ARCHITECTURE. 95 
ground plan, and jig. 24 section). There are yet visible the main entrance 
with the rooms where bathers undressed, the various bath halls, and 
the site of the swimming pond. In the outer circumference, the site of the 
theatre, two libraries and two round temples, one of which was dedicated 
to Mercury and the other to Hercules, are still discernible. Here, too, 
belongs the Doric capital which we have represented in pl.19, fig. 4. One 
of the temples with its dome remains, and serves for a church. Diocletian 
erected a hall, which he called Jovia, in the neighborhood of the theatre 
of Pompey. 
Quite as considerable as the ruins of the baths are those of the villa 
of the emperor at Spalatro, the old Salona, whither the emperor with- 
drew on his abdication, to repose after his reign of twenty-five years. 
It is evident from the extent and arrangement of these ruins that not a body- 
guard merely surrounded the emperor in his philosophical retreat, but a large 
retinue, for a great part of the building seems to have been adapted for 
dependants. There are also the remains of a Pantheon and of a tem- 
ple of Jupiter as well as a chapel of -Aésculapius. The halls and 
large and small rooms, the arcades, basilicas, baths, and all the arrange- 
ments which the conveniences of an imperial palace demand, are very 
multifarious. 
But size and splendor could not supply the want of a high art, whose 
decline the buildings of Diocletian all evince. Not only were the columns 
set upon pedestals, but even upon projecting consoles ; and instead of straight 
architraves there are everywhere arches. The order is almost entirely the 
Corinthian or the Composite, overloaded with ornaments, while the capitals 
are thin, stiff, and graceless. The proportions are defective everywhere, 
the cornices being too high, the friezes convex, and the architraves 
having only two fillets and a clumsy cyma. The doors are broad and 
low, and are almost crushed by heavy pediments upon great consoles. 
Everything is arbitrary, and every law of art seems forgotten. As in 
Palmyra and Baalbec exuberance and extravagance prevail, so the buildings 
of Gallienus and of Diocletian indicate the weakness and poverty of age. 
In place of a beautiful architectural art, there is a miserable empiricism. 
23. CoNSTANTINE AND His Famiry. We now approach the point which 
we regard as the limit of the architecture of genuine antiquity. Constantine 
is still a conspicuous figure in the history ofthe world. In battle he was no less 
fortunate than brave; and when after a protracted contest with his rivals he 
found himself at the head of his kingdom, he consecrated the last ten years 
of his life exclusively to internal affairs. Yet we can here consider his 
activity only in so far as it is necessary to the knowledge of the state of art 
of his time, and briefly mention what was accomplished with regard to it 
under him and his immediate successors. 
When Constantine, after the death of Constantius in the year 306 
A. D., assumed the command in Gaul, and had secured the borders 
against invasion from that direction, he marched against the internal foes, and 
the decisive battle near Rome made him master of the metropolis. The fine 
arch in Rome is still the witness of this triumph. It was decreed to him by 
95 
