ANTIQUE MARBLES. Sy 



ANTIQUE MAEBLES. 



By JOHN D. CHAMPLTN, Jr. 



"^rOTHING more forcibly attests the imperial power and magnifi- 

 -LM cence of Rome, at the height of her glory, than the fragments 

 of precious marbles which almost every excavation among he^i- ruins 

 brings to light. Even if her history were lost to us, these varied bits 

 of stone would tell in language stronger than w^ords the story of her 

 universal dominion, when her ships sought every clime, and every 

 land paid tribute to her luxury. This piece reflects the glowing suns 

 of Numidia, that the green of Tempe's Vale; this was quarried on 

 Pentelicus, this in storied Chios, and these tell of Gallic and of His- 

 panic conquest. Many have a double history, having served to deco- 

 rate some forum or temple of the East before its spoliation by a 

 Mummius or a Sulla. 



Toward the end of the second century b. c. the Romans, who had 

 become conversant with Greek art through their conquests, began to 

 appreciate sculptures and precious marbles, and from that time on- 

 ward almost every captured city was rifled of its treasures. Not only 

 were all the quarries of the world put under contribution, but statues, 

 columns, and capitals, slabs, pavements, and sometimes entire edifices, 

 were transported to Rome. Carthage, from the time of its destruc- 

 tion, furnislied an almost inexhaustible supply. Edrisi, the Arab 

 geographer of the twelfth century, says that marbles of so many dif- 

 ferent species were found among its ruins that it would be impossible 

 to describe them. Blocks thirty feet high and sixty-three inches in 

 diameter, and columns thirty feet in circumference, were taken out. 



A large fleet of vessels was employed solely in transporting mar- 

 bles, and slaves or freedmen were stationed in the various ports from 

 which they were sent, who were charged with the duty of keeping 

 account of the number, quality, and date of shipment of all stones. 

 In 1868 excavations on the banks of the Tiber brought to light the 

 ancient marmorata^ or marble-wharf, where these vessels landed their 

 cargoes. Many blocks of precious colored marbles were exhumed 

 here, some of colossal proportions. One of yellow African marble 

 was twenty-seven feet long by five and a half feet wide, and weighed 

 thirty-four tons. Another, sent from a then newly-opened quarry in 

 the mountains north of the Adriatic, to the Emperor Nero, w^as marked 

 with the name of his freedman Carynthus. 



So immense was the store of mjirbles amassed in Rome that for 

 centuries after her spoliation by the northern barbarians her ruined 

 edifices were regarded as the richest of quarries, from which pope, 

 nobles, and peasants, drew at will. Most of the medigeval churches 

 and other public edifices now extant are decorated with the spoils of 



