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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



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interspersed with stone statues of beasts ; and a fountain threw up, 

 or poured out, its sparkling waters. The Pianta Capitolina ex- 

 hibits two I'ows of columns, runuinff in a direction towards the 

 river, and not unlikely conducting to a jjrove along the banks of 

 the Tiber. Besides these appendages to the theatre, there was the 

 Curia, or senate-house, which is, no doulit, identical with the 

 "Ilegia Tlieatri" of Suetonius: but I must forbear to ex]iatiate 

 beyond the proper limits of my subject. A careful inspection of 

 that )iart of Home wliere all those buildings stood, witli the aid of 

 tlie I'ianta Capitolina and the antiquarian notices which I have 

 cited, might still furnish a fine subject fur the genius of a restoring 

 architect ; and when we consider that those extensive and magni- 

 ficent buildings (whose very remains, at the end of nineteen cen- 

 turies, excite our wonder) were erected out of the private resources 

 of a single individual, it will be long before we find in another 

 rei)ul)lic a jxipular favourite, who may vie in wealth, taste, and 

 splendour, with citizen Pumpey. 



I sliall pass (|uickly over the next theatre, which time and floods 

 have not spared. It was erected in the twelfth year of the Christian 

 era, by Ct)rnelius Balbus, in compliment to Augustus, and was 

 capable of containing 33,000 spectators. I am not aware that a 

 vestige of this theatre remains, but Piranesi took considerable pains 

 to ascertain the site, and found some remains of one of the niiiei. 

 The Palazzo, and Jlonte Cenci, now point to where it stood, and 

 Camucci, one of the oldest of Roman antiquaries, who prolialdy 

 saw some remains of it in his time, states that from its vicinity to 

 the Tiber, it frequently suffered from inundations. We are not 

 aware of any portico attached to this theatre, but there was a 

 crypta Biilbi, whidi stood near it, and of this there are some 

 remains. 



The third theatre which adorned imperial Rome was that of 

 Marcellus, and along with it I take the portico of Octavia : when 

 I have given you some account and description of these two objects, 

 I shall relieve you from this tedious conversazione. 



The remains of the theatre of Marcellus are worthy of the archi- 

 tect's admiration. Eleven arches of both orders, and part of a 

 twelfth, are conspicuous, though mutilated and disfigured by the 

 dusky habitations into which they have been metamorphosed. The 

 first order is nearly half interred, but the capitals of the Doric 

 columns, as well as the entablature, are well preserved in several 

 places. The second story exhibits a specimen of the Ionic ordei, 

 as it was brought to perfection in the age of Augustus. AVithin 

 those arches which formed the ambulacra, as in the amphitheatre, 

 the gradus spectacii/nrnm rose, and some of the cunei may be 

 traced to the stables of the Osteria della Campana. The ma- 

 terials are tufo, mingled with brickwork, resembling those in 

 Pompey's theatre, and one may perceive by a solitary column in 

 the Via Savelli, standing at an angle with a piece of wall running 

 in the direction of the .«r;i«, that the stage and its outworks must 

 have touched the very banks of the river. The Palazzo Orsini, 

 formerly Savelli, is built upon the ruins of the stage. Piranesi 

 has calculated the capacity of this theatre to contain 25,000 per- 

 sons : it was therefore the smallest of the three. Julius Ca;sar, 

 perhaps, laid the foundation of this edifice ; but it was left for 

 Augustus to complete it, and he dedicated it with the name of the 

 Young Maj-cellus. On the feast of the dedication it is said that 

 700 wild beasts from Africa were consumed, and then, for the first 

 time in Rome, there was seen a tamed tiger. We have an account 

 of a fire having partly destroyed this theatre, but we hear very 

 little of its history until Pierleone, in the twelfth century, made it 

 a fortress. It passed successively into the possession of the Savelli 

 and Orsini families, and there is no reason to suppose it has existed 

 for several centuries otherwise than it now presents itself: in 

 " Carnucci's Antiquities," we have a drawing of it, bearing date 

 1565, and it is there exhibited just as we see it at the present time. 

 I may mention that its exterior walls are of travertine stone. The 

 25,000 spectators are now replaced by some workers in charcoal, 

 and some mules, the former occupying the places reserved for the 

 magistrates, and the mules having taken possession of what was 

 the orchestra. Near to the theatre of Marcellus stood the famous 

 Portico of Octavia, to which I have finally to call your attention. 

 And altliough we must penetrate into the filthiest habitations in 

 Rome, among stinking fish, in order to see the remains of this 

 splendid work, it wiU amply repay us for our excursion, and stamp 

 indelibly upon our memories the flavour of the Pescheria and the 

 conservative habits of the Jews who live within the Portico of 

 Octavia. 



The first marble building ever erected at Rome was a portico 

 which stood on this self-same site. It was built by Metellus Mace- 

 donicus : two temples were comprised within it. The architects 

 were two Spartans, whose names were Sauros and Batrachus. They 



not only contributed their skill, but, as they were rich men, they 

 employed their wealth also in the undertaking. The only reward 

 for their services which they asked of the Romans was that their 

 names might be mentioned in an inscription on the temples ; but 

 this honour being refused, they contrived to introduce their names 

 allegorieally : Sauros meaning a lizard, and Batrachus a frog — 

 those animals were introduced into the capitals of the columns. 

 The architects of the Portico of Octavia were also Spartans, and 

 they respected the works of their distinguished countrymen. The 

 new portico comprised in its circuit the two temples, made more 

 magnificent and probably much enlarged : the fragment of the 

 Pianta Capitolina, with the mutilated inscription "cvs ocTAviiE," 

 gives us the plan of those splendid works. Bellori, in his illustra- 

 tion, computes about 270 columns. I confess 1 cannot make out 

 that number with the utmost stretch of my feeble imagination, but 

 I can present you with a ])lan made on the authority of the frag- 

 ment and the ruins which still exist, adjusted on the dark tints, 

 which shovv them in their proper places. By this plan it will be 

 seen that the principal remains consist in six large columns of the 

 vestibule or entrance (and who that has seen Rome has not admired 

 the magnitude and elegance of those Corinthian columns), eight 

 more columns of the exterior row of the peristyle, which are only 

 to be seen by contending with the fish-stalls made out of the spoils 

 of the portico ; and there are also further remains of one of the 

 temples to be seen in a Vicolo behind the church of St. Angelo : 

 three columns standing at an angle indicate the position of the 

 prostyle of the Temple of Juno; the other was dedicated to Jupiter. 

 I must now leave you to raise up from this ground-plan, and 

 from the splendid vestiges which remain, the elevations and archi- 

 tectural views of the portico and its temples ; but even your 

 ingenuity would not be able to restore to their jiroper niches, or 

 affix on their respective walls, the works of art which once adorned 

 the Portico of Octavia. In the Temple of Juno was her statue, 

 made by Dionysius and Polycles ; and a Venus by Philiscus of 

 Rhodes. In the corresponding Temple of Jupiter was the much 

 admired statue of the god, which was equally well executed by those 

 sons of Timarchus. There was a group representing Pan and 

 Olympius wrestling together, the work of Heliodorus ; and perha|)s 

 the Venus of exquisite beauty which Pliny tells us adorned this 

 portico (the work of Phidias) may be the very Venus de Medici 

 which Santo Bartoli declares was found here in the Pescheria. In 

 a part of the building called the Schola Octavia; was the famous 

 Cupid of Praxiteles, which called forth the eulogia of Cicero, 

 Strabo, and Pausanias. It is more than probable that several of 

 those statues perished in the fire which took place in the reign of 

 Titus, and still more might be lost in that which happened under 

 Sep. Severus. The paintings which adorned the walls and vaults 

 were not less celebrated. "There was the famous woi-k of Artemon 

 'representing Hercules ascending from Mount ffita to Olympus, 

 having put off his mortality with the consent of the gods ; there 

 was the painting by Antiphilus, where four figures of satyrs were 

 grouped around the noble Hesion; and Alexander and Philip, with 

 iMinerva. You may exhibit to us an elevation restored ; a fe\v 

 columns will direct you to complete the portico, and a medal will 

 give you a finish for the pediment. You may square us off the 

 basements, and cro%vn the balustrade with colossal statues and 

 urns ; and you may festoon or triglyph the entablature ; — but you 

 cannot paint afresh the works of Artemon and Antiphilus, nor 

 mould again the forms which the innate flash of the mind of a 

 Phidias or a Praxiteles could produce. You must therefore be 

 content with the bare recital, and inscribe upon the very best 

 edifice I can describe, " Slat nomhiis umbra." But you will remark 

 in the enumeration of the names of those celebrated artists, that 

 they were all foreigners, and Rome owed her most splendid works 

 of art — I may say all of them — to the Greeks ; and they owe<l 

 much of their theatrical amusements to the Syrians and Egyptians. 

 It is, in fact, a mistake to attempt to nationalise either art or 

 science. If there be such a thing as communism in the world, it 

 exists in the realms of genius, and no petty jealousy should ever 

 attempt to exclude the foreigner who brings his originality of 

 thought and genius to adorn a country of which he is not a native. 

 It was written over the tomb of Ludlow, in Switzerland, " Omne 

 solum fortipalria ;" and the same may be said of the man of true 

 genius — he belongs to every country : and I should say it generally 

 betrays a sense of inferiority wherever there is an attempt to ex- 

 clude from fair competition the genius which comes from a foreign 

 shore. The Romans did not this, even in the histrionic art ; they 

 excelled in gladiators, but they were inferior in sculpture, and 

 painting, and architecture : by admitting foreigners they ended by 

 taking the lead in architecture, at least ; and perhaps the studioof 

 Emilius miglit have furnished a work worthy of the best Greek 



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