P overfeer (maître-valet) furveys the whole, encourages the men, and explains the conditions on which they are hired. Prayers then follow; the anchor is weighed, and the arms of the rowers move with the utmoft harmony and precifion. Numerous little boats follow the raft, to carry anchors, cordage, and other neceffaries. Our author describes the different neceffaries, and the cabins of the overfeers: they are neat and well arranged; feemingly refembling the cabins in a fhip: the provisions are plentiful, and well managed. The rowers lie on ftraw. The remaining part of the journey must be purfued in another article. Memoir fur la Comparifon des Moyens & des Procedes que les Romains employoient dans la Conftruction de leurs Edifices, avec ceux des Peuples modernes. Par Antoine Mongez, de PAcademie des Infcriptions & Belles Lettres. THIS HIS Memoir is in many refpects curious; and, as it will occur in a collection which we have scarcely ever been able to notice particularly, though we have occafionally felected the more important eflays, we fhall take the present opportunity of offering a fhort account of it. The ftupendous buildings of the Romans, particularly their temples, the aqueducts, their roads, and even their fewers, feem to be attempts beyond the reach of the most powerful modern kingdoms, and the means by which they are executed are as excellent as the whole must have been furprising. Sunt fata Deum, funt fata locorum;' but the temples have furvived the divinities, and the religion of the pagan world was on a much more frail foundation than the buildings deftined to adorn it. The first ob ject of our author's enquiry is the fource from whence the ancients could have drawn such immense riches as were requi fite to raise these vaft monuments of architectural ingenuity. In this part we fhall first follow him. Our wonder is greatly excited by these circumftances, becaufe we confider the subject with modern rather than ancient manners before our eyes. We know nothing of flaves and fifcal fervants; even the galley-flaves of other countries, though deftined for public works, are too few to allow us to judge what might be their utility. The Damnati in opus publicum' at Rome, were, on the contrary, numerous; and we still know their destinations from the ancient code: fome were condemned to the mines, others to the feparation of the ore, others to the reparation of the roads, clearing the fewers, to the limekilns, the fulphur works (fulphuria), the baths, and the quarries. The laft circumftance, which we derive from Plautus, fuggefts to our author fome curious comparisons. Inde ibis porro in latomias lapidarias; Plaut. Captiv. III. 5.65. The quarriers at Paris, M. Mongez tells us, extract usually ten cubic feet of ftone each day, and the Roman foot is fmaller by near an inch than the French foot. The octoni lapides, therefore, conftitute a fmall day's work, and the day and half's work is not more than equal to the ten cubic feet of the Paris workmen, nearly equivalent to twelve Roman feet. This reafoning, however, refts on a doubtful foundation. There is no evidence that octoni lapides mean eight cubic feet of stone, and the difference of the texture may make a great variety in the degree of labour required. We learn from Vitruvius, that the Roman stone was in general of a foft texture, and even their marble, when firft raised, not hard; and an English quarrier, even in the granite countries, would think eight cubic feet, each day, as no very great exertion. Nor can our author's interpretation of thefe words be reconciled by his including thofe, who raifed the fand, puozzolane, &c. among the quarriers, though his principal object is, at least, clear, that, from the time of Tarquin, a numerous body of flaves was conftantly employed in thefe labours. Nero, in digging his canal from Milemis to the lake Avernus, and from thence to Oftia, employed criminals condemned to the public works, and even pardoned the most atrocious målefactors to add to their number. When Claudius wifhed to celebrate, by combats of gladiators, the opening of the lake Fucinus, he found in the prifons nineteen thoufand men condemned to death: -they were embarked in 100 veffels, to exhibit a naval combat. During the perfecutions of the Chriftians, they were allo condemned to labour in all the variety of the public works. M. Mongez next proceeds to compare the expence of employing the flaves to that of the moderns in paying the workWe fhall preferve the French calculation, which our readers will obferve, is much below the price of labour in Eng land. The mafons, and thofe who hew the ftone employed in the church of St. Genevieve, received, one with the other, thirty or thirty-two fous per day, about fixteen pence fterling; and nearly 450 livres per annum (according to the ufual calculation of 24 livres to a pound fterling) about 181. 15s. He maxt proceeds to the expence of a flave, and takes his foundation from a paflage in Seneca's Epiftles (Ep. 80), where he defcribes the affected airs of a lave who, by command of his mafter, played the part of Atreus. Ille qui in fçena laxius incedit, & hæc relupinus dicit, men. 2 Superbus Superbus Argi regna mi liquit Pelops Quâ ponto ab Helles atque Ionio mari Servus eft, quinque modios accipit & quinque denarios. Taking the mean value of wheat, and the contents of the modius, as eftimated by Pancton, in his Metrology, the utmost extent of the expence amounts only to 134 livres, not one-third of the falary of the modern workman. Thefe are, however, the expences of an ordinary flave; the malefactors, we know, were fed with the commoneft food, and cloathed with the coarseft drefs, fo that the expence may be reduced one half, and confequently fix workmen coft the Roman architect not so much as one modern workman. This calculation must, however, admit of many deductions. All the workmen were not malefactors, and the overseers must have increased the expence. But the overfeers were not numerous: every flave was marked with a letter in the face; and, when he had ran away, with two letters. It is to this that Plautus himself alludes, with an unfeeling levity, fi hic literatus me finat. The mark was generally indelible, as the wounds of the iron were ftained with a black liquor. Caligula thus branded and condemned many refpectable citizens; and, among the early Chriftians, many carried this difgraceful ftigma. Conftantine forbad it, but Theophilus revived the difgrace in the perfecution excited against the defenders of the fanctity of images. On the faces of the martyrs Theodorus and Theophanes, he had the cruelty to imprint twelve verses, the weakness of whofe wit excited as much pity for the author as the attempt did indignation at his conduct. Sometimes the emperors ordered an eye to be deftroyed, or a leg to be broken, when the malefactor was condemned to the public works, and fome of thofe bishops, who had been delivered by Conftantine, carried to the council of Nice fuch indelible marks of their former fufferings. That all the ancient workmen were not flaves is proved by numerous infcriptions, which show that different works were erected by the legionary foldiers; but this will not greatly add to the expences, if we even allow that their pay was doubled, a circumstance not proved, and certainly not always the cafe. On the other hand, a great number of the materials, employed in the public works, were furnished by certain provinces as tributes or impofts. A law of the Theodofian Code informs us, that Umbria, Picenum, and Campania, fent annually 3000 chariots of lime to Rome. The inhabitants of Etruria furnished 900. Fifteen hundred of thefe loads were employed about the aqueducts, and the reft deftined to other public works, under the orders of the prefect. Those who worked the quarries of marble of Numidia and Lybia, as well as proprietors of other mines, paid a particular impoft to the emperors. From the example of the proprietors of the limekilns, it is probable, that the quarriers paid alfo a tribute for the public works. Thefe contributions made the expence eafy; but even the expences were not from the public purfe. The emperors, who poffeffed a patrimony of their own, often adorned the city with magnificent buildings, to conciliate the minds of the people. Numerous inftances of this kind are recorded: Auguftus repaired the Flaminian Way; Nero adorned the houfes in many different parts of the city with porticos; Caracalla paved a very long street; Trajan rendered the port at Ancona more fafe and acceffible. Private citizens were induced by the emperors to add to the magnificence of the city, and the infcriptions, recorded by Smetius, by Gruter, and Muraton, preferve the name of individuals, who repaired or founded public edifices, temples, bridges, colleges, &c. The proconfuls robbed the provinces with impunity, and brought the riches to Rome: though fometimes compelled to reftore a part, they more often purchased their peace by the magni ficence of their public ornaments While I fpeak, adds the author, of this fort of wealth, which facilitated the conftruc tion of thefe vaft monuments, I have no defire of feeing fimi lar ones erected for my fellow-citizens. Simple, modeft, build ings, which occafion no regret, and draw not from an allied, or tributary province, a painful recollection, appear greatly preferable to thefe immenfe baths, the cloud-capt aqueducts, of which every part is the fruit of the ravages of the two years proconfulfhip in a vast province. But it was neceffary to reveal the impure fource of the Roman riches, becaufe they contributed to the public magnificence. The fpirit of conqueft, which always animated the defcendants of Romulus, juftified their conduct in one refpect, and added to the grandeur of Rome. Of the fpoils of the vanquifhed the public treafury had at firft a larger fhare than the generals; and, during the republic, this was employed in public decorations. But Auguftus, willing to attach the chiefs to his caufe, increafed their proportion, on condition that they fhould raise fome public monument. Suetonius, Dion, and Tacitus, confirm this arrangement, and the public buildings, raifed in confequence of it, appear to have been numerous. Thefe united caufes fufficiently explain the fource of the mag nificence of ancient Rome. The fecond part of this very ingenious and learned Memoir is on the means employed by the ancient architects to raife fuch ftupendous buildings. Accustomed to fee edifices raised with hewn ftone, and the remains of vaft blocks, the moderns have thought that the ancients always followed this method. They have befides fuppofed that puozzolane was always an ingredient in their cements, and attributed the firmness of the buildings to the regularity of the process, and the choice of materials. The study of the Roman monuments, and the writings of the Roman architects, deftroy this fyftem. Vitruvius exprefsly directs the employment of fuch materials as each country affords, and points out the peculiar management of the different kinds, particularly fhowing how to supply the defect of puozzolane in those countries where it is not found. Charcoal, from its indestructible nature, was used for landmarks, and for foundations. Pliny directs afhes to be combined with fand and lime, when charcoal was not to be procured, as a foundation for roads. Another fubftance, which enabled the materials to refift the froft, was oil, and this they employed inftead of the bitumens of Afia. The oil was used with lime, and the oily cements covered annually, at the approach of the winter, with an oily preparation. The inhabitants of the coaft of Coromandel ufe oil as an ingredient in their ftucco, called argamaffe; and M. du Fay, in modern times, by this fame fubftance, has revived the knowledge of the means by which the Romans prepared their lime. This preparation feems to have been employed lately in France, to unite the old with the new materials, in the repair of the church of Notre Dame. The method of building in caiffons was alfo undoubtedly Roman. Virgil particularly defcribes it in fpeaking of the piles which fupported the moles of the famous bridge of Baixe. Qualis in Euboico Bajarum littore quondam Vitruvius, who lived at the fame æra with Virgil, particu larly describes the conftruction of thefe piles, and adds, that thefe maffes must not be moved, till after they have been two months united, that they may be dry. The first modern attempt of this kind feems to have been in Weftminster-bridge: the most vaft and important one, in the cones at Cherburg. The bricks were called indifferently lateres, and laterculi;, each implying, with the proper epithet, either burned or unburned bricks. The latter were often ufed by the Romans, who were taught in this refpect by the Babylonians. They were forbidden in the conftruction of houfes at Rome, because they |