TRAVERTINE. 279 



probably followed by ages of declining activity, it is not at all sur- 

 prising that this period of minor activity should have extended into 

 that of tradition and the earliest historical records. 



CHAPTER XL. 



TRAVERTINE. 



THE old exclamation about Augustus finding Rome of brick and 

 leaving it of marble deceives many. Ancient Rome was by no means 

 a marble city, although the quarries of Massa and Carrara are not far 

 distant. The staple building materials of the Imperial City, even in 

 its palmiest days, were brick and travertine. The brick, however, 

 was verj r different from the porous cakes of crudely burned clay of 

 which the modern metropolis of the world is built. I have examined 

 on the spot a great many specimens, and found them all to be of 

 remarkably compact structure, somewhere between the material of 

 modern terra-cotta and that of common flower-pots, and similarly in- 

 termediate in color. The Roman builders appear to have had no 

 standard size, the bricks vary even in the same building the Coli- 

 seum for example ; all that I have seen are much thinner than our 

 bricks we should call them tiles. 



But the most characteristic material is the travertine. The walls 

 of the Coliseum are made up of a mixture of this and the tiles above 

 mentioned. The same is the case with most of the other very mass- 

 ive ruins, as the baths, etc. Many of the temples with columns and 

 facing of marble have inner walls built of this mixture, while others 

 are entirely of travertine. 



I was greatly surprised at the wondrous imperishability of this 

 remarkable material. In buildings of which the smooth crystalline 

 marble had lost all its sharpness and original surface, this dirty, yel- 

 low, spongy-looking limestone remained without the slightest indica- 

 tion of weathering. A most remarkable instance of this is afforded 

 by the temple of Neptune, at Paesturn, in Calabria. This is the most 

 perfect rain of a pure classic temple that now remains in existence, 

 and in my opinion is the finest. I prefer it even to the Parthenon. 



We have a little sample of it is London. The Doric columns at the 

 entrance of the Euston station are copies of those of its peristyle. 

 The originals are of travertine, the blocks forming them are laid upon 

 each other without mortar or cement, and so truly flattened that in 

 walking round the building and carefully prying, I could find no 

 crevice into which a slip of ordinary writing paper or the blade of a 

 pen-knife could be inserted. Yet this temple was an antiquarian 

 monument in the days of the Roman emperors. 



The rough natural surface of the stone is exposed, and at first sight 

 appears as though weathered, but this appearance is simply due to 

 its natural sponge-like structure. It appears to have been coated 

 with some sort of stucco or smoothing film, which either by forming 

 a thin layer, or possibly by only filling up the pores of the travertine, 

 gave a smooth surface upon which the coloring was applied. This is 



