Identifier: storyofarchitect00math (find matches)
Title: The story of architecture: an outline of the styles in all countries
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Mathews, Charles Thompson, 1863-
Subjects: Architecture -- History
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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les,baths, palaces, amphitheatres, aqueducts, theatres,triumphal arches, tombs, basilicas, and private dwell-ings. Of these, the last mentioned claim first atten-tion. A Roman dwelling of the middle class resembledthat of the Greeks in having a number of apartmentsgrouped about an interior colonnaded court calledthe atrium, in the centre of which stood an impluviumor water basin to receive the rain (Fig. 66). Theapartments consisted mainly of bedrooms, banquet-ing rooms, vestibules, and halls. The womens quar-ters were not separated from those of the men, as inGreece. I. )2 ETRURIA AND ROME. Externally, the architectural treatment was ex-tremely simple, for the Roman regarded his home asa place to be lived in, and not to be looked at fromthe outside ; and hence it consisted only of a porticoand bare walls pierced with an occasional window. Internally, however, the mural portions wererichly frescoed and the floors were adorned withelaborate pictorial mosaics, squares, or polished poly-
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FlG. 66.—Atrium of a Pompeiian house. gons of precious marble. Statues of gods, ances-tors, and heroes were grouped about the rooms andhalls ; and masks (imagines) of distinguished membersof the family decorated the frieze, and peered fromamaria or open presses on the walls. The best ex-amples of Roman dwellings remaining to us are thoseof Pompeii (Fig. 66) and the house of Livia, on thePalatine. It only remains to mention the furniture, which ROMAN FURNITURE. !93 included tables, chairs, couches, lamps, tripods, andalcove beds not unlike our own. The dining tableswere of two kinds, square and round. The first wassurrounded on three sides by the cushioned couches(lecti) of the guests, leaving the fourth side free forthe operation of serving. Each couch accommodatedthree persons. Round tables, resting on a single column, did notcome into vogue until toward the end of the repub-lic, and, being made of rare and costly woods, wereextremely expensive. Indeed, Cicero, who was nospendthrif

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