File:Roman cities in Italy and Dalmatia (1910) (14590068768).jpg

Identifier: romancitiesinita00frot (find matches)
Title: Roman cities in Italy and Dalmatia
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Frothingham, Arthur L. (Arthur Lincoln), 1859-1923
Subjects: Cities and towns, Ancient Cities and towns -- Italy Architecture, Roman Italy -- Antiquities Dalmatia (Croatia) -- Antiquities
Publisher: New York, Sturgis & Walton Company
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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n the court of the Papa Giuliomuseum, those who are curious to follow up thestudy should take a trip to the rock-cut tombs ofCastel-dAsso, near Viterbo, or those of Norchiaand Bieda, near Vetralla. The tomb facades arehere often hewn in the form of temple fa9ades,filled in some cases with gable sculptures. The House From the tomb we also get our best idea of theRoman house. The Roman house as we know itis of the type inaugurated not long beforeCiceros time. For its long and varied previousdevelopment we must look to Etruscan remains,not so much in the form of actual houses as inreproductions of them in tombs and on urns.When Plinv tells us that before the war withPyrrhus there were only thatched and shingledhouses in Rome, we infer that the houses(domus) were of wood and the blocks or insulaeof brick. There is no doubt that when Rome wasfirst built the houses were nothing but circular oroval huts made of hides and poles or wattled and ^i^l?^ >■; ^^tt^;,.. o. J, ^v^oa^^-., yn?—^
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c■£ u O c o O ;.l-^ffe^^- ^!^ Plate XIX ROMAN CITIES 119 thatched. Their simple structure was either sup-ported on a central pole or by a horizontal ridge-pole resting on forked or curved sticks joined tothe sides. These various types are reproducedeither in tombs or in the earliest form of urn, thecabin urn. In the center of this single room wasthe hearth. There was undoubtedly a religiousand astronomical significance to this form, whichwas the reproduction on earth of the tern plum ofthe heavens in its earliest circular form. Owingto Roman conservatism it remained the favoriteform of monumental tomb until the fall of Rome.We know that the house was consecrated, to-gether with a narrow strip of ground about it, inexactly the same way as was the site of a temple,of a city and of its territory. It is a curious factthat at a certain time the shape both of this celes-tial and terrestrial templum passed from the cir-cular to the square. The earlier form wasperpetuated in the temple of

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