Cliap. 9.j METHOD OF CUTTING MARBLE IlfTO SLABS. 325 



For Nepos adds, as well, that lie was the first to have all the 

 columns of his house made of nothing but solid marble, and 

 that, too, marble of Carystus*- or of Luna.*^ 



CHAP. 8. AT WHAT PERIOD THE VARIOUS KINDS OF MARBLE (XME 



INTO USE AT ROME. 



M. Lepidus, who was consul with Q. Catulus, was the 

 first to have the lintels of his house made of Numidian marble, 

 a thing for which he was greatly censured : he was consul in 

 the year of Eome, 676. This is the earliest instance that I 

 can find of the introduction of iN^umidian marble ; not in the 

 form of pillars, however, or of slabs, as was the case with the 

 marble of Carystus, above-mentioned, but in blocks, and that 

 too, for the comparatively ignoble purpose of making the 

 thresholds of doors. Four years after this Lepidus, L. Lucul- 

 lus was consul ; the same person who gave its name, it is 

 very evident, to the Lucullan marble ; for, taking a great fancy 

 to it, he introduced it at Eome. While other kinds of marble 

 are valued for their spots or their colours, this marble is en- 

 tirely black.^^ It is found in the island of Melos,''® and is 

 pretty nearly the only marble that has taken its name from 

 the person who first introduced it. Among these personages, 

 Scaurus, in my opinion, was the first to build a theatre with 

 walls of marble : but whether they were only coated with 

 slabs of marble or were made of solid blocks highly polished, 

 such as we now see in the Temple of Jupiter Tonans,"*^ in the 

 Capitol, I cannot exactly say : for, up to this period, I cannot 

 find any vestiges of the use of marble slabs in Italy. 



CHAP. 9. THE METHOD OF CUTTING MARBLE INTO SLABS. THE 



SAND USED IN CUTTING MARBLE. 



But whoever it was that first invented the art of thus cutting 

 marble, and so multiplying the appliances of luxury, he dis- 

 played considerable ingenuity, though to little purpose. This 



42 See B. iv. c. 21. « See Chapter 4 of this Book. 



■ *5 The black marbles, Ajasson remarks, are comparatively rare. He is 

 of opinion that the colour of the Lucullan marble was the noir antique of 

 the French, and says that it is to be found at Bergamo, Carrara, Prato iu 

 Tuscany, and near Spa in Belgium. 



^^ " Chios" is another reading. 



*'' "Thundering Jupiter." This temple was built by Augustus. 



