1900 J. BELLOWS — ROMAN ARCHITECTURE 201 



The houses in Pompeii and other Roman cities were 

 l)uik, as our old timber-framed mansions are, with over- 

 hanging storeys, and the same style still prevails in towns 

 of Roman origin in the East : as for instance in Con- 

 stantinople, especially in the Stamboul quarter. 



That the idea itself goes back to the Basilica and the 

 Agora may be seen from the description of the latter 

 given by Vitruvius, and from the double-storied porticos 

 in the Basilica represented on a coin of Lepidus [Plate V., 

 fig. 2]. 



The origin of this style of building goes back to the 

 East. In the hot summers of Central and Southern Asia 

 the great desiderata were shade and air ; and this deter- 

 mined the arrangement of every structure, from the 

 shepherd's tent to the palace of the king. To go back to 

 the simplest group of dwellings in the old world, we get 

 a number of tents facing inward, to form a square with 

 an open court in the centre for the cattle : this is the 

 arrangement of every caravanserai in Asia to-day. 



In the larger and more permanent grouping of a town 

 the same idea is kept in view ; and a square space near 

 the gate serves as the Bazaar, round which the shops stand 

 under shaded ambulatories. 



As the entrance of the town forms the market, it is also 

 the most convenient spot for the administration of justice ; 

 so that " the Gate " very early becomes the synonym 

 for Court, as in Job's allusion (xxix., 7, 9) : " When 

 I went out to the gate through the city . . . the Princes 

 refrained talking " — which in western language would read 

 " When I went to take my seat on the bench my fellow- 

 magistrates gave me precedence." So in the Book of 

 Esther, Mordecai sitting in the King's Gate is an orien- 

 talism for his attendance at Court : and in more recent 

 times the mistranslation into French, of Bahi A/i, has 

 given us the nonsensical term " the Sublime Porte " 



