
period.
7. Another method is that which they call [Greek: emplekton], used also
among us in the country. In this the facings are finished, but the other
stones left in their natural state and then laid with alternate bonding
stones. But our workmen, in their hurry to finish, devote themselves
only to the facings of the walls, setting them upright but filling the
space between with a lot of broken stones and mortar thrown in anyhow.
This makes three different sections in the same structure; two
consisting of facing and one of filling between them. The Greeks,
however, do not build so; but laying their stones level and building
every other stone length-wise into the thickness, they do not fill the
space between, but construct the thickness of their walls in one solid
and unbroken mass from the facings to the interior. Further, at
intervals they lay single stones which run through the entire
thickness of the wall. These stones, which show at each end, are called
[Greek: diatonoi], and by their bonding powers they add very greatly to
the solidity of the walls.
8. One who in accordance with these notes will take pains in selecting
his method of construction, may count upon having something that will
last. No walls made of rubble and finished with delicate beauty--no such
walls can escape ruin as time goes on. Hence, when arbitrators are
chosen to set a valuation on party walls, they do not value them at what
they cost to build, but look up the written contract in each case and
then, after deducting from the cost one eightieth for each year that the
wall has been standing, decide that the remainder is the sum to be paid.
They thus in effect pronounce that such walls cannot last more than
eighty years.
9. In the case of brick walls, however, no deduction is made provided
that they are still standing plumb, but they are always valued at what
they cost to build. Hence in some states we may see public buildings and
private houses, as well as those of kings, built of brick: in Athens,
for example, the part of the wall which faces Mt. Hymettus and
Pentelicus; at Patras, the cellae of the temple of Jupiter and Hercules,
which are brick, although on the outside the entablature and columns of
the temple are of stone; in Italy, at Arezzo, an ancient wall
excellently built; at Tralles, the house built for the kings of the
dynasty of Attalus, which is now always granted to the man who holds the
state priesthood. In Sparta, paintings have been taken out of certain
walls by cutting through the bricks, then have been placed in wooden
frames, and so brought to the Comitium to adorn the aedileship of Varro
and Murena.
10. Then there is the house of Croesus which the people of Sardis have
set apart as a place of repose for their fellow-citizens in the
retirement of age,--a "Gerousia" for the guild of the elder men. At
Halicarnassus, the house of that most potent king Mausolus, though
decorated throughout with Proconnesian marble, has walls built of brick
which are to this day of extraordinary strength, and are covered with
stucco so highly polished that they seem to be as glistening as glass.
That king did not use brick from poverty; for he was choke-full of
revenues, being ruler of all Caria.
11. As for his skill and ingenuity as a builder, they may be seen from
what follows. He was born at Melassa, but recognizing the natural
advantages of Halicarnassus as a fortress, and seeing that it was
suitable as a trading centre and that it had a good harbour, he fixed
his residence there. The place had a curvature like that of the seats in
a theatre. On the lowest tier, along the harbour, was built the forum.
About halfway up the curving slope, at the point where the curved
cross-aisle is in a theatre, a broad wide street was laid out, in the
middle of which was built the Mausoleum, a work so remarkable that it is
classed among the Seven Wonders of the World. At the top of the hill, in
the centre, is the fane of Mars, containing a colossal acrolithic statue
by the famous hand of Leochares. That is, some think that this statue is
by Leochares, others by Timotheus. At the extreme right of the summit is
the fane of Venus and Mercury, close to the spring of Salmacis.
12. There is a mistaken idea that this spring infects those who drink of
it with an unnatural lewdness. It will not be out of place to explain
how this idea came to spread throughout the world from a mistake in the
telling of the tale. It cannot be that the water makes men effeminate
and unchaste, as it is said to do; for the spring is of remarkable
clearness and excellent in flavour. The fact is that when Melas and
Arevanias came there from Argos and Troezen and founded a colony
together, they drove out the Carians and Lelegans who were barbarians.
These took refuge in the mountains, and, uniting there, used to make
raids, plundering the Greeks and laying their country waste in a cruel
manner. Later, one of the colonists, to make money, set up a
well-stocked shop, near the spring because the water was so good, and
the way in which he carried it on attracted the barbarians. So they
began to come down, one at a time, and to meet with society, and thus
they were brought back of their own accord, giving up their rough and
savage ways for the delights of Greek customs. Hence this water acquired
its peculiar reputation, not because it really induced unchastity, but
because those barbarians were softened by the charm of civilization.
13. But since I have been tempted into giving a description of this
fortified place, it remains to finish my account of it. Corresponding to
the fane of Venus and the spring described above, which are on the
right, we have on the extreme left the royal palace which king Mausolus
built there in accordance with a plan all his own. To the right it
commands a view of the forum, the harbour, and the entire line of
fortifications, while just below it, to the left, there is a concealed
harbour, hidden under the walls in such a way that nobody could see or
know what was going on in it. Only the king himself could, in case of
need, give orders from his own palace to the oarsmen and soldiers,
without the knowledge of anybody else.
14. After the death of Mausolus, his wife Artemisia became queen, and
the Rhodians, regarding it as an outrage that a woman should be ruler of
the states of all Caria, fitted out a fleet and sallied forth to seize
upon the kingdom. When news of this reached Artemisia, she gave orders
that her fleet should be hidden away in that harbour with oarsmen and
marines mustered and concealed, but that the rest of the citizens should
take their places on the city wall. After the Rhodians had landed at the
larger harbour with their well-equipped fleet, she ordered the people on
the wall to cheer them and to promise that they would deliver up the
town. Then, when they had passed inside the wall, leaving their fleet
empty, Artemisia suddenly made a canal which led to the sea, brought her
fleet thus out of the smaller harbour, and so sailed into the larger.
Disembarking her soldiers, she towed the empty fleet of the Rhodians out
to sea. So the Rhodians were surrounded without means of retreat, and
were slain in the very forum.
15. So Artemisia embarked her own soldiers and oarsmen in the ships of
the Rhodians and set forth for Rhodes. The Rhodians, beholding their own
ships approaching wreathed with laurel, supposed that their
fellow-citizens were returning victorious, and admitted the enemy. Then
Artemisia, after taking Rhodes and killing its leading men, put up in
the city of Rhodes a trophy of her victory, including two bronze
statues, one representing the state of the Rhodians, the other herself.
Herself she fashioned in the act of branding the state of the Rhodians.
In later times the Rhodians, labouring under the religious scruple which
makes it a sin to remove trophies once they are dedicated, constructed a
building to surround the place, and thus by the erection of the "Grecian
Station" covered it so that nobody could see it, and ordered that the
building be called "[Greek: abaton]."
16. Since such very powerful kings have not disdained walls built of
brick, although with their revenues and from booty they might often have
had them not only of masonry or dimension stone but even of marble, I