The Ten Books on Architecture
temple of Diana in her sacred grove, with columns added on the right and
left at the flanks of the pronaos. Temples of this kind, like that of
Castor in the Circus, were first built in Athens on the Acropolis, and
in Attica at Sunium to Pallas Minerva. The proportions of them are not
different, but the same as usual. For the length of their cellae is
twice the width, as in other temples; but all that we regularly find in
the fronts of others is in these transferred to the sides.
5. Some take the arrangement of columns belonging to the Tuscan order
and apply it to buildings in the Corinthian and Ionic styles, and where
there are projecting antae in the pronaos, set up two columns in a line
with each of the cella walls, thus making a combination of the
principles of Tuscan and Greek buildings.
6. Others actually remove the temple walls, transferring them to the
intercolumniations, and thus, by dispensing with the space needed for a
pteroma, greatly increase the extent of the cella. So, while leaving all
the rest in the same symmetrical proportions, they appear to have
produced a new kind of plan with the new name "pseudoperipteral." These
kinds, however, vary according to the requirements of the sacrifices.
For we must not build temples according to the same rules to all gods
alike, since the performance of the sacred rites varies with the various
gods.
7. I have now set forth, as they have come down to me, all the
principles governing the building of temples, have marked out under
separate heads their arrangements and proportions, and have set forth,
so far as I could express them in writing, the differences in their
plans and the distinctions which make them unlike one another. Next,
with regard to the altars of the immortal gods, I shall state how they
may be constructed so as to conform to the rules governing sacrifices.
CHAPTER IX
ALTARS
Altars should face the east, and should always be placed on a lower
level than are the statues in the temples, so that those who are praying
and sacrificing may look upwards towards the divinity. They are of
different heights, being each regulated so as to be appropriate to its
own god. Their heights are to be adjusted thus: for Jupiter and all the
celestials, let them be constructed as high as possible; for Vesta and
Mother Earth, let them be built low. In accordance with these rules
will altars be adjusted when one is preparing his plans.
Having described the arrangements of temples in this book, in the
following we shall give an exposition of the construction of public
buildings.
BOOK V
INTRODUCTION
1. Those who have filled books of unusually large size, Emperor, in
setting forth their intellectual ideas and doctrines, have thus made a
very great and remarkable addition to the authority of their writings. I
could wish that circumstances made this as permissible in the case of
our subject, so that the authority of the present treatise might be
increased by amplifications; but this is not so easy as it may be
thought. Writing on architecture is not like history or poetry. History
is captivating to the reader from its very nature; for it holds out the
hope of various novelties. Poetry, with its measures and metrical feet,
its refinement in the arrangement of words, and the delivery in verse of
the sentiments expressed by the several characters to one another,
delights the feelings of the reader, and leads him smoothly on to the
very end of the work.
2. But this cannot be the case with architectural treatises, because
those terms which originate in the peculiar needs of the art, give rise
to obscurity of ideas from the unusual nature of the language. Hence,
while the things themselves are not well known, and their names not in
common use, if besides this the principles are described in a very
diffuse fashion without any attempt at conciseness and explanation in a
few pellucid sentences, such fullness and amplitude of treatment will be
only a hindrance, and will give the reader nothing but indefinite
notions. Therefore, when I mention obscure terms, and the symmetrical
proportions of members of buildings, I shall give brief explanations, so
that they may be committed to memory; for thus expressed, the mind will
be enabled to understand them the more easily.
3. Furthermore, since I have observed that our citizens are distracted
with public affairs and private business, I have thought it best to
write briefly, so that my readers, whose intervals of leisure are small,
may be able to comprehend in a short time.
Then again, Pythagoras and those who came after him in his school
thought it proper to employ the principles of the cube in composing
books on their doctrines, and, having determined that the cube consisted
of 216[6] lines, held that there should be no more than three cubes in
any one treatise.
[Note 6: Codd. _CC. & L._]
4. A cube is a body with sides all of equal breadth and their surfaces
perfectly square. When thrown down, it stands firm and steady so long as
it is untouched, no matter on which of its sides it has fallen, like the
dice which players throw on the board. The Pythagoreans appear to have
drawn their analogy from the cube, because the number of lines mentioned
will be fixed firmly and steadily in the memory when they have once
settled down, like a cube, upon a man's understanding. The Greek comic
poets, also, divided their plays into parts by introducing a choral
song, and by this partition on the principle of the cubes, they relieve
the actor's speeches by such intermissions.
5. Since these rules, founded on the analogy of nature, were followed by
our predecessors, and since I observe that I have to write on unusual
subjects which many persons will find obscure, I have thought it best to
write in short books, so that they may the more readily strike the
understanding of the reader: for they will thus be easy to comprehend. I
have also arranged them so that those in search of knowledge on a
subject may not have to gather it from different places, but may find it
in one complete treatment, with the various classes set forth each in a
book by itself. Hence, Caesar, in the third and fourth books I gave the
rules for temples; in this book I shall treat of the laying out of
public places. I shall speak first of the proper arrangement of the
forum, for in it the course of both public and private affairs is
directed by the magistrates.
CHAPTER I
THE FORUM AND BASILICA
1. The Greeks lay out their forums in the form of a square surrounded by
very spacious double colonnades, adorn them with columns set rather
closely together, and with entablatures of stone or marble, and
construct walks above in the upper story. But in the cities of Italy the
same method cannot be followed, for the reason that it is a custom
handed down from our ancestors that gladiatorial shows should be given
in the forum.
2. Therefore let the intercolumniations round the show place be pretty
wide; round about in the colonnades put the bankers' offices; and have
balconies on the upper floor properly arranged so as to be convenient,
and to bring in some public revenue.
The size of a forum should be proportionate to the number of
inhabitants, so that it may not be too small a space to be useful, nor
look like a desert waste for lack of population. To determine its
breadth, divide its length into three parts and assign two of them to
the breadth. Its shape will then be oblong, and its ground plan
conveniently suited to the conditions of shows.
3. The columns of the upper tier should be one fourth smaller than those
of the lower, because, for the purpose of bearing the load, what is
below ought to be stronger than what is above, and also, because we
ought to imitate nature as seen in the case of things growing; for
example, in round smooth-stemmed trees, like the fir, cypress, and pine,
every one of which is rather thick just above the roots and then, as it
goes on increasing in height, tapers off naturally and symmetrically in
growing up to the top. Hence, if nature requires this in things growing,
it is the right arrangement that what is above should be less in height
and thickness than what is below.
4. Basilicas should be constructed on a site adjoining the forum and in
the warmest possible quarter, so that in winter business men may gather
in them without being troubled by the weather. In breadth they should be
not less than one third nor more than one half of their length, unless
the site is naturally such as to prevent this and to oblige an
alteration in these proportions. If the length of the site is greater
than necessary, Chalcidian porches may be constructed at the ends, as in
the Julia Aquiliana.
5. It is thought that the columns of basilicas ought to be as high as
the side-aisles are broad; an aisle should be limited to one third of
the breadth which the open space in the middle is to have. Let the
columns of the upper tier be smaller than those of the lower, as written
above. The screen, to be placed between the upper and the lower tiers of
columns, ought to be, it is thought, one fourth lower than the columns
of the upper tier, so that people walking in the upper story of the
basilica may not be seen by the business men. The architraves, friezes,
and cornices should be adjusted to the proportions of the columns, as
we have stated in the third book.
6. But basilicas of the greatest dignity and beauty may also be
constructed in the style of that one which I erected, and the building
of which I superintended at Fano. Its proportions and symmetrical
relations were established as follows. In the middle, the main roof
between the columns is 120 feet long and sixty feet wide. Its aisle
round the space beneath the main roof and between the walls and the
columns is twenty feet broad. The columns, of unbroken height, measuring
with their capitals fifty feet, and being each five feet thick, have
behind them pilasters, twenty feet high, two and one half feet broad,
and one and one half feet thick, which support the beams on which is
carried the upper flooring of the aisles. Above them are other
pilasters, eighteen feet high, two feet broad, and a foot thick, which
carry the beams supporting the principal raftering and the roof of the
aisles, which is brought down lower than the main roof.
7. The spaces remaining between the beams supported by the pilasters and
the columns, are left for windows between the intercolumniations. The
columns are: on the breadth of the main roof at each end, four,
including the corner columns at right and left; on the long side which
is next to the forum, eight, including the same corner columns; on the
other side, six, including the corner columns. This is because the two
middle columns on that side are omitted, in order not to obstruct the
view of the pronaos of the temple of Augustus (which is built at the
middle of the side wall of the basilica, facing the middle of the forum
and the temple of Jupiter) and also the tribunal which is in the former
temple, shaped as a hemicycle whose curvature is less than a semicircle.