40 On the Styles of Building in ancient Italy, and 



Storta, there are strata in the middle of the tufa to the height 

 of 9.\ feet. Remarkable masses are seen near Bracciano and 

 Anguillara, as also in the environs of Gaprarola and Bagnassa, 

 at the foot of the hills of Cimini, where they are as well pre- 

 served as those of Lipari /? 



We shall now proceed to a brief detail of the stones used 

 as ornamental by the Romans, beginning with the true mar- 

 bles. 



The ?n armor Lunensis is that of modern Carrara, so called 

 from its vicinity to Luna, a seaport of Etruria, whence, as 

 Strabo informs us, it was shipped with great ease, and con- 

 veyed up the Tiber to Rome. He adds that it was white, 

 with veins of a bluish colour, and was excavated in great 

 masses for tables, and for columns of a single piece, with which 

 the greater part of the edifices in Rome were enriched. Mam- 

 murra, an officer under Julius Caesar, decorated his house on 

 the Caelian with columns of this marble, which was the first 

 instance in Rome.* The distinction of the different white 

 marbles requires much practice. That of Carrara is very 

 highly crystallized, sparkling, opaque, and hard ; when polish- 

 ed it does not take the lustre of the Greek marbles. The 

 Hymettian marble, which was taken from Mons Hymethus, 

 now Trelo, near Athens, was much esteemed for its white- 

 ness, and was used for the altars and temples of the gods, as 

 Xenophon informs us. Of it were the " trabes Hymettiae," 

 which Horace alludes to as being in the highest esteem at his 

 time. It was the first foreign marble which was seen in Rome. 

 Lucius Crassus the orator brought six columns of it, twelve 

 feet high, to his house on the Palatine, ninety-one years be- 

 fore our era. 



The Pentelican marble, also white, frequently with green- 

 ish veins, came from Pentelica, in Attica, now Pendeli. It is 

 little spoken of by the Roman writers, but seems to have been 

 highly esteemed by the Greeks. It was therefore probably 

 little used in Rome ; but Plutarch f tells us that the Temple 

 of Jupiter Capitolinus, when rebuilt by Domitian, was deco- 

 rated with columns of this marble brought from Athens. Ac- 



* Pliny, xxxvi. 6. t In Poplicola, c. xv. 



