THE LOST ARTS. 71 



no gunpowder to rend asunder the aggregated 

 atoms ; no steam-engines to lift from their rocky 

 beds the wrought columns of marble, tufa, syenite, 

 etc., and send them forward to their distant temples 

 and palaces. Did they possess mechanical arts and 

 contrivances unknown to us, which rendered those 

 great labors easy and of speedy accomplishment ? 

 We think not. The ancients depended upon brute 

 force, .upon numbers, to carry forward their vast 

 undertakings. The element of time hardly entered 

 into their calculations. Time and human life were 

 not held in very high regard in the old heathen 

 world. They accomplished by slow, tedious, and 

 imperfect processes, what we do rapidly and per- 

 fectly by the aid of science, skill, and the most suit- 

 able machinery and tools. The fluting of their 

 columns, the elaborate working of their bas-reliefs, 

 friezes, entablatures, etc., were done by the slow 

 picking and chiselling of many imperfect tools in 

 many hands. The raising of a block of marble was 

 accomplished by direct human strength, which was 

 secured by the aid of many strong muscles. 



In the time of the Roman emperors, the whole 

 known world was owned by about thirty thousand 

 men. These rich nobles and patricians held as slaves 

 all the rest of mankind, and could command their 

 services. In great works, like those upon which we 

 employ a thousand workmen, they would employ a 



