34 On the Styles of Building in ancient Italy, and 



ed with yellow, and the bricks were thicker. In the time of 

 Nero, red and yellow bricks were promiscuously used, but they 

 were thinner than either of the last, and with very little mor- 

 tar, which under Augustus and Tiberius equalled a fourth of 

 the thickness of a brick. The temple, commonly called that 

 of Rediculus, near Rome, shows that some fanciful ornaments 

 in brick (or terra cotta) were now employed, particularly an 

 Etruscan border which surrounds that edifice. When the de- 

 cline of the empire advanced, the bricks became unequal, and 

 the quantity of cement interposed increased, as for example in 

 the Baths of Constantine. As very perfect specimens of the 

 " opus lateritium? I may mention the House of Sallust, the 

 lower part of the Baths of Titus, (where it is beautifully fresh,) 

 and Adrian's Villa. In the latter we have some excellent ex- 

 amples of the alternation of this with the reticulated work. 

 See Fig. 9. 



As the decline of the fine arts increased, the bricks were mixed 

 with fragments of tufa, &c. as may be seen in the circus, com- 

 monly attributed to Caracalla, but built by Maxentius, and the 

 Hippodrome of Constantine at the church of St Agnese, near 

 the Ponte Lamentano ; likewise in many of the Christian 

 churches and basilicae built at that period, and in some por- 

 tions of the existing walls of Rome. Afterwards fragments of 

 more ancient edifices were employed for the construction of 

 new ones, as may be seen in many works approaching the mid- 

 dle ages ; at last, instead of bricks, small rectangular fragments 

 of the commoner and softer stones were employed, which has 

 been termed the Saracenic construction, which continued from 

 the ninth to the fourteenth centuries, and of this we have exam- 

 ples in part of the walls of Rome built by Leo IV., and a for- 

 tress of the middle ages beside the tomb of Cecilia Metella erect- 

 ed by Boniface VIII. After this hasty outline of the methods of 

 construction, it is our next business to notice the materials em- 

 ployed by the Romans in their edifices, confining ourselves of 

 course to Rome and its vicinity. 



To nothing certainly has the preservation of the works of 

 ancient grandeur in Italy been more owing than to the admira- 

 ble materials which the soil afforded for mortar. The lime 

 was obtained, according to Nibby, (see the foot-note, page 23,) 



