雙語+MP3|美國學(xué)生藝術(shù)史66 羅馬非一日所建

 
拱門形成的擠壓也許你看不到，但事實(shí)就是如此。試著找個同學(xué)，你們相互擠壓一下看看，就像大寫字母A一樣斜靠在一起，但如果其中一人突然停止擠壓，或突然跳開，對方就會立刻摔倒。拱門就是采用了這樣相互擠壓的方式。要是其中一個拱門倒了，緊鄰的那一個也會倒。 
66 ROME WAS NOT BUILT IN A DAY羅馬非一日所建
 
SOME people wear imitation pearls, imitation diamonds, imitation jewelry—just for show. Some people build houses of con-crete blocks to imitate stone, paint wooden columns to imitate marble, cover plaster walls with paper to imitate tile. Such imitations that pretend to be something they are not, are a kind of cheating, a fake. The Greeks never faked in this way. The Romans did so often.They built buildings of concrete or brick and covered the outside with thin pieces of marble. 
For a few hundred years before and after Christ was born, the Romans built and built, many and great buildings, and more buildings of more kinds than had ever been built before. They built them not only in Rome and in Italy, but in other countries which the Romans owned. 
Though the Romans built many great buildings, none of them quite equaled those the Greeks built. The reason was that the Romans were not artists but engineers. The Greeks were very religious and built temples; the Romans were great governors and worshiped everything that concerned governing. The Romans used instruments to design their buildings, whereas the Greeks used their eyes. In a Roman build-ing, every line that was supposed to be vertical was vertical. Every line that was supposed to be horizontal was horizontal. Every line that was supposed to be straight was straight. It was as if they had drawn a picture with a ruler and square and compass instead of free-hand. 
In the same way, a Roman building looks mechanical. We like them as we like an engine. They are strong and powerful, but somehow seem to lack the beauty of a hand-made picture. 
How many kinds of buildings do you think there are in the place where you live? Try to count them. Houses, of course, but how many others—churches, banks, stores, court-houses, libraries, and so on. 
The Greeks had only a few, but the Romans built many kinds—not only tombs and temples, houses and palaces— 
 
Arches and aqueducts 
Bridges and baths 
Court-houses and halls 
Theaters and amphitheaters 
 
No.66-1 THE PANTHEON, ROME（羅馬萬神殿） 
Some were fake, but not all, and some were magnificent and im-posing. Most of the Roman buildings are now in ruins, but one building—a temple built to all the gods—is still standing and in use to-day. It is called the Pantheon, which means “All the Gods.” It has a porch in front with Corinthian columns, and back of the porch a circular building with a huge dome made like a bowl turned upside down, of concrete. The circular walls that support the dome are twenty feet thick and the only window is a large circular opening in the top of the dome. There is no glass in the opening, but so high is it above the floor that even a heavy rain barely wets the floor beneath. 
The Square House is one of the finest of these Roman buildings, with engaged Corinthian columns as well as with whole columns. 
It is not in Rome, however. It is in what is now France, but when it was built, France was a part of the Roman Empire and Romans built it. In France they call it the Maison Carrée, which means Square House. 
The theaters where the Roman actors gave plays had no roofs. The seats were of stone and were arranged in a half circle that sloped upward as to-day. In France, at a town called Orange, is a Roman theater in which plays are still given. 
Nero was one of the worst rulers Rome ever had and one of the worst builders. He built himself an enormous palace surrounded by parks and lakes. It was called the Golden House. Later rulers destroyed it. He built a colossal statue of himself which some writers say was 120 feet high. Only its base still exists. 
Near where the colossal statue of Nero was, a huge amphitheater was built later and it was called the Colosseum. An amphitheater was something like a football stadium, but instead of games, there were fights held between men and men, or between men and wild animals. The Colosseum had stone seats arranged in an oval shape. The outside walls were four stories high; the lower three stories were rows of arches. Between the arches on the first or ground floor there were engaged Doric columns. Between the arches of the second story were engaged Ionic columns. Between those of the third floor were engaged Corinthian, and on the fourth-story wall were Composite pilasters. 
 
No.66-2 MAISON CARRÉE, NÎMES, FRANCE（法國尼姆的卡雷爾神廟） 
The Colosseum is now a ruin, but a great part of it is still standing. The amphitheater held as many people as a large stadium does to-day, but there was a still larger one called the Circus Maximus which held as many people as in a large city and many more than the largest stadium to-day holds. Circus in this case doesn’t mean a circus; it means a ring and Circus Maximus meant the Largest Ring. 
Most of the huge Circus Maximus has completely disappeared but some of its foundations still remain. 
The Romans built public bath houses, for the common people hae no baths at all in their homes. These baths were huge buildings with arched or vaulted rooms in which a thousand or more people could bathe at one time. There were not only hot and cold and warm baths, but gymnasiums, game rooms, and lounging rooms, and so on. They, were public places for amusement and recreation. 
The Romans built large arches, separate from buildings, just for their rulers who had won great battles to march through with their soldiers. Such arches were called Triumphal Arches. One, called the Arch of Titus, was built to celebrate his conquest and destruction of the city of Jerusalem. The Arch of Titus has one large single arch. 
 
No.66-3 ARCH OF TITUS, ROME（羅馬提圖斯凱旋門） 
Photograph by Ewing Galloway 
Another arch, the Arch of Constantine, was built in honor of that ruler who was the first emperor of Rome to become a Christian. The Arch of Constantine has one large and two smaller arches, one at each side. You can see the Colosseum in the background of both pictures. 
The bridges the Romans built were among the strongest and most substantial structures they made. Some of these bridges were built, not for people to walk across, but for water to run through. On the top of such a bridge was a trough through which water flowed from its source to the city. It was like a river held up by a bridge. Such a bridge of arches carrying water was called an aqueduct which means water pipe or water carrier. Nowadays, water is brought to a city from a river or lake or reservoir, through large pipes which may run underground and up and down hill. But the Romans built aqueducts instead of pipes to carry water to a city, and these aqueducts—some of them over fifty miles long—sloped just enough so that the water was always running down hill. There is a picture of one in Chapter 65. 
 
No.66-4 ARCH OF CONSTANTINE, ROME（羅馬君士坦丁凱旋門） 
The Romans made one other kind of building from which later Christian churches were copied. These buildings were court-houses or public halls and were called basilicas. Basilicas were long buildings with rows of columns on the inside which held up the roof. There was a center aisle and two side aisles and the roof over the center aisle was higher than the roof over the side aisles, as in the case in most of our churches to-day. In a later chapter I’ll tell you more about basilicas.