32 On the Styles of Building in ancient Italy, and 



ages existing in Italy ; then allude to the materials of which 

 they were built, especially in a mineralogical view, which 

 Nibby did not think it in his way to describe, and of which 

 Mr R. was probably incapable ; and then notice the principal 

 marbles, porphyries, and granites, employed for decoration. 

 I shall use Nibby for a text book, but take a more extended 

 view than he has done, with the aid of my own observations, 

 the works of Ferber and Breislak, and a book hardly known 

 in this country, " Brocchi, Suolo di Roma." 



The walls termed Cyclopian are generally understood to be 

 the works of the inhabitants of Italy before the time of the Ro- 

 mans, and exhibit a very rude though massive style of building. 

 Figs. 4 and 5, Plate I. exhibit the appearance of this con- 

 struction, as I have observed them at Fiesole, and at Fondi, 

 near Terracina.* The walls of Paestum, in Magna Grecia, 

 may be considered of Greek origin in extremely remote times, 

 and have a very peculiar construction. Their thickness is di- 

 vided mto Jive parts, see Fig. 6, consisting of four walls of vast 

 quadrilateral masses, A A A A, without any cement, and the 

 interior B filled up with loose and unshapely fragments : with 

 such prodigious strength they have been built, that many por- 

 tions remain in perfect preservation. In coming to the Ro- 

 man history, we find that little change in the method of con- 

 struction took place during the history of the kings and the 

 greater part of the republic. Immense quadrilateral masses 

 of the stone of the district and of the Alban Mount, proba- 

 bly in all cases without cement, were employed, of which we 

 have abundant proof in the Mammertine prisons,f the wall of 

 Servius, the Cloaca Maxima, the enclosure built at the mouth 

 of the canal leading from the Alban Lake, (which probably 

 bears a date of the fourth century of Rome,) and some chambers 



• Simond, in his new work, ( Voyage en Italie, §c. vol. ii.) has an en- 

 graving of a gate at Ferentino, exactly resembling the latter. Cyclopian 

 walls also occur at Cora, Prameste, Cortona, &c. 



t Mr C. T. Ramage, in translating the Italian words " Carcere Mam- 

 mertino," gives us a valuable specimen of his Latinity by rendering it Car- 

 eer Mammertinum," p. 250 ; he must be informed that career is mascu- 

 line and Mammertinus taken adjectively. He likewise talks of Basilicos ; 

 we beg to remind him that Basilica is of the first declension, and the plu- 

 ral usually employed is Basilica in English'; it could never be Basilicos. 



