INEXHAUSTIBLE ITALY 



309 



The largest and most wonderful of all 

 Roman temples was Hadrian's Pantheon, 

 with its carelessly attached but splendid 

 portico from a century-older temple of 

 Agrippa. What walls — 20 feet thick, and 

 highest on the outside, to weight down 

 the haunches of the concrete dome that 

 covers the building like a huge shell ! One 

 hundred and forty-two feet six inches the 

 rotunda stands, and 142 feet 6 inches the 

 structure measures in diameter, so subtly 

 designed that although the walls are half- 

 domed and half-vertical inside it looks as 

 if the dome began right at the floor. The 

 beautiful and subtle effect of the light- 

 ing, from the single eye in the top of the 

 dome, has never been excelled (see page 

 308). 



THE PANTHEON'S DESPOIUATION 



Though the Pantheon has been a Chris- 

 tian church since the seventh century, it 

 has suffered most at the hands of Chris- 

 tians : the dome stripped of its gilded 

 bronze titles to decorate Constantino- 

 ple — incidentally, the Saracen pirates 

 rifled the bronze en route, and it never 

 saw the Byzantine city — and the portico 

 robbed of its ceiling and bronze girders 

 to make cannon for the Castello Sant' 

 Angelo, Hadrian's transformed tomb. 

 Not much remains of the exterior gran- 

 deur of this once most magnificent mau- 

 soleum in the world. 



But nowhere else can the history of 

 ancient and medieval Rome be read more 

 vividly than in its battered remains. 

 Within and about it Roman and barba- 

 rian, Pope and Emperor, struggled and 

 fought for 1,500 years. On top of the 

 castle still lie piles of cannon-balls made, 

 in time of stress, from the beautiful mar- 

 bles with which Hadrian adorned his 

 lavish memorial. 



THE MILITARY MONUMENTS 



Magnificent columns and arches to com- 

 memorate their military exploits appealed 

 strongly to the pomp-loving Emperors. 

 Trajan obliterated a hill 142 feet high to 

 build a private forum, the most splendid 

 architectural achievement of the Golden 

 Age of Rome. The sole majestic sur- 

 vivor of all that lavish display is his su- 

 perb column, on which every phase of 



war — triumph and defeat, whirlwind 

 charge and stubborn combat — is depicted 

 with brilliant realism in the broad band 

 of dashing, vigorous reliefs that wind 

 from top to bottom. 



The most perfect example of the colos- 

 sal type of triumphal arch is that of 

 Titus, destroyer of Jerusalem. Erected 

 in 81 A. D., it stands near the end of the 

 Sacra Via, beautifully simple, tremen- 

 dously impressive — one lofty arch be- 

 tween two terrific masses of masonry 

 decorated with pilasters. Superb high- 

 relief panels — a specific creation of im- 

 perial Rome — depict the sack of the Jew- 

 ish capital, the Emperor's triumph, and 

 such historic loot as the great seven- 

 branched Hebrew candlestick. 



The Arch of Septimius Severus, though 

 much larger, is not so good, while as for 

 the very finest arch in the Empire, built 

 by Constantine the Great in 312, it is 

 neither the construction nor decoration 

 that most impresses us. It is the fact that 

 close to the Colosseum, that bloodiest and 

 most depraved institution in the Eternal 

 City, Constantine, the first Christian Em- 

 peror, defying old gods and degenerate 

 Romans alike, dared record his belief that 

 he owed his victory over the tyrant Max- 

 entius to the Divine power. 



THE HOUSE OF DEATH 



The most imposing theater ever erected 

 by mortal hands, a grim house of death, 

 consecrated by blood and tears, the Col- 

 osseum stands today a stupendous monu- 

 ment to Roman pride and degradation. 

 Almost a third of a mile in circumference, 

 it towers 157 feet up into the air, the 

 original and monumental f( play to the gal- 

 lery" of popular approval. In 80 A. D. 

 Emperor Titus opened its history with a 

 tremendous inaugural of an hundred days 

 of "games," in which men fought with 

 other men and with wild animals, and no 

 one knows the exact tale of the lives 

 snuffed out on its bloodied sands "to 

 make a Roman holiday" (see page 311). 



In the construction of the Colosseum 

 its builders adhered to their new note of 

 superimposing the three Orders — Doric, 

 Ionic, and Corinthian — an idea that has 

 exerted a greater influence upon the de- 

 sign of monumental works than any other 



